The High Heart

by Basil King

  CHAPTER XIX

  In the morning Mrs. Brokenshire was difficult again, but I got her intoa neat little country inn in Massachusetts by the middle of theafternoon. I had to be like a jailer dragging along a prisoner, but thatcould not be helped.

  On leaving Providence she insisted on spending a few days in Boston,where, so she said, she had friends whom she wished to see. Knowing thatStacy Grainger would be at one of the few hotels of which we had thechoice, I couldn't risk a meeting. Her predominating shame, a shame shehad no hesitation in confessing, was for having failed him. He wouldnever forgive her, she moaned; he wouldn't love her any more. Not to beloved by him, not to be forgiven, was like death. All she demandedduring the early hours of that day was to find him, wherever he hadgone, and fling herself at his feet.

  Because I didn't allow her to remain in Boston we had what was almost aquarrel, as we jolted over the cobblestones from the southern station tothe northern. She was now an outraged queen and now a fiery littletermagant. Sparing me neither tears nor reproaches, neither scoldingsnor denunciations, she nevertheless followed me obediently. Sittingopposite me in the parlor-car, ignoring the papers and fashion magazinesI spread beneath her eyes, she lifted on me the piteous face of an angelwhom I had beaten and trampled and enslaved. For this kind of sacrilegeI had ceased, however, to be contrite. I was so tired, and had grown sogrim, that I could have led her along in handcuffs.

  But once out in the fresh, green, northern country the joy of a buddingand blossoming world stole into us in spite of all our cares. Wecouldn't help getting out of our own little round of thought when we sawfields that were carpets of green velvet, or copses of hazelnut andalder coming into leaf, or a farmer sowing the plowed earth with theswing and the stride of the _Semeur_. We couldn't help seeing wider andfarther and more hopefully when the sky was an arch of silvery blueoverhead, and white clouds drifted across it, and the north into whichwe were traveling began to fling up masses of rolling hills.

  She caught me by the arm.

  "Oh, do look at the lambs! The darlings!"

  There they were, three or four helpless creatures, shivering in thesharp May wind and apparently struck by the futility of a life whichwould end in nothing but making chops. The ewes watched them maternally,or stood patiently to be tugged by the full woolly breasts. After thatwe kept our eyes open for other living things: for horses and cows andcalves, for Corots and Constables--with a difference!--on the uplands offarms or in village highways. Once when a foal galloped madly away fromthe train, kicking up its slender hind legs, my companion actuallylaughed.

  When we got out at the station a robin was singing, the first bird wehad heard that year. The note was so full and pure and Eden-like that itcaught one's breath. It went with the bronze-green of maples and elms,with the golden westering sunshine, and with the air that was like thedistillation of air and yet had a sharp northern tang in it. Driving inthe motor of the inn, through the main street of the town, we saw thatmost of the white houses had a roomy Colonial dignity, and that orchardsof apple, cherry, and plum, with acres of small fruit, surrounded themall. Having learned on the train that jam was the staple of the littletown's prosperity, we could see jam everywhere. Jam was in thecherry-trees covered with dainty white blossoms, in the plum-treesshowing but a flower or two, and in the apple-trees scarcely in bud. Jamwas in the long straight lines which we were told representedstrawberries, and in the shrubberies of currant. Jam was along theroadsides where the raspberry was clothing its sprawling bines withleaves, and wherever the blueberry gladdened the waste places with itsmillions of modest bells. Jam is a toothsome, homey thing to which nowoman with a housekeeping heart can be insensible. The thought of it didsomething to bring Mrs. Brokenshire's thoughts back to the simplenatural ways she had forsworn, even before reaching the hotel.

  The hotel was no more than a farm-house that had expanded itself half adozen times. We traversed all sorts of narrow halls and climbed allsorts of narrow staircases, till at last we emerged on a corner suite,where the view led us straight to the balcony.

