Phantom Wires: A Novel

by Arthur Stringer

  CHAPTER XIV

  AWAKENING VOICES

  Frances Durkin's memory of that hurried flight from Genoa alwaysremained with her a confusion of incongruous and quickly changingpictures. She had a recollection of stepping from her cab into acrowded sailors' _cafe chantant_, of pushing past chairs and tables andhurrying out through a side door, of a high wind tearing at her hairand hat, as she and Durkin still hurried down narrow, stone-pavedstreets, of catching the smell of salt water and the musky odor ofshipping, of a sharp altercation with an obdurate customs officer inblue uniform and tall peaked cap, who stubbornly barred their way witha bare and glittering bayonet against her husband's breast, while sheglibly and perseveringly lied to him, first in French, and then inEnglish, and then in Italian.

  She remembered her sense of escape when he at last reluctantly allowedthem to pass, while they stumbled over railway tracks, and the roughstones of the quay pavement, and the bundles of merchandise lyingscattered about them. Then she heard the impatient lapping of water,and the outside roar of the waves, and saw the harbor lights twinklingand dancing, and caught sight of the three great white shafts of lightthat fingered so inquisitively and restlessly along the shipping andthe city front and the widening bay, as three great gloomy Italianmen-of-war played and swung their electric searchlights across thenight.

  Then came a brief and passionate scene with a harbor ferryman, whoscorned the idea of taking his boat out in such a sea, who eloquentlywaved his arms and told of accidents and deaths and disasters alreadybefallen the bay that night, who flung down his cap and danced on it,in an ecstasy of passionate argumentation. She had a memory of Durkinalmost as excited as the dancing harbor orator himself, raging up anddown the quay with a handful of Italian paper money between hisfingers, until the boatman relented. Then came a memory of tossing upand down in a black and windy sea, of creeping under a great shadowstippled with yellow lights, of grating and pounding against a ship'sladder, of an officer in rubber boots running down to her assistance,of more blinking lights, and then of the quiet and grateful privacy ofher own cabin, smelling of white-lead paint and disinfectants.

  She slept that night, long and heavily, and it was not until the nextmorning when the sun was high and they were well down the coast, thatshe learned they were on board the British coasting steamer _Laminian_,of the Gallaway & Papyani Line. They were to skirt the entire coast ofItaly, stopping at Naples and then at Bari, and then make their way upthe Adriatic to Trieste. These stops, Durkin had found, would bebrief, and the danger would be small, for the _Laminian_ was primarilyknown as a freighter, carrying out blue-stone and salt fish, and on herreturn cruise picking up miscellaneous cargoes of fruit. So herpassenger list, which included, outside of Frank and Durkin, only aconsumptive Welsh school-teacher and a broken-down clergyman fromBirmingham, who kept always to his cabin, was in danger of noover-close scrutiny, either from the Neapolitan Guardie Municipali onthe one hand, or from any private agents of Keenan and Penfield on theother.

  Even one short day of unbroken idleness, indeed, seemed to make lifeover for both Frank and Durkin. Steeping themselves in thatcomfortable sense of security, they drew natural and easy breath oncemore. They knew it was but a momentary truce, an interregnum ofindolence; but it was all they asked for. They could no longer nurseany illusions as to the trend of their way or the endlessness of theirquest. They must now always keep moving. They might alter the mannerof their progression, they might change their stroke, but thecontinuity of effort on their part could no more be broken than couldthat of a swimmer at sea. They must keep on, or go down.

  So, in the meantime, they plucked the day, with a touch of wistfulnessborn of their very distrust of the morrow.

