Читать книгу Our Little Life - Jessie Georgina Sime - Страница 16

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As the days grew shorter and the Canadian winter came nearer, Robert Fulton wilted. When November came and the first icy winds of the long cold months went piercing through his insufficient clothing, he seemed to shrink. Each year, by the time January came along, he was not only wilted and shrunken, he was shriveled, too. He always felt, each winter afresh, as if his flesh were getting to be a tight fit for his bones, as if his bones were crushing down on his soul: the cold had that effect on him that he could hardly breathe or think or feel. And indeed, by the time it came March and the winter was nearly at an end, each winter he had ceased to feel anything very special at all. He had ceased even to wish to complain—he never did complain much: he only wished that Canada and he had never met, or that he and Canada might part never to meet again—or that he were dead. With each short spring, afresh as everything melted, he felt a rush of returning life; with each hot parching summer he felt again that life was not worth having; Robert Fulton was built for a temperate zone, and the arctic winters and torrid summers of Canada were not for him.

He was forced, however, each November to admit anew that approaching winter is a beautiful time in Canada. Even in untidy Regalia, there was beauty on every side of him as he went to work in the morning and returned home at night. The clearest crystal spring couldn't come near the clarity of the late autumnal air. A gurgling brook with clear pebbles at the bottom of it couldn't touch it. Canada's autumn air is something all to itself—"diamond" as Robert himself had called it—special, unmatchable by any other air. It is the clearest thing in all the world, and one feels at times as if one should be able to see right through it to some other world beyond: as if the world to come must be just at the other side of what one looks at—and quite near to one.

Robert Fulton, who loved beautiful things, could not wander through such clarity and not love it. He did. There were moments when he felt he did love Canada, or would if only it would treat him decently. He loved the great dome of the sky, so infinitely, incessantly blue; he loved the great trees of the University Grounds through which he passed to go to work—he loved the sharp distinctness of every tiny bough across the sky—he loved the contour of things, and their bigness, and their suggestion of freedom and space. Sometimes he felt that if he had tried the Canadian country with its great wastes of land to be reclaimed, he might have . . . But no, Robert Fulton was not made for work of that kind, and he knew it. He was made for a quiet and orderly life. He sometimes thought—and more wisely this time—that if he had been an old monk of the fifteenth century, busy all day long over some exquisite script, he would have been happy. And, walking through the raw beginnings of life that he had chosen, he would imagine to himself an old monastery, gray and enduring and beautiful, and the cultivated lands round about it, and the cloistered peacefulness of working there; and then the toot of a motor-horn would cut across his imagery or his search for the right word, perhaps, and he would wake up and hurry on to his cheese-and-butter counter so as not to be late—and so avoid the fine.

It was not till well on in November that he took anything more down to Miss McGee's. And it happened that the evening he took his next instalment down he didn't read it. He simply sat back in the warm corner that was becoming his own by a sort of right, and he gazed into the fire. He possessed, to a surprising degree, that masculine power of doing nothing particular, and saying nothing particular, and thinking nothing particular—just sitting.

To Miss McGee such a state of things was impossible. She, like most women, didn't know how to relax. All the time she was awake she was doing something; even when she was supposed to be sitting still she was moving restlessly about in her seat, or thinking some unnecessary thought. To sit, as Robert Fulton sat, relaxed in every fiber of his being, was to Miss McGee an impossibility. But she was able to recognize that he wanted to be left alone and (rather unfemininely) she left him alone. Thus they sat together over the fire, and for a long time there was no noise in the room but the ticking of Miss McGee's dollar clock, and the occasional falling of a cinder out of the grate.

"It's noice not to be alone," Miss McGee said at last. She felt Irish and happy.

Robert Fulton waked out of his state of nothingness with a start, and came back to life.

"Is it?" he said dreamily.

"Is ut?" said Miss McGee: and she laughed. "I been sittin' alone here for ten years an' more," she said then gravely. "Since Ma'a died." And she paused. "It's some lonely woman I been, Mr. Fulton," said she.

But Robert Fulton had relapsed again. He was sitting a little forward in his chair, gazing in between the bars of the fire. There was a far-away look in his eyes, and he didn't answer.

"It's a hard life, sure," said Miss McGee, starting again after a bit. "It's a wonder what it's for, eh."

He said nothing.

"Ye'll be thinkin' of yer folks at home, Mr. Fulton, an' you settin' lookin' in the bars of the fire?" Miss McGee said then. It was the first question she had asked him.

That roused Robert. He sat up straight in his chair, and out of his quiet blue eyes he looked directly at Miss McGee. "No," he said. "No. I'm alone in the world. I haven't any people."

And he looked away from her into the fire again.

Katie McGee felt her heart give a great jump. He hadn't any people. She could have him, keep him, mother him—for a bit. The time would come when he, like all men, would want something of his own, something young, pretty, charming, soft, speaking like himself (Miss McGee never stopped to think where he was to find this paragon) . . . but meantime he was with her. She could keep him with her for a bit. It was not necessary for her to face the world alone again—yet. Her spirits went up again with a bound. "Sure," said she, "we're the lonely two. But two's comp'ny, eh. We're friends."

Something in the sound of her voice roused Robert Fulton once more.

"You're very good to me, Miss McGee," he said gratefully. He couldn't have explained why he said it. He merely responded instinctively to something he heard in her voice.

Miss McGee felt exultant. She felt for the moment as if she could kick the world like a foot-ball and watch it go up in the air.

"Sure," she said, "an' who wouldn't be koind to you. It's good to have ye. I"—she hesitated—"I love to have ye, Mr. Fulton," she said. "It's the joy of"—she hesitated again—"me loife."

