The House of Toys Part 21

"I'm not quite sure, but I think it's a wholly imaginary creature much taken by the charms of haberdashery clerks."

"I see. I don't think of any place now. Unless--" She hesitated doubtfully.

"Unless what?"

"My aunt has a third-story room that is empty. It's a very nice room, though it isn't furnished now. There are only two other roomers, who are very quiet and never bother any one. We never fry onions and there is a pretty good boarding-house only a block away. You could get your meals there."

"It sounds like the very thing. I could furnish the room myself with some of my stuff that's in storage. And-- Do you happen to live there?"

"I happen to. Of course, if that's an objection--" She laughed.

"Would you let me set my door on a crack when you sing?"

She nodded. "Since you'd probably do it anyhow!"

"Then I think I could waive that objection. Would you mind speaking to your aunt about it?"

"This very night," she said.

That is how David went to live under the same roof that sheltered Esther Summers.

It seemed a harmless arrangement. He saw her very rarely there. In the morning he left the house before she did, at the end of the day stayed longer at the office; not by intention but because his work called for longer hours. In the evening she stayed with her faded old aunt in their part of the house. The other roomers were as quiet and exclusive as the prospectus had promised. So David, in his new quarters--pleasant enough once his things had been installed--was left alone with his books, his letters to Shirley and his work for the successful d.i.c.k Holden.

But there was something in that house--not to be accounted for by mere creature comforts--that made it easier to fight off the blue devils of loneliness and took away a little of the reminder's stings when some tantalizing shape appeared in his tobacco clouds. Every morning he was awakened by her voice at the piano, a few minutes of scales and then one song, always a true matin song, full of hope and the sheer joy of living. In the evening she sang again, a little longer at scales and another song, sometimes two. Then David's door would be set on a crack and he would lean back in his chair, listening and thrilling with some emotion as vague but as beautiful as a very good idea in ecclesiastical architecture. Sometimes a film would come over his eyes; it is not clear why, for when she sang he forgot to remember that he was a failure, that he was in mourning for a love lately dead and that he had become a mere drudge for money.

One evening when he had been under that roof for nearly three weeks she did not stop with the second or even the third song. Ballads and arias followed until she had sung steadily for more than an hour. Wondering, David stole from his room and sat with the other roomers on the stairs, listening raptly to the golden voice that floated up to them. And not once did it falter or lose its pure timbre.

Silence fell at last. The other roomers, sighing, went back to their rooms. David went down to the parlor.

The singer was still sitting before the piano, absent eyes fixed on the open sheet of music; a happy but half-incredulous smile was playing about her lips. It became a friendly welcoming smile when she saw him at the door.

"Did you like my little concert?"

"Like it!" He used a gesture to explain that she had set too big a task for his tongue.

Her cheeks made answer.

"Do you know," he asked abruptly, "that your voice is getting better and stronger all the time?"

"I think so," she said quietly.

"Don't you think that maybe your throat is getting well?"

"I think so. But I can't be sure. It's too soon to tell yet. And it's too good to be true."

"Oh, no!" he protested. "You mustn't say that. You mustn't _think_--"

He stopped with a curt laugh. "That's queer advice from me."

"But it's very good advice--for any one, I am sure." Her eyes had become very grave. "And I shouldn't have said that, for it really doesn't matter so much as it did once. You see, I was pretty cowardly about it at first, when I found I couldn't depend on my voice. Because I couldn't have all I wanted I wouldn't have anything at all. For two years I wouldn't sing a note. The doctor says the long rest is what gives me a chance now, but I don't deserve that. I made myself foolishly unhappy. But it's different now. Even if I can't go back to studying or ever hope to do big things, I know I can sing a little for myself and get a great deal of happiness out of that."

It may be that her smile was a little too bright.

"Do you really mean that?" he asked. "Or are you only whistling again to keep up your courage?"

"If I'm only whistling--why, please let me whistle. But I think I do mean it. It's very sound philosophy. Even if the lame duckling can't fly, is there any reason why it shouldn't waddle for the fun of it?"

