John Marvel, Assistant Part 46

XXIX

MY CONFESSION

It is said that every woman has in her nature something feline. I will not venture on so sweeping an a.s.sertion; but I will say that one of the s.e.x was never excelled by any feline in her ability to torture and her willingness to tease the victim of her charms.

When I met Eleanor Leigh next after the memorable session on the dusty steps, I could not tell for my life what were her feelings toward me.

They were as completely veiled as though she had been accustomed from her infancy to enfold herself in impenetrable mystery. There was a subtle change in her manner profoundly interesting to me, but what it denoted I could not in the least discover, and every effort on my part to do so was frustrated with consummate art. She did not look at me and at moments appeared oblivious of my presence. She talked more than ever before of John Marvel, varied at times by admiring allusions to Leo Wolffert, until I almost began to hate them both. And all the while, she was so exasperatingly natural and innocent. A man may be a true friend to another, ready to serve him to the limit and may wish him all the happiness in the world, and yet may not desire the girl who has become his sun, moon and stars to appear to draw her light from his source. So, presently, like any other worm, I turned.

"You appear to think that there is no one else in the world like John Marvel!" I said, fuming inwardly.

"I do not. In a way, he stands by himself. Why, I thought you thought so too?"

"Yes, of course--I do--I mean--I believe you are in--" I hesitated to finish the sentence, and changed it. "I believe you think more of him than of any one else." I did not really believe this--I wished her to deny it; but not she! I was playing at a game at which she was an expert from her cradle. A subtle change of expression pa.s.sed over her face. She gave me a half glance, and then looked down. She appeared to be reflecting and as my eyes rested on her I became conscious of the same feeling of pleased wonder with which we gaze into a perfectly clear fountain whose crystal depths we may penetrate, but not fathom.

"Yes, I think I do, in a way--I think him--quite wonderful. He appears to me the embodiment of truth--rugged and without grace--but so restful--so real--so sincere. I feel that if any great convulsion of Nature should occur and everything should be overthrown, as soon as we emerged we should find Mr. Marvel there unchanged--like Truth itself, unchangeable. If ever I marry, it will be to some man like that--simple and strong and direct always--a rock." She gazed placidly down while this arrow quivered in my heart. I wanted to say, "Why, then, don't you marry him?" But we were already too perilously near the edge for me to push matters further in that direction. I wished also to say, "Why don't you marry me?" but I was not conscious at the moment of any remarkable resemblance to a rock of strength.

I recall her exact appearance as she waited. She happened to be arrayed that afternoon in a dark red dress, which fitted perfectly her slim, supple form, and her hat with a dark feather, and her dark hair about her brow gave her an air which reminded me of a red rose. It is not, however, the tint that makes the rose, but the rose itself. The rose is a rose, whether its petals be red or pink or white. And such she ever appeared to me. And the thorns that I found about her in no way detracted from her charms. Though I might have wished her less p.r.o.ne to show them, I did not find her pursuit the less delicious.

Just after this I decided to move my quarters. Pushkin was beginning to come again to the old Drummer's house, I did not know why--and though I did not meet him I could not bear to be under the same roof with him. I began to feel, too, the change in the household. Elsa had begun to change somehow. Instead of the little carols and s.n.a.t.c.hes like bird-songs that I used to hear before she went to her work, or in the evening when she returned, there was silence and sometimes sighs, and in place of smiles, gloom. Her face lost its bloom. I wondered what the poor thing was distressing herself about. My young Swede, too, whom I still occasionally saw, appeared to have lost that breezy freshness and glow which always reminded me of country meadows and upland hay-fields, and looked downcast and moody. In place of his good-humored smile, his ruddy face began to wear a glowering, sullen look; and finally he disappeared. The mother, also, changed, and her voice, formerly so cheery and pleasant, had a sharper tone than I had ever heard in it before, and even the old drummer wore a cloudier air, wholly different from his old-time cheeriness. In fact, the whole house had changed from the nest of content that it had been, and I began to plan moving to a better neighborhood which my improving practice appeared to justify. The chief thing that withheld me was that radiant glimpse of Miss Leigh which I sometimes got of a morning as she came tripping along the street with her little basket in her hand, and her face sweet with high thoughts. It set me up all day; attended me to my office, and filled it with sunshine and hope. Moreover, I was beginning to find in my a.s.sociation with John Marvel a certain something which I felt I should miss. He calmed me and gave me resolution. It appeared strange that one whom I had always looked down on should so affect me, but I could no longer hide it from myself. But against this reason for remaining I set the improvement in my condition that a better lodging-place would indicate. After a time, my broad-shouldered young Swedish car-driver came back and I was glad I had remained. Several times in the evening I found him in the house dressed up with shiny hair, a very bright necktie, and a black coat, the picture of embarra.s.sed happiness, and Elsa sitting up and looking prim and, I fancied, a trifle bored, though it might have been only demureness. When I heard her singing again, I a.s.sumed that it was the latter expression, and not the former, which I had observed. However, I came in one night and heard Pushkin's voice in the house and I was again at sea. Elsa in all the gayety of her best frock and ribbons, dashed by me as I mounted the stair to my room.

