A Man's Hearth

by Eleanor M. Ingram

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE GUITAR OF ALENYA OF THE SEA

  That one day, in a mood of fierce impatience, had seized upon AnthonyAdriance and hurried him through a range of feeling and experience suchas Time usually brings in leisurely sequence, spaced apart. From Elsie'sconfidence in the morning, with its moving love and pride and awe he innowise was afraid to name holy, he had gone to the spectacle of hisfriend's degradation in the tawdry restaurant. And as a completion, hehad been confronted with the new and ugly vision of a father he couldnot honor.

  He always had respected his father very sincerely, and felt moreaffection for him than either of them ever had realized. He had admiredthe success of the elder Adriance, and secretly regretted that he wasnot allowed to work with him or share it except by spending itsproceeds. His hope of a reconciliation had not been all mercenary. Nowall that was thrown down, an image overturned and shattered. He sawonly a selfish, narrow-minded man, scheming to divorce a pretty womanfrom her husband in order that she might be free to come between his sonand the unwelcome wife he had taken. For of course Elsie was judged bythe servant's position she had held; there was no one to tell of hergentle birth and breeding. Anthony had understood this, and had lookedforward with eager anticipation to enlightening his father, some daywhen his other plans were quite ready.

  He had meant that day to be soon; now he knew that it would never comein the way he had fancied. And the loss of an ideal hurt. Masterson hadtold him the truth; there was no escaping the logical inference to bedrawn from it. Anthony wasted no energy in trying, instead addressinghimself still more closely to the work in hand.

  He worked harder than ever, at the mill, but the buoyant enthusiasm wasgone. Now he dreaded the possibility that Mr. Goodwin might speak to Mr.Adriance of the young man who bore his name and who was making suchchanges in the shipping department. For Anthony did not content himselfwith regulating the trucking system. He had inherited his father'sability, although the unused tool had lain undiscovered. His attentionaroused, he found other slack lines, and indicated how to tighten themto taut efficiency. Mr. Goodwin visited the underground room more thanonce, observed and approved. Cook, won by the new man's tact that neverslighted or criticised injuriously his former chief and presentassociate, aided him with warm co-operation. Anthony found his salaryincreased. When Ransome returned, after his illness, he was given a newposition, upstairs.

  The evenings in the little red house were no longer entirely devoted toplay, after that night spent abroad. Adriance took to keeping a book ofrecords, in the form of cryptic notes and columns of figures."Chauffeur's accounts," he called them, when Elsie questioned; and shelaughed acceptance of the evasion, forbearing to tease him withcuriosity.

  Long before, there had arrived the replies to the letters ofannouncement he and Elsie had written to her parents, and Adriance hadbeen touched home by the serious, graciously cordial welcome extendedto the unknown son-in-law. He had promised himself, and Elsie, that sometime a visit to Louisiana should be paid. Since that, she had describedthe neighborhood, the countryside and people, with her knack of vividword-sketching, until all lay as clearly before him as a place seen. Nowhe recalled this with a new consideration.

  "Do you remember the old house and plantation that you once told meabout?" he asked her, one Sunday morning. "The deserted place, that hadbeen for sale so long. Do you suppose it is still for sale?"

  "It was, the last time Virginia wrote," she replied, regarding himquestioningly. "She spoke of a picnic held under the old trees."

  "If I--well, was crowded out of here, would you be content to try lifedown there? I remembered yesterday that I own some rather valuable stuffleft me by my mother; nothing very much, just jewelry she had as a girl.I do not like the idea of selling it, but if I am forced into a corner,it would buy such a place for us. I have some ideas I would like to tryout."

  Elsie set down the salad-bowl with which she was busied; her rain-grayeyes grave, she considered her husband.

  "Of what are you thinking, Anthony?"

