Chapter 38

Far off, at a respectful distance, a carol of rough, humorous voices sang the song, "_Happily Married_"!

"H-a-double-p-y," etc.

And we knew that my bluff had worked.

* * * * *

The next day we went through a let-down.

Hildreth was quite nerve-shaken, and so was Darrie.

But I strutted about with my chest out, the cock of the walk.

* * * * *

But, nevertheless, and despite their bravery and the fiasco of the mob's attack, the hearts seemed to have left the bodies of both "my" women.

* * * * *

The cold weather that Darrie and the old settlers had predicted was now descending on the countryside....

* * * * *

One morning Hildreth timidly and haltingly proposed returning to her mother's flat in New York....

I could stay and finish my play and, having disposed of it, come likewise to the city, and rent a flat, and she would come and live with me again. I am sure she was sincere in this. Or I could come to New York, rent a furnished room somewhere, and she would be with me daily, as now....

Darrie seconded Hildreth's proposal.

* * * * *

And yet my heart broke as Hildreth rode off in the carriage that came for her. I kissed her, and I kissed her ... despite the stern, unbending figure of the aged, moral coachman in the seat.

Then, after she had started off, I pursued the carriage, overtook it by a short cut, cried out that I had still something I had forgotten to give her ... it was more kisses ... and I kissed and kissed her again and again.. and we both wept, with aching hearts.

Then the moral coachman unbent.

"--beg pardon," he ventured, "but I'm sorry for you two children ... oh, yes, I know all about you ... everybody knows ... and I wish you good luck."

Darrie stayed over for the night, after Hildreth left, in order to see to packing the latter's clothes in her trunk ... Hildreth had been too upset to tend to the packing....

* * * * *

The next day Darrie left, too.

"You have no more need of your chaperon," she laughed, a tear glinting in her eye....

* * * * *

So now I was left utterly alone....

And a hellish winter descended upon the coast ... bitter, blowing, frosty winds that ate into the very bone and made a fellow curse God as he leaned obliquely against them.

I learned how little a summer cottage was worth--in winter.

Mrs. Rond lent me a huge-bellied stove, the fireplace no longer proving of comfort.

But though I kept the stove so hot that it glowed red, I still had to hug it close, my overcoat on, and a pair of huge, woollen socks that I'd bought at the general store down in West Grove.

But, despite the intense cold, I worked and worked ... my play, _Judas_ was nearing completion ... its publication would mean the beginning of my life as a man of letters, my "coming out" in the literary world.

I ate my food from open cans, not taking the trouble to cook.

At night (I had pulled my bed out close to the stove) I heaped all the blankets in the house over me, and still shivered ... I lived on the constant stimulus of huge draughts of coffee....

"Only a little while longer ... only a few days more ... and the play will then be finished ... and it will be published. And it will be produced.

"Then _the woman_, my first and only woman, she will be with me again forever ... I'll take her to Italy, away from all the mess that has cluttered about our love for each other."

* * * * *

One day, in an effort to keep the house warm--the one room I confined myself to, rather,--I stoked the stove so hot that the stovepipe grew red to the place where it went through the roof into the attic....

My mind, at the time, was in far-off Galilee. I was on the last scene of the last act of my play ... the disciples, after the crucifixion, were gathered in the upper room again, waiting for the resurrected Christ to appear to take the seat left vacant for Him....

I looked up from the page over which my frosty fingers crawled....

The boards were smoking faintly. If I didn't act quickly the house would catch fire ... I laughed at the thought of the curious climax it would present to the world; I imagined myself among the embers.

I must lessen the heat in the stove. I ran and brought in a bucket of water. I pried open the red-hot door of the stove with a stick that almost caught flame as I pried.

With a backward withdrawal, a forward heave, I shot the contents of the pail into the stove....

There followed a detonation like a siege gun.

The stove-lid shot so close to my head it was no joke ... it took out the whole window-sash and lit in the outside snow. The stove itself, balanced on bricks under its four feet, slumped sidewise, fortunately did not collapse to the floor ... the stovepipe fell, but the wire that held it up at the bend also prevented it from touching the carpet ... the room was instantly full of suffocating soot and smoke.

I crawled forth like a scared animal ... found myself in the kitchen. In the mirror hanging there I looked like a Senegalese.

Then, finding myself unhurt, I laughed and laughed at myself, at the grotesqueness and irony of life, at everything ... but mostly at myself.

I righted the stove as best I could, brought the door in again from where it had bitten to the bottom of the snow drift, like an angry animal. It was still uncomfortably hot ... shifting it from hand to hand I managed to manoeuvre it back to a slant position on its hinges....

Before I could light another and more moderate fire, unexpectedly the inspiration for the completion of the last scene of _Judas_--the inspiration for which I had been waiting and hoping--rode in on me like a wave....

* * * * *

Christ, in the spirit, unseen, comes to his waiting disciples.

