CHAPTER XXIV
Spurlock's novel was a tale of regeneration. For a long time tocome that would naturally be the theme of any story he undertook towrite. After he was gone in the morning, Ruth would steal into thestudy and hurriedly read what he had written the previous night.She never questioned the motives of the characters; she had neitherthe ability nor the conceit for that; but she could and often didcorrect his lapses in colour. She never touched the manuscript withpencil, but jotted down her notes on slips of paper and left themwhere he might easily find them.
She marvelled at his apparent imperviousness to the heat. He workedafternoons, when everybody else went to sleep; he worked at nightunder a heat-giving light, with insects buzzing and dropping about,with a blue haze of tobacco smoke that tried to get out and couldnot. With his arms bare, the neckband of his shirt tucked in, helaboured. Frequently he would take up a box of talc and send ashower down his back, or fill his palms with the powder and rub hisface and arms and hands. He kept at it even on those nights whenthe monsoon began to break with heavy storms and he had to weightdown with stones everything on his table. Soot was everywhere, forthe lamp would not stay trimmed in the gale. But he wrote on.
As the novel grew Ruth was astonished to see herself enter anddominate it: sometimes as she actually was, with all her dreamsreviewed--as if he had caught her talking in her sleep. Itfrightened her to behold her heart and mind thus laid bare; butthe chapter following would reassure her. Here would be a womanperfectly unrecognizable, strong, ruthless but just.
This heroine ruled an island which (in the '80s) was rich withshell--pearl-shell; and she fought pearl thievers and maraudingbeachcombers, fought them with weapons and with woman's guile. Noman knew whence she had come nor why. That there would eventuallybe a lover Ruth knew; and she waited his appearance upon the scene,waited with an impatience which was both personal and literary. Ifthe creator drew a hero anything like himself, she would accept itas a sign that he did care a little.
Ruth did not resent the use of her mind and body in this tale ofadventure. She gloried in it: he needed her. When the hero finallydid appear, Ruth became filled with gentle self-mockery. He was noHoddy, but a tremendous man, with hairy arms and bearded face anddrink-shattered intellect. Day by day she followed the spiritualand physical contest between this man and woman. One day a pall ofblackness encompassed the sick mind of the giant; and when he cameto his senses, they properly functioned: and he saw his wife by hisbedside!
An astonishing idea entered Ruth's head one day--when the novel wascomplete in the rough--an astonishing idea because it had notdeveloped long ago. A thing which had mystified her sincechildhood, a smouldering wonder why it should be, and until now shehad never felt the urge to investigate. She tucked the missionBible under her arm, and crooking a finger at Rollo, went forth tothe west beach where the sou'-west surge piled up muddily, burdenedwith broken spars, crates, boxes, and weeds. During the wet monsoonthe west beach was always littered. Where the stuff came from wasalways a mystery.
The Enschede Bible--the one out of which she read--had beenstrangely mutilated. Sections and pages had been pasted together,and all through both Testaments a word had been blotted out. Theopen books she knew by heart; aye, they had been ground into her,morning and night. One of her duties, after she had been taught toread, had been to read aloud after breakfast and before going tobed. The same old lines and verses, over and over, until there hadcome times when shrieking would have relieved her. How she hadhated it!... All these mumblings which were never explained, whichcarried no more sense to her brain than they would have carried toOld Morgan's swearing parrot. Like the parrot, she could memorizethe lines, but she could not understand them. Never had her fatherexplained. "Read the first chapter of Job"; beyond that, nothing.Whenever she came upon the obliterated word and paused, her fatherwould say: "Faith. Go on." So, after a time, encountering the blot,she herself would supply the word Faith. But was it Faith? That iswhat she was this day going to find out.
She closed her eyes more vividly to recall some line which hadcarried the blot. And so she came upon the word _Love_. Blottedout--Love! With infinite care, through nearly a thousand pages,her father had obliterated the word _Love_. Why? Love was a word ofGod's, and yet her father had denied it--denied it to the Book,denied it to his own flesh and blood. Why? He could preach the Wordand deny Love!--tame the savage heart, succour broken whitemen!--pray with his face strained with religious fervour! The ideamade her dizzy because it was so inexplicable. She could accord herfather with one grace: he was not in any manner a hypocrite. Tenderwith the sick, firm with the strong, fearless, with a body that hadthe resistance of iron, there was nothing of the hypocrite in him.
She recalled him. A gaunt, powerful man: no feature of his facedecided, and yet for all that it had the significance of acountenance hewn out of rock. Never had he corrected her with handor whip, the ring in his voice had always been sufficient to cowerher. But never had the hand touched her with a father's caress;never had he taken her into his arms; never had he kissed her. Shehad never been "My child" or "My dear"; always her name--Ruth.
Love, obliterated, annihilated; out of his heart and out of hisBible. Why? Here was a curtain indeed. No matter. It was ended. Sheherself had cut the slender tie that had bound them. Ah, but shecould remember; and many things there were that she would neverforgive. Sometimes--a lonely forlorn child--she had gone to him andput her arms around his neck. Stonily he had disengaged himself. "Iforbid you to do that." She had brought home a puppy one day. Hehad taken it back. He destroyed her clumsily made dolls whenever hefound them.
