The Destroying Angel

by Louis Joseph Vance

  XIX

  CAPITULATION

  Grimly Whitaker sat himself down in the kitchen and prepared to wait thereappearance of his wife--prepared to wait as long as life was in him,so that he were there to welcome her when, her paroxysm over, she wouldcome to him to be comforted, soothed and reasoned out of her distortedconception of her destiny.

  Not that he had the heart to blame or to pity her for that terrifiedvision of life. Her history was her excuse. Nor was his altogether ablameless figure in that history. At least it was not so in his sight.Though unwittingly, he had blundered cruelly in all his relations withthe life of that sad little child of the Commercial House.

  Like sunlight penetrating storm wrack, all the dark disarray of hisrevery was shot through and through by the golden splendour of theknowledge that she loved him....

  As for this black, deadly shadow that had darkened her life--already hecould see her emerging from it, radiant and wonderful. But it was not tobe disregarded or as yet ignored, its baleful record considered closedand relegated to the pages of the past. Its movement had been toorhythmic altogether to lack a reason. His very present task was to readits riddle and exorcise it altogether.

  For hours he pondered it there in the sunlit kitchen of the silenthouse--waiting, wondering, deep in thought. Time stole away without hisknowledge. Not until late in the afternoon did the shifted position ofthe sun catch his attention and arouse him in alarm. Not a sound fromabove...!

  He rose, ascended the stairs, tapped gently on the locked door.

  "Mary," he called, with his heart in his mouth--"Mary!"

  Her answer was instant, in accents sweet, calm and clear:

  "I am all right. I'm resting, dear, and thinking. Don't fret about me.When I feel able, I will come down to you."

  "As you will," he assented, unspeakably relieved; and returned to thekitchen.

  The diversion of thought reminded him of their helpless and forlorncondition. He went out and swept the horizon with an eager and hopefulgaze that soon drooped in disappointment. The day had worn on inunbroken calm: not a sail stirred within the immense radius of thewaters. Ships he saw in plenty--a number of them moving under power eastand west beyond the headland with its crowning lighthouse; others--afew--left shining wakes upon the burnished expanse beyond the farthestland visible in the north. Unquestionably main-travelled roads of thesea, these, so clear to the sight, so heartbreakingly unattainable....

  And then his conscience turned upon him, reminding him of the promise(completely driven out of his mind by his grim adventure before dawn,together with the emotional crisis of mid-morning) to display some sortof a day-signal of distress.

  For something like half an hour he was busy with the task of nailing aturkey-red table-cloth to a pole, and the pole in turn (with theassistance of a ladder) to the peak of the gabled barn. But when thiswas accomplished, and he stood aside and contemplated the drooping,shapeless flag, realizing that without a wind it was quite meaningless,the thought came to him that the very elements seemed leagued togetherin a conspiracy to keep them prisoners, and he began to nurse asuperstitious notion that, if anything were ever to be done towardwinning their freedom, it would be only through his own endeavour,unassisted.

  Thereafter for a considerable time he loitered up and down the dooryard,with all his interest focussed upon the tidal strait, measuring itsgreatest and its narrowest breadth with his eye, making shrewd guessesat the strength and the occasions of the tides.

  If the calm held on and the sky remained unobscured by cloud, by eleventhere would be clear moonlight and, if he guessed aright, the beginningof a period of slack water.

  Sunset interrupted his calculations--sunset and his wife. Sounds of someone moving quietly round the kitchen, a soft clash of dishes, therattling of the grate, drew him back to the door.

  She showed him a face of calm restraint and implacable resolve, ifscored and flushed with weeping. And her habit matched it: she hadovercome her passion; her eyes were glorious with peace.

  "Hugh"--her voice had found a new, sweet level of gentleness andstrength--"I was wondering where you were."

  "Can I do anything?"

  "No, thank you. I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am."

  "For what, in Heaven's name?"

  She smiled.... "For neglecting you so long. I really didn't think of ituntil the sunlight began to redden. I've let you go without your lunch."

  "It didn't matter--"

  "I don't agree. Man must be fed--and so must woman. I'm famished!"

  "Well," he admitted with a short laugh--"so am I."

  She paused, regarding him with her whimsical, indulgent smile. "Youstrange creature!" she said softly. "Are you angry withme--impatient--for this too facile descent from heroics to thecommonplace? But, Hugh"--she touched his arm with a gentle andpersuasive hand--"it _must_ be commonplace. We're just mortals, afterall, you know, no matter how imperishable our egos make us feel: and theair of the heights is too fine and rare for mortals to breathe long at atime. Life is, after all, an everyday affair. We've just got to blunderthrough it from day to day--mostly on the low levels. Be patient withme, dear."

