THEA was to sail on Tuesday, at noon, and on Saturday
Fred Ottenburg arranged for her passage, while she
and Dr. Archie went shopping. With rugs and sea-clothes
she was already provided; Fred had got everything of that
sort she needed for the voyage up from Vera Cruz. On
Sunday afternoon Thea went to see the Harsanyis. When
she returned to her hotel, she found a note from Ottenburg,
saying that he had called and would come again to-morrow.
On Monday morning, while she was at breakfast, Fred
came in. She knew by his hurried, distracted air as he
entered the dining-room that something had gone wrong.
He had just got a telegram from home. His mother had
been thrown from her carriage and hurt; a concussion of
some sort, and she was unconscious. He was leaving for
St. Louis that night on the eleven o'clock train. He had a
great deal to attend to during the day. He would come that
evening, if he might, and stay with her until train time,
while she was doing her packing. Scarcely waiting for her
consent, he hurried away.
All day Thea was somewhat cast down. She was sorry
for Fred, and she missed the feeling that she was the one
person in his mind. He had scarcely looked at her when
they exchanged words at the breakfast-table. She felt as
if she were set aside, and she did not seem so important
even to herself as she had yesterday. Certainly, she
reflected, it was high time that she began to take care of
herself again. Dr. Archie came for dinner, but she sent him
away early, telling him that she would be ready to go to
the boat with him at half-past ten the next morning. When
she went upstairs, she looked gloomily at the open trunk
in her sitting-room, and at the trays piled on the sofa. She
stood at the window and watched a quiet snowstorm
spending itself over the city. More than anything else,
falling snow always made her think of Moonstone; of the
Kohlers' garden, of Thor's sled, of dressing by lamplight
and starting off to school before the paths were broken.
When Fred came, he looked tired, and he took her hand
almost without seeing her.
"I'm so sorry, Fred. Have you had any more word?"
"She was still unconscious at four this afternoon. It
doesn't look very encouraging." He approached the fire
and warmed his hands. He seemed to have contracted, and
he had not at all his habitual ease of manner. "Poor
mother!" he exclaimed; "nothing like this should have
happened to her. She has so much pride of person. She's
not at all an old woman, you know. She's never got beyond
vigorous and rather dashing middle age." He turned
abruptly to Thea and for the first time really looked at her.
"How badly things come out! She'd have liked you for a
daughter-in-law. Oh, you'd have fought like the devil,
but you'd have respected each other." He sank into a
chair and thrust his feet out to the fire. "Still," he went
on thoughtfully, seeming to address the ceiling, "it might
have been bad for you. Our big German houses, our good
German cooking--you might have got lost in the uphol-
stery. That substantial comfort might take the temper out
of you, dull your edge. Yes," he sighed, "I guess you were
meant for the jolt of the breakers."
"I guess I'll get plenty of jolt," Thea murmured, turn-
ing to her trunk.
"I'm rather glad I'm not staying over until to-morrow,"
Fred reflected. "I think it's easier for me to glide out like
this. I feel now as if everything were rather casual, any-
how. A thing like that dulls one's feelings."
Thea, standing by her trunk, made no reply. Presently
he shook himself and rose. "Want me to put those trays
in for you?"
"No, thank you. I'm not ready for them yet."
Fred strolled over to the sofa, lifted a scarf from one of
the trays and stood abstractedly drawing it through his
fingers. "You've been so kind these last few days, Thea,
that I began to hope you might soften a little; that you
might ask me to come over and see you this summer."
"If you thought that, you were mistaken," she said
slowly. "I've hardened, if anything. But I shan't carry
any grudge away with me, if you mean that."
He dropped the scarf. "And there's nothing--nothing
at all you'll let me do?"
"Yes, there is one thing, and it's a good deal to ask. If I
get knocked out, or never get on, I'd like you to see that
Dr. Archie gets his money back. I'm taking three thousand
dollars of his."
"Why, of course I shall. You may dismiss that from
your mind. How fussy you are about money, Thea. You
make such a point of it." He turned sharply and walked
to the windows.
Thea sat down in the chair he had quitted. "It's only
poor people who feel that way about money, and who are
really honest," she said gravely. "Sometimes I think that
to be really honest, you must have been so poor that you've
been tempted to steal."
"To what?"
"To steal. I used to be, when I first went to Chicago
and saw all the things in the big stores there. Never any-
thing big, but little things, the kind I'd never seen before
and could never afford. I did take something once, before
I knew it."
Fred came toward her. For the first time she had his
whole attention, in the degree to which she was accustomed
to having it. "Did you? What was it?" he asked with
interest.
"A sachet. A little blue silk bag of orris-root powder.
There was a whole counterful of them, marked down to
fifty cents. I'd never seen any before, and they seemed
irresistible. I took one up and wandered about the store
with it. Nobody seemed to notice, so I carried it off."
Fred laughed. "Crazy child! Why, your things always
smell of orris; is it a penance?"
