CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IT was one of those soft, dull, dim days when the grey sky seems to melt by imperceptible gradations into a grey and toneless earth. November in the mountains.
The afternoon was at hand when Garvin would seek his answer, and Frances was far from her cabin. Ever since she had left Herries she had wandered on up the trails through mists, alone in a great, unreal world. It was as if the vast and solitary mountains demanded seclusion for some high communion, and before exhibiting themselves in the clear sunlight of self-revelation, withdrew for a period of mysterious meditation. The dimmed distances were blue, a smoke-like and blurred blue; the leafless branches interlaced their fine criss-cross of twigs against this unsubstantial background, the pines were strong, green masses, the green acquiring new depth and vividness from the mist-sea on which they floated.
A fine rain fell; but Frances ignored it, and walked on until she reached a level plateau known to her, and covered with low, twisted, wind-bent pines. There she stopped suddenly, for sitting on a great, wet rock was the Black Pearl.
Unconscious of Frances's approach, she sat gazing down at the clouds which lay between her and the valley. Her gown was open at the throat as if she had pulled it apart for more air; her burnt-umber hair was almost slipping down her back; there were sagging pouches of loose skin under her eyes and her firm, rounded chin.
She remained oblivious of the Missionary's approach until Frances touched her lightly on the arm. Then she turned with a quick frown, "Oh," with dull petulance; "it's you, Missioner."
"Yes." Frances sat down on the rock beside her and passed her hand over the Pearl's hair and shoulders: "Why, Mrs. O'Brien, how long have you been sitting here? Your hair is soaking wet and so is your dress."
"Oh, yes—it's been wet, I suppose," impatiently. "What's the difference? Say, Missioner," clasping her hands around her knees and drawing her feet further up on the rocks. "It's an awful thing to think, ain't it? I ain't never had any education except what I picked up from the boys, and I don't suppose I know much; but I always been a-thinkin' an' a-studyin' about things. Now take the ladies down there in Zenith. They're content managin' their own affairs and other people's. They don't care for anything that don't concern their eatin' and drinkin', their kids an' their husbands; but if you once get to studyin' about life, Missioner, you can't stop. You got to go on thinkin', an' it haunts you night an' day. You can't get away from it; it's like a great wheel that's always a-turnin', an' you see the awful misery, jus' sufferin', sufferin' everywhere. An' people talk an' tell you the Lord loves 'em's the reason he's torturin' their souls an' bodies. An' you know it's lies, lies. God, Missioner! I feel every minute like I got to fling myself off these rocks."
In her little cabin, Garvin was waiting for her answer, even now. This was the one swift thought that flashed across Frances Benson's mind. This was the day of which she had dreamed, the birthday of her life, a day of vast and sunlighted spaces, of peacock thrones and gold and purple decorations; down the hill, love, home, companionship awaited her, and her whole spent being longed for them; but the natural impulse to help, enforced and strengthened by years of training, asserted itself imperatively. She did not think of setting another season for the Pearl's consolation. The peacock thrones, the birthday celebration must wait. The softness faded from her eyes, the weary lines from her face. Her figure involuntarily straightened itself. She was a soldier on guard now, and this was the firing line.
Without conscious thought, but by mere intuitive perception of the only way to meet the situation, she threw herself into the other woman's mood.
"Pearl, it's a wheel, as you say, a great wheel that's always turning and crushing the lives of men and women and little children. And it's crueler than death and the grave, unless you see it right. I can't see it right, either, just now, Pearl," the cry came from her soul; "but,"—the old mystic glow in her eyes, "I know it, even if I can't see it. It's all love and beauty."
