She Buildeth Her House Part 21

"The work--your ship filled with gasping unfortunates from the city!"

"Do you happen to know of any reason why an idle ship should not be used for some such purpose?"

"None, whatever," she said demurely, quite willing that he should adjust the matter to suit himself. His touchiness upon the subject of his own benefactions remanded her pleasurably of Reifferscheid. Her inward joy was to study in Peter Stock the unacknowledged influence of Father Fontanel--or was it an unconscious influence? The American's further activities unfolded:

"By the way, have you been reading the French paper here--_Les Colonies_?"

Paula had not.

"The editor, M. Mondet, is the smug authority for a statement yesterday that Saint Pierre is in absolutely no danger from the mountain. Now, of course, this may be true, but he doesn't know it--unless he should have the Dealer in Destiny on the wire. There is always a big enough percentage of foolish virgins in a city, so it peeved me to find one in the sole editorial capacity. My first impulse was to calk up the throat of M. Mondet with several sheets of his abominable a.s.surances. This I restrained, but nevertheless I called upon him to-day. His next issue appears day after to-morrow, and my idea is for him to print a vigorous warning against Pelee. Why, he could clear the town of ten thousand people for a few days--until the weather settles. Incidentally, if the mountain took on a sudden destroying streak--just see what he would have done! Some glory in saving lives on that scale."

"Vine leaves, indeed," said Paula, "Did M. Mondet tell you he would print this warning?"

"Not exactly. He pointed out the cost of detaching a third of the city's inhabitants. I told him how this cost could be brought down within reason, and showed myself not unwilling to back the exodus. I'm a practical man, Miss Wyndam, and these things look bigger than they really are. But you never can tell what a tubby little Frenchman will do. It's atrocious for a man in his position to say that a volcano won't volcane--sorely tempting to old Father Pelee--a sort of challenge. It would be bad enough to play Pilate and wash his hands of the city's danger--but to be a white-lipped, kissing Judas at the last supper of Saint Pierre----"

"Did you tell him that?" Paula asked hastily.

"Not in those words, Miss Wyndam, but he seemed to be a bit afraid of me--kept watching my hands and pulling at his cravat. When he finally showed me to the door, his was the delicacy of one who handles dynamite.

At all events, I'm waiting for his next issue to see if my call 'took!'

I really do wish that a lot of these people would forget their clothes, chickens, coals, coins, and all such, for a few days and camp somewhere between here and Fort de France."

Paula was thrilled by the American's zeal. He was not content, now that he had begun, to deal with boatloads, but wanted to stir the city. She would have given much to know the exact part of Father Fontanel in this rousing ardor of her new friend. "And you really think Pelee may not hold out?" she asked.

"I'm not a monomaniac--at least, not yet," he replied, and his voice suggested a certain pent savagery in his brain. "Call it an experiment that I'm sufficiently interested in to finance. The ways of volcanoes are past the previsions of men. I'd like to get a lot of folks out of the fire-zone, until Pelee is cool--or a billion tons lighter. This ordered-up-to-Nineveh business is out of my line, but it's absorbing. I don't say that Pelee will blow his head off this week or this millennium, but I do say that there are vaults of explosives in that monster, the smallest of which could make this city look like a leper's corpse upon the beach. I say that the internal fires are burning high; that they're already playing about the vital cap; that Pelee has already sprung several leaks, and that the same force which lifted this cheerful archipelago from the depths of the sea is pressing against the craters at this moment. I say that Vesuvius warned before he broke; that Krakatoa warned and then struck; that down the ages these safety valves scattered over the face of the earth have mercifully joggled before giving way; that Pelee is joggling now."

"If M. Mondet would write just that," Paula said softly, "I think you would have your exodus."

She sought her room shortly afterward. Pelee's moods had been variable that day. The north had been obscured by a fresh fog in the afternoon.