  But, alarmed by his expression, her words stumbled and ran out. Shestepped back a pace, a little flushed and tremulous.

  "Hugh! No, Hugh, no!"

  "Don't be afraid of me," he said, turning away. "I don't mean to bother.Only--at times--"

  "I know, dear; but it must _not_ be." She had recovered; there was cooldecision in her accents. She began to move briskly round the kitchen,setting the table, preparing the meal.

  He made no attempt to reason with her, but sat quietly waiting. His rolewas patience, tolerance, strength restrained in waiting....

  "Shall you make a fire again to-night?" she asked, when they hadconcluded the meal.

  "In three places," he said. "We'll not stay another day for want ofletting people know we're here."

  She looked down, shyly. Coquetry with her was instinctive,irrepressible. Her vague, provoking smile edged her lips:

  "You--you want to be rid of me again, so soon, Hugh?"

  He bent over the table with a set face, silent until his undeviatinggaze caught and held her eyes.

  "Mary," he said slowly, "I want _you_. I mean to have you. Only bygetting away from this place will that be possible. You must come to meof your own will."

  She made the faintest negative motion of her head, her eyes fixed to hisin fascination.

  "You will," he insisted, in the same level tone. "If you love me, as yousay, you must.... No--that's nonsense I won't listen to! Renunciation isa magnificent and noble thing, but it must have a sane excuse.... Yousaid a while ago, this was a commonplace world, life an everyday affair.It is. The only thing that lifts it out of the deadly, intolerable rutis this wonderful thing man has invented and named Love. Without it weare as Nature made us--brute things crawling and squabbling in blindsqualor. But love lifts us a little above that: love _is_ supernatural,the only thing in all creation that rises superior to nature. There's nosuch thing as a life accursed; no such thing as a life that blights;there are no malign and vicious forces operating outside the realm ofnatural forces: love alone is supreme, subject to no known laws. I meanto prove it to you; I mean to show you how little responsible you havebeen in any way for the misfortunes that have overtaken men who lovedyou; I shall show you that I am far more blameworthy than you.... Andwhen I have done that, you will come to me."

  "I am afraid," she whispered breathlessly--"I am afraid I shall."

  He rose. "Till then, my dearest girl, don't, please don't ever shrinkfrom me again. I may not be able to dissemble my love, but until yourfears are done away with, your mind at rest, no act of mine, within mycontrol, shall ever cause you even so much as an instant's annoyance ordistress."

  His tone changed. "I'll go now and build my fires. When you areready--?"

  "I shan't be long," she said.

  But for long after he had left her, she lingered moveless by a window,
her gaze following him as he moved to and fro: her face now wistful, nowtorn by distress, now bright with longing. Strong passions contendedwithin her--love and fear, joy and regret; at times crushingapprehensions of evil darkened her musings, until she could have criedout with the torment of her fears; and again intimations possessed herof exquisite beauty, warming and ennobling her heart, all but persuadingher.

  At length, sighing, she lighted the lamp and went about her tasks, witha bended head, wondering and frightened, fearfully questioning her owninscrutable heart. Was it for this only that she had fought herself allthrough that day: that she should attain an outward semblance of calm socomplete as to deceive even herself, so frail as to be rent away andbanished completely by the mere tones of his mastering voice? Was she toknow no rest? Was it to be her fate to live out her days in yearning,eating her heart alone, feeding with sighs the passing winds? Or was shetoo weary to hold by her vows? Was she to yield and, winning happiness,in that same instant encompass its destruction?...

  When it was quite dark, Whitaker brought a lantern to the door andcalled her, and they went forth together.

  As he had promised, he had built up three towering pyres, widely apart.When all three were in full roaring flame, their illumination was hotand glowing over all the upland. It seemed impossible that the worldshould not now become cognizant of their distress.

  At some distance to the north of the greatest fire--that nearest thefarm-house--they sat as on the previous night, looking out over theblack and unresponsive waters, communing together in undertones.

  In that hour they learned much of one another: much that had seemedstrange and questionable assumed, in the understanding of each, thecomplexion of the normal and right. Whitaker spoke at length and in muchdetail of his Wilful Missing years without seeking to excuse thewrong-minded reasoning which had won him his own consent to live underthe mask of death. He told of the motives that had prompted his return,of all that had happened since in which she had had no part--with asingle reservation. One thing he kept back: the time for that was notyet.

