Book: A Spinner in the Sun

M >> Myrtle Reed >> A Spinner in the Sun




At last an imperceptible opening is made. Streams rush down from the
mountain to join the river; even raindrops lend their individually
insignificant aid. All the forces of nature are subtly arrayed against
the obstruction in the river channel. Suddenly, with the thunder of
pent-up waters at last unleashed, the dam breaks, and the structures
placed in the path by complacent and self-satisfied man are swept on to
the sea like so much kindling-wood. The river, at last, has come into
its own,

A feeling, long controlled, must eventually break its bonds. Forbidden
expression, and not spent by expression, it accumulates force. When
the dam breaks, the flood is more destructive than the steady, normal
current ever could have been. Having denied himself remorse, and
having refused to meet the fact of his own cowardice, Anthony Dexter
was now face to face with the inevitable catastrophe.

He told himself that Ralph's coming had begun it, but, in his heart, he
knew that it was that veiled and ghostly figure standing at twilight in
the wrecked garden. He had seen it again on the road, where
hallucination was less likely, if not altogether impossible. Then the
cold and sinuous necklace of discoloured pearls had been laid at his
door--the pearls which had come first from the depths of the sea, and
then from the depths of his love. His love had given up its dead as
the sea does, maimed past all recognition.

The barrier had been so undermined that on the night of Ralph's return
he had been on the point of telling Thorpe everything--indeed, nothing
but Ralph's swift entrance had stopped his impassioned speech. Was he
so weak that only a slight accident had kept him from utter
self-betrayal, after twenty-five years of magnificent control? Anthony
Dexter liked that word "magnificent" as it came into his thoughts in
connection with himself.

"Father wouldn't do it. Father always does the square thing, and I'm
his son." Ralph's words returned with a pang unbearably keen. Had
Father always done the square thing, or had Father been a coward, a
despicable shirk? And what if Ralph should some day come to know?

The man shuddered at the thought of the boy's face--if he knew. Those
clear, honest eyes would pierce him through and through, because
"Father always does the square thing."

Remorsely, the need of confession surged upon him. There was no
confessional in his church--he even had no church. Yet Thorpe was his
friend. What would Thorpe tell him to do?

Then Anthony Dexter laughed, for Thorpe had unconsciously told him what
to do--and he was spared the confession. As though written in letters
of fire, the words came back:


_The honour of the spoken word still holds him. He asked her to marry
him, and she consented. He was never released from his promise--did
not even ask for it. He slunk away like a cur. In the sight of God he
is hound to her by his own word still. He should go to her and either
fulfil his promise, or ask for release. The tardy fulfilment of his
promise would be the only atonement he could make_.


Had Evelina come back to demand atonement? Was this why the vision of
her confronted him everywhere? She waited for him on the road in
daylight, mocked him from the shadows, darted to meet him from every
tree. She followed him on the long and lonely ways he took to escape
her, and, as he walked, her step chimed in with his.

In darkness, Anthony Dexter feared to turn suddenly, lest he see that
black, veiled figure at his heels. She stood aside on the stairs to
let him pass her, entered the carriage with him and sat opposite, her
veiled face averted. She stood with him beside the sick-bed, listened,
with him, to the heart-beats when he used the stethoscope, waited while
he counted the pulse and measured the respiration.

Always disapprovingly, she stood in the background of his
consciousness. When he wrote a prescription, his pencil seemed to
catch on the white chiffon which veiled the paper he was using. At
night, she stood beside his bed, waiting. In his sleep, most often
secured in these days by drugs, she steadfastly and unfailingly came.
She spoke no word; she simply followed him, veiled--and the phantom
presence was driving him mad. He admitted it now.

And "Father always does the square thing." Very well, what was the
square thing? If Father always does it, he will do it now. What is it?

Anthony Dexter did not know that he asked the question aloud. From the
silence vibrated the answer in Thorpe's low, resonant tones:

_The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . . he was never
released . . . he slunk away like a cur . . . in the sight of God he
is bound to her by his own word still_.

Bound to her! In every fibre of his being he felt the bitter truth.
He was bound to her--had been bound for twenty-five years--was bound
now. And "Father always does the square thing."

Once in a man's life, perhaps, he sees himself as he is. In a blinding
flash of insight, he saw what he must do. Confession must be made, but
not to any pallid priest in a confessional, not to Thorpe, nor to
Ralph, but to Evelina, herself.

