Part 4

"You? But you hardly ever come. I'm so lonesome. You can't know what that means. I am lonely. And you--Why, sometimes I think you're not real. Not--even--real--"

"Don't! For God's sake don't say that!"

"I can't help it! I tell you, I can't. It's all right now. It's always all right when you're here. But after you go--Nothing is real to me; nothing but the flowers. And you don't want me to care for them. You keep saying you hate them. They're all I've got. Won't you--can't you see that?"

"But--if--I--come--here--to--stay?"

"To--stay?"

"Would you want me here?"

He saw her hands move upward until they lay in two white spots on her breast.

"Want you?--If--only--you--knew--"

He waited a moment before he said it.

"And you--could--love--me?"

"I've always loved you."

She spoke in a whisper.

"I'll find a way." He told her. "There must be a way."

"But how? How?"

"I don't know. I never thought about it before. I never knew you cared. I thought it was just the flowers. Nothing but the flowers. I hate the flowers. The feel of them--the sight of them--the smell of them. I couldn't ever come here without being suffocated. I was jealous of them; fearfully jealous."

"And--I--thought." Her voice was low. "I--thought--that--because--I--feel--they--love--me;--because--I love--them;--somehow--they--brought--you--here."

"And when I come--"

"When?"

Her voice itself trailed to a whisper.

"I will come to you! I--will!"

"How--can--you--find--me?"

"Somehow--I will!"

"If--only--you--could. I am lonely. Terribly--lonely. If--it--would--be--soon."

"It--must--be--soon."

"I'll--wait--for you--always. But--if you are--real--you'll--come--soon. It's lonely--waiting. And--I--don't--even--know--if--you--are. I--don't--even--know."

The Reverend William Cruthers started from his chair.

Some one had banged the window closed. Some one had lit the lamp on the center table. Its yellow light trickled through the room and over the scant old fashioned furniture and crept upwards across the booklined walls.

The room was stuffy and close. The smell of flowers had gone.

"Billy!"

He turned to see his sister rushing across the room to him. He stooped a bit and caught her in his arms.

"Why, Gina. I didn't know. Why didn't you write and tell me? Who brought you up from the station?"

The girl kissed him hastily and enthusiastically on either cheek.

"A nice welcome home!" She laughed breathlessly. "I was just about to make a graceful and silent exit."

"But, Gina, I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't know. You couldn't. I wouldn't write. I wanted to surprise you. Aren't you surprised, Billy?"

"Awfully," he conceded.

"Awfully?"

Her brows puckered.

"Very much so, I mean."

"You never do know just what you do mean. Do you, William?"

"Naturally, I do."

"It wouldn't be natural for you if you did."

The girl slid away from him and went and perched herself comfortably on the arm of the chair in which he had been sitting. Her hands were busy with her hatpins and her eyes that peered up at him were filled with laughter.

"How did you get up from the station, Gina?"

"Oh, such a lovely way, Billy! And so very energetic for me. I walked. Now, what do you know about that?"

He frowned a bit.

"Very good for you, I don't doubt." He said it stiffly. "After all the motoring you must have done with those friends of yours!"

She had gotten her hat off. She sat dangling it by the brim. The lamplight streaked over her hair.

"Now, don't be nasty, William. And whatever you do, don't speak to me as if I were a congregation. The Trents are perfectly lovely people, even if they are terribly rich and not very Christian. And--and Georgie Trent is a sweet boy; and," she added it hastily. "Wood Mills is a duck of a place!"

He thrust his hands into his coat pockets.

"I never said it wasn't, Gina."

She paid no attention to him. Her legs were crossed. Her one foot was swinging to and fro. Her eyes were fixed speculatively on the foot.

"And you ought to be very glad to have me here again. Suppose I'd listened to Georgie and married him right off, instead of coming back here. A nice fix you'd have been in. You know perfectly well no one in all the world does for you as nicely as I do. You know that, don't you?"

He smiled down at her.

"To be sure I do."

"As a matter of fact," she went on. "When I came in here you were half, if not altogether, asleep in this chair."

"I wasn't asleep, Gina."