The next evening I was walking home late. I came on two persons standing in the shadow in a secluded spot. They stopped talking as I pa.s.sed and I thought I heard my name whispered. I turned and they were Elsa and Pushkin. What was he doing talking with her at that hour? I came near walking up and denouncing him then and there; but I reflected and went on, and when, a few minutes later, Elsa came in very red and scared-looking, I congratulated myself on my self-restraint and sagacity. The next morning was rainy and black, and I took a street car; and found that the motorman was my blue-eyed young Swede, and that he was as dark and cloudy that morning as the day.

That night, I heard Pushkin's voice in the house again, and my old friend's reply to him in a tone of expostulation. It was hard not to hear what Pushkin said, for the house was like a sounding-board. Pushkin was actually trying to borrow money--"more money," and he gave as his reason the absolute certainty that with this stake--"just this one loan," he should win an heiress--"One of the richest women in all the land," he said. He urged as a reason why the old fellow should lend it to him, that they were both from the same country, and that his grandfather, when a Minister of the Court, had appreciated Loewen's music and helped him to get his first place.

"And he was a shentlemans like me, and you nodings but a common trummer, hey? And--look here," he said, "I am going to marry a great heiress, and then I shall not haf to borrow any more. I shall haf all de moneys I want--my pockets full, and den I vill pay you one--two--t'ree times for all you haf lend me, hein? And now I, de shentlemans, comes to you, de common trummer, and calls you mine friend, and swear to pay you one--two--t'ree times over, certainlee you vill nod refuse me?"

The rest was in the language of their own country. The argument had its effect; for I could hear the old drummer's tone growing more and more acquiescent and the other's laugh becoming more and more a.s.sured, and finally I knew by his voice that he had succeeded.

I came near rising on the spot and going in and unmasking him. But I did not. I determined to wait until the next morning.

Next morning, however, when I came down I received notice that my room was no longer for rent. The announcement came to me from Mrs. Loewen, who gave it in her husband's name, and appeared somewhat embarra.s.sed. I could not see her husband. He had gone out "to meet a gentleman," she said. Her manner was so changed that I was offended, and contented myself with saying I would leave immediately; and I did so, only leaving a line addressed to my old drummer to explain my departure--I was sure that their action was in some way due to Pushkin. In fact, I was not sorry to leave though I did not like being put out. My only cause of regret was that I should miss my walk through the street where the young school-mistress was shining. I am not sure whether it was a high motive or a mean one which made me, as I left the house, say to Mrs. Loewen:

"You are harboring a scoundrel in that man Pushkin. Keep your eyes open." I saw a startled look in her eyes, but I did not wait to explain.

I did not feel comfortable that evening as I walked through the streets to the better quarters which I had taken. I knew that John Marvel would have said less or more. I half made up my mind to go to John and lay the matter before him. Indeed, I actually determined to do so. Other things, however, soon engrossed my thoughts and my time. I had to file my bill for my old ladies. And so this, like most of my good intentions, faded away.

In fact, about this time I was so wholly taken up with my love for the entrancing ideal that I had clad in the lineaments of Miss Eleanor Leigh and adorned with her radiance and charm that I had no thought for anything that was not in some way related to her. My work was suddenly uplifted by becoming a means to bring me nearer to my ambition to win her. My reading took on new meaning in storing my mind with lore or equipping it to fit it for her service; the outward form of nature displayed new beauty because she loved it. The inward realm of reflection took on new grace because she pervaded it. In a word, the whole world became but the home and enshrinement of one being, about whom breathed all the radiance and sweetness that I found in it. All of which meant simply that I was truly in love. Content with my love, I lived in a Heaven whose charm she created. But Love has its winter and it often follows close on its spring. I had played Fate again and waylaid her one afternoon as she was returning home from an excursion somewhere, and persuaded her to prolong her walk with an ease that lifted me quite out of myself, and I began to have aspirations to be very brave and good. I wished to be more like a rock, rugged and simple.