  The glimmering sapphire seas were almost motionless, the days andnights were without wind, and the equable, balmy air was like that ofan American mid-summer, so that all of the day and much of the nightthey spent on deck, where the Welsh schoolmaster eyed them covertly, asa honeymoon couple engulfed in the selfish contentment of their owngreat happiness. It reminded Frank of earlier and older days, for,with the dropping away of his professional preoccupations, Durkinseemed to relapse into some more intimate and personal relationshipwith her. It was the first time since their flight from America, shefelt, that his affection had borne out the promise of its earlierardor. And it taught her two things. One was that her woman's naturalhunger for love was not so dead as she had at times imagined. Theother was that Durkin, during the last months, had drifted much furtheraway from her than she had dreamed. It stung her into a passionate andremorseful self-promise to keep closer to him, to make herself alwaysessential to him, to turn and bend as he might bend and turn, butalways to be with him. It would lead her downward and still furtherdownward, she told herself. But she caught solace from some blindbelief that all women, through some vague operation of theiraffectional powers, could invade the darkest mires of life, if only itwere done for love, and carry away no stain. In fact, what would be ablemish in time would almost prove a thing of joy and pride. And inthe meantime she was glad enough to be as happy as she was, and to benear Durkin. It was not the happiness she had once looked for, but itsufficed.

  They caught sight of a corner of Corsica, and on the following nightcould see the glow of the iron-smelting fires on Elba, and the twinkleof the island shore-lights. From the bridge, too, through one of theofficers' glasses, Frank could see, far inland across the PontineMarshes, the gilded dome of St. Peter's, glimmering in the pellucidmorning sunlight.

  She called Durkin, and pointed it out to him.

  "See, it's Rome!" she cried, with strangely mingled feelings. "It'sSt. Peter's!"

  "I wish it was the Statue of Liberty and New York," he said, moodily.

  She realized, then, that he was not quite so happy as he had pretendedto be. And she herself, from that hour forward, shared in his secretunrest. For as time slipped away and her eye followed the heighteningline of the Apennines, she knew that tranquil Tyrrhenian Sea would notlong be left to her.

  It was evening when they rounded the terraced vineyards of Ischia. Alow red moon shone above the belching pinnacle of Vesuvius. Frank andDurkin leaned over the rail together, as they drifted slowly up thebay, the most beautiful bay in all the world, with its twilight soundsof shipping, its rattle of anchor chains, its far-off cries and echoes,and its watery, pungent Southern odors.

  They watched the ship's officer put ashore to obtain _pratique_, andthe yellow flag come down, and heard the signal-bells of theengine-room, as the officer returned, with a great cigar in one cornerof his bearded mouth.

  There was nothing amiss. There were neither Carabinieri nor Guardie diPubblica Sicurezza to come on board with papers and cross-questions.Before the break of day their discharged cargo would be in the lightersand they would be steaming southward for the Straits of Messina.

  That night, on the deserted deck, at anchor between the city and thesea, they watched the glimmering lights of Naples, rising tier aftertier from the _Immacolatella Nuova_ and its ship lamps to the _Palazzodi Capodimonte_ and its near-by _Osservatorio_. And when the lights ofthe city thinned out and the crowning haze of gold melted from itshillsides, with the advancing night, Frank and Durkin sat back in theirsteamer-chairs and looked up at the stars, talking of Home, and of thefuture.

  Yet the beauty of that balmy and tranquil night seemed to bring littlepeace of mind to Durkin. There were reasons, of late, when moments ofmeditation were not always moments of contentment to him. His wife hadnoticed that ever-increasing trouble of soul, and although she saidnothing of it, she had watched him narrowly and not altogetherdespondently. For she knew that whatever the tumult or contest thatmight be taking place within the high-walled arena of his own Ego, itwas a clash of forces of which she must remain merely a spectator. Soshe went below, leaving him in that hour of passive yet troubledthought, to stare up at the tranquil southern stars, as he meditated onlife, and the meaning of life, and what lay beyond it all. Sh
e knewmen and the world too well to look for any sudden and sweepingreorganization of Durkin's disturbed and restless mind. But she nursedthe secret hope that out of that spiritual ferment would come someultimate clearness of vision.

  It was late when he called her up on deck again, ostensibly to catch aglimpse of Vesuvius breaking and bursting into flame, above _Barra_ and_Portici_. She knew, however, that slumbering and subterranean firesother than Vesuvius had erupted into light and life. She could see itby the new misery on his moonlit face, as she sat beside him. Yet shesat there in silence; there was so little that she could say.

