The Happy End Part 26

"It seems incredible," she murmured. She added without an appearance of the least ulterior thought: "Mrs. August Turnbull."

"Exactly," he a.s.serted.

A triumphant conviction of pleasure to come surged through him like a subtle exhilarating cordial.

"I'll take no nonsensical airs from Louise or the Rathes," he proclaimed.

"Don't let that worry you," she answered serenely.

He saw that it need not, and looked forward appreciatively to a scene in which Meta would not come off second.

Above them the long curve of the boardwalk was empty, with, behind it, the suave ornamental roofs of the cottages. A wind quartering from the sh.o.r.e had smoothed the ocean into the semblance of a limitless and placid lake. Minute waves ruffled along the beach with a continuous whispering, and the vault of the west, from which the sun had just withdrawn, was filled with light the color of sauterne wine.

It was inconceivable to August Turnbull that soon Emmy would be gone out of his life. He shook his thick shoulders as if by a gesture to unburden himself of her unpleasant responsibility. He smiled slightly at the memory of how he had come to fear her. It had been the result of the strain he was under; once more the vision of mountainous bread and Emmy returned. The devil was in the woman!

"What are you smiling at?" Meta asked.

"Perhaps it was because my luck, as well, has changed," he admitted.

She came close up to him, quivering with emotion.

"I want everything!" she cried in a vibrant hunger; "everything! Do you understand? Are you willing? I'm starved as much as that woman up in her bed. Can you give me all the gayety, all the silks and emeralds there are in the world?"

He patted her shoulder. "You'll look like a Christmas tree. When this d.a.m.ned war is over we will go to Europe, to Berlin and Munich. They have the finest streets and theaters and cafes in the world. There things are run by men for men. The food is the best of all--no French fripperies, but solid rare cuts. Drinking is an art----"

"What is that out in the water?" she idly demanded.

He gazed impatiently over the unscored tide and saw a dark infinitesimal blot.

"I have been watching it for a long while," she continued. "It's coming closer, I think."

He again took up his planning.

"We'll stay two or three years; till things get on their feet here. Turn the bakery into a company. No work, nothing but parties."

"Do look!" she repeated. "It's coming in--a little boat. I suppose it is empty."

The blot was now near enough for him to distinguish its outline. As Meta said, no one was visible. It was drifting. Against his wish his gaze fastened on the approaching boat. It hesitated, appeared to swing away, and then resumed the progress insh.o.r.e.

"I believe it will float into that cut in the beach below," he told her.

His attention was divided between the craft and the image of all the pleasures he would introduce to Meta--Turnbull. It was a lucky circ.u.mstance that he had plenty of money, for he realized that she would not marry a poor man. This was not only natural but commendable. Poor men were fools, too weak for success; only the strong ate white bread and had fine women, only the masterful conquered circ.u.mstance.

"Come," she said, catching his hand; "it's almost here."

She half pulled him over the glistening wet sand to where the deeper water thrust into the beach. Her interest was now fully communicated to him.

"We must drag it safely up," he articulated, out of breath from her eagerness. The bow swept into the onward current, it moved more swiftly, and then sluggishly settled against the bottom. Painted on its blistering white side was a name, "_Veronica_," and "Ten persons."

There was a slight movement at the rail, and a sharp unreasoning horror gripped August Turnbull.

"Something in it," he muttered. He wanted to turn away, to run from the beach; but a stronger curiosity dragged him forward. Not conscious of stepping through shallow water he advanced.

A hunger-ravished dead face was turned to him from the bottom, a huddle of bony joints, dried hands. There were others--all dead, starved. In a red glimmer he saw the incredible travesty of a child, a lead-colored woman, shriveled and ageless from agony.

He fell back with a choking cry, "Emmy!"

There was a dull uproar in his head, and then a violent shock at the back of his brain. August Turnbull's body slid down into the tranquil ripples that ran along the boat's side.

ROSEMARY ROSELLE

It would be better for my purpose if you could hear the little clear arpeggios of an obsolete music box, the notes as sweet as barley sugar; for then the mood of Rosemary Roselle might steal imperceptibly into your heart. It is made of daguerreotypes blurring on their misted silver; tenebrous lithographs--solemn facades of brick with cla.s.sic white lanterns lifted against the inky smoke of a burning city; the pages of a lady's book, elegant engravings of hooped and gallooned females; and the scent of crumbled flowers.

Such intangible sources must of necessity be fragile--a perfume linked to a thin chime, elusive faces on the shadowy mirror of the past, memories of things not seen but felt in poignant unfathomable emotions.

This is a magic different from that of to-day; here perhaps are only some wistful ghosts brought back among contemptuous realities--a man in a faded blue uniform with a face drawn by suffering long ended, a girl whose charm, like the flowers, is dust.

