CHAPTER VIII
In the Robson flat the lights were still burning when Claire got home. Especially in her mother's room there was an unusual brilliance for so late an hour. Claire was frightened. She scrambled up the stairs. Danilo was leaving the sick-room. "What?..." gasped Claire. "Has anything...."
He smiled mysteriously and shook his head. She went in.
She found her mother propped up and looking more animated than at any time since her illness. Her eyes were glowing and two faint spots burned on either cheek.
"Claire!... Claire!" she whispered, excitedly. "Danilo...."
"Yes!"
"It seems.... He wants to marry you, Claire.... He came to me because ... it appears that is the custom in his country."
Claire felt the room whirling.
"Well, mother?"
"He is a kind man, Claire," she heard her mother say.
She went out into the hall. Danilo was standing calm and confident at the head of the stairs.
"Your mother ... has she told you?"
"Yes."
"You are not ready—is that it?"
"I...." She gave a startled look and fell back a trifle. Then more quietly she finished: "Let us go somewhere.... This.... I cannot talk to you here!"
They went down together ... out into the night. She wondered what she would say ... what was there to talk about?... This was the moment she had been waiting for all her life—the moment that every woman waited for ... and still it appeared that it was a matter for calm discussion. Perhaps the formality of Danilo's procedure had robbed the incident of its surge and sweep.... She did not know.... All she knew was that she was trembling.... Afraid?... Well, perhaps ... a trifle. Was it always so?
At the first corner they came upon Danilo's car. Danilo halted.
"No ... no ... let us walk!" she protested.
He yielded to her humor with a gracious shrug. She slipped her arm into his and as quickly withdrew it—he was trembling, too!...
They walked down Clay Street in silence. Instinctively Claire turned toward the quickened pulse of the town. They passed through the gaudy shops of Chinatown into the Latin quarter.... Crossing Broadway, they came upon a flight of steps that lost their way in the white fog which shrouded Telegraph Hill.
"Shall we go up?" said Danilo.
Claire turned for a moment and looked back at the light-blurred city.
"Yes," she answered, as she gave a little shiver.
She took his arm and they began to climb; the city fell beneath them, a faintly luminous outline growing more and more remote. Dimmed by the sad and mysterious tears of evening, the squalid hillside lost its harshness; the cold street-lamps mellowed to gold in the still, thick air.
They reached the crest of the hill. A breeze from the west showered them with a flurry of moisture. They looked up. A wind-tortured tree was bending wearily forward, its dripping leaves trembling before the night's breath. The sound of an accordion rose above the muffled moaning of fog-whistles.
The street had ended suddenly in rout and was running away in a disorderly succession of aimless paths.
"Where shall we go now?" asked Danilo, as he halted.
"Toward the music," Claire replied, vaguely.
He listened a moment. "It is over on the east side of the hill somewhere," he announced.
They dipped down. The way became more ragged and full of shifting rocks. The air was warmer, screened from the sea's breath by the yellow hilltop. The sound of the music grew nearer and nearer. A tawny light sprang up just ahead; snatches of laughter reached them. Then, quite suddenly, they came to an abrupt and jagged ledge.
"See, down there!" cried Danilo.
Claire looked. Just below them in a bowl-like depression that had once been the clearing for an old-fashioned garden she saw black figures swaying rhythmically about a bonfire. Danilo, taking a newspaper out of his overcoat pocket, spread it on the ground. They sat down.
The curtain rises on villagers dancing on the village green. Claire remembered the old formula with which the printed synopsis of the Christmas pantomime inevitably began. It had been to her nothing but an empty phrase like the "once upon a time" of a folk-tale. Claire had never seen a village; she had seen only cities and country towns, peopled by individuals too self-conscious to do anything so naïve and simple as to dance open and unashamed upon the bare earth.
The bonfire blazed up suddenly and the dim figures became more tangible and alive. Claire could even see their faces. Remnants of a feast were scattered about—blue-black mussel-shells, soiled tamale-husks, brown crusts of Italian bread that had been baked in huge round loaves. The music stopped. The girls detached themselves from their partners. Jugs of wine were now lifted up. The men drank with heads thrown back, smacking their lips in greedy satisfaction. The women, standing apart, began to smooth out their dresses and straighten their hats. Somebody came forward to the women carrying a demijohn and tin cups. The women drank coquettishly, tossing the last mouthful out upon the camp-fire. Then the music began again.
Claire leaned forward, her lips parted with a spiritual hunger she could not define. She felt Danilo's hand slowly closing over hers; she made no attempt to withdraw it. As she sat there watching these women surrendering to their transient joys she felt a strange envy, mixed with profound pity. These women danced to-night; they would dance to-morrow night ... for a week, or a month, or a year, as the case might be, but finally the reckoning would come. But at least they danced! At least they would have their memories!
