CHAPTER IX
A month had passed since Kenwick became a member of the staff of the"San Francisco Clarion." The work had been going well, and the perpetualsmall excitement of a newspaper office brought back some of the oldthrill that he had known in his college days. But every emotion came insubdued form now. There was a shadow across his sky, a soft pedalapplied to every emotion. And until this was lifted he resolved to denyhimself a sight of the house on Pine Street.
But during the beginning of his fifth week in the city desire overcamepride and caution, and late one night he walked up the familiar hill andlooked into one of the lighted windows. There was no one in the room andthe furniture and floors were covered with heavy canvas sheetingspattered with calcimine. An ugly step-ladder stood directly in front ofthe window, partly obstructing his view. He was about to turn away inbleak despair when the glitter of some small object in a far corner ofthe room caught his eye. Peering more intently under the half-drawnshade he saw that the gleaming thing was a small tinsel ball suspendedfrom the lowest branch of a tiny Christmas-tree. It was almost NewYear's day now, and the little fir with its brave showing of gilt andsilver had been relegated to a distant corner to make way for theaggressive progress of the painters. The man at the window, staring infrom the darkness at the drooping glory of the little tree, felt for ita sudden sense of kinship. And the Christmas-tree stared back at himwith an inarticulate sort of questioning. There was to Kenwick aterrible sort of patience in its attitude. Torn away from its normalenvironment, transplanted suddenly and without warning into surroundingsgiddily artificial, and bereft of the roots with which to explore them,the little fir-tree stood there, holding in its out-stretched arms thebaubles of an unfamiliar and irrelevant existence. He turned away,maddened by a fury that he did not comprehend. "Anything but that!" hecried savagely. "Anything but the patience of hopelessness!"
His thoughts were in a whirl, and he was unconscious of the fact that hewas almost running down the slanting pavement. When he became aware ofit he slackened his pace abruptly. He was a fool, he told himself."Anybody watching me would size me up for an escaped convict--prowlingaround doorsteps at night; sneaking up to windows, like a professionalburglar looking over his territory."
He let himself into his room at the St. Germaine and snapped on thelight. The first thing his eyes fell upon in the bare, prim chamber wasa letter propped against his mirror. It was a yellow envelope and itbore the dull black insignia of the dead-letter office. There wassomething ominous-looking about it. There is always something ominousabout that pale yellow, unstamped envelope that issues, unheralded andunwanted, from the cemetery of letters. Inside of it was a communicationwritten upon the St. Germaine stationery and addressed in his ownhandwriting to his brother, Everett Kenwick. It had been opened andsealed again, and across one end something was written. The single wordseemed to leap out at Kenwick with the brutal unexpectedness of a bomb.He dropped the envelope as though it had stung him and stood gazing downat it. It stared malignantly back at him, burning a fiery path to hisbrain. Up and down the room he strode muttering over and over to himselfthat one horrible word: "Deceased! Deceased!"
The walls of the room seemed to be coming closer and closer. He felt asif he were being smothered. Taking his hat he went out into the hall,and walked down the five flights of stairs rather than encounter theelevator-boy. On the way down he decided to send a telegram of inquiryto the family lawyer in New York. The indelible pencil handed to him bythe girl in the little hotel booth seemed to write the message quite ofits own accord. And there was a calming sort of comfort in theimpersonal manner of the telegraph-operator herself as she counted offmechanically the frantic words of his query.
As he turned away he was conscious of only one impulse; to be withsomebody. He must have companionship of some sort, any sort, or he wouldlose his reason. From the dining-room there drifted out to him thepleasant din of human voices. He made his way inside and followed thehead-waiter to his accustomed seat beside one of the mirror walls.
The hotel dining-room was full that evening. There was an Elks'convention in the city and the lobby swarmed with delegates. At histable Kenwick found three other men, and was pathetically grateful fortheir comradeship. Two of them were from Sacramento. The thirdintroduced himself as Granville Jarvis, late of New Orleans. Kenwickremembered having seen him several times about the hotel. He had thatquiet, magnetic sort of personality that never comes quite halfway tomeet the casual acquaintance, but that possesses a subtle, indefinablepower that lures others across the intervening territory. "I havesomething for you," Granville Jarvis seemed to say. "I have somethingthat I'll be glad to give you--if you care to come and get it."
