Читать книгу The Smoking Flax - Robert James Campbell Stead - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Reed slipped silently from the knee-pants and shirt which were his principal attire; his shoes and stockings had been discarded early in the evening, when he went to throw stones in the water. For a moment the glint of his trim young body shone ruddy in the light of the fire; then, with a contortion, it disappeared within the folds of his nightgown.

“Porter, am dah berfs made up?” he demanded.

“Massa, dah berfs am made up,” Cal answered, with great gravity.

In preparation for their expedition, Cal Beach, with a plumber’s kit and some help from a friendly blacksmith, had performed a surgical operation of some delicacy upon the ancient Ford, which had just then come into his possession. The back of the front seat was amputated at the flanks and so arranged that it folded down, bridging, as it were, the space between the front and back cushions. In this position, with all the cushions in place, and furnished with a camp mattress, blankets and pillows, a very passable bed was provided. Reed slept on the driver’s side to save Cal the danger of barking his long shins on the steering post, and, with this precaution, they were as comfortable as in any Pullman.

Cal had arranged the back and the cushions, spread the mattress, turned back the blankets, placed the pillows. Reed clung for a moment about his neck, then vaulted over the rattly side-door, flickering an affectionate hand toward his companion as he went.

“Good-night, Daddy X,” he called.

“Good-night, Reedie-boy.”

Reed turned to a study of the stars which peered down, very thick and friendly, from the Milky Way overhead, and Cal retraced his steps to the fire, musing as he went over the amazing wonderlands of childhood. He stirred the fire to new life with some fresh branches and settled down, his back against a friendly tree, for his bedtime smoke. These bedtime smokes were his thinking hour. During the day his time and thought were given to Reed and Antelope, but at night, after the boy was in bed, he would sit by the campfire and marshal past, present, and future in review.

“What a kid he is!” he exclaimed to himself. “Eight—nine in September. Twenty-six, eh, Cal? With a family, but without a wife. How time flies—and how it drags! Both. The days seem endless, but how the weeks slip by!

“Eight years—nine in September. Twenty-six. I used to think a man was old at twenty-six. And so he is. I am old at twenty-six.”

He leaned back, his square shoulders resting against the tree, while his mind, from contemplating the childhood of Reed, skipped down the years to his own first recollections. There stretched the leafy street in the little university city of Kingston; there basked the big garden in which he and Celesta romped as children. There were the apple tree and the swing, and the flower beds that must not be touched, except by permission. There was the solid limestone house, with vines clambering over the porch and shutters.

Inside, his father sat in the big chair in the front room upstairs, with the fireplace and walls lined with books. It seemed to Cal that front room had always been filled with books and shadows, with his father, master shadow of them all, in the big chair before the fire. As Cal remembered him, his father was very tall, with a stoop, and a face which receded wherever the bones would let it, and a way of being busy just now. Cal had always thought of his father as old. There were times, rare times, when his father wasn’t busy just now; times when the lad clambered up the long, thin legs and explored the strange cavities in their owner’s face. Those were moments not to be forgotten, but they came only at great intervals. Professor Beach’s devotion to his university had to be bought with a price, so it seemed. And it was Cal who paid.

Cal and Celesta. Celesta, two years older than Cal, was able to recall, partly by memory, more by imagination, the brave days before Mama went away. Those were the days when Daddy wasn’t always busy just now; days of walks and picnics and great times before the study fire. Those were the days, so Celesta said, although Cal never quite credited this, before the strange hollows had come in Daddy’s face. Then the angels came for Mama—that was how Celesta told it—and sent men to carry her away in a black box. And Aunt Bertha had come to live in her place.

Cal had learned why the hollows had dug their deep trenches in his father’s face. The day he was fourteen he was summoned into the study. “Sit down, Calvin, my boy,” said a voice out of the shadows. “I think you are fourteen today. Quite a man now, Cal, eh?”

“Yes, Daddy,” said the boy, wondering for what offence he had been summoned.

“I am just three times your age, Calvin; just forty-two. Not very old, eh, Calvin?”

Cal thought forty-two was very old, but he did not say so. He had learned that the professorial mind is not to be disputed.

“Forty-two is not very old, Calvin,” his father repeated, “but I suppose it must be old enough. One can grow very weary in even forty-two years. But fourteen is very young to be left alone.”

“Why, Daddy, are you going away?” said Cal, catching only half his father’s meaning.

“Yes Calvin.”

“When? May I go? And Celesta?”

“Not now. Later. I am going to your mother, Calvin. Some time this year.”

It seemed to Cal that his father had purposely chosen to sit in the shadow, where his face could not be seen clearly. The boy felt as though a great band were tightening about his ribs.