The ash and sulphur fumes, cruel to the lungs on the breezy _Morne_, six miles from the craters, gave her an intimation of the anguish of the people in the intervening depression where the city lay. The twilight had brought ease again and a ten-minute shower, so there was real freshness in the early evening. Rippling waves of merriment reached her from the darky quarters, as the young men from the fields came forth to bathe in the sea. Never before was the volatile tropic soul so strongly evidenced for her understanding, as in that glad hour of reaction--simple hearts to glow at little things, whose swift tragedies come and go like blighting winds which, though they may slay, leave no wound; instant to gladden in the groves of serenity, when a black cloud has blown by.

Her mind was sleepless.... Once, long after midnight, when she fell into a doze, it was only to be awakened by a dream of a garrote upon her throat. The ash had thickened again, and the air was acrid. The hours seemed to fall asleep in pa.s.sing. From her balcony she peered into the dead-black of the North where Pelee rumbled at intervals. Back in the south, the blurred moon impended with an evil light. A faint wailing of children reached her from the servants' cabins. The sense of isolation was dreadful for a moment. It seemed to rest entirely with her that time pa.s.sed at all; that she must grapple with each moment and fight it back into the past....

The _Panther_, a fast ship with New York mail, was due to call at Saint Pierre within forty-eight hours. Paula, to hasten the pa.s.sing of time, determined to take the little steamer over to Fort de France for a day, if morning ever came. She must have slept an hour after this decision, for she was unconscious of the transition from darkness to the parched and brilliant dawn which roused her tired eyes. The gla.s.s showed her a pallid face, darkly-lined.

The blinding light from the East changed the dew to steam before it touched the ground. The more delicate blossoms in the gardens withered in that hectic burning before the sun was an hour high. Driving down through the city to the Landing she found the _Rue Victor Hugo_ almost deserted. The _porteuses_ were gone from the highway; all doors were tightly shut, strangely marring the tropical effect; broken window-panes were stuffed with cloths to keep out the vitiated air. The tough little island mules (many in their panniers with no one leading), scarcely moved, and hugged the east walls for shade. From the by-ways she imagined the smell of death.

"Hottest morning Saint Pierre has known for years," the captain said, as she boarded the little steamer which hurriedly put off.... Night had fallen (and there had been little to break the misery of Saint Pierre that day), when she reached the Hotel once more. She retired immediately after dinner to take advantage of a fresh, south wind which came with the dark and promised to make sleep possible.... Rumblings from the volcano awoke her just before dawn. Glancing out over the harbor, she perceived the lights of a big liner lying near the _Saragossa_. There was no sleep after this discovery, since she felt this must be the _Panther_ with letters from New York. According to her schedule, the steamer had cleared from Manhattan a full week after the _Fruitlands_.

Paula breakfasted early, and inquired at the desk how soon the mails would be distributed.

"Did you arrange at the post-office to have your mail sent care of the Hotel?" the clerk inquired.

"Yes."

"The bags should be here very shortly, Miss Wyndam. The _Panther_ anch.o.r.ed at two this morning."

"Please send any letters for me to my room at once," she told him, and went there to wait, so that she might be alone to read.... Madame Nestor's writing was upon one envelope, and Reifferscheid's upon another, a large one, which contained mail sent to Paula Linster in his care to be forwarded to Laura Wyndam, among them letters from Selma Cross and Quentin Charter, as well as a note from the editor himself.

The latter she read first, since the pages were loose in the big envelope. It was a joyous, cheery message, containing a humorous account of those who called to inquire about her, a bit of the gospel of work and a hope for her health--the whole, brief, fine and tonic--like her friend.... Tearing open the Charter letter, she fell into a vortex of emotions:

This is my fifth day in New York, dear Skylark, and I have ceased trying to find you. It was not to trouble or frighten you that I searched, but because I think if you understood entirely, you would not hide from me. I hope Miss Cross has had better success than I in learning your whereabouts, because she has changed certain views regarding me. If you shared with her those former views, it is indeed important that you learn the truth, though it is not for me to put such things in a letter.