  Adriance looked away. Even to her, he could not bring himself to speakof his lost confidence in his father or to say whom he now feared as anenemy. Mr. Adriance could not divide Anthony and his wife without theirconsent, but he could make it bitterly hard for them to live together.Anthony had known of men who had incurred his father's enmity, and thememory was not reassuring. Before his interview with Masterson, he wouldhave ridiculed the idea of such a situation between his father andhimself; now, he was uncertain.

  "Put on your hat and coat," he evaded the question. "Come for a walk; Iwant to show you something."

  "And our dinner?" she demurred.

  "Never mind it. We will eat scrambled eggs."

  Laughing, she complied.

  "What am I going to see, Anthony?"

  "A house," briefly.

  The walk took them quite away from the neighborhood of such smallcottages as their own. In fact, the house before which Anthony finallyhalted was standing so much away from any others as scarcely to becalled in a neighborhood, at all. It stood out on a little spur of thePalisades, delightfully nestled in a bit of woodland and lawns of itsown.

  "There!" he indicated it. "Pretty?"

  Elsie looked, with a satisfying seriousness. The house was so new thatthe builder's self-advertisement still jostled the sign offering forsale: "this modern residence, all improvements."

  "I love it," she pronounced. "Those white cement houses are adorable; itlooks as if it were made of cream-candy. What deep porches, like cavesof white coral; and how deliciously the light gleams in those cunning,stained-glass windows! I suppose they are set up the stairs? It is anice size, too; large enough to be quite luxurious, but not so large asto be appalling. How did you happen to notice it, dear?"

  "I took this road for a short cut, one day. Look what a view you have uphere. One must see twenty miles up and down the river, and over halfNew York. But it is open to inspection; let us go in."

  "As if we were considering buying it," she fell in with the sport. "Yes,and we will be very critical indeed; find flaws and finally reject it.Really, Anthony, it does not at all compare with our present residence."

  "You'll do," he approved, drawing her up the broad, lazily-low steps.

  It really was an enchanting house; a house that developed unexpectedcharms to the pair who wandered through its empty, echoing rooms andhalls. It indulged in nooks, and inconsequential little balconies; itdisplayed a most inviting window-seat halfway up the stairs that couldonly have been designed for lovers.

  "But none have been there, yet," Elsie observed, lingering on the stairsto contemplate this last allurement. "Just think, Anthony, that it is amere debutante of a house with its ball-book all unfilled. No one hassat before its hearth, or nestled in its window-seat, or opened its doorto let in love or give out charity. It is an Undine house whose soul hasnot yet entered its cool whiteness. Oh, I hope the people who buy itare both fair and good, and respect its innocence!"

  "Coral caves and Undines--your sentiment is all deep-sea, to-day," heteased her. "Elsie, doesn't all this make you want something?"

  "Yes," she promptly returned looking over her shoulder at him as shedescended. "I want something that I saw in the Antique Shop, yesterday.Will you buy it for me?"

  "That depends. What is it?"

  "A guitar. A guitar that might have been made to go with our ivory andjade chessmen, for some heavy-lidded slave-girl to touch while hermaster and his favored guest moved the pieces on the board. It is _ElAud_ of Arabia; all opalescent inlay of mother-of-pearl, pegs and fretsmarked with dull color. I am quite sure it belonged to some Easternprincess; perhaps Zaraya the Fair or Alenya of the Sea. It will sing ofcourt-yards in Fez where fountains splash all the hot, still days, ofmidnight, in the Alhambra gardens, and the nightingales of lost Zahara.And the antiquarian person will sell it for five dollars!"

  Adriance threw back his head and laughed, beguiled from seriousthoughts.

  "What a p
eroration! We will buy the thing on our way home, Sunday or noSunday. That is, if you can play it for me, and if it will come Westenough for the sleepy, creepy song about Maitre Raoul Galvez that shouldnever be sung between midnight and dawn? I have never heard that one,yet."

  "You shall," she promised. "And also the song with which Alenya of theSea charmed the king from his sadness."

  "Tell me first who Alenya was."

