CHAPTER XXI
A LITERARY LOVE AFFAIR
There was laughter, naturally, over the Showman's absurd, yet notaltogether unsentimental story and, after its recital he stood,undoubtedly, more nearly on a social footing with the others. There werehis clothes, of course, and another excrudescence or two, but these wereincidentals. The wayfarers did not even yawn, but looked inquiringly atthe beaming and bestowed-by-Providence Colonel.
After all, it is doubtful if there be anything better in the world thana spinster--if she be of the right sort. Of course all spinsters are notof the right sort; few of us are. When this one especially fine spinsterwas called upon by the Colonel she did not know exactly what to do. Sheshould have been as perfectly at ease and as possessed of aplomb as anyvoluptuously beautiful poser in a ball-room, yet she was somewhatembarrassed. She should not have been. She was an exquisitely beautifulwoman, in the view of those who know things. With her thin nose andthin lips and general expression of cultivation and eyes in which showedloving regard and thinking, she was adorable to those upon whose eyeshad been rubbed the great ointment of perception. Her one hundred andtwenty-five pounds of existing womanhood, neat and good, was worth farmore than its weight in gold or any other metal. When called upon thisis what the spinster said most bravely:
"Colonel Livingstone, there is but one untold story of which I know andI wish I were capable of explaining to all of you how full of real lifeit was. Yet it seems so simple and silly that it is commonplace, thoughit isn't. Do you remember, Colonel, about the great tower of theCampanile, in Venice and the square down upon the pavements of which thepigeons flutter to be fed? Well this is a story--a true one--ofsomething like those same pigeons and the Doge who first instituted thefeeding of them, five hundred years ago, or something like that, onlythe scene and time are different. As you know, Colonel, I live inChicago, and this is but the story of the pigeons of St. Mark'stransferred to the corner of Clark and Madison streets in a city inanother hemisphere. And, as I said, it is all true. This is whatactually happened."
A LITERARY LOVE AFFAIR
This is a love story of two of the class who know things. MargaretSelwyn was a graduate of one of the bluest women's colleges between thetwo seas, and, more than that, she had a background of home culture andrefinement, having parents of brains. She came from college with thoseacquirements, which shine exteriorly, and had an incurved back, and was"tailor made" from head to heel, yet having within her all thatgentleness and greatness of heart which make a woman better thananything else, not even excluding the strawberry upon which the RightReverend Bishop pronounced such a sincere eulogy.
As to the man, Henry Bryant, he belonged socially and in all other waysto the same class as the woman, even in brains and goodness,considering, of course, the limitations of sex. Each of these twooccupied a social position--if such a thing as recognized socialposition be defined enough in the United States--distinctly understoodby the people who knew them. Each was arrogant and self-sustained, andeach thoroughly and admiringly in love with the other. It was wonderfulhow these two, each accustomed to be obeyed, and each, in a gentle way,unconsciously dominant with those about, grew close and yieldingtogether. Each recognized the masterfulness, feminine or masculine, ofthe other, and there came a great sweetness to the understanding. Yet tothese two, well-poised and mentally well-equipped, came gusts andshowers of difference of opinion. The man tried to be dignified andself-contained upon these occasions, but, as a rule, failed miserably.The woman didn't even try.
But these differences throughout the months of their engagement resultedin no tragedy of importance. They both had so much of the salt of humorin their composition that they recognized the folly of even a momentaryantagonism, and each laughed and begged the other's pardon or renderedthe equivalent of that performance. They smiled together over theirmutual short lapses of realization of what it is that makes the world goround.
At such times as they quarreled the man would tell her the foolish butprobably true story of the Irishman who came annually whooping into townat fair time in some old Irish village, whirling his shillalah abovehis head and announcing to all the world that he was "blue-mouldy forwant of a batin'." And, after this comparison, Bryant would announce, instrictest confidence, to his sweetheart, that this blessed Irishmannever failed to get his "batin'," and that there were "others" even untothis day.
And so it came, in time, that this man, in love with a woman, called herhis "blue-mouldy" girl, and this came to be the sweetest title in theheart of each.
