Kitabı oku: «The Inner Flame», sayfa 3

She could get no further. She choked. Mrs. Fabian rose; Pluto, with another cry and a supreme writhe, tore himself from his iron prison.

The visitor shuddered, and looked at him fearfully, as his eager eyes seemed to threaten her. She hastened precipitately toward the door.

Eliza, putting the utmost constraint upon herself, rose and ushered her out.

Mrs. Fabian uttered a brief good-bye. Eliza was beyond speech.

While the visitor entered her waiting car, and sank with relief among its cushions, the mourner stood, her back against the closed door, and her eyes closed.

Restrained drops ran down her cheeks in well-worn ruts, and occasionally a spasmodic sob shook the slight form.

Pluto came to her feet, his short tail stiffly outstretched and his half-closed eyes lifted to the sightless face. In the long silence he rubbed himself against her feet in token of forgiveness.

CHAPTER IV
PHILIP SIDNEY

The Fabians had given Philip Sidney a pressing invitation to spend his first week in New York with them. When he arrived, however, and announced himself at the house, through some misunderstanding there was no one there to receive him save the servants.

A comely maid apologized for the absence of her mistress, saying that Mr. Sidney had not been expected until the following day; and showing him to his room she left him to his own devices.

Emerging from his bath and toilet, he found Mrs. Fabian not yet returned. It was but four o'clock, and he decided to go to the Ballard apartment and attend to his errand there.

Eliza had been doing some sweeping, the need for it goading her New England conscience to action. Her brown calico dress was pinned up over her petticoat, and her stern, lined face looked out from a sweeping-cap.

There sounded suddenly a vigorous knock on her door.

She scowled. "Some fresh agent, I s'pose," she thought. "Too sly to speak up the tube."

Broom in hand, she strode to the door and pulled it open with swift indignation.

"Why didn't you ring?" she exclaimed fiercely. "We don't want – "

She paused, her mouth open, and stared at the young man who pulled off a soft felt hat, and looked reassuring and breezy as he smiled.

"I did ring, but it was the wrong apartment. There was no card downstairs, so I started up the trail. Is this Mrs. Ballard's?"

The frank face, which she instantly recognized, and the clear voice that had a non-citified deliberation, accused Eliza of lack of hospitality; and she suddenly grew intensely conscious of her cap and petticoat.

"Come in," she said. "I was doin' some sweepin'. The first – " she paused abruptly and led the way down the corridor to the shabby living-room.

Phil's long steps followed her while his eyes shone with appreciation of the drum-major effect of the cap and broom, and the memory of his fierce greeting.

"I don't wonder Aunt Mary died," he thought. "I would too."

Meanwhile Eliza's heart was thumping. This interview was the climax of all she had dreaded. The usurper had an even more manly and attractive exterior than she had expected, but well she knew the brutal indifference of youth; the selfishness that takes all things for granted, and that secretly despises the treasures of the old.

The haste with which she set the broom in the corner, unpinned her dress, and pulled off her cap, was tribute to the virile masculinity of the visitor; but the stony expression of her face was defence from the blows which she felt he would deliver with the same airy unconsciousness that showed in the swing of his walk.

"You're Eliza Brewster, I'm sure," he said. "My mother knew you when she was a girl."

The hasty removal of Eliza's cap had caused a weird flying-out of her locks. The direct gaze bent upon her twinkled.

"I wonder if she'd let me paint her as Medusa," he was thinking; while her unspoken comment was: "And she never saw his teeth! It's just as well."

"Yes, that's who I am," she said. "Sit down, Mr. Sidney. I've been expectin' you."

"You didn't behave that way," he replied good-naturedly, obeying. "I thought at first I was going downstairs quicker than I came up, and I'd taken them three at a time."

His manner was disarming and Eliza smoothed her flying locks.

"The agents try to sneak around the rules o' the house," she said briefly.

"So this is where Aunt Mary lived." He looked about the room with interest. "We people in God's country hear about these flats where you don't dare keep a dog for fear it'll wag its tail and knock something over."

The troublesome lump in Eliza's throat had to be swallowed, so the visitor's keen glance swept about the bare place in silence.

"I see she didn't go in much for jim-cracks," he added presently.

Eliza's lump was swallowed. "Mrs. Ballard didn't care for common things," she said coldly. "She was an artist."

Phil comprehended vaguely that rebuke was implied, and he met the hard gaze as he hastened to reply: —

"Yes, yes, I understand." An increase of the pathos he had always discerned since learning about his great-aunt, swept over him now, face to face with the meagreness of her surroundings. "Did Aunt Mary work in this room? I see an easel over there."

