Chambers Robert William
Athalie

Hafiz, blinking his jewelled eyes, watched her lazily from his pillow.

CHAPTER XVI

AS she came, pensively, from her morning bath into the sunny front room Athalie noticed the corner of an envelope projecting from beneath her door.

For one heavenly moment the old delight surprised her at sight of Clive's handwriting, – for one moment only, before an overwhelming reaction scoured her heart of tenderness and joy; and the terrible resurgence of pain and grief wrung a low cry from her: "Why couldn't he let me alone!" And she crumpled the letter fiercely in her clenched hand.

Minute after minute she stood there, her white hand tightening as though to strangle the speech written there on those crushed sheets – perhaps to throttle and silence the faint, persistent cry of her own heart pleading a hearing for the man who had written to her at last.

And after a while her nerveless hand relaxed; she looked down at the crushed thing in her palm for a long time before she smoothed it out and finally opened it.

He wrote:

"It is too long a story to go into in detail. I couldn't, anyway. My mother had desired it for a long time. I have nothing to say about it except this: I would not for all the world have had you receive the first information from the columns of a newspaper. Of that part of it I have a right to speak, because the announcement was made without my knowledge or consent. And I'll say more: it was made even before I myself was aware that an engagement existed.

"Don't mistake what I write you, Athalie. I am not trying to escape any responsibility excepting that of premature publicity. Whatever else has happened I am fully responsible for.

"And so – what can I have to say to you, Athalie? Silence were decenter perhaps – God knows! – and He knows, too, that in me he fashioned but an irresolute character, void of the initial courage of conviction, without deep and sturdy belief, unsteady to a true course set, and lacking in rugged purpose.

"It is not stupidity: in the bottom of my own heart I know! Custom, habit, acquired and inculcated acquiescence in unanalysed beliefs – these require more than irresolution and a negative disposition to fight them and overcome them.

"Athalie, the news you must have read in the newspapers should first have come from me. Among many, many debts I must ever owe you, that one at least was due you. And I defaulted; but not through any fault of mine.

"I could not rest until you knew this. Whatever you may think about me now – however lightly you weigh me – remember this – if you ever remember me at all in the years to come: I was aware of my paramount debt: I should have paid it had the opportunity not been taken out of my own hands. And that debt paramount was to inform you first of anybody concerning what you read in a public newspaper.

"Now there remains nothing more for me to say that you would care to hear. You would no longer care to know, – would probably not believe me if I should tell you what you have been to me – and still are – and still are, Athalie! Athalie! – "

The letter ended there with her name. She kept it all day; but that night she destroyed it. And it was a week before she wrote him:

" – Thank you for your letter, Clive. I hope all is well with you and yours. I wish you happiness; I desire for you all things good. And also – for her. Surely I may say this much without offence – when I am saying good-bye forever.

"Athalie."

In due time, to this came his answer, tragic in its brevity, terrible in its attempt to say nothing – so that its stiff cerement of formality seemed to crack with every written word and its platitudes split open under the fierce straining of the living and unwritten words beneath them.

And to this she made no answer. And destroyed it after the sun had set.

Her money was now about gone. Indian summer brought no prospect of employment. Never had she believed that so many stenographers existed in the world; never had she supposed that vacant positions could be so pitifully few.

During October her means had not afforded her proper nourishment.

The vigour of young womanhood demands more than milk and crackers and a rare slab from some delicatessen shop.

As for Hafiz, to his astonishment he had been introduced to chuck-steak; and the pleasure was anything but unmitigated. But chuck-steak was more than his mistress had.

Mrs. Bellmore was inclined to eat largely of late suppers prepared on an oil stove by her own fair and very fat hands.

Athalie accepted one or two invitations, and then accepted no more, being unable to return anybody's hospitality.

Captain Dane called persistently without being received, until she wrote him not to come again until she sent for him.

Nobody else knew where she was except her sisters. Doris wrote from Los Angeles complaining of slack business. Later Catharine wrote asking for money. And Athalie was obliged to answer that she had none.

Now "none" means not any at all. And the time had now arrived when that was the truth. The chuck-steak cut up on Hafiz's plate in the bathroom had been purchased with postage stamps – the last of a sheet bought by Athalie in days of affluence for foreign correspondence.

