Chapter 9

________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER IX

And now at last she knew what it was she feared. For she was beginning to understand that this man was utterly unworthy, utterly insensible, without character, without one sympathetic trait that appealed to anything in her except her senses.

She understood it now, lying there alone in her room, knowing it to be true, admitting it in all the bitter humiliation of self-contempt. But even in the light of this new self-knowledge her inclination for him seemed a thing so unreasonable, so terrible, that, confused and terrified by the fear of spiritual demoralisation, she believed that this bewildering passion was all that he had ever evoked in her, and fell sick in mind and body for the shame of it.

A living fever was on her night and day; disordered memories of him haunted her, waking; defied her, sleeping; and her hatred for what he had awakened in her grew as her blind, childish longing to see him grew, leaving no peace for her.

What kind of love was that?--founded on nothing, nurtured on nothing, thriving on nothing except what her senses beheld in him. Nothing higher, nothing purer, nothing more exalted had she ever learned of him than what her eyes saw; and they had seen only a man in his ripe youth, without purpose, without ideals, taking carelessly of the world what he would one day return to it--the material, born in corruption, and to corruption doomed.

It was night she feared most. By day there were duties awaiting, or to be invented. Also, sometimes, standing on her steps, she could hear the distant sound of drums, catch a glimpse far to the eastward of some regiment bound South, the long rippling line of bayonets, a flutter of colour where the North was passing on God's own errand. And love of country became a passion.

Stephen came sometimes, but his news of Berkley was always indefinite, usually expressed with a shrug and emphasised in silences.

Colonel Arran was still in Washington, but he wrote her every day, and always he asked whether Berkley had come. She never told him.

Like thousands and thousands of other women in New York she did what she could for the soldiers, contributing from her purse, attending meetings, making havelocks, ten by eight, for the soldiers' caps, rolling bandages, scraping lint in company with other girls of her acquaintance, visiting barracks and camps and "soldiers' rests," sending endless batches of pies and cakes and dozens of jars of preserves from her kitchen to the various distributing depots.

Sainte Ursula's Church sent out a call to its parishioners; a notice was printed in all the papers requesting any women of the congregation who had a knowledge of nursing to meet at the rectory for the purpose of organisation. And Ailsa went and enrolled herself as one who had had some hospital experience.

Sickness among the thousands of troops in the city there already was, also a few cases of gunshots in the accident wards incident on the carelessness or ignorance of raw volunteers. But as yet in the East there had been no soldier wounded in battle, no violent death except that of the young colonel of the 1st Fire Zouaves, shot down at Alexandria.

So there was no regular hospital duty asked of Ailsa Paige, none required; and she and a few other women attended a class of instruction conducted by her own physician, Dr. Benton, who explained the simpler necessities of emergency cases and coolly predicted that there would be plenty of need for every properly instructed woman who cared to volunteer.

So the ladies of Sainte Ursula's listened very seriously; and some had enough of it very soon, and some remained longer, and finally only a small residue was left--quiet, silent, attentive women of various ages who came every day to hear what Dr. Benton had to tell them, and write it down in their little morocco notebooks. And these, after a while, became the Protestant sisterhood of Sainte Ursula, and wore, on duty, the garb of gray with the pectoral scarlet heart.

May went out with the booming of shotted guns beyond the, Southern horizon, amid rumours of dead zouaves and cavalrymen somewhere beyond Alexandria. And on that day the 7th Regiment returned to garrison the city, and the anxious city cheered its return, and people slept more soundly for it, though all day long the streets echoed with the music of troops departing, and of regiments parading for a last inspection before the last good-byes were said.

Berkley saw some of this from his window. Never perfectly sober now, he seldom left his rooms except at night; and all day long he read, or brooded, or lay listless, or as near drunk as he ever could be, indifferent, neither patient nor impatient with a life he no longer cared enough about to either use or take.

There were intervals when the deep despair within him awoke quivering; instants of fierce grief instantly controlled, throttled; moments of listless relaxation when some particularly contemptible trait in Burgess faintly amused him, or some attempted invasion of his miserable seclusion provoked a sneer or a haggard smile, or perhaps an uneasiness less ignoble, as when, possibly, the brief series of letters began and ended between him and the dancing girl of the Canterbury.

"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Could you come for me after the theatre this evening?
"LETITIA LYNDEN."

"DEAR LETTY:
"I'm afraid I couldn't.
"Very truly yours,
"P. O. BERKLEY."