  Not that it was an extraordinary view; it was only a peaceful and anoble one. An undulating country held in its folds a scattering oflakes, working up to the lines of the southern New Hampshire hills whichclosed the horizon to the north. Green was, of course, the note of thelandscape, melting into mauve in the mountains and saffron in the sky.Spacing out the perspective a mauve mist rose between the ridges, and amauve light rested on the three white steeples of the town. The townwas perhaps two hundred feet below us and a mile away, nestling in afeathery bower of verdure.

  When I joined Mrs. Brokenshire she was grasping the balcony rail,emitting little "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" of ecstasy. She drew long breaths,like a thirsty person drinking. She listened to the calling andanswering of birds with face illumined and upturned. It was a bath ofthe spirit to us both. It was cleansing and healing; it was soothing andrestful and corrective, setting what was sane within us free.

  Of all this I need say little beyond mentioning the fact that Mrs.Brokenshire, in spite of herself, entered into a period in which hertaut nerves relaxed and her over-strained emotions became rested. It wasa kind of truce of God to her. She had struggled and suffered so muchthat she was content for a time to lie still in the everlasting arms andbe rocked and comforted. We had the simplest of rooms; we ate thesimplest of food; we led the simplest of lives. By day we read andwalked and talked a little and thought much; at night we slept soundly.Our fellow-guests were people who did the same, varying the processeswith golf and moving pictures. For the most part they were tired peoplefrom the neighboring towns, seeking like ourselves a few days' respitefrom their burdens. Though they came to know who Mrs. Brokenshire was,they respected her privacy, never doing worse than staring after herwhen she entered the dining-room or walked on the lawns or verandas. Ihad come to love her so much that it was a joy to me to witness therevival of her spirit, and I looked forward to seeing her restored, nottoo reluctantly, to her husband.

  With him I had, of course, some correspondence. It was an oddcorrespondence, in which I made my customary _gaffe_. On our firstevening at the inn I wrote to him in fulfilment of my promise,beginning, "Dear Mr. Brokenshire," as if I was writing to an equal. Theacknowledgment came back: "Miss Alexandra Adare: Dear Madam," putting meback in my place. Accepting the rebuff, I adopted the style in sendinghim my daily bulletins.

  As a matter of fact, my time was largely passed in writing, for I hadexplanations to make to so many. My acquaintance with Mrs. Brokenshirehaving been a secret one, I was obliged to confess it to Hugh and Mrs.Rossiter, and even to Angelique. I had, in a measure, to apologize forit, too, setting down Mrs. Brokenshire's selection of my company to aninvalid's eccentricity.

  So we got through May and into June, my reports to Mr. Brokenshire beingeach one better than the last. My patient never wrote to him herself,nor to any one. We had, in fact, been a day or two at the inn before shesaid:

  "I wonder what Mr. Brokenshire is thinking?"

  It was for me to tell her then that from the beginning I had kept himinformed as to where she was, and that he knew I was with her. For aminute or two she stiffened into the _grande dame_, as she occasionallydid.

  "You'll be good enough in future not to do such things withoutconsulting me," she said, with dignity.

  That passed, and when I read to her, as I always did, the occasionalnotes with which her husband honored me, she listened without comment.It must have been the harder to do that since the lover's pleading ardorcould be detected beneath all the cold formality in which he couched hiscommunications.

  It was this ardor, as well as something else, that began in the end tomake me uneasy. The something else was that Mrs. Brokenshire was writingletters on her own account. Coming in one day from a solitary walk, Ifound her posting one in the hall of the hotel. A few days later one forher was handed to me at the office, with several of my own. RecognizingStacy Grainger's writing, I put it back with the words:

  "
Mrs. Brokenshire will come for her letters herself."

  From that time onward she was often at her desk, and I knew when she gother replies by the feverishness of her manner. The truce of God beingpast, the battle was now on again.

  The first sign of it given to me was on a day when Mr. Brokenshire wrotein terms more definite than he had used hitherto. I read the letteraloud to her, as usual. He had been patient, he said, and considerate,which had to be admitted. Now he could deny himself no longer. As it wasplain that his wife was better, he should come to her. He named the 20thas the day on which he should appear.

  "No, no," she cried, excitedly. "Not till after the twenty-third."

