Out of the Air

  V

  Dear Spink:

  This is the kind of letter one never writes. But if you knew my mentalchaos.... And I've got to tell somebody about the thing that I can speakabout to nobody. If I don't.... What do you suppose I've done? I'vebought a house. Yep-- I'm a property owner now. Of course you guess! Ordo you guess? It's the Murray place. I could just make it and haveenough left over for a year or two or three. But after that, Spink, I'mgoing to work because I'll have to.

  I suppose you're wondering why I did it. You're not puzzled half as muchas I am; although in one way I know exactly why I did it. Perhaps Ididn't do it at all. Anyway, I didn't do it of my own volition. Somebodymade me. I'm going to tell you about that presently.

  Yes, it's all mine: beautiful old square-roomed house with its carvedpanelings and its generous Colonial fireplaces; its slender doors andamusing door-latches; an upstairs of ample bedrooms; an old garret withslave quarters; the downstairs with that little, charmingly incongruous,galleried, mid-Victorian addition; barn; lawn; flower-garden. And howbeautiful I'm making that flower-garden you'll never suspect till yousee it. But you won't see it for quite a while--I withdraw all myinvitations to visit me. I don't want you now, Spink; although I neverwanted you so much in my life. I'll want you later, I think. Of courseit isn't from you personally--you beetle-eyed old scout--that I'mwithdrawing my invitation; it's from any flesh-and-blood being. If youhad an astral self-- I don't want anybody. I never wanted to be alone somuch in my life. In a moment I'm going to tell you why.

  And the wine-glass elms are mine; and the lilacs and syringas and thesmoke-bush and the hollyhocks; and all the things I've planted; myCanterbury bells (if they come up); my deep, rich dahlias and myflame-colored phlox (if ditto). All mine! Gee, Spink, I never felt sorich in my life, because what I've enumerated isn't twenty-five per centof what I own. In a minute I'm going to tell you what the remainingseventy-five per cent is.

  This place is full of birds and bees. I watch them from the house.Spink, we flying-men are boobs. Have you ever watched a bee fly? I spendhours, it seems to me, just studying them--trying to crab their act. Andthe other day there was an air-fight just over my roof. A chicken-hawkattacked by the whole bird population. It was a reproduction inminiature of a bombing-machine pursued by a dozen combat-planes. Spink,it was the best flying I've ever seen. You should have seen the sparrowskeeping on his tail! The little birds relied on their quickness ofattack, just as combat planes do. They attacked from all angles withsuch rapidity that the hawk could do nothing but run for his life. Thelittle birds circled about, waiting for the moment to dive. Acombat-plane dives; its machines go ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta and it turns offbefore the gunner can swing his guns over. The birds dived, pickedfuriously at his eyes while the hawk turned bewildered from one attackto another. But the little birds did something that planes can't evenattempt--they hovered over him almost motionless, waiting their momentto attack. Here I am talking of flying! Flying! Did I ever fly? When Igot to New York, Greenwich Village seemed strange and unnatural, just apasteboard dream. Pau--Avord--Verdun--were the only real things in mylife. Now _they're_ shadows like Greenwich Village. Quinanog--the Murrayplace--and Lutetia--seem the only real things.

  I'm going to tell you all about it in a moment. I sure am. The worldseems to be full of landing-places, but for some reason I can't land.Every time, I seem to come short on the field; or overshoot it. Perhapsit's because I feel it ought not to be told-- Perhaps it's because Ifeel you won't believe me--

  But I've got to do it. So here goes!

  Spink, the remaining seventy-five per cent that I own in this place is--This place is haunted. Not by a ghost, but by _ghosts_! There are notone of them, but four. Three I see occasionally. But one of thequartet--I see her all the time. She is Lutetia.

  It began-- Well, it all goes back to your rooms in New York. They'rehaunted too, but you don't know it, you wall-eyed old grave-digger, you.Not because you're inept or unsensitive or anything stupid-- It'sbecause there's something they want to say to _me_--a message they wantto give to me alone. But I can't stop to go into that now. To return toyour apartment, _something_ ... used to come ... to my bed at night ...and bend over me ... I don't know who it was or what it was, except thatit was masculine. And how I knew that, I dunno.

