Athalie Part 43

I don't know _how_ I knew it.... I think you wish me to help you find your little grandchildren, too. But I don't know why I think so."

When he spoke, controlled emotion made his voice sound almost feeble.

He said: "Yes; find my little grandchildren and tell me what they are doing." He pa.s.sed a transparent hand unsteadily across his dim eyes: "They are not living," he added. "They were lost at sea."

She said: "Nothing dies. Nothing is really lost."

"Why do you think so, child?"

"Because the whole world is gay and animated and lovely with what we call 'the dead.' And, by the dead I mean _all_ things great and small that have ever lived."

He sat listening with all the concentration and rapt attention of a child intent upon a fairy tale. She said, as though speaking to herself: "You should see and hear the myriads of birds that have 'died'! The sky is full of their voices and their wings....

Everywhere--everywhere the lesser children live,--those long dead of inhumanity or of that crude and temporary code which we call the law of nature. All has been made up to them--whatever of cruelty and pain they suffered--whatever rigour of the 'natural' law in that chain of destruction which we call the struggle for existence.... For there is only one real law, and it rules all of s.p.a.ce that we can see, and more of it than we can even imagine.... It is the law of absolute justice."

The old man nodded: "Do you believe that?"

She looked up at him dreamily: "Yes; I believe it. Or I should not have said it."

"Has anybody ever told you this?"

"No.... I never even thought about it until this moment while listening to my own words."... She lifted one hand and rested it against her forehead: "I cannot seem to think of your grandchildren's names.... Don't tell me."

She remained so for a few moments, motionless, then with a graceful gesture and a shake of her pretty head: "No, I can't think of their names. Do you suppose I could find them in the crystal?"

"Try," he said tremulously. She bent forward, resting both elbows on the table and framing her lovely face in her hands.

Deep into the scintillating crystal her blue gaze plunged; and for a few moments she saw nothing. Then, almost imperceptibly, faint hues and rainbow tints grew in the brilliant and transparent sphere--gathered, took shape as she watched, became coherent and logical and clear and real.

She said in a low voice, still watching intently: "Blue sky, green trees, a snowy sh.o.r.e, and little azure wavelets.... Two children bare-legged, playing in the sand.... A little girl--so pretty!--with her brown eyes and brown curls.... And the boy is her brother I think.... Oh, certainly.... And what a splendid time they are having with their sand-fort!... There's a little dog, too. They are calling him, 'Snippy! Snippy! Snippy!' How he barks at the waves! And now he has seized the little girl's doll! They are running after him, chasing him along the sands! Oh, how funny they are!--and what a glorious time they are having.... The puppy has dropped the doll.... The doll's name is Augusta.... Now the little girl has seated herself cross-legged on the sand and she is cradling the doll and singing to it--such a sweet, clear, happy little voice.... She is singing something about cherry pie--Oh!--now I can hear every word:

"Cherry pie, Cherry pie, You shall have some bye and bye.

Bye and Bye Bye and Bye You and I shall have a pie, Cherry pie Cherry pie--

"The boy is saying: 'Grandpa will have plenty for us when we get home.

There's always cherry pie at Grandpa's house.'

"And the little girl answers, 'I think Grandpa will come here pretty soon and bring us all the cherry pie we want.'... Her name is Jessie.... Her brother calls her 'Jessie.' She calls him 'Jim.'

"Their other name is Colden, I think.... Yes, that is it--Colden....

They seem to be expecting their father and mother; but I don't see them--Oh, yes. I can see them now--in the distance, walking slowly along the sands--"

She hesitated, remained silent for a few moments; then: "The colours are blurring to a golden haze. I can't see clearly now; it is like looking into the blinding disk of the rising sun.... All splendour and dazzling glory--and a too fierce light--"

For a moment more she remained bent over above the sphere, then raising her head: "The crystal is transparent and empty," she said.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She said in a low voice, still watching intently: 'Blue sky, green trees, a snowy sh.o.r.e, and little azure wavelets....'"]

CHAPTER XVII

It was about five months later that Cecil Reeve wrote his long reply to a dozen letters from Clive Bailey which heretofore had remained unanswered and neglected:

"--For Heaven's sake, do you think I've nothing to do except to write you letters? I _never_ write letters; and here's the exception to prove it. And if I were not at the Geyser Club, and if I had not dined incautiously, I would not write this!

"But first permit me the indiscretion of asking you why an engaged man is so charitably interested in the welfare of a young girl who is not engaged to him? And if he is interested, why doesn't he write to her himself and find out how she is? Or has she turned you down?

"But you need not incriminate and degrade yourself by answering this question.

"Seriously, Clive, you'd better get all thoughts of Athalie Greensleeve out of your head as long as you intend to get married. I knew, of course, that you'd been hard hit.

