The Whirligig of Time Part 61

"One thing," she began just before they drew up at the hotel.

"Yes?"

"One thing I've learned in all these years is that there's nothing so bad that it isn't better to face it than dodge it. Nothing!"

"Yes," said James. "Thank you, Aunt Selina."

He walked back to his apartment with a feeling as of straightening his shoulders. His aunt's words rang in his brain. There was need of courage, he saw that. Well, he had never lacked that and would not be found wanting in it now. Not even--the thought flashed on him as he opened his front door--not even if the kind of courage that was now needed implied humiliation. He entered his home with the consciousness of having made a good start.

He walked straight into the bedroom.

"Well, I've done you an injustice," he said aloud. "I misjudged you. I'm sorry."

"Oh, you didn't give her credit for being capable of loving YOU, did you?" rang a mocking voice in his brain. A palpable hit for Nemesis.

"Oh, you know what I _mean_," he answered petulantly. He thought it was unworthy of her to quibble thus, particularly when he was voluntarily a.s.suming that Beatrice had started from Bar Harbor--well, with the right idea. He had a right to doubt there, which he was willing to waive.

"I'm sorry," he repeated, "truly sorry. Isn't that enough?" His eyes fell on the photograph of Beatrice which still stood on the dressing table. He turned quickly away again.

"Not by a long shot," said Nemesis, or words to that effect.

No, somehow it wasn't. He realized it himself; even feeling that didn't give him the sense of repletion and calm that he sought. He paced the room for some time in silent anxiety.

"I really don't know what to do," he admitted at last. "Suppose"--he was appealing to Beatrice now--"suppose you tell me what."

He glanced involuntarily at the photograph. Its unchanging half-smile informed him that all help must now come from himself. A sudden access of rage at that photograph seized him.

"Don't you laugh at me, when I'm trying my best!" he cried.

The picture smiled on. In a burst of fury James picked up the frame and hurled it with all his strength into the mirror. There was a crash and a shower of broken gla.s.s, amid which the picture bounded lazily back and fell to the floor, face downward.

James stood and stared at it, and as he stared a curious revulsion came over him. He stooped slowly down, unaccountably hoping with all his soul that the photograph was not hurt. He scarcely dared to turn it over....

The gla.s.s was smashed to atoms, but the picture itself was unhurt. No, there was a cut across the face.

"Oh, I've hurt her, I've hurt Beatrice!" he whispered.

Nemesis said something that made him sink into a chair and gaze before him with horror. Cinders, ashes, black coals, some of them still glowing--oh, the mere sight of them then had been unbearable! And now, in view of what he had learned.... He could not face the thought.

Yet it was true: if it had not been for him Beatrice would still be alive. Whether she took that train intending to go to him or to Tommy it did not matter; she would not have taken it at all if he had behaved as he should.

He turned his attention back to the picture, gently and carefully smoothing out the cut, as though in the hope that reparation to her effigy would make it easier to face the thought of having compa.s.sed her destruction.

Somehow it did no such thing....

Of course what Nemesis wanted was a confession that he loved the woman whose death he was morally responsible for. James realized that himself, almost from the first, but it was not in his nature to admit easily that such an unreasonable change of feeling was possible to him. Long hours of struggle followed, hours of endless pacing, of fruitless internal argument, of blind resistance to the one hope, as he in the bottom of his soul knew it was, of his salvation. Resistance, brave, exhilarating, hopeless, futile, ign.o.ble resistance to whatever happened to him contrary to the dictates of his own will--it was as inevitable to him as feeling itself.

From time to time he thought of Tommy, and this, if he did but know it, was the best symptom he could have shown. For though at first he thought of him with little more than his usual contempt, envy soon began to creep in, then frank jealousy and at last a blind hatred that made him clench his hands and wish, as he had seldom wished anything, that Tommy's throat was between them. In fact he ended by hating Tommy quite as though he were his equal. He never stopped to consider that this change was no less revolutionary than the one he was fighting.

