Читать книгу The Erratic Flame - Ysabel De Teresa - Страница 7

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For days the sun had shone brilliantly upon the mountainside, and the lodge had long since emerged from its heavy swathing of fog. No longer a boat floating through mystic seas, it was divested of a certain glamour. But remained, nevertheless, a very comfortable and picturesque shelter. Perched pertly beside the road that overhung the valley, it afforded a bird’s-eye view of checkered fields and a winding river, that gleamed like a silver girdle about the base of purple hills.

Alexis revelled in the glorious sunshine. Weak, but quiescent after his fever, he was content to sit on the rustic porch, a rug about his knees, and gaze through the brilliant foliage at the vivid valley, which sparkled in the thin autumn air with all the detailed perfection of a mosaic.

This particular morning was the most perfect of them all. With a sigh of enjoyment Alexis stretched his limbs in a perfection of relaxation which he had not known for years.

“It is strange,” he said, “how rested and peaceful I feel. All the terrible irritability seems to have left me entirely.”

“It went away with the fever-devil,” laughed Anne, who was sketching a stunted pine beside the roadway. “A most suitable match, don’t you think?”

Alexis laughed uncertainly.

“I only hope it never returns,” he said, somewhat uneasily. “Nerves have as many lives as a cat, you know, and an unerring instinct for home. One never can tell when they will spring upon one again from the dark.”

“I suppose the moral of that is to always keep a light handy,” said Anne gaily, but with a quick glance of pity for the worn boyish face.

“That’s all very well, but what if your stock of matches has run out and you’re groping about in the dark?” he exclaimed whimsically, but with a significant tightening of the lips.

Anne leaned over and laid her hand on his shoulder.

“Then you must ask someone else to give you a light,” she said softly. He caught her fingers in his and pressed them.

“Some good Samaritan like you,” he cried. His eyes filled with nervous tears.

Anne drew her hand away quietly. This sort of thing was not to be encouraged if she were to obtain the impersonal influence over him which she had intended from the first.

“That is very pretty, but I don’t deserve it,” she said lightly. “Come, tell me more about yourself. I want to know all about your life. It must be thrilling to be a genius!”

He smiled mournfully.

“Thrilling, I should say not! It is the most narrow life possible. At least mine has been so. Merely a record of travel and hard work. When I was a child we were never long enough in any one place to make any friends, besides my mother always feared they would interfere with my practicing, and later, I had become so pent-up within myself and my music that I had no further desire for them. Claire was the only person I ever saw, outside of my mother, and most of the time I was practically unconscious of her existence.”

“Claire—is that your wife?” inquired Anne in spite of herself. She blocked in the background of her sketch with nervous strokes.

“Yes,” he cast her a quick, guilty glance. Then, after a pause, “You mustn’t think I meant all the rotten things I said about her the other night. I’ve always been very fond of the poor little thing, only as a wife she meant nothing to me. I suppose you wonder why I married her, and I admit it must seem pitiably weak, only I was in such a state at the time that I really wasn’t responsible. Everything was a nightmare of jangled nerves.” The vision of his mother threatening to put Claire out upon the streets if he refused to marry her, came before him. An uneven flush spread over his face. His hands clenched the arms of the chair.

“Sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a taint of madness in me somewhere, a rotten spot in my brain that is spreading——” He threw out his hands in a gesture of despair.

She met the frantic appeal in his eyes with firm denial.

“You’re talking introspective drivel. Summoning prehistoric monsters out of your subconscious cavern. Don’t let yourself be frightened by a few dead bones. There is neither madness nor method about you. You are simply too highly organized for your own comfort. In other words, you are a genius and must pay the penalty.”

He laughed more naturally.

“So in your opinion every genius must be a poor fool?”

“According to some standards, yes. He was made to walk on the heights, and when he is forced to descend to the valley and mingle with the rest of us his head often remains in the clouds, and he stumbles woefully.”

“Don’t count yourself in with the rest of them, for heaven’s sakes!” exclaimed Alexis, his eyes hypnotized by the bronze aureole of her hair.