"Oh, that's what you always say. But I banged in and you didn't hear me. I lighted the lamp and you didn't seem particularly conscious of it. And the window. The window was wide open. I closed that for you. The wind was bringing in just yards of those flower smells you hate so."

"Was it, Gina?"

"Huh--huh."

"You smelled them, then?"

His tone was strangely quiet.

"Of course I did. Come and sit here, Billy." She wiggled herself into a more comfortable position on the arm of the chair. "And tell your onliest sister how much you love her."

He went and sat beside her in the chair. He put his arm about her waist.

"You're a dear child, Gina."

"I know it!" She snuggled close to him. "And I've had the most divine time, Billy. Wood Mills is a glorious place. There wasn't an awful lot to do; but whatever we did was great fun."

"You'd have a good time anywhere, little sister."

"Would I?"

Her eyes wavered about the room a bit hungrily.

Something in her voice pulled his eyes up to her face.

"Gina, what is it?"

"Nothing, Billy."

She felt his fingers tighten at her side.

"Aren't you happy here, Gina?"

"Of course I am, Billy!" Her head was thrown back so that the long line of her throat showed in its firm molded whiteness. "Only, Billy, I want--I don't think I even know what I want. Only just sometimes I feel it. A want--that--perhaps--isn't--even--mine. It's for something;--well, for something that doesn't feel here."

He stroked her hand.

"It's lonesome for you, Gina."

"No, it isn't that. It's just; oh, I guess it's just that I worry about you."

"Me, Gina?"

"Yes, Billy. Sometimes you look so--so starved. That's what makes me think it's your want I feel--; yours that you want very much--and--and--Billy, that you can't get hold of."

"No, Gina! No!"

She pressed her cheek against his.

"Oh, Billy." She spoke quickly. "There was one place out there at Wood Mills. You wouldn't have liked it. But it was too wonderful!"

He drew a deep breath of relief at the sudden change in her voice.

"What was it, Gina? Why wouldn't I have liked it?"

She fidgeted a bit.

"Why? Oh--because."

"Because what, Gina?"

"It was just one big estate, Billy. A girl owns it. She's an orphan. She's very beautiful. She lives there all by herself except for a couple of old servants. Claire Trent and I saw her once or twice when we rode through the place. Claire says she's sort of queer. She doesn't bother about people. She doesn't like them, Claire says. She spends all her time around the place."

"That sounds very strenuous, Gina."

"Oh, it isn't, Billy. It's lovely. The estate is."

"I've heard the places there are pretty."

"Pretty! But this one, Billy;" in her enthusiasm she leaned eagerly forward. "You couldn't imagine it! There are miles and miles. And the whole thing; Claire says the whole year round; it's just one big mass of flowers."

In spite of himself he pulled his arm away from the girl's waist.

"Oh, is it?"

"Billy, I know you don't like flowers. But this! You've never seen anything like this!"

"There're probably lots and lots of places like it, little sister."

"Oh, no!" Her tone was vehement. "There couldn't be. Not such a garden! All rhododendrons and lilies of the valley--; is anything wrong, Billy?"

"Nothing. Those flowers grow in all gardens at this time of the year."

She stared into his blanched face and her brows drew together in a puzzled frown.

"Not like this, Billy. Really. I've never seen such rhododendrons or such lilies. And the violets and roses!"

He got to his feet suddenly.

"What?" He asked hoarsely. "What flowers did you say?"

"Why, rhododendrons--and lilies,--and--lilies. What is it, Billy?"

"Go on, Gina. Go on!"

"Billy!"

"Lilies of the valley and violets, Gina--"

"And roses;" she finished mechanically.

"What kind of roses, Gina?"

The puzzled frown left her face.

"Glorious roses, Billy." She was enthusiastic again. "There've never been roses like these. Why, there's one kind of a rose. It's known all over now. It took her years and years to grow it."

"What sort of a rose, Gina? What sort did you say?"

"I didn't say, Billy. I don't even know the name of it. But it's a yellow rose; almost gold. And its center is pink and--and scarlet."

For a moment they were silent.

"Did you see this--this woman, Gina--often?"