The other men talked volubly, including the quartet in their randomconversation. Jarvis was an appreciative listener, an unmistakablecosmopolite, whose occasional contributions to the table-talk werekeen-edged and subtly humorous. In his speech lingered only a fainttrace of the Southern drawl. Of the three men, his was the personalitywhich attracted Kenwick. The two Elks finished their dessert hurriedlyand left before the coffee was served. Then Granville Jarvis, glancingat the haggard face of the young man across the table, ventured thefirst personal remark of the hour. "You've scarcely eaten a thing, andyou look all in. I don't want to intrude into your affairs, but is thereanything I can do?"
It was that unexpected kindliness that always proves too much foroverstrung nerves. "I've just had bad news," Kenwick admitted. "It'srather shaken me up. But you can't do anything, thanks."
"Better take a walk out in the fresh air," Jarvis suggested. "I know howyou feel. It's beastly--when a man is all alone."
"I am alone; that's the damnable part of it. And I've got to somehow getthrough the night."
The other man nodded with silent comprehension. "I'll take a stroll withyou if you like, and you don't have to talk."
Kenwick accepted the offer eagerly, and for an hour he and his companionwalked almost in silence. Then Kenwick, still haunted by the specter ofsolitude, invited the New Orleans man up to his room. There stretchedout comfortably in two deep chairs, with an ash-tray between them, theydiscussed politics, books, and New York. "It's my home town," Kenwickexplained, "but I'm a Westerner by adoption. They say, 'Once a NewYorker, always a New Yorker,' but it hasn't worked that way with me."
Jarvis smiled. "They say that about Emporia, Kansas, too, and about allthe other towns ranging in between. It's a world-wide colloquialism.Don't you go back to visit, though?"
"I've been thinking of it," his host replied. And then, despite thefact that his guest was a complete stranger, perhaps because of thatfact, he felt an overwhelming desire to tell him of his trouble. Forthere is a certain security in confiding a sorrow to a casual stranger.Every care-ridden person in the world has felt the impulse, has beenimpelled to it by the realization that there is safety in remoteness.You will never see the stranger again, or if you do, he will haveforgotten you and your trouble. A transitory interest has itsadvantages. It demands nothing in the way of a sequel. It keeps no watchupon your struggle; it demands no final reckoning. You and your agonyare to the chance acquaintance a short-story, not a serial.
Jarvis was leaning back in his deep chair, one leg dangling carelesslyover the broad arm. His eye-glasses, rimmed with the thinnest thread oftortoise-shell, gave him a certain intellectuality. Although he wasstill in the early thirties there were deep lines about his mouth. Hehad lived, Kenwick decided. And having lived, he must know somethingabout life. Jarvis glanced up suddenly and met his gaze.
"Funny thing, my being here, isn't it?" he said. "Up here in your room,smoking your cigars, sprawling over your furniture as though I'd knownyou always instead of being the merest chance acquaintance."
Mashing the gray end of his cigar into the ash-tray Kenwick madeslow-toned response. "I don't think it's curious. I don't think it'scurious at all because as I look back on my life all the vital things init have had casual beginnings. I have a steadily increasing respect forthe small
emergencies of life. Whenever I carefully set my stage forsome dramatic event it's sure to turn out a thin affair. The best scenesare those which are impromptu and carry their own properties."
"That's flattering to a chance acquaintance, but a hard knock at yourfriends."
"I'm all for chance acquaintances," Kenwick responded. "Friends have anuncomfortable habit of failing to show up at the moment of crisis. Justwhen you're terribly in need of them, they fall sick or get absorbed inbuilding a new house, or go to Argentina. And then, before you have timeto grow cynical, along comes somebody that you just bow to on thestreet, and he sees you are in trouble and offers a lift. The people whoreally owe you something, never pay. They pass the buck to the chanceacquaintance, and nine times out of ten he makes good. Makes thingsmore interesting that way. After all, life isn't merely a system ofbookkeeping."