The haggard woman twitched her shoulders restlessly from Frances's encircling arm. "I know," with a contemptuous curl of the lip, "that's what Ethel's been a-tellin' me. Ethel with her Salvation Army talk! Say, Missioner," breaking away from the thread of her own despairing musings for a moment and speaking with earnestness and appreciation: "You certainly done the white thing by Ethel. She was tellin' me the other day how she stole that money from the Army, an' how you comforted her an' give her the cash out of your own pocket to pay it. Do you think if I didn't know how you done things like that, that I'd sit here an' listen to you talk? I've heard too much talk in my life. An' that Lunger Preacher—Carrothers—he come to me an' handed out somethin' about repentin', I believe, an' some thief or other on the cross. I didn't pay much attention to him; I ain't no thief. It's all of a piece with what the Padre used to tell me down in the desert, an' it's all lies. There ain't no justice." She dropped her head on her knees and the long, wet strands of her hair fell about her.
For a moment Frances turned her puzzled gaze down into the valley of clouds, then lifted them to the grey, bending, unsubstantial skies. Into her brooding eyes there flashed a sudden illumination like the gleam of fire on steel.
"Pearl," she cried, and her face was stern, "don't you say that! You're a living proof that there is justice. Preacher comes to you, Ethel comes to you, I come, offering what comfort we can, and we sit and talk to you and every word we say falls on deaf ears. Why? Because what you sow you reap; and you've sowed hell, Pearl, and you've got to reap it. You can't get out of prison till you've paid the last farthing, and it's no use trying. You can't break the bars and crawl out, paying fifty cents on the dollar; it's dollar for dollar; because it's justice.
"What have you been doing all your life, Pearl? You've been sowing the wind. The Black Pearl! That's what they've called you, and that's what you've been, and you've dragged plenty down with you. But you haven't been happy because you can think, and what has been the misery of your life is going to be the thing that will save you. You're black, but you're a pearl still, and pearl means white. You've got to see it that way. You've been throwing dice with sin all your life, and sin's let you win; but it's taking its wages now, and the wages is death."
The Pearl had lifted her head, and now she sat staring at the stern-voiced Missionary. "Yes," she nodded, "its wages has sure been death."
"But, Pearl," the voice thrilled with tenderness, "you've suffered enough to pay your debts to sin; now turn around and pay yourself."
"To myself? Debts to me?"
"Yes. The biggest debt you owe is to yourself, to the white side of you, the side that can think; for do not dream that you can ever get out of paying those debts. You can't. It isn't any use trying."
"God! If I ain't paid for my sins, I'd like to know who has!" It was an exceeding bitter cry.
"Then leave them." The Missionary's tone was a command. "Leave them and begin to see yourself as white, not black."
The Pearl clutched Frances's arm tensely, her face broke up, rivers of tears poured from her eyes. "Them's the only words that's reached me. There wasn't a mite of comfort for me in anything the others said, not a mite. But," and her face fell, "it's all right to tell me that black's to turn around and be white; but how am I goin' to do it?"
"Don't you suppose," asked Frances, "that there are others in the world just as bad and just as suffering as you? Isn't it true that you could understand and help those that have lived the same life that you have, and have had the same things to meet?"
"I might try," said Pearl, a new light in her eyes; "but it would be easier to die."
"Yes; but you've got to live. There's justice, justice at the heart of the universe, and you've got to pay the debt to yourself."
"Is it true?" she still doubted. "It sounds like sense to me; it's kind o' plain; but is it true?"
"Yes, it's true, and I'll never leave you, Pearl, till I prove it to you."
"You swear that?" again clutching her.
"Yes, I swear it."
The Pearl stood up. "I kin breathe now," she said. "I tell you what, Missioner, I ain't one to do anything half-hearted. If there's any white to me I'm goin' to find it. Where are you goin'?" as Frances rose from the rock and took a step or two forward.
"Further up the trail. There's something in my mind that I want to think out, so I'm going to say good-bye now to the white Pearl."
They parted, the trail Frances followed leading further on up toward the summit of the mountain. It seemed more wet and slippery than before and she stumbled once or twice and fell on her knees. Mechanically she brushed off her skirt and went on.
