Out of the Air

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ger Frank and the Online DistributedProofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  OUT OF THE AIR

  BY

  INEZ HAYNES IRWIN

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  PUBLISHERS--NEW YORK

  Made in the United States of America

  COPYRIGHT, 1920, 1921, BY

  METROPOLITAN PUBLICATIONS, INC.

  COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY

  HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

  TO

  BILLY AND PHYLLIS

  OUT OF THE AIR

  I

  "... so I'll answer your questions in the order you ask them. No, Idon't want ever to fly again. My last pay-hop was two Saturdays ago andI got my discharge papers yesterday. God willing, I'll never again rideanything more dangerous than a velocipede. I'm now a respectableAmerican citizen, and for the future I'm going to confine my locomotionto the well-known earth. Get that, Spink Sparrel! The earth! Infact...."

  David Lindsay suddenly looked up from his typewriting. Under his window,Washington Square simmered in the premature heat of an early June day.But he did not even glance in that direction. Instead, his eyes soughtthe doorway leading from the front room to the back of the apartment.Apparently he was not seeking inspiration; it was as though he had beensuddenly jerked out of himself. After an absent second, his eye sank tothe page and the brisk clatter of his machine began again.

  "... after the woman you recommended, Mrs. Whatever-her-name-is,shoveled off a few tons of dust. It's great! It's the key house of NewYork, isn't it? And when you look right through the Arch straight upFifth Avenue, you feel as though you owned the whole town. And what anair all this chaste antique New England stuff gives it! Who'd everthought you'd turn out--you big rough-neck you--to be a collector ofantiques? Not that I haven't fallen myself for the sailor's chest andthe butterfly table and the glass lamps. I actually salaam to thatsampler. And these furnishings seem especially appropriate when Iremember that Jeffrey Lewis lived here once. You don't know how muchthat adds to the connotation of this place."

  Again--but absently--Lindsay looked up. And again, ignoring WashingtonSquare, which offered an effect as of a formal garden to the longpink-red palace on its north side--plumy treetops, geometrical grassareas, weaving paths; elegant little summer-houses--his gaze went with aseeking look to the doorway.

  "Question No. 2. I haven't any plans of my own at present and I amquite eligible to the thing you suggest. You say that no one wants toread anything about the war. I don't blame them. I wish I could fallasleep for a month and wake up with no recollection of it. I supposeit's that state of mind which prevents people from writing theirrecollections immediately. Of course we'll all do that ultimately, Isuppose--even people who, like myself, aren't professional writers.Don't imagine that I'm going on with the writing game. I haven't thedivine afflatus. I'm just letting myself drift along with these twojobs until I get that _guerre_ out of my system; can look around tofind what I really want to do. I'm willing to write my experienceswithin a reasonable interval; but not at once. Everything is as vividin my mind of course as it's possible to be; but I don't want to haveto think of it. That's why your suggestion in regard to Lutetia Murraystrikes me so favorably. I should really like to do that biography. I'min the mood for something gentle and pastoral. And then of course Ihave a sense of proprietorship in regard to Lutetia, not alone becauseshe was my literary find or that it was my thesis on her which got memy A in English 12. But, in addition, I developed a sort of platonic,long-distance, with-the-eye-of-the-mind-only crush on her. And yet, Idon't know...."

  Again Lindsay's eyes came up from his paper. For the third time heignored Washington Square swarming with lumbering green busses anddusky-haired Italian babies; puppies, perambulators, and pedestrians.Again his glance went mechanically to the door leading to the back ofthe apartment.

  "You certainly have left an atmosphere in this joint, Spink. Somehow Ifeel always as if you were in the room. How it would be possible forsuch a pop-eyed, freckle-faced Piute as you to pack an astral body ismore than I can understand. It's here though--that sense of yourpresence. The other day I caught myself saying, 'Oh, Spink!' to theempty air. But to return to Lutetia, I can't tell you how the prospecttempts. Once on a _permission_ in the spring of '16, I finds myself inLyons. There are to be gentle acrobatic doings in the best Gallic mannerin the Park on Sunday. I gallops out to see the sports. One place, Icomes across several scores of _poilus_--on their _permissions_similar--squatting on the ground and doing--what do you suppose? Pickingviolets. Yep--picking violets. I says to myself then, I says, 'Thesefrogs sure are queer guys.' But now, Spink, I understand. I don't wantto do anything more strenuous myself than picking violets, unless it'sselling baby blankets, or holding yarn for old ladies. Perhaps by anenormous effort I might summon the energy to run a tea-room."