She encountered his gaze with a poised smile which for some inexplicable reason, angered him.

“But unfortunately, or fortunately, that is precisely where I belong,” she said without a tinge of her old bitterness.

“You may not have any talent for doing any one special thing,” he interrupted hotly, “but you, yourself, are so perfect, such a work of art. It must take genius to be just you. Let us say you are genius in the abstract.” He smiled at her in sheer pleasure at his own happy phrase.

She rose and putting her sketch on the table, smiled down upon him.

“You’re only a baby, after all, aren’t you? I think I shall call you my changeling. Come, changeling, how would you like to take a little stroll down to the lake? It is only a moment’s walk from here. We will take some cushions and you can lie back in my canoe and I’ll paddle you about for a while.”

He stood up eagerly and held out his arms for the gay cushions which she threw at him from the chaise-longue.

“I shall have to learn how to walk all over again,” he laughed as they started down the steps.

“Didn’t I say you were a baby?” She took his arm with a protecting gesture.

They strolled slowly forward while the brilliant foliage flaunted high overhead and formed an exotic carpet beneath their feet.

From an upper window Regina looked after them and shook a disapproving head.

“Dio mio, it begins all over again,” she sighed, “and this time with a babe! Will she never be content to settle down? And I who had such fine hopes for the Signor Marchese, so rich and so very respectable!”

There’s an intimacy about a canoe which once shared, can change a slight acquaintance into something warm and perhaps enduring.

Anne and Alexis had reached a focus where it seemed to fuse their points of contact perilously. Not that either of them had analyzed it as yet. Alexis as he lay back upon his cushions, was conscious only of the beauty of burnished hair, glamorous eyes and skin, of the god-like frame of trees and lake and sky; the unutterable bliss of such companionship in such surroundings. To him it was like a divine interlude from Purgatory.

Anne was more experienced in such affairs. Her instinct had long ago hinted of danger. But she chose to ignore it, trusting to practice and savoir faire to avoid forthcoming pitfalls. As before, she determined to remain mistress of the situation. But it was only natural that the boy’s budding worship should stir her. After all, he was no ordinary young man but a genius with a power to move thousands, and had, moreover, a compelling, if somewhat neurotic, personal appeal. And he possessed one quality which Anne had never been able to resist. That of physical beauty. With the classical features of a Greek faun, he combined a fragility, a certain decadent charm, which intrigued her fatigued senses.

And the morning flew by with flashing swiftness. All too soon, they were crunching back over the regal carpet of tinted leaves which showered down upon their heads from the trees like a flock of brittle butterflies.

“I feel like Danae,” laughed Anne, as she shook down a golden cluster from a branch above her head.

Alexis regarded her ecstatically.

“They match your hair exactly. But alas, I am not Jupiter. I cannot pour myself upon you in a golden rain.”

His eyes met hers with a new audacity. “But I’ll dissolve into tears, which will amount to the same thing, if you look at me like that!” he added hastily.

Anne hated herself for flushing. She averted her head.

“You absurd boy! Come, we must hurry, or Regina’s lunch will be spoiled. It’s so nice and warm today, she promised to serve it on the porch. Won’t that be jolly? It’s supposed to be a great surprise, but I suspect a risotto à la Milanese.”

She led the way to the house. A puzzled frown between his straight brows, Alexis followed.

“You are in a great hurry,” he said, in hurt tones. “You forget the baby is still learning to walk!” His voice was plaintive in the extreme.

She turned about in quick repentance. His laughing eyes were roguish.

“Changeling!” she murmured. She disdained the arm he held out in feigned weakness. “What shall I do with you, you are incorrigible!”

There was a note of triumph in his laugh. Taking her arm masterfully in his, he looked down upon her teasingly.

“The lady lion-tamer mustn’t mind a scratch or two, especially in the beginning, before the animals learn how to behave nicely.” He mocked, but the light in his eyes was tender.

Annoyed and amused, Anne laughed in spite of herself.