It was not until she reached timber line that she paused. Above her were the great, bare rocks and boulders, and crowning them the sharp, cold peaks.
Here the fine rain had ceased to fall. The sky, although still a dense grey, seemed no longer to blend with the mists and to bend so near that one might touch it. It was further away, quite far above even the peaks, and had begun to change like a faintly tinted opal, as if behind its dim, opaque density there were gold and flame and blue. For a long time Frances gazed at the still white peaks; then, as her glance travelled downward, she saw Garvin climbing the hill.
"I stopped at the cabin," he said, when he reached her, "but you were not there, so I came on up, further and further, until I met the Pearl, and she said you had come up this trail. Mercy, what a climb! Why did you run away, Frances?" His eyes were full of a tender reproach. "I couldn't sit in the cabin and wait for you. I had to find you. Why, last night, I couldn't sleep. I kicked the logs together on my library hearth, and I sat there all night—thinking. I planned the journeys we'd take together all over the world; the palaces and the gardens and the pictures we'd see and buy. Why, I even thought of the jewels I'm going to give you, you wonderful, dark, sweet Frances—rubies, quarts of them. There will be mighty few women in this country that can have any more. Oh, Frances, what a life we shall have; for you are going to marry me, aren't you?"
It was the woman who looked at him, love in the deeps of her eyes; it was a soldier on the firing line who answered him:
"No."
"No," he echoed, his face paling. "Why—why!"
"No," she hurried, "I'm not going to marry you. I know it isn't fair to you. I shouldn't have let things go on as they have. I cannot blame myself enough, and I'm going to pay for it," with a bitter smile; "but—but—I dare not yield to this temptation."
At these conventional words he lifted his hands and brought them down with clenched fists, an impotent, impatient, despairing gesture.
"The same old thing! The same old priestly advice, with which women love to sear and shrivel their lives. Frances," with sudden determination, "do you like me well enough to think that you could be happy with me?"
She nodded mutely. There was anguish in her dark eyes.
"I thought so," he affirmed triumphantly. "You know that you love me. Reason enough to give me up. Was there ever a woman with a touch of the religious temperament who didn't sacrifice herself and everyone else? Renunciation, I believe they call it. Renunciation with every letter a capital. Frances, I'm not going to be given up. Do not dream it."
Their eyes met, clashed; but neither wavered.
"You are," she answered, "for you cannot hold me. I do love you"
"You love me, but you won't marry me," he laughed impatiently. "It's the loneliness of your life," he murmured presently, as if analysing to himself the causes of her decision, "the effect of celibacy on a nature never intended for it. Well, Frances, since you are determined to be a missionary, why not be one to me?"
"Always, when you need me," steadily, sincerely.
"Oh, that terrible, monkish stigmata on the brain!" he cried. "The madness, the fanaticism, the cruelty of the religious temperament! This damnable Renunciation with a capital R! And you would sacrifice both you and myself to a crazy, egotistic belief that you are divinely appointed to help a lot of sordid, worthless, good-for-nothing people? Tell me, have you ever had any gratitude from them? How many have you really helped?"
"Those are the questions that I used to ask myself in the days when I tried to help people," she smiled in sad derision, "and it seemed to me that I never helped them. I usually harmed them. And no matter how hard I worked, the results were always so meagre. And I would get so discouraged and disheartened! And then, one day, I cannot tell how nor why, I knew all at once that it would be that way just as long as I tried to help them. I saw that I had no right to try and guide and direct people. Everyone has a right to choose his own path, no matter what it is, or where it leads. So I just loved them; and in that way, Walter, I learned the great secret of life—love. Not to question or direct, but just give love and sympathy, and tolerance—that is all we need." She paused and looked up the mountain.
His glance followed hers and he saw a long, rough steep, great pink rocks and desolate ice-peaks swept always by the mighty, rushing winds; but she gazed out upon the Via Mystica, a weary and toilsome road, but guarded always by tall and shadowy angels with healing in their wings.