Kenwick prided himself upon the fact that he had kept the bitterness outof his voice, but when Jarvis spoke, this illusion was shattered. "Toughluck, Mr. Kenwick. As I said before, I don't want to horn in, but I'd beglad to score another point for the C. A. if it would be of any help toyou, and there's nobody else about."
Kenwick put down his cigar. "To tell the truth, there's nobody about atall. It happens that during the past year every friend I had has gone,figuratively speaking, to Argentina. Some of them used to beparticularly good at helping me out with my yarns. I'm a fiction-writer,you know, and I'm under contract to finish a mystery-story for one ofthe magazines. I'm stuck, and it's bothering me a lot. Can't move thething a peg. I know that the man who talks about his own stories is asmuch of a pest as the man who tells his dreams but if----"
Jarvis had settled down into his chair with a sigh of luxurious content."Shoot," he commanded. "It's great stuff being talked to when I'm notexpected to make any replies. What's the name of it?"
"It hasn't any name just yet, but I'll let you be godfather at thechristening. This is just a scenario of the situation, with all thecolor and atmosphere left out." He reached over and snapped off thechandelier light, leaving only the soft glow from the little brass lampupon the table.
"The story," he began when he had resumed his seat, "hinges upon thefortunes of two brothers--or rather the fortunes of one and themisfortunes of the other. The parents die when the elder of the two isthirty and the younger almost nineteen. The older brother has married,and at the death of his mother comes back with his wife, to live at theold home. But the sister-in-law and younger brother are not congenial,and the boy, who has ambitions for a professional training decides to goaway from home to a distant university. There is very little oppositionto the plan. For the sister-in-law is in favor of it, and the elderbrother (who is guardian, of course, and a splendid fellow) consents onthe condition that the boy spend his summer vacations at home. He hopesin this way to keep in touch with him and does.
"In the spring of his senior year, America enters the war, and the boy,now a man of twenty-three, enlists and in the autumn gets across. Hesees more than six months of action at the front without getting ascratch. But at the end of that time his nerves go to pieces and he issent first to a convalescent hospital in England and then home. There hefinds the old place completely changed under his sister-in-law's regimeand he is so obviously unhappy about it that his brother suggests thathe accept the invitation of an old family friend and spend the winterwith him in his California home. He complies with this plan, the moreeagerly because it gives him an excuse to get back to the environmentwhich he has grown to love and the associates that he knew in hiscollege days.
"Without adventure he arrives at the little southern California town,and is met at the depot by his friend's chauffeur. But on the way out tothe house they meet with an automobile accident that shakes him uppretty badly and, so far as he can determine from circumstantialevidence, kills the driver. Stranded alone and injured in an unfamiliarvillage, he applies at the first house he comes to for aid. It chancesto be one of those palatial country homes, so plentiful in that region,which seems to have been built for the exclusive use of caretakers. Foralthough it is completely and elegantly furnished and bears everyevidence of being tenanted he stays there ill for more than twenty-fourhours, absolutely alone except for the presence of a mysterious womanwho is apparently locked into one of the bedrooms upstairs, and whom henever sees.
"On the second night he makes a surreptitious escape from this uncannyprison, without ever having encountered its owner, and by a happy strokeof chance, makes his way up the coast to San Francisco. Here he plans toestablish himself permanently, look up some of his old associates, andget in touch with life again. But this scheme is thwarted in a mostunexpected manner. For on the morning of his arrival something happensthat makes chaos of his plans and starts him upon a quest, not into thefuture, but into the past. In the station depot he stops long enough topurchase a newspaper, and----"
Kenwick paused for an instant and glanced at his auditor.
"Go on," Jarvis commanded with that impatient curtness that is the bestassurance of interest.