"Oh, once or twice, Billy."

"When, Gina?"

"In the evenings; each time."

"Where was she, Gina?"

"Why, how strange you are, Billy."

"Where, Gina? Tell me, d'you hear--tell me--where?"

"In her garden, Billy. What's there to get so excited about?"

He fought for his control then.

"I'd like to know, Gina--where you saw her and--and--"

The girl interrupted him.

"I saw her in the evenings--in her garden. She used to walk down--well--it looked like a long lane of flowers. To be exact, Billy, it was always in the evening and kind of gray. So I couldn't see very much except that she wore a light clingy sort of dress."

She stopped for a second.

"Yes, Gina?"

His voice was more quiet now.

"I told you she was a bit queer, didn't I?"

"Queer? God! she--was--lonesome--Gina!"

"Yes," the girl caught at his last words. "I'll bet she was lonesome. Any one would be, living like that. That's what makes her queer I guess. I saw her both times with my own eyes come down the garden with her hands full of flowers. Both times I saw her stand quite still. And then Claire and I would see her drop her flowers to the ground. That was the funny part. She didn't throw them away. It wasn't that, you know."

"No, Gina."

"She'd, well, she'd drop them. One by one. As if--"

"As if what, Gina?"

"Oh, as if she were being made to do it."

He went to his knees then. He buried his head in the girl's lap.

She leaned anxiously forward, her hand smoothing his hair.

"Billy--Billy, dear--aren't you well? Billy, tell me."

He could not bring himself to speak.

"Billy, is this what you do when I come home to you? Shame on you, Billy! Why--why, Billy, aren't you glad to have me here? Say, aren't you?"

"Thank God!" He whispered. "Thank God!"

He got to his feet then.

The girl rose from her chair and clung to him.

"I've never seen you like this, Billy."

"Listen, Gina;" his voice was low. "When you go upstairs to take off your things, pack my grip, little sister. I'm going away."

"Away, Billy?"

"Yes, Gina."

"But where, Billy?"

"To a place where I've wanted to go for a very long--long time, little sister."

"But, Billy--"

"Will you do that for me? Now, Gina? I--I--want to--leave."

"When, Billy?"

"As--soon--as--I can, Gina. It--must--be--soon."

The girl went out of the room very quietly.

He crossed over to the window and threw it open.

Darkness as far as he could see. Darkness in which were smudged lighter things without shape. Somewhere in the distance the feathery ends of branches brushed their leaves to and fro against the sky.

He knew that the wind was stirring.

He looked up at the heavens. Gray and dark save where the thin crescent moon held its haunting yellow light that was slurred over by drifting clouds and then held again.

He could see the wind driving the clouds.

The swish of the wind out there going through those smudged lighter things without shape.

He leaned far over the sill.

And suddenly the night wind brought him the smell of flowers.

Gradually the odor of the flowers blending subtly and faint at first, grew more distinct; heavier.

He stood there smiling.

Flowers--

Her--flowers--

"I'm coming;" he whispered. "I'm--coming--to--you--now--dear--"

THE SHADOW

He was colossally vain.

He lived with his wife Ellen, in the small house on Peach Tree Road.

There was nothing pretentious about the house; there were any number of similar houses along the line of Peach Tree Road. For that matter the house was the kind planted innumerable times in the numerous suburbs of the large city. Still, it was his house. His own. That meant a lot to him whenever he thought of it; and he thought of it often enough. He liked to feel the thing actually belonged to him. It emphasized his being to himself.

The house was a two-storied affair built of wood and white washed. A green mansard roof came down over the small green shuttered upper windows. On the lower floor the windows were somewhat larger with the same solid wooden green shutters. A gravel path led up to the front door. Two drooping willow trees stood on either side of the wicker gate.

Before the time when his aunt had died and had left him the house he had not been particularly successful. At the age of forty-one he had found himself a hard-working journalist and nothing more. He had had no ambition to ever be anything else. He was at all times so utterly confident that the work he was doing was quite right; chiefly because it was the work that he was doing. No man had a more unbounded faith in himself. At that time he had not been conscious of his lack of success. Now, of course, he looked back on it all as a period of development; something which had prepared him for this that was even then destined to come.