  It bothered me. One reason why I came down here was that I thought I wasgoing crazy. Perhaps I have gone crazy. Anyway, if I have I like it. Buthere I am again! It's as though the world slipped out from under me. Ican fly on and on or climb, but it's the coming down that baffles me.When I cut the motor off and the noise dies away, I feel sick andafraid; the bus seems to take its own head. Now for a landing--even if Ido smash.

  From the moment I entered this house, I felt as though there were othershere. Not specifically, you understand. At first, it was only asensation of warmth in the atmosphere that grew to a feeling offriendliness that deepened to a sense of companionship until-- Well, Ifound myself in a mood of eternal expectancy. Something was going tohappen but I didn't know what or how or when.... Oh yes, in a _way_ Iknew what. I was going to see something. Some time--I felt dimly--when Ishould enter one of these rooms, so stark and yet so occupied, somebodywould be there to greet me ... or some day turning a corner I shouldcome suddenly on.... I did not dread that experience, Spink, I give youmy word. I reveled in the expectancy of it. It was beautiful; it wasrich. I wasn't anything of what you call _afraid_. I wanted it tohappen.

  And it did happen.

  One evening, as usual, I was reading Lutetia. I was sitting in my bigchair beside the refectory table. Outside, it was a perfect night Iremember; dark and still, and the stars so big that they seemed to spillout of the heavens. Inside, the lamp was bright. My eyes were on mybook. Suddenly.... I was not alone. Don't ask me how I knew it. Onlytake it from me that I did. I knew it all right. For--_oh, Spink_--(I'veunderlined that just like a girl) all in a flash I didn't want--to lookup. I wanted to go away from this place and to go with considerablespeed, not glancing back. It was the worst sensation that I have everknown--worse even than a night raid. After a while something came back;courage I suppose you'd call it; a kind of calm, a poise. Anyway, Ifound that I was going to be able to look up presently and not mindit....

  Of course I knew whom I was going to see....

  I did look up. And I did see-- It was Lutetia. Spink, if you try to saythose things that people always say--that it was imagination, that I wasoverwrought, that my mind, moving all the day among the facts andrealities of Lutetia's life, suddenly projected a picture--I'll neverspeak to you again. There she sat, her elbow resting on the arm of herchair, her chin in her hand, looking at me. I can't tell you how longshe stayed. But all the time she was there she looked at me. And allthat time I looked at her. I don't think, Spink, I have ever guessed howmuch eyes can say. Her eyes said so much that I think I could write thewhole rest of the night about them. Except that I'm not quite sure whatthey said. It was all entreaty; oh, blazing, blasting, blindingentreaty.... Of that I am sure. But what she asked of me I haven't theremotest idea. After a while ... something impelled me to look down atmy book again. When I lifted my eyes Lutetia was gone.

  That wasn't all, Spink; for that night, or the next day-- But I'm goingto try to keep to a consecutive story. I didn't go to bed immediately. Ididn't feel like sleeping. You can understand it was considerable of ashock. And very thrilling. Literally thrilling! I shook. It didn'tbother me an atom after it was over. I wasn't the least afraid. But Ivibrated for hours. I walked four or five miles--where, I don't know. Imust have passed the Fallows place, because I recall the scent ofhoneysuckle. But I assure you I seemed to be walking through thestars.... She is beautiful. I can't tell you how beautiful because Ihave no colors to give you; no flesh to go by. Perhaps she is notbeautiful, but lovely. What queer things words are! I have calledfemales _pretty_ and _stunning_ and even _fascinating_ and _beautiful_.I think I never called any woman _lovely_ before. I've been that young.But I'm not as young as I was yesterday. I'm a ce
ntury, an age, an aeonolder. I was obsessed though. If you believe it, when I went to bed, Ihad only one idea in my mind--a hope that she would come back soon.