  "But why the twenty-third?" I asked, innocently.

  "Because I say so. You'll see." Then fearing, apparently, that she hadbetrayed something she ought to have concealed, she colored and added,lamely, "It will give me a little more time."

  I said nothing, but I pondered much. The 23d was no date at all that hadanything to do with us. If it had significance it was in plans as towhich she had not taken me into her confidence.

  So, too, when I heard her making inquiries of the maid who did the roomsas to the location of the Baptist church. "What on earth does she wantto know that for?" was the question I not unnaturally asked myself. Thatshe, who never went to church at all, except as an occasional act ofhigh ceremonial for which she took great credit to her soul, was nowconcerned with the doctrine of baptism by immersion I did not believe.But I hunted up the sacred edifice myself, finding it to be situated onthe edge of a daisied mead, slightly out of the town, on a road thatmight be described as lonely and remote. I came to the conclusion thatif any one wanted to carry off in an automobile a lady pickingflowers--a sort of _enlevement de Proserpine_--this would be as good aplace as any. How the Pluto of our drama could have come to select it,Heaven only knew.

  But I did as I was bid, and wrote to Mr. Brokenshire that once the 23dwas passed he would be free to come. After that I watched, wonderingwhether or not I should have the heart or the nerve to frustrate love asecond time, even if I got the chance.

  I didn't get the chance precisely, but on the 22nd of June I received amysterious note. It was typewritten and had neither date nor address norsignature. Its message was simple:

  "If Miss Adare will be at the post-office at four o'clock this afternoonshe will greatly oblige the writer of these lines and perhaps benefit aperson who is dear to her."

  The post-office being a tolerably safe place in case of feloniousattack, I was on the spot at five minutes before the hour. In thatparticular town it occupied a corner of a brick building which also gaveshelter to the bank and a milliner's establishment. As the village hotelwas opposite, I advertised my arrival by studying a display of hatswhich warranted the attention before going inside to invest in stamps.As I was the only applicant for this necessary of life, the swarthy,undersized young man who served me made kindly efforts at entertainmentwhile "delivering the goods," as he expressed it.

  "English, ain't you?"

  I said, as usual, that I was a Canadian.

  He smiled at his own perspicacity.

  "Got your number, didn't I? All you Canucks have the same queer way o'talkin'. Two or three in the jam-factory here--only they're French."

  I knew some one had entered behind me, and, turning away from thewicket, I found the person I had expected. Mr. Stacy Grainger, cladjauntily in a gray spring suit, lifted a soft felt hat.

  He went to his point without introductory greeting.

  "It's good of you to have come. Perhaps we could talk better if wewalked up the street. There's no one to know us or to make it awkwardfor you."

  Walking up the street he made his errand clear to me. I had partlyguessed it before he said a word. I had guessed it from his pallor, fromsomething indefinably humbled in the way he bore himself, and from theworried light in his romantic eyes. Being so much taller than I, he hadto stoop toward me as he talked.

  He knew, he said, what had happened on the train. Some of it he hadwrung from his secretary, Strangways, and the rest had been written himby Mrs. Brokenshire. He had been so furious at first that he might havebeen called insane. In order to give himself the pleasure of kickingStrangways out he had refused to accept his resignation, and had I notbeen a woman he would have sought revenge on me. He had been the morefrantic because until getting his first note from Mrs. Brokenshire hehadn't known where she was. To have the person dearest to him in theworld swept off the face of the earth after she was actually under hisprotection was enough to drive a man mad.

  Having acquiesced in this, I considered it no harm to add that if I hadknown the business on which I was setting out I should have hardly daredthat day to take the train for Boston. Once on it, however, and inspeech with Mrs. Brokenshire, it had seemed that there was no othercourse before me.

  "Quite so," he agreed, somewhat to my surprise. "I see that now. He'snot altogether an ass, that fellow Strangways. I've kept him with me,and little by little--" He broke off abruptly to say: "And now theshoe's on the other foot. That's what I wanted to tell you."