"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Am I not to see you again? I think perhaps you
might care to hear that I have been doing what you
wished ever since that night. I have also written home,
but nobody has replied. I don't think they want me
now. It is a little lonely, being what you wish me to
be. I thought you might come sometimes. Could you?
"LETITIA LYNDEN."

"DEAR LETITIA:
"I seem to be winning my bet, but nobody can ever
tell. Wait for a while and then write home again.
Meantime, why not make bonnets? If you want to, I'll
see that you get a chance.
"P. O. BERKLEY."

"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I don't know how. I never had any skill. I was
assistant in a physician's office--once. Thank you for
your kind and good offer--for all your goodness to me.
I wish I could see you sometimes. You have been better
to me than any man. Could I?
"LETTY."

"DEAR LETTY:
"Why not try some physician's office?"

"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Do you wish me to? Would you see me sometimes
if I left the Canterbury? It is _so_ lonely--you don't
know, Mr. Berkley, how lonely it is to be what you wish
me to be. Please only come and speak to me.
"LETTY."

"DEAR LETTY:
"Here is a card to a nice doctor, Phineas Benton,
M.D. I have not seen him in years; he remembers me
as I was. You will not, of course, disillusion him. I've
had to lie to him about you--and about myself. I've
told him that I know your family in Philadelphia, that
they asked me about the chances of a position here for
you as an assistant in a physician's office, and that now
you had come on to seek for such a position. Let me
know how the lie turns out.
"P. O. BERKLEY."

A fortnight later came her last letter:

"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I have been with Dr. Benton nearly two weeks now.
He took me at once. He is such a good man! But--I
don't know--sometimes he looks at me and looks at me
as though he suspected what I am--and I feel my cheeks
getting hot, and I can scarcely speak for nervousness;
and then he always smiles so pleasantly and speaks so
courteously that I know he is too kind and good to suspect.

"I hold sponges and instruments in minor operations,
keep the office clean, usher in patients, offer them
smelling salts and fan them, prepare lint, roll
bandages--and I know already how to do all this quite well.
I think he seems pleased with me. He is so very kind to
me. And I have a little hall bedroom in his house, very
tiny but very neat and clean; and I have my meals with
his housekeeper, an old, old woman who is very deaf and
very pleasant.

"I don't go out because I don't know where to go.
I'm afraid to go near the Canterbury--afraid to meet
anybody from there. I think I would die if any man
I ever saw there ever came into Dr. Benton's office.
The idea of that often frightens me. But nobody has
come. And I sometimes do go out with Dr. Benton.
He is instructing a class of ladies in the principles of
hospital nursing, and lately I have gone with him to hold
things for him while he demonstrates. And once, when
he was called away suddenly, I remained with the class
alone, and I was not very nervous, and I answered all
their questions for them and showed them how things
ought to be done. They were _so_ kind to me; and one
very lovely girl came to me afterward and thanked me
and said that she, too, had worked a little as a nurse for
charity, and asked me to call on her.

"I was so silly--do you know I couldn't see her for
the tears, and I couldn't speak--and I couldn't let go
of her hands. I wanted to kiss them, but I was ashamed.

"Some day do you think I might see you again? I
am what you have asked me to be. I never wanted to be
anything else. They will not believe that at home because
they had warned me, and I was such a fool--and perhaps
you won't believe me--but I _didn't_ know what I
was doing; I didn't want to be what I became--This is
really true, Mr. Berkley. Sometime may I see you
again?
Yours sincerely,
"LETITIA A. LYNDEN."

He had replied that he would see her some day, meaning not to do so. And there it had rested; and there, stretched on his sofa, he rested, the sneer still edging his lips, not for her but for himself.

"She'd have made some respectable man a good--mistress," he said. "Here is a most excellent mistress, spoiled, to make a common-place nurse! . . . _Gaude! Maria Virgo; gaudent proenomine molles auriculoe. . . . Gratis poenitet esse probum_. Burgess!"

"Sir?"

"What the devil are you scratching for outside my door?"

"A letter, sir."

"Shove it under, and let me alone."

The letter appeared, cautiously inserted under the door, and lay there very white on the floor. He eyed it, scowling, without curiosity, turned over, and presently became absorbed in the book he had been reading:

"Zarathustra asked Ahura-Mazda: 'Heavenly, Holiest, Pure, when a pure man dies where does his soul dwell during that night?'

"Then answered Ahura-Mazda: 'Near his head it sits itself down. On this night his soul sees as much joy as the living world possesses.'

