CHAPTER XIX
Peter went to Semmering the next morning, tiptoeing out very early andwithout breakfast. He went in to cover Jimmy, lying diagonally acrosshis small bed amid a riot of tossed blankets. The communicating doorinto Harmony's room was open. Peter kept his eyes carefully from it,but his ears were less under control. He could hear her soft breathing.There were days coming when Peter would stand where he stood then andlisten, and find only silence.
He tore himself away at last, closing the outer door carefully behindhim and lighting a match to find his way down the staircase. The Portierwas not awake. Peter had to rouse him, and to stand by while he donnedthe trousers which he deemed necessary to the dignity of his positionbefore he opened the street door.
Reluctant as he had been to go, the change was good for Peter. The dawngrew rosy, promised sunshine, fulfilled its promise. The hurrying crowdsat the depot interested him: he enjoyed his coffee, taken from a baretable in the station. The horizontal morning sunlight, shining inthrough marvelously clean windows, warmed the marble of the floor, madeblack shadows beside the heaps of hand luggage everywhere, turned intogold the hair of a toddling baby venturing on a tour of discovery. Thesame morning light, alas! revealed to Peter a break across the toe ofone of his shoes. Peter sighed, then smiled. The baby was catching atthe bits of dust that floated in the sunshine.
Suddenly a great wave of happiness overwhelmed Peter. It was a passingthing, born of nothing, but for the instant that it lasted Peter was aking. Everything was well. The world was his oyster. Life was his,to make it what he would--youth and hope and joy. Under the beatificinfluence he expanded, grew, almost shone. Youth and hope and joy--thatcometh in the morning.
The ecstasy passed away, but without reaction. Peter no longer shone;he still glowed. He picked up the golden-haired baby and hugged it. Hehunted out a beggar he had passed and gave him five Hellers. He helped asuspicious old lady with an oilcloth-covered bundle; he called the guardon the train "son" and forced a grin out of that dignitary.
Peter traveled third-class, which was quite comfortable, and no botherabout "Nicht Rauchen" signs. His unreasonable cheerfulness persisted asfar as Gloggnitz. There, with the increasing ruggedness of the sceneryand his first view of the Raxalpe, came recollection of the urgency ofStewart's last message, of Marie Jedlicka, of the sordid little tragedythat awaited him at the end of his journey.
Peter sobered. Life was rather a mess, after all, he reflected. Lovewas a blessing, but it was also a curse. After that he sat back inhis corner and let the mountain scenery take care of itself, while herecalled the look he had surprised once or twice in Marie's eyes whenshe looked at Stewart. It was sad, pitiful. Marie was a clever littlething. If only she'd had a chance!--Why wasn't he rich enough to helpthe ones who needed help. Marie could start again in America, with noone the wiser, and make her way.
"Smart as the devil, these Austrian girls!" Peter reflected. "Poorlittle guttersnipe!"
The weather was beautiful. The sleet of the previous day in Vienna hadbeen a deep snowfall on the mountains. The Schwarza was frozen, thecastle of Liechtenstein was gray against a white world. A littlepilgrimage church far below seemed snowed in against the faithful. Thethird-class compartment filled with noisy skiing parties. The old womanopened her oilcloth bundle, and taking a cat out of a box inside fed ita sausage.
Up and up, past the Weinzettelwand and the Station Breitenstein, acrossthe highest viaduct, the Kalte Rinne, and so at last to Semmering.
The glow had died at last for Peter. He did not like his errand, wasvery vague, indeed, as to just what that errand might be. He was stiffand rather cold. Also he thought the cat might stifle in the oilcloth,but the old woman too clearly distrusted him to make it possibleto interfere. Anyhow, he did not know the German for either cat oroilcloth.
He had wired Stewart; but the latter was not at the station. This madehim vaguely uneasy, he hardly knew why. He did not know Stewart wellenough to know whether he was punctilious in such matters or not: as amatter of fact he hardly knew him at all. It was because he had appealedto him that Peter was there, it being only necessary to Peter to beneeded, and he was anywhere.
The Pension Waldheim was well up the mountains. He shouldered his valiseand started up--first long flights of steps through the pines, then asteep road. Peter climbed easily. Here and there he met groups comingdown, men that he thought probably American, pretty women in "tams" andsweaters. He watched for Marie, but there was no sign of her.