"No, I love it. But I saw that the firm didn't lose any-
thing by me. I went back and bought it there whenever I
had a quarter to spend. I got a lot to take to Arizona. I
made it up to them."
"I'll bet you did!" Fred took her hand. "Why didn't
I find you that first winter? I'd have loved you just as you
came!"
Thea shook her head. "No, you wouldn't, but you
might have found me amusing. The Harsanyis said yester-
day afternoon that I wore such a funny cape and that my
shoes always squeaked. They think I've improved. I told
them it was your doing if I had, and then they looked
scared."
"Did you sing for Harsanyi?"
"Yes. He thinks I've improved there, too. He said nice
things to me. Oh, he was very nice! He agrees with you
about my going to Lehmann, if she'll take me. He came
out to the elevator with me, after we had said good-bye.
He said something nice out there, too, but he seemed sad."
"What was it that he said?"
"He said, `When people, serious people, believe in you,
they give you some of their best, so--take care of it, Miss
Kronborg.' Then he waved his hands and went back."
"If you sang, I wish you had taken me along. Did you
sing well?" Fred turned from her and went back to the
window. "I wonder when I shall hear you sing again."
He picked up a bunch of violets and smelled them. "You
know, your leaving me like this--well, it's almost inhu-
man to be able to do it so kindly and unconditionally."
"I suppose it is. It was almost inhuman to be able to
leave home, too,--the last time, when I knew it was for
good. But all the same, I cared a great deal more than
anybody else did. I lived through it. I have no choice now.
No matter how much it breaks me up, I have to go. Do I
seem to enjoy it?"
Fred bent over her trunk and picked up something which
proved to be a score, clumsily bound. "What's this? Did
you ever try to sing this?" He opened it and on the
engraved title-page read Wunsch's inscription, "EINST, O
WUNDER!" He looked up sharply at Thea.
"Wunsch gave me that when he went away. I've told
you about him, my old teacher in Moonstone. He loved
that opera."
Fred went toward the fireplace, the book under his arm,
singing softly:--
"EINST, O WUNDER, ENTBLUHT AUF MEINEM GRABE,
EINE BLUME DER ASCHE MEINES HERZENS;"
"You have no idea at all where he is, Thea?" He leaned
against the mantel and looked down at her.
"No, I wish I had. He may be dead by this time. That
was five years ago, and he used himself hard. Mrs. Kohler
was always afraid he would die off alone somewhere and be
stuck under the prairie. When we last heard of him, he was
in Kansas."
"If he were to be found, I'd like to do something for him.
I seem to get a good deal of him from this." He opened the
book again, where he kept the place with his finger, and
scrutinized the purple ink. "How like a German! Had he
ever sung the song for you?"
"No. I didn't know where the words were from until
once, when Harsanyi sang it for me, I recognized them."
Fred closed the book. "Let me see, what was your noble
brakeman's name?"
Thea looked up with surprise. "Ray, Ray Kennedy."
"Ray Kennedy!" he laughed. "It couldn't well have
been better! Wunsch and Dr. Archie, and Ray, and I,"--
he told them off on his fingers,--"your whistling-posts!
You haven't done so badly. We've backed you as we
could, some in our weakness and some in our might. In
your dark hours--and you'll have them--you may like
to remember us." He smiled whimsically and dropped the
score into the trunk. "You are taking that with you?"
"Surely I am. I haven't so many keepsakes that I can
afford to leave that. I haven't got many that I value so
highly."
"That you value so highly?" Fred echoed her gravity
playfully. "You are delicious when you fall into your
vernacular." He laughed half to himself.
"What's the matter with that? Isn't it perfectly good
English?"
"Perfectly good Moonstone, my dear. Like the ready-
made clothes that hang in the windows, made to fit every-
body and fit nobody, a phrase that can be used on all occa-
sions. Oh,"--he started across the room again,--"that's
one of the fine things about your going! You'll be with
the right sort of people and you'll learn a good, live, warm
German, that will be like yourself. You'll get a new speech
full of shades and color like your voice; alive, like your mind.
It will be almost like being born again, Thea."
She was not offended. Fred had said such things to her
before, and she wanted to learn. In the natural course of
things she would never have loved a man from whom she
could not learn a great deal.
"Harsanyi said once," she remarked thoughtfully, "that
if one became an artist one had to be born again, and that
one owed nothing to anybody."
"Exactly. And when I see you again I shall not see you,
but your daughter. May I?" He held up his cigarette case
questioningly and then began to smoke, taking up again
the song which ran in his head:--
"DEUTLICH SCHIMMERT AUF JEDEM, PURPURBLATTCHEN,
ADELAIDE!"
"I have half an hour with you yet, and then, exit Fred."
He walked about the room, smoking and singing the words
under his breath. "You'll like the voyage," he said ab-
ruptly. "That first approach to a foreign shore, stealing
up on it and finding it--there's nothing like it. It wakes
up everything that's asleep in you. You won't mind my
writing to some people in Berlin? They'll be nice to you."