"Yes, she worked here." The reply came in an expressionless voice.

"Poor Aunt Mary!" thought the visitor. "No companion but this image!"

Eliza exerted heroic self-control as she continued: "I've got the things packed up for you – the paints, and brushes, and palette. The easel's yours, too. Do you want to take 'em to-day?"

"Would it be a convenience to you if I did? Are you going to give up the flat immediately?"

"In a week."

"Then I'll leave them a few days if you don't mind while I'm looking for a room. I haven't an idea where to go. I'm more lost here than I ever was in the woods; but the Fabians will advise me, perhaps. Mrs. Fabian has been here to see you, I suppose."

Eliza's thin lips parted in a monosyllable of assent.

"What a wooden Indian!" thought Phil. Nevertheless, being a genial soul and having heard Miss Brewster's faithfulness extolled, he talked on: "We hear about New York streets being canyons. They are that, and the sky-line is amazing; but the noise, – great heavens, what a racket! and I can't seem to get a breath."

The young fellow rose restlessly, throwing back his shoulders, and paced the little room, filling it with his mountain stride.

Eliza Brewster watched him. She thought of her mistress, and the pride and joy it would have been to her to receive this six feet of manhood under her roof.

"She wouldn't 'a' kept her sentimental dreams long," reflected Eliza bitterly. "He'd 'a' hurt her, he'd 'a' stepped on her feelin's and never known it. He walks as if he had spurs on his boots." She steeled herself against considering him through Mrs. Ballard's eyes. "He's better-lookin' than the picture," she thought, "and I wouldn't trust a handsome man as far as I could see him. They haven't any business with beauty and it always upsets 'em one way or another – yes, every time."

Her eyes wandered to the mantelpiece whose bareness was relieved only by three varying sized pieces of blank paper. She felt the slightest quiver of remorse as she looked. She seemed to see her mistress's gentle glance filled with rebuke.

She stirred in her chair, folded her arms, and cleared her throat.

"You can leave the things here till I go, if you want to," she said.

Phil paused in his promenade and regarded her. Her manner was so unmistakably inimical that for the first time he wondered.

Perhaps, after all, she was not just a machine. And the same thought which had been entertained by Mrs. Fabian occurred to him.

"Twenty-five years of faithful service," he reflected. "I wonder if she expected the money? She's sore at me. That's a cinch."

Phil's artist nature grasped her standpoint in a flash. The granite face, with its signs of suffering, the loneliness, the poverty, all appealed to him to excuse her disappointment.

His eyes swept about the bare walls.

"Where are Aunt Mary's pictures?" he asked. "Was she too modest to hang them?"

"There were some up there," replied Eliza. "I took 'em down."

The visitor's quick eyes noted the white boards on the mantelpiece. With an unexpected movement, he strode across to it, and turned them around.

He stood in the same position for a space.

"Great guns, but she hates me!" he thought, while Eliza, startled, felt the shamed color stream up to her temples.

"What would Mrs. Ballard say!" was her guilty reflection.

Pluto here relieved the situation by making a majestic entrance. His jewel eyes fixed on the stranger for a moment with blinking indifference, then he proceeded, with measured tread, toward the haven of his mistress's lap.

"Hello, Katze," said Phil, stooping his scarlet face. He seized the creature by the nape of its neck and instantly the amazed cat was swung up to his broad shoulder, where it sat, claws digging into his coat and eyes glowering into his own.

"Say, charcoal would make a white mark on you, pussy," he went on, smoothing the creature in a manner which evidently found favor, for Pluto did not offer to stir.

"When I'm not doing her as Medusa," he reflected, "I'll paint her as a witch with this familiar. She'll only have to look at the artist to get the right expression."

"A distinguished visitor from the island of Manx, I suspect," he said aloud.

"No," returned Eliza, still fearfully embarrassed. "Pluto was born right here in New York."

The ever-ready stars in the visitor's eyes twinkled again into the green fire opposite them.

"It was his tail I was noticing. Manx cats are like that."

"Oh, that was boys. If I could 'a' caught 'em I'd 'a' liked to cut off their arms."

"I'll bet on that," thought Phil, "and their legs too."

Eliza cleared her throat. She seemed still to see the gentle eyes of her lost one rebuking her. With utter disregard of a future state she was preparing a lie.

"About those sketches," she said presently, and such was her hoarseness that she was obliged to clear her throat again, "you see, I was – sweepin', and I turned 'em to the wall."