“You had to know, Calvin,” his father continued after a silence, “and it is as well that you should know now. I have seen this coming, ever since your mother went, and before. That is why I took the extra classes at the university, so that there might be something saved for you and Celesta..... It isn’t much. If I had been a farmer, or a bricklayer, or a machinist—but a university professor! Doctor of languages; seven languages as my mother tongue— But there, I must not be bitter. When the bills are paid it will keep you and Celesta perhaps two years. Then you will have to make your way, my boy.”

Cal had meant to answer bravely, but on the last words came a catch in his father’s voice, and the next he knew he was up and infolded in the long, thin arms. Tears were mingled, and Cal went out with a blessing and a memory.

The day came, sooner than he had expected, when Dr. Beach could not leave his room. A strange woman arrived at the house to look after Daddy, and strange men, heavy, as Cal thought, with professorial wisdom, came often to visit their sick associate. They looked upon Cal and Celesta with grave eyes, and one of them had laid his hand on Cal’s shoulder....

After the death of his father Cal learned that the house which he had always known as home was in some way connected with the university, and they must vacate it. Aunt Bertha saw them settled in rooms in a cheaper part of the town and left them with her blessing and the explanation that their little capital would support two longer than three. Celesta was quite old enough to keep house.

“Celesta, my dear,” Aunt Bertha had said on that last morning, while they waited for the expressman after her trunks were packed, “Celesta, my dear, you have been well brought up; you will be sister and mother to that tremendous boy.” To Aunt Bertha Cal had always for some reason been “that tremendous boy.” Aunt Bertha had been raised among girls, and had never married. “Your money will last a couple of years; that will see him through high school; then he must go to work.” Aunt Bertha delivered that ultimatum, so Cal thought, with unnecessary relish of the inevitable.

A lawyer who had been named their guardian paid the rent of their little flat and gave them a weekly living allowance. Celesta proved a good manager, and when they had recovered from the first shock of their father’s death, life for the brother and sister moved very pleasantly indeed. Cal finished his high school course at sixteen and declared himself ready to carry out his aunt’s decree about going to work, but Celesta would have none of it. “When you have gone through university, Cal,” she said, “then I will let you work for me. Until then I am going to work for you.”

Cal protested, but Celesta’s mind was made up, and Cal, being the younger, had come to know how inexorable was his sister’s mind when it was made up. “The housework is nothing,” she had said; “I can do it morning and evening, like winking. I can get work in an office, and it will be fun to have my big brother in college. You will work through the summer. I am sure we can manage.”

So Cal was persuaded; Celesta went to an office, and he to college. He had not troubled to decide for what particular purpose he would go to college; that could come later. All went well for a year or two, but the time came when Celesta’s devotion to her office and her housekeeping seemed suddenly to be interrupted. There were many nights when she had “a date“; there were evenings when she did not come home to dinner. Cal, philosophical always, accepted the situation, mildly wondering.

Finally came the day when Celesta announced that she was going to Montreal; she had been offered a much better position; she could make more money; it would be to Cal’s advantage more than hers. He could stay at a boarding house; it would be more companionable than their lonely rooms. The idea appealed to Cal but little, but he accepted it without much argument. It was apparent that Celesta had made up her mind again; besides, he did not forget that it was to her efforts he owed the possibility of attending college.

After Celesta had gone she sent him money two or three times, generously, but at irregular intervals; then the remittances ceased altogether. Fortunately Cal had found summer work in a printing office, so he was not penniless, but an uneasiness concerning Celesta grew upon him. He had just turned eighteen, and these eighteen years had flowed, in the main, along the sheltered paths of life. He was neither suspicious nor sophisticated. He had an undefined but abounding confidence in the goodness of humanity. He was an optimist.

Then, one evening, just as he came home to his boarding house from the printing shop, a telegram was placed in his hand. He looked at it curiously, signed for it, and carried it to his room. It was a new and somewhat important experience; never before had he received a telegram. On his way upstairs he began to associate it with Celesta. Perhaps she was coming home; perhaps he was to meet her at the train! He took the last three steps at a bound.

In his room he tore open the envelope. The upper part of the sheet was a series of unintelligible characters, but the central sentence leapt out at him.

Your sister very sick in private hospital here wants you

It was a moment before Cal grasped its significance. When he read it again he saw it was signed by a Doctor Anson, and an address was given.

The boy walked to the window and looked out on the quiet street, filled with the glory of September. But he saw nothing of the glory now, for a tremendous fear was clutching at his heart. “Celesta! Celesta!” The name came dry from his lips. Could there be a world—could there be life—without Celesta?

