_ CHAPTER XVI
As she came, pensively, from her morning bath into the sunny front room Athalie noticed the corner of an envelope projecting from beneath her door.
For one heavenly moment the old delight surprised her at sight of Clive's handwriting,--for one moment only, before an overwhelming reaction scoured her heart of tenderness and joy; and the terrible resurgence of pain and grief wrung a low cry from her: "Why couldn't he let me alone!" And she crumpled the letter fiercely in her clenched hand.
Minute after minute she stood there, her white hand tightening as though to strangle the speech written there on those crushed sheets--perhaps to throttle and silence the faint, persistent cry of her own heart pleading a hearing for the man who had written to her at last.
And after a while her nerveless hand relaxed; she looked down at the crushed thing in her palm for a long time before she smoothed it out and finally opened it.
He wrote:
"It is too long a story to go into in detail. I couldn't, anyway. My mother had desired it for a long time. I have nothing to say about it except this: I would not for all the world have had you receive the first information from the columns of a newspaper. Of that part of it I have a right to speak, because the announcement was made without my knowledge or consent. And I'll say more: it was made even before I myself was aware that an engagement existed.
"Don't mistake what I write you, Athalie. I am not trying to escape any responsibility excepting that of premature publicity. Whatever else has happened I am fully responsible for.
"And so--what can I have to say to you, Athalie? Silence were decenter perhaps--God knows!--and He knows, too, that in me he fashioned but an irresolute character, void of the initial courage of conviction, without deep and sturdy belief, unsteady to a true course set, and lacking in rugged purpose.
"It is not stupidity: in the bottom of my own heart I _know_! Custom, habit, acquired and inculcated acquiescence in unanalysed beliefs--these require more than irresolution and a negative disposition to fight them and overcome them.
"Athalie, the news you must have read in the newspapers should first have come from me. Among many, many debts I must ever owe you, that one at least was due you. And I defaulted; but not through any fault of mine.
"I could not rest until you knew this. Whatever you may think about me now--however lightly you weigh me--remember this--if you ever remember me at all in the years to come: I was aware of my paramount debt: I should have paid it had the opportunity not been taken out of my own hands. And that debt paramount was to inform you first of anybody concerning what you read in a public newspaper.
"Now there remains nothing more for me to say that you would care to hear. You would no longer care to know,--would probably not believe me if I should tell you what you have been to me--and still are--and still are, Athalie! Athalie!--" The letter ended there with her name. She kept it all day; but that night she destroyed it. And it was a week before she wrote him:
"--Thank you for your letter, Clive. I hope all is well with you and yours. I wish you happiness; I desire for you all things good. And also--for _her_. Surely I may say this much without offence--when I am saying good-bye forever.
"ATHALIE." In due time, to this came his answer, tragic in its brevity, terrible in its attempt to say nothing--so that its stiff cerement of formality seemed to crack with every written word and its platitudes split open under the fierce straining of the living and unwritten words beneath them.
And to this she made no answer. And destroyed it after the sun had set.
* * * * *
Her money was now about gone. Indian summer brought no prospect of employment. Never had she believed that so many stenographers existed in the world; never had she supposed that vacant positions could be so pitifully few.
During October her means had not afforded her proper nourishment.
The vigour of young womanhood demands more than milk and crackers and a rare slab from some delicatessen shop.
As for Hafiz, to his astonishment he had been introduced to chuck-steak; and the pleasure was anything but unmitigated. But chuck-steak was more than his mistress had.
Mrs. Bellmore was inclined to eat largely of late suppers prepared on an oil stove by her own fair and very fat hands.
Athalie accepted one or two invitations, and then accepted no more, being unable to return anybody's hospitality.
Captain Dane called persistently without being received, until she wrote him not to come again until she sent for him.
Nobody else knew where she was except her sisters. Doris wrote from Los Angeles complaining of slack business. Later Catharine wrote asking for money. And Athalie was obliged to answer that she had none.
Now "none" means not any at all. And the time had now arrived when that was the truth. The chuck-steak cut up on Hafiz's plate in the bathroom had been purchased with postage stamps--the last of a sheet bought by Athalie in days of affluence for foreign correspondence.
There was no more foreign correspondence. Hence the chuck-steak, and a bottle of milk in the sink and a packet of biscuits on the shelf. And a rather pale, young girl lying flat on the lounge in the front room, her blue eyes wide, staring up at the fading sun-beams on the ceiling.
If she was desperate she was quiet about it--perhaps even at moments a little incredulous that there actually could be nothing left for her to live on. It was one of those grotesque episodes that did not seem to belong in her life--something which ought not--that could not happen to her. At moments, however, she realised that it had happened--realised that part of the nightmare had been happening for some time--that for a good while now, she had always been more or less hungry, even after a rather reckless orgy on crackers and milk.
Except that she felt a little fatigued there was in her no tendency to accept the _chose arrivee_, no acquiescence in the _fait accompli_, nothing resembling any bowing of the head, any meek desire to kiss the rod; only a still resentment, a quiet but steady anger, the new and cool opportunism that hatches recklessness.
