Читать книгу Green Light - Lloyd C. Douglas - Страница 5

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MISS ARLEN and Phyllis saw them off on the Berengaria and took the noon char-à-banc back to London.

It was pleasant to think that they were to have six weeks of leisurely browsing about together after the seventy-two hot and helter-skelter days on the Continent. Phyllis, especially, had reasons for anticipating this experience with pleasant excitement.

Lined up along the rail on B-deck, as the last hawser splashed, the homeward-bound party looked into the upturned faces of Phyllis and Miss Arlen with undisguised envy—all but Patty Sumner, who was going home to be married on the sixteenth of October, and Miss Cogswell, who, in spite of her permission to arrive at Poughkeepsie a week later for the opening of the autumn term, was conspicuously restless to be back at her post. At least a normal amount of dispraise had been Miss Cogswell's portion during the twenty-five years of her professional career, but nobody had ever said she was not in earnest.

All things considered, the summer's excursion had been a success. Miss Cogswell, recognized historian and competent art critic, had remained an inflexible pedagogue throughout, marshalling her high-spirited wards with a solicitude that had proved irksome at times, but she had been an able director of the tour, providing handsomely for their comfort.

The managerial technique of Miss Cogswell was canny and irresistible. From the first day out, she had assumed that her young women (she never called them girls, though her discipline—the result of ten years' experience in a prep. school previous to her professorship in college—was better suited to the mood of fifteen than twenty-two) were in Europe on a serious errand, flatteringly imputing to them an ardent desire to devote every minute to the pursuit of culture.

Only one unfortunate episode had briefly interrupted their mutually forbearing display of concord. That had been at Milan. It was too fine a night to be put to bed at nine-thirty. They had just arrived at seven, from a week in Florence of such vast improvement to the mind that an hour of frivolous diversion seemed appropriate.

Miss Cogswell had been bathing her lame heels, when the sixth sense she had evolved through an earlier decade of listening and sniffing at tensely quiet dormitory doors warned her that the peace which rested over their suite in the Metropole was too complete to be real. Tugging on her shapeless dressing-gown, she had paddled about, peering into darkened and disordered rooms. Not a mother's daughter of her flock was to be found.

At eleven she and Miss Arlen located them, rosily merry, huddled close together about a round table in the exact centre of the Café Cova, stowing away tall parfaits. Before each culprit reposed an oily plate hinting at a recent antipasto, and an empty glass of the size and shape frequently used in the serving of cocktails. It was a humiliating moment, in which the tour-director's young women looked and felt like naughty little kindergarteners.

On the way back to the hotel, Miss Cogswell taciturnly leading on with stiffened spine, determined stride, straight lips, and stony eyes, Phyllis Dexter had lagged a little and fallen into step with Miss Arlen who was dispassionately defending their retreat. Phyllis admired her pretty English professor almost to the extent of adoration, and disliked the thought of having annoyed her. And sometimes she had felt genuinely sorry for her, too, because it was so manifest that she and Miss Cogswell—of necessity paired together—had very little in common.

"I'm awfully sorry and ashamed," admitted Phyllis, rather shyly.

"You may be sorrier an hour from now," replied Miss Arlen indifferently. "It was a shocking mess—sardines and ice cream."

Phyllis risked a smile, but suspecting that the time was hardly propitious for a light-hearted view of their misdemeanour, sobered instantly and said with contrition, "We were horrid—making you turn out when you were tired and sleepy."

"I wasn't sleepy," drawlingly dissented Miss Arlen, "and it is a lovely night. All the stars on duty."

"You're a darling!" breathed Phyllis, impetuously hugging Miss Arlen's shapely arm. And then, just as she was withdrawing her hand, abashed over the impulsive liberty she had taken—for Professor Patricia Arlen, Ph.D., was too coolly dignified and remote to be pawed over in this manner—to Phyllis's unbounded delight there was a warm pressure of response to her caress. It brought sudden tears to her eyes. She had distantly worshipped Miss Arlen, often wondering what it might be like to share the confidence of this enigmatic, exquisite woman. She thought she had discovered a little secret. Miss Arlen was human. On the inside, she was a regular fellow.