With all the saving grace of the sense of proportion, which is a goodpart of the sense of humor, and with all their love and understanding ofeach other, with such characters it was inevitable that something musthappen. There are laws of Nature. Vesuvius gets dyspeptic. Certain Javanislands spill up into the sky and the world has red sunsets for a while.One day, this woman, good product of a good race, sat in her parlorawaiting her lover. She was reading a book as she waited.
Now as to certain facts: Miss Selwyn was in her literary tastes anIbsenite, Hardyite, Jamesite, or something of that sort. Bryant was aKiplingite or Conan Doyleite. She trimmed close to something sere, andwhere nerves were. He was chiefly in his literary tendencies "Let hergo, Gallagher!"
Margaret, having become absorbed in her book, looked up with saddenedeyes from her literary draft of wormwood and tea, with the beginning ofbeautifully creased brows, to note the entrance of some lusty flesh andblood. Less in accord in mood and thought than were these, for theinstant, never existed two people on the face of the earth, earnestlovers though they were and of about the same quality of thought andbeing. Something had to happen.
"Why weep ye by the tide, Ladye?" began Bryant, glancing at the face ofhis sweetheart, and from that to the book she had laid aside. As she didnot reply immediately, he continued, taking up the volume:
"Is it The Han't that Walks or The Browning of the Overdone Biscuit thathas lowered your spirits?"
"I don't know what you are talking about," she said.
"Neither do I," said he.
There they were, he, overcoat still on and hat in hand, and she sittingthere and looking up at him but still enwrapped in a more or lessemotional feverishness contracted from the volume in his hand. Anypurely objective onlooker would have required no announcement of theapproaching "circus."
The girl made an effort to recover command of herself. "Leave your hatand overcoat with the maid," she said, "and come and sit here in thewindow and look at the lake, while I read to you the beautiful ending ofthe story I have just finished."
"I will stay," Bryant declared; "I was going to ask you to go with me tothe park and idle among the chrysanthemums, but this will be better."And he seated himself near the window. "May I be allowed to look at you,instead of following your advice to the letter and keeping my eyes uponthe cold, gray lake water outside?" he continued. "No matter what Ihear, I shall be content if I can see you."
Miss Selwyn flushed a little, but laughed good-humoredly.
Here the purely objective looker-on afore-mentioned might murmur overthe foolhardiness of man when he meets, unawares and alluncomprehendingly, one of the bewildering moods of an impressionablesweetheart. The contented male creature rushed blindly to his fate.
"Before you begin, dear, tell me; tell me it is not Tolstoi or Ibsen youare going to read, nor yet George Meredith or Sarah Grand!"
At the last reference Miss Selwyn's eyes began to flash dangerously.
"You know I detest her!" she exclaimed.
"Do you refer to all four of the writers I mentioned as of the femininegender?" inquired Bryant with an appearance of fervid interest. The foolwas actually enjoying it all.
Seeing that her lover was only chaffing, Margaret made a brave effort,settled herself in her chair and found the place in her book.
"Before you begin--I beg your pardon," said Bryant deferentially, "butlet me say that I was up late last night, and if I can't keep awakeunder the spell of your voice,
don't blame me. Wake me up at thecatastrophe, when the distant door slams or somebody breaks a teacup."
Miss Selwyn laid the volume down again, and, still smiling, answeredquietly but a shade frostily:
"It would take something written with a mixture of raw brandy, blood andvermilion paint to arrest your attention, I believe! Your authors writewith--with--an ax in place of a pen. But I can't harrow up my ownimagination with their horrors, much less read them aloud!"
"An exclusive regime of problem novels, plays and moralizings onpessimistic lines is bad for the mental digestion," admitted Bryant injudicial tones. "Poor girl! I must teach you to live in and love thisbeautiful, violent, sweet and good old world of ours--the world of realnature, real men and women, and real literature!"
"I thank you for your indulgent, patronizing intentions," she flashedback at him. "You would feed butterflies on brawn, teach the bluebird toscream like a macaw, make the trembling, silver-leaved white birches allover into oaks."
"My dear Margaret--" stammered Bryant, starting up, but he could not laythe spirit he had raised.
