The Devourers Part 38

"What! more questions? Yes, I am young--not disconcertingly so. And good-tempered--not monotonously so. And almost pretty--not distractingly so.

"And I write to you, not because I am temerarious, but because the month is April and the time is twilight. And you are the Unknown."

The Unknown answered. And she wrote to him again. She put all her fancies and all her phrases into the letters. She wrote him lies and truth. She described herself to him as she thought she was not--but as perhaps she really was. In her letters she was a spoilt b.u.t.terfly, whirling through life with vivid wings.

As she wrote she grew to resemble the girl she wrote about. She borrowed money from Peggy and from George, who had fallen in love with her. She would pay it back some day. She bought clothes, and ran up debts, and signed notes, and resorted to expedients. All the cleverness that should have gone into her book she used in her everyday life to wrench herself free from the poverty that was choking her. "Nothing matters! Nothing matters!" Only to get out of the mire and the mud--to lift little Anne-Marie out of the hideous surroundings, to stand her up safe and high in the light, out of reach of the sordid struggle.

One day--a chilly afternoon in May--Aldo did not come home. Minna had gone to fetch Anne-Marie from school, when a messenger rang and gave Nancy a sealed letter.

In it Aldo said the chance of his life had come, and that he could not throw it aside--no! for her own sake, and for the child's, he would not do so. He thought not of himself. His thwarted ambitions, his warped talents, his stifled nature, had cried for a wider horizon. But not for this was he taking so grave a step. One day she would know how he was sacrificing himself for her sake. And he would open his arms, and she would fall on his breast and thank him. (Here was a blur--where Aldo's tear had fallen.) And he enclosed five hundred dollars. She was to be careful, as five hundred dollars was a large sum--two thousand five hundred francs. And she might take a smaller flat, and pay Minna eight dollars a month instead of ten. And she had better not write about this to Italy, as probably in a few months' time everything would be explained, and now farewell, and the Saints protect them! And she was to pray for him. And he was for ever her unhappy Aldo.

The messenger had darted off as soon as she had signed his receipt, and Nancy sat down, rigid and dazed, with her letter and the five-hundred-dollar bill in her hand.

Aldo was not coming back. Aldo had left her and the child to struggle through life alone. All that day she carried her heart cold and stern as a rock in her delicate breast.

In the evening she went into his room. True, it was a mean and miserable room. Everything in it--from the small window that looked out on a dark, damp wall to the torn carpet, from the crooked folding-bedstead to the broken piece of mirror leaning against the wall on the narrow mantelpiece--everything was horrible, everything was good to get away from. Nancy looked round, and pity drove the stinging tears to her eyes.

Poor Aldo! What had Aldo had, after all, to come home to? Not love. For the love that would have carried them through and over such wretchedness was not in Nancy's heart. Her love for him had been all for his beauty; her love had been a delicate, sensitive, blow-away creature, half ghost, half angel, whom to wound was to kill. And Fate had amused itself by throwing bricks and bats at it, choking it under mountains of ugliness, kicking it through crowded streets, dragging it up squalid stairs....

When Nancy drew the sheet from its face, she saw that it had been dead a long time. And she was sorry for Aldo.

She pulled his trunk out from under the bed, and remorsefully and compa.s.sionately put all his things into it--his books, his broken comb and cheap brushes, his old patent-leather shoes that he wore about the house instead of slippers, some packets of cigarettes. When she opened his dark cupboard, and saw that all the new clothes had been taken away, she smiled with a little sigh, and remembered how pale he had looked when he said good-bye that morning.

How had he got those five hundred dollars to give her? She knelt down suddenly beside the open trunk, and said a prayer for him, as he had wished her to do. When she rose and shut the trunk, she shut in it the memory of Aldo, that was not to be with her any more.

Anne-Marie hardly noticed her father's absence, talking of him occasionally in the airy, detached manner of children; but Minna went for a week with red eyes and swollen face. And after a while the accounts rose with a rush.

Nancy paid all her debts, bought some clothes, and gave Mrs. Johnstone notice. She engaged a suite in a fashionable boarding-house on Lexington Avenue. Peggy and George stayed with her the last day in the flat, and helped her with her packing; but in the evening they went back to their rooms, for they were expecting a friend--Mr. Markowski, a Pole--who was to come and make music with George.

Anne-Marie was asleep, and Nancy sat down in the denuded room where everything belonging to her had already been put away. The dead Mr.

Johnstone looked sadly at her, and even the piano-lamp was bland and dulcet, shining on the roses that George had brought her.

The postman's double knock startled her, and she received from his hand a letter. Aldo? No. It came from England, and was addressed to "Miss Brown." She called the grinning postman in, and gave him half a dollar.

Thank you. He would see that all them "Miss Brown" letters and any others were brought to her new address. She opened the letter; the large, well-known handwriting was pleasant to her eyes. The little crest of the Grand Hotel spoke to her of cheerful, well-remembered things.

She seemed to look through its round gold ring as through an opera-gla.s.s, that showed her far-away things she knew and loved. "Hotel Metropole." She imagined the brilliantly lit lounge, the gaily-gowned, laughing women rustling past with the leisurely, well-groomed men; the soft-footed, obsequious waiters; the ready, low-bowing porter; the willing, hurrying pageboys; and beyond the revolving gla.s.s doors London, bright, brilliant, luxurious, rolling to its pleasures.