He told himself that in this small house, away from the surrounding clatter and nuisances of the city, he had found time to write; to be himself; to really express what he knew himself to be.

He had become tremendously well known in that space of six years. No one ever doubted the genius of Jasper Wald. He wrote as a man writes who is actually inspired. His books were read with interest and surprisingly favorable comment. There was something different; something singularly appealing in all of Jasper Wald's works.

At that time his conceit was inordinate. It extended to a sort of personal, physical vanity. In itself that was grotesque. There was absolutely nothing attractive in the loosely jointed, stoop-shouldered body of him; or for that matter in the narrow head covered with sparse blond gray hair. The eyes of him were of rather a washed blue and bulged a bit from out their sockets; the nose was a singularly squat affair, at the same time too long. The mouth was unpleasantly small with lips so colorless and thin that the line of it was like some weird mark. Yet he was vain of his appearance. But then his egoism was the keynote of his entire being.

Some people could not forgive it in him; even when they acknowledged him as a writer and praised his work. The man in literature was spoken of as a mystic, a poet, a possessor of subtlety that was close to genius. In actual life, Jasper Wald was an out and out materialist.

As for his wife, Ellen:

She was rather a tall woman; thin but not ungraceful. Her features were good, very regular, still somewhat nondescript. All but her eyes. Her eyes were strange; green in color, and so heavily lidded that one could rarely see the expression of them. Then, too, she had an odd manner of moving. There never seemed to be any effort or any abruptness in whatever she did. Even her walk was sinuous.

He had married her when they both were young. Through his persistent habit of ignoring her she had been dwarfed into a nonentity. To have looked at the woman one would have said that hers was a distinctive personality unbelievably suppressed. It would not have been possible for any one living with Jasper Wald to have asserted himself. Perhaps she had learned that years before. Certainly his was the character which predominated; domineered through the encouragement of his own egoism.

Her attitude toward him was perpetually one of self-effacement. She stood for his conceit in a peculiarly passive way. If it ever irritated her she gave no sign. And he kept right on with his semi-indulgent manner of patronizing her stupidity. That is, when he noticed her at all.

She was essential to him in so far as she supplied all of his physical wants. Those in themselves were of great importance to Jasper Wald. There was no companionship between them. Jasper Wald could never have indulged in companionship of any kind. He had put himself far beyond that. To his way of thinking he was a super being who had no need whatever for the rest of man. He was all self-sufficient.

If there had ever been love between them in those days when they had first come together they had both of them completely lost sight of it. He in his complacent conceit; she in her monotonous negation.

And as time went on, and as his work became greater Jasper Wald grew even further away from the sort of thing he wrote; so that it was more than ever difficult for those who knew him to disassociate him from his writings. There was always the temptation to try to find some of his literary idealism in himself; to find some of his prosaic realism in his works.

On one occasion Delafield, his publisher, came to him; to the house on Peach Tree Road. It was a peculiarity of Jasper Wald's to persistently refuse any request to leave his home. It was the one thing about which he was superstitious. He had never by word or thought attributed his success to anyone or anything outside of himself. He had made his name in this house and he would not leave it.

Delafield's visit came at a time just after Jasper Wald's last book had been published.

Sitting in the square, simply furnished living room, Delafield for all his enthusiasm for the author had felt a certain inexplicable disgust.

"It's great, Wald; there's genius to it. We'll have it run through its second edition a week after we put it on the market."

"I don't doubt that;" Jasper Wald's tone was matter-of-fact in his confidence. "Not for a moment."

Delafield bit off the end of his cigar.

"When will your next one be ready?"

He asked it abruptly.

"Oh, I don't know," Jasper Wald had pulled leisurely at his pipe. "Whenever I make up my mind to it, I suppose. It's going to be the biggest thing I've tackled yet, Delafield."

"Well--" Delafield got up to go. "It can't be too soon. You'll have a barrel of money before you get done. Genius doesn't usually pay that way, either. But--;" he could not help himself. "You've got the knack of the thing. Heaven knows where you get it; but it's the knowledge we all need that comes from--"

He broke off quite suddenly as Ellen Wald came into the room.