"Oh, yes," said Phil, and continued to smooth Pluto who purred lustily. "A pretty good one for New England," he thought; and carelessly turning the third card about, he came face to face with his own photograph.

With one glance of disgust he tore the picture in two and threw it down.

Eliza started. "What did you do that for?" she demanded sharply.

Phil made a motion of impatience.

"Oh, it's so darned pretty!" he explained. "I thought all those pictures were in the fire."

"Mrs. Ballard set great store by that," said Eliza coldly, "and by the sketches, too," she added.

She was sitting up stiffly in her chair, now, and her gaze fixed on Phil, as, her cat on his shoulder singing loud praise of his fondling hand, he came and stood before her.

"I wish you'd let me see some of Aunt Mary's pictures," he said.

The dead woman's letter was against his heart. He felt that they were standing together, opposed to the hard, grudging face confronting him.

But this was Eliza's crucial moment. In spite of herself she feared in the depths of her heart that that which Mrs. Ballard had said was true; that this restless, careless boy had an artistic ability which her dear one had never attained. She shrank with actual nausea from his comments on her mistress's work. He might not say anything unkind, but she should see the lines of his mouth, the quiver of an eyelash.

She felt unable to rise.

"She left 'em all to me," she said mechanically, pale eyes meeting dark ones.

Phil brushed Pluto's ears and the cat sang through the indignity.

"Talk about the bark on a tree!" he thought. "I believe I'll paint her as a miser, after all! She'd be a wonder, with Pluto standing guard, green eyes peering out of the shadow."

He smiled down at Eliza, the curves of his lips stretching over the teeth she had admired.

"All right," he said. "I'm not going to take them away from you."

Eliza forced herself to her feet, and without another word slowly left the room.

Phil met the cat's blinking eyes where the pupils were dilating and contracting. "Katze, this place gives me the horrors!" he confided.

More than once on the train he had read over his aunt's letter, and each time her words smote an answering chord in his heart and set it to aching.

The present visit accentuated the perception of what her life had been. For a moment his eyes glistened wet against the cat's indolent contentment.

"I wish she hadn't saved any money, the poor little thing," he muttered. "No friends, no sympathy – nothing but that avaricious piece of humanity, calculating every day, probably, on how soon she would get it all. I'll paint her as a harpy. That's what I'll do. Talons of steel! That's all she needs." He heard a sound and dashed a hand across his eyes.

Eliza, heavy of heart, stony of face, entered, a number of pictures bound together, in her hands. The visitor darted forward to relieve her, and Pluto drove claws into his suddenly unsteady resting-place.

Eliza yielded up her treasures like victims, and stood motionless while Phil received them. Never had she looked so gaunt and grey and old; but the visitor did not give her a glance. Aunt Mary's letter was beating against his heart. Here was the work her longing hands had wrought, here the thwarting of her hopes.

His fingers were not quite steady as he untied the strings, and moving the easel into a good light placed a canvas upon it.

Eliza did not wish to look at him, but she could not help it. Her pale gaze fixed on his face in a torture of expectation, as he backed away from the easel, his eyes on the picture.

Pluto rubbed against his ear as a hint that caressing be renewed.

He stood in silence, and Eliza could detect nothing like a smile on his face.

Presently he removed the canvas, and took up another. It was the portrait of Pluto.

"Hello, Katze. Got your picture took, did you? Aunt Mary saw your green shadows all right."

He set the canvas aside, and took up another. Eliza's muscles ached with tension. Her bony hands clasped as she recognized the picture. To the kittens over the table in the kitchen she had once confided that this landscape, which the artist had called "Autumn," looked to her eyes like nothing on earth but a prairie fire! It had been a terrible moment of heresy. She was punished for it now.

Phil backed away from the canvas, and elbow in his hand, rested his finger on his lips for what seemed to Eliza an age. Her heart thumped, but she could not remove her gaze from him.

Pluto, finding squirming and rubbing of no avail, leaped to the floor and blinked reflectively at his mistress. A flagpole would have offered equal facilities for cuddling.

He therefore made deliberate selection of the least unsatisfactory chair, and with noiseless grace took possession.

Phil nodded. "Yes, sir," he murmured; "yes, sir."

Eliza's teeth bit tighter on her suffering under lip. What did "Yes, sir" mean? At least he was not smiling.

He went on, slightly nodding, and thinking aloud; "Aunt Mary was ahead of her time. She knew what she was after."

Eliza tried to speak, and couldn't. Something clicked in her throat.