There was no more foreign correspondence. Hence the chuck-steak, and a bottle of milk in the sink and a packet of biscuits on the shelf. And a rather pale, young girl lying flat on the lounge in the front room, her blue eyes wide, staring up at the fading sun-beams on the ceiling.

If she was desperate she was quiet about it – perhaps even at moments a little incredulous that there actually could be nothing left for her to live on. It was one of those grotesque episodes that did not seem to belong in her life – something which ought not – that could not happen to her. At moments, however, she realised that it had happened – realised that part of the nightmare had been happening for some time – that for a good while now, she had always been more or less hungry, even after a rather reckless orgy on crackers and milk.

Except that she felt a little fatigued there was in her no tendency to accept the chose arrivée, no acquiescence in the fait accompli, nothing resembling any bowing of the head, any meek desire to kiss the rod; only a still resentment, a quiet but steady anger, the new and cool opportunism that hatches recklessness.

What channel should she choose? That was all that chance had left for her to decide, – merely what form her recklessness should take.

Whatever of morality had been instinct in the girl now seemed to be in absolute abeyance. In the extremity of dire necessity, cornered at last, face to face with a world that threatened her, and watching it now out of cool, intelligent eyes, she had, without realising it, slipped back into her ragged childhood.

There was nothing else to slip back to, no training, no discipline, no foundation other than her companionship with a mother whom she had loved but who had scarcely done more for her than to respond vaguely to the frankness of inquiring childhood.

Her childhood had been always a battle – a happy series of conflicts as she remembered – always a fight among strenuous children to maintain her feet in her little tattered shoes against rough aggression and ruthless competition.

And now, under savage pressure, she slipped back again in spirit to the school-yard, and became a watchful, agile, unmoral thing again – a creature bent on its own salvation, dedicated to its own survival, atrociously ready for any emergency, undismayed by anything that might offer itself, and ready to consider, weigh, and determine any chance for existence.

Almost every classic alternative in turn presented itself to her as she lay there considering. She could go out and sell herself. But, oddly enough, the "easiest way" was not easy for her. And, as a child, also, a fastidious purity had been instinctive in her, both in body and mind.

There were other and easier alternatives; she could go on the stage, or into domestic service, or she could call up Captain Dane and tell him she was hungry. Or she could let any one of several young men understand that she was now permanently receptive to dinner invitations. And she could, if she chose, live on her personal popularity, – be to one man or to several une maitresse vierge– manage, contrive, accept, give nothing of consequence.

For she was a girl to flatter the vanity of men; and she knew that if ever she coolly addressed her mind to it she could rule them, entangle them, hold them sufficiently long, and flourish without the ultimate concession, because there were so many, many men in the world, and it took each man a long, long time to relinquish hope; and always there was another ready to try his fortune, happy in his vanity to attempt where all so far had failed.

Something she had to do; that was certain. And it happened, while she was pondering the problem, that the only thing she had not considered, – had not even thought of – was now abruptly presented to her.

For, as she lay there thinking, there came the sound of footsteps outside her door, and presently somebody knocked. And Athalie rose in the dusk of the room, switched on a single light, went to the door and opened it. And opportunity walked in wearing the shape of an elderly gentleman of substance, clothed as befitted a respectable dweller in any American city except New York.

"Good evening," he said, looking at her pleasantly but inquiringly. "Is Mrs. Del Garmo in?"

"Mrs. Del Garmo?" repeated Athalie, surprised. "Why, Mrs. Del Garmo is dead!"

"God bless us!" he exclaimed in a shocked voice. "Is that so? Well, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Well – well – well! Mrs. Del Garmo! I certainly am sorry."

He looked curiously about him, shaking his head, and an absent expression came into his white-bearded face – which changed to lively interest when his eyes fell on the table where the crystal stood mounted between the prongs of the bronze tripod.

"No doubt," he said, looking at Athalie, "you are Mrs. Del Garmo's successor in the occult profession. I notice a crystal on the table."

And in that instant the inspiration came to the girl, and she took it with the coolness and ruthlessness of last resort.

"What is it you wish?" she asked calmly, "a reading?"

