The Wide House

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Laurie looked calmly at the vivacious streets through which they rolled. “You ought to be here during the winter,” she remarked. “You would never believe it could ever be summer here.”

  There was color under her fair skin with its golden tinge. She had more animation than Elissa had ever detected in her before. She appeared in a state of suppressed restlessness. When Dick Thimbleton, who had accompanied the ladies, made some humorous remark, Laurie’s laugh rang out, catching itself as if with some secret excitement. She had never before appeared very young to him, in spite of her youth. Now she was a young girl, alive and glowing, and inclined to be kind and attentive. That afternoon, he thought, he would speak to her again, for there was a yielding air about her, and a softness.

  But when he looked for her, in the evening, after leaving his sister, he found she had vanished. Mrs. Cauder also was out, in her carriage, and the disconsolate but philosophical Dick came to the conclusion that Laurie must have accompanied her mother.

  But Laurie, wrapped now in a hooded black cape, was hurrying rapidly through streets emptied of daytime throngs, her head bent a little, the skirts of her cape and frock billowing behind her in the wake of her long swift stride. The hood almost hid her face; across her forehead was one shining lock of hair.

  She waited impatiently on Niagara Street for the passing of the horse-car and its retinue of drays, wagons and busy carriages. Her foot tapped the curb. When an opening in the traffic appeared, she plunged across the street, turned towards the river. Now the freshening wind was sharp and strong against her face and throat, and her hooped skirts swirled about her. She felt the keen breath of the Lakes and the river, and heard the languid hissing of the disturbed waters of the Canal. The river, beyond, had lost its daytime brightness, and was gray and rough. The Canadian shore, a purplish blur, was only a smudge against a heliotrope sky. Yet here was a desolate vast quiet, a wide and limitless horizon of water and sky and earth. Laurie paused for several moments to breathe deeply of the pure and strenuous air. She stood on the bleached stones near the river, a tall and black and blowing figure against all this living wasteland. The hood fell back from her head, showing its vivid and ruffled gold, and her face, turned to the heavens, had that free wildness, that simple and innocent barbarism and untamed savagery which had made the great Wagner exclaim: “Die Walküre!” She was as still as one of the fir trees near by, yet as potent with promise.

  She did not hear or see the approach of a short and enormously fat and aging man, also in black, who moved slowly and heavily towards her along the line of the river. But he soon detected her, and stopped short, fascinated by her appearance, by the way her cloak rose and bellied about her like spreading wings, by the brightness of her head and the unearthly look on her lifted profile. It seemed to him, fearfully, that she was a creature not of this world, but something fallen from a more heroic and untamed planet, some creature not all goodness and gentleness, but possessed of a fierce loneliness, a nameless implacability and terrible beauty. His heart, always inclined to superstition, began to beat with a strange fear, and he almost crossed himself. Then he recognized her, though it had been several years since last he had seen her. Not understanding the relief he felt, he hurried towards her, smiling, his hand extended. “It is Laurie!” he cried, his voice almost lost in the roaring voice of wind and water.

  She turned her head to him. Her look was gracious, and pleased. “Father Houlihan,” she said, and gave him her large white hand, bare and unjewelled today.

  She looked down at him, still smiling. Poor man, he had aged, she commented to herself. The strident blue eyes were very sad, and quite dimmed now, and his big ruddy face was lined as if with chronic sorrow. Under the brim of his round black hat his small fringe of hair was white and sparse. His massive shoulders drooped, as if too heavy a burden lay on them. But his smile, full and childlike, still possessed that simplicity and love and kindness which she remembered, and which nothing could destroy.

  “Sure, and I did not know you, Laurie, for a minute,” he said, looking up at her with almost boyish admiration and diffidence. “It’s a fine woman you’ve grown, and it’s proud of you I am. Stuart told me that you had come home, but that he had not seen you yet. I’ve just come from him.”

  The world’s too much for him, thought Laurie, but he doesn’t know it yet, poor man. She had never been particularly fond of the priest, and had not often encountered him. There had always been a steadfast look in his eyes which had disturbed her, even in her childhood. He was gazing at her now with that same honest and open expression, and her golden brows drew together momentarily.