I have not seen Miss Cross since that first night; nor have I had the heart yet to see _The Thing_. Reifferscheid tells me that you may be out of the city for two or three months. I counted him a very good friend of mine, but he treats me now with a peculiar aversion, such as I should consider proper for one to hold toward a wife-beater. It is all very strange and subtly terrifying--this ordeal for which I have been prepared.

I see now that I needed the three full years of training. What I cannot quite adjust yet is that I should have made you suffer. My every thought blessed you. My thoughts bless you to-night--sweet gift of the world to me.

Live in the sun and rest, Skylark; put away all shadowy complications--and you will bring back a splendid store of energy for the tenser New York life. I could not have written so calmly a few days ago, for to have you think evil of me drove straight and swiftly to the very centres of sanity--but I have won back through thoughts of you, a noon-day courage; and it has come to me that our truer relation is but beginning.

I have not yet the fibre for work; New York is empty without you, as my garret would be without your singing. I shall go away somewhere for a little, leaving my itinerary--when I decide upon it--at the _Granville_. Some time soon I shall hear from you. All shall be restored--even serenity to your beautiful spirit. I only suffer now in that it proved business of mine to bring you agony. I wanted to make you glad through and through; to lift your spirit, not to weight it down; to make you wiser, happier,--to keep you _winged_. This, as I know the truth, has been my constant outbreathing to you....

My window at the _Granville_ faces the East--the East to which I have come--yet from the old ways, I still look to the East for you. New York has found her Spring--a warm, almost vernal night, this, and I smell the sea.... Two big, gray dusty moths are fluttering at the gla.s.s--softly, eagerly to get at the light--as if they knew best.... They have found the way in, for the window was partly open, and have burned their wings at the electric bulb. The a.n.a.logy is inevitable ... but _you_ would not be hurt, for flame would meet flame.... I turned off the light a moment and remembered that you have already been hurt, but that was rather because flame was not restored by flame....

One moth has gone away. The other has curled up on my table like a faded cotton umbrella. So many murder the soul this way in the pursuit of dead intellectual brilliance....

Bless your warm heart that brims with singing--singing which I must hear again.... An old sensation comes to me now as I cease to write. My garret always used to grow empty and heartless--as I closed and sealed a letter to you.... You are radiant in the heart of Quentin Charter.

She was unconscious of pa.s.sing time, until her eye was attracted by the heavy handwriting of Selma Cross upon a _Herriot Theatre_ envelope. This communication was an attempt to clear herself with Paula, whose intrinsic clarity had always attracted truth from the actress; also it seemed to contain a struggle to adjust herself, when once she began to write, to the garment of nettles she had woven from mixed motives.

I am almost frantic searching for you. I knew you were in the hall _that night_, because I saw your hat as you started to walk down. Charter was saying things about the stage that made me want to shut the door, but I must tell you why I made him come there. When it occurred to me how horribly you had been hurt by my disclosures regarding him, the thought drove home that there might be some mistake. You would not see him, so I sent a telephone-message to the _Granville_ for him to call.

He, of course, thought the message from you. Indeed, he would not have come otherwise. He avoided me before, and that night, he certainly would have seen no one but you. Our elevator-man at the _Zoroaster_ had orders from me to show a gentleman inquiring for you about seven, to my apartment.

My thought was, to learn if by any possibility I was wrong in what I had told you. I even thought I might call you in that night. Anyway, you would be just across the hall--to hear at once any good word. He thought at first that it was a trap that _we_ had arranged--that you were somewhere in the apartment listening! Oh, I'm all in a welter of words--there is so much, and your big brute of an editor would give me no help. The woman in your rooms is quite as blank about you. I never beat so helplessly against a wall.

But here's the truth: Charter did not talk about our relations.

Villiers had a spy watching all our movements--and was thus informed. Then, when he got back, Villiers told me that Charter had talked to men--all the things that his spy had learned. He did this to make me hate Charter. This is the real truth.

