PAULA AND CHARTER JOURNEY INTO THE WEST; ONE HEARS VOICES, BUT NOT THE
WORDS OFTEN, FROM RAPTURE'S ROADWAY
Peter Stock had cabled to New York for officers and men to make up a
ship's company. The _Saragossa_ was overhauled, meanwhile, in the harbor
of Fort de France, and the owner expressed his intention of finishing
his healing at sea. On the same ship, which brought his seamen from New
York, arrived in Fort de France a corps of newspaper correspondents, who
were not slow to discover that in the bandaged capitalist lay one of the
great stones of the eruption from the American point of view. This
literally unseated Peter Stock from his chair on the veranda of the
hotel at the Capital. With his guests, he put to sea within thirty-six
hours after the arrival of the steamer from New York; indeed, before the
_Saragossa's_ paint was dry. His vitality was not abated, but the great
figures of Pelee and Fontanel, enriched by M. Mondet as a sort of
clown-attendant, had strangely softened and strengthened this
rarely-flavored personality. As for his two guests, that month of
voyaging in the Caribbean and below, is particularly their own. The
three were on deck as the _Saragossa_ plied past Saint Pierre, five or
six miles deep in the roadstead, a last time. The brute, Pelee, lay
asleep in the sun before the gate of the whited sepulchre.
"Did I ever tell you about my last interview with M. Mondet?" Peter
Stock inquired.
Charter had witnessed it, on his way to the craters that morning, but he
did not say so, and was regaled with the story. "Bear witness," Peter
Stock finished, pointing toward the city, "that I forgive M. Mondet.
Doubtless he was writing a paragraph on the staunchness of Pelee--when
his desk was closed for him."
* * * * *
They reached New York the first week in July. No sooner had Peter Stock
berthed the _Saragossa_ and breathed the big city, than he discovered
how dearly he loved Pittsburg.... Paula went alone to the little
apartment Top-side o' Park, where Madame Nestor absolved her strong
young queen; alone also first to _The States_, though there was a table
set for four over in Staten Island the following day....
Charter and Reifferscheid regarded each other a trifle nervously in the
latter's office, before they left for the ferry. Each, however, found in
the eyes of the other a sudden grip on finer matters than obvious
explanations, so that no adjustment of past affairs was required. To
Charter, this moment of meeting with the editor became a singularly
bright memory, like certain moments with Father Fontanel. Reifferscheid
had put away all the flowerings of romance, and could not know that
their imperishable lustre was in his eyes--for the deeper-seeing eyes of
the woman. He was big enough to praise her happiness, big enough to
burst into singing. It had been a hard moment for her, but he sprang
high among the nobilities of her heart, and was sustained.... What if it
were just a throat-singing? There was no discordant note. These are the
men and the moments to clinch one's faith in the Great Good that Drives
the World.
Selma Cross had left the _Zoroaster_, and, with Stephen Cabot, was
happily on the wing, between the city, shores and mountains. _The Thing_
was to open again in September at the _Herriot_, and the initial venture
into the West was over. Had she wished, Paula was not given a chance to
do without the old friendship.... The story of taking the Company down
into Kentucky from Cincinnati and fulfilling the old promise to Calhoun
Knox proved rare listening:
"I won't soon forget that night in Cincinnati, when I parted from
Stephen Cabot," she said, falling with the same old readiness into her
disclosures. "'Stephen,' I told him, 'I am taking the Company down into
Danube to play to-morrow night in my home. I don't want you to go....'
I had seen the real man shine out through physical pain many times. It
was so now, and he looked the master in the deeper hurt. He's a
self-fighter--the champion. He asked me if I meant to stay long, as I
took his cool, slim hand. I told him that I hoped not, but if it
transpired that I must stay for a while, I should come back to
Cincinnati--for one day--to tell him.... I saw he was the stronger. I
was all woman that moment, all human, wanting nothing that crowds or art
could give. I think my talk became a little flighty, as I watched his
face, so brave and so white.
"I knew his heart, knew that his thoughts that moment would have burned
to the brute husk, coarser stuff than he was made of.... Here's a
Stephen who could smile up from the ground as--as they stoned.... So I
left him, standing by the window, in the upper-room of the hotel,
watching the moving river-lights down on the Ohio.
"Late the next afternoon I reached Danube, and was driven directly to
the theatre--which was new. There was a pang in this. The town seemed
just the same; the streets and buildings, the sounds and smells, even
the sunset patch at the head of Main Street--all were just as they
should be, except the theatre. You see, all the dreams of greatness of
that savage, homely girl, had found their source and culmination in the
old house of melodrama, parts of which, they told me, now were made over
into darkey shanties down by the river. I felt that my success was
qualified a little in that it had not come in the life of the old house.
"I joined the Company at the theatre, without seeing any of the Danube
folk. The audience was already gathering. Through an eyelet of the
curtain, I saw Calhoun Knox enter alone, and take a seat in the centre,
five rows from the orchestra. He seemed smaller. The good brown tan was
gone. There was a twitch about his mouth that twitched mine. Other faces
were the same--even the lips that had spoken my doom so long ago. I had
no hate for them now....