_He should go to her and either fulfil his promise, or ask for release.
The tardy fulfilment of his promise would be the only atonement he
could make_.

Then again, still in Thorpe's voice:

_If the woman is here and you can find your friend, we may help him to
wash the stain of cowardice off his soul_.

"The stain is deep," muttered Anthony Dexter. "God knows it is deep."

Once again came Thorpe's voice, shrilling at him, now, out of the
vibrant silence:

_Sometimes I think there is no sin but shirking. I can excuse a liar,
I can pardon a thief, I can pity a murderer, but a shirk--no_!

"Father always does the square thing."

Evidently, Ralph would like to have his father bring him a
stepmother--a woman whose face had been destroyed by fire--and place
her at the head of his table, veiled or not, as Ralph chose. Terribly
burned, hopelessly disfigured, she must live with them always--because
she had saved him from the same thing, if she had not actually saved
his life.

The walls of the room swayed, the furniture moved dizzily, the floor
undulated. Anthony Dexter reeled and fell--in a dead faint.


"Are you all right now, Father?" It was Ralph's voice, anxious, yet
cheery. "Who'd have thought I'd get another patient so soon!"

Doctor Dexter sat up and rubbed his eyes. Memory returned slowly;
strength more slowly still.

"Can't have my Father fainting all over the place without a permit,"
resumed Ralph. "You've been doing too much. I take the night work
from this time on."

The day wore into late afternoon. Doctor Dexter lay on the couch in
the library, the phantom Evelina persistently at his side. His body
had failed, but his mind still fought, feebly.

"There is no one here," he said aloud. "I am all alone. I can see
nothing because there is nothing here."

Was it fancy, or did the veiled woman convey the impression that her
burned lips distorted themselves yet further by a smile?

At dusk, there was a call. Ralph received from his father a full
history of the case, with suggestions for treatment in either of two
changes that might possibly have taken place, and drove away.

The loneliness was keen. The empty house, shorne of Ralph's sunny
presence, was unbearable. A thousand memories surged to meet him; a
thousand voices leaped from the stillness. Always, the veiled figure
stood by him, mutely accusing him of shameful cowardice. Above and
beyond all was Thorpe's voice, shrilling at him:

_The honour of the spoken word still holds him . . . he was never
released . . . he slunk away like a cur . . . he is bound to her still
. . . there is no sin but shirking_ . . .

Over and over again, the words rang through his consciousness. Then,
like an afterclap of thunder:

_Father always does the square thing_!

The dam crashed, the barrier of years was broken, the obstructions were
swept out to sea. Remorse and shame, no longer denied, overwhelmingly
submerged his soul. He struggled up from the couch blindly, and went
out--broken in body, crushed in spirit, yet triumphantly a man at last.




XIV

A Little Hour of Triumph

Miss Evelina sat alone in her parlour, which was now spotlessly clean.
Araminta had had her supper, her bath, and her clean linen--there was
nothing more to do until morning. The hard work had proved a blessing
to Miss Evelina; her thoughts had been constantly forced away from
herself. She had even learned to love Araminta with the protecting
love which grows out of dependence, and, at the same time, she felt
herself stronger; better fitted, as it were, to cope with her own grief.

Since coming back to her old home, her thought and feeling had been
endlessly and painfully confused. She sat in her low rocker with her
veil thrown back, and endeavoured to analyse herself and her
surroundings, to see, if she might, whither she was being led. She was
most assuredly being led, for she had not come willingly, nor remained
willingly; she had been hurt here as she had not been hurt since the
very first, and yet, if a dead heart can be glad of anything, she was
glad she had come. Upon the far horizon of her future, she dimly saw
change.

She had that particular sort of peace which comes from the knowledge
that the worst is over; that nothing remains. The last drop of
humiliation had been poured from her cup the day she met Anthony Dexter
on the road and had been splashed with mud from his wheels as he drove
by. It was inconceivable that there should be more.

Dusk came and the west gleamed faintly. The afterglow merged into the
first night and at star-break, Venus blazed superbly on high, sending
out rays mystically prismatic, as from some enchanted lamp. "Our
star," Anthony Dexter had been wont to call it, as they watched for it
in the scented dusk. For him, perhaps, it had been indeed the
love-star, but she had followed it, with breaking heart, into the
quicksands.

To shut out the sight of it, Miss Evelina closed the blinds and lighted
a candle, then sat down again, to think.

