August First
Page 11
being in the power of the three hundred andsixty-fifth day, trotted demurely into the meshes of Fate.
Fate was posing as another lad, a lad of charm and adventure. "C'm on,Ang," proposed Fate in nasal American; "Evans's chauffeur's havin' arooster-fight in the garage. Hurry up--c'm on--lots of fun." Andwhile Angus, stirred by the prospect, struggled with a Scotchconscience, the footman from next door sauntered up, a good-naturedyouth, and, stopping, caught the question.
"Get along to your chicken-fight," he adjured Angus, and took theletter from his hand. "I'm on my way to the post-office now. I'llmail it as good as you, ain't it?" And Angus fled up the street alongwith Fate. While Tom Mullins thrust the letter casually into acoat-pocket and dropped in to see his best girl, and, in a bit ofhorse-play with that lady, lost the letter. "Sure, I mailed it," heanswered Angus's inquiries that afternoon, and Angus passed along theassurance, not going into details, and every one concerned wassatisfied.
While, in a Parish House many miles down the railed roads that measurethe country, a man waited. And waited, ever with a sickerrestlessness, a more unendurable longing. Saturday came, and the manhoped, till the hour for any boat's sailing was long past, for aletter, another telegram. Then, "She has had it mailed after sheleft," he reasoned, and all of Monday and Tuesday he waited and watchedand invented reasons why it might come to-morrow or even later--evenfrom the other side--from Germany. Two weeks, three, and then four, heheld to varying fictions about the letter, which Arline Baker, the ladyof Tom Mullins's heart, had picked up from the floor that day inOctober and tucked into a bureau drawer to give to Tom--tucked under asummer blouse. And the weather had turned chilly, helping along Fateas weather will at times, and the summer blouse had not been worn, andthe letter had been forgotten.
Then there came a day when he took measures with himself, becausesuspense and misery were eating his strength. He faced the situation;he had poured his heart, keeping back nothing, at her feet. And shehad not answered, except with a few words of a telegram. He knew, bythat, that she had got his letter, the first love-letter of his life.But she had not cared enough to answer it. Or else, his faith in herargued, something had happened, there had been some unimaginable reasonto prevent her answering. That the letter had been lost was socommonplace a solution that it did not occur to him. One does notthink of mice setting off gunpowder magazines. At all events he wasfacing a stone wall; there was no further step to take; she must be inGermany; he did not know her address; if he did, how could he writeagain? A man may not hound a woman with his love. Yet he was all butmad with anxiety about her, beyond this other suffering. Why had shesuddenly gone to Germany? What did that mean? In his black strugglesfor enlightenment, he believed sometimes that, in a fantastic attack of_noblesse oblige_, she had married the other man and gone to Germanywith him. That thought drove him near insanity. So he gathered up,alone before his fire, all these imaginings and doubts, and sat withthem into the night, and made a packet of them, and locked them away,as well as he might, into a chamber of his memory. And the next day heflung himself into his work as he had not been able ever to do before;he made it his world, and resolutely shut out the buoyant voice and thepersonality so intimately known, so unknown. He tried to be so tired,at night, that he could not think of her; and he succeeded far enoughto make living a possibility, which is all that any of us can dosometimes. Often the thought of her, of her words, of her letters, ofthe gay voice telling of a hideous future, stabbed him suddenly in thenight, in the crowded day. But he put it aside with a mighty efforteach time, and each time gained control.
And then it was May, and in June he was to have his vacation. And oncemore the doubt of his fitness for his work was upon him. The stress ofthe tremendous gait of the big parish, and the way he had thrown hisstrength by handfuls into the work, had told. If a healthy and happyman uses brain and heart and body carefully it is perhaps true that hecannot overwork. But if a high-strung man gives himself out all daylong, every day, recklessly, and is at the same time under a mentalstrain, he is likely to be ill. Geoffrey McBirney was close to anillness; his attitude toward life was warped; he was reasoning that hehad made the girl a test case and that the case had failed; that it wasnow his duty to stand by the test and give up his work. And then, oneday, the letter came. The weather had turned warm in Forest Gate andArline Baker had got out her summer blouses.