There was time to catch the evening train, and he fortunately had a few dollars in his pocket. He packed the battered club bag handed down by Dr. Beach, told the landlady he would be gone for a day or two, and hurried away.

It was midnight when he reached the city. Clamorous cab drivers barked for his bag and his patronage, and, not knowing which street car to take, he parted with a dollar to be driven to his address. It proved a large but dingy house, once the residence of a prosperous family, but now reduced to the status of a sort of boarding house for sick persons. By the dim light of a porch lamp he pressed the bell, and waited.

After a considerable period the door was opened by a young woman in nurse’s uniform. “I am the only one on night duty,” she explained, as she showed him into a little office off from the main hall. “I was busy with a patient and could not come at once to the door. Dr. Anson, of course, does not live in at nights.”

Cal was conscious of an odor of disinfectants and an oppressive sense of being among the sick. “I am sorry to trouble you at such an hour,” he said, “but I got Dr. Anson’s telegram just in time to catch the night train. I am Cal Beach.”

The nurse regarded him with interest, but the name did not appear to carry any suggestion to her mind.

“Yes, Mr. Beach? And what can we do for you?”

“It is about my sister. She is here, and very sick. Dr. Anson telegraphed me to come at once.” As though to support his statement he produced his telegram.

“What is her name?” the nurse inquired.

“Celesta Beach. Spelled B-e-a-c-h.”

“Beach? I don’t remember any Beach.” She turned to a register and scanned a couple of pages. Finally, “No Celesta Beach here.”

“But there must be,” Cal insisted. “See, I have the telegram.”

The nurse ran a pencil through her hair and puckered her lips as though studying a deep puzzle. “What is she like?” she asked at length.

“She is young—about twenty—and looks a bit like me,” said Cal, blushing a little at the reference to his personal appearance.

“Pretty?” the nurse suggested. Cal wondered how a nurse could be frivolous in the presence of sickness, but his color deepened a trifle under her eyes. “I shouldn’t tease,” she continued, suddenly, penitently. “Let me see—”

Nurse Rooke pondered a moment. “Mrs. Raymond has been asking for her brother,” she said, “and I believe Dr. Anson did wire for someone. But, of course, she couldn’t be your sister.”

“No—no. My sister is not married, and her name is Celesta Beach.”

“Better come along with me,” said the sophisticated nurse, springing up quickly under the impetus of a sudden idea. “Strange things happen in hospitals.”

Cal followed her with a sense that he was groping vaguely. He was conscious mainly of the hospital smell and the shuffle of his feet on the silenced floors.

Nurse Rooke led him into a room. On the bed a woman was lying, her face pale, worn; her eyes closed; her dark hair braided and falling about her cheeks. She stirred with a sense of their presence.

“Is she your sister?” the nurse asked, gently.

But the boy was beside the bed, leaning over, peering into her face. “Celesta!” he cried. “Celesta!” and fell on his knees beside her.

Slowly she opened her eyes, strangely big against her pale, thin face, and looked into his. “Cal,” she breathed. “Cal, my brother... I have been expecting you.” She drew a thin hand from under the coverlet and reached for his. “Cal, my brother!”...

“I came at once—first train after the telegram. Why didn’t you let me know? What is the matter?”

Celesta’s eyes swept the little room. The nurse had gone. Then the lids fell, and, as he watched, Cal saw little pools of water gather through her lashes.

“Celesta, dear,” he whispered, “tell me.”

“It isn’t easy telling,” she said at length, in a voice so low he hardly could hear it. “I wonder what you will think. Look.”

Gently she turned down the coverlet and Cal got a vision of a little pink head, with eyes prodigiously puckered against the light, and a little pink fist clutched and groping.

“Celesta! Married!... Who is this Raymond?”

Again she closed her eyes. “I am not married, Cal,” she murmured. “There is no Raymond.”

The boy staggered to a chair, dazed by the terrific, unexpected blow. When he did not speak, she continued in a voice that was all pleading and yet had in it a note of challenge, almost of defiance—the voice of the self-willed Celesta: “Try not to think too bitterly of me, Cal. I won’t be here long. The doctor says—something wrong—I will not get better.”...

He was at her side again. “I do not think bitterly of you, Celesta. But... but ...” His voice failed. Then, his cheek against hers, “Tell me, Celesta.”

“It’s not much to tell. I loved him. I thought he was a god. I neglected you for him. I gave up everything for him. Then—he persuaded me to leave you, that our secret might be kept. He made me great promises; he promised me everything. Then, at last, he—he went away.... I know I am to blame, Cal; I accept my punishment, but—I loved him. He was half god, half—half devil.”