"I wish you would." Thea gave a deep sigh. "I wish
one could look ahead and see what is coming to one."
"Oh, no!" Fred was smoking nervously; "that would
never do. It's the uncertainty that makes one try. You've
never had any sort of chance, and now I fancy you'll make
it up to yourself. You'll find the way to let yourself out in
one long flight."
Thea put her hand on her heart. "And then drop like
the rocks we used to throw--anywhere." She left the
chair and went over to the sofa, hunting for something in
the trunk trays. When she came back she found Fred sit-
ting in her place. "Here are some handkerchiefs of yours.
I've kept one or two. They're larger than mine and useful
if one has a headache."
"Thank you. How nicely they smell of your things!"
He looked at the white squares for a moment and then put
them in his pocket. He kept the low chair, and as she stood
beside him he took her hands and sat looking intently at
them, as if he were examining them for some special pur-
pose, tracing the long round fingers with the tips of his
own. "Ordinarily, you know, there are reefs that a man
catches to and keeps his nose above water. But this is a
case by itself. There seems to be no limit as to how much
I can be in love with you. I keep going." He did not lift
his eyes from her fingers, which he continued to study with
the same fervor. "Every kind of stringed instrument there
is plays in your hands, Thea," he whispered, pressing them
to his face.
She dropped beside him and slipped into his arms, shut-
ting her eyes and lifting her cheek to his. "Tell me one
thing," Fred whispered. "You said that night on the boat,
when I first told you, that if you could you would crush it
all up in your hands and throw it into the sea. Would you,
all those weeks?"
She shook her head.
"Answer me, would you?"
"No, I was angry then. I'm not now. I'd never give
them up. Don't make me pay too much." In that embrace
they lived over again all the others. When Thea drew away
from him, she dropped her face in her hands. "You are
good to me," she breathed, "you are!"
Rising to his feet, he put his hands under her elbows and
lifted her gently. He drew her toward the door with him.
"Get all you can. Be generous with yourself. Don't stop
short of splendid things. I want them for you more than I
want anything else, more than I want one splendid thing
for myself. I can't help feeling that you'll gain, somehow,
by my losing so much. That you'll gain the very thing I
lose. Take care of her, as Harsanyi said. She's wonder-
ful!" He kissed her and went out of the door without look-
ing back, just as if he were coming again to-morrow.
Thea went quickly into her bedroom. She brought out
an armful of muslin things, knelt down, and began to lay
them in the trays. Suddenly she stopped, dropped for-
ward and leaned against the open trunk, her head on her
arms. The tears fell down on the dark old carpet. It
came over her how many people must have said good-bye
and been unhappy in that room. Other people, before her
time, had hired this room to cry in. Strange rooms and
strange streets and faces, how sick at heart they made one!
Why was she going so far, when what she wanted was
some familiar place to hide in?--the rock house, her
little room in Moonstone, her own bed. Oh, how good it
would be to lie down in that little bed, to cut the nerve
that kept one struggling, that pulled one on and on, to sink
into peace there, with all the family safe and happy down-
stairs. After all, she was a Moonstone girl, one of the
preacher's children. Everything else was in Fred's imagi-
nation. Why was she called upon to take such chances?
Any safe, humdrum work that did not compromise her
would be better. But if she failed now, she would lose her
soul. There was nowhere to fall, after one took that step,
except into abysses of wretchedness. She knew what
abysses, for she could still hear the old man playing in the
snowstorm, "" That melody
was released in her like a passion of longing. Every nerve
in her body thrilled to it. It brought her to her feet, car-
ried her somehow to bed and into troubled sleep.
That night she taught in Moonstone again: she beat her
pupils in hideous rages, she kept on beating them. She
sang at funerals, and struggled at the piano with Harsanyi.
In one dream she was looking into a hand-glass and think-
ing that she was getting better-looking, when the glass
began to grow smaller and smaller and her own reflection
to shrink, until she realized that she was looking into Ray
Kennedy's eyes, seeing her face in that look of his which
she could never forget. All at once the eyes were Fred
Ottenburg's, and not Ray's. All night she heard the shriek-
ing of trains, whistling in and out of Moonstone, as she
used to hear them in her sleep when they blew shrill in the
winter air. But to-night they were terrifying,--the spec-
tral, fated trains that "raced with death," about which the
old woman from the depot used to pray.
In the morning she wakened breathless after a struggle
with Mrs. Livery Johnson's daughter. She started up with
a bound, threw the blankets back and sat on the edge of
the bed, her night-dress open, her long braids hanging over
her bosom, blinking at the daylight. After all, it was not
too late. She was only twenty years old, and the boat sailed
at noon. There was still time!
Read next: PART VI. KRONBORG#Chapter 1
Read previous: PART V. DOCTOR ARCHIE'S VENTURE#Chapter 4
Table of content of Song of the Lark
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your reviewYour review will be placed after the table of content of this book