Once she had asked him: "Are you my father?"
He had answered: "I am."
She had no reason to doubt him. Her father, her own father! Sheremembered now a verse from the Psalms her father had always beenquoting; but now she recited it with perfect understanding.
_How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever? How long wilt thouhide thy face from me?_
She came upon the Song of Songs--which had been pasted down in theEnschede Bible--the burning litany of love; and from time to timeshe intoned some verse of tender lyric beauty. There was one versethat haunted and mocked her.
_Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick oflove._
Here was Ruth Enschede--sick of love! Love--something the worldwould always keep hidden from her, at least human love. All she hadfound was the love of this dog. She threw her arms around Rollo'sneck and laid her cheek upon the flea-bitten head.
"Oh, Rollo, there are so many things I don't know! But you love me,don't you?"
Rollo wagged his stump violently and tried to lick her face. Heunderstood. When she released him he ran down the beach for a stickwhich he fetched and laid at her feet. But she was staring seawardand did not notice the offering.
* * * * *
October. The skies became brilliant; the dry monsoon was settingin. Then came the great day. It was at lunch when McClintockannounced that in the mail-pouch he had found a letter addressed toHoward Taber, care of Donald McClintock and so-forth.
Spurlock grew cold. All that confidence, born of irony,disappeared; and fear laid hold of him. The envelope might containonly a request as to what he wanted done with the manuscripts. Inmailing the tales he had not enclosed return postage or theequivalent in money.
"So you're writing under a nom de plume, eh?" said McClintock,holding out the letter.
"You open it, Ruth. I'm in a funk," Spurlock confessed.
McClintock laughed as he gave the letter to Ruth. She, having allthe confidence in the world, ripped off an end and drew out thecontents--a letter and a check. What the editor had to say none ofthe three cared just then. Spurlock snatched the check out ofRuth's hands and ran to the window.
"A thousand dollars in British pounds!... A thousand dollars forfour short stories!" The tan on Spurlock's face lightened. He wasprofoundly stirred. He turned to Ruth and McClintock. "You two ...both
of you! But for you I couldn't have done it. If only you knewwhat this means to me!"
"We do, lad," replied McClintock, gravely. The youth of them! Andwhat was he going to do when they left his island? What wouldDonald McClintock be doing with himself, when youth left theisland, never more to return?
Ruth was thrilling with joy. Every drop of blood in her body glowedand expanded. To go to Hoddy, to smother him with kisses andembraces in this hour of triumph! To save herself from committingthe act--the thought of which was positive hypnotism--she began thenative dance. Spurlock (himself verging upon the hysterical)welcomed the diversion. He seized a tray, squatted on the floor,and imitated the tom-tom. It was a mad half-hour.
"Well, lad, supposing you read what the editor has to say?" wasMcClintock's suggestion, when the frolic was over.
"You read it, Ruth. You're luck."
"Aye!" was McClintock's inaudible affirmative. Luck. The boy wouldnever know just how lucky he was. Ruth read:
DEAR SIR:
"We are delighted to accept these four stories, particularly 'The Man Who Could Not Go Home.' We shall be pleased to see more of your work.
"'The Man Who Could Not Go Home.' Why," said Ruth, "you did notread that to us."
"Wanted to see if I could turn out one all on my own," repliedSpurlock, looking at McClintock, who nodded slightly. "It was thestory of a man, so to speak, who had left his vitals in his nativeland and wandered strange paths emptily. But never mind that. Comealong home, Ruth. I'm burning to get to work."
After all those former bitter failures, this cup was sweet, even ifthere was the flavour of irony. At least, he would always be ableto take care of Ruth. The Dawn Pearl; how well they had named her!The pearl without price--his and not his!
He took her arm and drew it under his; and together they went downthe veranda steps. Ruth's arm trembled and her step faltered, buthe was too far away in thought to be observant. He saw rifts inclouds--sunshine. The future was not so black. All the money heearned--serving McClintock and the muse--could be laid away. Then,in a few years, he and Ruth might fare forth in comfort andsecurity. After five or six years it would not be difficult to hidein Italy or in France. No; the future was not so dark; there was abit of dawn visible. If this success continued, it would be easy toassume the name of Taber. Ruth could not very well object, since anair of distinction would go with Taber.
Suddenly he felt Ruth swing violently away from him, and he wheeledto learn the cause.
He beheld a tall gaunt man, his brown face corrugated like awinter's road, grim, stony. His gangling body was clothed in rustytwill trousers and a long black seersucker coat, buttoned to thethroat, around which ran a collar which would have marked him theworld over as a man of the Word. His hand rested heavily andcruelly upon Ruth's shoulder.
"So, wanton, I have found you!"
"Wanton! Why, you infernal liar!" cried Spurlock, striking at thearm. But the free arm of the stranger hit him a flail-like blow onthe chest and sent him sprawling into the yielding sand. Berserker,Spurlock rose, head down, and charged.
"Hoddy, Hoddy!... No, no! This is my father!" warned Ruth.
