Chapter 5

Lemuel stopped, the razor suspended in air; there was a din in his ears, his vision blurred, his grip tightened on the bone handle. A sweat started out on his brow and he found himself dabbing June Bowman's face with a wet cold towel.

“Witch hazel?” he asked mechanically.

Suddenly he was so tired that his legs seemed incapable of support. He wiped the razor blade and put it away with a lax nerveless hand. He realized that he had been again at the point of murder. He had been saved by the narrowest margin in the world. For a moment the fact that he had been saved absorbed him, and then the imminent danger of his position, his weakness, filled him with the sense of failure, a heavy feeling of hopelessness. His prayers and singing, his plans for redemption, for a godly life, had threatened to end at the first assault of evil.

He temporarily overcame his dejection at the memory of Flavilla. Doctor Markley lived in a larger town than Nantbrook, a dozen miles beyond the fields and green hills, and he must get him by telephone. Then there was the problem of payment. The doctor, he knew, would expect his fee, two dollars, immediately from such an applicant as himself; and he had less than a dollar. He explained something of this over the wire, adding that if Markley would see Flavilla at the end of the day the money would be forthcoming. That, the crisp, disembodied tone replied, was impossible; he must call in the middle of the morning, but no difficulty would be made about his bill; Doret could send the amount to him promptly.

He hurried back to the house with this information, and found Bella seated in the kitchen, the inevitable cigarette throwing up its ribbon of smoke from her fingers, and June Bowman at her shoulder. Lemuel ignored the latter.

“The doctor'll be here at about eleven,” he announced. “Mind you listen to all he says and get Flavilla into a clean nightgown and sheets.”

“What's the matter with your tending to her?” Bella demanded.

“I won't be here; not till night. I'm going to put up hay with one of the farmers. I hear they're in a hurry and offering good money.”

Bella's expression was strange. She laughed in a forced way.

“We got to hand it to you,” Bowman admitted genially; “you're there. I guess I'd starve before ever it would come to me to fork hay.”

Lemuel's wife added nothing; her lips twisted into a fixed smile at once defiant and almost tremulous. Well, he was late now; he couldn't linger to inquire into Bella's moods. Yet at the door he hesitated again to impress on her the importance of attending the doctor's every word.

It seemed to him an hour later that he was burning up in a dry intolerable haze of sun and hay. He awkwardly balanced heavy ragged forkfuls, heaving them onto the mounting stack of the wagon in a paste of sweat and dust. His eyes were filmed and his throat dry. He struggled on in the soft unaccustomed tyranny of the grass, the glare of sun, with his mind set on the close of day. He thought of cool shadows, of city streets wet at night, and a swift plunge into a river where it swept about the thrust of a wharf. He wondered what Doctor Markley would say about Flavilla; probably the child wasn't seriously sick.

The day drew apparently into a tormenting eternity; the physical effort he welcomed; it seemed to exhaust that devil in him which had so nearly betrayed and ruined him forever in the morning; but the shifting slippery hay, the fiery dust, the incandescent blaze created an inferno in the midst of which his mind whirled with monotonous giddy images and half-meaningless phrases spoken and re-spoken. Yet the sun was not, as he had begun to suppose, still in the sky; it sank toward the horizon, the violet shadows slipped out from the western hills, and Lemuel finished his toil in a swimming gold mist. It was two miles to Nantbrook, and disregarding his aching muscles he hurried over the gray undulating road. The people of the village were gathered on their commanding porches, the barkeeper at the hotel bulked in his doorway. The lower part of Lemuel's own house was closed; no one appeared as he mounted the insecure steps.

“Bella!” he cried in an overwhelming anxiety before he reached the hall.

There was no reply. He paused inside and called again. His voice echoed about the bare walls; he heard a dripping from the kitchen sink; nothing more.

“I'd better go up,” he said aloud with a curious tightening of his throat. He progressed evenly up the stairs; suddenly a great weight seemed to bow his shoulders; the illusion was so vivid that he actually staggered; he was incapable of breaking from his measured progress. He turned directly into Flavilla's room. She was there--he saw her at once. But Bella hadn't put a fresh nightgown on her, and the sheets were disordered and unchanged.

