“Such perfect satisfaction to have you again, Louis. The world is a gray void without the gods.”
And so, leisurely, they breasted the ascent and came out across the height-of-land. Here and there a silvery ghost of the shorn forest stood, now almost mercifully hidden in the green foliage of hard wood — worthlessly young as yet but beautiful.
From tree to tree flickered the brilliant woodpeckers — they of the solid crimson head and ivory-barred wings. The great vermilion-tufted cock-o’-the-woods called querulously; over the steel-blue stump-ponds the blue kingfishers soared against the blue. It was a sky world of breezy bushes and ruffled waters, of pathless fields and dense young woodlands, of limpid streams clattering over greenish white rocks, pouring into waterfalls, spreading through wild meadows set with iris and pink azalea.
“How is the work going, Louis?” she asked, glancing at him askance.
“It’s stopped.”
“A cause de — ?”
“Je n’en sais rien, Valerie.”
She flicked the harness with her whip, absently. He also leaned back, thoughtfully intent on the blue hills in the distance.
“Has not your desire to paint returned?”
“No.”
“Do you know why?”
“Partly. I am up against a solid wall. There is no thoroughfare.”
“Make one.”
“Through the wall?”
“Straight through it.”
“Ah, yes” — he murmured— “but what lies beyond?”
“It would spoil the pleasures of anticipation to know beforehand.”
He turned to her: “You are good for me. Do you know it?”
“Querida said that, too. He said that I was an experience; and that all good work is made up of experiences that concern it only indirectly.”
“Do you like Querida?” he asked, curiously.
“Sometimes.”
“Not always?”
“Oh, yes, always more or less. But sometimes” — she was silent, her dark eyes dreaming, lips softly parted.
“What do you mean by that?” he inquired, carelessly.
“By what, Louis?” she asked, naïvely, interrupted in her day-dream.
“By hinting — that sometimes you like Querida — more than at others?”
“Why, I do,” she said, frankly. “Besides, I don’t hint things; I say them.” She had turned her head to look at him. Their eyes met in silence for a few moments.
“You are funny about Querida,” she said. “Don’t you like him?”
“I have no reason to dislike him.”
“Oh! Is it the case of Sabidius? ‘Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare!’”
He laughed uneasily: “Oh, no, I think not…. You and he are such excellent friends that I certainly ought to like him anyway.”
But she remained silent, musing; and on the edge of her upcurled lip he saw the faint smile lingering, then fading, leaving the oval face almost expressionless.
So they drove past the one-story post office where a group of young people stood awaiting the arrival of the stage with its battered mail bags; past the stump-pond where Valerie had caught her first and only fish, past a few weather-beaten farm houses, a white-washed church, a boarding house or two, a village store, a watering-trough, and then drove up to the wooden veranda where Rita rose from a rocker and came forward with hand outstretched.
“Hello, Rita!” he said, giving her hand a friendly shake. “Why didn’t you drive down with Valerie?”
“I? That child would have burst into tears at such a suggestion.”
“Probably,” said Valerie, calmly: “I wanted him for myself. Now that
I’ve had him I’ll share him.”
She sprang lightly to the veranda ignoring Neville’s offered hand with a smile. A hired man took away the horse; a boy picked up his suit case and led the way.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” he said to Valerie and Rita.
That evening at supper, a weird rite where the burnt offering was rice pudding and the stewed sacrifice was prunes, Neville was presented to an interesting assemblage of the free-born.
There was the clerk, the drummer, the sales-lady, and ladies unsaleable and damaged by carping years; city-wearied fathers of youngsters who called their parents “pop” and “mom”; young mothers prematurely aged and neglectful of their coiffure and shoe-heels; simpering maidenhood, acid maidenhood, sophisticated maidenhood; shirt-waisted manhood, flippant manhood, full of strange slang and double negatives unresponsively suspicious manhood, and manhood disillusioned, prematurely tired, burnt out with the weariness of a sordid Harlem struggle.
Here in the height-of-land among scant pastures and the green charity which a spindling second-growth spread over the nakedness of rotting forest bones — here amid the wasted uplands and into this flimsy wooden building came the rank and file of the metropolis in search of air, of green, of sky, for ten days’ surcease from toil and heat and the sad perplexities of those with slender means.
Neville, seated on the veranda with Valerie and Rita in the long summer twilight, looked around him at scenes quite new to him.
On the lumpy croquet ground where battered wickets and stakes awry constituted the centre of social activity after supper, some young girls were playing in partnership with young men, hatless, striped of shirt, and very, very yellow of foot-gear.
A social favourite, very jolly and corporeally redundant, sat in the hammock fanning herself and uttering screams of laughter at jests emanating from the boarding-house cut-up — a blonde young man with rah-rah hair and a brier pipe.
Children, neither very clean nor very dirty, tumbled noisily about the remains of a tennis court or played base-ball in the dusty road. Ominous sounds arose from the parlour piano, where a gaunt maiden lady rested one spare hand among the keys while the other languidly pawed the music of the “Holy City.”
Somewhere in the house a baby was being spanked and sent to bed. There came the clatter of dishes from the wrecks of the rite in the kitchen, accompanied by the warm perfume of dishwater.