No attempt was made, next day, to improve upon the comradeship they had tentatively confessed. Miss Arlen was smilingly distant and impartial. But before the week was out, it had been arranged that if Phyllis could secure consent from home, she would remain for a few weeks in London with Miss Arlen, who had contrived a four months' leave to study in the British Museum. She had already won recognition with her two volumes of essays on the Victorian Poets, and now hoped to do another book on a subject she had not bothered to confide to anyone, The Droller Aspects of the Restoration.

They followed along the dock as the Berengaria was tugged out, waving good-byes, Phyllis wondering how soon they could decently call it a closed incident and seek the shade. Besides, she was pipingly impatient to have Miss Arlen all to herself. What would it be like to live in such intimate contact with Miss Arlen; to share the same room with her? Phyllis was on tiptoe with curiosity; just a little frightened, too. She must be restrained, mindful of her teacher's quite justifiable dignity.

At length Miss Arlen turned about, apparently satisfied that the ceremony of farewell had been adequately attended to, and they strolled over to the South Western Hotel where they were to board the char-à-banc. Presently they were bowling swiftly along High Street, revelling in the welcome shade. As they rattled under the old Bargate Arch, Miss Arlen tugged off her prim little hat with a girlish gesture of independence, as if the boundary of Miss Cogswell's jurisdiction had now been passed, and the significant smile she turned on Phyllis said, as plainly as if she had spoken it, "There! We are free now to do as we like!"

Phyllis, almost suffocated with pride and happiness over Miss Arlen's comradely informality, again warned herself against the temptation to ignore the considerable difference in their rank and years.

Absorbed in the quaintness of the villages and the ripened serenity of the countryside, they had but little to say to each other until they were within sight of Winchester. Phyllis was eager to talk.

"Are we going back to the Tate Gallery to-morrow?" she asked, remembering Miss Cogswell's parting recommendation, and feeling herself on safe ground here.

Miss Arlen tightened her pretty mouth, gave Phyllis a sidelong glance of mock dismay, and grinned! It was not a smile but a lazy grin! Miss Arlen closed one eye in a deliberate, diabolical wink!

"We are going out to Kew Gardens," she said firmly, "to lie flat on our backs in the grass and watch the clouds. And the first one who says the word 'art' has to buy the lunch."

Phyllis sighed happily.

"I'm so glad now—about that affair in Milan," she said reflectively. "If it hadn't happened, I might have gone home with the others. Then I should have missed all this—being with you, I mean. You were so understanding, that night."

"It didn't call for much understanding," drawled Miss Arlen. "I was sitting in the dark by my window and saw you go. Your dash for liberty was no surprise."

By the time they reached Basingstoke they were arriving at a least common denominator of mood and manner of talk. Phyllis was ecstatically loving London as they roared and sputtered into increasingly heavy traffic. Miss Arlen had forgotten her professorship.

They had their baggage taken to a little hotel in Bloomsbury, round the corner from the Museum. Phyllis had never stopped at a place so unpretentious; it had been Miss Arlen's suggestion. She had need to economize. Unpacking, they put on their prettiest gowns, Phyllis noting with shy admiration that Miss Arlen, so consistently conservative on the outside, was almost startlingly modern while in the act of hanging her travel togs in the closet. At that moment she didn't look at all like an authority on Tennyson. It had been agreed that they would go to the Trocadero for dinner, Phyllis begging the right to play hostess on this festive occasion. With the assurance of excellent experience she ordered with discrimination, finding Miss Arlen in full approval of her choices.

"I wonder if we shouldn't have a glass of sherry first?" suggested Phyllis, a bit uncertainly. "It has been a busy day; you're tired."

"Please," replied Miss Arlen. "But not because I'm tired. I never felt better in my life."

"It seems an awfully long time since you were my teacher," mused Phyllis, as they sipped their wine, smiling into each other's eyes, to which Miss Arlen responded, casually, "That occurred during one of our earlier incarnations. We will try to live it down."

After dinner they saw Bitter Sweet, and returned to Bloomsbury in a musty little cab at midnight—Miss Arlen rather pensive and quiet. Without much further talk they went to their beds, Phyllis instinctively sensing that Bitter Sweet hadn't been just the thing.

"Good-night, Phyllis, dear," called Miss Arlen, from the depth of her pillow.