What channel should she choose? That was all that chance had left for her to decide,--merely what form her recklessness should take.
Whatever of morality had been instinct in the girl now seemed to be in absolute abeyance. In the extremity of dire necessity, cornered at last, face to face with a world that threatened her, and watching it now out of cool, intelligent eyes, she had, without realising it, slipped back into her ragged childhood.
There was nothing else to slip back to, no training, no discipline, no foundation other than her companionship with a mother whom she had loved but who had scarcely done more for her than to respond vaguely to the frankness of inquiring childhood.
Her childhood had been always a battle--a happy series of conflicts as she remembered--always a fight among strenuous children to maintain her feet in her little tattered shoes against rough aggression and ruthless competition.
And now, under savage pressure, she slipped back again in spirit to the school-yard, and became a watchful, agile, unmoral thing again--a creature bent on its own salvation, dedicated to its own survival, atrociously ready for any emergency, undismayed by anything that might offer itself, and ready to consider, weigh, and determine any chance for existence.
Almost every classic alternative in turn presented itself to her as she lay there considering. She could go out and sell herself. But, oddly enough, the "easiest way" was not easy for her. And, as a child, also, a fastidious purity had been instinctive in her, both in body and mind.
There were other and easier alternatives; she could go on the stage, or into domestic service, or she could call up Captain Dane and tell him she was hungry. Or she could let any one of several young men understand that she was now permanently receptive to dinner invitations. And she could, if she chose, live on her personal popularity,--be to one man or to several _une maitresse vierge_--manage, contrive, accept, give nothing of consequence.
For she was a girl to flatter the vanity of men; and she knew that if ever she coolly addressed her mind to it she could rule them, entangle them, hold them sufficiently long, and flourish without the ultimate concession, because there were so many, many men in the world, and it took each man a long, long time to relinquish hope; and always there was another ready to try his fortune, happy in his vanity to attempt where all so far had failed.
Something she _had_ to do; that was certain. And it happened, while she was pondering the problem, that the only thing she had not considered,--had not even thought of--was now abruptly presented to her.
For, as she lay there thinking, there came the sound of footsteps outside her door, and presently somebody knocked. And Athalie rose in the dusk of the room, switched on a single light, went to the door and opened it. And opportunity walked in wearing the shape of an elderly gentleman of substance, clothed as befitted a respectable dweller in any American city except New York.
"Good evening," he said, looking at her pleasantly but inquiringly. "Is Mrs. Del Garmo in?"
"Mrs. Del Garmo?" repeated Athalie, surprised. "Why, Mrs. Del Garmo is dead!"
"God bless us!" he exclaimed in a shocked voice. "Is that so? Well, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Well--well--well! Mrs. Del Garmo! I certainly am sorry."
He looked curiously about him, shaking his head, and an absent expression came into his white-bearded face--which changed to lively interest when his eyes fell on the table where the crystal stood mounted between the prongs of the bronze tripod.
"No doubt," he said, looking at Athalie, "you are Mrs. Del Garmo's successor in the occult profession. I notice a crystal on the table."
And in that instant the inspiration came to the girl, and she took it with the coolness and ruthlessness of last resort.
"What is it you wish?" she asked calmly, "a reading?"
He hesitated, looking at her out of aged but very honest eyes; and in a moment she was at his mercy, and the game had gone against her. She said, while the hot colour slowly stained her face: "I have never read a crystal. I had not thought of succeeding Mrs. Del Garmo until now--this moment."
"What is your name, child?" he asked in a gently curious voice.
"Athalie Greensleeve."
"You are not a trance-medium?"
"No. I am a stenographer."
"Then you are not psychical?"
"Yes, I am."
"What?"
"I am naturally clairvoyant."
He seemed surprised at first; but after he had looked at her for a moment or two he seemed less surprised.
"I believe you are," he said half to himself.
"I really am.... If you wish I could try. But--I don't know how to go about it," she said with flushed embarrassment.
He gazed at her it seemed rather solemnly and wistfully. "There is one thing very certain," he said; "you are honest. And few mediums are. I think Mrs. Del Garmo was. I believed in her. She was the means of giving me very great consolation."
Athalie's face flushed with the shame and pity of her knowledge of the late Mrs. Del Garmo; and the thought of the secret cupboard with its nest of wires made her blush again.
The old gentleman looked all around the room and then asked if he might seat himself.
Athalie also sat down in the stiff arm-chair by the table where her crystal stood on its tripod.
"I wonder," he ventured, "whether you could help me. Do you think so?"
"I don't know," replied the girl. "All I know about it is that I cannot help myself through crystal gazing. I never looked into a crystal but once. And what I searched for was not there."
The old gentleman considered her earnestly for a few moments. "Child," he said, "you are very honest. Perhaps you could help me. It would be a great consolation to me if you could. Would you try?"
