by Zane Grey
Upon their next circle of the decks they took up the quoits just abandoned by others, and began to play, with the taller girl at the end nearer Forrest. How gracefully she bent, with long sweep of arm to pitch the quoit! She was an open-air girl, and she had a wrist and hand that could hold a horse. Presently at the conclusion of the game she changed sides with her opponent, and then Forrest had full view of her face. Reluctantly he surrendered to its charm, somehow strangely familiar, as if it were that of a girl of his dreams or of some one he might have known in a far-off happy past.
She was gay, full of fun, and keenly desirous of beating her opponent, who evidently had a shade the more skill. Despite attention to the game, however, while her rival was pitching, she glanced at Forrest. And finally he grasped that it was neither casual nor flirtatious, but an augmentation of her former puzzled and wondering look.
Something of a thrill stirred in Forrest’s sad and lonely heart. For six years girls had meant little or nothing to him. Before that he had been sentimental enough, and even up to the age of twenty-two he had suffered divers attachments. In France he had known two girls, both of whom he would have loved if he could have been capable of love. But the war had been hell. He could not become callous. He had not been built to function like a machine. His emotions had destroyed his soul as bullets had his body. Still this young American Diana recalled Christine, a little French girl whom the war had made a waif. She had been petite, with glossy, fine, black hair and eyes to match, that peered roguishly from her pale, pretty face. She had no parents, no home, no friends except chance soldiers; she was a little derelict, yet she somehow embodied the spirit of France, and was unforgettable. Forrest did not quite understand what connection there could be in his mind between her and this girl of his native land. Certainly, there was no physical resemblance.
Again these merry quoit-players changed positions, and presently one of the quoits slid under Forrest’s deck chair.
The chestnut-haired girl tripped over, flushed and shy.
“That was a wild pitch. I’m sorry,” she apologized.
Forrest suddenly realized what was expected of a gentleman, and he forgot the need of guarding against abrupt movements. As he jerked out of his lounging position, to reach for the quoit, he sustained a tearing agony in his side. But he secured the quoit, and his shaking hand touched hers in awkward contact. No one could have mistaken the caution with which he leaned back in his chair.
“Oh, you hurt yourself?” she asked, in hurried compassion.
“A little. It’s nothing,” replied Forrest, faintly. Her wide startled eyes denied his assertion.
“You should have let me pick it up,” she went on.
“I don’t often forget, but you made me,” he said, gazing up at her, with a wry smile.
“Ah! You’re an American soldier, going home?” she asked.
“All that’s left of me.”
She did not voice the pity and regret which her face expressed. Evidently confused, if not agitated, by the little incident, she turned to her game, which she rather abruptly terminated.
Forrest lay back in his chair, resenting the angry palpitations of his injured side. How impossible to grow insensible to pain! The tear, the rend, the fiery shock shooting back to the heart, then the quivering raw nerves, and the slow icy sickening settling to normal! He disliked the intrusion of this beautiful, healthy, care-free girl upon his misery; and he overcame some deep unfamiliar warmth within to resent her pity.
Late in the day, when he ventured on deck at the hour most passengers were dressing for dinner, he essayed to walk up and down a little, as he had been instructed to do, at whatever cost to his sensibilities. He really managed very well for a cripple, and in spite of sundry qualms the exercise was good for him.
The sunset lacked warmth and color, yet its pale yellow and turquoise blue, hemmed in by russet clouds, was worth watching, if only to remind him of the West, where the setting sun was a ritual for the Indian, and the best of the day for the hunter, the range man, the rider on his trail, and the rancher on his porch.
Forrest at length had recourse to his chair, and he found pinned to his steamer rug a little packet wrapped in tissue paper. Violets! Who could have placed them there? Only one reply seemed possible. The act touched Forrest deeply, for he took it as an expression which could not have been made in words. He carried them to his stateroom and placed them on his pillow. One of his many tribulations was the fact that he was not permitted to eat more than once a day, and then sparingly. And as he shunned the saloons and was too nervous to read by artificial light, there appeared nothing to do but go to bed.