October 10th [it was dated].
This morning, after I had read your letter it was as if I were beingbeaten to earth by alternate blows, like thunder, like lightning,fierce and beautiful and terrible, of joy and of grief.
For I care--I care--I can't wait to tell you--I'm so glad, sotriumphant, so wretched that I care--that it's in me to care,desperately, as much as any woman or man since the foundation of theworld. It's in me--once you said it wasn't--and you have brought it tolife, and I care--I love you. I want to let you come so that it leftme blind and shaking to send that telegram. But there isn't anyquestion. If I let you come I would be wicked. I, with my handful ofbroken life, to let you manacle your splendid years to a lump of stone?Could you think I would do that? Don't you see that, because I care,I'm so much more eager not to let you? I'm selfish and my first answerto that letter was a rush of happiness. I forgot there was anything intime or space except the flood which carried me out on a sea of justyou--the sweeping, overwhelming many waters of--you. I wonder if you'dthink me brazen if I told you how it seemed? As if your arms werearound me, and the world reeling. Some of those clever psychologists,James or Lodge, I can't remember who, have a theory that to higherbeings the past and present and future are all one; no divisions ineternity. It seemed like that. Questions and life and right and wrongall dissolved in the white heat of one fact. I didn't see or hear orknow. I put my head on the table, on your writing, in my locked room,and simply felt--your arms.
If this were to be a happy love-affair I couldn't write this; I wouldhave decent reserve--I hope; I would wait, maybe, and let you find outthings slowly. But there isn't time--oh, there isn't any time. I haveto tell you now because this is the last. You can't write again; Iwon't let you throw away your life; I'm not worth much, generallyspeaking, but I'm worth your salvation just now if I have the strengthto give it to you. And I'm staggering under the effort, but I'm goingto give it to you. I'm going to keep you away.
It was realizing that I must do this which beat me to earth with thoseterrible, bright, sharp swords. You see I'm starting off suddenly withUncle Ted. He is very ill, with heart trouble, and the doctors thinkhis chance is to get to Nauheim at once. It was decided last night,and we had passage engaged for Saturday within an hour, and then thismorning the letter came. As soon as I could pull myself together alittle I began to see how things were, and it looked to me as ifsomebody--God maybe--had put down a specific hand to punish my uselesslife and arrange your salvation. My going away is the means He isusing.
For you are such a headstrong unknown quantity, that if I had seen you,I couldn't have held you, and how could I have fought the exquisitesweetness and glamour that is through even your written words, thatwould make me wax in your hands, if you had been here and I had heardyour voice and seen your eyes and felt your touch; oh, I would havedone it--I _must_ do it--but it would have killed me I think. It'smore possible this way.
For I'm going indefinitely and all I have to do is to suppress myaddress. Just that. You can't find it out, for Robin is going awaytoo; he is to do some work of mine while I am gone; and you can't comehere and inquire for "August First," can you, now? So this is all--theend. Suddenly I feel inadequate and leaden. It is all over--the onechance for real happiness which I have had in my butterfly days--over.But you have changed earth and heaven--I want you to know it. I can'teven now say that if Uncle Ted shouldn't need me; if the hideous,creeping monster should begin its work visibly on me, that I might notsome day use the pistol. But I do say that because of you I will tryto make any living that I may do count for something, fo
r somebody. Iam trying. You are to know about that in time.
And now the color is going out of my life--you are going. Some day youwill care for some one else more than you think now you care for me.I'm leaving you free for that--but it's all I can do. Why must my lifebe wreck and suffering? Why may I not have the common happinesses?Why may I not love you--be there for you "at the end of the day"? Theblows are raining hard; I'm beaten close to earth. Has God forsakenme? I can only cling tight to the thin line of my duty to Uncle Ted; Ican't see any further than that. Good-by.
AUGUST FIRST.
The man shook as if in an ague. He laid the letter on a table andfastened it open with weights so that the May breeze,