Leave Her to Heaven

by Ben Ames Williams

  A path came down at an angle to the landing, and by it she reached the narrow log float even as the canoe rubbed lightly and was still. Harland stepped out upon the logs to meet her, and could not see her clearly because his eyes were full; but he saw the white of her gown, and then her hands touched his. She spoke in that voice he had always been able to hear so clearly, even during the shadowed months that now were done.

  ‘Welcome home, Dick,’ she said, and then, seeing the muddled dregs of agony in his eyes, she whispered: ‘Oh my dear!’

  So he was in her arms.

  2

  THESE SIX YEARS which Harland wished to forget had begun on a day in July, and upon a train westbound from Chicago. Harland’s destination was Glen Robie’s New Mexican ranch. They had met the summer before, on the little steamer Fleurus, which took salmon fishermen from Quebec to Anticosti Island. Robie and his son Lin were bound for the Jupiter River; Harland and Danny, his much younger brother, for the Becscie. Danny was twelve, and Lin Robie was a year older, and aboard the Fleurus the two youngsters quickly made friends and brought Robie and Harland together.

  Robie, in his middle forties, was an oil man; one of those generous and friendly individuals whom the great Southwest produces. He had begun as a wildcatter; and a combination of driving energy, luck, and good judgment in choosing his advisers enabled him to bring in the first wells in one of the big Texas fields, and to build on that foundation a complete producing and distributing organization. His life was a success story of the sort not uncommon in the oil country. He had sold out his interests, four or five years before he and Harland met, for a sum so vast that it converted the transaction into a real-life fairy table; and one of his first acts thereafter was to buy some two hundred thousand acres of New Mexican mountain and desert land. He specialized in Dutch Belt cattle and in the breeding of polo ponies; but also, since the mountain brooks were alive with trout, he had a fishing lodge a day’s ride from his ranch house. A common interest in angling drew him and Harland together. Harland had caught salmon in Newfoundland and on the Resti-gouche, and Robie was eager for the advice and instruction which the other was able to give. Robie in turn described the angling in the waters he knew; and he insisted that Harland and Danny plan to come out next summer and sample the sport there.

  Harland said they would like to come, but he assumed that would end the matter. Summer friendships and summer flirtations were pleasant while they lasted and rich in promises, but they were apt to fade with the first parting; and easy invitations were easily forgotten by the giver.

  He and Danny had a good week on the Becscie. The rest of the summer they spent at Back of the Moon. When Harland was a boy his father put him every summer in charge of a woodsman named Leick Thorne, and he and Leick went adventuring, sometimes for days at a time, into the forest lands near the Harland summer home. On one of these expeditions, ascending a turbulent brook through young second growth, they came to a lake like a half moon bent around the foot of a rugged hill. The hidden beauty of the spot delighted Harland, and when later he and Leick brought his father to see the place, the older man in a characteristic enthusiasm bought the land. Leick and Harland spent the next summer there, building a log cabin near the outlet, putting in a dam to maintain the lake at a good level and a boathouse in which to store a skiff and a canoe. Harland, since his father’s death, had come to call the place Back of the Moon, because no one except himself and Danny and Leick nowadays ever saw it.

  He and Danny stayed there, after their return from Anticosti, till September. The two brothers were alone in the world, Harland some seventeen years the older. Their father had died just before Harland went to college. Mr. Harland’s income — he was a lawyer — had been substantial, but he left only a house on Chestnut Street in Boston, and an annuity barely sufficient to support Mrs. Harland and Danny and to pay Harland’s bills at Harvard. Mrs. Harland, who had always been querulous, after her husband’s death became under the pinch of semi-poverty increasingly fretful; and Harland’s four years in Cambridge were, as a result of her complaints at the necessity of financing his education, shadowed by a resentful sense of guilt. He felt himself on the defensive; and as soon as he was graduated, he found employment on the Boston Transcript.

