Kitabı oku: «Anthony The Absolute», sayfa 4

She had the bureau arranged to her taste now, and moved slowly over toward the round table with the bent iron legs. There were a few books on this table – a little red “Guide to Peking,” Murray’s “Japan,” Dyer Ball’s “Things Chinese.” – her shopping bag, her wrist watch propped up to serve as a clock, and the inevitable ash-tray advertising a Japanese whisky.

Still I lingered there, half in her room, half in mine. She did not look at me. She hesitated at the table and fingered that absurdly vulgar little ash-tray. For the life of me I could not divine what she was thinking or what she wished me to do. I had meant to go straight into my own room and close the door. But I had done nothing of the sort.

It came to me that perhaps she was ready to have me pick up the shattered mood of my musical enthusiasm and carry it forward. Perhaps she would respond to it now. But I could not reconstruct that mood. In a desperate sort of way I was trying from moment to moment to do precisely that, and failing. For across my menial vision was floating, tantalizingly vague, the flushed desperate face of Crocker, as I had last seen him, at the Yokohama station. If this girl only knew it, we have a common interest that binds us a million times closer than the mere gift we both have.

I see I have called her a girl. She seemed so to me at that moment, standing there by the crooked-legged table, slim of body, softly, appealingly feminine in her outlines. I found myself thinking how lonely she must be, and what terrors must lurk ambushed in the byways of her thoughts, particularly at night. I fell to wondering about the man who had brought her out here and left her. Where was he? Did he leave her any money? Not a great deal, surely, or she would not be living in this shabby place. And yet, sad as she is, she does not know what I know! I am sure of that. She did not see Crocker’s face, there at the Yokohama station. She does not dream that he is scouring the Coast for her from Mukden to Singapore – that in his heart, where pity should be, there is outraged pride, and the exhausting bewilderment of a man who has only a code where he should have been taught a philosophy – and murder.

This world is hard on women. Perhaps because we men run it.

I slowly drew my foot back across the sill, moving into my own room. I hesitated again, and rested a trembling hand against the door frame.

It broke my heart to look at her, yet I could not keep from it. I wanted to help her. I wanted to do something. I even thought wildly of marching straight over to that crooked-legged iron table and taking her two hands solidly in mine and saying – “I know who you are, my dear, and I can imagine something of what you are suffering. I know from a glimpse of you that not one of the men who will be so quick to cast stones at you is fit to touch the hem of your skirt. I know, too, that no man can so much as befriend you, without plunging you into a deeper hell of suspicion and torment than the hell you are in now. But I am your friend, and all I ask of you is the opportunity to prove it!”

I was foolish in this, of course.

Suddenly she lifted her head and looked at me

I grew red all at once, and tried to swallow.

We were quite silent. She relieved the tension by stepping casually away from the table and glancing past me into my room.

“Is that your phonograph – in there?” she asked, her voice still low, and now a thought husky.

“Yes,” said I. “You must have heard it.”

She nodded slowly. “Sometimes it sounded like that,” she mused. “And other times it was like music a long way off. You played some melodies on a Chinese stringed instrument. They were quaint.”

“It is a Japanese instrument,” I corrected eagerly. Then I became confused, and knew that I was turning red again. The story of those Yoshiwara melodies and of the outcast girl who had played them for me seemed painfully out of place here. Not for anything in the world would I have told that commonplace story – not to this slim woman with the sad, honest blue eyes. For we do not tell such stories to women.

“You spoke of the piano scale,” she went on, in that musing tone. “I never knew before that other people noticed that. Sometimes, when I’m sitting at the piano, and strike one of the black keys after playing on the white, I can hear all around if – overtones, and fractions of tones.”

“Tell me,” I said – “What is the closest interval you have ever sung?”

She slowly shook her head. “I don’t know. There never was any reason for trying. And then there was no way to measure fractional tones.”

“There is now,” said I, emphatically. “My ear. Try it. We shall find out. First give me upper c.”

I got out my tuning fork, and struck the note after her

“Perfect pitch again!” I cried.

“Oh, yes,” she replied listlessly, “I can always do that.”

“Now take the closest interval you can, below the c.”

She did so. Then the next – and the next. I would not permit an apportamcnto, but made her separate the notes. She sang three distinct notes between the c and the b-natural that, on the piano, is the next step down.

