She Buildeth Her House Part 11

ELEVENTH CHAPTER

PAULA IS SWEPT DEEP INTO A DESOLATE COUNTRY BY THE HIGH TIDE, BUT NOTES A QUICK CHANGE IN SELMA CROSS

Paula wrote a short letter to Quentin Charter in the afternoon, and did not begin to regret it until too late. It was not that she had said anything unwise or discordant--but that she had written at all.... Her heart felt dead. She had trusted her all to one--and her all was lost. A little white animal that had always been warm and petted, suddenly turned naked to face the reality of winter,--this was the first sense, and the paramount trouble was that she could not die quickly enough. The full realization was slow to come. Indeed, it was not until the night and the next day that she learned the awful reaches of suffering of which a desolated human mind is capable. It was like one of those historic tides which rise easily to the highest landmarks of the sh.o.r.e-dweller, and not till then begin to show their real fury, devastating vast fields heretofore virgin to the sea. Along many coasts and in many lives there is one, called The High Tide.... Paula felt that she could have coped with her sorrow, had this been a personal blow, but her faith in the race of men, the inspiration of her work, her dream of service--all were uprooted.

She did not pretend to deny that she had loved Quentin Charter--her first and loftiest dream of a mate, the heart's cry of all her womanhood. True, as man and woman, they had made no covenant, but to her (and had he not expressed the same in a score of ways?), there had been enacted a more wonderful adjustment, than any words could bring about.

This was the havoc. She had lost more than a mere human lover. She dared now to say it, because, in losing, she perceived how great it had become--the pa.s.sion was gone from her soul. Her place in the world was desolate; all her labors pointless. As a woman, she had needed his arms, less than an anchorage of faith in his n.o.bility. And how her faith had rushed forth to that upper window across the States!

_Words_--the very word was poison to her. Writing--an emptiness, a treachery. Veritably, he had torn the pith out of all her loved books.... Bellingham had shown her what words meant--words that drew light about themselves, attracting a brilliance that blinded her; words that wrought devilishness in the cover of their white light--but Bellingham had not a.s.sailed her faith. This was the work of a man who had lifted her above the world, not one who called from beneath.

Bellingham could not have crippled her faith like this--and left it to die.... Almost momentarily, came the thought of his letters--thoughts _from_ these letters. They left her in a dark--that was madness....

And if they were false, what was the meaning of her exaltations? Night and morning she had looked into the West, sending him all the graces of her mind, all the secrets of her heart. He had told her of the strange power that had come to him, of the new happiness--how, as never before, he had felt radiations of splendid strength. She had not hurried him to her, but had read with ecstasy, believing that a t.i.the of his new power was her gift.... Words, desolate, d.a.m.nable words.... "And I had thought to heal and lift New York," she exclaimed mockingly, looking down into the gray streets after the age-long night. "New York holds fast to her realities--the things she has found sure. It is well to be normal and like New York!"

The day after the door had shut upon Selma Cross, Paula was a betrayed spirit wandering alone in polar darkness. She had not slept, nor could she touch food. Twice the actress had rapped; repeatedly the telephone called--these hardly roused her. Letters were thrust under her door and lay untouched in the hall. She was lying upon the lounge in the little room of books, as the darkness swiftly gathered that second day. All the meanings of her childhood, all the promises for fulfillment with the years, were lost. The only pa.s.sion she knew was for the quick end of life--to be free from the world, and its Bellinghams.

"G.o.d, tell me," she murmured, and her voice sounded dry and strange in the dark, "what is this thing, Soul, which cries out for its Ideal--builds its mate from all things pure, from dreams that are cleansed in the sky; dreams that have not known the touch of any earthly thing--what is this Soul, that, now bereft, cries with Rachel, 'Death, let me in!...' Oh, Death, put me to sleep--put me to sleep!"

Voices reached her from the hall:

"You can knock or ring, sir, if you like," the elevator-man was saying, "but I tell you Miss Linster is not there. She has not answered the 'phone, and there is one of the letters, sticking out from under the door, that I put there this morning, or yesterday afternoon."

"When did you see her last?" The voice was Reifferscheid's.

"Day before yesterday she was in and out. Miss Cross, the lady who lives in this other apartment, said she called on Miss Linster yesterday morning."