Lemuel took a step forward; then he stopped. “The fever's gone,” he vainly told the dread freezing about his heart at a stilled white face.

“Yes,” he repeated with numb lips; “it's gone.”

He approached the bed and standing over it and the meager body he cursed softly and wonderingly. The light was failing and it veiled the sharp lines of the dead child's countenance. For a moment his gaze strayed about the room and he felt a swift sorrow at its ugliness. He had wanted pretty things, pictures and a bright carpet and ribbons, for Flavilla. Then he was conscious of a tearing rage, but now he was unmindful of it, impervious to its assault in the fixed necessity of the present.

Later----

He was sitting again on his porch, after the momentary morbid stir of curiosity and small funeral, when the unrestrained sweep of his own emotion overcame him. His appearance had not changed; it was impossible for his expression to become bleaker; but there was a tremendous change within. Yet it was not strange; rather he had the sensation of returning to an old familiar condition. There he was at ease; he moved swiftly, surely forward in the realization of what lay ahead.

Bella and June Bowman had left the house almost directly after him, and Markley, finding it empty, with no response to his repeated knocking, had turned away, being as usual both impatient and hurried. Yes, Bella had gone and left Flavilla without even a glass of water. But Bella didn't matter. He couldn't understand this--except where he saw at last that she never had mattered; yet it was so. June Bowman was different.

There was no rush about the latter--to-morrow, next week would do equally. There was no doubt either. Lemuel Doret gave a passing thought, like a half-contemptuous gesture of final dismissal, to so much that had lately occupied him. The shadow of a smile disfigured his metallic lips.

The following noon he shut the door of his house with a sharp impact and made his way over the single street of Nantbrook toward the city. His fear of it had vanished; and when he reached the steel-bound towering masonry, the pouring crowds, he moved directly to a theater from which an audience composed entirely of men was passing out by the posters of a hectic burlesque.

“Clegett?” he asked at the grille of the box office.

A small man with a tilted black derby came from the darkened auditorium.

“Where have you been?” he demanded as he caught sight of Lemuel Doret. “I asked two or three but you might have been dead for all of them.”

“That's just about what I have,” Doret answered. “Mr. Clegett, I'd like a little money.”

“How little?”

“A hundred would be plenty.”

The other without hesitation produced a fold of currency, from which he transferred an amount to Lemuel Doret. It went into his pocket without a glance. He hesitated a moment, then added: “This will be all.”

Clegett nodded. “It might, and it might not,” he asserted; “but you can't jam me. You're welcome to that, anyhow. It was coming to you. I wondered when you'd be round.”

It was not far from the theater to a glittering hardware store, a place that specialized in sporting goods. There were cases of fishing reels, brilliant tied flies and varnished, gayly wrapped cane rods, gaffs and coiled wire leaders, and an impressive assortment of modern pistols, rifles and shotguns.

“Something small and neat,” Doret told the man in charge of the weapons.

He examined a compact automatic pistol, a blunted shape no larger than his palm. It was a beautiful mechanism, and as with his silken razors, merely to hold it, to test the smooth action, gave him a sense of pleasure.

Later, seated in a quiet cafe, an adjunct of the saloon below, he could not resist the temptation of taking the pistol in its rubber holster from his pocket, merely to finger the delicate trigger. There was no hurry. He knew his world thoroughly: it was a small land in which the inhabitants had constant knowledge of each other. A question in the right place would bring all the information he needed. Lemuel was absolutely composed, actually he was a little sleepy; longing and inner strife, dreams, were at an end; only an old familiar state, a thoroughly comprehensible purpose remained.

A girl--she could have been no more than fourteen--was hurriedly slipping a paper of white crystalline powder into a glass of sarsaparilla. She smiled at him as she saw his indifferent interrogation.

“It's better rolled with a pencil first,” he said, and then returned to the contemplation of his own affair.