Phil went on regarding the autumnal tangle, and with a superhuman effort Eliza commanded her tongue.

"What was that you said, Mr. Sidney?"

Phil, again becoming conscious of the stony presence, smiled a little.

"Aunt Mary would have found sympathizers in Munich," he said.

"That's Germany, ain't it?" said Eliza, words and breath interlocking.

"Yes. Most of Uncle Sam's relatives want to see plainer what's doing; at least those who are able to buy pictures."

"Ahead of her time!" gasped Eliza, her blood racing through her veins. "Ought to 'a' been in Germany!"

And then the most amazing occurrence of Philip Sidney's life took place. There was a rush toward him, and suddenly his Medusa, his witch, his miser, his harpy was on her knees on the floor beside him, covering his hand with tears and kisses, and pouring out a torrent of words.

"I've nearly died with dread of you, Mr. Sidney. Oh, why isn't she here to hear you say those words of her pictures! Nobody was ever kind to her. Her relations paid no more attention to her, or her work, than if she'd been a – a – I don't know what. She was poor, and too modest, and the best and sweetest creature on earth; and when your sketches came she admired 'em so that I began to hate you then. Yes, Mr. Sidney, you was a relative, and goin' to be a success, and the look in her eyes when she saw your work killed me. It killed me!"

"Do, do get up," said Philip, trying to raise her. "Don't weep so, Eliza. I understand."

But the torrent could not yet be stemmed.

"I've looked forward to your comin' like to an operation. I've thought you might laugh at her pictures, 'cause young folks are so cruel, and they don't know! Let me cry, Mr. Sidney. Don't mind! You've given me the first happy moment I've known since she left me. I was the only one she had, even to go to picture galleries with her, and my bones ached 'cause I was a stupid thing, and she had wings just like a little spirit o' light."

Philip's lashes were moist again.

"I wish I had been here to go with her," he said.

Eliza lifted her streaming eyes. "Would you 'a' gone?" she asked, and allowed Phil to raise her gently to her feet.

"Indeed, I would," he answered gravely, "and we should have lived together, and worked together."

"Oh, why couldn't it 'a' been! Why couldn't it 'a' been! What it would 'a' meant to her to have heard what you said just now about her pictures!"

Phil's hands were holding Eliza's thin shoulders, and her famished eyes were drinking in the comfort of him.

"I have an idea that we ought not to believe that we could make her happier than she is," he said, with the same gravity.

"I know," faltered Eliza, surprised; "of course that's the way I ought to feel; but there wasn't ever anything she cared much about except paintin'. She" – Eliza swallowed the tremulous sob that was the aftermath of the storm – "she loved music, but she wasn't a performer."

Phil smiled into the appealing face.

"Then she's painting, for all we know," he said. "Do you believe music is all that goes on there?"

"It's all that's mentioned," said Eliza apologetically.

"I have an idea that dying doesn't change us any," said the young man. "Why should it?"

"It didn't need to change her," agreed the other, her voice breaking.

"I believe that in the end we get what we want."

"That's comfortin'."

"Not so you'd notice it," returned Phil with conviction. "It makes the chills run down my spine occasionally when I stop to realize it."

"What do you mean?"

"Only that we had better examine what we're wanting; and choose something that won't go back on us. Aunt Mary did; and I believe she had a strong faith."

"We never talked religion," said Eliza.

"Just lived it. That's better."

"I didn't," returned Eliza, a spark of the old belligerency flashing in her faded eyes. "I can't think of one single enemy that I love!"

"You were everything to Aunt Mary. Do you suppose I shall ever forget that?"

"I sat down in front o' those pictures in the Metropolitan Museum," said Eliza, her lips trembling again. "It's awful big, and I got so tuckered, the pictures sort o' ran together till I didn't know a landscape from a portrait. Then I used to take on over somethin' that had a seat in front of it, and she'd leave me sittin' there starin'. Oh, Mr. Sidney, I can't think o' one other mean thing I ever did to her," – remorseful grief shook the speaker's voice, – "but I'd ought to 'a' stood up to the end. It would 'a' showed more interest!"

Phil squeezed the spare shoulders as they heaved. He laughed a little.

"Now, Eliza, whatever way you managed it, I know you made her happy."

"Yes," groaned the repentant one, "she said my artistic soul was wakin' up. Do you s'pose where she is now she knows it was black deceit?"

"She knows nothing black where she is," – Phil's voice rang with decision; "but she does know more than ever about love and sacrifice such as you have shown her. Beside," in a lighter tone, "how about your artistic soul? See how far above everybody else you understood her pictures."