  "Do you know, you've changed, Frank, these last few months!" he at lastessayed.

  "Haven't there been reasons enough for it?" she asked, making no effortto conceal the bitterness of her tone.

  "You're not happy, are you?"

  "Are _you_?" she asked, in turn.

  "Who can be happy, and think?"

  She waited, passively, for him to go on again.

  "You said you didn't much care what happened, so long as it kept ustogether, and left us satisfied."

  "Isn't that enough?" she broke in, hotly, yet thrilling with thethought that he was about to tear away the mockery behind which she hadtried to mask herself.

  "No, it isn't enough! And now we're out of the dust of it, these lastfew days, I can see that it never can be enough. I've just beenwondering where it leads to, and what it amounts to. I've had afeeling, for days, now, that there's something between us. What is it?"

  "Ourselves!" she answered, at last.

  "Exactly! And that is what makes me think you're wrong when you crythat you'll stoop every time I stoop. Every single crime that seems tobe bringing us together is only keeping us apart. It's making you hateyourself, and because of that, hate me as well!"

  "I couldn't do _that_!" she protested, catching at his hands.

  "But I can see it with my own eyes, whether you want to or not. Itcan't be helped. It's beginning to frighten me, this very willingnessof yours to do the things we oughtn't to. Why, I'd be happier, even,if you did them under protest!"

  "But what is the difference, if I still _do_ them?"

  "It would show me that you weren't as bad as I am--that you hadn'taltogether given up."

  "I couldn't altogether give up, and live!" she cried, with suddenpassion.

  "But you told me as much, that night in Monte Carlo?"

  "I didn't _mean_ it. I was tired out that night; I was embittered, andinsane, if you like! I _want_ to be good! No woman wants sin andwrongdoing! But, O Jim, can't you see, it's you, you, I want, beforeeverything else!"

  He smote the palms of his hands together, in a little gesture ofimpotent misery.

  "That's just it--you tried to make me save myself for my own sake,--andit couldn't be done. It was a failure. And now you're trying to makeme save myself for your sake----"

  "It's not your salvation I want--it's _you_!"

  "But it's only through being honest that I can hold and keep you; can'tyou see that? If I can't trust myself, I can't possibly trust _you_!"

  "Couldn't we try--once more?" Her voice was little more than a whisper.

  He looked up at the soft and velvet stars that peered down sovoluptuously from a soft and velvet sky. He looked at them for manymoments, before he spoke again.

  "If I got back to my work again, my right and honest work, I _could_ behonest!" he declared, vehemently.

  "But we _are_ going back," she assuaged.

  "Yes, but see what we have to go through, first!"

  "I know," she admitted, unhappily. "But even then, we could say thatit was to be for the last time."

  "As we said before--and failed!"

  "But this time we needn't fail. Think what it will mean if you haveyour work on your transmitting camera waiting for you--months and yearsof hard and honest work--work that you love, work that will lead tobigger things, and give you the time, yes, and the money, you need toperfect your amplifier. But outside of that, even to have yourwork--surely that's enough!"

  "I'd have to have you, as well!" he said, out of the silence that hadfallen upon them.

  "You always will, Jim, you know that!"

  "But I'm afraid of myself! I'm afraid of my moods--I'm afraid of myown distrust. I have a feeling that it may hurt you, sometime, almostbeyond forgiveness!"

  "I'll try to understand!" she murmured. And again silence fell overthem.

  "I'm afraid of making promises," he said, half whimsically, halfweakly, after many minutes of thought.

  "I don't want you to promise--only _try_!" she pleaded, swept by a waveof gratitude that seemed to fling her more intimately than ever beforeinto her husband's arms. Yet it was a wave, and nothing more. For itreceded as it came, leaving her, a moment later, chilled andapprehensive before their over-troubled future. With a little muffledcry of emotion, almost animal-like in its inarticulate intensity, sheturned to her husband, and strained him in her arms, in her human andunhappy and unsatisfied arms.

  "Oh, love me!" she pleaded, brokenly. "Love me! Love me--for I needit!"