  “And how is Stuart?” she asked, in her deliberate voice that never revealed anything. “I am on my way to see him now.”

  Father Houlihan was startled. He was too simple not to betray his sudden perturbation. He had spent the last hour with Stuart, and Stuart had appeared restless and uneasy, and had said nothing of an expected visit from Laurie. In fact he had appeared anxious for his friend to be gone, and though the priest had been puzzled at this, and a little hurt, he had left as soon as possible. Stuart was weary and harassed, and probably wished to rest, he had thought in his gentle charity. Now he was waiting there alone, in his empty house, even the servants gone, and this young woman, unchaperoned and unaccompanied, was on her way to him.

  He looked up at Laurie earnestly. And she was looking down at him with a cold smile that repudiated him. There was a sudden slight darkening of the evening sky, and the roar of wind and water was louder, more threatening, more solitary than ever in its savagery.

  He said: “Shall I go back with you, Laurie? It is a little rough along the river, and I’ve something to say to Stuart which I had forgotten.”

  “No, thank you, Father,” she answered quietly. She did not move, but there was a slow impatience about her, which urged him to leave her. But he stood his ground. He swallowed drily.

  “It’s wonderful stories I’ve heard of you, I’m thinking,” he said. “Wonderful! I cannot believe this is the little Laurie I knew. And is it true that you are to sing for us in the Music Hall on Saturday? I shall be there, happy and proud.” He smiled at her, wistfully, pleading, hoping to soften her, to make her a warm and human woman again.

  She inclined her head. Her lips pursed a little, humorously, and with unkindness. “I hope I shall not disappoint you, Father,” she said, and his quick and sensitive ear detected irony in her voice. All at once he was afraid, not for her, but for Stuart. Yet, it was ridiculous.

  “Good evening, Father,” she was saying, coolly. “I hope I shall see you again before I return to New York.”

  He made an impotent gesture, as if to detain her. She was regarding him impatiently, and he saw, with a sinking of his heart, how inflexible and hard were her long blue eyes, and how unnaturally cynical and remote.

  “You are certain you do not wish me to go back with you, at least a little way?” he urged, freely. “Rough men, and such, along the river; one never knows,” he added, in a dwindling voice at the sudden amused brilliance in her eyes.

  “I’m quite capable of taking care of myself, Father. But thank you, anyway.”

  She inclined her head, and was going from him with that free swift stride of hers. He stood there, alone and fearful, watching her until a copse of fir trees shut her from his sight along a bend in the river. Now he was all alone, buffeted by the wind, surrounded by the endless desolation of river and faint purple sky and bleak roaring fir trees. Had she really been there at all? She had left no sensitive impress on the air, no aura of her presence. And then the priest crossed himself, involuntarily, and he felt a sharp pang of sorrow in his heart.

  Though he did not know it, Laurie had stopped behind the copse of fir trees, and had waited grimly for him to follow her. With all the power of her inexorable will, she willed him gone. She sent out that will like rods of iron, pushing him on his way. After several long moments had elapsed, she emerged from the trees, and strained her e
yes after him. He had disappeared. She had the river and the shore and the sky to herself. She continued down the river, smiling a little.

  Finally she reached Stuart’s house, the “Irishman’s Folly.” It stood there glimmering in the evening light like a Grecian temple, floating in the clear and trembling air, all its columns gleaming, its windows blue with the reflection from the sky. Was it her imagination that it appeared abandoned, untenanted, and completely deserted, and standing alone in an unearthly circle of despair? She set her hand resolutely on the gate, opened it, closed it behind her, her lips tightened. She ran lightly up the wide shallow steps, lifted the knocker on the door. The echoes eddied about her, desolately.