Charter seems to have become a monk in the three years. This is not so pleasant to write as it will be for you to read, but he would not even mention your name in my room! I want to say that if it is not you--some woman has the new Quentin Charter heart and soul. I could have done the thing better, but the dramatic possibility of calling him to the _Zoroaster_ blinded my judgment, and what a hideous farce it turned out! But you have the truth, and I, my lesson. Please forgive your fond old neighbor--who wasn't started out with all the breeding in the world, but who meant to be square with you.

Paula felt that she could go down into the tortured city at this moment with healing for every woe. She paced the room, and with outstretched arms, poured forth an ecstasy of grat.i.tude for his sake; for the restoration of her Tower; for this new and glorious meaning of her womanhood. The thought of returning to New York by the first boat occurred; and the advisability of cabling Quentin Charter for his ease of mind.... At all events, the time of the next steamer's leaving for New York must be ascertained at once. She was putting on her hat, when Madame Nestor's unopened letter checked her precipitation. The first line brought back old fears:

I'm afraid I have betrayed you, my beloved Paula. It is hard that my poor life should be capable of this. Less than two hours ago, as I was busied about the apartment, the bell rang and I answered. At the door stood Bellingham. He caught my eyes and held them. I remember that instant, the suffocation,--the desperate but vain struggle to keep my self-control. Alas, he had subjected my will too thoroughly long ago. Almost instantly, I succ.u.mbed to the old mastery.... When his control was lifted, I was still standing by the opened door, but he was gone. The elevator was at the ground-floor. He must have pa.s.sed by me and into the apartment, for one of your photographs was gone. I don't think he came for that, though of course it will help him to concentrate I cannot tell what else happened in the interval, but my dreadful fear is that he made me divulge your place of refuge. What other purpose could he have? It is almost unbearable that I should be forced to tell him--when I love you so--if, indeed, that has come to pa.s.s.... He has altered terribly since the accident. I think he has lost certain of his powers--that his thwarted desire is murdering him. He did not formerly need a photograph to concentrate. His eyes burned into mine like a wolf's. I know, even in my sorrow, that yours is to be the victory. He is breaking up or he would not _come to you_....

For a moment or two Paula was conscious of Pelee, and the gray menace that charged the burnt-out air.

Then came the thought of Father Fontanel and the door that was never locked; and presently her new joy returned with ever-rising vibration--until the long-abated powers of her life were fully vitalized again.... She was wondering, as she stepped into the hall and turned the key in her door, if she would be considered rather tumultuous in cabling Charter.... At the stairway, she halted, fearing at first some new mental seizure; then every faculty furiously-nerved, she listened at the bal.u.s.trade for the repet.i.tion of a voice that an instant before had thrilled her to the soul.... There had only been a sentence or two from the Voice. Peter Stock was now replying:

"He's a man-servant of the devil, this pudgy editor," he said striding up and down the lower hall in his rage. "A few days ago I called upon him, and in sweet modesty and limping French explained the proper policy for him to take about this volcano. To-day he devotes a half-column of insufferable humor to my force of character and alarmist views. Oh, the flakiness of the French mind! M. Mondet certainly fascinates me. I shall have to call upon him again."

Paula heard the low laugh of the other and the words:

"Let's sit down, Mr. Stock. I want to hear all about the editor and the mountain. I was getting to sea somewhere, when the New York papers ran a line about Pelee's activity. It started luring memories, and I berthed at once for Saint Pierre. It was mighty good to see the _Saragossa_ lying familiarly in the roadstead----"

Trailing her fingers along the wall to steady herself, Paula made her way back to the door of her room, which she fumblingly unlocked.

NINETEENTH CHAPTER

QUENTIN CHARTER IS ATTRACTED BY THE TRAVAIL OF _PELeE_, AND ENCOUNTERS A QUEER FELLOW-VOYAGER