  A listener in his turn, he heard the history of the little girl of theCommercial House breaking her heart against the hardness of life in whatat first seemed utterly futile endeavour to live by her own efforts,asking nothing more of the man who had given her his name. To makeherself worthy of that name, so that, living or dead, he might have nocause to be ashamed of her or to regret the burden he had assumed: thiswas the explanation of her fierce striving, her undaunted renewal of thestruggle in the face of each successive defeat, her renunciation of thecompetence his forethought had provided for her. So also--since shewould take nothing from her husband--pride withheld her from askinganything of her family or her friends. She cut herself off utterly fromthem all, fought her fight alone.

  He learned of the lean years of drifting from one theatricalorganization to another, forced to leave them one by one by conditionsimpossible and intolerable, until Ember found her playing ingenue partsin a mean provincial stock company; of the coming of Max, his interestin her, the indefatigable pains he had expended coaching her to bringout the latent ability his own genius divined; of the initialperformance of "Joan Thursday" before a meagre and indifferent audience,her instant triumph and subsequent conquest of the country in half adozen widely dissimilar roles; finally of her decision to leave thestage when she married, for reasons comprehensible, demanding neitherexposition nor defence.

  "It doesn't matter any longer," she commented, concluding: "I loved andI hated it. It was deadly and it was glorious. But it no longer matters.It is finished: Sara Law is no more."

  "You mean never to go back to the stage?"

  "Never."

  "And yet--" he mused craftily.

  "Never!" She fell blindly into his trap. "I promised myself long agothat if ever I became a wife--"

  "But you are no wife," he countered.

  "Hugh!"

  "You are Mrs. Whitaker--yes; but--"

  "Dear, you are cruel to me!"

  "I think it's you who would be cruel to yourself, dear heart."

  She found no ready answer; was quiet for a space; then stirred,shivering. Behind them the fires were dying; by contrast a touch ofchill seemed to pervade in the motionless air.

  "I think," she announced, "we'd better go in."

  She rose without assistance, moved away toward the house, paused andreturned.

  "Hugh," she said gently, with a quaver in her voice that wounded hisconceit in himself; for he was sure it spelled laughter at his expenseand well-merited--"Hugh, you big sulky boy! get up this instant and comeback to the house with me. You know I'm timid. Aren't you ashamed ofyourself?"

  "I suppose so," he grumbled, rising. "I presume it's childish to wantthe moon--and sulk when you find you can't have it."

  "Or a star?"

  He made no reply; but his very silence was eloquent. She attempted ashrug of indifference to his disapproval, but didn't convince evenherself; and when he paused before entering the house for one final lookinto the north, she waited on the steps above him.

  "Nothing, Hugh?" she asked in a softened voice.

  "Nothing," he affirmed dully.

  "It's strange," she sighed.

  "Lights enough off beyond the lighthouse yonder," he complained: "redlights and green, bound east and west. But you'd think this place wasinvisible, from the way we're ignored. However...."

  They entered the kitchen.

  "Well--however?" she prompted, studying his lowering face by lamplight.

  "Something'll have to be done; if they won't help us, we'll have to helpourselves."

  "Hugh!" There was alarm in her tone. He looked up quickly. "Hugh, whatare you thinking of?"

  "Oh--nothing. But I've got to think of something."

  She came nearer, intuitively alarmed and pleading. "Hugh, you wouldn'tleave me here alone?"

  "What nonsense!"

  "Promise me you won't."

  "Don't be afraid," he said evasively. "I'll be here--as always--when youwake up."

  She drew a deep breath, stepped back without removing her gaze from hisface, then with a gesture of helplessness took up her lamp.

  "Good night, Hugh."

  "Good night," he replied, casting about for his own lamp.

  But when he turned back, she was still hesitating in the doorway. Helifted inquiring brows.

  "Hugh...."

  "Yes?"

  "I trust you. Be faithful, dear."

  "Thank you," he returned, not without flavour of bitterness. "I'll tryto be. Good night."

  She disappeared; the light of her lamp faded, flickering in the draughtof the hall, stencilled the wall with its evanescent caricature of thebalustrade, and was no longer visible.

  "Hugh!" her voice rang from the upper floor.

  He started violently out of deep abstraction, and replied inquiringly.

  "You won't forget to lock the door?"