"I didn't know;" she said uncertainly. "I thought you were alone."

"My wife, Delafield." Jasper Wald made the introduction impatiently. "Ellen, this is Mr. Delafield, who publishes my books."

She came toward them and held out her hand to Delafield. He could not help but noticing her odd manner of moving.

"Good evening," she said.

Delafield had not known that Jasper Wald was married. It was almost impossible for him to imagine anyone living with this man. He looked at the woman curiously. He had the feeling that her individuality had been stultified. It did not surprise him. Jasper Wald could have accomplished that. It would have been difficult to have matched him with as flagrantly material a person as he himself was. Only that sort of person would have stood a chance with him. Any other would have had to fall flat. She had fallen flat. Delafield knew that the moment he looked at her.

"Why, I didn't know;" Delafield took her hand in his. "You never told me, Wald, that you were married."

"Didn't I? No, of course not.--But, about the new book, Delafield."

Delafield dropped her hand. He had never felt anything quite as inert as that hand. It impressed the nondescript quality of her upon him even more strongly than had her appearance.

"Your husband has promised me another book, Mrs. Wald." He spoke slowly. He felt he had to speak that way or she would not understand him. "Your husband is a great author, Mrs. Wald."

"Yes."

"Why don't you say, genius, Delafield, and be done with it? Why don't you make a clean breast of it with--genius?"

"I've got to be going."

Delafield felt a strange irritation. The man was a fool. For what reason under the sun could this woman with those half closed eyes let herself be dominated by him? The two of them got on his nerves.

"Won't you stay to dinner?"

Jasper Wald was obviously anxious for a chance to speak of himself.

"Sorry, Wald. I've got to be getting on."

Delafield still watched the woman. She stood there quite silent.

"I thought you might have something to say about that book of mine."

"No--There's nothing more." Delafield started for the door. "I've just told you that it's full of the sort of knowledge all of us are in need of. I can't say more, you know. I suppose that knowledge is what constitutes genius; but--" He was staring now full into those bulging blue eyes--"Lord, man, where, where d'you get it from?"

Glancing at the woman, Delafield saw that she was looking straight at him. Her eyes met his in a way which he was completely at a loss to explain. There was something eerie about it.

"Where does he get it?"

She repeated his question stupidly and once again the heavy lids came down over those strange green eyes, hiding all expression.

Jasper Wald drew in his breath.

"I write it," he said.

After that Delafield left them both severely alone. The woman puzzled him. He could not tolerate the man, Jasper Wald, and he could not for worlds have the genius of Jasper Wald hurt or slighted in any way. He knew how big it was. It often left him breathless. But the man; he would have liked to have hit him that day in the living room in the house on Peach Tree Road; to have kicked him into some sort of a realization as to what an utter little rat he was.

And so, because of his physical make-up, people stayed away from Jasper Wald. Not that he avoided people; not that he wanted to live the life of a recluse. He never made any attempt to conceal his living from the general public. He was too much of the egoist to attempt concealment of any kind. So his life was known to any man, woman or child who cared for the knowledge. His life of narrow selfishness, of tranquil complacency; of colossal conceit. And of genius.

He always wrote in the evenings, did Jasper Wald. And often he would keep at his writing well on into the morning.

He liked to sit there in the square, old-fashioned living room with its wide window that gave out upon Peach Tree Road.

When he had first moved into the house as an obscure, hard-working journalist he had placed the desk against the window ledge so that he could look directly out of the window without moving. And he had kept the desk there. He was just a bit insistent about it. Then, too, he liked the blind up so that he could stare out into the evening and at the house opposite.

For all his impossible vanity there must have been imbedded deep down in the small, hard soul of the man some excessive, frantic hunger of self-recognition by others. A potential desire to accomplish an assertion of self that could in no way be denied; a fundamental energy which had in some way made possible the work, but which he could never admit for fear that it might evade the importance of himself.

The house opposite interested him tremendously. Sitting there in an abstract fit of musing, he watched it as one subconsciously watches a place that has one's attention.