  I walked on a few paces before getting the force of this figure ofspeech.

  "You mean that Mrs. Brokenshire--"

  "Quite so. I see you get what I'd like you to know." He went on,brokenly: "It isn't that I don't want it myself as much as ever. I onlysee, as I didn't see before, what it would mean to her. If I were totake her at her word--as I must, of course, if she insists on it--"

  I had to think hard while we continued to walk on beneath the leafingelms, and the village people watched us two as city folks.

  "It's for to-morrow, isn't it?" I asked at last.

  He nodded.

  "How did you know that?"

  "Near the Baptist church?"

  "How the deuce do you know? I motored up here last week to spy out theland. That seemed to me the most practicable spot, where we should beleast observed--"

  We were still walking on when I said, without quite knowing why I didso:

  "Why shouldn't you go away at once and leave it all to me?"

  "Leave it all to you? And what would you do?"

  "I don't know. I should have to think. I could do--something."

  "But suppose she's counting on me to come?"

  "Then you would have to fail her."

  "I couldn't."

  "Not even if it was for her good?"

  He shook his head.

  "Not even if it was for her good. No one who calls himself agentleman--"

  I couldn't help flinging him a scornful smile.

  "Isn't it too late to think in terms like that? We've come to a placewhere such words don't apply. The best we can do is to get out of adifficult situation as wisely as possible, and if you'd just go away andleave it to me--"

  "She'd never forgive me. That's what I'd be afraid of."

  "There's nothing to be afraid of in doing right," I declared, a littlesententiously. "You'll do right in going away. The rest will take careof itself."

  We came to the edge of the town, where there was a gate leading into apasture. Over this gate we leaned and looked down on a valley oforchards and farms. He was sufficiently at ease to take out a cigaretteand ask my permission to smoke.

  "What would you say of a man who treated you like that?" he asked,presently.

  "It wouldn't matter what I said at first, so long as I lived to thankhim. That's what she'd do, and she'd do it soon."

  "And in the mean time?"

  "I don't see that you need think of that. If you do right--"

  He groaned aloud.

  "Oh, right be hanged!"

  "Yes, there you go. But so long as right is hanged wrong will have itall its own way and you'll both get into trouble. Do right now--"

  "And leave her in the lurch?"

  "You wouldn't be leaving her in the lurch, because you'd be leaving herwith me. I know her and can take care of her. If you were just failingher and nothing else--that would be another thing. But
I'm here. Ifyou'll only do what's so obviously right, Mr. Grainger, you can trust mewith the rest."

  I said this firmly and with an air of competence, though, as a matter offact, I had no idea of what I should have to do. What I wanted first wasto get rid of him. Once alone with her, I knew I should get some kind ofinspiration.

  He diverted the argument to himself--he wanted her so much, he wouldhave to suffer so cruelly.

  "There's no question as to your suffering," I said. "You'll both have tosuffer. That can be taken for granted. We're only thinking of the way inwhich you'll suffer least."

  "That's true," he admitted, but slowly and reluctantly.

  "I'm not a terribly rigorous moralist," I went on. "I've a lot ofsympathy with Paolo and Francesca and with Pelleas and Melisande. Butyou can see for yourself that all such instances end unhappily, and whenit's happiness you're primarily in search of--"

  "Hers--especially," he interposed, with the same deliberation and someof the same unwillingness.

  "Well, then, isn't your course clear? She'll never be happy with you ifshe kills the man she runs away from--"

  He withdrew his cigarette and looked at me, wonderingly.

  "Kills him? What in thunder do you mean?"

  I explained my convictions. Howard Brokenshire wouldn't survive hiswife's desertion for a month; he might not survive it for a day. He wasa doomed man, even if his wife did not desert him at all. He, StacyGrainger, was young. Mrs. Brokenshire was young. Wouldn't it be betterfor them both to wait on life--and on the other possibilities that Ididn't care to name more explicitly?

  So he wrestled with himself, and incidentally with me, turning back atlast toward the village inn--and his motor. While shaking my hand to saygood-by he threw off, jerkily:

  "I suppose you know my secretary, Strangways, wants to marry you?"