"If you loved a singer would you ask her to give up her beautiful voice?" she asked abruptly.
"I would neither ask nor wish her to do so, but if she really loved me she would be quite willing."
Frances shook her head. "Willing!" she cried, "what is 'willing' in such a case? If it is a true gift, it is the real part of her, and the only real part. It is her expression. My poor little gift is to love all who suffer, and I couldn't give it up. It is me."
He looked at her pityingly. "Ah, Frances, I had not dreamed how you, with your sensitive, impressionable temperament had suffered from the seclusion of these mountains! Dear," tenderly, "we will go from these gloomy hills, out into the big, sane, laughing world of human interests and activities. There has been too much fasting and prayer in your life, dearest. We'll cut out all that, thank God! I shall pick you up in a minute and carry you down the hill, close, close to my heart, and we'll catch a train presently and go out to the big world of men and cities. Why, with the powers at our command, we can drape life with colour and beauty. Oh, Frances, won't you see it—the kingdoms of the earth are ours!"
"'And cinnamon and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and the souls of men.'" She murmured so low that he did not hear her.
"But won't you think of me, Frances? Won't you help me to live, now that I, too, have found the secret of life—which is my love for you? Won't you help me realise my dreams and ambitions? Do they mean nothing to you? You shall have all the playthings you want—hospitals, churches, schools—anything; but I am going into public life. I need your help. Think of the opportunities! Think"
"I do think. I have thought," she interrupted him passionately. "You have great possessions, and with them are developing great ambitions" She stopped abruptly, the mental struggle manifest in her face, her eyes; then she rose above the jealous, dominating feminine. "In your brilliant and luxurious life I would be only a husk, a shell of a woman, who would have to be trained into a painstaking knowledge of customs and manners which would never seem to me worth the time and interest I would have to put into them. It—it is not I you need by your side,"—she moistened her white lips,—"but a young, happy woman, to whom all these observances are as natural as breathing. A young, happy woman with golden hair and a coronet of roses. Oh, Walter," after a brief pause, "fool, crank, fanatic, I may be; but your jewels I couldn't wear. I'd see always white starving faces turned to me. I couldn't decorate your beautiful houses and meet your guests; I'd see stunted, toil-worn hands stretched out to me, and hear the cries of the shipwrecked. Don't you see that my work is me?"
"But the new worlds you talked so much about, the worlds of beauty and colour and thought and imagination," he pleaded.
"I don't belittle them. I love them; but there's a more wonderful reality. Through seeing them, I see far and yet farther horizons. I've got to go on, Walter. I've got to follow life, this vision of life, as I see it myself, not as you would see it for me. I can't help it. I've got to go on."
His face had changed and darkened; his eyes were cold, his mouth bitter.
"I thought you were a woman, capable of love; I find that you are a fanatic, willing to sacrifice everything to an egotistic passion for self-expression."
"It is life, the only true life. Anything else is death," she muttered.
When he left her she stood for a long time gazing out over the mountains. Then she crept down the hill as far as the rock on which she and the Pearl had sat earlier in the day, and huddled close against it. Night, black as ink and broken by the mocking cries of the coyotes, came on, and lay over the earth for many hours. When the dawn came, Frances strove to rise; but her limbs had stiffened. She ached from head to foot, and she seemed to have lost the power and will to move. The pale light gradually deepened, and when the sun at last arose, it sent one dazzling ray straight through the trees, flashing the high command of eternal morning: "Lift up your gates and sing!"
Frances remembered that other morning when, through joy, she had lifted her gates as high as heaven. Now she was crushed beneath those gates; now she had but her soul's heritage—the comfortless—to comfort her. As she thought of them, their weakness and tears seemed to flow toward her, augmenting her strength. With infinite difficulty she struggled to her knees, then to her feet. Her stiffened arms she slowly raised above her head, as if she held aloft the grief of the world. She would lift her gates as high as heaven, and the very soul of her should sing.
THE END