I clapped my hands.

A little color came into her cheeks. She took a deep breath and kept at it. Her performance was not quite perfect – she got in only two clean notes between a and a-flat. But at that it was easily the most delicately precise bit of singing I have ever heard. She played with those close intervals with a facility that was amazing. And baring perhaps Sembrich and the earlier Melba, I have never heard such perfection of breath control (Patti doubtless had it, but I never heard her).

She stepped forward, threw her shoulders back (without raising them), swung up on the balls of her feet, and with a fine un-self-consciousness spun out those light, clear threads of tone. When she breathed it was with a quick inhalation that expanded the whole upper part of her body and made you forget how slim she had seemed. She became for the moment a strong, vibrant creature with a light in her eyes. But when she stopped singing that light died out.

“Come!” I cried. “We shall get this down now. We shall prove it on the phonograph. We shall settle that von Westfall beast forever!”

And I rushed back into my own room and prepared the instrument, without so much as ushering her in first. This was rude of me. But I have admitted I was not quite myself.

Before I had the cylinder on and the horn in position she followed. She stood at my side, watching my hands at work. I felt her there, so close, and was elated. I can not describe this sensation. That it is dangerous, I know only too well It is distinctly a tendency to be resisted.

On second thought, I decided not to waste any of my precious cylinders until she should acquire a reasonable degree of certainty with the delicate scale that was our goal. I explained this to her, and she understood. So I made her work upward from middle c, note by note, employing the utmost care to keep the intervals at precisely one-eighth of a tone. Over and over we did this. It called for the closest concentration, on her part as well as mine. I found a sort of wild happiness springing up within me at the thought that this woman has the rarest of all qualities, great capacity for work and for the enthusiasm and utter self-absorption that enter into all real achievement. I can not call her a trained worker. I would not go so far as to say that she has a trained mind. She needs guidance. And I rather imagine that further acquaintance will show that she lacks enterprise. Women of fine quality and great capacity often do, I think. They need stimulus and leadership. Imagine a man with both her extraordinary gift and her striking personality yet stirred by no curiosity to explore and create! “There never was any reason for trying,” was all she had said to that, and it was plainly all that was in her mind on the subject.

Women are incomplete creatures.

But – come to think of it – so are men.

Outside, the early April twilight settled down and deepened without our knowing it. It was she who first noted the fact. I was writing down notes on my extra-ruled paper to show her just where she had repeatedly missed our scale by a fine fraction of a tone, and she was bending close in the effort to see. Suddenly she sat up, drew in a quick breath, blinked a little, then reached over and switched on the electric light.

This act broke the tension of our work. We talked on about it for a little while, planning to get at it again in the morning. After a time she rose. But instead of going into her own room she moved over to the window and looked out across the dim, tiled roofs of the Chinese houses toward the walls and trees of the Legation Quarter that were darkly outlined against a glow of electric light.

I had lifted her momentarily out of her solitude. Now she dreaded returning to it. I felt this, with a glow of exultation in my heart that frightened me. But my impulses were too strong to-night to be governed offhand. I followed her to the window and stood beside her looking out, while my pulse raced.

“It’s a wonderful old city,” I heard myself saying.

And though I did not look around, I knew that she inclined her head by way of reply.

Then for quite a long time we were silent. But my muscles were tense. There was a suggestion gathering head in my mind that I knew had to come out. I waited, resisting it with less and less vigor frum moment to moment. I was afraid of it.

Finally it came. I said, “I wish we could have dinner here together.”

Then I dug my nails into my palms, standing very still there, and tried to breathe.

I felt her relax, and move a little.

“I am not hungry,” she said.

After a minute, as I still waited, she added – “Though I don’t know that it makes any difference – if you wish.”

“Of course not,” said I clumsily – “just having a little food brought in.”

So I rang for the China boy, and cleared the phonograph and cylinders and papers and ash-tray off my little iron table, and we had dinner there. Though first she slipped into her room, drew the door to, and changed from her gray kimono to a simple blue frock that I thought very becoming.

After the meal, we sat back without saying anything in particular until she grew restless, and finally pushed her chair back.

“I wish,” said I, “before you go, that you would sing that Franz song again for me. And let your voice out a little. I want to hear it.”

