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The Precipice: A Novel, a novel by Elia W. Peattie |
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Chapter 28 |
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_ CHAPTER XXVIII So Kate was coming! He had cravenly rebuffed her, and she had borne the rebuff in silence. Yet now that he needed her, she was coming. Ah, that was what women meant to men. They were created for the comforting of them. He always had known it, but he had impiously doubted them--doubted Her. Because fortune had turned from him, he had turned from Her--from Kate Barrington. He had imagined that she wanted more than he could give; whereas, evidently, all she ever had wanted was to be needed. He had called. She had answered. It had been as swift as telegraphy could make it. And now he was driving to the station to meet her. Life, it appeared, was just as simple as that. A man, lost in the darkness, could cry for a star to guide him, and it would come. It would shine miraculously out of the heavens, and his path would be made plain. It seemed absurd that the horses should be jogging along at their usual pace over the familiar road. Why had they not grown shining wings? Why was the old station wagon not transformed, by the mere glory of its errand, into a crystal coach? But, no, the horses went no faster because they were going on this world-changing errand. The resuscitated village, with the American litter heaped on the Italian dirt, looked none the less slovenly because She was coming into it in a few minutes. The clock kept its round; the sun showed its usual inclination toward the west. But notwithstanding this torpidity, She was coming, and that day stood apart from all other days. That it was Honora's desperate need which she was answering, in no way lessened the value of her response to him. His need and Honora's were indissoluble now; it was he who had called, and it was not to Honora alone that she was coming with healing in her hands. He saw her as she leaped from the train,--tall, alert, green-clad,--and he ran forward, sweeping his Stetson from his head. Their hands met--clung. "You!" he said under his breath. She laughed into his eyes. "No, _you_!" she retorted. He took her bags and they walked side by side, looking at each other as if their eyes required the sight. "How is she?" asked Kate. "Very bad." "What is it?" "The doorway to madness." "You've had a specialist?" "Yes. He wanted to take her to a sanatorium. I begged him to wait--to let you try. How could I let her go out from my door to be cast in with the lost?" "I suppose it was David's death that caused it." "Oh, yes. What else could it be?" "Then she loved him--to the end." "And after it, I am sure." He led the way to the station wagon and helped her in; then brought her luggage on his own shoulder. "Oh," she cried in distress. "Do you have to be your own stevedore? I don't like to have you doing that for me." "Out here we wait on ourselves," he replied when he had tumbled the trunk into the wagon. He seated himself beside her as if he were doing an accustomed thing, and she, too, felt as if she had been there beside him many times before. As they entered the village, he said:-- "You must note my rowdy town. Never was there such a place--such organized success built on so much individual failure. From boss to water-boy we were failures all; so we understood each other. We haven't sworn brotherhood, but we're pulling together. Some of us had known no law, and most of us had a prejudice against it, but now we're making our own laws and we rather enjoy the process. We've made the town and the mines our own cause, so what is the use of playing the traitor? Some of us are short-stake men habitually and constitutionally. Very well, say we, let us look at the facts. Since there are short-stake men in the world, why not make allowances for them? Use their limited powers of endurance and concentration, then let 'em off to rest up. If there are enough short-stake men around, some one will always be working. We find it works well." "Have you many women in your midst?" "At first we had very few. Just some bedraggled wives and a few less responsible ladies with magenta feathers in their hats. At least, two of them had, and the magenta feather came to be a badge. But they've disappeared--the feathers, not the ladies. Honora had a hand in it. I think she pulled off one marriage. She seemed to think there were arguments in favor of the wedding ceremony. But, mind you, she didn't want any of the poor women to go because they were bad. We are sinners all here. Stay and take a chance, that's our motto. It isn't often you can get a good woman like Honora to hang up a sign like that." "Honora couldn't have done it once," said Kate. "But think of all she's learned." "Learned? Yes. And I, too. I've been learning my lessons, too,--they were long and hard and I sulked at some of them, but I'm more tractable new." "I had my own hard conning," Kate said softly. "You never could have done what I did, Mr. Wander. You couldn't have been cruel to an old father." "Honora has made all that clear to me," said Karl with compassion. "When we are fighting for liberty we forget the sufferings of the enemy." There was a little pause. Then Karl spoke. "But I forgot to begin at the beginning in telling you about my made-over mining town. Yet you seemed to know about it." "Oh, I read about it in the papers. Your experiment is famous. All of the people I am associated with, the welfare workers and sociologists, are immensely interested in it. That's one of the problems now--how to use the hobo, how to get him back into an understanding of regulated communities." "Put him in charge," laughed Karl. "The answer's easy. Treat him like a fellow-man. Don't annoy him by an exhibition of your useless virtues." "I never thought of that," said Kate. They turned their backs on the straggling town and faced the peaks. Presently they skirted the Williston River which thundered among boulders and raged on toward the low-lying valley. From above, the roar of the pines came to them, reverberant and melancholy. "What sounds! What