But, little by little the high stars came out, and the gray veil fell gently over unloveliness and squalour; little by little the raucous voices were hushed; the scuffle and clatter and the stringy noise of the piano died away, till, distantly, the wind awoke in the woods, and very far away the rushing music of a little brook sweetened the silence.
Rita, who had been reading yesterday’s paper by the lamplight which streamed over her shoulder from the open parlour-window, sighed, stifled a yawn, laid the paper aside, and drew her pretty wrap around her shoulders.
“It’s absurd,” she said, plaintively, “but in this place I become horribly sleepy by nine o’clock. You won’t mind if I go up, will you?”
“Not if you feel that way about it,” he said, smiling.
“Oh, Rita!” said Valerie, reproachfully, “I thought we were going to row
Louis about on the stump-pond!”
“I am too sleepy; I’d merely fall overboard,” said Rita, simply, gathering up her bonbons. “Louis, you’ll forgive me, won’t you? I don’t understand why, but that child never sleeps.”
They rose to bid her good night. Valerie’s finger tips rested a moment on Neville’s sleeve in a light gesture of excuse for leaving him and of promise to return. Then she went away with Rita.
When she returned, the piazza was deserted except for Neville, who stood on the steps smoking and looking out across the misty waste.
“I usually go up with Rita,” she said. “Rita is a dear. But do you know,
I believe she is not a particularly happy girl.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why…. After all, such a life — hers and mine — is only happy if you make it so…. And I don’t believe she tries to make it so. Perhaps she doesn’t care. She is very young — and very pretty — too young and pretty to be so indifferent — so tired.”
She stood on the step behind
and above him, looking down at his back and his well-set shoulders. They were inviting, those firm, broad, young shoulders of his; and she laid both hands on them.
“Shall I row you about in the flat-boat, Louis?”
“I’ll do the paddling—”
“Not by any means. I like to row, if you please. I have cold cream and a pair of gloves, so that I shall acquire no blisters.”
They walked together out to the road and along it, she holding to her skirts and his arm, until the star-lit pond came into view.
Afloat in the ancient, weedy craft he watched her slender strength mastering the clumsy oars — watched her, idly charmed with her beauty and the quaint, childish pleasure that she took in manoeuvring among the shoreward lily pads and stumps till clear water was reached and the little misty wavelets came slap! slap! against the bow.
“If you were Querida you’d sing in an exceedingly agreeable tenor,” she observed.
“Not being Querida, and labouring further under the disadvantage of a barytone, I won’t,” he said.
“Please, Louis.”
“Oh, very well — if you feel as romantic as that.” And he began to sing:
”My wife’s gone to the country,
Hurrah! Hurrah!”
“Louis! Stop it! Do you know you are positively corrupt to do such a thing at such a time as this?”
“Well, it’s all I know, Valerie—”
“I could cry!” she said, indignantly, and maintained a dangerous silence until they drifted into the still waters of the outlet where the starlight silvered the sedge-grass and feathery foliage formed a roof above.
Into the leafy tunnel they floated, oars shipped; she, cheek on hand, watching the fire-flies on the water; he, rid of his cigarette, motionless in the stern.
After they had drifted half a mile she seemed disinclined to resume the oars; so he crossed with her, swung the boat, and drove it foaming against the silent current.
On the return they said very little. She stood pensive, distraite, as he tied the boat, then — for the road was dark and uneven — took his arm and turned away beside him.
“I’m afraid I haven’t been very amusing company,” he ventured.
She tightened her arm in his — a momentary, gentle pressure:
“I’m merely too happy to talk,” she said. “Does that answer satisfy you?”
Touched deeply, he took her hand which rested so lightly on his sleeve — a hand so soft and fine of texture — so cool and fresh and slender that the youth and fragrance of it drew his lips to it. Then he reversed it and kissed the palm.
“Why, Louis,” she said, “I didn’t think you could be so sentimental.”
“Is that sentimental?”
“Isn’t it?”
“It rather looks like it, doesn’t it?”
“Rather.”
“Did you mind?”
“No…. Only — you and I — it seems — superfluous. I don’t think anything you do could make me like you more than I do.”
“You sweet little thing!”
“No, only loyal, Kelly. I can never alter toward you.”
“What’s that? A vow!”
“Yes — of constancy and of friendship eternal.”
“‘Nomen amicitia est; nomen inane fides! — Friendship is only a name; constancy an empty title,’” he quoted.
“Do you believe that?”
“Constancy is an honest wish, but a dishonest promise,” he said. “You know it lies with the gods, Valerie.”
“So they say. But I know myself. And I know that, however I may ever care for anybody else, it can never be at your expense — at the cost of one atom of my regard for you. As I care for you now, so have I from the beginning; so will I to the end; care more for you, perhaps; but never less, Louis. And that I know.”
More deeply moved than he perhaps cared to be, he walked on slowly in silence, measuring his step to hers. In the peace of the midnight world, in the peace of her presence, he was aware of a tranquillity, a rest that he had not known in weeks. Vaguely first, then uneasily, he remembered that he had not known it since her departure, and shook off the revelation with instinctive recoil — dismissed it, smiled at it to have done with it. For such things could not happen.