Soon, in the darkness of his stateroom, he lay with his cheek touching the tiny bunch of fragrant violets, and it was certain that his tears fell upon them. It had been a sweet and compassionate action of the chestnut-haired girl, but it hurt even in its aloof tenderness. For the moment it pierced his bitter armor. In the silence and blackness of the night, with only the faint throb of the engines and the roar of the sea in his ears, he felt what he had missed during these wasted years and now could never have. He held that his sacrifice had been futile. The magnificent glow and inspired fighting fervor with which he had volunteered for the war, had died in the ghastly reality of the truth. Even his belief in God had succumbed.
How strange to feel that there still abided in him depths that stirred to the look in a girl’s eyes and the meaning in a gift of violets. She had not known that he should have been beyond the pale of such human sentiments. The worst of it was that he was not. Long indeed were the hours before slumber claimed him.
Next day the donor of the kindly gift might as well not have been on the ship, for all Forrest saw of her. On the ensuing morning he thought he caught a glimpse of wavy chestnut hair disappearing behind a corner of deck, but it did not reappear. And gradually the persuasive force of the incident faded; the fleeting interest that had kept him from morbid retrospection lost its healthy tone, and he drifted back. The little affair, perhaps only a kind thought for her, yet of such incalculable good for him, had been ended. Chestnut-haired girls were not for him.
When in the early rose and gold of sunrise the ship steamed up the Narrows and on past the Statue of Liberty, the hour was one of tremendous moment to Clifton Forrest. His own, his native land! One of his prayers at least had been answered. There was only one left, and he renewed that with a faith incurred by this beautiful answer.
At the docking his ordeal of transfer began. But he kept out of the press of the crowd, and watched the gay fluttering of handkerchiefs, the upturned faces, eager and intent, the hurry of passengers down the gangplank. And looking among them, suddenly he espied her. Had he forgotten? She was clad in white and those around her dimmed in his sight. Yet he saw her welcomed by young men and women, who whisked her away, leaving a blankness over the noisy crowd, the incessant movement and changing color.
After complying with the wearying customs regulations, Forrest sat resting upon his luggage until he could engage a steward who would take him to a taxi. Soon, then, he was dodging the traffic of the streets of New York, the peril of which he thought equal to tank warfare in France.
Uptown, the great canyon streets, with their endless stream of humanity, and in the center the four rows of continuous motors, brought stunningly to him the bewildering fact that he was in New York City. To be sure, a thousand leagues still separated him from his destination, yet this was home. It roused him to a high pitch of gratitude, and of an inexplicable emotion that had long been dormant in his breast.
The stimulus of this grew as he turned into Fifth Avenue, where the wild taxi-driver had to join the right-hand procession and slow up at frequent intervals. Thus Forrest had opportunity to revel in the sidewalks packed with his countrymen. The bitterness of neglect had no place in his full heart then, and the hour was too big for the tragedy of his life to prevail. He had not dreamed it would be like this. Perhaps there was something his misery had blunted or which hi
s intelligence had never divined. Among the thousands of pedestrians he saw women of all degrees, from the elegant lithe-stepping patrician to the overdressed little shopgirl. And it was these his hungry heart seemed to seize. Had he not seen enough men to last ten lifetimes?
At the Grand Central Station he expended about the last of his strength reaching a bench in the waiting-room. The huge domed vault, which he could see through the doorway, seemed dim, and the hurrying people vague in his sight. He leaned back with his coat under his head, and slowly watched the arch clear of dim gloom, of spectral cubistic shapes, like the things of a nightmare; and rays of colored sunlight shine upon the splendor of sculptured walls and the painted dome.
Oddly it struck him then that the clearing of the vast space above might be a symbol of his homecoming. Out of chaos, out of turgid gloom, the beautiful lights on the storied painted windows! But if it were true it must mean out of travail into ease, out of insupportable life to dreamless death.