"I don't know how," murmured Athalie.
"Maybe I can aid you to try by telling you a little about myself."
The girl lifted her flushed face from the crystal:
"Don't do that, please. If you wish me to try I will. But don't tell me anything."
"Why not?"
"Because--I am--intelligent and quick--imaginative--discerning. I might unconsciously--or otherwise--be unfair. So don't tell me anything. Let me see if there really is in me any ability."
He met her candid gaze mildly but unsmilingly; and she folded her slim hands in her lap and sat looking at him very intently.
"Is your name Symes?" she asked presently.
He nodded.
"Elisha Symes?"
"Yes."
"And--do you live in Brook--Brookfield--no!--Brookhollow?"
"Yes."
"That town is in Connecticut, is it not?"
"Yes."
His trustful gaze had altered, subtly. She noticed it.
"I suppose," she said, "you think I could have found out these things through dishonest methods."
"I was thinking so.... I am satisfied that you are honest, Miss Greensleeve."
"I really am--so far."
"Could you tell me how you learned my name and place of residence."
Her expression became even more serious: "I don't know, Mr. Symes.... I don't know _how_ I knew it.... I think you wish me to help you find your little grandchildren, too. But I don't know why I think so."
When he spoke, controlled emotion made his voice sound almost feeble.
He said: "Yes; find my little grandchildren and tell me what they are doing." He passed a transparent hand unsteadily across his dim eyes: "They are not living," he added. "They were lost at sea."
She said: "Nothing dies. Nothing is really lost."
"Why do you think so, child?"
"Because the whole world is gay and animated and lovely with what we call 'the dead.' And, by the dead I mean _all_ things great and small that have ever lived."
He sat listening with all the concentration and rapt attention of a child intent upon a fairy tale. She said, as though speaking to herself: "You should see and hear the myriads of birds that have 'died'! The sky is full of their voices and their wings.... Everywhere--everywhere the lesser children live,--those long dead of inhumanity or of that crude and temporary code which we call the law of nature. All has been made up to them--whatever of cruelty and pain they suffered--whatever rigour of the 'natural' law in that chain of destruction which we call the struggle for existence.... For there is only one real law, and it rules all of space that we can see, and more of it than we can even imagine.... It is the law of absolute justice."
The old man nodded: "Do you believe that?"
She looked up at him dreamily: "Yes; I believe it. Or I should not have said it."
"Has anybody ever told you this?"
"No.... I never even thought about it until this moment while listening to my own words."... She lifted one hand and rested it against her forehead: "I cannot seem to think of your grandchildren's names.... Don't tell me."
She remained so for a few moments, motionless, then with a graceful gesture and a shake of her pretty head: "No, I can't think of their names. Do you suppose I could find them in the crystal?"
"Try," he said tremulously. She bent forward, resting both elbows on the table and framing her lovely face in her hands.
Deep into the scintillating crystal her blue gaze plunged; and for a few moments she saw nothing. Then, almost imperceptibly, faint hues and rainbow tints grew in the brilliant and transparent sphere--gathered, took shape as she watched, became coherent and logical and clear and real.
She said in a low voice, still watching intently: "Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little azure wavelets.... Two children bare-legged, playing in the sand.... A little girl--so pretty!--with her brown eyes and brown curls.... And the boy is her brother I think.... Oh, certainly.... And what a splendid time they are having with their sand-fort!... There's a little dog, too. They are calling him, 'Snippy! Snippy! Snippy!' How he barks at the waves! And now he has seized the little girl's doll! They are running after him, chasing him along the sands! Oh, how funny they are!--and what a glorious time they are having.... The puppy has dropped the doll.... The doll's name is Augusta.... Now the little girl has seated herself cross-legged on the sand and she is cradling the doll and singing to it--such a sweet, clear, happy little voice.... She is singing something about cherry pie--Oh!--now I can hear every word:
"Cherry pie,
Cherry pie,
You shall have some bye and bye.
Bye and Bye
Bye and Bye
You and I shall have a pie,
Cherry pie
Cherry pie--
"The boy is saying: 'Grandpa will have plenty for us when we get home. There's always cherry pie at Grandpa's house.'
"And the little girl answers, 'I think Grandpa will come here pretty soon and bring us all the cherry pie we want.'... Her name is Jessie.... Her brother calls her 'Jessie.' She calls him 'Jim.'
"Their other name is Colden, I think.... Yes, that is it--Colden.... They seem to be expecting their father and mother; but I don't see them--Oh, yes. I can see them now--in the distance, walking slowly along the sands--"
She hesitated, remained silent for a few moments; then: "The colours are blurring to a golden haze. I can't see clearly now; it is like looking into the blinding disk of the rising sun.... All splendour and dazzling glory--and a too fierce light--"
For a moment more she remained bent over above the sphere, then raising her head: "The crystal is transparent and empty," she said.
[Illustration: "She said in a low voice, still watching intently: 'Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little azure wavelets....'"] _