TWENTY-FIRST CHAPTER
THE SINGING DISTANCES
David Cairns was coming along. He had ridden his ego down stream, until he heard the rapids. Now he was towing it back. He planned to go just as far and as fast up stream as he could. The current, to him, had become the crowd. One can see the crowd as it brushes past, as one can never see it from the ruck…. Sometimes it came to him in a flash, that this new David Cairns was but another lie and pose—but this couldn't hold. It was a bit of deviltry that wouldn't stand scrutiny. There had been too much unfolding o' nights; too many gifts found upon the doorstep of his mind in the morning, revealing the sleepless activity of something identified with him, but wiser than he; too much cutting down of false cultures, and outpourings of sincere friendship, and general joy of giving. Then, there was some real clean-cut thinking that expressed itself with brevity and finish; and also, the wonder-working in his heart—the happiest thing that had ever befallen—his conception of the genius of woman in Vina Nettleton.
Cairns' experience with women was not nearly so large as it looked. He had known many women, but impersonally. He was late to mature, and all his younger energies were used for what he had believed to be the world's work, but what he now perceived were the activities of a vain, ego-driven intellect, that delighted to attract the passing eye by the ring of the anvil and a great show of unsleeved muscle. Much of this early work had kept him afield, and his calls home to New York had inflicted upon him the fatal stimulus for quantity. His still earlier years were passed in a home where a placid mother reigned, and a large family of sisters served. He, therefore, met the world's women without that mighty tang of novelty which features the young manhood of the unsistered.
He had undergone his mannish period of treason to women generally. These were the days when he believed in using force—punishing with words—"punch," he called it. This is a mental indelicacy which the ordinary man seldom outgrows. His crowning fact is that dynamite will loosen stumps and break rock. Therefore, all that is not dynamite is not proper man-stuff. Woman, to this sort, is something between "an angel and an idiot." She must be guarded from herself in all that has to do with thought and performance. As panderer and caterer, she emphatically belongs. Young men grasp this. If they reach middle age with it, only an angel can roll the stone away.
Cairns now realized he had been near to missing one of the greatest moments that come into the life of man. What chance has the ordinary male—half-grown, except physically—of ever glowing with real chivalry? To him women are easy, common, plentiful, without mystery or lofty radiance. How can the valor of humility brighten his quest? How can he be a lover—who does not realize his poverty, his evil, the vastness of his need? What does it mean to the mere male, this highest of earthly gifts, the glance from a woman which ends his quest of her, the gift of herself? To be great and a man, and a lover, he must reach that point of declaration which holds: Without her, I am an outcast; with her I can alter worlds! A transcendent moment of conquest is the winning of a woman, to such a spirit….
A frightful void stretches between mere man and reality…. Mere man must be baptized in spirit to feel the anguish that is woman's, to give her real treasures to some male. Which are the greater artists and producers, the saviors of the race? Those heroines who survive the heart-break of man's indelicacy, and manage alone to give their treasures to their children. The art of such women lives, indeed. David Cairns was coming along.
The work that Andrew Bedient began in the Cairns mind and heart was being finished by Vina Nettleton. In great thirst of soul, he had come to her and been restored. He was very eager to leave all he had in the shelter of the palms.
"David," Bedient had said, "there is only one greater work for a man in the world than making a woman happy; and that—making all women happier! It seems that an avatar must come for that soon. To-day the great gifts of women are uncalled for by men. They cannot take each other, save in physical arms. There is a barrier between the sexes. Man has not learned, or has forgotten, the heart-language. What a need for lovers! If one could look into the secret places of women, across the world's table, into the minds of women who hate and are restless, and whose desires rove; even into the minds of those who actually venture beyond the man-made pale, he would see over all the need of lovers!… Give a woman love, and she will give the world lovers, and we shall have brotherhood singing in our ears…. David, I ask you only to look at the genius born of woman, in and out of wedlock, during the first days of her mating with a man whom she believes to be all that she has cried out for. He may have destroyed every hope afterward, sacked every sanctuary, but, if she trembled close to her great happiness in the beginning, the child of such a beginning has glory upon his brow!"
Cairns was ready to see; ready to read this in the history of men. More than this, he was ready to flood fresh dawns of light into the tired eyes of Vina Nettleton, and upon her pallor make roses bloom. Moreover, he could discern in her an immortal artist, the conception of which changed him from a male to a man.
And of this seeing came another needed conception: that intellectual arrogance is the true modern devil; that the ancient devil, desire of flesh, is obvious, banal, and commonplace, compared to this…. He dared to bring his realizations to a woman, and found that she had a crown for each and every one. And he learned to talk to her about things vital to men and women, and found that this was the strangest, grandest and most providential hour in the world—this newest hour.
It was with a rich and encompassing delight that Cairns discovered Vina's fineness, endurance, delicacy, and intuition. He was humble before her spirit, for he had become sensitive to that which was mystic and ineffable. He saw through her, a sanction and authority for his own future years, her light upon the work he must do. The animation of his mind in her presence was pure with service. And Vina awakened, for she saw with trembling, what is a miracle to a modern woman's eyes, man's delight to honor that which is most truly woman's. So her girlhood crept back.