  My heart seemed to stop beating.

  "He's--he's never said so to me," I managed to return, but more weaklythan I could have wished.

  "Well he will. He's all right. He's not a fool. I'm taking him with meinto some big things; so that if it's the money you're in doubt about--"

  I had recovered myself enough to say:

  "Oh no; not at all. But if you're in his confidence I beg you to ask himto think no more about it. I'm engaged--or practically engaged--I maysay that I'm engaged--to Hugh Brokenshire."

  "I see. Then you're making a mistake."

  I was moving away from him by this time so that I gave him a littlesmile.

  "If so, the circumstances are such that--that I must go on making it."

  "For God's sake don't!" he called after me.

  "Oh, but I must," I returned, and so we went our ways.

  On going back to our rooms I found poor, dear little Mrs. Brokenshirepacking a small straw suit-case. She had selected it as the only thingshe could carry in her hand to the place of the _enlevement_. She wasnot a packer; she was not an adept in secrecy. As I entered her room shelooked at me with the pleading, guilty eyes of a child detected in theact of stealing sweets, and confessing before he is accused.

  I saw nothing, of course. I saw nothing that night. I saw nothing thenext day. Each one of her helpless, unskilful moves was so plain to methat I could have wept; but I was turning over in my mind what I coulddo to let her know she was deceived. I was reproaching myself, too, forbeing so treacherous a confidante. All the great love-heroines had anattendant like me, who bewailed and lamented the steps their mistresseswere taking, and yet lent a hand. Here I was, the nurse to this Juliet,the Brangaene to this Isolde, but acting as a counter-agent to allromantic schemes. I cannot say I admired myself; but what was I to do?

  To make a long story short I decided to do nothing. You may scorn me,oh, reader, for that; but I came to a place where I saw it would be vainto interfere. Even a child must sometimes be left to fight its ownbattles and stand face to face with its own fate; and how much more amarried woman! It became the more evident to me that this was what Icould best do for Mrs. Brokenshire in proportion as I watched the leadenhands and feet with which she carried out her tasks and inferred aleaden heart. A leaden heart is bad enough, but a leaden heart offeringitself in vain--what lesson could go home with more effect?

  During the forenoon of the 23d each little incident cut me to the quick.It was so naive, so useless. The poor darling thought she was outwittingme. As if she was stealing it she stowed away her jewelry, and when shecould no longer hide the suit-case she murmured something about articlesto be cleaned at the village cleaner's. I took this with a feeble jokeas to the need of economy, and when she thought she would carry down thethings herself I commended the impulse toward exercise. I knew shewouldn't drive, because she didn't want a witness to her acts. As far asI could guess the hour at which Pluto would carry off Proserpine, itwould be at five o'clock.

  And indeed about half past three I observed unusual signs of agitation.Her door was kept closed, and from behind it came sounds of a finalopening and closing of cupboards and drawers, after which she emerged,wearing a dark-blue walking-suit and a hat of the _canotiere_ style,with a white quill feather at one side. I still made no comment, noteven when the wan, wee, touching figure was ready to set forth.

  If her first steps were artless the last was more artless still. Insteadof going off casually, with an implied intention to come back, she tookleave of me with tears and protestations of affection. She had beenharsh with me, she confessed, and seemingly indifferent to my tendercare, but one day she might have a chance to show me how genuine was hergratitude. In this, too, I saw no more than the commonplace, and alittle after four she tripped down the avenue, looking, with hersuit-case, like a school-girl.

  I allowed her just such a handicap as her speed and mine would havewarranted. Even then I made no attempt to overtake her. Havingpreviously got what is called the lay of the land, I knew how I couldcome to her assistance by taking a short cut. I had hardened my heart bythis time, and whatever qualms I had felt before, I was resolved now tospare her no drop of the wormwood that would be for her good.