sounds!" cried Kate. "The mountains breathing," answered Wander. He drove well, and he knew the road. It was a dangerous road, which, ever ascending, skirted sharp declivities and rounded buttressed rocks. Kate, prairie-reared, could not "escape the inevitable thrill," but she showed, and perhaps felt, no fear. She let the matter rest with him--this man with great shoulders and firm hands, who knew the primitive art of "waiting on himself." Their brief speech sufficed them for a time, and now they sat silent, well content. The old, tormenting question as to his relations with Honora did not intrude itself. It was swept out of sight like flotsam in the plenteous stream of present content. They swung upon a purple mesa, and in the distance Kate saw a light which she felt was shining from the window of his home. "It's just as I thought it would be," she said. "Perhaps you are just the way it thought you would be," he replied. "Perhaps the soul of a place waits and watches for the right person, just as we human beings wander about searching for the right spot." "_I'm_ suited," affirmed Kate. "I hope the mesa is." "I know it well and I can answer for it." The road continued to mount; they entered the pinon grove and rode in aromatic dusk for a while, and when they emerged they were at the doorway. He lifted her down and held her with a gesture as if he had something to say. "It's about my letter," he ventured. "You knew very well it wasn't that I didn't want you to write. But my life was getting tangled--I wasn't willing to involve you in any way in the debris. I couldn't be sure that letters sent me would always reach my hands. Worst of all, I accused myself of unworthiness. I do so still." "I'm not one who worries much about worthiness or unworthiness," she said. "Each of us is worthy and unworthy. But I thought--" "What?" "I was confused. Honora said I was to congratulate you--and her. I didn't know--" He stared incredulously. "You didn't know--" He broke off, too, then laughed shortly. "I wish you had known," he added. "I would like to think that you never could misunderstand." She felt herself rebuked. He opened the door for her and she stepped for the first time across the threshold of his house. * * * * * Half an hour later, Wander, sitting in his study at the end of the upper hall, saw his guest hastening toward Honora's room. She wore a plain brown house dress and looked uniformed and ready for service. She did not speak to him, but hastened down the corridor and let herself into that solemn chamber where Honora Fulham lay with wide-staring eyes gazing mountain ward. That Honora was in some cold, still, and appalling place it took Kate but a moment to apprehend. She could hardly keep from springing to her as if to snatch her from impending doom, but she forced all panic from her manner. "Kate's come," she said, leaning down and kissing those chilly lips with a passion of pity and reassurance. "She's come to stay, sister Honora, and to drive everything bad away from you. Give her a kiss if you are glad." Did she feel an answering salute? She could not be sure. She moved aside and watched. Those fixed, vision-seeing eyes were upon the snow-capped peaks purpling in the decline of the day. "What is it you see, sister?" she asked. "Is there something out there that troubles you?" Honora lifted a tragic hand and pointed to those darkening snows. "See how the bergs keep floating!" she whispered. "They float slowly, but they are on their way. By and by they will meet the ship. Then everything will be crushed or frozen. I try to make them stay still, but they won't do it, and I'm so tired--oh, I'm so terribly tired, Kate." Kate's heart leaped. She had, at any rate, recognized her. "They really are still, Honora," she cried. "Truly they are. I am looking at them, and I can see that they are still. They are not bergs at all, but only your good mountains, and by and by all of that ice and snow will melt and flowers will be growing there." She pulled down the high-rolled shades at the windows with a decisive gesture. "But I must have them up," cried Honora, beginning to sob. "I have to keep watching them." "It's time to have in the lamps," declared Kate; and went to the door to ask for them. "And tea, too, please, Mrs. Hays," she called; "quite hot." "We've been keeping her very still," warned Wander, rejoicing in Kate's cheerful voice, yet dreading the effect of it on his cousin. "It's been too still where her soul has been dwelling," Kate replied in a whisper. "Can't you see she's on those bitter seas watching for the ice to crush David's ship? It's not yet madness, only a profound dream--a recurring hallucination. We must break it up--oh, we must!" She carried in the lamps when they came, placing them where their glow would not trouble those burning eyes; and when Mrs. Hays brought the tea and toast, whispering, "She'll take nothing," Kate lifted her friend in her determined arms, and, having made her comfortable, placed the tray before her. "For old sake's sake, Honora," she said. "Come, let us play we are girls again, back at Foster, drinking our tea!" Mechanically, Honora lifted the cup and sipped it. When Kate broke pieces of the toast and set them before her, she ate them. "You are telling me nothing about the babies," Kate reproached her finally. "Mayn't we have them in for a moment?" "I don't think they ought to come here," said Honora faintly. "It doesn't seem as if they ought to be brought to such a place as this." But Kate commanded their presence, and, having softly fondled them, dropped them on Honora's bed and let them crawl about there. They swarmed up to their mother and hung upon her, patting her cheeks, and investigating the use of eyelids and of ropes of hair. But when they could not provoke her to play, they began to whimper. "Honora," said Kate sharply, "you must laugh at them at once! They mustn't go away without a kiss." So Honora dragged herself from those green waters beyond the fatal Banks, half across the continent to the little children at her side, and held them for a moment--the two of them at once--in her embrace. "But I'm so tired, Kate," she said