"He buys a newspaper," the narrator went on. "And from the date on it helearns that instead of having lost connection with the world for twodays, he has been out of it for almost a year. There are ten months ofhis life that he can't account for at all.
"At the library he reads up and discovers that the war is over. From thenewspapers and magazines he picks up the thread of world events andorients himself with regard to national and local affairs. But toconnect his own past and present proves, as you may suspect, an almosthopeless task. He sends several telegrams to his own home, all of whichare ignored. A letter to his brother brings, after long delay, thestartling information that he is dead. The message bowls him overcompletely. And the more the thing preys upon his mind the more certainhe is that there has been foul play. He begins to be haunted by theconviction that he is being watched. The only safe course open to himseems to be to lead as normal and inconspicuous an existence as possibleuntil he can hear from the family lawyer."
Kenwick broke off suddenly and reached for the ash-tray. "Well," hesaid, "what do you think of it?"
Jarvis stirred in his chair. When he spoke he appeared to be returningrather breathlessly from a long distance. "Great stuff," he commented."It seems to have all the ingredients for a best-seller, except one."
"What's that?"
"Well, I don't pose as a critic of literature. But judging from thenovels I've read I should say that the thing it lacks is romance. Thepoor devil ought to be in love with somebody, or somebody ought to be inlove with him."
Kenwick's face stiffened. It was apparent that he had not expected thiscriticism. And he found himself envying those people who can discusstheir love affairs. But not to his best friend could he have mentionedMarcreta Morgan's name. "I told you I was just giving you a scenario ofthis thing," he reminded his critic. "I'll work up that part of itlater. As a matter of fact there is a woman in it. He proposed to herbefore he went into the service and she rejected him."
"And he didn't look her up afterward?"
"Well, he could hardly do that, not until he had accounted for himself.And especially as she had shown no interest in him whatever while he wasaway."
"You never can tell about a woman, though. The fact that he had comeback a pariah and was in trouble might arouse her love."
"No, not her love; her pity perhaps."
"Well, I won't argue with an author. They are supposed to be authoritieson such questions. Go on with the thing. Where _had_ the chap beenduring those ten months?"
"I haven't the least idea."
Jarvis brought himself upright. "Why, you outrageous devil!" he cried."Getting me all worked up over a story that you can't see the end ofyourself! And how about the family estate? What became of that?"
"I haven't finished plotting the thing yet. That's why I told it to you.If I had solved all its problems it wouldn't have been necessary toinflict it upon you."
His guest rose and stretched himself. "Well, I'm afraid I w
asn't muchhelp," he said ruefully. "Fact is, I haven't any creative imagination atall. I'm the kind of reader that writers of detective yarns love. I'llswallow anything that's got a little salt on it, and I never guess rightabout the ending."
He fumbled in an inside pocket of his coat and drew out a card. "I'dlike to have you return this call some time, Mr. Kenwick. I'm not faraway from you, just two blocks around the corner in the HartshireBuilding. If you care anything for photography, drop around some timeand I'll show you some interesting pictures. They are a harmless hobbyof mine. I fuss around in a laboratory over there most of the time, andwhen I'm not there I'm in the dark room."
Kenwick promised to come, and a moment later Granville Jarvis was gone.Bereft of his sympathetic presence the room seemed overpowering in itsgaunt emptiness. The last two hours of genial companionship were sweptaside as ruthlessly as though they had never been, and Kenwick foundhimself back again at that ghastly moment when he had torn open theyellow envelope. For he was to learn, in the crucial school ofexperience, that the sorrow of bereavement is not a permanentlyengulfing flood, but that it comes in waves, ebbing away under thepressure of objective living only to gather volume for a renewed attack.And in the moment that its victim recovers a staggering strength, it isupon him again, sweeping aside in one crashing moment the pitifuldefenses of philosophy and faith which the soul has constructed to saveitself from shipwreck.
Until after midnight Kenwick sat at the window waiting for a summonsfrom the telephone. Then he went to bed and fell into a listening sortof sleep. But not during that night nor in the days that followed wasthere any response to his telegram.