  It was Stuart who opened the door. He reached out his hand and drew her in upon the black-and-white polished floor of the hall. A faint but sharp light poured into that hall from the pellucid sky outside, and she saw him before her, haggard and ravaged, but smiling, and still possessing that large and violent splendor which had always been his. There were very wide patches of thick gray at his temples, and a broad streak of it spreading backwards from his forehead into the still heavy waves of his hair. His face was much too ruddy, too deeply lined with dissipation and weariness, and his full and sensual mouth was more gloomy than she had remembered it in spite of its smile. But, as she looked at him (and she was so tall that her eyes were almost on a level with his) her heart thundered, and a long and thrilling wave, sensuous and disturbing, ran over her body. She felt weak, drifting, and she was filled with a terrible and shaking joy.

  They looked at each other silently, their hands held together as if welded by fierce electric impulses, and they only smiled. Then Stuart, after what seemed to be a long time, removed her cloak, and laid it over a gilt chair in the hall. He took her hand again, and led her into the silent and deserted parlor. She looked about her, almost dazedly. There were the lovely chairs and draperies, the dim pale rugs she had remembered, the profusion of flowers, the rosy trembling fire on its marble hearth. The air was full of the scent of hothouse roses and ferns and the warmer odor of burning coal. The chaste gilt frames of the pictures on the white walls were picked out in streaks of golden light. There was not a sound in the great house, not a murmur through its exquisite corridors and wide delicate rooms. They were entirely alone.

  Here again they stopped and looked at each other. Laurie’s black bodice and wide hoops set off her fair and golden beauty. Stuart gazed at her in silence, the corners of his lips hard yet tremulous.

  She moved away from him, smiling her enigmatic smile. “Shall we sit down?” she asked, and these were the first words she had spoken to him. She seated herself, unhurried, near the fire, and after a moment he joined her in another chair. He bent towards her, his hands, clenched together, between his knees, his head thrust forwards, his black eyes fixed almost fiercely on her face. She played gently with her lace kerchief and regarded him serenely, though her breast was imperceptibly disturbed.

  “Laurie,” he said softly.

  She fluttered her kerchief languidly before her face, thus giving him only fleeting glimpses of her eyes and smiling mouth. “How are you, Stuart?” she asked tranquilly.

  His lips tightened. She saw that there was a spasmodic quivering about his nostrils. He relaxed a little. He shrugged, without answering her question. Now his eyes left hers, flashed restlessly over the room. Her brows drew together slightly.

  They were silent again. The dropping of the coals on the hearth, the soft movement of Laurie’s kerchief, were the only sounds in the room. She felt again that curious sense of desertion about the house, the emptiness. Even the exquisite furniture appeared to have retreated, so that the room semed larger than she remembered it, and chillier. Stuart must have felt this odd air also, for Laurie sensed that he had withdrawn from her, and was sinking again into the ominous atmosphere of his house. She moved slightly, and catching this movement, his eyes returned to her, became warm, fixed, waiting.

  “You haven’t congratulated me on my ‘triumphs,’ Stuart,” she said, ironically, resolutely shutting out from her consciousness the chill bleak light that filtered through the windows. “After all, it is you who are really responsible for them, such as they are.”

  He said: “I wanted to hear you, at the Opera House, when you made your debut, but Mary Rose was ill.” When he spoke his daughter’s name, his face darkened with pain. “I had to take her and her mother to the mountains. They will remain there for the summer.” He paused, and said, with forced difficulty: “I am indeed proud of you, Laurie. You ought to know that.”

  But she saw that the magic and enthralled moment had passed, that he was again caught in his wretchedness and preoccupation, and had almost forgotten her. She frowned impatiently; her heart still beat strongly, but with diminishing wildness. “I am sorry about Mary Rose,” she said politely, trying to control her impatience. “But surely she is a little better? You wrote me in Europe that she had improved.”

  He turned to her, trying to smile. “She was better. But she had a bad attack this winter, and the doctors ordered her to the mountains. The last letter I received from her was quite cheerful, the darling! Perhaps I am too worried.”

  He looked at her listlessly. “You are a very beautiful woman now, Laurie. I am proud of you. But you mustn’t forget us here at home.”