_Thomas_. Someone has flung open the door. The wind has blown out the candles.

_Andrew_. Nay, I sit next the door. 'Tis closed!

_John_. He has risen. He is even now among us.

_Thomas_. Someone sits in the chair. I feel a presence by my side.

_Peter_. Brethren, 'tis the Comforter of which He spake! [_A misty light fills the room_.]

_John_. Ah, 'tis He! 'tis He! He is with us. He has not forsaken us. Verily, He has risen from the dead into a larger life than ever! Dear Lord, Beloved Shepherd of Souls, is it Thou?

_Thomas_. I believe, I believe! It is past speech! Thy Kingdom comes as I dreamed, but dared not believe!

_John_. He lives, He lives--the very Son of God!

Behold the Kingdom that He promised us; 'Tis no vain dream, 'tis everlasting truth! He shall bind all the nations into one, The love of him shall flood the world! He shall conquer with love and gentleness, and not with the sword. He shall live again in every heart that loves its fellow men. Peace he will plant where discord grew before. He will save and heal the souls of men forever and forever. Ah, dear Master, forgive us, we beseech Thee, For deeming Thou hadst ever died.

* * * * *

And so, having nearly burnt a house down, and perhaps myself with it, I had written "finis" to my four-act play called _Judas_.

* * * * *

Hildreth and I had written faithfully to each other twice a day ... the absurd, foolish, improper letters that lovers exchange ... I wrote most of my letters in the cave-language that we had invented between us....

And we marked all the interspaces with secret symbols that meant intimate caresses ... kisses ... everything....

The play brought to a successful end, I realised that for one day no letters had come from Hildreth. And the next none came ... and the next....

I besieged the post office five and six times a day in a panic, till the postmaster first pitied me, then grew a bit put out....

A week, and not a single letter from the woman I loved....

The day before, Mrs. Suydam and her plumber affinity, for whom I felt myself and Hildreth and Penton largely responsible, in the example we had set--the day before these two young people had committed suicide.

As I walked about the cottage, alone, I had the uncanny feeling that the place was haunted ... that maybe the ghosts of these two poor children who had imitated us were down there haunting me ... why had not Hildreth and I written that joint letter to them as I had suggested!

--only a little thing, but it might have given them courage to go on!....

* * * * *

I was at the long-distance phone.

"Hildreth!" I cried, hearing her dear voice....

"Oh, how good, how sweet, my love, my life, it is to hear your voice again ... tell me you still love me!"

"Hush, Johnnie, hush!" answered a far-away, strange voice ... "I'm writing you a long letter ... somebody might be listening in."

"Did you see in the paper about Mrs. Suydam?"

"Yes, it was a terrible thing."

"--if we had only written to them!"

"--that was what I thought!"

"Shall I come to the city now? My book is finished. I'm a real author now."

"The book is finished? That's fine, Johnnie ... but don't come to the city now ... wait my letter."

* * * * *

When the bulky letter came, the roads rang like iron to my step. I wouldn't allow myself to read it in the post office. I hugged the luxury of the idea of reading it by the fire, slowly. I kissed the still unopened envelope many times on the way home.

* * * * *

I broke the letter open ... it fell out of my hands as if a paralysis had smitten me....

No, no, I would not believe it ... it could not be true ... in so short a time ... with hands that shook as with palsy I plucked it up from the chilly, draughty floor again....

"_Another man_!"

She had met, was in love with, another man!

Oh, incredible! incredible! I moaned in agony. I rocked like an old woman rocking her body in grief.

Now was my time to end it all!

Damn all marriage! Damn all free love! God damn to hell all women!

* * * * *

I thought of many ways of committing suicide. But I only _thought_ of them.

I flung out into the night, meaning to go and tell Mrs. Rond of the incredible doom that had fallen upon me, the unspeakable betrayal.

"Poor Penton!" I cried. "Poor Penton!"

At last I sympathised fully with him.

* * * * *

Ashamed, in my slowly gathering new man's pride, I did not go in to see Mrs. Rond. Instead, I drove past her house with that curious, bent-kneed walk of mine,--and I walked and walked, not heeding the cold, till the ocean shouldered, phosphorescent, in the enormous night toward me.

* * * * *

Home again, I slept like a drunkard. It was broad day when I woke.

I had dreamed deliciously all night of Hildreth ... was strangely not unsatisfied--when I woke again to the hell of the reality her letter had plunged me into.

* * * * *

Mrs. Rond ... of course I finally took her into my confidence, and told her the entire story....

"Not to speak in disparagement of Hildreth, I knew it all along, Johnnie ... knew that this would be the result ... but come, come, you have bigger things in you ... Penton Baxter will win his divorce sooner or later. Hildreth has another man, poor little girl! You have all that God means you to have at present: _Your first book_!"

* * * * *

THE END