“And now you hate him, as I hate him,” said Cal, through his teeth.

Again she turned her eyes to him. “No, Cal. I love him.”

He leaned back, perplexed, confused, struggling in currents too deep for his years. “What can I do?” he demanded, after a silence.

“Will you do one thing for me? Bring up the boy as your own, and promise he shall never know. Promise me that, Cal.” And, folding her within his arms, he promised.

“Oh, it is true, Cal—it is true!” she cried, when he had released her. “See—the promise.” She pointed to a motto, the only decoration that hung on the bare walls. “A bruiséd reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench.”

“That has been my ray of light, Cal. I have yearned to it, hung on it, all these days. His kindness which would not break the bruiséd reed—would it reach out to me? It has—it does, in you!” The boy took her in his arms again, and for lack of something better to say, whispered in her ear, “My bruiséd reed—my bruiséd reed!”

Finally she sent him to get a room, and a sleep. He did not see her again, alive.

Cal was fortunate enough to find a Mrs. Barnes, who had raised six boys and sent them out into the world, and whose mother heart was still unsatisfied. When Mrs. Barnes looked into the great blue eyes of Celesta’s baby it was not hard to make a bargain.

“What is his name?” she asked.

“Reed—Reed Beach,” said Cal.

Mrs. Barnes took Cal as a boarder, as well as the baby, and Cal immediately found work in a printing office. He had made up his mind that under no circumstances would he go back to his old home. The secret of Celesta was well hid. The hospital had known her only as Mrs. Raymond. He had given his pledge for the boy’s sake, and for the boy’s sake, and Celesta’s, and his own, that pledge he would keep though the heavens fell. The few belongings he had left at the boarding house would satisfy his small debts.

The printing office in which Cal worked was also a newspaper publishing office. Perhaps it was a romantic twist in the boy’s nature, together with a certain joy which he found in expressing ideas in words, which led him to seek reportorial work. With a baby to support, he needed all the money he could earn, and night assignments presently began to supplement his weekly wage as a printer. He covered police, morgues, hotels, and got a glimpse of a life far removed from that of a professor’s family and a sleepy university town. He began to see that the tragedy which had befallen Celesta was not altogether exceptional. She had been a bruiséd reed, it was true, but now he moved among reeds not merely bruised, but broken.... Out of his experiences his young mind, groping for some solid philosophy of life, arrived at the conclusion that the great error for which all the world pays penalty is misdirected effort. Every human soul, he thought, is an engine which will go; the thing is to put it at useful work and save it from blowing itself, and others, to pieces.... Even this Raymond fellow—he thought of him as Raymond for lack of another name—even he must have had his better qualities. It was impossible to think of the strong-willed Celesta—

It was when Reed was almost three, and giving promise of being another “tremendous” boy, as Aunt Bertha would have said, that Cal conceived the conceit of teaching the lad to call him “Daddy X.” Daddy be was already called; the x he added in its algebraic sense, as signifying the unknown quantity.

About this time his interest in sociology excited within him a determination to resume his university studies. He re-entered college, this time with a definite purpose in view. At nights he continued his reportorial rounds to make a living for himself and the boy.

Cal recalled the proud day, now only a few months ago, when, his course completed, he had faced the world on what he considered his mission of life. His immediate plan was to do a series of sociological studies for one of the more serious-minded magazines, and at the same time gather material for a book for popular circulation, which he hoped would not only advance his cause, but provide money with which he could continue his work. But he had barely begun on this program when Dr. Anson, in whom he had found a personal friend, vetoed it.

“It’s the open air for you, my boy,” he had said, after the examination; “the open air, and no more of this day and night grind. A year or two in the open, say on the prairies, and you may be all right. No more of this grind!”

“But, Doctor, my work—”

“But, Cal, your life—and your boy.”

The boy. Oh, yes, there was the boy! Of course, the boy....

Reed was eight now; going to school; healthy, happy; more “tremendous” than even Cal had been; whimsical; romantic; serious only in those bedtime moments when Cal reminded him of his mother Celesta, and they repeated his verse together, and he told him whence his name had come. Yes, there was the boy.

Cal had gathered his little capital about him, bought a second-hand Ford and some camping utensils, and said good-bye to the heartbroken Mrs. Barnes. And here they were.

The fire had died until only a few coals glowed before him; a chill of night air came up from the lake; the stars shone stolidly overhead. The river, swollen with the spring overflows of the prairie sloughs, muttered gurglingly at his feet. Into its black tide he looked as though it could give, perhaps, some answer to the mystery of life.

Then he yawned, tapped the ashes from his pipe, put it away, and went to bed.