"And Zarathustra asked: 'Where dwells the soul throughout the second night after the body's death?'

"Then answered Ahura-Mazda: 'Near to his head it sits itself down.'

"Zarathustra spake: 'Where stays the soul of a pure roan throughout the third night, O Heavenly, Holiest, Pure?'

"And thus answered Ahura-Mazda, Purest, Heavenly: 'When the Third Night turns Itself to Light, the soul arises and goes forward; and a wind blows to meet it; a sweet-scented one, more sweet-scented than other winds.'

"And in that wind there cometh to meet him His Own Law in the body of a maid, one beautiful, shining, with shining arms; one powerful, well-grown, slender, with praiseworthy body; one noble, with brilliant face, as fair in body as the loveliest.

"And to her speaks the soul of the pure man, questioning her who she might truly be. And thus replies to him His Own Law, shining, dove-eyed, loveliest: 'I am thy thoughts and works; I am thine own Law of thine own Self. Thou art like me, and I am like thee in goodness, in beauty, in all that I appear to thee. Beloved, come!'

"And the soul of the pure man takes one step and is in the First Paradise, Humata; and takes a second step, and is in the Second Paradise, Hukhta; and takes a third step, and is in the Third Paradise, Hvarsta.

"And takes one last step into the Eternal Lights for ever."

His haggard eyes were still fixed vacantly on the printed page, but he saw nothing now. Something in the still air of the room had arrested his attention--something faintly fresh--an evanescent hint of perfume.

Suddenly the blood surged up in his face; he half rose, turned where he lay and looked back at the letter on the floor. "Damn it," he said. And rising heavily, he went to it, picked it up, and broke the scented seal.

"Will you misunderstand me, Mr. Berkley? They say that the pages of friendship are covered with records of misunderstandings.

"We _were_ friends. Can it not be so again? I have thought so long and so steadily about it that I no longer exactly know whether I may venture to write to you or whether the only thing decently left me is silence, which for the second time I am breaking now, because I cannot believe that I offered my friendship to such a man as you have said you are. It is not in any woman to do it. Perhaps it is self-respect that protests, repudiates, denies what you have said to me of yourself; and perhaps it is a sentiment less austere. I can no longer judge.

"And now that I have the courage--or effrontery--to write you once more, will you misconstrue my letter--and my motive? If I cannot be reconciled to what I hear of you--if what I hear pains, frightens me out of a justifiable silence which perhaps you might respect, will you respect my motive for breaking it the less? I do not know. But the silence is now broken, and I must endure the consequences.

"Deep unhappiness I have never known; but I recognise it in others when I see it, and would aid always if I could. Try to understand me.

"But despair terrifies me--I who never have known it--and I do not understand how to meet it, how to cope with it in others, what to say or do. Yet I would help if help is possible. Is it?

"I think you have always thought me immature, young in experience, negligible as to wisdom, of an intellectual capacity inconsequential.

"These are the facts: I was married when I was very young, and I have known little of such happiness; but I have met sorrow and have conquered it, and I have seen bitter hours, and have overcome them, and I have been tempted, and have prevailed. Have you done these things?

"As for wisdom, if it comes only with years, then I have everything yet to learn. Yet it seems to me that in the charity wards of hospitals, in the city prisons, in the infirmary, the asylum--even the too brief time spent there has taught me something of human frailty and human sorrow. And if I am right or wrong, I do not know, but to me sin has always seemed mostly a sickness of the mind. And it is a shame to endure it or to harshly punish it if there be a cure. And if this is so, what you may have done, and what others may have done to you, cannot be final.

"My letter is longer than I meant it, but I had a great need to speak to you. If you still think well of me, answer me. Answer in the way it pleases you best. But answer--if you still think well of me.

"AILSA PAIGE."

A touch of rose still tinted the sky overhead, but already the lamp lighters were illuminating the street lamps as he came to London Terrace--that quaint stretch of old-time houses set back from the street, solemnly windowed, roofed, and pilastered; decorously screened behind green trees and flowering bushes ringed by little lawns of emerald.

For a moment, after entering the iron gateway and mounting the steps, he stood looking up at her abode. Overhead the silken folds of the flag hung motionless in the calm evening air; and all the place about him was sweet with the scent of bridal-wreath and early iris.

Then, at his tardy summons, the door of her house opened to him. He went in and stood in the faded drawing-room, where the damask curtain folds were drawn against the primrose dusk and a single light glimmered like a star high among the pendant prisms of the chandelier.

Later a servant came and gave the room more light. Then he waited for a long while. And at last she entered.