Spurlock halted in his tracks. "But what does he mean by callingyou a wanton?--you, my wife?"
Enschede's hand slipped from his daughter's shoulder. The ironslipped from his face, leaving it blank with astonishment. "Yourwife?"
"His lawful wife," said Ruth, with fine dignity.
For a moment none of them stirred; then slowly Enschede turnedaway. To Spurlock's observing eye, Enschede's wrinkles multipliedand the folds in his clothes. The young man's imagination suddenlypictured the man as a rock, loosed from its ancient bed, crumblingas it fell. But why did he turn away?
"Wait!" Ruth called to her father.
The recollection of all her unhappiness, the loveless years, theunending loneliness, the injustice of it, rolled up to her lips inverbal lava. It is not well that a daughter should talk to herfather as Ruth talked to hers that day.
The father, granite; the daughter, fire: Spurlock saw the one andheard the other, his amazement indescribable. Never before had heseen a man like Enschede nor heard a voice like Ruth's. But as themystery which surrounded Ruth fell away that which enveloped herfather thickened.
"I used to cry myself to sleep, Hoddy, I was so forlorn and lonely.He heard me; but he never came in to ask what was the matter. Forfifteen years!--so long as I can remember! All I wanted was alittle love, a caress now and then. But I waited in vain. So I ranaway, blindly, knowing nothing of the world outside. Youth! Youdenied me even that," said Ruth, her glance now flashing to herfather. "Spring!--I never knew any. I dared not sing, I dared notlaugh, except when you went away. What little happiness I had I wasforced to steal. I am glad you found me. I am out of your lifeforever, never having been in it. Did you break my mother's heartas you tried to break mine? I am no longer accountable to you foranything. Wanton! Had I been one, even God would have forgiven me,understanding. Some day I may forgive you; but not now. No, no! Notnow!"
Ruth turned abruptly and walked toward the bungalow, mounted theveranda steps, and vanished within. Without a word, without a sign,Enschede started toward the beach, where his proa waited.
For a time Spurlock did not move. This incredible scene robbed himof the sense of locomotion. But his glance roved, to the doorthrough which Ruth had gone, to Enschede's drooping back.Unexpectedly he found himself speeding toward the father.
"Enschede!" he called.
Enschede halted. "Well?" he said, as Spurlock reached his side.
"Are you a human being, to leave her thus?"
"It is better so. You heard her. What she said is true."
"But why? In the name of God, why? Your flesh and blood! Have younever loved anything?"
"Are you indeed my daughter's lawful husband?" Enschede countered.
"I am. You will find the proof in McClintock's safe. You called hera wanton!"
"Because I had every reason to believe she was one. There was everyindication that she fled the island in company with a dissoluterogue." Still the voice was without emotion; calm, colourless.
Fired with wrath, Spurlock recounted the Canton episode. "Shetravelled alone; and she is the purest woman God ever permitted toinhabit the earth. What!--you know so little of that child? She ranaway from _you_. Somebody tricked you back yonder--baited you forspite. She ran away from you; and now I can easily understand why.What sort of a human being are you, anyhow?"
Enschede gazed seaward. When he faced Spurlock, the granite wascracked and rived; never had Spurlock seen such dumb agony in humaneyes. "What shall I say? Shall I tell you, or shall I leave you inthe dark--as I must always leave her? What shall I say except thatI am accursed of men? Yes; I have loved something--her mother. Notwisely but too well. I loved her beyond anything in heaven or onearth--to idolatry. God is a jealous God, and He turned upon merelentlessly. I had consecrated my life to His Work; and I took theprimrose path."
"But a man may love his wife!" cried Spurlock, utterly bewildered.
"Not as I loved mine. So, one day, because God was wroth, hermother ran away with a blackguard, and died in the gutter,miserably. Perhaps I've been mad all these years; I don't know.Perhaps I am still mad. But I vowed that Ruth should never sufferthe way I did--and do. For I still love her mother. So I undertookto protect her by keeping love out of her life, by crushing itwhenever it appeared, obliterating it. I made it a point to bringbeachcombers to the house to fill her with horror of mankind. Inever let her read stories, or have pets, dolls. Anything thatmight stir the sense of love And God has mocked me through it all."
"Man, in God's name, come with me and tell her this!" urgedSpurlock.
"It is too late. Besides, I would tear out my tongue rather thanlet it speak her mother's infamy. To tell Ruth anything, it wouldbe necessary to tell her everything; and I cannot and you must not.She was always asking questions about her mother and supplying theanswers. So she built a shrine. Always her prayers ended
--'And maymy beautiful mother guide me!' No. It is better as it is. She is nolonger mine; she is yours."
"What a mistake!"
"Yes. But you--you have a good face. Be kind to her. Whenever yougrow impatient with her, remember the folly of her father. I cannow give myself to God utterly; no human emotion will ever beshuttling in between."
"And all the time you loved her?"--appalled.
"Perhaps."
Enschede stepped into the proa, and the natives shoved off.Spurlock remained where he was until the sail became aninfinitesimal speck in the distance. His throat filled; he wantedto weep. For yonder went the loneliest man in all God's unhappyworld.