He hesitated, looking at her out of aged but very honest eyes; and in a moment she was at his mercy, and the game had gone against her. She said, while the hot colour slowly stained her face: "I have never read a crystal. I had not thought of succeeding Mrs. Del Garmo until now – this moment."

"What is your name, child?" he asked in a gently curious voice.

"Athalie Greensleeve."

"You are not a trance-medium?"

"No. I am a stenographer."

"Then you are not psychical?"

"Yes, I am."

"What?"

"I am naturally clairvoyant."

He seemed surprised at first; but after he had looked at her for a moment or two he seemed less surprised.

"I believe you are," he said half to himself.

"I really am… If you wish I could try. But – I don't know how to go about it," she said with flushed embarrassment.

He gazed at her it seemed rather solemnly and wistfully. "There is one thing very certain," he said; "you are honest. And few mediums are. I think Mrs. Del Garmo was. I believed in her. She was the means of giving me very great consolation."

Athalie's face flushed with the shame and pity of her knowledge of the late Mrs. Del Garmo; and the thought of the secret cupboard with its nest of wires made her blush again.

The old gentleman looked all around the room and then asked if he might seat himself.

Athalie also sat down in the stiff arm-chair by the table where her crystal stood on its tripod.

"I wonder," he ventured, "whether you could help me. Do you think so?"

"I don't know," replied the girl. "All I know about it is that I cannot help myself through crystal gazing. I never looked into a crystal but once. And what I searched for was not there."

The old gentleman considered her earnestly for a few moments. "Child," he said, "you are very honest. Perhaps you could help me. It would be a great consolation to me if you could. Would you try?"

"I don't know how," murmured Athalie.

"Maybe I can aid you to try by telling you a little about myself."

The girl lifted her flushed face from the crystal:

"Don't do that, please. If you wish me to try I will. But don't tell me anything."

"Why not?"

"Because – I am – intelligent and quick – imaginative – discerning. I might unconsciously – or otherwise – be unfair. So don't tell me anything. Let me see if there really is in me any ability."

He met her candid gaze mildly but unsmilingly; and she folded her slim hands in her lap and sat looking at him very intently.

"Is your name Symes?" she asked presently.

He nodded.

"Elisha Symes?"

"Yes."

"And – do you live in Brook – Brookfield – no! – Brookhollow?"

"Yes."

"That town is in Connecticut, is it not?"

"Yes."

His trustful gaze had altered, subtly. She noticed it.

"I suppose," she said, "you think I could have found out these things through dishonest methods."

"I was thinking so… I am satisfied that you are honest, Miss Greensleeve."

"I really am – so far."

"Could you tell me how you learned my name and place of residence."

Her expression became even more serious: "I don't know, Mr. Symes… I don't know how I knew it… I think you wish me to help you find your little grandchildren, too. But I don't know why I think so."

When he spoke, controlled emotion made his voice sound almost feeble.

He said: "Yes; find my little grandchildren and tell me what they are doing." He passed a transparent hand unsteadily across his dim eyes: "They are not living," he added. "They were lost at sea."

She said: "Nothing dies. Nothing is really lost."

"Why do you think so, child?"

"Because the whole world is gay and animated and lovely with what we call 'the dead.' And, by the dead I mean all things great and small that have ever lived."

He sat listening with all the concentration and rapt attention of a child intent upon a fairy tale. She said, as though speaking to herself: "You should see and hear the myriads of birds that have 'died'! The sky is full of their voices and their wings… Everywhere – everywhere the lesser children live, – those long dead of inhumanity or of that crude and temporary code which we call the law of nature. All has been made up to them – whatever of cruelty and pain they suffered – whatever rigour of the 'natural' law in that chain of destruction which we call the struggle for existence… For there is only one real law, and it rules all of space that we can see, and more of it than we can even imagine… It is the law of absolute justice."

The old man nodded: "Do you believe that?"

She looked up at him dreamily: "Yes; I believe it. Or I should not have said it."

"Has anybody ever told you this?"

"No… I never even thought about it until this moment while listening to my own words."… She lifted one hand and rested it against her forehead: "I cannot seem to think of your grandchildren's names… Don't tell me."

She remained so for a few moments, motionless, then with a graceful gesture and a shake of her pretty head: "No, I can't think of their names. Do you suppose I could find them in the crystal?"