Her hands were cold--he noticed it as the fingers touched his, briefly, and were withdrawn. She had scarcely glanced at him, and she had not yet uttered a word when they were seated. It lay with him, entirely, so far.

"What a lazy hound I have been," he said, smiling; "I have no excuses to save my hide--no dogs ever have. Are you well, Ailsa?"

She made the effort: "Yes, perfectly. I fear--" Her eyes rested on his marred and haggard face; she said no more because she could not.

He made, leisurely, all proper and formal inquiries concerning the Craigs and those he had met there, mentioned pleasantly his changed fortunes; spoke of impending and passing events, of the war, of the movement of troops, of the chances for a battle, which the papers declared was imminent.

Old Jonas shuffled in with the Madeira and a decanter of brandy, it being now nearly eight o'clock.

Later, while Berkley was still carelessly bearing the burden of conversation, the clock struck nine times; and in another incredibly brief interval, it struck ten.

He started to rise, and encountered her swiftly lifted eyes. And a flush grew and deepened on his face, and he resumed his place in silence. When again he was seated she drew, unconsciously, a long, deep breath, and inclined her head to listen. But Berkley had no more to say to her--and much that he must not say to her. And she waited a long while, eyes bent steadily on the velvet carpet at her feet.

The silence endured too long; she knew it, but could not yet break it, or the spell which cradled her tired heart, or the blessed surcease from the weariness of waiting.

Yet the silence was lasting too long, and must be broken quickly.

She looked up, startled, as he rose to take his leave. It was the only way, now, and she knew it. And, oh, the time had sped too fast for her, and her heart failed her for all the things that remained unsaid--all the kindness she had meant to give him, all the counsel, the courage, the deep sympathy, the deeper friendship.

But her hand lay limply, coldly in his; her lips were mute, tremulously curving; her eyes asked nothing more.

"Good night, Ailsa."

"Good night."

There was colour, still, in his marred young face, grace, still, in his body, in the slightly lowered head as he looked down at her.

"I must not come again, Ailsa."

Then her pulses died. "Why?"

"Because--I am afraid to love you."

It did not seem that she even breathed, so deathly still she stood.

"Is that---your reason?"

"Yes. I have no right to love you."

She could scarcely speak. "Is--friendship not enough, Mr. Berkley?"

"It is too late for friendship. You know it."

"That cannot be."

"Why, Ailsa?"

"Because it is friendship--mistaken friendship that moves you now in every word you say." She raised her candid gaze. "Is there no end to your self-murder? Do you still wish to slay yourself before my very eyes?"

"I tell you that there is nothing good left living in me:

"And if it were true; did you never hear of a resurrection?"

"I--warn you!"

"I hear your warning."

"You dare let me love you?"

Dry-lipped, voices half stifled by their mounting emotion, they stood closely confronted, paling under the effort of self-mastery. And his was giving way, threatening hers with every breath.

Suddenly in his altered face she saw what frightened her, and her hand suddenly closed in his; but he held it imprisoned.

"Answer me, Ailsa!"

"Please--" she said--"if you will let me go--I will answer--you----"

"What?"

"What you--ask."

Her breath was coming faster; her face, now white as a flower, now flushed, swam before him. Through the surging passion enveloping him he heard her voice as at a distance:

"If you will--let me go--I can tell you----"

"Tell me now!"

"Not--this way. . . . How can you care for me if----

"I warned you, Ailsa! I told you that I am unfit to love you. No woman could ever marry _me_! No woman could even love me if she knew what I am! You understood that. I told you. And now--good God!--I'm telling you I love you--I can't let you go!--your hands:--the sweetness of them--the----"

"I--oh, it must not be--this way----"

"It _is_ this way!"

"I know--but please try to help.--I--I am not afraid to--love you------"

Her slender figure trembled against him; the warmth of her set him afire. There was a scent of tears in her breath--a fragrance as her body relaxed, yielded, embraced; her hands, her lids, her: hair, her mouth, all his now, for the taking, as he took her into his arms. But he only stared down at what lay there; and, trembling, breathless, her eyes unclosed and she looked up blindly into his flushed face.

"Because I--love you," she sighed, "I believe in all that--that I have--never--seen--in you."

He looked back into her eyes, steadily:

"I am going mad over you, Ailsa. There is only destruction for you in that madness. . . . Shall I let you go?"

"W-what?"

But the white passion in his face was enough; and, involuntarily her lids shut it out. But she did not stir.

"I--warned you," he said again.