"Good-night," responded Phyllis, her eyes misty, adding, in a reckless whisper, "Patricia." Her heart pounded as the silence piled up. She had made the very blunder she had been trying so valiantly to avoid, spoiling everything for them on the first day.

After five long hot minutes of acute misery, she murmured contritely, "Please forgive me, Miss Arlen. I hadn't the right to do that."

"They never called me Patricia," said Miss Arlen drowsily, "except when they disapproved of me. When they liked me it was always Pat."

"Would it be just terribly rude—and presumptuous?" asked Phyllis, her voice trembling a little.

"I think it would be very sweet of you, dear," replied Miss Arlen tenderly.

Phyllis drifted out, wishing her mother knew how supremely happy she was. She could see her mother's smile when, at home again, she would tell her all about it. And she distinctly heard Sally Welker saying, "You didn't call Miss Arlen 'Pat'—not to her face—not really!"

Had it occurred to either of them, through those enchanted days, to compute in terms of years their respective contributions to the diminishing of the distance which naturally lay between them, it would have been incorrect to think that they had settled upon a relationship midway in mood between twenty-two and thirty-five.

Miss Arlen had, indeed, recovered something of her youth, but to a more marked degree had Phyllis achieved maturity. The attractive girl had had her little problems, but they had been of cartilaginous structure. She had bruised easily and painfully, but repair was prompt and complete. She had never seen a compound fracture of lime-hardened bones. Not until now. Miss Arlen had not uncovered her scars with a morbid wish to shock, or a self-piteous bid for commiseration. With cool unconcern she had exposed her irreparable injuries, and Phyllis had grown almost to full stature at the sight. She had even ventured to offer a possible remedy.

The disclosure had come about naturally enough. They had been strolling through the Cathedral grounds at Salisbury on a brown-and-gold mid-October afternoon. Amused by antique epitaphs on the grass-ruffed, eroded stones, blandly certifying to the towering superiority of long-departed husbands as compared with the mousiness of their wives, the talk drifted from mere whimsical satire to a serious discussion of this indefensible relationship and the inevitable problems of matrimony.

"Funny you never married, Pat," remarked Phyllis. "I wonder how you escaped it."

"I'm not unwilling to tell you. It is quite a long story, though." Pat deliberated a suitable beginning. After a moment's reflection with averted eyes she said calmly, "He fell in love with my sister."

Phyllis winced and gave a quick little breath of pained surprise, but offered no comment, for it was to be quite a long story and she must not interrupt. She waited, with startled eyes.

"That's all," said Pat, in the same tone Phyllis had often heard her use when dismissing a class. "That's all—except that the invitations were out and the presents were coming in—and I found them in each other's arms when I came down to the library to show him my new travelling suit—and my favourite brother fought him and was hurt—and I ran away where they couldn't find me for ever so long—and they were married, and there are children I have never seen—and my mother lives with them—and all my people are in the same town—and I can't go home."

"Oh—my dear!" sympathized Phyllis. "How can you bear it?"

"I can't," replied Pat woodenly. "That's the trouble. The effort to bear it has frozen me."

"But you aren't, Pat!" Phyllis brightened hopefully. "I never felt so close to anyone, outside my own family."

Pat sighed, smiled wistfully, and nodded.

"I know, dear. I have been very selfish, warming myself at your bright fire. I'm surprised it hasn't chilled you. It really has been a Godsend to me—much more than you realize."

Phyllis murmured an inarticulate little protest and laid her hand on Pat's affectionately.

"I do wish you could talk with my mother," she said, searching the heavy eyes with loyal concern. "She has helped so many people. You'd be surprised."

Pat's involuntary shrug doubted it. For a silent moment she reproved herself for having bared her wounds, fearing that she was about to learn of some metaphysical patent-medicine—some echo of a psychological wizardry, perhaps, that would dismiss cold fact with an amiable grin and a careless, "There, there; you'll be all right now." She closed her eyes, tightened her lips, and shook her head decisively.

"Nothing would help me, Phyllis, but utter forgetfulness of it all. Your mother couldn't help me to that, however kindly she might try."

"But that's just it!" exulted Phyllis. "She does it! It's something our Dean taught her when my little brother was drowned. I was only a baby then, so my mother has always had it, ever since I can remember."

"Your Dean?" repeated Pat, mildly inquisitive.

"Dean Harcourt—of our Cathedral—at home."