It took hours sometimes for Forrest to recover from undue exertion. This appeared to be a time when he would just about be rested and free from torture, then be compelled to rouse the fiends of flesh and bone again. It was well that he had to wait for one of the slow trains, upon which no extra fare was charged.
Eventually he once more got pleasure and excitement from the hurrying throngs. Wherever did so many people come from? Whither were they going? Indeed, their paths seemed the pleasanter lanes of life, for few indeed belonged to the lower classes. All well dressed, intent on thought or merry with companions, bright-faced and eager for whatever lay ahead, they impressed Forrest with the singular and monstrous fact of their immeasurable distance from him, from the past that had ruined him, from the bleak ash-strewn shore of the future.
He had given his all for them and they passed him by, blind to his extremity. But for the moment he soared above bitterness and he had clearness of vision. Surely one or more of these handsome girls had a brother under the poppies in the fields of France. Perhaps some of these business-like young men had shared with him the battlefield, but had escaped his misfortunes.
So the hours passed, not tediously for the latter half, until the porter who had carried his bags and purchased his ticket arrived to put him on his train.
“Come, buddy,” said the porter, with a grin; “hang on to me and we’ll go over the top.”
Anyone who ran could read, thought Forrest with resignation. Still his pride would never succumb. Without a falter he followed his guide to Pullman, and once sunk in his seat he sighed and wiped the cold dew from his brow. Only one more like ordeal — the bus ride in Chicago from station to station — and then the Santa Fé Limited! How often from the hills outside Las Vegas had he reined his horse to watch the famous Western train wind like a snake across the desert!
The Palisades above the Hudson, with the sinking sun behind them, appeared to have a faint bursting tinge of spring. At home the cottonwoods would be in leaf, full-foliaged, and green as emerald. He watched the reflection of cliff and hill in the broad river until dusk. Then he ventured boldly for the dining-car. It brought poignant memories. How different his first experience in a diner six years before on his way to college at Lawrence, Kansas!
That night he did not sleep very well, though he rested comfortably. The rushing of the train through the darkness, fearful as it was, seemed welcome because of the miles so swiftly annihilated.
Morning came, and finally Chicago, dark under its cloud of smoke. Forrest naturally was slow in disembarking from the train. All was bustle and confusion. Porters were scarce. And as the connection for the Santa Fé was close he could not risk missing the bus. So he carried his luggage. As a result he had to be helped into the bus, and at Dearborn Street put in a wheel chair and taken out to his Pullman. He was staggering and groping like one in the dark, while the porter led him to his berth and deposited his luggage. When Forrest sagged into the seat he felt that it was not any too soon. He was glad indeed to lay his head on a pillow the porter brought. Outside, the conductor called all aboard. The train gave a slight jar and started to glide. Forrest heard a passenger exclaim that the Twentieth Century Limited had just made the connection and that was all. Then the train emerged from the shaded station out into the sunlight.
Forrest knew that he had overshot his strength, but if it did not kill him outright, he did not care. He was on the last lap home. And the ecstasy of it counter-balanced the riotous protest of his broken body. Had he not endured as much without any help at all save the brute instinct to survive? He opened his heavy eyelids, and the first person he saw was the chestnut-haired girl he had met on the ship.
Chapter Two
“RECKON HE’S FAINTED, Miss.” The voice probably came from the porter.
“He is very white.” This was evidently from a girl. “Are you sure it’s the same fellow, Ginia?”
“I know it is.” That voice had a rich note that Forrest recognized. It had power to raise him from his lethargy, but he decided he would like staying unconscious a little while longer.
“Miss, he was fetched in a wheel chair,” said the porter. “Sho I had all I could do with his luggage, an’ I reckoned whoever fetched him would help him aboard. But he got on alone, an’ I seen him saggin’ here too late.”