"The point is that she left no word--either with you or with us--before going away. We are very good friends of hers. I'll ring for luck----"

The bell rang long and loudly. Paula imagined the thick thumb pressed against it, and the big troubled face. She wanted to answer--but facing Reifferscheid was not in her that moment.... The elevator was called from below.

"No use," Reifferscheid said finally. "Here's a coin for your trouble.

I'll call up the first thing in the morning----"

She heard the click of the elevator-door, and the quick whine of the car, sinking in the shaft. She recalled that she had not been at _The States_ for four or five days. She had intended going down-town yesterday.... She thought long of Reifferscheid's genuine and changeless kindness, of his constant praise for sincerity anywhere and his battling for the preservation of ideals in all work. His faith in Charter recurred to her--and his frequently unerring judgments of men and women she had known. All about him was st.u.r.dy and wholesome--a substance, this, to hold fast.... Reifferscheid had come in the crisis. Paula fell asleep, thinking of snails and stickle-backs, flowers and Sister Annie, big trees and solid friends.

She awoke in a different world--at least, a world in which tea and toast and marmalade were reckonable. Her thoughts went bravely down into the depression for salvage; and a mind that can do this is not without hope.

It was only eight. Reifferscheid had not yet 'phoned.... Charter would have her letter now, or soon--that letter written seven eternities ago in the first hysteria, while she could yet weep. She could not have written in the ice-cold silence of yesterday. She wished that she had not let him see that she could weep. When the tragedy had risen to high-tide in her soul--there had been no words for him. Would she ever write again?...

Her mind reverted now to the heart of things. In the first place, Selma Cross would not intentionally lie. She asked so little of men--and had asked less a few years ago--that to have her call one "cad" with an adjective, was a characterscape, indeed. That she had intimately known Quentin Charter three years before, was unsettling in itself.... True, he made no pretensions to a righteous past. All his work suggested utter delvings into life. He had even hinted a background that was black-figured and restlessly stirring, but she had believed that he wrote these things in the same spirit which prompted the ascetic Th.o.r.eau to say, "I have never met a worse man than myself." She believed that the evils of sense were not so complicated, but that genius can fathom them without suffering their defilement. His whole present, as depicted in his letters, was a song--bright as his open prairies, and pure as the big lakes of his country.... Could she become reconciled to extended periods of physical abandonment in the Charter-past? Faintly her heart answered, but quickly, "Yes, if they are forever nameless...." "Specific abandonments?" Her mind pinned her heart to this, with the added sentence, "Is it fair for you not to hear what Selma Cross has to say--and what Quentin Charter may add?..."

The elevator-man was at the door with further letters. He did not ring, because it was so early. Softly, she went into the hall. There was an acc.u.mulation of mail upon the floor--two from _The States_; one from Charter.... This last was opened after a struggle. It must have been one of those just brought, for it was dated, the day before yesterday, and she usually received his letters the second morning. Indeed, this had been written on the very afternoon that she had penned her agony.

I know I shall be sorry that I have permitted you to find me in a black mood like this, but I feel that I must tell you. A sense of isolation, altogether new, since first your singing came, flooded over me this afternoon. It is as though the invisible connections between us were deranged--as if there had been a storm and the wires were down. It began about noon, when the thought of the extreme youth of my soul, beside yours, began to oppress me. I perceived that my mind is imperiously active rather than humbly wise; that I am capable of using a few thoughts flashily, instead of being great-souled from rich and various ages. Ordinarily, I should be grateful for the gifts I have, and happy in the bright light from you--but this last seems turned away. Won't you let me hear at once, please?

She was not given long to ponder upon this strange proof of his inner responsiveness; yet the deep significance of it remained with her, and could not but restore in part a certain impressive meaning of their relation. Selma Cross called, and Reifferscheid 'phoned, as Paula was just leaving for down-town. It had been necessary, she explained, to the literary editor in his office, for her to make a sorry little pilgrimage during the past few days. She was very grateful it was over.

Reifferscheid said abruptly that pilgrimages were nefarious when they made one look so white and trembly.

"The point is, you'd better make another to Staten Island," he added.

"Nice rough pa.s.sage in a biting wind, barren fields, naked woods, and all that. Besides, you must see my system of base-burners----"

"I'll just do that--when I catch up a little on my work," Paula said.

"I'm actually yearning for it, but there are so many loose ends to tie up, that I couldn't adequately enjoy myself for a day or two. Really, I'm not at all ill. You haven't enough respect for my endurance, which is of a very good sort."