  "To-night----"

  "No, now." Lightly, but with determination he drew her across thethreshold of the room that opened beside them. Opposite its rawly new,rose-tiled fireplace he pushed a tool-chest, forgotten by some carelessworkman, and spread over it his own coat, making a fairly comfortableseat. "Sit here," he bade. "You're tired, anyhow; and I have a fancy tosee you here."

  Surprised, but yielding to his whim with that cordial readiness he lovedin her, Elsie obeyed. Adriance established himself opposite, on thecomparatively clean tiles of the hearth.

  "Shoot," he commanded, lazily and colloquially imperious. "Your sultanlistens."

  She made a mutinous face at him and slowly removed her hat, laying itbeside her upon the chest. Her gaze dwelt meditatively upon the broadray of sunlight that streamed across from the nearest window andglittered between them like a golden sword. Watching, Adriance saw hergray eyes grow reminiscent.

  "Very well, I will try to tell the story as my father once told it tome. But whether he drew it from those strange histories in which he isso learned, or whether he drew it from his own fancy, I do not know. Forhe is more poet than professor, and more antiquarian than either--andmore dear than you can know until you meet him, Anthony. Now imagineyourself in our neglected old garden, and listen.

  "Long, long ago, before the beauty of Cava brought the Moors acrossGibraltar into Spain, there lived in the East a king named Selim theSorrowful. The name was his alone. His kingdom was as rich as vast; hispeople were content; it seemed that all the country laughed except itsruler. Upon him lay a vague, sinister spell, and had so lain from thehour of his birth.

  "For always he grieved for a thing unknown, a want undefined andunsatisfied. Royalty was his, and youth, and absolute power, yet,because of this great longing of his he moved like a beggar through hissplendor and knew hunger of the heart by night and day. Wise men andtemples were questioned in vain, rich gifts vainly sent to distantoracles; none could tell the king's desire, or cure it. And his dark,wistful face came to be accepted by his people as a thing usual androyal.

  "One day, when the king walked alone in his garden by the sea, a strangemist crept over the land and water, silvery, opalescent, wonderful. Hestood, watching. Suddenly a gigantic wave loomed through the haze andswept curling and hissing shoreward to his very feet, where it brokewith a great sound. When the glittering foam and spray fell away again,a girl was standing on the sands before him; a girl clad in the floatinggray of the mist, girdled and crowned with soft, dim pearls. Herlustrous eyes were green as the heart of the ocean, and when the kinggazed into them his sorrow shrank and fled.

  "'Who are you, desire of mine?' asked Selim.

  "'Alenya of the Sea,' she answered him, and her voice was the lap ofwaves on a summer night.

  "Then the king took her in his arms and bore her to his palace."

  "And she cured him?"

  "Better! She satisfied him. Never was a change more marvellous; in allthe kingdom there was no man so happy as Selim the king. Day and night,night and day, he lingered by the sea-maiden. Riotous prosperity came tothe land, the fields yielded double crops; it seemed that the king'ssmile was a very sunshine of the South.

  "But by-and-by superstitious dread fell upon the people, and the jealouspriests fostered it. Strange, strange and weirdly sweet was the musicthat drifted from Alenya's apartments. There came a day when the countrydemanded that Selim put away the evil enchantress, or die. One monththey gave him for the choice."

  "The men of the East were poor lovers," commented Adriance. "He banishedthe sea-princess?"

  "Not at all! He chose death, and a month with Alenya."

  "Well, if he lived one month exactly as he willed, he had something."

  "Very true, cynical person. But never was such month as his, when thelonely man still possessed his love and the wearied king had found anexcitement. Intensity is the leap of a flame, and cannot endure. Whenthe end of the four weeks came--" she paused, her dark little headtilted back, her regard inviting his hazard.

  "They died?"

  "Alenya sang to the king for the last time. There is no record of thatlost music; it is so sad that if it were written the paper woulddissolve in tears. When it ceased the king slept, and Alenya flittedback to the sea and mist, alone. Later came the people and awakenedSelim with their rejoicing, but he stared in cold amazement at thepageant of their returning loyalty. He had forgotten all."

