Out of the Air Part 17

Lindsay arose and sauntered into the front hall and up the stairs. He turned into the room at the right which he had reserved for work, now that Mrs. Spash was on the premises. At this moment, it was flooded with sunlight.... A faint odor of the honeysuckle vine at the corner seemed to emanate from the light itself....

Instantly ... he realized ... that the room was not empty.

Lindsay became feverishly active. Eyes down, he mechanically shuffled his papers. He collected yesterday's written ma.n.u.script, brought the edges down on the table in successive clicks, until they made an even, rectangular pile. He laid his pencils out in a row. He changed the point in his penholder. He moved the ink-bottle. But this availed his spirit nothing. "I am incredibly stupid," he said aloud. His voice was low, but it rang as hollowly as though he were from another world. "If you could only speak to me. Can't you speak to me?"

He did not raise his eyes. But he waited for a long interval, during which the silence in the room became so heavy and cold that it almost blotted out the sunlight.

"But have patience with me. I want to serve you. Oh, you don't know how I want to serve you. I give you my word, I'll get it sometime and I think not too late. I'll kill myself if I don't. I'm putting all I am and all I have into trying to understand. Don't give me up. It's only because I'm flesh and blood."

He stopped and raised his eyes.

The room was empty.

That afternoon Lindsay took a walk so long, so devil-driven that he came back streaming perspiration from every pore. Mrs. Spash regarded him with a glance in which disapproval struggled with sympathy. "I don't know as you'd ought to wear yourself out like that, Mr. Lindsay. Later, perhaps you'll need all your strength--"

"Very likely you're right, Mrs. Spash," Lindsay agreed. "But I've been trying to work it out."

Mrs. Spash left as usual at about seven. By nine, the last remnant of the long twilight, a collaboration of midsummer with daylight-saving, had disappeared. Lindsay lighted his lamp and sat down with Lutetia's poems. The room was peculiarly cheerful. The beautiful Murray sideboard, recently discovered and recovered, held its accustomed place between the two windows. The old Murray clock, a little ship swinging back and forth above its bra.s.s face, ticked in the corner. The old whale-oil lamps had resumed their stand, one at either end of the mantel. Old pieces, old though not Lutetia's--they were gone irretrievably--bits picked up here and there, made the deep sea-sh.e.l.l corner cabinet brilliant with the color of old china, glimmery with the shine of old pewter, sparkly with the glitter of old gla.s.s. Many chairs--windsors, comb-backs, a Boston rocker--filled the empty s.p.a.ces with an old-time flavor. In traditional places, high old gla.s.ses held flowers. The single anachronism was the big, nickel, green-shaded student lamp.

Lindsay needed rest, but he could not go to bed. He knew perfectly well that he was exhausted, but he knew equally well that he was not drowsy.

His state of mind was abnormal. Perhaps the three large cups of jet-black coffee that he had drunk at dinner helped in this matter. But whatever the cause, he was conscious of every atom of this exaggerated spiritual alertness; of the speed with which his thoughts drove; of the almost insupportable mental clarity through which they shot.

"If this keeps up," he meditated, "it's no use my going to bed at all tonight. I could not possibly sleep."

He found Lutetia's poems agreeable solace at this moment. They contained no anodyne for his restlessness; but at least they did not increase it.

Her poetry had not been considered successful, but Lindsay liked it. It was erratic in meter; irregular in rhythm. But at times it astounded him with a delicate precision of expression; at moments it surprised him with an opulence of fancy. He read on and on--

Suddenly that mental indicator--was it a flutter of his spirit or merely a lowering of the spiritual temperature?--apprised him that he was not alone.... But as usual, after he realized that his privacy had been invaded, he continued to read; his gaze caught, as though actually tied, by the print.... After a while he shut the book.... But he still sat with his hand clutching it, one finger marking the place.... He did not lift his eyes when he spoke....

"Tell the others to go," he demanded.

After a while he arose. He did not move to the other end of the room nor did he glance once in that direction. But on his side, he paced up and down with a stern, long-strided prowl. He spoke aloud.

"Listen to me!" His tone was peremptory. "We've got to understand each other tonight. I can't endure it any longer; for I know as well as you that the time is getting short. You can't speak to me. But I can speak to you. Lutetia, you've got to outdo yourself tonight. You must give me a sign. Do you understand? You _must_ show me. Now summon all that you have of strength, whatever it is, to give me that sign--do you understand, _all you have_. Listen! Whatever it is that you want me to do, it isn't here. I know that now. I know it because I've been here two months-- Whatever it is, it must be put through somewhere else. An idea came to me this morning. I spent all the afternoon thinking it out.

Maybe I've got a clue. It all started in New York. _He_ tried to get it to me there. Listen! Tell me! Quick! Quick! Quick! Do you want me to go to New York?"

The answer was instantaneous. As though some giant hand had seized the house in its grip, it shook. Shook for an infinitesimal fraction of an instant. Almost, it seemed to Lindsay, walls quivered; panes rattled; shutters banged, doors slammed. And yet in the next infinitesimal fraction of that instant he knew that he had heard no tangible sound.

Something more exquisite than sound had filled that unmeasurable interval with shattering, deafening confusion.