She sat down and answered the Unknown's letter:

"The room is closed and warm and silent. The lamp and the fire give a mellow glow to the heavy old-rose curtains, and to the soft-tinted arabesques on the carpet. Some large pale roses are leaning drowsily over their vase, and dreaming their scented souls away.

"I am smoking a Russian cigarette (with a _soupcon_ of white heliotrope added to its fragrance), and writing to you.

"My unknown friend! Are you worthy of companionship with the scent of my roses and the smoke of my cigarette--such delicate, unselfish things?..."

A piercing cry from the adjoining room made Nancy leap from her chair.

Penholder in hand, she rushed into Anne-Marie's room. The child, a slip of white, was standing on her bed, pale of cheek, wild of eye, one hand extended towards the wall. Her tumbled hair stood yellow and flame-like round her head.

"Listen!" she gasped--"listen!" And Nancy stopped and listened.

Clearly and sweetly through the wall came the voice of a violin. Then the piano struck in, accompanying the "Romance" of Svendsen. Anne-Marie stood like a little wild prophetess, with her hand stretched out. Then she whispered: "It is the lovely piece--the lovely piece that he could not remember!"

"It is a violin, darling," said Nancy, and sat down on the bed.

But Anne-Marie was listening, and did not move. Nancy drew the blanket over the little bare feet, and put her arm round the slight, nightgowned figure.

The last long-drawn note ended; then Anne-Marie moved. She covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

"Why do you cry, darling--why do you cry?" asked Nancy embracing her.

Anne-Marie's large eyes gazed at Nancy. "For many things--for many things!" she said. And Nancy for the first time felt that her child's spirit stood alone, beyond her reach and out of her keeping.

"Is it the music, dear?"

Anne-Marie held her tight, and did not answer. Nancy coaxed her back to bed, and soon tucked her up and left her. But the door between them was kept wide open, and the sound of Grieg's "Berceuse" and Handel's "Minuet" reached Nancy at her table, and helped her to add fantastic details to her letter.

The next morning they moved to the boarding-house in Lexington Avenue.

They did not see George, who had already gone down-town to his shipping office; but Peggy helped them into the carriage, and with Minna ran up and down the stairs after forgotten parcels.

"What's wrong with the kiddy? She don't look festive," said Peggy, handing a hoop and a one-legged policeman, survivor of the Schmidl's Punch-and-Judy show, into the carriage to Anne-Marie.

"Your music yesterday excited her very much," said Nancy. "She liked the violin."

"Oh, that was Markowski. He's a funny old toad," said Peggy; and she got on to the carriage-step to kiss Anne-Marie. But Anne-Marie covered her face, and turned her head away. She seemed to be crying, and Peggy winked at Nancy, and said; "She's a queer little kid." And Nancy said, "She does not like good-byes." Then Minna got into the carriage with the cage of Anne-Marie's waltzing mice, for she was going to the boarding-house with them to help unpack.

"Good-bye! Au revoir! Come and see us soon!"... The carriage rumbled off. Minna had counted and recounted on her fingers how many things they had, and how many things they had forgotten, when Anne-Marie raised her red face from her hands.

"I _do_ like good-byes," she said. "But why did she say an old toad did the music?"

Nancy comforted her, and said it did not matter, and they were going to a nice, nice, nice new house.

The nice new house was expecting them, and a cheeky, pimply German page-boy took their packages up. He was rough with the hoop and the policeman, and held his nose as he carried up the waltzing mice. But the room they were to have was large and sunny, and everything was bright.

They went down to luncheon, and sat down at a table with many strangers.

Anne-Marie, who thought it was a party, was very shy in the beginning and very noisy at the end of the meal. The boarders were the kith and kin of all boarding-house guests. There was the silent old gentleman and the loud young man; the estimable couple that kept themselves to themselves; and the lady with the sulphur-coloured hair who did not keep herself to herself. There was the witty man and the sour woman; there were the ill-behaved children, that quarrelled all day and danced skirt-dances in the drawing-room at night; and their ineffectual mother and hara.s.sed father. There was also the Frenchman, the two Swedish girls, and the German lady.

The German lady sat opposite Nancy, and, having looked at her and at Anne-Marie once, continued to do so at intervals all during lunch. Every time Nancy raised her eyes she met those of the German lady fixed upon her. They were kindly, inquisitive brown eyes behind gla.s.ses. n.o.body spoke to Nancy at luncheon, the sulphur-haired lady and the witty man talking most of the time of their own affairs and their opinion of Sarah Bernhardt. Nancy was kept busy telling Anne-Marie in Italian not to stare at the two little girls, who seemed to fascinate her by their execrable behaviour.

In the evening Nancy went down to dinner alone. After the soup the German lady spoke to her.

"I hope the little girl is quite well," she said, nodding towards the empty place near Nancy.

"Oh yes, thank you. She has early supper and goes to bed."

"That is English habit," said the German lady. "Were you in England?"

"When I was a child," said Nancy.

Then the fish came; and always Nancy felt the brown eyes behind the gla.s.ses fixed on her face. At the mutton the German lady spoke again:

"I heard you speak Italian," she said. "Are you from _il bel paese ove il s suona_?"