  As a sophomore, Harland had fallen passionately in love with a girl named Enid Sothern; but since he could not hope to be married until he should become self-supporting, he and she could only plan, and could not seize, the future. Nevertheless they spent every possible hour together, and, for a while, in an equal intoxication; but a young and leaping fire must have fresh fuel or die down. The ardent caresses which never reached a climax lost their savor, and the week before Harland’s graduation, Enid told him with a pretty ruefulness that she would marry another man. Harland, when the first shock to his vanity had passed, assured himself that he felt a deep and genuine relief. Nevertheless, like a betrayed husband, he dreaded facing either the smiles of his friends or their loyal sympathy; so he spent many solitary evenings at home. He had won distinction in English at Harvard, and writing was his natural bent; and to occupy his empty hours he began to write a novel. He put three years of painstaking labor into the book, and as is apt to be the case with first novels, this one was autobiographical, himself the hero. He called it First Love, but his heroine — Enid almost undisguised — was so little endearing that the rupture between them gave the book an unconventional happy ending.

  The first publisher to whom he showed the manuscript accepted it. Harland had a youthful gift for irony, and a dangerous facility at pillorying human follies and frailties. Since the critics, reviewing too many pedestrian volumes, are always eager to welcome a first novel which shows promise, his book won an enthusiastic though limited audience.

  Its mild success permitted Harland to resign from the Transcript and begin another. Before this was finished, his mother died. He and she had never been congenial; but her sudden death made him forget her faults and remember her virtues, and it left in him an unaccustomed sense of loneliness. One result was that although Danny was at the time only ten years old, Harland turned to him hungrily. Danny had always, in a shy, boyish fashion, worshipped his big brother, and he welcomed this offered comradeship. Thereafter, except when Danny was at school and Harland at his desk, they were as often as possible together.

  Harland’s second novel was an improvement on the first; he finished his third in June, before he and Danny went to Anticosti. Published in October, the book quickly sold into six figures; and at once hundreds of women who had enjoyed the novel were eager to see him ‘in the flesh’ at luncheons and dinners and club meetings. Upon the assumption that anyone who can put words on paper can also speak amusingly, he was besought to lecture not only in Boston but elsewhere; and these flattering seductions consumed that winter so much of his time that he saw less than usual of Danny. When in April the boy contracted infantile paralysis, Harland blamed himself, thinking that but for some omission on his part, Danny would not have been thus stricken.

  Danny’s illness seemed at first likely to be fatal; and though he survived, his legs were left almost useless. As soon was he could safely travel, Harland took him to Georgia for treatment. Thus they were at Warm Springs when Glen Robie’s letter reminded them of that invitation to New Mexico.

  Harland had at first no thought of going, but Danny said at once that he must do so. ‘My gosh,’ he cried. ‘That’s the only thing that will make up to me for not going myself! You can come back and tell me all about it, and it will be almost as much fun as if I were along.’ And with that wisdom which is sometimes given to the young and afflicted, seeking an argument which Harland would accept, he urged: ‘Besides, Dick, we’re getting a little stale on each other! We’re all talked out. You’ll come back with so many things to tell me that we’ll never run out of talk again.’

  Harland yielded not too reluctantly. The thought of fine sunned days in the saddle and of streams alive with trout evoked in him a hungry longing. He wrote R
obie his acceptance, explaining why Danny could not come. He went by way of Boston to pick up a pet rod and some other needed gear, and when he departed, Danny gave him a cheerful farewell.

  ‘Keep a diary, Dick,’ the youngster insisted. ‘Put everything in it, and I’ll ask a lot of questions too. Lin said there are wild turkeys on the ranch. Shoot one for me, and catch a lot of trout, and tell me all about everything when you come back. Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!’ The clear, happy boyish tones rang in Harland’s memory as he drove away.

  – II –

  Harland’s train left Chicago late in the evening. After breakfast next morning, with a book under his arm, he sought the observation car; but he sat down at the desk at the forward end of the car to write a long letter to Danny. His scrawl was rendered at times almost illegible by the motion of the train; and he made a joke of this illegibility, converting an occasional erratic pen stroke into a little sketch — an absurd face, an animal of no recognizable species, a flower — smiling as he imagined Danny’s hilarious enjoyment.