  She didn't come back soon--at least not that night. But somebody elsedid....

  In the middle of the night, I suddenly found myself, wide-eyed andclear-minded, sitting upright in bed and listening to something. I don'tknow what I had heard, but I remember with perfect clearness--Spink, youtell me this is a dream and I'll murder you--what I immediately did andwhat I subsequently saw. I got up quite calmly and lighted a candle.Then I opened the door.

  Do you remember my writing you that the chamber, just back of the one Ioccupy, must have been the room of a child--Lutetia's little niece? Thedoor of that room, of course, leads into the hall as mine does. As Istood there, shading my candle from the draft, that door opened andthere emerged from the room--what do you suppose?

  A little girl.

  I say--a little girl. She wasn't, you understand, a real little girl.Nor was she a dead little girl. Instantly I knew that--just as instantlyas I had known that Lutetia _was_ dead. I mean, and I hope thisphraseology is technically correct, that Lutetia, as I saw her, was theghost of someone who had once lived. This little girl was an apparition;an appearance projected through space of some one who now lives. Thator--oh, how difficult this is, Spink--a sloughed-off, astral self leftin this old place; or--but I won't go into that.

  I stood there, as I said, shading my candle. The little girl closed herdoor with a meticulous care. Did I hear the ghost of a click? Perhaps myear supplied that. By one hand she was dragging a big doll--one of thoserag-dolls children have. I couldn't tell you anything aboutLutetia--except that she was lovely--ineffably lovely. But I can tellyou all about this little girl. She was pigtailed and freckled. Thepigtails were short, very thick, so tight that their ends snappedupwards, like hundreds of little-girl pigtails that I have seen. Therewas a row of tangled little ringlets on her forehead. She didn't look atme. She didn't know that I was there. She proceeded straight across thehall, busily stub-toeing her way like any freckled, pigtailed littlegirl, the doll dragging on the floor behind her, until she reached thegarret stairs. She opened the garret door, closed it with the samemeticulous care. The last I got was a little white glimpse of herdown-dropped face, as she pulled the rag-doll's leg away from theshutting door.

  I waited there a long time--until my candle guttered to nothing. She didnot return. I did not see her or anybody else again that night.

  I went back to bed and fell immediately into a perfectly quiet,dreamless sleep. The next morning early, I went over to Hyde'sbrother--his name is Corning--and bought this house. Perhaps you cantell me why I did it. I don't exactly know myself; for of course Icouldn't afford it. I realized only that I could not--I simply andabsolutely could _not_--let anybody else buy Lutetia.

  You think, of course, that I've finished now, Spink. But that isn't all.Not by a million Persian parasangs--all. She has come again. I meanLutetia. For that matter, they both have come again. But I'll try totell my story categorically.

  It was a night or two later; another dewy, placid large-starred night--Strange how this beautiful weather keeps up! I had been reading asusual; but my mind was as vacant as a glass bell from which you haveexhausted the air. I was rereading, I remember, Lutetia's _The Sport ofthe Goddesses_. Spink, how that woman could write! And.... Again Ibecame aware that I wasn't alone. Just as definitely, I knew that it wasnot Lutetia this time; nor even Little Pigtails. This time, and perhapsit's because I'm getting used to this sort of thing, I had a senseof--not _fear_--but only of what I'll call a _spiritual diffidence_.

  Yet instantly I looked up.

  He--it was a _he_ this time--was standing in the doorway, which leadsfrom this big living-room into the front hall. We werevis-a-vis--tete-a-tete one might say. He was looking straight at me andI--I assure you, Spink--I looked straight at him.

  Spink, you have never heard of a jovial ghost, have you? I'm sure Ihaven't. But this was or could have been a jovial ghost. He was big--notfat but ample--middle-aged, more than middle-aged. He wore an enormousbeard cut square like the men in Assyrian mural tablets. Hair a littlelong. I assure you he was the handsomest old beggar that I have everseen. He looked like a portrait by Titian. I got--it's like holding aphotographic negative up to the light and trying to get the figures onit--that he wore a sort of flowing gown; it made him stately. And one ofthose little round caps that conceal or protect baldness. I can'tdescribe him. How the devil _can_ you describe a ghost? I mean anapparition. For he isn't dead either--any more than the little girls is.He's alive somewhere.