One brown wisp of a girl stood out from all the rest. She was not so deep-bosomed and broad of hips as the other women, and she danced airily, darting here and there like a blue-winged swallow. Her partner, too, was taller and thinner-flanked than the other men. Her head was tilted back and her man bent forward as if to imprison her very breath in the snare which his smile had set. Whenever the music stopped they drank from the same tin cup, and when the dance began again they whirled off like two leaves in the clutch of the autumn breeze.
Claire bent forward eagerly; a movement of her foot sent a detached stone tumbling over the cliff into the midst of the dancers. They all halted, looked up in surprise. Then the young woman, catching a glimpse of Claire and Danilo, waved a welcome.
"Come!" she called, gaily. "Come and have a dance!"
The music, which had ceased for a brief instant, started up.
"Shall ... shall we go down?" asked Claire.
"Yes.... Why not?"
They circled down the hillside hand in hand.
When they came up to the bonfire wine was being poured and thick slices of bread passed about. The little brown girl came forward, showing her white teeth.
"Here, Tony! This way with the wine!" she cried.
Her partner answered her call. He had two tin cups and a demijohn in his hand. He filled both cups to the brim, passing one to Claire and one to the girl at his side. Both women took a sip; the girl handed the cup back to her companion.
"You, too!" she said to Claire. "You and your man! You are like us ... lovers! You must drink so ... from the same cup."
Claire looked at Danilo. He put out his hand and took the cup from her.... They brought bread next, not sliced, but in a huge brown loaf. The youth broke through the crisp crust and gave them each a piece. It seemed to Claire as if she were partaking of some strange and beautiful sacrament. She looked away from the firelight—the fog had grown whiter and more dense, and the city below them had ceased to exist. It was as if care had died and this pallid mist were a winding-sheet that would forever screen its ghastly face.
The music started up once more. The little brown girl and her lover whirled away.
"Come," said Danilo, as he drew Claire gently toward him.
She tossed aside her hat, throwing it with joyful abandon upon the top of a stunted rose-hedge which bent to receive it. They began to dance, simply, beautifully, naturally, their feet planted firmly upon the yellow clay, their quick, ardent breaths further whitening the evening air.
"Claire! Claire!" Danilo bent over, in the fashion of the lean-flanked youth, toward her parted lips. "Claire, do you hear me?... I love you!"
"Yes," she answered, smiling back at him, "I hear you!"
"From the same cup, Claire ... joy or sorrow! We shall drink always from the same cup."
"Yes, joy or sorrow! Joy or sorrow!" she repeated after him.
"When we mounted the stairs to-night, Claire, we did not know that we were climbing to happiness."
"Let us stay up here always.... Let us never go down."
"Always, Claire, always. We shall never return."
The music stopped. They, too, stopped, out of breath and bewildered. The musician was folding up his accordion.
"Ah," cried the little brown girl, running up to them, "it is over too soon! But we cannot dance all night. There is work to-morrow."
"Yes," assented Claire, slowly. "You are right."
The wine-jugs were lifted and the wine-cups filled for the last time. Danilo took a perfunctory sip and passed his cup to Claire; she put it to her lips—this time the wine had a bitter taste. She thrust the drink from her at arm's-length and poured a red flood upon the tawny, sun-baked ground.
Already the company was departing. Claire and Danilo stood apart and watched them go. They dipped down the hillside, fading into the mists like a company of devout and penitent pilgrims. The fire had sunk to a heap of red embers.
"We must be going, too," said Claire.
They made their way back to the flight of steps. The west wind had risen sharply, and the fog parted in the breeze. The city was emerging from its gloom like a bejeweled woman dropping a scarf from her gleaming shoulders.
"Must ... must we really go back?" Claire asked, suddenly, as she drew away from the first downward step.
He took her hand. "Are you afraid ... with me?" he said, gently.
She pressed his hand. "Can it be over so soon?"
"Over? It has just begun, Claire. Have you forgotten?... From the same cup!"
"Joy or sorrow," she repeated.
He led her back a short distance. They withdrew into the shelter of a twisted acacia that seemed determined to escape from the imprisonment of its squalid garden. She leaned against the fence.
"Ah, Claire!" she heard him say, and she felt the shadow of his upraised arms fall upon her, "can you not picture our life together?... All the brave things to do and accomplish?... This is as I have always dreamed it—to share even my workday with my wife. To share my poverty with her. To share my aspirations. Come, what is your answer?"
She raised her brimming eyes to his. "Yes," she answered.
He put his fingers to her temples and drew her face toward him. "My wife!" he said, simply. And he let his lips fall upon her hair.
What had she come to talk about? Problems?... her mother?... her duties?... How absurd, when nothing else mattered but just this ... nothing else in the whole wide world!
They walked slowly to the brow of the hill.
"If every one could be as happy!" escaped her.
"Ah yes," he murmured, "but there is an end even to sorrow.... To-day my friend Stillman's sorrow ended ... his wife is dead."