Ailsa Paige Part 30

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 pa.s.sing on G.o.d's own errand. And love of country became a pa.s.sion.

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, sc.r.a.ping 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 cla.s.s 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 ign.o.ble, 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?

"LEt.i.tIA 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 n.o.body 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?

"LEt.i.tIA LYNDEN."

"DEAR LEt.i.tIA: "I seem to be winning my bet, but n.o.body 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 a.s.sistant 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 a.s.sistant 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 n.o.body has come. And I sometimes do go out with Dr. Benton. He is instructing a cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s 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, "LEt.i.tIA 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 prob.u.m. 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 n.o.ble, 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. "d.a.m.n 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.