The woods were fragrant as they passed; a little rill, swelling from the thicket of tangled jewel-weed, welled up, bubbling in the starlight. She knelt down and drank from her cupped hands, and offered him the same sweet cup, holding it fragrantly to his lips.
And there, on their knees under the stars, he touched her full child-like lips with his; and, laughing, she let him kiss her again — but not a third time, swaying back from her knees to avoid him, then rising lithely to her feet.
“The poor nymph and the great god Kelly!” she said; “a new hero for the pantheon: a new dryad to weep over. Kelly, I believe your story of your golden cloud, now.”
“Didn’t you credit it before?”
“No.”
“But now that I’ve kissed you, you do believe it?”
“Y-yes.”
“Then to fix that belief more firmly—”
“Oh, no, you mustn’t, Kelly—” she cried, her soft voice hinting of hidden laughter. “I’m quite sure that my belief is very firmly fixed. Hear me recite my creed. Credo! I believe that you are the great god Kelly, perfectly capable of travelling about wrapped in a golden cloud—”
“You are mocking at the gods!”
“No, I’m not. Who am I to affront Olympus?… Wh-what are you going to do, Kelly? Fly to the sacred mount with me?”
But she suffered his arm to remain around her waist as they moved slowly on through the darkness.
“How long are you going to stay? Tell me, Louis. I’m as tragically curious as Pandora and Psyche and Bluebeard’s wife, melted into the one and eternal feminine.”
“I’m going to-morrow.”
“Oh-h,” she said, softly.
He was silent. They walked on, she with her head bent a little.
“Didn’t you want me to?” he asked at length.
“Not if you care to stay…. I never want what those I care for are indifferent about.”
“I am not indifferent. I think I had better go.”
“Is the reason important?”
“I don’t know, Valerie — I don’t really know.”
He was thinking of this new and sweet familiarity — something suddenly born into being under the wide stars — something that had not been a moment since, and now was — something invoked by the vastness of earth and sky — something confirmed by the wind in the forest.
“I had better go,” he said.
Her silence acquiesced; they turned into the ragged lawn, ascended the dew-wet steps; and then he released her waist.
The hallways were dark and deserted as they mounted the stairs side by side.
“This is my door,” she said.
“Mine is on the next floor.”
“Then — good night, Louis.”
He took her hand in silence. After a moment she released it; laid both hands lightly on his shoulders, lifted her face and kissed him.
“Good night,” she said. “You have made this a very happy day in my life.
Shall I see you in the morning?”
“I’m afraid not. I left word to have a horse ready at daylight. It is not far from that, now.”
“Then I shall not see you again?”
“Not until you come to New York.”
“Couldn’t you come back for a day? Querida is coming. Sammy and Harry
Annan are coming up over Sunday. Couldn’t you?”
“Valerie, dear, I could” — he checked himself; thought for a while until the strain of his set teeth aroused him to consciousness of his own emotion.
Rather white he looked at her, searching for the best phrase — for it was already threatening to be a matter of phrases now — of forced smiles — and some breathing spot fit for the leisure of self-examination.
/> “I’m going back to paint,” he said. “Those commissions have waited long enough.”
He strove to visualise his studio, to summon up the calm routine of the old regime — as though the colourless placidity of the past could steady him.
“Will you need me?” she asked.
“Later — of course. Just now I’ve a lot of men’s figures to deal with — that symbolical affair for the new court house.”
“Then you don’t need me?”
“No.”
She thought a moment, slim fingers resting on the knob of her door, standing partly turned away from him. Then, opening her door, she stepped inside, hesitated, looked back:
“Good-bye, Louis, dear,” she said, gently.
CHAPTER VI
Neville had begun to see less and less of Valerie West. When she first returned from the country in September she had come to the studio and had given him three or four mornings on the portrait which he had begun during the previous summer. But the painting of it involved him in difficulties entirely foreign to him — difficulties born of technical timidity of the increasing and inexplicable lack of self-confidence. And deeply worried, he laid it aside, A dull, unreasoning anxiety possessed him. Those who had given him commissions to execute were commencing to importune him for results. He had never before disappointed any client. Valerie could be of very little service to him in the big mural decorations which, almost in despair, he had abruptly started. Here and there, in the imposing compositions designed for the Court House, a female figure, or group of figures, was required, but, in the main, male figures filled the preliminary cartoons — great law-givers and law-defenders of all ages and all lands, in robes and gowns of silks; in armour, in skins, in velvet and ermine — men wearing doublet, jack-coat, pourpoint; men in turban and caftan, men covered with mail of all kinds — armour of leather, of fibre, of lacquer, of quilted silk, of linked steel, Milanaise, iron cuirass; the emblazoned panoply of the Mongol paladins; Timour Melek’s greaves of virgin gold; men of all nations and of all ages who fashioned or executed human law, from Moses to Caesar, from Mohammed to Genghis Kahn and the Golden Emperor, from Charlemagne to Napoleon, and down through those who made and upheld the laws in the Western world, beginning with Hiawatha, creator of the Iroquois Confederacy — the Great League.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 528