  He finished the letter and took a chair facing a young woman who was reading — it was this fact which determined his choice of a seat — his own recent novel. Probably half a million people had read the book, or would; but to see some stranger engrossed in one of his novels was an experience of which he never tired, and particularly when as in this case the reader was almost extravagantly beautiful. This girl was small, and her hair was dark, was perhaps black; but it was not straight as black hair is apt to be. It was not straight, but neither was it curly. Rather it seemed to have a playful tendency to curl, as though if permitted it would do so. Her skin was smooth and of an olive hue, with the flush of warm blood just below the surface; and her lips, though they seemed innocent of lipstick, were vivid. Watching them, he thought of a wine jelly which has dried a little and is lightly crusted over. Her lips looked — he chose the word advisedly, since the choice of words was his delight — delicious, as though if you bit them it would be like biting into a sweetmeat, one of those candies which are filled with a pleasant warming liquid. The tips of her ears, below the soft line of her hair — which was long enough to be knotted at the nape of her neck — were almost as pink as her lips. He had the feeling — permitting his thoughts to range as they chose — that it would be delightful to nibble at them! Her throat was a little paler than her cheek, and her body would be paler still, like a sweetly shaped figurine of old ivory, with round small breasts, and slim waist and gently swelling hips and slender thighs. While he watched her, exotic words drifted across the mirror of his mind as summer clouds drift across the sky; words that bore the flavor of the mysterious East. He remembered the tales in the Arabian Nights, heroines with alabaster brows, and almond eyes, and lips — was it lips? — like pomegranates. He was not at all sure what pomegranates were, and probably that simile was wrong, but its sound pleased him. He thought of myrrh and frankincense and potpourri — or was it patchouli? — and of nameless mysterious fragrances; of sloes, and of clusters of purple grapes, each richly full of blood-red juices which spilled when you crushed them between your teeth.

  The train checked with a jolt that brought him back to — Kansas, to sweeping miles of level wheat lands reaching to the horizon; and he reminded himself with a faint amusement that this was no way to think of a nice girl! Nevertheless most men probably had such thoughts when they looked at a pretty woman. If this were not so, there would presently be an end to the human race!

  However, if this girl chanced to raise her eyes and met his glance and read it, she would be made uncomfortable; so Harland turned his attention to the pages of his neglected book. It was Conrad’s Victory, long familiar. Conrad’s heroine was one of those quietly beautiful but almost bovine women who provoke in man the paternal instinct; but this girl across the aisle, though she sat perfectly still, was certainly not bovine. Even in her passivity there dwelt something like a flames, as though the very tips of her fingers, if you touched them, must be warm.

  He looked at her again to confirm this impression and saw that she had fallen asleep! The book lay unheeded in her lamp, her relaxed hands barely holding it there. Her head was tipped to one side against the back of her chair, and she was sleeping like a child.

  Harland smiled, amused to find himself astonishingly provoked. So she was bovine, after all! Certainly no one in whom dwelt — he remembered his own phrase — something like a flame would go to sleep over his book! His Book! If his thoughts had affronted her, surely she had now by going to sleep insulted him!

  When the unheeded book slipped off her knees to the floor, thus rousing her, he leaned forward to pick it up — observing as he did so that her ankles were exquisite. She accepted the book, nodding, speaking a quiet word. ‘Thank you.’ For a moment when she spoke he met her eyes, and he saw them, though still warm with sleep, widen in a quick surprise; and when he opened Victory again, he felt her watching him.

  Well, he had watched her! Let her watch him if she chose. He remembered his own thoughts of her and wondered whether there were any similarity between her thoughts of him now and his thoughts of her then. Like most men, he sometimes derived a secret satisfaction from seeing himself reflected in store windows; and he amused himself, while he pretended to read, by putting her imagined comments into flattering words. Perhaps — his photograph had been printed along with many of the reviews of Time Without Wings — perhaps she recognized him, was mustering courage to speak to him. She might even ask him to autograph his book for her! Strangers had before now taken this flattering liberty.