  They seemed strangely nearer to each other, after that night, and thepeacefulness of their cruise to Bari remained uninterrupted. And onceclear of that port Durkin's nervousness somewhat lightened, for he hadfigured out that they would be able to connect with one of the Cunardliners at Trieste. From there, if only they escaped attention anddetection in the harbor, they would be turning homeward in two days.

  One thing, and one thing only, lay between Frank and her husband: Shehad not yet found courage to tell him of the loss of the Penfieldpapers. And the more she thought of it, the more she dreaded it,teased and mocked by the very irony of the situation, disquieted andhumiliated at the memory of her own pleadings for honesty while sheherself was so far astray from the paths she was pointing out.

  That sacrifice of scrupulosity on the altar of expediency, trivial asit was, was the heritage of her past life, she told herself. And shefelt, vaguely, that in some form or another it would be paid for, anddearly paid for, as she had paid for everything.

  It was only as they steamed into the harbor of Trieste, in the teeth ofa _bora_ and a high-running sea, that this woman who longed to bealtogether honest allowed herself any fleeting moment of self-pity.For as she gazed up at the bald and sterile hills behind that clean andwind-swept Austrian city, she remembered they had been thus denudedthat their timbers might make a foundation for Venice. She felt, inthat passing mood, that her own life had been denuded, that all itssoftening and shrouding beauties had been cut out and carried away,that from now on she was to be torn by winds and scorched by opensuns--while the best of her slept submerged, beyond the reach of herunhappy hands.

  But Durkin, at her side, through the driving spray and rain, pointedout to her the huge rolling bulk and the red funnels of the Cunarder.

  "Thank heaven!" he said, with a sigh of relief, "we'll be in time tocatch her!"

  The _Laminian_ dropped anchor to the windward of the liner, and as dusksettled down over the harbor Frank took a wordless pleasure in studyingthe shadowy hulk which was to carry her back to America, to her oldlife and her old associations. But she was wondering how she shouldtell him of the loss of the Penfield securities. It was true that thevery crimes that should have bound them together were keeping themapart!

  Suddenly she ran to the companionway and called down to her husband.

  "Look!" she said, under her breath, as he came to the rail, "they'retalking with their wireless!"

  She pointed to the masthead of the Cunarder, where, through thetwilight, she could "spell" the spark, signal by signal and letter byletter, as the current broke from the head of the installation wires tothe hollow metal mast, from which ran the taut-strung wires connecting,in turn, with the operating office just aft and above the engine-rooms.

  "Listen," she said, for in the lull of the wind they could hear theshort, crisp spit of the spark as it spelt out its mysterious messages.
r />   Durkin caught her arm, and listened, intently, watching the littleappearing and disappearing green spark, spelling off the words withnarrowing eyes.

  "They're talking with the station up on the mainland. Do you hear whatit is? Can't you make it out?"

  It was, of course, the Continental, and not the Morse, code, and it wasnot quite the same as stooping over and listening to the crisp,incisive pulsations of a "sounder." But Frank heard and saw and piecedtogether enough of the message to clutch, in turn, at Durkin's arm, andwait with quickened breath for the answering spark-play.

  "No--such--persons--on--board--send--fuller--description."

  There was a silence of a minute or two, and then the mysteriousHertzian voice lisped out once more.

  "Description--not--forwarded--by--Embassy--man--and--wife--are wanted--for robbery--at--Monte--Carlo--also--at--Genoa--name--Durgin--or--Durkin."

  The listening man and woman looked at each other, and still waited.

  "Oh, this _is_ luck!" said the listener, fervently, as he drew a deepbreath. "This _is_ luck!"

  "Listen, they're answering again!" cried Frank.

  "Why--not--confer--with--Trieste--authorities--will--you--please--telephone--our--agents--to--send--out--tender--to take--off--Admiral--Stuart."

  Then came the silence again.

  "Yes," sounded the minute electric tongue from the mountain-top, somany miles away. "Good--night!"

  "Good--night!" replied the articulate mass of heaving steel, swingingat her anchor chains.