  She was angered. What had gone wrong? She regarded him fixedly, feeling the heat and quivering of her own body, which was aching again. And he looked back at her, his eyes dulled with sadness and impotent pain. It was this house, this house which now was hideous to her. He was caught in it; he could not see her within its walls.

  “Is the war bothering you much, Stuart?” she asked, mechanically.

  It was entirely wrong, she saw, to have said this, for he stood up, with that helpless violence of movement which betrayed his inner fear and torment. “Terribly,” he said abruptly. “If it goes on much longer, I’ll be ruined.”

  She stood up, also. She must get him out of this house, and the memories in it. Her resolution hardened. “It is stuffy here,” she said. “Let us go out into the air, if you please; Stuart.” She heard dim and booming echoes through the corridors. The room was darkening. She wanted to run from it.

  He looked at her, hardly seeing her. Then he said: “Yes, if you wish, Laurie.” They went out into the hall together, and in silence he put her cloak again over her shoulders. He brought out his greatcoat and his tall beaver hat, and opened the door. They stepped out into the evening, side by side, without speaking.

  Again, there had been a change in the weather. The wind had fallen. The sky was a dim clear ultramarine in which stood the brightening crescent of a new moon, revealing itself through the tall bare branches of a poplar tree, a frail light through iron filigree which was as intricate as lace. The green lawns were too green, almost as artificial as stage grass, about the white and soaring house. Birds twittered and called to one another from tree to tree in a silence completely profound, and as soft as water, and as solemn as the quiet within a cathedral. The earth had a deep and living smell, almost tangible. Below the lawns which ran almost to the shore, the river was dark and restless, its voice muted, and far beyond, nothing could be discerned of Canada but a few twinkling lights. The scene was awesome in its loneliness, and had a religious stillness, sad and melancholy.

  As Laurie and Stuart walked slowly toward the river, the crescent moon brightened, seemed to move in that aquamarine heaven, and a purplish shadow ran over the earth. Laurie’s head was uncovered; the very slight wind lifted a wave of hair gently, flattened it against her cheek, blew it across her brooding eyes. Her mouth was set. A thousand thoughts ran through her impatient mind, a thousand openings for what she wanted to say. But she discarded them all. She glanced at Stuart sideways. He walked beside her, abstracted and grim, withdrawn from her.

  Laurie had a quick and flexible intellect, which few ever suspected. She had come here, across oceans, across endless spaces of land, for this mo
ment. She had come across all her life. And here she stood in silence beside Stuart, who was staring unseeingly at the dark and running water of the river, unaware of her. What had happened?

  She was conscious of a humiliating helplessness. She turned swiftly to Stuart. He stood beside her on the broad whitish stones of the shore, and was staring at the opposite shore. Suddenly she could wait no longer. It was her very despair that made her turn to him impetuously, and lay her hand on his arm. To her joy, she felt his muscles involuntarily tighten under her fingers, and she saw the slow turning of his head towards her, the bemusement of his eyes.

  “Stuart,” she said, and her strong full voice faltered dismayingly, “I’ve never thanked you for your help—”

  Now those tired eyes brightened, warmed, affectionately. “I never wanted your thanks, Laurie. I was only too glad to help. I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. It does seem impossible that my little Laurie has become so—”

  Her hand clenched on his arm. Now she felt his quickening, and an inexplicable withdrawing from her. She burst out in a cry: “Stuart! Nothing of all that matters to me! I never wanted it, never cared! I did it only because you wished it, because I knew it would please you, because you desired it! Surely, you must know that!”

  He was suddenly as still as stone. Everything disappeared from her sight but his face, heavy and dark with blood, and his fiercely, penetrating eyes. She felt the flesh under her hand pulse and throb. She came closer to him. He could see the blue and quivering flame of her eyes, the shaking of her wide red mouth.

  All the long control and inertia of her life was swept into brittle fire like straw that had been ignited. She cried: “Don’t you understand, Stuart? I’ve loved you all my life! I’ve done everything you wished, for I thought it was the way to you! I’ve loved you since I first saw you, on the docks of New York. All my life, Stuart! Nothing means anything to me but you.”