“Mother,” interposed the first girl, “Ginia declares she saw this young man on the Berengaria.”
“Indeed! Who is he?” queried the mother.
“I don’t know,” answered the girl Forrest knew. “But I do know he’s a wounded soldier.”
“Who told you that, my dear?”
“Anyone could have seen. Besides, he told me so...He was alone on the ship...Porter, is there anyone with him now?”
“No, Miss, I’s sho there ain’t. It was a red-cap who fetched him in.”
“Bring me a towel wet with cold water,” returned the girl called Ginia. “Ethel, get your mother’s smelling-salts, in case I need something stronger.”
Forrest felt some one brush his knees and evidently sit down opposite him. Then a soft warm hand touched his cheek, and that gentle contact shot all through him.
“Like ice,” she whispered.
“Poor fellow! Wouldn’t it be awful if he were dead?” exclaimed the girl who was probably Ethel.
“Hush! Suppose he heard you!...Ethel, don’t stand there like a ninny. Go back to your mother...Thanks, porter. You might get another pillow.”
Then Forrest felt the gentle pressure of a cold wet cloth upon his brow and temples, and the touch of light fingers smoothing back his hair. A most unaccountable sensation assailed him. This was the girl who had given him the tiny bouquet of violets, which he had still in his possession. What chance had brought them together again and now on a train going west?
“He doesn’t come to,” whispered the girl to some one near. “I wonder if there’s a doctor aboard.”
Forrest thought it was quite time he was recovering consciousness. Therefore to the best of his ability he imitated a motion-picture actress coming out of a trance, and then opened his eyes. Some one gasped, but it was not the girl bending toward him. She drew back, a little startled. Then the gravity of her face relaxed.
“There! You’ve come to. We — I had begun to fear you never would...You fainted, you know.”
“Very good of you to trouble — about me,” he replied, and his unsteadiness was not feigned.
“You must have hurried too fast.”
“Yes. You see, I didn’t want to miss this train...Another whole day.”
A blond head popped up from behind the seat, where manifestly it had been very close indeed. And a pretty girl asked, solicitously:
“Ginia, is he all right?”
“He has recovered, at any rate.”
“Thank you. I think the fact that I’m on this train will make me all right — presently,” replied Forrest.
“I am very glad,” said the girl, soberly, and sat down opposite him.
The porter brought another
pillow and slipped it under Forrest’s shoulders.
“Anythin’ mo’ I can get you, boss?”
Forrest shook his head. The girl handed the towel to the porter, and moved as if to rise. But she did not carry out her impulse. Forrest was gazing into her eyes, which evidently confused her, yet held her there for the moment. Her eyes were deep dark violet, wide apart, and somehow they struck a memory chord in Forrest’s uncertain mind. Just now they were troubled.
“Was it on the ship — I saw you?” he asked, uncertainly.
“Yes.”
“Anywhere else?”
“Not that I know of.”
Slipping his hand inside his breast pocket, he drew forth the faded violets and exposed them in his palm.
“I found these pinned to my steamer rug. Did you put them there?”
She blushed rosy red. “I!...Why do you imagine I did it?”
“There was only one other person who could have been kind enough. He was an old man and never would have thought of it...Did you?”
“But why do you want to know?”
“I’d like to know truly that you did it, instead of some stranger.”
“I am a stranger, too.”
“You are, yes. But then you are not. I can’t explain. I believe, though, I’ve seen you somewhere...I’d been nine months in a hospital. Missing months before that. God only knows where...The first time my frozen heart seemed to soften was when I saw those violets...I laid them on my pillow — and cried myself to sleep on them...Absurd for a soldier! But the iron in me is gone...Now will you tell me?”
“Something prompted me,” she answered, swiftly. “I don’t know what. I resisted the impulse...But then I did it. And now I’m very, very glad.”
She arose, somewhat confusedly, and backed into the aisle. Forrest felt the intensity of his gaze and that it fascinated her. There seemed nothing more to be said in words.