  He swore violently beneath his breath; controlled his temper andresponded pleasantly: "Certainly not."

  Then he shut the outside door with a convincing bang.

  "If this be marriage...!" He smiled his twisted smile, laughed a littlequietly, and became again his normal, good-natured self, if a littleunusually preoccupied.

  Leaving the kitchen light turned low, he went to his own room and, as onthe previous night, threw himself upon the bed without undressing; butthis time with no thought of sleep. Indeed, he had no expectation ofclosing his eyes in slumber before the next night, at the earliest; hehad no intention other than to attempt to swim to the nearest land. Inthe illusion of night, his judgment worked upon by his emotions, thatplan which had during the afternoon suggested itself, been thoroughlyconsidered, rejected as too desperately dangerous, and then reconsideredin the guise of their only possible chance of escape at any reasonablyearly date, began to assume a deceptive semblance of feasibility.

  He did not try to depreciate its perils: the tides that swept throughthat funnel-shaped channel were unqu
estionably heavy: heavier than evenso strong a swimmer as he should be called upon to engage; the chancesof being swept out to sea were appallingly heavy. The slightest error injudgment, the least miscalculation of the turn of the tide, and he wasas good as lost.

  On the other hand, with a little good luck, by leaving the house shortlyafter moonrise, he should be able to catch the tide just as it wasnearing high water. Allowing it to swing him northwest until it fulled,he ought to be a third of the way across by the time it slackened, andtwo-thirds of the distance before it turned seawards again. And thedistance was only three miles or so.

  And the situation on the island had grown unendurable. He doubted hisstrength to stand the torment and the provocation of another day.

  Allow an hour and a half for the swim--say, two; another hour in whichto find a boat; and another to row or sail back: four hours. He shouldbe back upon the island long before dawn, even if delayed. Surely noharm could come to her in that time; surely he ought to be able toreckon on her sleeping through his absence--worn down by the stress ofthe day's emotions as she must certainly be. True, he had given her tounderstand he would not leave her; but she need not know until hisreturn; and then his success would have earned him forgiveness.

  An hour dragged out its weary length, and the half of another while hereasoned with himself, drugging his conscience and his judgment alikewith trust in his lucky star. In all that time he heard no sound fromthe room above him; and for his part he lay quite unstirring, his wholebody relaxed, resting against the trial of strength to come.

  Insensibly the windows of his room, that looked eastward, filled withthe pale spectral promise of the waning moon. He rose, with infiniteprecaution against making any noise, and looked out. The night was noless placid than the day had been. The ruins of his three beacons shonelike red winking eyes in the black face of night. Beyond them the skywas like a dome of crystal, silvery green. And as he looked, an edge ofsilver shone on the distant rim of the waters; and then the moon,misshapen, wizened and darkling, heaved sluggishly up from the deeps.

  Slowly, on tiptoes, Whitaker stole toward the door, out into the hall;at the foot of the stairs he paused, listening with every nerve tenseand straining; he fancied he could just barely detect the slow, regularrespiration of the sleeping woman. And he could see that the upperhallway was faintly aglow. She had left her lamp burning, the door open.Last night, though the lamp had burned till dawn, that door had beenclosed....

  He gathered himself together again, took a single step on toward thekitchen; and then, piercing suddenly the absolute stillness within thehouse, a board squealed like an animal beneath his tread.

  In an instant he heard the thud and patter of her footsteps above, herloud, quickened breathing as she leaned over the balustrade, lookingdown, and her cry of dismay: "Hugh! Hugh!"

  He halted, saying in an even voice: "Yes; it is I." She had already seenhim; there was no use trying to get away without her knowledge now;besides, he was no sneak-thief to fly from a cry. He burned withresentment, impatience and indignation, but he waited stolidly enoughwhile the woman flew down the stairs to his side.

  "Hugh," she demanded, white-faced and trembling, "what is the matter?Where are you going?"

  He moved his shoulders uneasily, forcing a short laugh. "I daresayyou've guessed it. Undoubtedly you have. Else why--" He didn't finishsave by a gesture of resignation.

  "You mean you were going--going to try to swim to the mainland?"

  "I meant to try it," he confessed.

  "But, Hugh--your promise?"

  "I'm sorry, Mary; I didn't want to promise. But you see ... this stateof things cannot go on. Something has got to be done. It's the only wayI know of. I--I can't trust myself--"

  "You'd leave me here while you went to seek death--!"

  "Oh, it isn't as dangerous as all that. If you'd only been asleep, as Ithought you were, I'd've been back before you knew anything about it."