  "Forgotten?"

  "Yes, for Alenya's last song had swept her image from his mind. From hismind, not his heart; he was again Selim the Sorrowful, yearning for thedesire he did not know.

  "Often, often he wandered along the shore, suffering, uncomprehending.It is written that his reign was long, and wise. But on the night hedied his attendants found the print of a small, wet hand on the pillowwhere rested the king's white head."

  After a moment Adriance rose.

  "So he could not keep his own, when he had it!" he said. "Thank you,Madame Scheherazade. Now come outside and I'll tell you why I wanted youto sit at that hearth, for luck."

  Laughing, she followed him, carrying her hat in her hand.

  "Why, Anthony?"

  "Because I want this place for our home," he answered.

  She uttered a faint exclamation, genuinely dismayed.

  "Want it? Why it must be worth ten thousand dollars, Anthony! See, iteven has a little garage. And one would need servants; amaid-of-all-work, at least."

  "Yes. I am working for all that. A while ago I thought I was certain ofit. Now, I am afraid not. But you are not going to live the way we arenow for much longer. Either I shall win my game, and bring you here, orwe will go South and try a new venture."

  Amazed and hushed, she met his steady, resolute gaze. She had notglimpsed this purpose of his in all their intimate life together.

  "Do you--care to tell me about it?" she wondered. "And, you know I amquite, quite happy as we are; as I must be happy with you always, win orlose, my dearest dear."

  The place was quite deserted; he kissed her, before the blank windows ofthe house that never had been lived in.

  "I know," he said. "As I must be with you, and am! But I will wait totell you the rest, until I can tell it all."

  She accepted the frank reticence. They walked home more quietly thanthey had come, each busied with thought.

  But Adriance did not forget to stop at the antique shop for the guitar.The proprietor lived in the rear of the shabby frame building andwillingly admitted his two customers, after examining them beneath araised corner of the sun-bleached green curtain.

  "The guitar?" he echoed Adriance's request. "For madame? But certainly!"

  He produced the instrument from the window with deferential alacrity. Hewas a thin, bright-eyed French Jew; quite ugly and quite old enough inappearance to justify Elsie's assertion that he was the Wandering Jewand this the very shop of Hawthorne's tale. She smiled at him with amischievous recollection of this, as she pulled off her gloves to fingerthe rusty strings.

  "It is a good guitar," she approved. "And gay, with all thismother-of-pearl inlay and the little colored stones set in the pegs! Butthese wire strings must come off, Anthony. They are too loud and tooharsh."

  "It is so, madame," the old man nodded entire agreement, before Adriancecould speak. "The guitar was used on the stage, where loudness----!" Heshrugged. "Never would you guess, madame, who brought that instrumentin to me last week."

  "No?" Elsie wondered, politely interested.

  "It was that enormous Russian who formerly rode beside your husband inthe motor wagon, madame. He has not
a head, that Michael, but he has aheart. About the cines he is mad--the moving pictures, I would say. Wellthen, into the poor boarding-house where he lives came an actress. Shewas out of work, or she would not have been there, _bien sur_! Theguitar was hers. Michael brought it here to sell for her. I believe sheis sick. Because she is of the stage, he is a slave to her."

  "He is in love?"

  "He, madame? It has not even occurred to him. He would not presume."

  "Poor idealist!" said Adriance. "We will take the theatrical guitar, butwrap it up so I can get home without someone tossing me a penny."

  He laughed as he spoke, and had forgotten the guitar's story before theyreached Alaric Cottage. But Elsie neither laughed nor forgot. Thatevening, as she sat across the hearth from Anthony, evoking music gayor weird for his enchantment, she thought much of the girl who had lastplayed her decorative instrument.

  "Is it my guitar, truly, Anthony?" she questioned, at last.

  "It certainly isn't mine," he retorted teasingly.

  She made a grimace at him. But she also made a resolve.