  But at length under her steady and continued scrutiny he became uneasy, changing his position, lighting a cigarette and smoking it furiously and stubbing it out again; and he began to be a little angry too. At last he lifted his eyes from Victory and met her glance squarely and held it, intending frankly to stare her down.

  Her eyes did not falter. They explored his searchingly and deeply, with a sort of longing in them, till he could no longer support this visual encounter.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned!’ he said, under his breath, flushed with wrath; and he rose to return to his compartment, feeling himself driven from the field. Yet he paused for a moment, looking down at her still.

  She seemed to rouse then with a sort of start. ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’ Her voice was low and husky. ‘I was staring at you, wasn’t I?’ She extended her hand in an appealing gesture, and he saw a solitaire diamond on her third finger. ‘Forgive me! You see — you look exactly like my father!’

  And at the word her eyes, incredibly, filled with shining tears.

  He cleared his throat, awkward and uncertain. ‘It’s all right,’ he blurted, and turned hastily away. He hurried back to his own car in a sort of flight, something shaking him, his pulse racing.

  He felt as though he had never been alive before.

  – III –

  Harland, since the day Enid told him of her engagement to another, had felt no particular interest in any girl; but he was now unable easily to forget the young woman who had gone to sleep while she was reading his book. The fact that because he looked like her father she had burst into tears suggested that she was recently bereaved and her appearance indicated that she was of the nervous and emotional type. Her translucent skin through which deeper flesh tones showed, her large eyes and lofty brow and her low, vibrant voice persistently suggested the mysterious East, the indolent seductions of hot desert days and starlit nights.

  He smiled at his own fancies and set himself to forget her, staying all afternoon in his compartment, reading or idly watching the passing scene. The world hereabouts seemed to be made of vast plane surfaces which met at angles almost imperceptible. The horizon was sometimes fifteen or twenty miles away, sometimes close at hand; yet these near horizons were hardly above the level of the eye, and a straw stack or a group of farm buildings miles beyond might lift above them like the top-hamper of a passing ship at sea. Once he saw a shower approaching from the northwest, the emptying clouds
casting across the wheat a shadow as blue as the ocean. Rain lashed the windows of the train and then was gone, leaving the rich lands teeming in the sun; and Harland knew these wide fruitful levels could feed a hungry world.

  But the girl continually intruded in his thoughts, and he wondered idly why it was that an ocean voyage, or a long train journey, so often awoke romantic imaginings. Perhaps it was the feeling of irresponsibility which arose from the certainty that you would never see your fellow travellers again.

  In the morning he had time to breakfast before they reached the junction point where he alighted. On the platform, while he was feeing the porter, young Lin Robie came running toward him with a shout of welcome. The boy wore dungarees and a silk shirt, high-heeled boots and a wide hat; and he was lean and brown and strong, and — remembering Danny who would never run again — Harland felt a shaking twist of pain. Then Lin was grasping his hand and saying many things all at once. ‘Gosh, we’re sorry Danny couldn’t come, Mr. Harland; but I’m glad you did! How is he? Is he going to be all right?’

  ‘Some day, perhaps,’ Harland said. ‘But it will be a long fight.’

  ‘He wrote to me,’ Lin explained. Harland had not known this. ‘He told me to give you a good time. There’s a washout on the branch line between here and the ranch, so Dad and I came down with the car and the truck to meet you. He’s looking for the others. Did you meet them on the train? There, he’s found them! Come along. Charlie will look after your things.’ Harland saw in the background a young man with a broad, friendly face under his wide hat, and fine shoulders in a checked shirt, and the narrow hips of those who spend their days in the saddle; and Lin introduced him. ‘This is Charlie Yates, the ranch boss. This is Mr. Harland, Charlie.’