  "I should have known!" she declared passionately. "I _was_ asleep, but Iknew the instant you stirred. Tell me; how long did you stand listeninghere, to learn if I was awake or not?"

  "Several minutes."

  "I knew it, though I was asleep, and didn't waken till the boardsqueaked. I knew you would try it--knew it from the time when youquibbled and evaded and wouldn't give me a straight promise. Oh, Hugh,my Hugh, if you had gone and left me...!"

  Her voice shook and broke. She swayed imperceptibly toward him, thenaway, resting a shoulder against the wall and quivering as though shewould have fallen but for that support. He found himself unable toendure the reproach of those dark and luminous eyes set in the mask ofpallor that was her face in the half-light of the hallway. He lookedaway, humbled, miserable, pained.

  "It's too bad," he mumbled. "I'm sorry you had to know anything aboutit. But ... it can't be helped, Mary. You've got to brace up. I won't begone four hours at the longest."

  "Four hours!" She stood away from the wall, trembling in every limb."Hugh, you--you don't mean--you're not going--_now_?"

  He nodded a wretched, makeshift affirmation.

  "It must be done," he muttered. "Please--"

  "But it must not be done! Hugh!" Her voice ascended "I--I can't let you.I won't let you! You ... It'll be your death--you'll drown. I shall havelet you go to your death--"

  "Oh, now, really--" he protested.

  "But, Hugh, I _know_ it! I feel it here." A hand strayed to rest,fluttering, above her heart. "If I should let you go ... Oh, my dearone, don't, don't go!"

  "Mary," he began hoarsely, "I tell you--"

  "You're only going, Hugh, because ... because I love you so I ... I amafraid to let you love me. That's true, isn't it? Hugh--it's true?"

  "I can't stay ..." he muttered with a hang-dog air.

  She sought support of the wall again, her body shaken by dry sobbingthat it tore his heart to hear. "You--you're really going--?"

  He mumbled an almost inaudible avowal of his intention.

  "Hugh, you're killing me! If you leave me--"

  He gave a gesture of despair and capitulation.

  "I've done my best, Mary. I meant to do the right thing. I--"

  "Hugh, you mean you won't go?" Joy from a surcharged heart rang vibrantin every syllable uttered in that marvellous voice.

  But now he dared meet her eyes. "Yes," he said, "I won't go"--nodding,with an apologetic shadow of his twisted smile. "I can't if ... if itdistresses you."

  "Oh, my dear, my dear!"

  Whitaker started, staggered with amaze, and the burden of his wife inhis arms. Her own arms clipped him close. Her fragrant tear-gemmed facebrushed his. He knew at last the warmth of her sweet mouth, the dearmadness of that first caress.

  The breathless seconds spun their golden web of minutes. They did notmove. Round them the silence sang like the choiring seraphim....

  Then through the magical hush of that time when the world stood still,the thin, clear vibrations of a distant hail:

  "_Aho-oy!_"

  In his embrace his wife stiffened and lifted her head to listen like astartled fawn. As one their hearts checked, paused, then hammeredwildly. With a common impulse they started apart.

  "You heard--?"

  "Listen!" He held up a hand.

  This time it rang out more near and most unmistakable:

  "Ahoy! The house, ahoy!"

  With the frenzied leap of a madman, Whitaker gained the kitchen door,shook it, controlled himself long enough to draw the bolt, and flung outinto the dim silvery witchery of the night. He stood staring, while thegirl stole to his side and caught his arm. He passed it round her,lifted the other hand, dumbly pointed toward the northern beach. For themoment he could not trust himself to speak.

  In the sweep of the anchorage a small white yacht hovered ghostlike,broadside to the island, her glowing ports and green starboard lamppainting the polished ebony of the still waters with the images of manyburning candles.

  On the beach itself a small boat was drawn up. A figure in wh
ite waitednear it. Issuing from the deserted fishing settlement, rising over thebrow of the uplands, moved two other figures in white and one in darkerclothing, the latter leading the way at a rapid pace.

  With one accord Whitaker and his wife moved down to meet them. As theydrew together, the leader of the landing party checked his pace andcalled:

  "Hello there! Who are you? What's the meaning of your fires--?"

  Mechanically Whitaker's lips uttered the beginning of the response:"Shipwrecked--signalling for help--"

  "Whitaker!" the voice of the other interrupted with a jubilant shout."Thank God we've found you!"

  It was Ember.