It is all as remote as a smile remembered from youth. Such apparent trifles often hold a steadfast loveliness more enduring than the greatest tragedies and successes. They are irradiated by an imperishable romance: this is my desire--to hold out an immaterial glamour, a vapor, delicately colored by old days in which you may discover the romantic and amiable shapes of secret dreams.

I

It will serve us best to see Elim Meikeljohn first as he walked across Winthrop Common. It was very early in April and should have been cool, but it was warm--already there were some vermilion buds on the maples--and Elim's worn shad-belly coat was uncomfortably heavy. The coat was too big for him--his father had worn it for twenty years before he had given it to Elim for college--and it hung in somber greenish folds about his tall spare body. He carried an equally oppressive black stiff hat in a bony hand and exposed a gaunt serious countenance.

Other young men pa.s.sing, vaulting lightly over the wooden rail that enclosed the common, wore flowing whiskers, crisply black or brown like a tobacco leaf; their luxuriant waistcoats were draped with a profusion of chains and seals; but Elim's face was austerely shaved, he wore neither brocade nor gold, and he kept seriously to the path.

He was, even more than usual, absorbed in a semi-gloom of thought. It was his birthday, he was twenty-six, and he had been married more than nine years. Already, with his inherited dark temperament, he was middle-aged in situation and feeling. He had been a.s.sistant to the professor of philosophy and letters for three of those married years; yes--he had been graduated when he was twenty-three. He arrived at an entrance to the common that faced the row of houses where he had his room, and saw that something unusual was in progress.

The front of his boarding house was literally covered with young men: they hung over the small portico from steps to ridge, they bulged from every window and sat astride of the dormer windows in the roof. Before them on the street a camera had been set up and was covered, all save the snout, by a black rubber cloth, backward from which projected the body and limbs of the photographer.

The latter, Elim realized, was one of a traveling band that took pictures of whatever, on their way, promised sufficient pecuniary return. Here the operator had been in luck--he would sell at least thirty photographs at perhaps fifty cents each. Harry Kaperton, a great swell, was in his window with his setter, Spot; his legs, clad in bags with tremendous checks and glossy boots, hung outward. On the veranda were Hinkle and Ben Willing, the latter in a stovepipe hat; others wore stovepipes set at a rakish angle on one ear. They were all irrepressibly gay, calling from roof to ground, each begging the photographer to focus on his own particular charm.

Perhaps fifty cents--Elim Meikeljohn would have liked a place in the picture; he would like to possess one, to keep it as a memento of the youthful life that flowed constantly about him, but the probable cost was prohibitive. He even wished, as he paused before making his way up the crowded veranda steps, that some one would ask him to stay and have his picture taken with the rest. He delayed, hoping for the mere formality of this friendliness. But it was not forthcoming. He had felt that it wouldn't be; he had divined the careless silence with which the men moved aside for him to mount. There was even a muttered allusion to his famous Scotch thrift, contained in a sharper word. Elim didn't mind--actively. He had been accustomed to the utmost monetary caution since the first dawn of his consciousness. He had come to regard the careful weighing of pennies as an integral part of his being. It had always been necessary for the Meikeljohns, father and son, on their rocky pastures. He didn't mind, but at the same time he bore a faint resentment at the injustice of the marked and perceptible disdain of the majority of his fellows.

They didn't understand, he told himself, still ascending to his room in the third floor back. Every cent that he could squeeze from his small salary must go back to the support of the invalid, his wife. He had never, of course, explained this to any one in Cambridge. They wouldn't be particularly interested and, in addition, his daily companions seemed far too young for such serious confidences. In reality Harry Kaperton was three years older than Elim; and Kaperton had been pleasantly at college, racing horses, for seven years; many others were Elim's age, but the maturity of the latter's responsibility separated them.

In his room he took off his formal coat and nankeen waistcoat and hung them on a pegged board. The room was bare, with two uncurtained windows that afforded a glimpse of the s.h.i.+ning river; it contained a small air-tight stove, now cold and black, and a wood box, a narrow bed, a deal table with a row of worn text-books and neatly folded papers, a stand for water pitcher and basin, and two split-hickory Windsor chairs.

Now it was filled with an afternoon glow, like powdered gold, and the querulously sweet piping of an early robin.

He dipped his face and hands in cooling water and, at the table, with squared elbows, addressed himself to a set task.

II

Elim Meikeljohn laid before him a small docket of foolscap folded lengthwise, each section separately indorsed in pale flowery ink, with a feminine name, a cla.s.s number and date. They were the weekly themes of a polite Young Ladies' Academy in Richmond, sent regularly north for the impressive opinion of a member of Elim's college faculty. The professor of philosophy and letters had undertaken the task primarily; but, with the multiplication of his duties, he had turned the essays over to Elim, whose careful judgments had been sufficiently imposing to secure for him a slight additional income.

He sat for a moment regarding the papers with a frown; then, with a sudden movement, he went over the names that headed each paper. Two he laid aside. They bore above their dates in March, eighteen sixty-one, the name Rosemary Roselle.