  Lindsay stopped his typewriting again. This time he stared fixedly atWashington Square. His eyes followed a pink-smocked, bob-haired maidenhurrying across the Park; but apparently she did not register. He turnedabruptly with a--"Hello, old top, what do you want?"

  The doorway, being empty, made no answer.

  Having apparently forgotten his remark the instant it was dropped,Lindsay went on writing.

  "I admit I'm thinking over that proposition. Among my things in storagehere, I have all Lutetia's works, including those unsuccessful and veryrare pomes of hers; even that blooming thesis I wrote. The thesis would,of course, read rotten now, but it might provide data that would saveresearch. When do you propose to bring out this new edition, and how doyou account for that recent demand for her? Of course it establishes meas some swell prophet. I always said she'd bob up again, you know. Thenit looked as though she was as dead as the dodo. It isn't the work alonethat appeals to me; it's doing it in Lutetia's own town, which isapparently the exact kind of dead little burg I'm looking for--Quinanog,isn't it? Come to think of it, Spink, my favorite occupation at thismoment would be making daisy-chains or oak-wreaths. I'll think it..."

  He jumped spasmodically; jerked his head about; glanced over hisshoulder at the doorway--

  "What I'd really like to do, is the biography of Lutetia for about onemonth; then--for about three months--my experiences at the war which, Iunderstand, are to be put away in the manuscript safe of the publishingfirm of Dunbar, Cabot and Elsingham to be published when the demand forwar stuff begins again. That, I reckon, is what I should do if I'm goingto do it at all. Write it while it's fresh--as I'm not a professional.But I can't at this moment say yes, and I can't say no. I'd like to staya little longer in New York. I'd like to renew acquaintance with the oldburg. I can afford to thrash round a bit, you know, if I like. There'sten thousand dollars that my uncle left me, in the bank waiting me. Whenthat's spent, of course I'll have to go to work.

  "You ask me for my impressions of America--as a returned sky-warrior. Ofcourse I've only been here a week and I haven't talked with so very manypeople yet. But everybody is remarkably omniscient. I can't tell themanything about the late war. Sometimes they ask me a question, but theynever listen to my answer. No, I listen to them. And they're veryinforming, believe me. Most of them think that the cavalry won the warand that we went over the top to the sound of fife and drum. Formyself..."

  Again he jumped; turned his head; stared into the doorway. After aninstant of apparent expectancy, he sighed. He arose and, with anelaborate saunter, moved over to the mirror hanging above the mantel;looked at his reflection with the air of one longing to see somethinghuman. The mirror was old; narrow and dim; gold framed. A gay littlepicture of a ship, bellying to full sail, filled the space above thelooking-glass. The face, which contemplated him with the same unseeingcarelessness with which he contemplated it, was the face oftwenty-five--handsome; dark. It was long and lean. The continuous flyingof two years had dyed it a deep wine-red; had bronzed and burnished it.And apparently the experiences that went with that flying had cooled andhardened it. It was now but a smoothly handsome mask which blanked allexpression of his emot
ions.

  Even as his eye fixed itself on his own reflected eye, his head jerkedsideways again; he stared expectantly at the open doorway. After aninterval in which nothing appeared, he sauntered through that door;and--with almost an effect of premeditated carelessness--through the twolittle rooms, which so uselessly fill the central space of many New Yorkhouses, to the big sunny bedroom at the back.

  The windows looked out on a paintable series of backyards: on asketchable huddle of old, stained, leaning wooden houses. At theopposite window, a purple-haired, violet-eyed foreign girl in a fadedyellow blouse was making artificial nasturtiums; flame-colored velvetpetals, like a drift of burning snow, heaped the table in front of her.A black cat sunned itself on the window ledge. On a distant roof, a boywith a long pole was herding a flock of pigeons. They made glitteringswirls of motion and quick V-wheelings, that flashed the gray of theirwings like blades and the white of their breasts like glass. Theirsudden turns filled the air with mirrors. Lindsay watched their flightwith the critical air of a rival. Suddenly he turned as though someonehad called him; glanced inquiringly back at the doorway....