  I cannot describe our respective routes without appending a map, whichwould scarcely be worth while. It will be enough if I say that she wentround the arc of a bow and I cut across by the string. I came thus to aslight eminence, selected in advance, whence I could watch her descentof the hill by which the lower Main Street trails off into the country.I could follow her, too, when she deflected into a smallcross-thoroughfare bearing the scented name of Clover Lane, in whichthere were no houses; and I should still be able to trace her coursewhen she emerged on the quiet country road that would take her to hertrysting-place. I had no intention to step in till I could do it at somespot on her homeward way, and thus spare her needless humiliation.

  In Clover Lane she was within a few hundred yards of her destination.She had only to turn a corner and she would be in sight of the flowerymead whence she was to be carried off. It was a pretty lane, grass-grownand overhung with lilacs in full bloom, such as you would find on theedge of any New England town. The lilacs shut her in from my view for agood part of the time, but not so constantly that I couldn't be awitness to her soul's tragedy.

  Her soul's tragedy came as a surprise to me. Closely as I had lived withher, I was unprepared for any such event. My first hint of it was whenher pace through the lane began to slacken, till at last she stopped.That she didn't stop because she was tired I could judge by the factthat, though she stood stock-still, she held the light suit-case in herhand. I couldn't see her face, because I stood under a great elm, somefive hundred yards away.

  Having paused and reflected for the space of three or four minutes, shewent on again, but she went on more slowly. Her light, tripping gait hadbecome a dragging of the feet, while I divined that she was stillpondering. As it was nearly five o'clock, she couldn't be afraid ofbeing before her time.

  But she stopped again, setting the suit-case down in the middle of theroad. She turned then and looked back over the way by which she hadcome, as if regretting it. S
eeing her open her small hand-bag, take outa handkerchief, and put it to her lips, I was sure she was repressingone of her baby-like sobs. My heart yearned over her, but I could onlywatch her breathlessly.

  She went on again--twenty paces, perhaps. Here she seemed to find a seaton a roadside boulder, for she sat down on it, her back being toward meand her figure almost concealed by the wayside growth. I could onlywonder at what was passing in her mind. The whole period, of about tenminutes' duration, is filled in my memory with mellow afternoon lightand perfumed air and the evening song of birds. When the village clockstruck five she bounded up with a start.

  Again she took what might have been twenty paces, and again she came toa halt. Dropping the suit-case once more, she clasped her hands as ifshe was praying. As, to the best of my knowledge, her prayers wereconfined to a hasty evening and morning ritual in which there wasnothing more than a pious, meaningless habit, I could surmise herpresent extremity. Stacy Grainger was like a god to her. If sherenounced him now it would be an act of heroism of which I could hardlybelieve her capable.

  But, apparently, she made up her mind that she couldn't renounce him. Ifthere was an answer to her prayer it was one that prompted her to snatchup her burden again and hurry, with a kind of skimming motion, right tothe end of the lane. It was to the end of the lane, but not to theturning into the roadway. Once in the roadway she would see--or shethought she would see--Stacy Grainger and his automobile, and her fatewould be sealed.

  She had still a chance before her--and from that rutted sandy juncture,with wild roses and wild raspberries in the hedgerows on each side, shereeled back as if she had been struck. I can only think of a personblinded by a flash of lightning who would recoil in just that way.

  For a few minutes she was hidden from my view behind the lilacs. When Icaught sight of her again she was running like a terrified bird backthrough Clover Lane and toward the Main Street, which would take herhome.

  I met her as she was dragging herself up the hill, white, breathless,exhausted. Pretending to take the situation lightly, I called as Iapproached:

  "So you didn't leave the things."

  Her answer was to drop the suit-case once again, while, regardless ofcurious eyes at windows and doors, she flew to throw herself into myarms.

  She never explained; I never asked for explanations. I was glad enoughto get her back to the hotel, put her to bed, and wait on her hand andfoot. She was saved now; Stacy Grainger, too, was saved. Each haddeserted the other; each had the same crime to forgive. From that dayonward she never spoke his name to me.

  But as, that evening, I went to her bedside to say good-night, she drewmy face to hers and whispered, cryptically:

  "It will be all right now between yourself and Hugh. I know how I canhelp."