"I looked at Calhoun Knox again, looked for the charm of clean
simplicity, and kept putting Stephen Cabot out of my heart and brain....
This man before me had fought for me twice, when I had needed a
champion.... They pulled me away from the eyelet, and _The Thing_ was
on.
"I could feel the town's group-soul that night--responded to its every
thought, as if a nerve-system of my own was installed in every mind.
They were listening to the woman who had startled New York. I felt their
awe. It was not sweet, as I had dreamed the moment would be. After all,
these were my people.
"I wanted their love, not their adulation. There had been nights back in
the East, when I had felt my audience, and turned loose _The Thing_ with
utmost daring, knowing that enough of the throng could follow me. But
this night I played slowly, played down, so that all could get it. This
was not a concession to the public, but a reconciliation. And at the
last, I moved and spoke pityingly, lest I hurt them; played to the
working face of Calhoun Knox with all its limitations--as you would tell
a story to a child, and hasten the happy ending to steady the quivering
lip.... And then it came to me slowly, after the last curtain had
fallen, that Danube was calling for its own, and I stepped out from
behind.
"'Once in the days of tumult and misunderstanding,' I told them, 'I was
angry because you did not love me. Now I know that I was not lovable.
And now I feel your goodness and your forgiveness. I pray you not to
thank me any more, lest I break down under too much joy....' Then I
went down among them. A woman kissed me, but the moment was so big and
my eyes so clouded that I did not remember the face.... Presently the
real consciousness came. Danube had dropped back to the doors. My hand
was in the hand of Calhoun Knox.
"Far out the Lone Ridge pike, we walked, to the foot of the Knobs. I was
breathing the smell of my old mountains. You can rely, that I had kept
my voice bright. 'I have come back to you, Calhoun,' I said.
"'I shouldn't be here,' he stammered in real panic. 'You didn't write,
and I married----'
"I could have hugged him in a way that would not have disturbed his
wife, but I said reproachfully, 'And you let me come 'way out here alone
with you, wicked Married Man?...' I started back for town, and then
thought better of it--waited for him to come up, and took his hand.
"'Calhoun,' I said, 'I found you a solid friend when I needed one
pitifully. Selma Cross never forgets. You have always been my Kentucky
Gentleman. God bless your big bright heart. I wish you kingly
happiness!'
"And then I did rush back. We separated at the edge of the town. I
wanted to run and cry aloud. The joy was so new and so vast that I could
scarcely hold it. Miles away, I heard the night-train whistle. My
baggage was at the hotel, but I didn't care for that, and reached the
depot-platform in time. The Company was there, but they had reserved a
Pullman. I went into the day-coach, because I wanted to be alone--sat
rigidly in the thin-backed seat. There were snoring, sprawling folks on
every hand.... After a long time, some one stirred in his seat and
muttered, 'High Bridge.' The brakeman came through at age-long
intervals, calling stations that had once seemed to me the far country.
Then across the aisle, a babe awoke and wailed. The mother had others--a
sweet sort of woman sick with weariness. I took the little one, and it
liked the fresh arms and fell asleep. It fitted right in--the soft
helpless warm little thing--and felt good to me. Dawn dimmed the old
meadows before I gave it up to be fed--and begged it back again.
"And then Cincinnati from the river--brown river below and brown
smoke-clouds above. It seemed as if I had been gone ages, instead of
only since yesterday. Unhampered by baggage, I sped out of the
day-coach, far ahead of the Company in the Pullman, but the carriage to
the hotel was insufferably slow; the elevator dragged.... It was only
eight in the morning, but I knew his ways--how little he slept.... His
door was partly open, and I heard the crinkle of his paper, as he
answered my tap.
"'Aren't you pretty near ready for breakfast, Stephen?' I asked.... He
stood in the doorway--his head just to my breast. His face was
hallowed, but his body seemed to weaken. I crossed the threshold to help
him, and we--we're to be married before the new season opens."
Paula loved the story.
* * * * *
And at length Paula and Charter reached the house of his mother, whose
glory was about her, as she stood in the doorway. Before he kissed her,
the mother-eyes had searched his heart.... Then she turned to his
garland of victory.
"I am so glad you have brought me a daughter."
The women faced each other--the strangest moment in three lives.... All
the ages passed between the eyes of the maid and the mother; and wisdoms
finer than words, as when two suns, sweeping past in their great cycle,
shine across the darkness of the infinite deep; ages of gleaning,
adoring, suffering, bearing, praying; ages of listening to little
children and building dreams out of pain; the weathered lustre of Naomi
and the fresh radiance of Ruth; but over all, that look which passed
between the women shone the secret of the meaning of men--God-taught
Motherhood.
To Charter, standing afar-off, came the simple but tremendous
revelation, just a glimpse into that lovely arcanum which mere man may
never know in full.... He saw that these two were closer than prophets
to the Lifting Heart of Things; that such are the handmaidens of the
Spirit, to whom are intrusted God's avatars; that no prophet is greater
than his mother.
To the man, it was new as the dream which nestled in Paula's heart; to
the women, it was old as the flocks on the mountain-sides of Lebanon.
They turned to him smiling. And when he could speak, he said to Paula:
"I thought you would like to see the garret, and the window that faces
the East."