"Try," he said tremulously. She bent forward, resting both elbows on the table and framing her lovely face in her hands.

Deep into the scintillating crystal her blue gaze plunged; and for a few moments she saw nothing. Then, almost imperceptibly, faint hues and rainbow tints grew in the brilliant and transparent sphere – gathered, took shape as she watched, became coherent and logical and clear and real.

She said in a low voice, still watching intently: "Blue sky, green trees, a snowy shore, and little azure wavelets… Two children bare-legged, playing in the sand… A little girl – so pretty! – with her brown eyes and brown curls… And the boy is her brother I think… Oh, certainly… And what a splendid time they are having with their sand-fort!.. There's a little dog, too. They are calling him, 'Snippy! Snippy! Snippy!' How he barks at the waves! And now he has seized the little girl's doll! They are running after him, chasing him along the sands! Oh, how funny they are! – and what a glorious time they are having… The puppy has dropped the doll… The doll's name is Augusta… Now the little girl has seated herself cross-legged on the sand and she is cradling the doll and singing to it – such a sweet, clear, happy little voice… She is singing something about cherry pie – Oh! – now I can hear every word:

 
"Cherry pie,
Cherry pie,
You shall have some bye and bye.
Bye and Bye
Bye and Bye
You and I shall have a pie,
Cherry pie
Cherry pie —
 

"The boy is saying: 'Grandpa will have plenty for us when we get home. There's always cherry pie at Grandpa's house.'

"And the little girl answers, 'I think Grandpa will come here pretty soon and bring us all the cherry pie we want.'… Her name is Jessie… Her brother calls her 'Jessie.' She calls him 'Jim.'

"Their other name is Colden, I think… Yes, that is it – Colden… They seem to be expecting their father and mother; but I don't see them – Oh, yes. I can see them now – in the distance, walking slowly along the sands – "

She hesitated, remained silent for a few moments; then: "The colours are blurring to a golden haze. I can't see clearly now; it is like looking into the blinding disk of the rising sun… All splendour and dazzling glory – and a too fierce light – "

For a moment more she remained bent over above the sphere, then raising her head: "The crystal is transparent and empty," she said.

CHAPTER XVII

IT was about five months later that Cecil Reeve wrote his long reply to a dozen letters from Clive Bailey which heretofore had remained unanswered and neglected:

" – For Heaven's sake, do you think I've nothing to do except to write you letters? I never write letters; and here's the exception to prove it. And if I were not at the Geyser Club, and if I had not dined incautiously, I would not write this!

"But first permit me the indiscretion of asking you why an engaged man is so charitably interested in the welfare of a young girl who is not engaged to him? And if he is interested, why doesn't he write to her himself and find out how she is? Or has she turned you down?

"But you need not incriminate and degrade yourself by answering this question.

"Seriously, Clive, you'd better get all thoughts of Athalie Greensleeve out of your head as long as you intend to get married. I knew, of course, that you'd been hard hit. Everybody was gossiping last winter. But this is rather raw, isn't it? – asking me to find out how Athalie is and what she is doing; and to write you in detail? Well anyway I'll tell you once for all what I hear and know about her and her family – her family first, as I happen to have had dealings with them. And hereafter you can do your own philanthropic news gathering.

"Doris and Catharine were in a rotten show I backed. And when I couldn't afford to back it any longer Doris was ungrateful enough to marry a man who cultivated dates, figs, and pecan nuts out in lower California, and Catharine has just written me a most impertinent letter saying that real men grew only west of the Mississippi, and that she is about to marry one of them who knows more in half a minute than anybody could ever learn during a lifetime in New York, meaning me and Hargrave. I guess she meant me; and I guess it's so – about Hargrave. Except for myself, we certainly are a bunch of boobs in this out-of-date old town.

"Now about Athalie, – she dropped out of sight after you went abroad. Nobody seemed to know where she was or what she was doing. Nobody ever saw her at restaurants or theatres except during the first few weeks after your departure. And then she was usually with that Dane chap – you know – the explorer. I wrote to her sisters making inquiries in behalf of myself and Francis Hargrave; but they either didn't know or wouldn't tell us where she was living. Neither would Dane. I didn't suppose he knew at the time; but he did.