I thought her eyes grew suddenly moist. But without the slightest hesitation, without rising, even, she began the song – “Aus Meinen Grossen Schmerzen.”

But she was still holding her voice in. “Louder,” I urged. “Come, come! Sing!”

She could not resist my appeal. Out came the tones, round and rich, and colored with the inexpressible sorrow that is the life-breath of that exquisite song.

I leaned right forward on the table. I could not take my eyes from her broad white throat and the softly rounded chin above it and the finely muscular lips that framed themselves around the tones with a slight flaring out that suggested the bell of a trumpet.

The tears came flooding to my eyes. There was timbre in that voice, and a wonderful floating yet firm resonance. When it swelled out in the climax I could feel the sound vibrations throbbing against my ear drums. Then it shrank in volume, and died down until the song ended in a breathless sob that yet was perfect music. And after she had done, and was sitting there motionless, brooding, with downcast face, it seemed to me I could still hear those sad, breathless words, and could still feel that gentle throbbing against my ear.

“You have learned how to sing that song,” said I.

“Yes,” she replied, “I have learned how to sing it.”

We were in a sort of poignant dream – I still gazing at her; she still downcast, with the light gone out of her eyes.

Then, directly outside my door in the hall, we heard a man clear his throat. An old man, unmistakably. And we heard heavy footsteps creaking slowly off toward the stairs. God knows how long he had been listening there!

She said nothing. Merely sat with her hands in her lap. But she seemed to me to go limp. Certainly her face grew slowly pale until it was quite white, as I had first seen it.

“I should have known better,” I muttered. “I am a fool!”

She did not reply at once. After a moment she rose, then hesitated, resting a hand on the back of her chair. And her eyelids drooped until I could see the long, long lashes against her white skin.

“It was n’t your fault,” she said, very low.

She moved toward her own room. I rose, and followed part way. “The morning will be a better time – to work,” I managed to say. “It will be quieter then.”

She hesitated in the doorway; then slowly inclined her head, as if in assent. It seemed to me that she was making an effort to smile.

“Good-night,” she murmured.

“Good-night,” said I.

She closed the door after her. But there remained a narrow opening where the upper part had shrunk away from the frame.

I stood confused, looking about my room. The table was still cluttered with our dinner things.

I got my long raincoat out of the wardrobe that serves me for a closet. I unscrewed a hook from the wardrobe and, climbing on a chair, screwed it into the woodwork directly above the edge of the door. Then I hung my raincoat from it. Thus I cosed that narrow opening between her room and mine.

When I went out for my walk, a little later, I came squarely on Sir Robert He was standing at one end of the clerk’s desk, peering through his monocle at the board on which were recorded the names and room numbers of the guests.

It is an odd and frank custom, that. It is doubtless done for the guidance of the Chinese servants, who know us only by our numbers.

He turned and met me squarely, as I was about to walk by.

“So,” he said, wrinkling up his face into a smile and pecking at me with his monocle. His left eyelid drooped unpleasantly. “So – you, my friend, are the fortunate inhabitant of number sixteen. I was captivated by the lady’s voice. I congratulate you – again.” Then, still smiling as he observed my rising anger, he added – “But, my dear Eckhart, you must not look at me as if I were an intruder – not after the lady has sung like that. I could hardly refuse to listen.”

He grew thoughtful, and looked past me toward the door. “Women and song!” he mused. “Women and song!.. You are a sly devil, Eckhart.”

He turned, raised his monocle, and again studied the board – with an insolence that was calmness itself.

He was searching for the name of the woman.

I grew hot all over as I stood there watching him. In a moment – a second – he would find it. But no, he was looking everywhere on the board except in the space next to that occupied by my name. Clearly, it had not occurred to him to look there.

I moved closer and peeped over his shoulder. I had not before observed this board, beyond noting in a general way that it hung here by the clerk’s desk. I found myself suddenly wondering if she could possibly have been so careless —

There it was – directly under mine. Her own name!

Yes, there was – “Mrs. H. Crocker.” Why she has written herself down so irrevocably I can not imagine. In her dreadful predicament a false name is so clearly indicated.

Still, come to think of it, she herself does not yet know how dreadful that predicament is. I had forgotten that.