  When, a few minutes later, he sauntered into the Rochambeau, immaculatein the old gray suit he had put off when he donned the French uniformfour years before, he was the pink of summer coolness and thequintessence of military calm. The little, low-ceilinged series ofrooms, just below the level of the street, were crowded; filled withsmoke, talk, and laughter. Lindsay at length found a table, looked abouthim, discovered himself to be among strangers. He ordered a cocktail,swearing at the price to the sympathetic French waiter, who made anexcited response in French and assisted him to order an elaboratedinner. Lindsay propped his paper against his water-glass; concentratedon it as one prepared for lonely eating. With the little-necks, however,came diversion. From behind the waiter's crooked arm appeared the satinydark head of a girl. Lindsay leaped to his feet, held out his hand.

  "Good Lord, Gratia! Where in the world did you come from!"

  The girl put both her pretty hands out. "I _can_ shake hands with you,David, now that you're in civies. I don't like that green and yellowribbon in your buttonhole though. I'm a pacifist, you know, and I've gotto tell you where I stand before we can talk."

  "All right," Lindsay accepted cheerfully. "You're a darn prettypacifist, Gratia. Of course you don't know what you're talking about.But as long as you talk about anything, I'll listen."

  Gratia had cut her hair short, but she had introduced a style ofhair-dressing new even to Greenwich Village. She combed its sleekabundance straight back to her neck and left it. There, following itsown devices, it turned up in the most delightful curls. Her large darkeyes were set in a skin of pale amber and in the midst of a piquantassortment of features. She had a way, just before speaking, of liftingher sleek head high on the top of her slim neck. And then she was like abeautiful young seal emerging from the water.

  "Oh, I'm perfectly serious!" the pretty pacifist asserted. "Youknow I never have believed in war. Dora says you've come backloving the French. How you can admire a people who--" After awhile she paused to take breath and then, with the characteristiclift of her head, "Belgians--the Congo--Algeciras--Morocco-- And asfor England--Ireland--India--Egypt--" The glib, conventional patterdripped readily from her soft lips.

  Lindsay listened, apparently entranced. "Gratia, you're too pretty forany use!" he asserted indulgently after the next pause in which she doveunder the water and reappeared sleek-haired as ever. "I'm not going toargue with you. I'm going to tell you one thing that will be a shock toyou, though. The French don't like war either. And the reason is--nowprepare yourself--they know more about the horrors of war in _one_minute than you will in a thousand years. What are you doing withyourself, these days, Gratia?"

  "Oh, running a shop; making smocks, working on batiks, painting, writing_vers libre_," Gratia admitted.

  "I mean, what do you do with your leisure?" Lindsay demanded, afterprolonged meditation.

  Gratia ignored this persiflage. "I'm thinking of taking uppsycho-analysis," she confided. "It interests me enormously. I think Iought to do rather well with it."

  "I offer myself as your first victim. Why, you'll make millions! Everyman in New York will want to be psyched. What's the news, Gratia? I'mdying for gossip."

  Gratia did her best to feed this appetite. Declining dinner, she sippedthe tall cool green drink which Lindsay ordered for her. She poured outa flood of talk; but all the time her eyes were flitting from table totable. And often she interrupted her comments on the absent with remarksabout the present.

  "Yes, Aussie was killed in Italy, flying. Will Arden was wounded in theArgonne. George Jennings died of the flu in Paris--see that big blondeover there, Dave? She's the Village dressmaker now--Dark Dale is inRussia--can't get out. Putty Doane was taken prisoner by the Germansat--Oh, see that gang of up-towners--aren't they snippy and patronizingand silly? But Molly Fearing is our best war sensation. You know what atiny frightened mouse of a thing she was. She went into the 'Y.' She wasin the trenches the day of the Armistice--_talked_ with Germans; notprisoners, you understand--but the retreating Germans. Her letters arewonderful. She's crazy about it over there. I wouldn't be surprised ifshe never came back-- Oh, Dave, don't look now; but as soon as you can,get that tall red-headed girl in the corner, Marie Maroo. She does themost marvelous drawings you ever saw. She belongs to that new VortexSchool. And then Joel-- Oh, there's Ernestine Phillips and her father.You want to meet her father. He's a riot. Octogenarian, too! He's justcome from some remote hamlet in Vermont. Ernestine's showing him aproperly expurgated edition of the Village. Hi, Ernestine! He's a CivilWar veteran. Ernest's crazy to see you, Dave!"