We were walking slowly and had reached a park, and I guilefully led her by a roundabout path through a part where the shrubbery made it more secluded than the rest. I can see the spot now as then I saw it: a curving gray road sloping down under overhanging trees, and a path dappled with sunlight dipping into ma.s.ses of shrubbery with a thrush glancing through them, like a little brown sprite playing hide-and-seek.

As we neared a seat, I suggested that we should sit down and I was pleased at the way in which she yielded; quite as if she had thought of it herself. It was almost the first time that I had her quite to myself in fair surroundings where we were face to face in body and soul. I felt, somehow, as though I had made a great step up to a new and a higher level. We had reached together a new resting-place, a higher atmosphere; almost a new land. And the surroundings were fresh to me in the city, for we had strayed out of the beaten track. I remember that a placid pool, shaded by drooping willows and one great sycamore, lay at our feet, on which a couple of half-domesticated wild-fowl floated, their graceful forms reflected in the mirror below them. I pointed to one and said, "Alcyone," and my heart warmed when she smiled and said, "Yes, at peace. 'The past unsighed for, and the future sure.'"

A quotation from a poet always pleases me. It is as if one found a fresh rose in the street, and where it comes from the lips and heart of a girl it is as though she had uttered a rose.

"Are you fond of Wordsworth?" I asked. "He seems to me very spiritual."

"Yes. In fact, I think I am fond of all poetry. It lifts me up out of the grosser atmosphere of the world, which I enjoy, too, tremendously--and seems to place me above and outside of myself. Some, even, that I don't understand. I seem to be borne on wings that I can't see into a rarer atmosphere that I can only feel, but not describe."

"That," I said, "as I understand it, is the province of poetry--and also, perhaps, its test."

"It has somewhat the same effect on me that saying my prayers has. I believe in something infinitely good and pure and blessed. It soothes me. I get into a better frame of mind."

"I should think your frame of mind was always 'a better frame,'" I said, edging toward the personal compliment and yet feeling as though I were endangering a beautiful dream.

"Oh! you don't know how worse I can be--how angry--how savage."

"Terribly so, I should think. You look like an ogress."

"I feel like one sometimes, too," she nodded. "I can be one when I have the provocation."

"As--for example?"

"Well, let me see?--Well,--for example, once--oh! quite a time ago--it was just after I met you--the very next day--" (My heart bounded that she could remember the very next day after meeting me--and should set dates by that important event. I wanted to say, that is the beginning of my era; but I feared)--"I got into a dreadful pa.s.sion--I was really ferocious."

"Terrible," I jested. "I suppose you would have poisoned your slaves, like the old Roman Empress--What was her name?"

"I was angry enough."

"And, instead, you gave the cat milk in place of cream, or did some such awful act of cruelty."

"Not at all. I did nothing. I only burned inwardly and consumed myself."

"And pray, what was the offence that called forth such wrath, and who was the wretch who committed the crime?"

"I had sufficient provocation."

"Of course."

"No, I mean really----"

"What?"

"Why, it was a piece that appeared in one of the morning papers, a vile scurrilous sheet that had always attacked my father covertly; but this was the first open attack, and it was simply a huge lie. And it has been repeated again and again. Why, only the other day the same paper republished it with huge headlines and charged that my father was the cause of all the trouble in the city--my father, who is the best, the kindest, the most charitable man I ever knew--who has almost beggared himself trying to furnish facilities to the poor! Oh, I can't bear it! I wish I had that man under my heel this minute! I would just grind him to powder! I would!" She turned, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks glowing with fervor, her face rigid with resolution, her white teeth shut together as if they were a trap to hold her enemy till death. "Give the cat milk! I could have poured molten metal down that man's throat--cheerfully--yes, cheerfully."

It may be well believed that as she proceeded, the amus.e.m.e.nt died out of my face and mind. I turned the other way to keep her from seeing the change that must have come over me. I was thinking hard and I thought quickly, as, 'tis said, a drowning man thinks. Life and death both flashed before me--life in her presence, in the sunlight of those last weeks, and the shadow of perpetual banishment. But one thing was certain. I must act and at once. I turned to her and was almost driven from my determination by the smile in her eyes, the April sunlight after the brief storm. But I seized myself and took the leap.

"I wrote that piece."

She actually laughed.

"Yes, I know you did."

"I did--seriously, I wrote it; but----"

I saw the horror oversweep her face. It blanched suddenly, like the pallor on a pool when a swift cloud covers the sun, and her hand went up to her bosom with a sudden gesture as of pain.

"Oh!" she gasped. The next second she sprang up and sped away like a frightened deer.