Eliza's hungry gaze became suddenly inscrutable. "Mr. Sidney," she began, after a pause, "I loved every stroke her dear hand made, but" – again pain crept into the breaking voice – "you said yourself America wasn't worthy of her, and I'm only what you might call the scum of America when it comes to insight and – and expression and – and atmosphere. Usually I had sense enough to wait till she told me what a thing was before I talked about it; but one day, I can't ever forget it, I praised a flock o' sheep at the back of a field she was doin' and she said they was – was cows!"

Sobs rent the speaker and she covered her eyes.

"I told her – 'twas my glasses," she went on when she could speak. "I – told her they – hadn't been right for – a long time. She laughed – and tried to make a joke of it, but – "

Eliza's voice was drowned in the flood.

Phil patted her shoulders and smiled across the bowed head at the forlorn mantelpiece, where the sketches, unconscious of forgiveness, still turned faces toward the wall.

"You've grown awfully morbid, alone here," he said, giving her a little shake. "You should be only thankful, as I am, that Aunt Mary had you and that you were here to take care of her to the end. Come and sit down. She wrote me a wonderful letter. I have it in my pocket and I'll show it to you."

Eliza obediently yielded herself to be guided to a chair. Pluto had selected the best with unerring instinct; and suddenly into his feline dreams an earthquake intruded as Phil tossed him lightly to the floor.

Drawing his chair close to Eliza, who had wilted back against the faded cretonne roses, the young man drew from his pocket an envelope and took out of it a letter, and a small card photograph.

"Mother gave me this old picture of Aunt Mary – "

Eliza pulled herself up and took it eagerly. "I must get my glasses," she said. "I've cried myself nearly blind."

Phil's big hand pushed her back.

"I'll get them," he returned. "Where are they?"

"There, on the end o' the mantelpiece. I had 'em, readin' an advertisement."

She leaned back again and watched him as he crossed the room; watched him with wonder. In years she had not so given her confidence to a human being.

She put on the spectacles and wistfully regarded the picture of a pretty woman whose heavy braids, wound around her head, caught the light. Her plain dress was white and she wore black velvet bands on her wrists.

"Aunt Mary was considered different by her friends, mother says. In a time of frills she liked plain things."

"I guess she was different," agreed Eliza devoutly. "Would you think a man who married her would like whiskey better?"

Phil shook his head. "Sorry," he said, laconically.

"One good thing, he drank himself to death quick and left her free."

Phil held out the letter.

"Read it to me, please, Mr. Sidney."

"Can't do it," returned the young man with cheerful frankness. "It makes my nose tingle every time."

So Eliza read the letter in silence. It took her some minutes and when she had finished, her lip caught between her teeth, she took off her glasses and wiped them while she regarded Phil.

"And you've got to live up to that," she said.

"I'm going to try," he answered simply.

Eliza gazed at him, her hands in her lap. She felt old beside his youth, weak beside his strength, ignorant beside that knowledge which had stirred her mistress to exaltation. Nevertheless, the humble love, and desire to help him that swelled her heart was a new desire to live, a consecration.

Presently he took his leave, promising to return in a few days for his belongings.

After the door had closed behind him, she looked down at the cat, who had awakened from another nap at the stir of the departure.

He rubbed against her brown calico skirt as she lighted the gas; then she moved thoughtfully to the mantelpiece and turned the sketches about.

"Mary Sidney," she mused, looking at the graceful head of Phil's mother, "you've had your heartache, and your sacrifices. You've been most pulled in two, between longin' to stay with your husband and follow your son – you told me somethin' of it in your note thankin' for the brooch. Nobody escapes, Mary Sidney. I guess I haven't done you justice, seein' you've raised a boy like that."

Turning to the sketch of the storm-beaten tree, she clasped her hands before it. "Dear one," she mused tenderly, "you loved him. You was great. You died not knowin' how great you were; and you won't care if I do understand this kind better, 'cause all America's too ignorant for you, and I'm one o' the worst."

Her eyes dwelt lingeringly on the sketch. She fancied she could hear the wind whistling through the writhing branches. "It looks like my life," she thought, "risin' out o' the mist and the cloud."

She gazed at it in silence, then turned to the destroyed photograph. She seized the pieces quickly and turned them face up. The rent had missed the chin and cut across the collar. She regarded the face wistfully. The cat stretched his forepaws up her skirt until he was of a preternatural length. It was supper-time.

"I wonder, Pluto," she said slowly, "if I couldn't fit that into a minicher frame. Some of 'em come real reasonable."