"There are questions in life that cannot be settled by the stroke of asword or ax," she went on. "Your favorite writer has smirched the fairfigure of childhood in his brutal pictures of boys' life. He has made anunwholesome, disgusting thing out of what should be and is healthful andfine. How can you, who read him with patience, carp at my taste for whatseems to me well thought and well expressed?"
"The effect of your favorites upon you to-day has not been particularlyreassuring," said Bryant, more stirred by Margaret's tone and mannerthan by her words. Seeing that he had angered her, and trying to stemthe tide of her indignation, he still blundered most flagrantly, andwithin a half hour the quarrel had culminated in an avowed separationfor the rest of their lives, Bryant leaving the house in a state ofindignant misery such as fond and over-confident lovers alone may know.
Not a word had been said, this time, about the "blue-mouldy" girl. Theatmosphere had been too electric, the mood too tense for a laughingword.
Then followed silence between these two. Stubborn pride on the part ofthe woman, proud stubbornness on the part of the man. They wereearnestly and faithfully in love, but each waited to hear the first wordof forgiveness.
Bryant did write, but in his preoccupation left his letter upon the deskunposted, and in a day it was snowed under by his unopened or carelesslyglanced at mail. Of course he misunderstood Miss Selwyn's silence andshe resented his.
One Sunday morning Margaret, with an innate grasping and running back tothe faith in which she had been bred, sought help at the source whichbest suited her--the relief which comes from religion.
It so chances that there is a shrine upon the bank of the Ganges. It sochances that there is what we call a Mecca. It so chances that we alloccasionally seek our shrines.
Margaret Selwyn sat in her shrine, the outgrown old Episcopal Cathedralon Washington Boulevard, and listened to her pastor, one of the greatold men who have grown up with a creed, but with thought and lovingness;one who has learned how to heal wounds, the wounds of which no tonguecan tell, and how to advise genially and generally as to the affairs oflife. Somehow, the old gentleman, with his white hair and robes, hissimple, clean, old-fashioned honesty, had imparted to her a strength andfaith in God which calmed and helped her. It may be there could not havebeen imparted to her by any one else in the world, politics and powerand inherited splendor all considered, as much as could this plain oldman.
The white-robed boys sang their recessional, and she became perhapsclearer and more comprehensive of mind than before she entered thechurch--certainly more equipoised than she had been for days.
Meditatively alive to the quiet of this Sunday noon, Miss MargaretSelwyn, as she neared the centre of the city, stopped short and lookedabout her. Where was she?
The pavement of the street was gray-blue, spotted with white, andgleaming here and there with the iridescent living tints of birdplumage. The air was winged by soft forms, and a crowd of idlers werescattering grains of corn upon the ground to lure and keep in sight themost graceful creatures that live between the sky and earth.
Against a sky as blue as that of Venice two snow-white pigeons wereflying straight down the street toward their companions. A swarthyItalian stood with the birds almost under his feet, but, save the darkface of the street-vender, the pigeons and the perfect sky, the pictureinvoluntarily imaged in Miss Selwyn's mind was all away and awry.
Here was no stately tower, remote and solitary as a recluse in a worldlythrong; no Byzantine temple delighted her eye with its warm and gracioushumanity of suggestion. The vast sunny space of the Venetian square,with its columned coffee-houses and shops, was in spirit and in truthfar removed from here. St. Mark's, and the place where the dream of amoment had arisen in an impressionable mind, might have been on twodifferent planets, so opposed were they in every outline, spirit anddetail--save one: the fluttering, flying, eager, unafraid pigeons.
The sun shot side glances down through the thoroughfare and really didsome good on this day, because this was the day of the Nazarene, andeven the money-seekers on this day had abandoned in their affairs theconsumption of bituminous coal. That is why on Sunday, in one of thegreatest cities in the world, the air is clear and the breath better.That is one reason why, on Sunday, the American cousins of the "pigeonsof St. Mark's" come fluttering from somewhere about the city, from onlythe Maker of them knows where, and dip downward out of the ethertrustingly to the feet of the passer-by, be he thug or preacher.