  Well, our steady exchange of looks went on and on and on. If I couldhave said anything it would have been: "What do you want of me, youhandsome old beggar?" What he would have said to me I don't know;although he was trying with all his ghostly strength to put some messageover. How he was trying! It was that effort that kept him from beingwhat he was--_is_--jovial. God, how that gaze burned--tore--ate. It grewinsupportable after a while--it was melting me to nothingness. I droppedmy eyes. Suddenly I could lift them, for I knew he was gone. Somehow Ihad the feeling that a monstrous bomb had noiselessly exploded in theroom. His going troubled me no more than his coming. I remember I saidaloud: "I'm sorry I couldn't get you, old top! Better luck next time!"

  I got up from my chair after a few minutes to take my usualbefore-going-to-bed walk. I walked about the room; absent-mindedlyputting things to rights--the way women do. My mind--and I suspect myeyes too--were still so full of him that when, on stepping outside, Icame across another--I was conscious of some shock. Again not of fear,but of a terrific surprise.

  Are you getting all this, Spink? Oh, of course you're not, because youdon't believe it. But try to believe it. Put yourself in my place! Tryto get the wonder, the magic, the terror, the touch now and then ofhorror, but above all the fierce thrill--of living with a family ofghosts?

  This one--the fourth--was a man too. About thirty, I should say. Andawfully charming. Yes, you spaniel-eyed fish, you, one man is sayingthis of another man. He was awfully charming. Short, dark. Hewore--again it is like holding a negative up to the light--he wore whiteducks or flannels. He stood very easily, his weight--listen to me, his_weight_--mainly on one foot and one hand curved against his hip. In theother hand, he carried his pipe. He looked at me--God, how he looked atme! How, for that matter, they all look at me! They want something,Spink. Of me. They're trying to tell me. I can't get it, though. But,believe me, I'm trying. This was worse than the old fellow. For thisone, like Lutetia, was dead. And he, like her, was trying to put hismessage across a world, whereas the old fellow had only to pierce adimension. How he looked at me; held me; bored into me. It was likesustaining visual vitriol.... How he looked at me! It becamehorrible.... Pretty soon I realized I wasn't going to be able to standit....

  Yet I stayed with it as long as he did, and of course we continued toglare at each other. I don't exactly know what the etiquette of thesemeetings is; but I seem to feel vaguely that it's up to me to stay withthem as long as they're here. This time, it must have been all of fiveminutes, although it seemed longer ... much longer ... and I, all thetime, trying to hold on. Then suddenly something happened. I don't knowwhat it was, but one instant he was there, and another he wasn't. Don'task me how he went away. I don't know. He simply ceased to be; and yetso swifter-than-instantly, so exquisitely, so subtly that my onlyquestion was--even though my mind was still stinging from his gaze--hadhe been there at all. It was as though the tree back of him hadinstantaneously absorbed him. It was a shock too--that disappearance.

  Well, again I went out for a hike. I walked anywhere--everywhere. Howfar I don't know. But half the night. Again it was as though I marchedthrough the stars....

  I haven't seen the old painter again--I call him painter simply becausehe wore that long robe. And I haven't seen the young guy again. But Isee Lutetia all the time. She comes and goes. Sometimes when I enter theliving-room, I find her already there.
... Sometimes when I leave it, Iknow she enters by another door.... We spend long evenings together....I can't write when she's about; but curiously enough I can sometimesread; that is to say, I can read Lutetia. I try to read because momentscome when I realize that she prefers me not to look at her. It's whenshe's exhausted from trying to give me her message. Or when she'sgirding herself up for another go. At those moments, the room is full ofa frightful struggle; a gigantic spiritual concentration. It seems to meI could not look even if she wanted me. Oh, how she tries, Spink! Itwrings my heart. She's so helpless, so hopeless--so gentle, so tender,so lovely! It's all my own stupidity. The iron-wall stupidity of fleshand blood. Perhaps, if I were to kill myself--and I think I could dothat for her.... Only she doesn't want me to do that.... But what doesshe want me to do? If I could only....