"I'm not religious—not the least bit."

"Oh—but neither is he!"

"Don't be silly!" laughed Pat.

"I mean—this thing that I'm thinking about isn't religion; heaps bigger and more important than that. I'll try to tell you. But it won't be easy. You see—I've never been hurt. You have to be, I think, before it means very much. I guess it's a good deal like planting a tree. You have to dig the hole first."

"Perhaps I could qualify," said Pat dryly. "Let's have it."

For more than two hours they sat on the grey stone bench at the entrance to the cloister, the fallen leaves eddying about their feet, Pat slowly tracing meaningless patterns on the dusty flagging with the tip of her umbrella, Phyllis, falteringly at first but with mounting confidence, pointing to the mere mirage of an oasis she had had no occasion to seek personally. She was conscious, all the time, that she was making a very poor job of it; and when, at last, her vague ideas were exhausted, an extended silence meant nothing other than that Pat had remained unconvinced and unstirred.

"I think you get just a flash of it," pursued Phyllis, unwilling to surrender—"not the real essence of it, of course, but just a faint glimpse, among these old things we've been seeing lately. I've thought about it, a lot.

"Remember the other day when we were down at Saint Olave's, sitting there in the dusky gloom, looking up at the bust of Elizabeth Pepys? And you had just been talking about all she and Sam had been through; the London fire, the plague, the smash-up of two governments, the frights, the flights, the shocks, the sorrows; and there she was, so calm, so secure; and—outside in the street—you could hear it pouring in through the open doors—the dull mutter and rumble of traffic mumbling, 'On, on, on, on'—and you could hear the measured plop-plop of big shaggy hoofs on the cobble-stones, The same old loads were still moving. Same kind of straining horses, bracing their lathery shoulders against the same hot collars, lashed and yelled at by the same cloddish drivers; and Elizabeth, up there, not listening, but hearing; not gladly approving, but accepting....

"So—what? Well—I'm afraid I don't know. I can't quite define it. Maybe it has no bearing at all on the thing I've been trying to talk about... I just know that for an instant, down at Saint Olave's, there came over me an almost stifling wave of—of comprehension. And I said to myself, 'If ever I get into trouble, I should like to be able to come to some place like this, where to-day's struggle and pain is being hammered down hard on top of yesterday's—and let mine be pounded into dust and silence, along with Elizabeth's.'"

She laid her warm hand, trembling a little with emotion, around Pat's slumped shoulders.

"Do you follow my mood, my dear? Or am I just talking nonsense? I mean—about the—the foreverness of the mumble-rumble, 'On, on, on, on!'... Three hundred years ago it was fragile, foolish, sensitive, little Elizabeth Pepys, all milled up in the traffic, swept along with it, bruised by it, afraid of it, allured by it, but in it and of it—and now it's Patricia Arlen and Phyllis Dexter.

"But the thing of it is that it's going on, and it has been going on, and it is going to keep on going on—as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be—and my troubles, in the face of it all, aren't really worth worrying about.... Do you see what I mean, Pat?"

"Phyllis, child," said Pat moodily, "it explains nothing, but it's a sedative. I think it helps—a little.... You mean"—she continued, gropingly—"you mean that we're all caught in the grip of something that's bigger and stronger than we are—something planned from the beginning—something inevitable—and we've simply got to keep coming along with it, whether we like it or not?... That's Fatalism—in case you don't know the exact name of it!"

Phyllis shook her head vigorously.

"Not at all, Pat. Fatalism is a treadmill. This movement I'm talking about is a procession. Fatalism says, 'I'm caught in the machinery of destiny and am being whirled around by it. I can't understand what it's all about, and I hereby give it up, and just let it grind me to bits.' That's Fatalism.... The thing I believe in admits the existence of the machinery, but sees it going forward instead of merely going round. And instead of asking you, as Fatalism does, to submit, this better theory invites you to understand! It says, 'Come along—but come with your eyes open!'"

"It's quite worth thinking about," conceded Pat.

"I wish my mother could tell you," said Phyllis wistfully. "It is so very beautiful, the way she explains it and lives it."

Phyllis had dashed over to a little shop on Southampton Row to load her camera. They were going out to the old Caledonian Market to-day. There had been a fog when they woke at seven, but it seemed to be clearing now. Doubtless by the time they had done the tube trip the sun would be shining. Phyllis hoped so, for three consecutive days of murky sky and chilly rains had kept them under roofs.