There was a dull, uncertain rap at the door. Doctor Ralph,
possibly--he had sometimes come in the evening,--or else Miss Hitty,
with some delicacy for Araminta's breakfast.

Drawing down her veil, she went to the door and opened it, thinking, as
she did so, that lives were often wrecked or altered by the opening or
closing of a door.

Anthony Dexter brushed past her and strode into the parlour. Through
her veil, she would scarcely have recognised him--he was so changed.
Upon the instant, there was a transformation in herself. The
suffering, broken-hearted woman was strangely pushed aside--she could
come again, but she must step aside now. In her place arose a veiled
vengeance, emotionless, keen, watchful; furtively searching for the
place to strike.

"Evelina," began the man, without preliminary, "I have come back. I
have come to tell you that I am a coward--a shirk."

Miss Evelina laughed quietly in a way that stung him. "Yes?" she said,
politely. "I knew that. You need not have troubled to come and tell
me."

He winced. "Don't," he muttered. "If you knew how I have suffered!"

"I have suffered myself," she returned, coldly, wondering at her own
composure. She marvelled that she could speak at all.

"Twenty-five years ago," he continued in a parrot-like tone, "I asked
you to marry me, and you consented. I have never been released from my
promise--I did not even ask to be. I slunk away like a cur. The
honour of the spoken word still holds me. The tardy fulfilment of my
promise is the only atonement I can make."

The candle-light shone on his iron-grey hair, thinning at the temples;
touched into bold relief every line of his face.

"Twenty-five years ago," said Evelina, in a voice curiously low and
distinct, "you asked me to marry you, and I consented. You have never
been released from your promise--you did not even ask to be." The
silence was vibrant; literally tense with emotion. Out of it leaped,
with passionate pride: "I release you now!"

"No!" he cried. "I have come to fulfil my promise--to atone, if
atonement can be made!"

"Do you call your belated charity atonement? Twenty-five years ago, I
saved you from death--or worse. One of us had to be burned, and it was
I, instead of you. I chose it, not deliberately, but instinctively,
because I loved you. When you came to the hospital, after three
days----"

"I was ill," he interrupted. "The gas----"

"You were told," she went on, her voice dominating his, "that I had
been so badly burned that I would be disfigured for life. That was
enough for you. You never asked to see me, never tried in any way to
help me, never sent by a messenger a word of thanks for your cowardly
life, never even waited to be sure it was not a mistake. You simply
went away."

"There was no mistake," he muttered, helplessly. "I made sure."

He turned his eyes away from her miserably. Through his mind came
detached fragments of speech. _The honour of the spoken word still
holds him . . . Father always does the square thing_ . . .

"I am asking you," said Anthony Dexter, "to be my wife. I am offering
you the fulfilment of the promise I made so long ago. I am asking you
to marry me, to live with me, to be a mother to my son."

"Yes," repeated Evelina, "you ask me to marry you. Would you have a
scarred and disfigured wife? A man usually chooses a beautiful woman,
or one he thinks beautiful, to sit at the head of his table, manage his
house, take the place of a servant when it is necessary, accept gladly
what money he chooses to give her, and bear and rear his children.
Poor thing that I am, you offer me this. In return, I offer you
release. I gave you your life once, I give you freedom now. Take your
last look at the woman who would not marry you to save you from--hell!"

The man started forward, his face ashen, for she had raised her veil,
and was standing full in the light.

In the tense silence he gazed at her, fascinated. Every emotion that
possessed him was written plainly on his face for her to read. "The
night of realisation," she was saying, "turned my hair white. Since I
left the hospital, no human being has seen my face till now. I think
you understand--why?"

Anthony Dexter breathed hard; his body trembled. He was suffering as
the helpless animals had suffered on the table in his laboratory.
Evelina was merciless, but at last, when he thought she had no pity,
she lowered her veil.

The length of chiffon fell between them eternally; it was like the
closing of a door. "I understand," he breathed, "oh, I understand. It
is my punishment--you have scored at last. Good----"

A sob drowned the last word. He took her cold hand in his, and,
bending over it, touched it with his quivering lips.

"Yes," laughed Evelina, "kiss my hand, if you choose. Why not? My
hand was not burned!"

His face working piteously, he floundered out into the night and
staggered through the gate as he had come--alone.