"Don't be too sure about that," Reifferscheid said quickly. "It's altogether too good to be hurt.... Do you realize you've never had your hat off in this office?"

"I hadn't thought of it," she said, studying him. Plainly by his bravado he wasn't quite sure of his ground.

"There ought to be legislation against people with hair the color of yours----" Reifferscheid regarded her a moment before he added, "wearing hats. You must come over to Staten--if for no other reason----"

"Oh, I begin to see perfectly now," Paula observed. "You want to add me to your system of base-burners."

He chuckled capaciously. "Early next week, then?"

"Yes, with delight"

He did not tell her of being worried to the point of travelling far up-town to ring the bell of her apartment. She could not like him less for this.... There was a telegram from Charter, when she reached home.

In the next two hours, a thought came to Paula and was banished a score of times; yet with each recurrence it was more integrate and compelling.

This was Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Selma Cross returned from her matinee shortly before six and was alone. Paula met her in the hall, and followed into the other's apartment.

"I have just an hour, dear. Dimity has supper ready. Stay, won't you?"

"Yes," Paula forced herself to say. "I wanted to ask you about Quentin Charter. You were called away--just as you were speaking of him the other morning.... I have not met him, but his two recent books are very wonderful. I reviewed the second for _The States_. He thanked me in a letter which was open to answer."

Selma Cross stretched out her arms and laughed mirthlessly. "And so you two have been writing letters?" she observed. "I'm putting down a bet that his are rich--if he's interested."

Paula had steeled herself for this. There were matters which she must learn before making a decision which his telegram called for. Her mind held her inexorably to the work at hand, though her heart would have faltered in the thick cloud of misgivings.

"Yes, there is much in his letters--so much that I can't quite adjust him to the name you twice designated. Remember, you once before called him that--when I didn't know that you were speaking of Quentin Charter."

"I'll swear this much also," Selma Cross said savagely, "he has found your letters worth while."

"Is that to the point?"

"Why, yes Paula," the other replied, darting a queer look at her. "If I am to be held to a point--it is--because, as a writer, he uses what is of value. He makes women mad about him, and then goes back to his garret, and sobers up enough to write an essay or a story out of his recent first-hand studies in pa.s.sion."

"You say he was drinking--when you knew him?"

"Enough to kill another man. It didn't seem to make his temperament play less magically. He was never silly or limp, either in mind or body, but he must have been burned to a cinder inside. He intimated that he didn't dare to go on exhibition any day before mid-afternoon."

Paula, very pale, bent forward and asked calmly as she could: "I wish you would tell me _just_ what Quentin Charter did to make you think of him always--in connection with that name."

"On condition that you will recall occasionally that you have a plate before you--also supper, which won't stay hot." Selma Cross spoke with some tension, for she felt that the other was boring rather pointedly, and it was not her time of day for confessions. Still, the quality of her admiration for Paula Linster involved large good nature.

".... Extraordinary, as it may seem, my dear, Charter made me believe that he was pa.s.sionately in love. I was playing Sarah Blixton in _Caller Herrin_,--my first success. It was a very effective minor part and an exceptionally good play. It took his eye--my work especially--and he arranged to meet me. Felix Larch, by the way, took care of this formality for him. Incidentally, I didn't know Felix Larch, but my cue was greatly to be honored. Charter told me that Larch said I was peculiar for an actress and worth watching, because I had a brain....

The man, Charter, was irresistible in a wine-room. I say in a wine-room, not that his talk was of the sort you might expect there, but that he was drinking--and was at home nowhere else. You see, he has a working knowledge of every port in the world, and to me it seemed--of every book. Then, he has a sharp, swift, colorful way of expressing himself.... I told you, Villiers was away. I couldn't realize that it was merely a new type Charter found in me.... We were together when I wasn't at work. It was a wild and wonderful fortnight--to me. He used to send notes in the forenoon--things he thought of, when he couldn't sleep, he said. I knew he was getting himself braced in those early hours.... Then, one night at supper, he informed me that he was leaving for the West that night. He had only stopped in New York, on the way home from Asia, via Suez. I was horribly hurt, but there was nothing for me to say. He was really ill. The drink wouldn't bite that night, he said. We finished the supper like two corpses, Charter trying to make me believe he'd be back shortly. I haven't seen him since."