Edgar Saltus: The Man Part 22

"I will be with little Toto so soon, and we will wait together until you come over. You know as well as I do that your tears are vitriol on her spirit, r.e.t.a.r.ding her evolution. For G.o.d's sake never agonize over me, unless you want to keep me earthbound and in prison."

Not one man in a million would have lived under the conditions he accepted in silence for over a year. The average good husband would have left and asked for a divorce. Mr. Saltus not only never complained, but was concerned only for me. From that hour I decided to pull myself together.

By the time "The Imperial Orgy" was finished, Mr. Saltus was in such bad shape that it was hazardous for him to leave the house alone. Twice he dropped in the street with heart attacks. The "flu" epidemic coming on, his infection-complex swam into evidence again. He ceased going in public conveyances, and took a taxi whenever he thought it necessary to go out. A handkerchief saturated with camphor held to his nose, he took the chance now and again. Although he carried a card with his name and address in his pocket, it was always with dread that I saw him leave the apartment. A flask of whisky was in another pocket, a bottle of peppermint and tablets of nitroglycerin were in a third, and yet he was really in no shape to go at all.

It was after a sudden heart attack in the street, that I decided he must remain indoors till physicians could tell more definitely about his condition. The "flu" epidemic offered the chance I had been looking for.

Had I come into the open and told him I was fearful he might be brought home in an ambulance, he would have died there and then at my feet. The impossibility of telling him anything unpleasant was a handicap. I was obliged to keep up the pleasing fiction that he was getting better every day, and to say that the increasing lameness and pain were but results of the treatment he was undergoing to effect a permanent cure. Any over-anxiety on my part would have been disastrous. Knowing his reactions, I said quite casually one day:--

"You must have to wait longer to pick up taxis these days."

"Why?" he asked in surprise.

"Because in default of enough ambulances, they are in such demand taking patients to the hospitals."

The implication was successful--Jean, the tree and the bubonic plague became as trifles compared to an infectious taxi.

"Great Heavens! I never thought of that," he exclaimed. "Are you sure?"

"I know only what I read and hear, but it may not be true," I said.

That was enough. It was weeks and weeks before Mr. Saltus could be persuaded to leave the apartment. Meanwhile, the plot of "The Ghost Girl"

was occupying his mind. Though the central situation was one he had used before, in a short story called "A Bouquet of Illusions," he hoped to justify his use of it again by his amplification of it.

When the plot was mapped out, he announced that he was ready to start work, and "the kennel" could be cleaned up. "The kennel" referred to his study, which I have described elsewhere, and which at that time resembled a cross between a junk-shop and an ash-heap. It was cleaned only between novels, the debris of one being removed to make a place for another.

During this time Mr. Saltus was undergoing treatments of various kinds with no apparent improvement. Day after day we went from one specialist to another, seeking and hoping. It was tragic, and he was very brave about it, smiling and joking about his condition, worrying because it worried me.

When the weather was inviting we would walk the short block to Morningside Park and sit there an entire afternoon, enjoying the green. Trees interested Mr. Saltus,--old trees especially. When we sat down our seat became the magic carpet, and we alighted among the druids in an enchanted wood. We followed their festivals, picked out their occult symbols and searched for the mistletoe. We found ourselves surrounded by the spirits of the trees, and became a part of an evolution other than human. Nature spirits, gnomes and fairies peeped in and out of the shrubs, as Mr. Saltus'

imagination soared on delightfully. There was no pain in this world,--no mundane muddle to mess it up. Living more or less in a subjective universe, our rambles in thought were better tonics than medicine to him. Pan lived again, while nymphs and satyrs chased through the brush at our feet.

Day after day we sat there on the same seat and in a dream world, till the sun beginning to sink, and the chill in the air which followed, recalled Mr. Saltus to aching legs and a man-made world.

Realizing as I did then that his condition was critical, it seemed the moment to effect a reconciliation with his daughter. The long hours he had to spend shut in an apartment would have been brightened by her presence.

During this time we had written one another at intervals, and she knew that I would do my best to bring it about. Photographs of her in various places in our rooms, although not referred to by Mr. Saltus, helped to keep her in mind. One day, while we were on the subject of parents and children, I thought the psychological moment had arrived, and, reversing the role a stepmother is supposed to take, I led up to the subject, suggesting that I ask Mrs. Munds and her husband up to see him. Ill as he was, Mr. Saltus flamed.