"Well, what do you think has happened? Athalie Greensleeve is the most talked about girl in town! She has become the fashion, Clive. You hear her discussed at dinners, at dances, everywhere.

"Some bespectacled guy from Columbia University had an article about her in one of the recent magazines. Every paper has had something to say concerning her. They all disagree except on one point, – that Athalie Greensleeve is the most beautiful woman in New York. How does that hit you, Clive?

"Well, here's the key to the box of tricks. I'll hand it to you now. Athalie has turned into a regular, genuine, out and out clairvoyant, trade-marked patented. And society with a big S and science with a little s are fighting to take her up and make a plaything of her. And the girl is making all kinds of money.

"Of course her beauty and pretty manners are doing most of it for her, but here's another point: rumour has it that she's perfectly sincere and honest in her business.

"How can she be, Clive? I ask you. Also I hand it to her press-agent. He's got every simp in town on the run. He knows his public.

"Well, the first time I met her she was dining with Dane again at the Arabesque. She seemed really glad to see me. There's a girl who remains unaffected and apparently unspoiled by her success. And she certainly has delightful manners. Dane glowered at me but Athalie made me sit down for a few minutes. Gad! I was that flattered to be seen with such a looker!

"She told me how it began – she couldn't secure a decent position, and all her money was gone, when in came an old guy who had patronised the medium whose rooms she was living in.

"That started it. The doddering old rube insisted that Athalie take a crack at the crystal business; she took one, and landed him. And when he went out he left a hundred bones in his wake and a puddle of tears on the rug.

 

"She didn't tell it to me like this: she really fell for the old gentleman. But I could size him up for a come-on. The rural districts crawl with that species. Now what gets me, Clive, is this: Athalie seems to me to be one of the straightest ever. Of course she has changed a lot. She's cleverer, livelier, gayer, more engaging and bewitching than ever – and believe me she's some flirt, in a sweet, bewildering sort of way – so that you'd give your head to know how much is innocence and how much is art of a most delicious – and, sometimes, malicious kind.

"That's the girl. And that's all she is, just a girl, with all the softness and freshness and fragrance of youth still clinging to her. She's some peach-blossom, take it from uncle! And she is straight; or I'm a million miles away in the lockup.

"And now, granted she's morally straight, how can she be square in business? Do you get me? It's past me. All I can think of is that, being straight, the girl feels herself that she's also square.

"Yet, if that is so, how can she fool others so neatly?

"Listen, Clive: I was at a dance at the Faithorn's; tremendous excitement among pin-heads and débutantes! Athalie was expected, professionally. And sure enough, just before supper, in strolls a radiant, wonderful young thing making them all look like badly faded guinea-hens – and somehow I get the impression that she is receiving her hostess instead of the contrary. Talk about self-possession and absolute simplicity! She had 'em all on the bench. Happening to catch my eye she held out her hand with one of those smiles she can be guilty of – just plain assassination, Clive! – and I stuck to her until the pin-heads crowded me out, and the rubbering women got my shoulders all over paint. And now here's where she gets 'em. There's no curtained corner, no pasteboard trophies, no gipsy shawls and bangles, no lowering of lights, no closed doors, no whispers.

"Whoever asks her anything spooky she answers in a sweet and natural voice, as though replying to an ordinary question. She makes no mystery of it. Sometimes she can't answer, and she says so without any excuse or embarrassment. Sometimes her replies are vague or involved or even apparently meaningless. She admits very frankly that she is not always able to understand what her reply means.

"However she says enough – tells, reveals, discovers, offers sound enough advice – to make her the plaything of the season.

"And it's a cinch that she scores more bull's eyes than blanks. I had a séance with her. Never mind what she told me. Anyway it was devilish clever, – and true as far as I knew. And I suppose the chances are good that the whole business will happen to me. Watch me.

"I think Athalie must have cleared a lot of money already. Mrs. Faithorn told me she gave her a cheque for five hundred that evening. And Athalie's private business must be pretty good because all the afternoon until five o'clock carriages and motors are coming and going. And you ought to see who's in 'em. Your prospective father-in-law was in one! Perhaps he wanted inside information about Dominion Fuel – that damn stock which has done a few things to me since I monkeyed with it.