I wonder if it is that she consciously and deliberately refuses to sail under false colors. Or if, as is possible, it never occurred to her.

Sir Robert’s eyes were still searching the board. They had traversed two rows of names. They were now moving up the third row, closer and closer to numbers sixteen and eighteen.

Then I saw him start. He had found it. He lowered his monocle and carefully wiped it with the handkerchief that he kept in his sleeve Then he leaned forward and looked again.

I heard him give a low whistle of sheer surprise.

I could n’t stand that. I hurried outdoors and plunged off on my walk.

He was not in sight when I came back, more than an hour later. So I haven’t to face that cynical, drooping eye to-night, at least.

It is pitifully indiscreet of her to use her real name this way – in the circumstances. But oh, I am glad, just the same!

April 6th. Night

WE worked hard this morning, she and I. And a little this afternoon.

That is the thing, of course – work. It steadies me. And it is her only hope. For she has a life to build, poor child!

April 7th

HER name is Héloïse.

I like it. It fits her. Or it would fit her real self. Despite the fact that she is now in a disheartened, quite apathetic phase, I catch glimpses of a Gallic effectiveness about her. It is in her face, in the poise of her body, in the way she wears her clothes.

Yesterday, all day, I successfully avoided Sir Robert. This afternoon, for a moment, he caught me; but I deliberately said good-day and walked off. It was rude. But he, as an Englishman, would not hesitate an instant to be rude to me if the fancy took him. Curiously, he is anything but rude to me. I believe he stations himself where there appears to be a chance of waylaying me. He is even foregoing the big hotel in the Legation Quarter and having some of his meals here, in his room, directly across from hers. Which is disturbing – rather.

April 8th. Noon

WE have a perfect half scale, at last —c to g.

I shall now drive ahead after the rest of it. It has been a rather more exacting task than either of us foresaw. But she is persistent. If anything she throws too much nervous intensity into her work. She has asked me for copying to do, and even secretarial work. With her reasonably complete musical education she is quite competent to take down from the phonograph the notation of melodies and themes. She shuts herself in at night and works over my papers and music sheets until she is quite exhausted. I have tried to remonstrate; but she insists that she likes having the work to do. Poor child!

She has told me a good deal about her musical life. Not the least of her troubles is the fact that it would take at least two years of the very best coaching to fit her for opera. She has no repertoire to speak of. She has dreamed of the operatic stage from her earliest girlhood. But while she was young the opportunity was lacking. Her father was a high-school superintendent – a man of fineness and principle, I take it, but desperately poor. Her mother, who had been a singer, died when she was a child, the father two years ago. And then after her early marriage to Crocker, her life took a new and strange direction. She says nothing about Crocker. What little she does tell of this more recent part of her life she tells in a very quiet, reserved manner, implying an understanding that I will display no curiosity to learn more.

Yes, she accepts me as a friend. And she still thinks I know nothing of her beyond her bare name. I lie to her a dozen times a day, in my silences. But I don’t see what else I can do. Certainly I can’t offer her money. I can’t buy her a ticket over the Trans-Siberian and send her off to Europe to study for opera. I am foolish enough to have moments of wishing to do just that; but it is, of course, an impossible thought. And to tell her the painful knowledge that is at present locked up in my mind would simply shock and hurt her to no purpose that I can perceive.

We have at least one meal a day together. Yesterday we shared all three meals – breakfast in her room, luncheon and dinner in mine. It seemed the natural thing to do. Excepting the breakfast – that was perhaps a trifle odd. But all during the night, at intervals, I heard her stirring about in her room, and saw that her light was on. Toward morning, feeling rather disturbed about her, I got up, and, at length, dressed. This was about six o’clock.

At six-thirty I stepped out on the narrow little French balcony outside my window. It is less than a foot wide, this balcony, and has a fancy wrought-iron railing.

She also has a balcony, and while I stood there she came out. She was dressed. And she seemed so frankly glad to see me, that I suggested the breakfast. She looked very tired about the eyes. Indeed, I am not sure that she does not grow a shade more tired, a shade slimmer, each day. She eats next to nothing at all.

Certainly, each day she works harder. I am going to think out some way in which I can offer to pay her for this work. It is most assuredly worth something. As it stands now, she even insists on paying for her share of the meals.