  The middle-aged, rather rough-featured woman standing in the doorwayturned at Gratia's call. Her movement revealed the head and shoulders ofa tall, gaunt, very old man, a little rough-featured like his daughter;white-haired and white-mustached. She hurried at once to Lindsay'stable.

  "Oh, Dave!" She took both Lindsay's hands. "I _am_ glad to see you! HowI have worried about you! My father, Dave. Father, this is DavidLindsay, the young aviator I was telling you about, who had suchextraordinary experiences in France. You remember the one I mean,father. He served for two years with the French Army before we declaredwar."

  Mr. Phillips extended a long arm which dangled a long hand. "Pleased tomeet you, sir! You're the first flier I've had a chance to talk with. Iexpect folks make life a perfect misery to you--but if you don't mindanswering questions--"

  "Shoot!" Lindsay permitted serenely. "I'm nearly bursting withsuppressed information. How are you, Ernestine?"

  "Pretty frazzled like the rest of us," Ernestine answered. Ernestine hadone fine feature; a pair of large dark serene eyes. Now they flamed witha troubled fire. "The war did all kinds of things to my psychology, ofcourse. I suppose I am the most despised woman in the Village at thismoment because I don't seem to be either a militarist or a pacifist. Idon't believe in war, but I don't see how we could have kept out of it;or how France could have prevented it."

  "Ernestine!" Lindsay said warmly. "I just love _you_. Contrary to thegenerally accepted opinion of the pacifists, France did not deliberatelybring this war on herself. Nor did she keep it up four years for herprivate amusement. She hasn't enjoyed one minute of it. I don't expectGratia to believe me, but perhaps you will. These four years of death,destruction, and devastation haven't entertained France a particle."

  "Well, of course--" Ernestine was beginning, "but what's the use?" Hereyes met Lindsay's in a perplexed, comprehending stare. Lindsay shookhis handsome head gayly. "No use whatever," he said. "I'm rapidlygrowing taciturn."

  "What I would like to ask you," Mr. Phillips broke in, "does war seemsuch a pretty thing to you, young man, after you've seen a little of it?I remember in '65 most of us came back thinking that Sherman hadn't usedstrong enough language."

  "Mr. Phillips," Lindsay answered, "if there's ever another war, it willtake fifteen thousand dollars to send me a postcar
d telling me aboutit."

  The talk drifted away from the war: turned to prohibition; came back toit again. Lindsay answered Mr. Phillips's questions with enthusiasticthoroughness. They pertained mainly to his training at Pau and Avord,but Lindsay volunteered a detailed comparison of the American militarymethod with the French. "I'll always be glad though," he concluded,"that I had that experience with the French Army. And of course when ourtroops got over, I was all ready to fly."

  "Then the French uniform is so charming," Gratia put in, consciouslysarcastic.

  Lindsay slapped her slim wrist indulgently and continued to answer Mr.Phillips's questions. Ernestine listened, the look of trouble growing inher serene eyes. Gratia listened, diving under water after her shockedexclamations and reappearing glistening.

  "Oh, there's Matty Packington!" Gratia broke in. "You haven't met Mattyyet, Dave. Hi, Matty! You _must_ know Matty. She's a sketch. She's oneof those people who say the things other people only dare think. Youwon't believe her." She rattled one of her staccato explanations;"society girl--first a slumming tour through the Village--perfectlycrazy about it--studio in McDougal Alley--yeowoman--becominguniform--Rolls-Royce--salutes--"

  Matty Packington approached the table with a composed flutter. The twomen arose. Gratia met her halfway; performed the introductions. In aminute the conversation was out of everybody's hands and in MissPackington's. As Gratia prophesied, Lindsay found it difficult tobelieve her. She started at an extraordinary speed and she maintained itwithout break.