"But you should see the old dragons and dowagers and death-heads, and frumps who go to see Athalie! And the younger married bunch, too. I understand one has to ask for an appointment a week ahead.

"So she must be making every sort of money. And yet she lives simply enough – sky floor of a new office-apartment building on Long Acre – hoisted way up in the air above everything. You look out and see nothing but city and river and bay and haze on every side as far as the horizon's circle. At night it's just an endless waste of electric lights. There's very little sound from the street roar below. It's still up there in the sky, and sunny; silent and snowy; quiet and rainy; noiseless and dark – according to the hours, seasons, and meteorological conditions, my son. And it's some joint, believe me, with the dark old mahogany trim and furniture and the dull rich effects in azure and gold; and the Beluch carpets full of sombre purple and dusky fire, and the white cat on the window-sill watching you put of its sapphire blue eyes.

"And Athalie! curled up on her deep, soft divan, nibbling sweetmeats and listening to a dozen men – for there are usually as many as that who drop in at one time or another after business is over, and during the evening, unless Athalie is dining out, which she often does, damn it!

"Business hours for her begin at two o'clock in the afternoon; and last until five. She could make a lot more money than she does if she opened earlier. I told her this, once, but she said that she was determined to educate herself.

"And it seems that she studies French, Italian, German, piano and vocal music; and has some down-and-out old hen read with her. I believe her ambition is to take the regular Harvard course as nearly as possible. Some nerve! What?

"Well, that's how her mornings go; and now I've given you, I think, a fair schedule of the life she leads. That fellow Dane hangs about a lot. So do Hargrave and Faithorn and young Allys and Arthur Ensart. And so do I, Clive; and a lot of others. Why, I don't know. I don't suppose we'd marry her; and yet it would not surprise me if any one of us asked her. My suspicions are that the majority of the men who go there have asked her. We're a fine lot, we men. So damn fastidious. And then we go to sentimental pieces when we at last get it into our bone-heads that there is no other way that leads to Athalie except by marrying her. And we ask her. And then we get turned down!

"Clive, that girl ought to be easy. To look at her you'd say she was made of wax, easily moulded, and fashioned to be loved, and to love. But, by God, I don't think it's in her to love… For, if it were – good night. She'd have raised the devil in this world long ago. And some of us would have done murder before now.

"If I had not dined so copiously and so rashly I wouldn't write you all this. I'd write a page or two and lie to you, politely. And so I'll say this: I really do believe that it is in Athalie to love some man. And I believe, if she did love him, she'd love him in any way he asked her. He hasn't come along yet; that's all. But Oh! how he will be hated when he does – unless he is the marrying kind. And anyway he'll be hated. Because, however he does it, he'll get one of the loveliest girls this town ever set eyes on. And the rest of us will realise it then, and there will be some teeth-gnashing, believe me! – and some squirming. Because the worm that never dieth will continue to chew us one and all, and never, never let us forget that the girl no man of our sort could really condescend to marry, had been asked by every one of us in turn to marry him; and had declined.

"And I'll add this for my own satisfaction: the man who gets her, and doesn't marry her, will ultimately experience a biting from that same worm which will make our lacerations resemble the agreeable tickling of a feather.

"We're a rotten lot of cowards. And what hypocrites we are!

"I saw Fontaine sending flowers to his wife. He'd been at Athalie's all the evening. There are only two occasions on which a man sends flowers to his wife; one of them is when he's in love with her.

"Aren't we the last word in scuts? Custom-ridden, habit-cursed, afraid, eternally afraid of something – of our own sort always, and of their opinions. And that offering of flowers when the man who sends them hopes to do something of which he is ashamed, or has already done it!

"How I do run on! In vino veritas– there's some class to pickled truth! Here are olives for thought, red peppers for honesty, onions for logic – and cauliflower for constancy – and fifty-seven other varieties, Clive – all absent in the canned make-up of the modern man.

"'When you and I behind the veil have passed' – but they don't wear veils now; and now is our chance.

"We'll never take it. Hall-marks are our only guide. When absent we merely become vicious. We know what we want; we know what we ought to have; but we're too cowardly to go after it. And so are you. And so am I.

"Yours —

"Reeve."