The night wind came through the open door, dank and cold. She closed
it, then bolted it as though to shut out Anthony Dexter for ever.

It was his punishment, he had said. She had scored at last. If he had
suffered, as he told her he had, the sight of her face would be
torture. Yes, Evelina knew that she had scored. From her hand she
wiped away tears--a man's hot, terrible tears.

Through the night she sat there, wide-eyed and sleepless, fearlessly
unveiled. The chiffon trailed its misty length unheeded upon the
floor. The man she had loved was as surely dead to her as though he
had never been.

Anthony Dexter was dead. True, his body and mind still lived, but he
was not the man she had loved. The face that had looked into hers was
not the face of Anthony Dexter. It had been cold and calm and cruel,
until he came to her house. His eyes were fish-like, and, stirred by
emotion, he was little less than hideous.

Her suffering had been an obsession--there had been no reason for it,
not the shadow of an excuse. A year, as the Piper said, would have
been long enough for her to grieve. She saw her long sorrow now as
something outside of herself, a beast whose prey she had been. When
Anthony Dexter had proved himself a coward, she should have thanked God
that she knew him before it was too late. And because she was weak in
body, because her hurt heart still clung to her love for him, she had
groped in the darkness for more than half of her life.

And now he had come back! The blood of triumph surged hard. She loved
him no longer; then, why was she not free? Her chains yet lay heavily
upon her; in the midst of victory, she was still bound.

The night waned. She was exhausted by stress of feeling and the long
vigil, but the iron, icy hand that had clasped her .heart so long did
not for a moment relax its hold. She went to the window and looked
out. Stars were paling, the mysterious East had trembled; soon it
would be day.

She watched the dawn as though it were for the first time and she was
privileged to stand upon some lofty peak when "God said: 'Let there be
light,' and there was light." The tapestry of morning flamed
splendidly across the night, reflecting its colour back upon her
unveiled face.

From far away, in the distant hills, whose summits only as yet were
touched with dawn, came faint, sweet music--the pipes o' Pan. She
guessed that the Piper was abroad with Laddie, in some fantastic spirit
of sun-worship, and smiled.

Her little hour of triumph was over; her soul was once more back in its
prison. The prison house was larger, and different, but it was still a
prison. For an instant, freedom had flashed before her and dazed her;
now it was dark again.

"Why?" breathed Evelina. "Dear God, why?"

As if in answer, the music came back from the hills in uncertain
silvery echoes. "Oh, pipes o' Pan," cried Evelina, choking back a sob,
"I pray you, find me! I pray you, teach me joy!"




XV

The State of Araminta's Soul

The Reverend Austin Thorpe was in his room at Miss Mehitable's, with a
pencil held loosely in his wrinkled hand. On the table before him was
a pile of rough copy paper, and at the top of the first sheet was
written, in capitals, the one word: "Hell." It was underlined, and
around it he had drawn sundry fantastic flourishes and shadings, but
the rest of the sheet was blank.

For more than an hour the old man had sat there, his blue, near-sighted
eyes wandering about the room. A self-appointed committee from his
congregation had visited him and requested him to preach a sermon on
the future abode of the wicked. The wicked, as the minister gathered
from the frank talk of the committee, included all who did not belong
to their own sect.

Try as he might, the minister could find in his heart nothing save
charity. Anger and resentment were outside of his nature. He told
himself that he knew the world, and had experienced his share of
injustice, that he had seen sin in all of its hideous phases. Yet,
even for the unrepentant sinner, Thorpe had only kindness.

Of one sin only, Thorpe failed in comprehension. As he had said to
Anthony Dexter, he could excuse a liar, pardon a thief, and pity a
murderer, but he had only contempt for a shirk.

Persistently, he analysed and questioned himself, but got no further.
To him, all sin resolved itself at last into injustice, and he did not
believe that any one was ever intentionally unjust. But the
congregation desired to hear of hell--"as if," thought Thorpe,
whimsically, "I received daily reports."

With a sigh, he turned to his blank sheet. "In the earlier stages of
our belief," he wrote, "we conceived of hell as literally a place of
fire and brimstone, of eternal suffering and torture. In the light
which has come to us later, we perceive that hell is a spiritual state,
and realise that the consciousness of a sin is its punishment."

Then he tore the sheet into bits, for this was not what his
congregation wanted; yet it was his sincere belief. He could not
stultify himself to please his audience--they must take him as he was,
or let him go.