Miss Selwyn had never heard of the vast flock of doves which dwell insecurity among the towering buildings of the city. Their wings flashacross wide darkling streets all day, welcome to every careworn man whowatches, for a moment, their graceful flight. They were here before hernow--there, parading strutting, looking up hopefully toward the menabout them, each eagerly seeking the next flip of the corn. Theywere--and are to-day--because of some gracious instinct in humanity, thebest casual street exemplification of what is best in human nature.
They dripped and dropped from somewhere almost simultaneously. There wasone who strutted the most struttingly and whose only really justifiableclaim was that from crown to midway of his body he had such iridescentpurple as all the shell-opening fishermen of Tyre and Sidon neverdevised half-way. There was another one, a quaint little maiden, whowill probably marry some English nobleman of the birds, snow-white, withstrange geometrical lines crisscross about her back, and who was almostduplicated by a dozen or two others of her breed. There were two rufousthings, the red of whose top and back lapsed into a white beneath,almost as exquisitely as blends the splendid red hair of a woman intothe ever accompanying white of the skin beneath. There were littledrizzled things, pert, like bantams, off-breeds which had introducedthemselves into the community. And there was nothing but just a tossingabout among those beautiful creatures upon the pavement there, nothingbut an Oliver Twistish clamor for "more" from those who stood abovethem, to whom they were doing more good than they could know.
On week days the pigeons fly out in foraging parties to the railwayyards and the neighborhood of the huge grain elevators. They can be seenglancing above the tall buildings, far flying, specks of gleaming light,along the hollow spaces above the streets as they go and come from theirfeeding places. The crowded masses of wagons, street cars, carriages,horses and hurrying people keep the pigeons from the street where theyare most at home together for six days. But on the seventh, when theburden of labor is lifted or a brief space from the shoulders of toilingmankind, the pigeons rally in force upon one of the most busy, prosaic,care-breeding corners in the great spreading city by the lake. And everySunday come, as surely, men and boys to feed the air-travelers and lookat them with the worship all men feel for natural beauty and grace.
"HE WAS UNCONSCIOUS AS A CHILD"]
Miss Selwyn had chanced upon this unique function, the pigeons' Sundaybanquet. Here were no appealing graces of architecture and Venetian balmof
atmosphere. The rough pavement on which the yellow corn was scatteredwas a contrast to the smooth and perfect floor of the great Piazza. Onone side was the inevitable American drug store, plain, matter-of-fact,yet giving, by its crimson and purple window globes, the only touch ofpure color in that part of the street. Across the way was a hotel. Aclothing store, with its paraphernalia of advertisement, occupiedanother corner. It was Clark and Madison Streets.
Miss Selwyn saw every detail of this scene at a glance, and then hereyes were fastened upon one figure.
Standing among the others was Henry Bryant. His straight, powerfulfigure, commanding in presence and pose, seemed to separate him, in away, from the men around him. But, like all the onlookers, he boughtcorn and scattered the grain on the ground, watching the pigeons as theyclustered around his largess. He was as unconscious as a child, and asgentle, about his simple pleasure. His face was a little worn andchanged by the suffering of the days of separation from her--Margaret'seyes were quick to see that.
That was the man from whom she had separated after a wordy war overwordy books. That was her lover over there. His whole look, attitude andoccupation appealed to her tenderness. Love rushed tumultuously onward,a tide of irresistible strength, sweeping away every carefully-builtstructure of repulse and every barrier of opinion. Their quarrel wasforgotten. Yet the reserve of a proud nature and of custom kept MissSelwyn from crossing over to speak to Bryant.
She walked home with a springing step. Once the thought came into hermind that Bryant might go away somewhere at once; that the message shewas hurrying to send him might not reach him, and at the idea she feltfaint and disheartened. She stopped and, for an instant, almost turnedback, but, checking herself with a smile at her own impatience andtrivial forebodings, she held on her homeward way again.
She could see her lover, and see him as plainly as when he was inreality before her, all unconscious of her presence, halfabsent-mindedly and all tenderly scattering grain for the cooing,fluttering pigeons at his feet.
The next morning, Bryant, looking over his mail with little relish--formuch of the interest in living was out of him just then--found a letterwhich aroused him most effectually from his mood of listlessness. Itsaid:
DEAR: I am "blue-mouldy for want of a batin'." Come to me.
MARGARET.