"I know. . . . Is it in you to--destroy--me?"

"God knows. . . . Yes, it is."

She scarcely breathed; only their hearts battled there in silence. Then he said harshly:

"What else is there for us? You would not marry me."

"Ask me."

"You would not marry me if I told you----"

"What?"

"I will _not_ tell you!"

"Are you--married?"

"No!"

"Then _tell_ me!"

"G-od! _No_! I can't throw _this_ hour away. I can't throw love away! I want you anyway--if you have the--courage!"

"Tell me. I promise to marry you anyway. I promise it, whatever you are! Tell me."

"I--" An ugly red-stained neck and forehead; his embrace suddenly hurt her so that she cried out faintly, but her hand closed on his.

"Tell me, tell me, _tell_ me!" she pleaded; "I know you are half crazed by something--some dreadful thing that has been done to you--" and ceased, appalled at the distorted visage he turned on her. His arms relaxed and fell away from her.

Released, she stood swaying as though stunned, pressed both hands to her eyes, then let her arms fall, inert.

For a moment they confronted one another; then he straightened up, squared his shoulders with a laugh that terrified her.

"No," he said, "I _won't_ tell you! You go on caring for me. I'm beast enough to let you. Go on caring! Love me--if you're brave enough. . . . And I warn you now that I love you, and I don't care a damn how I do it! . . . Now you _are_ frightened! . . . Very well--I----"

He swayed a little, swung blindly on his heel, and lurched out into the hall.

Mechanically she followed, halting in the doorway and resting against it, for it seemed as though her knees were giving way.

"Is that--to be the--end?" she whispered.

He turned and came swiftly back, took her in his arms, crushed her to him, kissed her lips again and again, fiercely.

"The end will be when you make an end," he said. "Make it now or never!"

His heart was beating violently against hers; her head had fallen a little back, lips slightly parted, unresponsive under his kiss, yet enduring--and at last burning and trembling to the verge of response----

And suddenly, passion-swept, breathless, she felt her self-control going, and she opened her eyes, saw hell in his, tore herself from his arms, and shrank, trembling, against the wall. He turned stupidly and opened the door, making his way out into the night. But she did not see him, for her burning face was hidden in her hands.

Drunk as though drugged, the echoes of passion still stirred his darker self, and his whirling thoughts pierced his heart like names, whispering, urging him to go back and complete the destruction he had begun--take her once more into his arms and keep her there through life, through death, till the bones of the blessed and the damned alike stirred in their graves at the last reveille.

To know that she, too, had been fighting herself--that she, too, feared passion, stirred every brutal fibre in him to a fiercer recklessness that halted him in his tracks under the calm stars. But what held him there was something else, perhaps what he believed had died in him; for he did not even turn again. And at last, through the dark and throbbing silence he moved on again at random, jaws set.

The mental strain was beginning to distort everything. Once or twice he laughed all to himself, nodding mysteriously, his tense white face stamped with a ghastly grimace of self-contempt. Then an infernal, mocking curiosity stirred him:

What kind of a thing _was_ he anyway? A moment since he had loosed the brute in himself, leaving it to her to re-chain or let it carry her with him to destruction. And yet he was too fastidious to marry her under false pretences!

"Gods of Laughter! What in hell--what sort of thing am I?" he asked aloud, and lurched on, muttering insanely to himself, laughing, talking under his breath, hearing nothing, seeing nothing but her wistful eyes, gazing sorrowfully out of the night.

At a dark crossing he ran blindly into a moving horse; was pushed aside by its cloaked rider with a curse; stood dazed, while his senses slowly returned--first, hearing--and his ears were filled with the hollow trample of many horses; then vision, and in the dark street before him he saw the column of shadowy horsemen riding slowly in fours, knee to knee, starlight sparkling on spur and bit and sabre guard.

Officers walked their lean horses beside the column. One among them drew bridle near him, calling out:

"Have you the right time?"

Berkley looked at his watch.

"Midnight."

"Thank you, friend."

Berkley stepped to the curb-stone: "What regiment is that?"

"Eighth New York."

"Leaving?"

"Going into camp. Yorkville."

Berkley said: "Do you want a damned fool?"

"The companies are full of fools. . . . We can stand a few first-class men. Come up to camp to-morrow, friend. If you can pass the surgeons I guess it will be all right."

And he prodded his tired horse forward along the slowly moving column of fours. _

Read next: Chapter 10

Read previous: Chapter 8

Table of content of Ailsa Paige: A Novel


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book