* * * * *
At first Vina thought he was using her for a study. They had long been friends; she was glad to be of assistance; so he was free to come and go, and she was free with him as only an old comrade can be—one who expects nothing. They had great talks about Bedient; both revered him, and were grateful for his coming. And Vina was not slow to see the change in David Cairns; that it was in nowise momentary, but sound and structural. She took a deep interest in his progress, mothered it, made him glad to show her its phases.
"Things are looking so differently to me," he said, one of the first days. "It makes me think of the American soldiers I met the first time afield—the time I met Bedient. I praised the officers for their own home papers. They looked so big and thrilling to me, as men. It was easy. I remember riding with a cavalry leader one rough day—a long day. He was hard and still with courage. He rolled a hundred cigarettes that day. I thought him the genius of an officer. Then I saw him afterward over here. It was the same with others. They seemed to have left their glory out there among the swamps and the hills…. It's the same way with the things I thought before Bedient came…. I can see your things a lot better."
It was true, he could. Vina had noted that. He could sense her atmosphere, and divine her intents. Formerly, he had taken the word of the others that she had power for her work…. Almost every afternoon now he tapped at her door. Entering, he would take a seat by the fire-frame, stare a bit at the city or the tower, or move about behind her, regarding the freshly done work; and presently they would find themselves talking. It was because David Cairns, as a lover, was out of the question from her point of view in the first days, that such a splendid companionship was established. He did not know that a woman could be such a companion; and her unconsciousness of his deeper quest, gave her an ease with him, that was one of the secrets of her great and growing charm.
Heretofore, all feminine aspirants for Cairns' admiration had ranged themselves in his mind against the paragon, Beth Truba (with whom he had long comported himself with a rueful might-have-been manner, both pretty and pleasant). Beth had easily transcended. Whatever was great and desirable in woman was likely to wear a Beth Truba hall-mark for his observation. Now, that was changed, not that Beth suffered eclipse, nor that his admiration abated; indeed, his gratefulness for that word of Beth's at just the proper moment, which had caused him gallantly to take the road of Vina Nettleton, was a rare study; but another had risen, not of Beth, but of more intimate meaning to the man, David Cairns. Beth's great force of feminine energy and aspiration, he had been unable to attract. Beth had demanded more than virtue from him, and at a time when he was not finished enough to answer her many restless dreams.
Cairns and Vina Nettleton had in reality just met, and at one of the memorable crossings of eternity. To each, the other had just been brought forth from a sumptuous shadow of nature. In the brighter light they discerned each other. Cairns was first to see, for he had been told, and he brought to the meeting all the fresh inspirations of his maturity, and they rested upon the solid values earned through a life of hard-held decency.
Among the May days there was one afternoon in which the conception of summer was in the air. It was not the heat alone, but the stirring of the year's tremendous energy everywhere, even under pavements. The warmth of creation was kindly in old bones and old walls, and an imperious quickening in the elastic veins of youth. Vina (half-way up a step-ladder) turned about and sat down on one of the steps. Cairns had asked her what plans she had for the summer.
"Oh, I shan't be a great way from New York. Maybe a trip or two over to my beloved Nantucket."
This started her to thinking and presently to expatiating upon the dearest place on earth to her mind…. She told him how the villagers refused to have mail-service, as it threatened to destroy one of the important social features of the day, that of going to the post office for letters. Also he was informed that automobiles were forbidden in Nantucket, and that a train started daily across the Island, a nine-mile journey, and sometimes arrived. The conductor and engineer, both old seamen, were much more interested in a change of weather, a passing ship, or a school of fish, than in the immediate schedule or right of way…. And Cairns was given another glimpse of the enchantress that had been hidden so long in the workaday vesture of the little artist, as she unfolded:
"To me, there's real peace and silence away out there in the sea. Every thought is a picture…. You know the little gray shingle houses are built very close together, and many are flush with the sidewalk. They don't draw the shades at night, and everyone uses little muslin curtains which conceal nothing. One of my favorite things to do is to walk along Pleasant Street to Lily Lane, or through Vestal Street, just about dusk, and see the darling interiors of the spotless cottages. Not really to stop nor stare, just to go softly and slowly by…. One house has little heads around the tea-table with father and mother; another has company for supper; and the next—just old folks are left—but all so radiant as they shine out through the old-fashioned window-panes…. To have one of those places for one's own! It has seemed the happiest destiny for me, but only for the very fortunate and elect…. I wonder if they ever know of the night-birds that flutter at the window-panes to see the happiness within?"