wearily. "Rest, then," said Kate. "Rest. But it wouldn't have been right to rest without saying good-night to the kiddies, would it? A mother has to think of that, hasn't she? They need you so dreadfully, you see." She slipped the extra pillows from beneath the heavy head, and stood a moment by the bedside in silence as if she would impress the fact of her protection upon that stricken heart and brain. "It is safe, here, Honora," she said softly. "Love and care are all about you. No harm shall come near you. Do you believe that?" Honora looked at her from beneath heavy lids, then slowly let her eyes close. Kate walked to the window and waited. At first Honora's body was convulsed with nervous spasms, but little by little they ceased. Honora slept. Kate threw wide the windows, extinguished the light, and crept from the room, not ill-satisfied with her first conflict with the dread enemy. * * * * * Karl was waiting for her in the corridor when she came from Honora's room, and he caught both of her hands in his. "You're cold with horror!" he said. "What a thing that is to see!" "But it isn't going to last," protested Kate with a quivering accent. "We can't have it last." "Come into the light," he urged. "Supper is waiting." He led her down the stairs and into the simple dining-room. The table was laid for two before a leaping blaze. There was no other light save that of two great candles in sticks of wrought bronze. The room was bare but beautiful--so seemly were its proportions, so fitted to its use its quiet furnishings. He placed her chair where she could feel the glow and see, through the wide window, a crescent moon mounting delicately into the clear sky. There was game and salad, custard and coffee--a charming feast. Mrs. Hays came and went quietly serving them. Karl said little. He was content with the essential richness of the moment. It was as if Destiny had distilled this hour for him, giving it to him to quaff. He was grave, but he did not resent her sorrowfulness. Sorrow, he observed, might have as sweet a flavor as joy. It did not matter by what name the present hour was called. It was there--he rested in it as in a state of being which had been appointed--a goal toward which he had been journeying. "What's to be done?" he asked. "I've been thinking," said Kate, "that we had better move her from that room. Is there none from which no mountains are visible? She ought not to have the continual reminder of those icebergs." "Why didn't I think of that?" he cried with vexation. "That shows how stupid a man can be. Certainly we have such a room as you wish. It looks over the barnyard. It's cheerful but noisy. You can hear the burros and the chickens and pigs and calves and babies all day long." "It's precisely what she needs. Her thoughts are the things to fear, and I know of no way to break those up except by crowding others in. Is the room pleasant--gay?" "No--hardly clean, I should say. But we can work on it like fiends." "Let's do it, then,--put in chintz, pictures, flowers, books, a jar of goldfish, a cage of finches,--anything that will make her forget that terrible white procession of bergs." "You think it isn't too late? You think we can save her?" "I won't admit anything else," declared Kate. The wind began to rise. It came rushing from far heights and moaned around the house. The silence yielded to this mournful sound, yet kept its essential quality. "It's a wild place," said Kate; "wilder than any place I have been in before. But it seems secure. I find it hard to believe that you have been in danger here." "I am in danger now," said Karl. "Much worse danger than I was in when the poor excited dagoes were threatening me." "What is your danger?" asked Kate. She was incapable of coquetry after that experience in Honora's room; nor did the noble solitude of the place permit the thought of an excursion into the realms of any sort of dalliance. Moreover, though Karl's words might have led her to think of him as ready to play with a sentimental situation, the essential loftiness of his gaze forbade her to entertain the thought. "I am in danger," he said gravely, "of experiencing a happiness so great that I shall never again be satisfied with life under less perfect conditions. Can you imagine how the fresh air seems to a man just released from prison? Well, life has a tang like that for me now. I tell you, I have been a discouraged man. It looked to me as if all of the things I had been fighting for throughout my manhood were going to ruin. I saw my theories shattered, my fortune disappearing, my reputation, as the successful manipulator of other men's money, being lost. I've been looked upon as a lucky man and a reliable one out here in Colorado. They swear by you or at you out in this part of the country, and I've been accustomed to having them count on me. I even had some political expectations, and was justified in them, I imagine. I had an idea I might go to the state legislature and then take a jump to Washington. Well, it was a soap-bubble dream, of course. I lost out. This tatterdemalion crew of mine is all there is left of my cohorts. I suppose I'm looked on now as a wild experimenter." "Would it seem that way to men?" asked Kate, surprised. "To take what lies at hand and make use of it--to win with a broken sword--that strikes me as magnificent." She forgot to put a guard on herself for a moment and let her admiration, her deep confidence in him, shine from her eyes. She saw him whiten, saw a look of almost terrible happiness in his eyes, and withdrew her gaze. She could hear him breathing deeply, but he said nothing. There fell upon them a profound and wonderful silence which held when they had arisen and were sitting before his hearth. They were alone with elemental things--night, silence, wind, and fire. They had the essentials, roof and food, clothing and companionship. Back and forth between them flashed the mystic currents of understanding. A happiness such as neither had known suffused them. When they said "good-night," each made the discovery that the simple word has occult and beautiful meanings. _ |
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