"Thou too, Brutus!" he exclaimed. "You, too, are going to fail me at last?

That I have lived to this!"

It was the one subject on which he could not talk rationally. From his reaction I could see how much he loved her, for only a great affection can be hurt so deeply.

"If you want to kill me, send for her. I will know then that my case is hopeless, and between you it most certainly will be."

It was futile to persist. I could not make him see that she had not put him out of her life deliberately. That was his view of it. Having been put out, he refused to go back. In his condition arguments reacted badly upon his heart.

There was a time when the papers meant much to Mr. Saltus. For an hour, at least, every morning he would absorb them with his coffee and rolls. They meant not only material for articles, but links with the world from which he was shut off. With his increasing disability his interest in the papers waned, and he would scan the headlines only and read a few book reviews.

There was one reviewer who especially interested him. Frequently of a Sunday morning he would call out:--

"Anything worth while in the paper to-day?"

This meant one thing. If there was a book review or an article by Benjamin de Ca.s.seres it was worth while, and that part of the paper was taken in to him. If not, it could wait until he had an idle moment during the day. Mr.

Saltus admired de Ca.s.seres' work very much. He used to chuckle over it, and say:--

"That man was born a hundred years too soon."

The pity was that, admiring each other as they did, they never met. The hermit habit had so encroached with the years, that it had become impossible for Mr. Saltus even to think of meeting people in the flesh, however much he admired them in the spirit. His world becoming subjective more and more each day as he internalized, objective existence became shadowy and unsatisfying. With entire unselfishness he concerned himself more and more for me, always a frail and fragile being in his eyes, one possessing little physical strength to fight her way alone in a sordid and selfish world. The fear of it haunted him.

"I'm a pretty ill man, am I not, Mowgy?" he asked me one day. "It will not kill me to die, but I should be prepared."

"Indisposed for the moment," I told him. "Now that you can eat and grow young again, I may have to take out an insurance at Lloyd's against someone stealing you."

This remark, no matter how often I made it, pleased him. He hated the idea of being old in my eyes, almost as much as hearing disagreeable things. The pleasing lies he loved were tonics, and I had to be very diplomatic with him.

"Yes, I am on the mend a bit,--but you never know."

Subconsciously he knew that he could not live long at best, but objectively he was always talking of getting better and planning for the future. On this occasion, however, he kept repeating "You never know" several times, following it with the remark:--

"I've been an incident to you,--a big one, but only an incident after all."

It was not like him to repeat himself, and I asked what he meant by it.

What follows I have put in and taken out of this biography several times.

There is too much concerning myself in it to be of interest to the public, and yet the unusual nature and quality of Mr. Saltus' mind are nowhere more forcefully exemplified.

"You might be my child. You may marry again some day?" he said.

"I might be struck by a comet or tumble on the third rail, with more probability. Jamais! Having broken you in has taken me to the door of the asylum. No more experiments. My arm is tired from wielding a cat-o'-nine-tails."

"Quite so, but all literary men are not 'litterers,' and all men are not literary. You might select more wisely next time."

"Disabuse your mind of that," I told him. "Such small wisdom as I have acquired has been paid for too dearly. Besides, there is only one Snipps, and no one else would understand me."

"That's it," he said. "I was awake half of last night thinking about it.

It's an awful thing to leave a helpless little girl all alone in a world of demons and vultures. The possibility haunts me."

"Then take your medicine like a good boy and stay here to look after me,"

he was told. "If it comes to a wheeled chair, I will wheel it, and we will go to California and live under blue skies and rose bushes, or to India, and sit at Mrs. Besant's feet."

This comforted him. Although he spoke constantly of dying, and quite as a matter of course, it was to be contradicted. He knew it was possible, but never did he admit that it was probable. The next day opened with a surprise. On my breakfast tray was the following, carefully written in Mr.

Saltus' best copper-plate hand:--

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR MY SUCCESSOR.

Read, mark, learn and inwardly reject.

1.--Thou shalt have no other G.o.d before or behind Mowgy. She will be supreme or nothing. Safety first.

2.--Few people will ever understand Mowgy. You will get the key quickly or never. If you haven't it,--run.