But Robert Fulton saw no reason for her hesitation. He merely saw before him a good old soul (so once more he phrased her to himself) who was kind to him. He smiled up at her in his boyish way, and as she met his candid eyes she felt her heart contract. If she had done what her heart prompted her to do she would have leaned forward and taken his face in her hands and sat there long, looking at it. She felt the impulse that a man has when he sits by a young girl, to touch—to take some part of the young thing into his arms—and hold it. Miss McGee pushed back these feelings with an effort. She gave a long sigh.

"Ye're but a bo'oy, Mr. Fulton," said she.

And she returned to an unnecessary bit of work she held in her hands, and sewed.

"I think life's a mess," said Robert Fulton suddenly. He was replying, rather late in the day, to Miss McGee's remark.

Miss McGee gave a start. It was her own view, but somehow she didn't like to hear Robert say it.

"Oh my," she said, "there's lots to ut too. We has our toimes. We kin be with the folks we"—she hesitated—"we loikes. . . ."

Robert Fulton said nothing.

"Ye wouldn't not've lived, Mr. Fulton, eh?" asked Miss McGee, after what seemed to her a long time of silence.

Robert hesitated in his turn.

"I don't know," he said.

"I know then," Miss McGee said, letting her work fall. "I know." Her voice had a clear ring in it. "I wouldn't not have lived for all ye could give me, Mr. Fulton. Ain't ut worth just to've been aloive? Ain't ut worth havin' saw the wor'rld? An' ain't the sunloight grand, eh, and the whoite snow in the winter-toime—an' the flowers in the spring, . . ."

"When I was young," she said after a pause, "me feet'd used to dance under me as I'd went through the streets. I'd used to see the wor'rld laughin' as I gawn along. I wouldn't not've had that," Miss McGee said, "fer . . . . everythin' there is." She paused a minute. "Ye're young, Mr. Fulton," she said then. "Ye're young, me dear"—it was the first time she had called him dear—"there's all the wor'rld in front of ye—an' all loife. . . ."

And she stopped.

"I don't feel young," Robert Fulton said.

At that minute Miss McGee would have given all she had ever had and everything she hoped to have, yes, in the world to come, to fold her arms round Robert Fulton and press him to her breast, and rock him to and fro there as one rocks a tired child. She would have put her hopes of eternity away if she might have done that . . .

"My," she said, "ye're young. Ye're young."

She bent forward a little.

"'Tis a great thing to be young," she said. "'Tis the greatest thing in the wor'rld. Ye got the prize. Don't throw ut from ye."

There was a silence between them.

"An' ye got a gift," Miss McGee said, "a grand gift. Don't forgit ut. There's a day comin' ye'll be famous, Mr. Fulton. Ye'll write an' the folks'll read what ye write, an' they'll be scramblin' and pushin', me bo'oy, to see ye . . ."

She stopped.

"Ye'll be glad ye're aloive then," she said.

And suddenly she felt as if she couldn't bear him to be unhappy.

"Ye'll be happy, me dear," she said. "Ye'll be happy. I know ut. Cheer up an' go on and keep writin' things. And hope on. I'm thinkin' an' . . ." She stopped again. She felt as if she were pushing him away from her, further and further with every word. "I'm waitin' on your success. You'll be happy," Miss McGee said, "don't fear. . . ."

Words with no sense in them come home at times when they are said out of a full heart. Robert Fulton, though he knew very well that his chances of happiness were the slenderest things, brightened up when Miss McGee promised him—what she never could perform. He felt her promises of happiness to be the next best thing to the thing itself. He felt once more actively grateful to her. He turned his eyes away from the fire and looked into hers. After a second he smiled—he had a nice smile . . .

Miss McGee felt repaid.

"Will ye not read the piece ye brought along, eh, Mr. Fulton," said she.

He hesitated a second, and then, for no reason at all, he felt that dislike to his own work that we all of us feel at times. He suddenly felt it to be, not only worthless, but definitely objectionable. He felt as if he couldn't read one word that he had written—to-night.

"Not to-night, Miss McGee," he said. And as she looked up at him enquiringly he added, "I'm not in the mood."

Miss McGee was quite satisfied.

"That's what Mr. Mitt used to say," she remarked.

"Who was he?" said Robert. He just asked for politeness.

"A gen'leman friend," said Miss McGee.

She felt the desire that all women feel when they love, to tell the man—everything. All about themselves, about their inmost thoughts and feelings, and about the events of their lives down to the uttermost detail. Miss McGee felt, sitting there, as if she would like to empty herself out at Robert Fulton's feet. At the same moment, she felt a sudden instinct of reserve, a sentiment of shrinking to show even the outermost layers of herself. She longed to tell Robert all about Mr. Mitt—and she felt she would never be able to do so.

"Mr. Mitt was a gen'leman friend of mine," she said, shyly.

"Oh," said Robert.

He didn't care who Mr. Mitt was or whether Miss McGee had ever had any gen'lemen friends at all. Mr. Mitt's name went in at one side of his memory and passed out at the other, and when Miss McGee, at a later date, mentioned Mr. Mitt once more Robert Fulton had no sensation of ever having heard of him.

He said "Oh"—that spacious monosyllable: and the subject dropped.

That night, as Robert Fulton went up to bed, there remained in his mind one—and only one—impression of the evening. But it was a distinct impression—so distinct that it seemed etched on his mind. It was that Miss McGee had said, "There's all the world in front of ye—and all life." And that she had added, "Don't fear." He felt as if a little courage had been poured into him; or rather, he felt as if a little seed of courage had been planted in him and that—if the gods were propitious—it might sprout. No one had ever said things to him like that before.

As a preliminary to sprouting he felt the seed go coursing through his body with his blood-stream. And that night he lay awake.