  "Oh, Mr. Lindsay, aren't you heartbroken now that it is all over? Youmust tell me all about your experiences sometime. It must have been toothrilling for words. But don't you think--_don't_ you think--theystopped the war too soon? If I were Foch I wouldn't have been satisfieduntil I'd occupied all Germany, devastated just as much territory asthose beasts devastated in France, and executed all those monsters whocut off the Belgian babies' hands. Don't you think so?"

  Lindsay contemplated the lady who put this interesting question to him.She was fair and fairy-like; a little, light-shot golden blonde; allslim lines and opalescent colors. Her hair fluttered like whirled lightfrom under her piquantly cocked military cap. The stress of her emotionadded for the instant to the bigness and blueness of her eyes.

  "Well, for myself," he remarked finally, "I can do with a little peacefor a while. And then to carry out your wishes, Miss Packington, Fochwould have had to sacrifice a quarter of a million more Allied soldiers.But I sometimes think the men at the front were a bit thoughtless of theentertainment of the civilians. Somehow we _did_ get it into our headsthat we ought to close this war up as soon as possible. Another timeperhaps we'd know better."

  Miss Packington received this characteristically; that is to say, shedid not receive it at all. For by the time Lindsay had begun his lastsentence, she had embarked on a monologue directed this time to Gratia.The talk flew back and forth, grew general; grew concrete; grewabstract; grew personal. It bubbled up into monologues from Gratia andMatty. It thinned down to questions from Ernestine and Mr. Phillips.Drinks came; were followed by other drinks. All about them, tablesemptied and filled, uniforms predominating; and all to the accompanimentof chatter; gay mirth; drifting smoke-films and refilled glasses.Latecomers stopped to shake hands with Lindsay, to join the party for adrink; to smoke a cigarette; floated away to other parties. But thenucleus of their party remained the same.

  David answered with patience all questions, stopped patiently halfwaythrough his own answer to reply to other questions. At about midnight herose abruptly. He had just brought to the end a careful and succinctstatement in which he declared that he had seen no Belgian children withtheir hands cut off; no crucified Canadians.

  "Folks," he addressed the company genially, "I'm going to admit to youI'm tired." Inwardly he added, "I won't indicate which ones of you makeme the most tired; but almost all of you give me an awful pain." Headded aloud, "It's the hay for me this instant. Good-night!"

  Back once more in his rooms, he did not light up. Instead he sat at thewindow and gazed out. Straight ahead, two lines of golden beads curvingup the Avenue seemed to connect the Arch with the distant horizon. Thedeep azure of the sky was faintly powdered with stars. But for itsoccasional lights, of a purplish silver, the Square would have been amere mystery of trees. But those lights seemed to anchor what was halfvision to earth. And they threw interlaced leaf shadows on the ceilingabove Lindsay's head. It was as though he sat in some ghostly bower.Looking fixedly through the Arch, his face grew somber. Suddenly hejerked about and stared through the doorway which led into the backrooms.

  Nothing appeared--

  After a while he lighted one gas jet--after an instant's hesitationanother--

  * * * * *

  In the middle of the night, Lindsay suddenly found himself sittingupright. His mouth was wide open, parched; his eyes were wide open,staring.... A chilly prickling tingled along his scalp.... But thestrangest phenomenon was his heart, which, though swelled to anincredible bulk, nimbly leaped, heavily pounded....

  Lindsay recognized the motion which inundated him to be fear;overpowering, shameless, abject fear. But of what? In the instant inwhich he gave way to self-analysis, memory supplied him with a vagueimpression. _Something_ had come to his bed and, leaning over, hadstared into his face--

  That _something_ was not human.

  Lindsay fought for control. By an initial feat of courage, his fumblingfingers lighted a candle which stood on the tiny Sheraton table at hisbedside. On a second impulse, but only after an interval in whichconsciously but desperately he grasped at his vanishing manhood, heleaped out of bed; lighted the gas. Then carrying the lighted candle, hewent from one to another of the four rooms of the apartment. In eachroom he lighted every gas jet until the place blazed. He searched itthoroughly: dark corners and darker closets; jetty strata of shadowunder couches.

  He was alone.