He was half an hour, perhaps, in reaching the Waldheim. As he turnedin at the gate he noticed a sledge, with a dozen people following it,coming toward him. It was a singularly silent party. Peter, with hishand on the door-knocker, watched its approach with some curiosity.
It stopped, and the men who had been following closed up round it.Even then Peter did not understand. He did not understand until hesaw Stewart, limp and unconscious, lifted out of the straw and carriedtoward him.
Suicide may be moral cowardice; but it requires physical bravery.And Marie was not brave. The balcony had attracted her: it openedpossibilities of escape, of unceasing regret and repentance for Stewart,of publicity that would mean an end to the situation. But every inch ofher soul was craven at the thought. She crept out often and looked down,and as often drew back, shuddering. To fall down, down on to the treetops, to be dropped from branch to branch, a broken thing, and perhapseven not yet dead--that was the unthinkable thing, to live for a timeand suffer!
Stewart was not ignorant of all that went on in her mind. She hadthreatened him with the balcony, just as, earlier in the winter, it hadbeen a window-ledge with which she had frightened him. But there wasthis difference, whereas before he had drawn her back from the windowand clapped her into sanity, now he let her alone. At the end of one oftheir quarrels she had flung out on to the balcony, and then had watchedhim through the opening in the shutter. He had lighted a cigarette!
Stewart spent every daylight hour at the hotel, or walking over themountain roads, seldom alone with Anita, but always near her. He leftMarie sulking or sewing, as the case might be. He returned in theevening to find her still sulking, still sewing.
But Marie did not sulk all day, or sew. She too was out, never far fromStewart, always watching. Many times she escaped discovery only by amiracle, as when she stooped behind an oxcart, pretending to tie hershoe, or once when they all met face to face, and although she loweredher veil Stewart must have known her instantly had he not been so intenton helping Anita over a slippery gutter.
She planned a dozen forms of revenge and found them impossible ofexecution. Stewart himself was frightfully unhappy. For the firsttime in his life he was really in love, with all the humility of thecondition. There were days when he would not touch Anita's hand, whenhe hardly spoke, when the girl herself would have been outraged athis conduct had she not now and then caught him watching her, seen thewretchedness in his eyes.
The form of Marie's revenge was unpremeditated, after all. The lightmountain snow was augmented by a storm; roads were ploughed throughearly in the morning, leaving great banks on either side. Sleigh-bellswere everywhere. Coasting parties made the steep roads a menace tothe pedestrian; every up-climbing sleigh carried behind it a string ofsleds, going back to the starting-point.
Below the hotel was the Serpentine Coast, a long and dangerous course,full of high-banked curves, of sudden descents, of long straightawaydashes through the woodland. Two miles, perhaps three, it wound itstortuous way down the mountain. Up by the highroad to the crest again,only a mile or less. Thus it happened that the track was always clear,except for speeding sleds. No coasters, dragging sleds back up theslide, interfered.
The track was crowded. Every minute a sled set out, sped down thestraightaway, dipped, turned, disappeared. A dozen would be lined up,waiting for the interval and the signal. And here, watching from theporch of the church, in the very shadow of the saints, Marie found herrevenge.
Stewart had given her a little wrist watch. St
ewart and Anitawere twelfth in line. By the watch, then, twelve minutes down themountain-side, straight down through the trees to a curve that Marieknew well, a bad curve, only to be taken by running well up on thesnowbank. Beyond the snowbank there was a drop, fifteen feet, perhapsmore, into the yard of a Russian villa. Stewart and Anita were twelfth;a man in a green stocking-cap was eleventh. The hillside was steep.Marie negotiated it by running from tree to tree, catching herself,steadying for a second, then down again. Once she fell and rolled alittle distance. There was no time to think; perhaps had she thought shewould have weakened. She had no real courage, only desperation.
As she reached the track the man in the green stocking-cap was insight. A minute and a half she had then, not more. She looked about herhastily. A stone might serve her purpose, almost anything that wouldthrow the sled out of its course. She saw a tree branch just above thetrack and dragged at it frantically. Some one was shouting at her froman upper window of the Russian villa. She did not hear. Stewart andAnita had made the curve above and were coming down at frantic speed.Marie stood, her back to the oncoming rush of the sled, swayingslightly. When she could hear the singing of the runners she stooped andslid the tree branch out against the track.