Lindsay turned with a sharp wheel; glared into the dark of the other side of the room.

Lindsay dashed upstairs to his desk. There he found a time-table. The ten-fifteen from Quinanog would give him ample time to catch the midnight to New York. He might not be able to get a sleeping berth; but the thing he needed least, at that moment, was sleep. In fact, he would rather sit up all night. He flung a few things into his suitcase; dashed off a note to Mrs. Spash. In an incredibly short time, he was striding over the two miles of road which led to the station.

There happened to be an unreserved upper berth. It was a superfluous luxury as far as Lindsay was concerned. He lay in it during what remained of the night, his eyes shut but his spirit more wakeful than he had ever known it. "Every revolution of these wheels," he said once to himself, "brings me nearer to it, whatever it is." He arose early; was the first to invade the washroom; the first to step off the train; the first to leap into a taxicab. He gave the address of Spink's apartments to the driver. "Get there faster than you can!" he ordered briefly. The man looked at him--and then proceeded to break the speed law.

Washington Square was hardly awake when they churned up to the sidewalk.

Lindsay let himself in the door; bounded lightly up the two flights of stairs; unlocked the door of Spink's apartment. Everything was silent there. The dust of two months of vacancy lay on the furnishings. Lindsay stood in the center of the room, contemplating the door which led backward into the rest of the apartment.

"Well, old top, _you're_ not going to trouble me any longer. I get that with my first breath. I've done what _she_ wanted and what _you_ wanted so far. Now what in the name of heaven is the next move?"

He stood in the center of the room waiting, listening.

And then into his hearing, stretched to its final capacity, came sound.

Just _sound_ at first; then a dull murmur. Lindsay's hair rose with a p.r.i.c.kling progress from his scalp. But that murmur was human. It continued.

Lindsay went to the door, opened it, and stepped out into the hall. The murmur grew louder. It was a woman's voice; a girl's voice; unmistakably the voice of youth. It came from the little room next to Spink's apartment.

Again Lindsay listened. The monotone broke; grew jagged; grew shrill; became monotonous again. Suddenly the truth dawned on him. It was the voice of madness or of delirium.

He advanced to the door and knocked. n.o.body answered. The monotone continued. He knocked again. n.o.body answered. The monotone continued. He tried the k.n.o.b. The door was locked. With his hand still on the k.n.o.b, he put his shoulder to the door; gave it a slow resistless pressure. It burst open.

It was a small room and furnished with the conventional furnishings of a bedroom. Lindsay saw but two things in it. One was a girl, sitting up in the bed in the corner; a beautiful slim creature with streaming loose red hair; her cheeks vivid with fever spots; her eyes brilliant with fever-light. It was she who emitted the monotone.

The other thing was a miniature, standing against the gla.s.s on the bureau. A miniature of a beautiful woman in the full lusciousness of a golden blonde maturity.

The woman of the miniature was Lutetia Murray.

The girl--

X

She felt that the room was full of sunshine. Even through her glued-down lids she caught the darting dazzle of it. She knew that the air was full of bird voices. Even through her drowse-filmed ears, she caught the singing sound of them. She would like to lift her lids. She would like to wake up. But after all it was a little too easy to sleep. The impulse with which she sank back to slumber was so soft that it was scarcely impulse. It dropped her slowly into an enormous dark, a colossal quiet.

Presently she drifted to the top of that dark quiet. Again the sunlight flowed into the channels of seeing. Again the birds picked on the strings of hearing. By an enormous effort she opened her eyes.

She stared from her bed straight at a window. A big vine stretched films of green leaf across it. It seemed to color the sunshine that poured onto the floor--green. She looked at the window for a long time.

Presently she discovered among the leaves a crimson, vase-like flower.

"Why, how thick the trumpet-vine has grown!" she said aloud.

It seemed to her that there was a movement at her side. But that movement did not interest her. She did not fall into a well this time.

She drifted off on a tide of sleep. Presently--perhaps it was an hour later, perhaps five minutes--she opened her eyes. Again she stared at the window. Again the wonder of growth absorbed her thought; pa.s.sed out of it. She looked about the room. Her little bedroom set, painted a soft creamy yellow with long tendrils of golden vine, stood out softly against the faded green cartridge paper.

"Why! Why have they put the bureau over there?" she demanded aloud of the miniature of Glorious Lutie which hung beside the bureau. With a vague alarm, her eyes sped from point to point. The dado of Weejubs stood out as though freshly restored. But all her pictures were gone; the four colored prints, Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter--each the head of a little girl, decked with buds or flowers, fruit or furs, had vanished. The faded squares where they had hung showed on the walls. Oh, woe, her favorite of all, "My Little White Kittens," had disappeared too. On the other hand--on table, on bureau, and on commode-top--crowded the little Chinese toys.

"Why, when did they bring them in from the Dew Pond?" she asked herself, again aloud.

With a sudden stab of memory, she reached her hand up on the wall. How curious! Only yesterday she could scarcely touch the spring; now her hand went far beyond it. She pressed. The little panel opened slowly.

She raised herself in bed and looked through the aperture.

Glorious Lutie's room was stark--bare, save for a bed and her long wooden writing-table.