And now the smile was just as it should have been.

David considered that. For some reason hidden from her his cheeks were burning; you would have said that he was ashamed again.

"No reason at all," he said at last, "if the duckling happens to be very brave. But I hope she is going to fly very high and very far."

And with that he left her, more abruptly than was polite. She would have been glad to have him stay longer.

For many minutes she sat there by the piano, thinking not of the gift that seemed to be coming back, but of the queer lame duck who took his lameness so much to heart. She saw no harm in such employment. She wished she were a fairy G.o.dmother, so that she could by a wave of her wand make his wings whole once more.

Up in his room David, too, was thinking earnestly. After a long while he rose from his chair, set up the easel and began to work, not on a pretty-pretty picture for d.i.c.k Holden, but on an idea of his own that lately had been haunting him.

That became a habit in his spare hours.

Swiftly the new idea took form, as the flower grows in the field, without travail or effort. He worked harder than ever at Jonathan's drawings those days--hot lazy days they were, too--to earn release a half-hour earlier; and he swallowed his dinners more hastily than was wise. Then, when no hack work for d.i.c.k Holden was to be done, he sat at his easel sketching until the clock struck an hour--more often two--after midnight. Esther's aunt was a model landlady and had nothing to say about extravagance in gas.

He did not pat himself with the remark, "They will have to come to me yet." He never even thought of that. Neither did he say, "I am doing a big thing," having no opinion at all as to whether the thing was little or big. But he whistled sometimes as he worked, quite softly, and he went to bed always in a warm mellow glow that merged easily into sound restful sleep. In the morning he awoke ready, even eager, for the new day.

He even took some pleasure in his work for d.i.c.k Holden. It was d.i.c.k who gave him a bit of interesting news. David had called that noon to get data for some plans d.i.c.k wanted him to make.

"I could do them myself," the latter explained. "But I'm loafing this summer. I'm in town only because there's talk that St. Mark's is going to build."

David did not wince. "And to pay tribute into your coffers?"

"That's what I'm here for," grinned d.i.c.k.

"And what are you going to give them?"

"_I_ don't know." d.i.c.k waved a confident hand. "Whatever they want."

"I'm working out an idea," David suggested a little timidly, "that maybe you can use. Drop around to my room some time and I'll show it to you."

"Why, yes, I'll drop around some time," rather too carelessly said d.i.c.k, who was no longer so thoughtful in little things. Too much success seemed to be going to his head.

David flushed and dropped the subject. d.i.c.k, too, dropped it, both from tongue and mind.

A few evenings later, while David was working on his new idea, violin strains rose from the parlor. But he did not go down or join his fellow roomers on the stairs, though Jonathan and Esther made music until the evening was no longer young. It was a good hour for work; the harmonies from below awoke other harmonies in his heart and clarified his vision. That evening he completed a first sketch of the interior: the picture you get looking toward the altar from a point well back in the nave. It was good even as a sketch, for he had seen very clearly and worked eagerly.

When it was finished he sat back and looked at it for a long time while the music from the parlor flooded up to him. But he saw not a sketch.

He was back in a simpler age when the symbols of faith had power; seeing with a new understanding a picture that had formed in his mind as he worked out this creation--for him it was already created. . . .

A narrow crooked street, filled by a gay colorful throng that slackened its pace and lowered its voice before a gray, weathered old church. A beggar crouching on the steps, mouthing his whining song. A constant stream of worshipers pa.s.sing in and out through the great open door: plumed cavaliers, their arrogant swagger for the nonce put off; gray pilgrims, weary and dusty, with blistered feet and splintered staves; mailed soldiers ready to march for the wars; tired-eyed crusaders home from a futile quest; a haughty lady, a troubled daughter of artisans, a faded wanton, brought into a brief gentle sisterhood by a common need; all seeking the same thing. And perhaps in the doorway a faltering sinner unconfessed, fear of punishment a flaming sword in his path. . . . Ah, well! It was not so absurd, that picture. For those seekers have even unto this day their children who, amid their pleasuring and warring and questing, sometimes grow faint and would rest.