“Touchée,” she admitted gaily, “I see the cub is developing teeth and a mane, and I’d better look out for myself.”

Alexis tightened her arm against his side. He emitted a low, but ferocious growl. With a laugh and a delicate shiver, she freed herself deftly and ran up the cottage steps.

“Why, lunch isn’t ready after all——” she commenced, and then stopped short, for finger on lips, like a sibyl, Regina stood in the doorway and pointed mysteriously towards the end of the porch.

Astonished and amused, Anne’s eyes followed the melodramatic finger. At the end of the verandah sat a small limp figure. What a bore, who could it possibly be? She had not given her address to a soul, and not even her mail was being forwarded. Couldn’t people ever leave one alone?

But she moved forward graciously as usual.

The small figure rose at her approach. A pale face, a pair of enormous haunted eyes, confronted Anne. An inexplicable spasm contracted Anne’s heart. She concealed sudden apprehension beneath a formal nod, and waited for the other to speak.

The girl commenced timidly.

“Is this Mrs. Schuyler?” she inquired in a low, uneven voice. The soft brown eyes met Anne’s. “I came to——” then she stopped short, with a breathless gasp. Her glance had swept beyond Anne and lighted upon Alexis, just as he stepped on to the porch.

A sudden flush beautified the wan little face.

“Alexis!” she cried and brushed past Anne tempestuously.

“Alexis,” she repeated. “I had to come. Please forgive me!”

“Claire!” Alexis gazed at her stormily.

She approached him pleadingly. “Is that all you have to say to me, Alexis?”

“What do you expect me to say?” he braced himself visibly, “except that I am speechless with surprise?”

Drawing forward a porch chair, he motioned her toward it. “Won’t you sit down? It is a long journey from New York and you must be tired.” His voice was cold with restrained anger.

Her knees bent beneath her, and she sank into the chair with a tired sigh.

“Thank you, Alexis,” the small voice was pathetic.

“But I forget,” Alexis added as Anne approached them rather hesitatingly, “this is my hostess, Mrs. Schuyler. Mrs. Schuyler, my wife.”

The girl rose and bowed formally. Then fell back into her chair.

Anne came to her side. With quick pity, saying the first thing that came into her head. “It’s a frightful trip up here, isn’t it? You must be simply starving, I will order luncheon immediately.”

She was about to enter the house, but Claire stopped her with a quick little gesture of refusal.

“Thank you, that is very kind. But I really couldn’t eat anything—that is——-” she faltered bravely. “I had a sandwich on the train.”

Her pathetic attempt at dignity went to Anne’s heart.

“Oh, yes, of course,” she said, “and now if you will excuse me, I will leave you two alone. I’m sure you have a great deal to talk about.”

With a nod and a kind little smile, she disappeared into the house.

Her perfect exit irritated Claire. With a sudden excess of pride, she turned to Alexis and looked at him coldly.

“You’re very fortunate in your hostess,” she said with unexpected poise. “How did you happen to meet her?”

Alexis sat down on the railing and faced his wife.

“It’s a long story, Claire, but not so strange as you probably imagine. I was ill when Mrs. Schuyler found me, and she was good enough to take me in. She is a charming woman,” he continued tactlessly. “And very comme il faut.”

“Oh, I have no doubt about that,” Claire interrupted bitterly. “Very comme il vous faut, I am sure.” Her emphasis of the “vous” was both angry and insulting.

Alexis sprang to his feet with an exclamation of rage.

“How dare you insinuate such a thing, Claire?” he darted an angry glance toward the doorway. “Mrs. Schuyler is an angel!” he finished with emphasis.

Claire winced beneath the adoration in his tone.

“You love her, don’t you?” she said wistfully. Her great hopeless eyes rested on his flushed face.

Completely startled, he rose to his feet and stood over her almost menacingly.

“Five minutes ago I didn’t know it,” he announced brutally, “it remained for you to teach me.”

“I!” The cry was wrung from blanched lips.

He met her anguished eyes with insolence.