Everybody was gossiping last winter. But this is rather raw, isn't it?--asking me to find out how Athalie is and what she is doing; and to write you in detail? Well anyway I'll tell you once for all what I hear and know about her and her family--her family first, as I happen to have had dealings with them. And hereafter you can do your own philanthropic news gathering.

"Doris and Catharine were in a rotten show I backed. And when I couldn't afford to back it any longer Doris was ungrateful enough to marry a man who cultivated dates, figs, and pecan nuts out in lower California, and Catharine has just written me a most impertinent letter saying that real men grew only west of the Mississippi, and that she is about to marry one of them who knows more in half a minute than anybody could ever learn during a lifetime in New York, meaning me and Hargrave. I guess she meant me; and I guess it's so--about Hargrave. Except for myself, we certainly are a bunch of b.o.o.bs in this out-of-date old town.

"Now about Athalie,--she dropped out of sight after you went abroad. n.o.body seemed to know where she was or what she was doing. n.o.body ever saw her at restaurants or theatres except during the first few weeks after your departure. And then she was usually with that Dane chap--you know--the explorer. I wrote to her sisters making inquiries in behalf of myself and Francis Hargrave; but they either didn't know or wouldn't tell us where she was living. Neither would Dane. I didn't suppose he knew at the time; but he did.

"Well, what do you think has happened? Athalie Greensleeve is the most talked about girl in town! She has become the fashion, Clive. You hear her discussed at dinners, at dances, everywhere.

"Some bespectacled guy from Columbia University had an article about her in one of the recent magazines. Every paper has had something to say concerning her. They all disagree except on one point,--that Athalie Greensleeve is the most beautiful woman in New York. How does that hit you, Clive?

"Well, here's the key to the box of tricks. I'll hand it to you now. Athalie has turned into a regular, genuine, out and out clairvoyant, trade-marked patented. And society with a big _S_ and science with a little _s_ are fighting to take her up and make a plaything of her. And the girl is making all kinds of money.

"Of course her beauty and pretty manners are doing most of it for her, but here's another point: rumour has it that she's perfectly sincere and honest in her business.

"How can she be, Clive? I ask you. Also I hand it to her press-agent. He's got every simp in town on the run. He knows his public.

"Well, the first time I met her she was dining with Dane again at the Arabesque. She seemed really glad to see me.

There's a girl who remains unaffected and apparently unspoiled by her success. And she certainly has delightful manners. Dane glowered at me but Athalie made me sit down for a few minutes. Gad! I was that flattered to be seen with such a looker!

"She told me how it began--she couldn't secure a decent position, and all her money was gone, when in came an old guy who had patronised the medium whose rooms she was living in.

"That started it. The doddering old rube insisted that Athalie take a crack at the crystal business; she took one, and landed him. And when he went out he left a hundred bones in his wake and a puddle of tears on the rug.

"She didn't tell it to me like this: she really fell for the old gentleman. But I could size him up for a come-on. The rural districts crawl with that species. Now what gets me, Clive, is this: Athalie seems to me to be one of the straightest ever. Of course she has changed a lot. She's cleverer, livelier, gayer, more engaging and bewitching than ever--and believe me she's some flirt, in a sweet, bewildering sort of way--so that you'd give your head to know how much is innocence and how much is art of a most delicious--and, sometimes, malicious kind.

"That's the girl. And that's all she is, just a girl, with all the softness and freshness and fragrance of youth still clinging to her. She's some peach-blossom, take it from uncle! And she is straight; or I'm a million miles away in the lockup.

"And now, granted she's morally straight, how _can_ she be square in business? Do you get me? It's past me. All I can think of is that, being straight, the girl feels herself that she's also square.

"Yet, if that is so, how can she fool others so neatly?

"Listen, Clive: I was at a dance at the Faithorn's; tremendous excitement among pin-heads and debutantes! Athalie was expected, professionally. And sure enough, just before supper, in strolls a radiant, wonderful young thing making them all look like badly faded guinea-hens--and somehow I get the impression that she is receiving her hostess instead of the contrary. Talk about self-possession and absolute simplicity! She had 'em all on the bench. Happening to catch my eye she held out her hand with one of those smiles she can be guilty of--just plain a.s.sa.s.sination, Clive!--and I stuck to her until the pin-heads crowded me out, and the rubbering women got my shoulders all over paint. And now here's where she gets 'em. There's no curtained corner, no pasteboard trophies, no gipsy shawls and bangles, no lowering of lights, no closed doors, no whispers.

"Whoever asks her anything spooky she answers in a sweet and natural voice, as though replying to an ordinary question.

She makes no mystery of it. Sometimes she can't answer, and she says so without any excuse or embarra.s.sment. Sometimes her replies are vague or involved or even apparently meaningless. She admits very frankly that she is not always able to understand what her reply means.

"However she says enough--tells, reveals, discovers, offers sound enough advice--to make her _the_ plaything of the season.