  * * * * *

  Lindsay had written steadily the whole evening; written at a violentspeed and with a fierce intensity. Now his speed died down. His handsdropped from the typewriter. That mental intensity evaporated. He becameaware....

  He was not alone.

  The long living-room was doubly cheerful that night. The inevitabletracks of living had begun to humanize it. A big old bean-pot full ofpurple iris sat on one end of the refectory table. Lindsay's books andnotebooks; his paper and envelopes; his pens and pencils sprawled overthe length of table between him and the iris. That the night was alittle cool, Lindsay had seized as pretext to build a huge fire. Thehigh, jagged flames conspired with the steady glow of the big lamp torout the shadows from everywhere but the extreme corners.

  No more than--after her coming--he was alone was Lutetia alone. It was,Lindsay reflected, a picture almost as posed as for a camera. Lutetiasat; and leaning against her, close to her knee, stood a pigtailedlittle girl. She might have been listening to a story; for her littleear was cocked in Lutetia's direction. That attitude brought toLindsay's observation a delicious, snub-nosed child profile. She gazedunseeingly over her shoulder to a far corner. And Lutetia gazed straightover the child's head at Lindsay--

  They sat for a long time--a long long time--thus. The little girl'svague eyes still fixed themselves on the shadows as on magic realms thatwere being constantly unrolled to her. Lutetia's eyes still soughtLindsay's. And Lindsay's eyes remained on Lutetia's; held there by theagony of her effort and the exquisite torture of his own bewilderment.

  After a while he arose. With slow, precise movements, he gathered up thepages of his letter to Spink. He arranged them carefully according totheir numbers--twelve typewritten pages. He walked leisurely with themover to the fireplace and deposited them in the flames.

  When he turned, the room was empty.

  The next day brought storm again.

  * * * * *

  The coolness of the night vanished finally before the sparkling sunshineof a wind-swept day. Lindsay wrote for an hour or two. Then he gavehimself up to what he called the "chores." He washed his few dishes. Hetoiled on the lawn and in the garden. He finished the work of repairingthe broken stairway in the barn. At the close of this last effort, heeven cast a longing look in the direction of the rubbish collection inthe second story of the barn. But his digestion apprised him that thisvoyage of discovery must be put off until after luncheon. He emergedfrom the back entrance of the barn, made his way, contrary to his usualcustom, by a circuitous route to the front of the house. He stopped totack up a trail of rosebush which had pulled loose from the trellisthere. He felt unaccountably tired. When he entered the house he wasconscious for the first time of a kind of loneliness....

  He had not seen Lutetia, nor any of her companions, for three days. Headmitted to himself that he missed the tremendous excitement of the lastfortnight. But particularly he missed Lutetia. He paused absently toglance into the two front rooms, still as empty as on the day he hadfirst seen them. He wandered upstairs into his bedroom. From there, hejourneyed to the child's room beyond; examined again the dim drawings onthe wall. It occurred to him that, by going over them with crayons, hecould restore some of their lost vividness. The idea brought a littlespurt of exhilaration to his jaded spirit. He returned to his own room,just for the sake of descending Lutetia's little private stairway towhat must have been her private living-room below. He walked absentlyand a little slowly; still conscious of loneliness. He did not pauselong in the living-room, although he made a tentative move in thedirection of the kitchen. Still absently and quite mechanically heopened the back door; started to step out onto the broad flat stonewhich made the step....

  Most unexpectedly--and shockingly, he was not alone. A tiny figure ...black ... sat on the doorstep; sat so close to the door that, as itrose, his curdling flesh warned him he had almost touched it. A curiousthing happened. Lindsay swayed, pitched; fell backwards, white andmoveless.