Yet the thought of leaving was unpleasant, for he had found work to do
in a field where, as it seemed to him, he was sorely needed. His
parishioners had heard much of punishment, but very little of mercy and
love. They were tangled in doctrinal meshes, distraught by quibbles,
and at swords' points with each other.

He felt that he must in some way temporise, and hold his place until he
had led his flock to a loftier height. He had no desire to force his
opinions upon any one else, but he wished to make clear his own strong,
simple faith, and spread abroad, if he might, his own perfect trust.

A commanding rap resounded upon his door. "Come," he called, and Miss
Mehitable entered.

Thorpe was not subtle, but he felt that this errand was of deeper
import than usual. The rustle of her stiffly-starched garments was
portentous, and there was a set look about her mouth which boded no
good to anybody.

"Will you sit down?" he asked, offering her his own chair.

"No," snapped Miss Mehitable, "I won't. What I've got to say, I can
say standin'. I come," she announced, solemnly, "from the Ladies' Aid
Society."

"Yes?" Thorpe's tone was interrogative, but he was evidently not
particularly interested.

"I'm appointed a committee of one," she resumed, "to say that the
Ladies' Aid Society have voted unanimously that they want you to preach
on hell. The Church is goin' to rack and ruin, and we ain't goin' to
stand it no longer. Even the disreputable characters will walk right
in and stay all through the sermon--Andy Rogers and the rest. And I
was particularly requested to ask whether you wished to have us
understand that you approve of Andy Rogers and his goin's on."

"What," temporised Thorpe, "does Andy Rogers do?"

"For the lands sake!" ejaculated Miss Mehitable. "Wasn't he drunk four
months ago and wasn't he caught stealing the Deacon's chickens? You
don't mean to tell me you never heard of that?"

"I believe I did hear," returned the minister, in polite recognition of
the fact that it had been Miss Mehitable's sole conversational topic at
the time. "He stole the chickens because he was hungry, and he got
drunk because he didn't know any better. I talked with him, and he
promised me that he would neither steal nor drink any more. Moreover,
he earned the money and paid full price for the chickens. Have you
heard that he has broken his promise?"

"No I dunno's I have, but he'll do it again if he gets the chance--you
just see!"

Thorpe drummed idly on the table with his pencil, wishing that Miss
Mehitable would go. He had for his fellow-men that deep and abiding
love which enables one to let other people alone. He was a
humanitarian in a broad and admirable sense.

"I was told," said Miss Mehitable, "to get a definite answer."

Thorpe bowed his white head ever so slightly. "You may tell the
Ladies' Aid Society, for me, that next Sunday morning I will give my
congregation a sermon on hell."

"I thought I could make you see the reason in it," remarked Miss
Mehitable, piously taking credit to herself, "and now that it's
settled, I want to speak of Araminta."

"She's getting well all right, isn't she?" queried Thorpe, anxiously.
He had a tender place in his heart for the child.

"That's what I don't know, not bein' allowed to speak to her or touch
her. What I do know is that her immortal soul is in peril, now that
she's taken away from my influence. I want you to get a permit from
that black-mailing play-doctor that's curing her, or pretending to, and
go up and see her. I guess her pastor has a right to see her, even if
her poor old aunt ain't. I want you to find out when she'll be able to
be moved, and talk to her about her soul, dwellin' particularly on
hell."

Thorpe bowed again. "I will be very glad to do anything I can for
Araminta."

Shortly afterward, he made an errand to Doctor Dexter's and saw Ralph,
who readily gave him permission to visit his entire clientele.

"I've got another patient," laughed the boy. "My practice is
increasing at the rate of one case a month. If I weren't too
high-minded to dump a batch of germs into the water supply, I'd have a
lot more."

"How is Araminta?" asked Thorpe, passing by Ralph's frivolity.

"She's all right," he answered, his sunny face clouding. "She can go
home almost any time now. I hate to send her back into her cage--bless
her little heart."

It was late afternoon when Thorpe started up the hill, to observe and
report upon the state of Araminta's soul. He had struggled vainly with
his own problem, and had at last decided to read a fiery sermon by one
of the early evangelists, from a volume which he happened to have. The
sermon was lurid with flame, and he thought it would satisfy his
congregation. He would preface it with the statement that it was not
his, but he hoped they would regard it as a privilege to hear the views
of a man who was, without doubt, wiser and better than he.

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