The result of this was that, soon after, he was seated in the smoking car of an electric train that, hurtling across a sedgy green expanse of salt meadow, deposited him in a colorful thronging city built on sand and the rim of the sea. It was best to avoid if possible even a casual inquiry, and Bowman had spoken of Atlantic City. The afternoon was hot and bright, the beach was still dotted with groups of bathers; and Lemuel Doret found an inconspicuous place in a row of swing chairs protected by an awning ... where he waited for evening. Below him a young woman lay contentedly with her head in a youth's lap; a child in a red scrap of bathing suit dug sturdily with an ineffectual tin spade.

The day declined, the water darkened and the groups vanished from the beach. An attendant was stacking the swing chairs, and Lemuel Doret left his place. The boardwalk, elevated above him, was filled with a gay multitude, subdued by the early twilight and the brightening lemon-yellow radiance of the strung globes. Drifting, with only his gaze alert, in the scented mob, he stopped at an unremarkable lunch room for coffee, and afterward turned down a side avenue to where some automobiles waited at the curb. A driver moved from his seat as Lemuel approached, but after a closer inspection the former's interest died.

Doret lighted a cigarette. “How are they hitting you?” he asked negligently.

“Bad; but the season ain't opened up right yet. It'll have to soon, though, if they want me; gas has gone to where it's like shoving champagne into your car.”

“The cafés doing anything?”

“None except the Torquay; but the cabaret they got takes all the profits. That's on the front. Then there's the World, back of the town. It's colored, but white go. Quite a place--I saw a sailor come out last night hashed with a knife.”

He found the Torquay, a place of brilliant illumination and color, packed with tables about a dancing floor, and small insistent orchestra. He sat against the wall by the entrance, apparently sunk in apathy, but his vision searched the crowd like the cutting bar of light thrown on the intermittent singers. He renewed his order. Toward midnight a fresh influx of people swept in; his search was unsatisfied.

The cigarette girl, pinkly pretty with an exaggerated figure, carrying a wooden tray with her wares, stopped at his gesture.

“Why don't you hang that about your neck with something?” he inquired.

“And get round shouldered!” she demanded. Her manner became confidential. “I do get fierce tired,” she admitted; “nine till two-thirty.”

He asked for a particular brand of cigarette.

“We haven't got them.” She studied him with a memorizing frown. “They are hardly ever asked for; and now--yes, there was a man, last night, I think----”

“He must have made an impression.”

“Another move and I'd slapped him if I lost my job. They got to be some fresh when they disturb me, too.”

“Alone, then?”

“That's right. Wanted me to meet him, and showed me a roll of money. Me!” her contempt sharpened.

“He was young?”

“Young nothing, with gray in his shoebrush mustache.”

By such small things, Lemuel Doret reflected, the freshness that had fixed June Bowman in the girl's memory, men were marked and followed.

“I told him,” she volunteered further, “he didn't belong on the boardwalk but in the rough joints past the avenue.”

Paying for his drink Doret left the Torquay; and following the slight pressure of two suggestions and a faint possibility he found himself in a sodden dark district where a red-glass electric sign proclaimed the entrance to the World. An automobile stopped and a chattering group of young colored girls in sheer white with vivid ribbons, accompanied by sultry silent negroes, preceded him into the café. He was met by a brassy racket and a curiously musty heavy air.

The room was long and narrow, and on one wall a narrow long platform was built above the floor for the cabaret. There was a ledge about the other walls the width of one table, and below that the space was crowded by a singular assembly. There were women faintly bisque in shade, with beautiful regular features, and absolute blacks with flattened noses and glistening eyes in burning red and green muslins. Among them were white girls with untidy bright-gold hair, veiled gaze and sullen painted lips; white men sat scattered through the darker throng, men like Lemuel Doret, quiet and watchful, others laughing carelessly, belligerent, and still more sunk in a stupor of drink.

Perhaps ten performers occupied the stage, and at one end was the hysterical scraping on strings, the muffled hammered drums, that furnished the rhythm for a slow intense waltz.

Yet in no detail was the place so marked as by an indefinable oppressive atmosphere. The strong musk and edged perfumes, the races, distinct and subtly antagonistic or mingled and spoiled, the rasping instruments, combined in an unnatural irritating pressure; they produced an actual sensation of cold and staleness like that from the air of a vault.