“And now, if you will be so good as to tell me what you came for,” he began, “and how you discovered my whereabouts. Did the chauffeur——?”

“Oh, no. He didn’t say a word. I took down the number of the car, and then, it was fairly easy for your mother to discover the rest.”

“And so she sent you after me?”

She shook her head, miserably.

“Oh, no. She really didn’t want me to come. But I had to. I felt I must talk to you once more. But please don’t think I have come for myself, I haven’t. I don’t want you to come back to me if—if you don’t wish to. I know you have never loved me.” She paused, then continued, “It is only for your mother’s sake that I am here. She is entirely broken up since your letter. Please, please.” She got up and coming close to him, clasped his arm. “Please return to her! If you don’t, I’m sure something dreadful will happen. I never saw her so upset in my life. She is really ill, Alexis.” He withdrew his arm, but not ungently. The girl’s unselfishness had touched him in spite of himself.

“I simply cannot return, Claire. My mother has dominated me too long, and my soul aches for freedom. After this I must be my own master. It’s not as if she really cared for me personally. All I meant to her was my career and what it brought in!” he ended bitterly. “Tell her that is finished forever, and she will be quite satisfied to do without me. For of what use is a dry cow?”

He laughed sardonically.

Tears streaming down her face, Claire answered brokenly.

“It breaks my heart to hear you speak so about your music, you who lived for nothing else. Oh, my poor Alexis, what madness has come over you?”

He looked before him with bewildered eyes.

“It is gone, gone forever,” he muttered. “Can’t you see it is torturing me, too?”

His shattered look lurked so near to madness that once more Claire forgot herself. She started up with a cry and threw her arms about him.

“Oh, Alexis, don’t give up like that. Go back. Try once more. If you find yourself again in your old surroundings, it may all return to you. I’m sure you will be able to come to some arrangement with your mother, which will leave you more independent, and as for me I promise to do anything you ask. If it will make you happier, and make you feel less tied, I’ll go away somewhere, and you need never see me again!”

A cry of pity broke from his lips. He placed her back in her chair. “Poor little Claire, it hurts to hear you talk like that. Did you think it was you who had driven me from home? Why, I shall remember your affection and sweetness always.”

A flash of joy irradiated her face as he spoke. He continued with an effort.

“But even you, whom I have always loved as a little sister,” he emphasized the last word, “even you couldn’t bring me home. Do you understand, Claire?”

She nodded slowly. Her pallor, if possible, increased.

“Do you wish a separation?” she asked quietly.

His heart contracted at her lifeless tone. He evaded her eyes.

“Yes, Claire. I think it would be best. I must be free. And you’ll admit our marriage was rather a farce, wasn’t it?” He tried to speak lightly, but the effort was palpable even to Claire.

“I didn’t know that it was, but perhaps you are right,” she assented with a sort of deathly quiet. Her veins seemed to be suddenly sucked dry of blood, her limbs became reed-like. After a dragging moment she spoke. Her mouth was dry, and it was difficult to enunciate.

“It must be time to go back to the station,” she said somewhat thickly. “My taxi is waiting around at the back of the house. Will you please call it, Alexis?”

“But you can’t go like this, without talking things over. Besides, you’re not fit to go back yet. You look done up. You ought really to spend the night here!” His tone was full of compunction.

The words sent a quick revulsion through her. An indignant strength flowed through her weakened limbs. She rose to her feet almost violently.

“Oh no, Alexis. You can’t mean what you are saying. I must return at once. I couldn’t bear to stay another minute. If there’s anything to talk over, any arrangements to make, you can write me. Please, please call my car at once!”

But Alexis still hesitated.

“I do not want to part in anger and I can’t bear to have you not understand——” he glanced deprecatingly towards the house.

She forced herself to smile at him valiantly.

“It is all right, Alexis. I quite understand. She is both good and lovely.” She faltered pitifully. “Be happy if you can. I want you to be!”

She held out a tiny, trembling hand and he kissed it with affection and regret.

A moment more, and the dust from her taxi rose in a white cloud between the gleaming valley and his smarting eyes.