  After a while he went back to bed. But his courage was not equal todarkness again. Though ultimately he fell asleep, the gas blazed allnight.

  * * * * *

  Lindsay awoke rather jaded the next morning. He wandered from room toroom submitting to one slash of his razor at this mirror and to anotherat that.

  At one period of this process, "Rum nightmare I had last night!" heremarked casually to the unresponsive air.

  He cooked his own breakfast; piled up the dishes and settled himself tohis correspondence again. "This letter is getting to be a book, Spink,"he began. "But I feel every moment as though I wanted to add more. Islept on your proposition last night, but I don't feel any nearer adecision. Quinanog and Lutetia tempt me; but then so does New York. Bythe way, have you any pictures of Lutetia? I had one in my rooms atHolworthy. Must be kicking around among my things. I cut it out of theannual catalogue of your book-house. Photograph as I remember. She wassome pip. I'd like--"

  He started suddenly, turned his head toward the doorway leading to theback rooms. The doorway was empty. Lindsay arose from his chair,sauntered in a leisurely manner through the rooms. He investigatedclosets again. "Damn it all!" he muttered.

  He resumed his letter. "You're right about writing my experiences now. Ihad a long footless talk with some boobs last night, and it was curioushow things came back under their questions. I had quite forgotten themtemporarily, and of course I shall forget them for keeps if I don'tbegin to put them down. I have a few scattered notes here and there. Imeant, of course, to keep a diary, but believe me, a man engaged in awar is too busy for the pursuit of letters. But just as soon as I makeup my mind--"

  Another interval. Absently Lindsay addressed an envelope. Spinney K.Sparrel, Esq., Park Street, Boston; attacked the list of otherlong-neglected correspondents. Suddenly his head jerked upward; pivotedagain. After an instant's observation of the empty doorway, he pulledhis face forward; resumed his work. Page after page slid onto the rollerof his machine, submitted to the tattoo of it
s little lettered teeth,emerged neatly inscribed. Suddenly he leaped to his feet; swung about.

  The doorway was empty.

  "Who are you?" he interrogated the empty air, "and what do you want? Ifyou can tell me, speak--and I'll do anything in my power to help you.But if you can't tell me, for God's sake go away!"

  * * * * *

  That night--it happened again. There came the same sudden start,stricken, panting, perspiring, out of deep sleep; the same franticsearch of the apartment with all the lights burning; the same late,broken drowse; the same jaded awakening.

  As before, he set himself doggedly to work. And, as before, somewhere inthe middle of the morning, he wheeled about swiftly in his chair toglare through the open doorway. "I wonder if I'm going nutty!" heexclaimed aloud.

  * * * * *

  Three days went by. Lindsay's nights were so broken that he took longnaps in the afternoon. His days had turned into periods of idle revery.The letter to Spink Sparrel was still unfinished. He workedspasmodically at his typewriter: but he completed nothing. The thirdnight he started toward the Rochambeau with the intention of getting aroom. But halfway across the Park, he stopped and retraced his steps. "Ican't let you beat me!" he muttered audibly, after he arrived in theempty apartment.

  It did not beat him that night; for he stayed in the apartment untildawn broke. But from midnight on, he lay with every light in the placegoing. At sunrise, he dressed and went out for a walk. And the momentthe sounds of everyday life began to humanize the neighborhood, hereturned; sat down to his machine.

  "Spink, old dear, my mind is made up. I accept! I'll do Lutetia for you;and, by God, I'll do her well! I'm starting for Boston tomorrow night onthe midnight. I'll call at the office about noon and we'll go toluncheon together. I'll dig out my thesis and books from storage, and ifyou'll get all your dope and data together, I can go right to it. I'mgoing to Quinanog tomorrow afternoon. I need a change. Everybody heremakes me tired. The pacifists make me wild and the militarists make mewilder. Civilians is nuts when it comes to a war. The only person I cantalk about it with is somebody who's been there. And anybody who's beenthere has the good sense not to want to talk about it. I don't ever wantto hear of that war again. Personally, I, David Lindsay, meaning me,want to swing in a hammock on a pleasant, cool, vine-hung piazza; readLutetia at intervals and write some little pieces subsequent. Yours,David."