She had acted almost by instinct, but with devilish skill. The sledswung to one side up the snowbank, and launched itself into the air.Marie heard the thud and the silence that followed it. Then she turnedand scuttled like a hunted thing up the mountain side.
Peter put in a bad day. Marie was not about, could not be located.Stewart, suffering from concussion, lay insensible all day and all ofthe night. Peter could find no fracture, but felt it wise to get anotheropinion. In the afternoon he sent for a doctor from the Kurhaus andlearned for the first time that Anita had also been hurt--a broken arm."Not serious," said the Kurhaus man. "She is brave, very brave, theyoung woman. I believe they are engaged?" Peter said he did not know andthought very hard. Where was Marie? Not gone surely. Here about him layall her belongings, even her purse.
Toward evening Stewart showed some improvement. He was not conscious,but he swallowed better and began to toss about. Peter, who had had along day and very little sleep the night before, began to look jaded. Hewould have sent for a nurse from the Kurhaus, but he doubted Stewart'sability to stand any extra financial strain, and Peter could not helpany.
The time for supper passed, and no Marie.
The landlady sent up a tray to Peter, stewed meat and potatoes, asalad, coffee. Peter sat in a corner with his back to Stewart and ateravenously. He had had nothing since the morning's coffee. After that hesat down again by the bed to watch. There was little to do but watch.
The meal had made him drowsy. He thought of his pipe. Perhaps if he gotsome fresh air and a smoke! He remembered the balcony.
It was there on the balcony that he found Marie, a cowering thing thatpushed his hands away when he would have caught her and broke intopassionate crying.
"I cannot! I cannot!"
"Cannot what?" demanded Peter gently, watching her. So near was thebalcony rail!
"Throw myself over. I've tried, Peter. I cannot!"
"I should think not!" said Peter sternly. "Just now when we need you,too! Come in and don't be a foolish child."
But Marie would not go in. She held back, clinging tight to Peter's bighand, moaning out in the dialect of the people that always confused himher story of the day, of what she had done, of watching Stewart broughtback, of stealing into the house and through an adjacent room to thebalcony, of her desperation and her cowardice.
She was numb with cold, exhaustion, and hunger, quite childish,helpless. Peter stood out on the balcony with his arm round her, whilethe night wind beat about them, and pondered what was best to do. Hethought she might come in and care for Stewart, at least, until he wasconscious. He could get her some supper.
"How can I?" she asked. "I was seen. They are searching for me now. Oh,Peter! Peter!"
"Who is searching for you? Who saw you?"
"The people in the Russian villa."
"Did they see your face?"
"I wore a veil. I think not."
"Then come in and change your clothes. There is a train down atmidnight. You can take it."
"I have no money."
This raised a delicate question. Marie absolutely refused to takeStewart's money. She had almost none of her own. And there were othercomplications--where was she to go? The family of the injured girl didnot suspect her since they did not know of her existence. She might getaway without trouble. But after that, what?
Peter pondered this on the balcony, while Marie in the bedroom waschanging her clothing, soaked with a day in the snow. He came to theinevitable decision, the decision he knew at the beginning that he wasgoing to make.
"If I could only put it up to Harmony first!" he reflected. "But shewill understand when I tell her. She always understands."
Standing there on the little balcony, with tragedy the thickness ofa pine board beyond him, Peter experienced a bit of the glow of themorning, as of one who stumbling along in a dark place puts a hand on afriend.
He went into the room. Stewart was lying very still and breathingeasily. On her knees beside the bed knelt Marie. At Peter's step sherose and faced him.
"I am leaving him, Peter, for always."
"Good!" said Peter heartily. "Better for you and better for him."
Marie drew a long breath. "The night train," she said listlessly, "is anexpress. I had forgotten. It is double fare."
"What of that, little sister?" said Peter. "What is a double fare whenit means life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? And there will behappiness, little sister."
He put his hand in his pocket.
The Street of Seven Stars Page 19