While she was gone, Pat received the cable. She sat down weakly, buried her face in her hands, and dizzily considered how with the least cruelty she might break the shocking news. Phyllis would be back at any moment, eyes alight, eager to be off for the day's excursion. The door swung open.

"Well—are we ready? It's going to be lovely in an hour or two; you'll see... What is it, dear? Don't you feel well?"

"Phyllis, would you mind very much if we didn't go out there to-day, I'm not quite in the mood for it. Maybe the fog has been dampening me. How about going down to Saint Olave's—to talk to Elizabeth? I believe I'd like to. We'll try out your little theory on me. Agreed?"

"Of course," consented Phyllis cheerfully, a little disturbed by Pat's sudden depression. "We can go to the Caledonian thing any time. ... I think I would be glad to have another session with Elizabeth."

Most of the trip was done by buses and little was said on the way. Pat was so obviously in low spirits this morning that Phyllis decided on silence as her own best contribution to her friend's search for tranquillity. But she must try to do something for Pat to-day while they were at Saint Olave's. Perhaps she could make her understand what she herself had felt in that steadying environment.

It was only ten when they arrived, and they had the little church all to themselves. Walking slowly forward through the central aisle, they seated themselves in the right front pew where they could look up into the apse at the marble bust of Elizabeth. For ten minutes they sat together in silence.

Stirred by the sound of a suppressed sob and the sight of Pat's face wet with tears, Phyllis interlaced their fingers, and whispered, hopefully, "Can't you hear it, my dear?"

"That doesn't matter so much," said Pat thickly. "Just so you hear it."

"I do!" Phyllis's tone was confident. "It thrills me! 'On, on, on, on'—not just going round and round—but pressing on! Headed toward something that has to be worked out—not alone by Elizabeth, or you, or me—or on some particular day in 1669 or 1929—"

Pat suddenly clutched Phyllis's hand in both of hers, and whispered, brokenly: "Darling—I must tell you now. Something quite dreadful has happened... I wish it had happened to me, instead of you. One more tragedy wouldn't—"

Phyllis paled a little and her eyes widened, bewilderedly, as she searched Pat's distressed face. She swallowed convulsively and asked, with a nervous catch in her voice, "Pat!—what are you trying to tell me?"

With agitated hands Pat opened her handbag, took out the folded and refolded yellow message, tucked it into Phyllis's palm and closed her fingers upon it. Then she slipped to her knees on the worn and faded hassock, bowing her head over her tightly folded arms....

The steady rumble of the ancient city, symbolic of the everlasting procession, throbbed dully in their ears.

Phyllis stared at Grace's cable. It was addressed to Pat.

FATHER AND MOTHER DIED THIS AFTERNOON ACCIDENT TELL PHYLLIS GENTLY

The message slowly slipped from her relaxed fingers and drifted to the floor.

Too stunned to concentrate, she was conscious only of a pang of such loneliness as she had never experienced. The harsh, strident racket of this foreign city assailed her, its rasp and rattle stinging her to full awareness that she was far from home. There wasn't a sound, in all this tumultuous, metallic, unconscionable din that could be associated with anything she had ever known or believed or cherished. Even the dejected shoulders of the woman kneeling there seemed strangely unfamiliar. She was alone.

Presently the tears came welling to her relief, great, scalding tears that freed the suffocating tightness of her throat a little. She blindly groped with her knees for a hassock and snuggled her trembling body close to Pat, who put an arm tenderly about her.

For a long time they knelt together, Phyllis utterly devastated with grief and sobbing heart-breakingly. The old verger's wife sympathetically brought a glass of water. Pat wanly smiled their gratitude, but did not allow Phyllis to be disturbed. The sobbing gradually subsided. Phyllis was very quiet now. Pat waited. The minutes dragged out into the third quarter struck from a neighbouring clock-tower.

Suddenly Phyllis stirred and stiffened to attention. Pat was ruthlessly snatched out of a painful reverie by the clutch of the girl's strong fingers on her arm.

"What is it, dear?" asked Pat.

"Listen!" whispered Phyllis, wide-eyed. "Pat!" she called, with an exultant little smile, "I can hear it!"