Doret ordered beer in a bottle, and watched the negro waitress snap off the cap. He had never seen a café such as this before, and he was engaged, slightly; its character he expressed comprehensively in the word “bad.”

A wonderfully agile dancer caught the attention of the room. The musicians added their voices to the jangle, and the minor half-inarticulate wail, the dull regular thudding of the bass drum were savage. The song fluctuated and died; the dancer dropped exhausted into her chair.

Then Lemuel saw June Bowman. He was only a short distance away, and--without Bella--seated alone but talking to the occupants of the next table. Lemuel Doret was composed. In his pocket he removed the automatic pistol from its rubber case. Still there was no hurry--Bowman was half turned from him, absolutely at his command. The other twisted about, his glance swept the room, and he recognized Doret. He half rose from his chair, made a gesture of acknowledgment that died before Lemuel's stony face, and sank back into his place. Lemuel saw Bowman's hand slip under his coat, but it came out immediately; the fingers drummed on the table.

The careless fool--he was unarmed.

There was no hurry; he could make one, two steps at Bowman's slightest movement.... Lemuel thought of Flavilla deserted, dying alone with a parched mouth, of all that had gone to wreck in the evil that had overtaken him--the past that could not, it appeared, be killed. Yet where Bowman was the past, it was nearly over. He'd finish the beer before him, that would leave some in the bottle, and then end it. With the glass poised in his hand he heard an absurd unexpected sound. Looking up he saw that it came from the platform, from a black woman in pale-blue silk, a short ruffled skirt and silver-paper ornaments in her tightly crinkled hair. She was singing, barely audibly:

_“Oh, children ... lost in Egypt See that chariot.... ... good tidings!”_

Even from his table across the room he realized that she was sunk in an abstraction; her eyes were shut and her body rocking in beat to the line.

“Good tidings,” she sang.

A negro close beside Doret looked up suddenly, and his voice joined in a humming undertone, “See that chariot, oh, good tidings ... that Egyptian chariot.”

A vague emotion stirred within Lemuel Doret, the singing annoyed him, troubled him with memories of perishing things. Another joined, and the spiritual swelled slightly, haltingly above the clatter of glasses and laughter. The woman who had begun it was swept to her feet; she stood with her tinsel gayety of apparel making her tragic ebony face infinitely grotesque and tormented while her tone rose in a clear emotional soprano:

_“Children of Israel, unhappy slaves, Good tidings, good tidings, For that chariot's coming, God's chariot's coming, ... coming, ........... chariot out of Egypt.”_

The magic of her feeling swept like a flame over the room; shrill mirth, mocking calls, curses were bound in a louder and louder volume of hope and praise. The negroes were on their feet, swaying in the hysterical contagion of melody, the unutterable longing of their alien isolation.

“God's chariot's coming.” The song filled the roof, hung with bright strips of paper, it boomed through the windows and doors. Sobbing cries cut through it, profound invocations, beautiful shadowy voices chimed above the weight of sound.

It beat like a hammer on Lemuel Doret's brain and heart. Suddenly he couldn't breathe, and he rose with a gasp, facing the miracle that had overtaken the place he called bad. God's chariot--was there! He heard God's very tone directed at him. Borne upward on the flood of exaltation he seemed to leave the earth far, far away. Something hard, frozen, in him burst, and tears ran over his face; he was torn by fear and terrible joy. His Lord....

He fell forward on his knees, an arm overturning the bottle of beer; and, his sleeve dabbled in it, he pressed his head against the cold edge of the table, praying wordlessly for faith, incoherently ravished by the marvel of salvation, the knowledge of God here, everywhere.

The harmony wavered and sank, and out of the shuddering silence that followed Lemuel Doret turned again from the city.

THE FLOWER OF SPAIN

I

From the window of the drawing-room Lavinia Sanviano could see, on the left, the Statue of Garibaldi, where the Corso Regina Maria cut into the Lungarno; on the right, and farther along, the gray-green foliage of the Cascine. Before her the Arno flowed away, sluggish and without a wrinkle or reflection on its turbid surface, into Tuscany. It was past the middle of afternoon, and a steady procession of carriages and mounted officers in pale blue tunics moved below toward the shade of the Cascine.