The hopeless hours dragged on. A sense of physical fatigue grew on him; every muscle in him ached. His brain also staggered under the long strain; it hammered and rang. Certain sc.r.a.ps of sentences he had heard during the day buzzed through it with a curious insistence, taking advantage of his weakened state to torment him. A great chance, a great chance--Uncle James' parting words to him. Sorrow was a great chance--for some. For Aunt Selina, yes; for Beatrice, yes; or Uncle James, frozen and unresponsive as he appeared, yes. But not for him. Oh, no, he must admit it, he was not even worthy to suffer greatly. He was not really suffering now, he supposed; he was merely very tired.

Otherwise those words, a great chance, a great chance, would not keep pounding through his head like the sound of loud wheels....

Railroad wheels.

Then what was it that Aunt Selina had said about finding out something too late? Oh, yes, people found out they loved other people when it was too late. Especially strong people. He was strong.... Could it be that _he_ was going to discover something too late--_that_? It was too late for something already, but surely not for that! Just think--Aunt Selina had found out too late, and Beatrice had found out too late, and now....

Yes, if it was horrible it must be true. It was he who was too late. He understood about Aunt Selina, all she must have felt. And Beatrice too; he saw now how strong and n.o.ble and warm-hearted she had been, and how she must have suffered. Especially that. And now he had found out it was too late to tell her so!

"We can't tell you what we don't know," the man in the station had said that morning. Words spoken mechanically and without thought, but containing the very essence of human tragedy. While there was yet time he had had no knowledge, not the slightest glimmering....

"Oh, Beatrice!" he groaned, "if I had only been able to hope! Just a little hope, even at that last minute on the platform! That would be something to be thankful for!"

And then in the anguish of his remorse all his fatigue and uncertainty suddenly fell from him. Nothing remained but the thought of her, strong, generous, brave, humble, all that he had professed to admire--dead! And he, false, mean, cowardly, cold-hearted, alive. And the idea of never being able to tell her that at last he understood became so intolerable, so cruel, so contrary to all that was good in life, so blindly unthinkable, that....

Well, in a word, it simply ceased to be. Such a life as had been hers could not fade into nothingness, such a heart as hers could not fail to understand, be she dead or alive.

"G.o.d," he whispered, clutching with all his strength at the hope the word now contained, "G.o.d, make her understand! I recant, I repent, I believe--anything! Forgive me if you can or punish me as you will, only let her live, let her know...."

Then, as the crowning torment, came hope. After all, he knew nothing; he only supposed. Nothing was certain; only probable. Something might have happened; he dared not think what or how, but it was possible, conceivable, at least, that Beatrice was not on that train when it was wrecked. Beatrice might still be alive!... The anguish of the fall back into probability was sharper than anything he had yet known, but every time he found himself struggling painfully up again toward that small spark of light.

He fell on his knees beside the bed--her bed--and tried to pray.

Nothing came to his lips but the words he had so long disdained to say, uttered now with a fierce sweet jubilation:

"Beatrice, I love you. I never did before, but I do now--at least I think I do! I never knew, I never understood, but I do now! Beatrice, I do love you, I do, I do! Beatrice...."

But apparently they satisfied the power that has charge of such matters, for even as he stammered the words that saved him a blessed drowsiness stole over him and before long he slept as he knelt. It was morning when he awoke.

CHAPTER XV

THE TIDE TURNS

A gray morning, wet and close, whose very atmosphere was death to hope.

James did hope, nevertheless, with all the refreshed energy of his being. Hope came as soon as he started to wake up, before he began to feel the cramps in his limbs, before he had time to rub his eyes and wonder what had happened.

A hot bath, and then breakfast. Physical alleviations; he was humiliated to realize they did make a difference, even to him. He shuddered at the thought of how he had patronizingly envied Aunt Selina for being helped by them last night, much as he shuddered at the remembrance of having once dared to pity Beatrice....

But the present was also with him, and the present was even harder to face than the past. Hope sprang eternal, but so did certainty. One might have thought that they would have neutralized each other's effects and left a blank, but as a matter of fact they only doubled each other's torments. The moment breakfast was over James started off for the station to set one or the other at rest.

He went straight to the press room, which was only just open; he had to wait for the agent to arrive. When he came he was able to tell James nothing new, but he conducted him to a departmental manager. He was no more satisfactory, but he undertook to make every possible inquiry.

Leaving James in an outer office he called various people to him, got into telephonic communication with others and ended by calling up Stamford and then Boston. But James could guess the result from his face the moment he reentered the room.

"Nothing?" he asked.