Cairns might have taken this very lightly; even with a reservation that she knew realities did not fit the ideal; that such realities were not for the elect always;—but he chose to regard it instead, as an expression of Vina's yearning, which she felt safe in disclosing for the sake of the ingenious picture she made…. He looked about this remarkable studio in the heart of New York, where a really great task was being wrought to endure. Sometimes it seemed to him that the spirits of the saints came to rest in this place, where the woman worshipped them through her work…. And he knew she meant much that she said; that to her, work was not enough of the breath of life…. She had not completed her picture; rather life had not completed it for her.
Cairns confided in Bedient the Nantucket story, and an idea, occurred to the latter that delighted him. It was one of the evenings when they dined together at the Club…. Another day, Cairns inquired of Vina what took her to Nantucket in summer, curious as to the material arrangement.
"My own people used to go there summers when I was a little thing," she told him, "and of late—there are many friends who ask me over."
"Say, Vina, when you get over to Nantucket, would you be terribly disconcerted to discover some morning, down among the wharves there, with a copy of Moby Dick, and a distressed look from deciding whether breakfast should be of clam or cod chowder—me?"
"I should be glad of all things," she said with quiet eagerness. "There are so many ways to pass the hours——"
"Besides walking in Lily Lane in the dusk?"
"Yes…. There's the ride over the open moors. It's like Scotland in places, with no division or fences, and the sea away off in all directions. Then, we must go to the lighthouse, one of the most important of America, and the first to welcome the steamers coming in from Europe. And the Haunted House on Moor's End, the Prince Gardens and the wonderful old water-front—where I am to discover you—once so rich and important in the world, now forgotten and sunken and deserted, except for an old seasoned sea captain here and there, smoking about, dreaming as you imagine, of the China trade or the lordly days of the old sperm fishery, and looking wistfully out toward the last port…. Venice or Nantucket—I can hardly say which is more dream-like or alluring, or sad with the goneness of its glory…. I'd love to show you, because I know every stick and stone on the Island, and many of its quaint people."
"And when do you think you will go?" he asked.
"I don't know, David,—not before the last of June. And I won't be able to stay very long this year, because there is no place to work there. I ought to have a little change and rest, but I can't afford to 'run down' entirely—just enough to freshen the eye."
Cairns nodded seriously….
A day or two afterward he brought Bedient. To Vina he was like some tremendous vibration in the room. Her mind was roused as if by some great music…. It was in nothing that Bedient had said or looked, yet only a little while after the two men had gone, Vina realized she had a lover in David Cairns.
She was dismayed, filled with confusion and alarm, but this was the foreground of mind. She had the sense of glad singing in the distances. There was no sleep for hours this night, though of late, she had been sleeping unusually well…. Why had the realization been so slow in coming? An answer was ready enough: Because David was an old acquaintance. But another thought came: For years, except in rare reactionary hours, such as that afternoon in Beth's studio, she had put away the thought of man as a mate…. For years, she had tried to become a block instead of a battery; tried to give the full portion of her life to the thing called work, and hated herself because she couldn't. For years she had dreaded to go where men and women were, because the rare sight of human happiness brought upon her a torrent of dreams. The emptiness of her own life, together with the hatred of self, because she could not be glad for the simple object lesson of a man and woman happy in each other, made her miserable for hours. Late years she had not cared if she looked tacky. "What does it matter," she would ask, with a hateful glance into the glass, "when at best, I look like a water-nymph with hay-fever?"… A long and hard fight, but she had almost broken the habit of thinking what she might do with certain prerogatives of women, which were not granted to her. A bitter fight, and only she knew the hollowness of the honors her good work had brought. It was not the hard work that had left her at the end of many a long day—just a worn bundle of sparking nerve-ends.
And yet, this was the creature whom the new David Cairns had come to, again and again and again. This mighty fact arose from the vortex of confusion and alarm. "Ah, David," she thought, "is it not too late? Am I not too old and weathered a world-campaigner?… I am old, David. Older than my years. Older even than I look! I have warred so long, that I think all peace and happiness from now on would kill me. Oh, you don't want me. Surely you can't want me!"
But there were sad smilings upon the hundred hand-wrought faces in the room. The Marys, the Magdalens, and the Marthas were a strangely smiling Sisterhood…. "Child, you have been faithful in the little things," came to her. "You have thought of us and wept with us and loved us, and we have prevailed to bring you happiness."
And so the other side of the picture—Vina Nettleton's life picture—now turned. The "Stations" were like panels of fairies, after that. All the hidden shames and secrets of the years, the awful sense of being unwanted at the hearth of the human family, were taken from her, like the brittle and dusty packings from a glorious urn. Some marvel of freshness sped through her veins. She was not as yesterday—a little gray shade of an evil dream. Yesterday, and all the yesterdays, she had modelled alone, poor creatures of clay, and now the world suddenly called her to the academy of immortals….
Yes, he had come. He was brave and beloved…. She arose and knelt in the dark before that panel of greatest meaning—the Gethsemane. And long afterward, she stood by the open window. There were no stars, but the tired city was cut in light. And faint sounds reached her from below…. They were not Jews and Romans, but her own people, rushing to and fro for the happiness she had found.