Lavinia could not see this gay progress very well, for the window--it had only a narrow ledge guarded by an iron grille--was practically filled by her sister, Gheta, and Anna Mantegazza. Occasionally she leaned forward, pressed upon Gheta's shoulder, for a hasty unsatisfactory glimpse.

“You are crushing my sleeves!” Gheta finally and sharply complained. “Do go somewhere else. Anna and I want to talk without your young ears eternally about. When do you return to the convent?”

Lavinia drew back. However, she didn't leave. She was accustomed to her sister's complaining, and--unless the other went to their father--she ignored her hints. Lavinia's curiosity in worldly scenes and topics was almost as full as her imagination thereof. She was sixteen, and would have to endure another year of obscurity before her marriage could be thought of, or she take any part in the social life where Gheta moved with such marked success.

But, Lavinia realized with a sigh, she couldn't expect to be pursued like Gheta, who was very beautiful. Gheta was so exceptional that she had been introduced to the Florentine polite world without the customary preliminary of marriage. She could, almost every one agreed, marry very nearly whomever and whenever she willed. Even now, after the number of years she had been going about with practically all her friends wedded, no one seriously criticized the Sanvianos for not insisting on a match with one of the several eligibles who had unquestionably presented themselves.

Gheta was slender and round; her complexion had the flawless pallid bloom of a gardenia; her eyes and hair were dark, and her lips an enticing scarlet thread. Perhaps her chin was a trifle lacking in definition, her voice a little devoid of warmth; but those were minor defects in a person so precisely radiant. Her dress was always noticeably lovely; at present she wore pink tulle over lustrous gray, with a high silver girdle, a narrow black velvet band and diamond clasp about her delicate full throat.

Anna Mantegazza was more elaborately gowned, in white embroidery, with a little French hat; but Anna Mantegazza was an American with millions, and elaboration was a commonplace with her. Lavinia wore only a simple white slip, confined about her flexible waist with a yellow ribbon; and she was painfully conscious of the contrast she presented to the two women seated in the front of the window.

The fact was that a whole fifth of the Sanvianos' income was spent on Gheta's clothes; and this left only the most meager provision for Lavinia. But this, the latter felt, was just--still in the convent, she required comparatively little personal adornment; while the other's beauty demanded a worthy emphasis. Later Lavinia would have tulle and silver lace. She wished, however, that Gheta would get married; for Lavinia knew that even if she came home she would be held back until the older sister was settled. It was her opinion that Gheta was very silly to show such indifference to Cesare Orsi.... Suddenly she longed to have men--not fat and good-natured like the Neapolitan banker, but austere and romantic--in love with her. She clasped her hands to her fine young breast and a delicate color stained her cheeks. She stood very straight and her breathing quickened through parted lips.

She was disturbed by the echo of a voice from the cool depths of the house, and turned at approaching footfalls. The room was so high and large that its stiff gilt and brocade furnishing appeared insignificant. Three long windows faced the Lungarno, but two were screened with green slatted blinds and heavily draped, and the light within was silvery and illusive. A small man in correct English clothes, with a pointed bald head and a heavy nose, entered impulsively.

“It's Bembo,” Lavinia announced flatly.

“Of course it's Bembo,” he echoed vivaciously. “Who's more faithful to the Casa Sanviano----”

“At tea time,” Lavinia interrupted.

“Lavinia,” her sister said sharply, “don't be impertinent. There are so many strangers driving,” she continued, to the man; “do stand and tell us who they are. You know every second person in Europe.”

He pressed eagerly forward, and Anna Mantegazza turned and patted his hand.

“I wish you were so attentive to Pier and myself,” she remarked, both light and serious. “I'd like to buy you--you're indispensable in Florence.”

“Contessa!” he protested. “Delighted! At once.”

“Bembo,” Gheta demanded, “duty--who's that in the little carriage with the bells bowed over the horses?”

He leaned out over the grille, his beady alert gaze sweeping the way below.

“Litolff,” he pronounced without a moment's hesitation--“a Russian swell. The girl with him is----” He stopped with a side glance at Lavinia, a slight shrug.