What would he think when he discovered— No, she mustn’t dwell upon that. She would not dwell on the end.
He was so nice when he laughed. He was so nice.
And yet the knife of fear still probed her heart. He must not know. They would live up to the moment and then—then she—
“It’s wine with bubbles in it,” he was saying. “Wine with giggles in it. Drink a little but not too much.”
She drank. She felt better. She almost forgot. . . .
They went to a matinee but she had so little attention for the stage that the play, afterward, seemed quite incoherent to her. Somehow Thomas Crandall was the leading man and Thomas Crandall occasionally smiled sideways at her. When it ended he was holding her hand. He seemed very doubtful of his small advances and she had the feeling that he was afraid he might touch her and break her.
“What will your family think?” he said when they were outside. “You’ve been gone all afternoon and someone must have expected you somewhere. Surely anyone as beautiful as you must be missed.”
She felt nervous and guilty. “Oh . . . oh, I . . . I am not from New York. I am from Boston. That’s it. From Boston. And—my father and mother are both dead. I came down to see a show.”
“Ah, so I’ve helped you attend to business.” He grinned. “Then I am very much in luck. Then you can dine with me. And there are clubs and dancing and there will be a moon tonight—” Instantly he blushed. And she laughed at him.
“I am fond of the moon,” she said, close against his arm. “Oh, but I must . . . must go to my hotel for a little while and dress.”
“Tell Charles which one. No, tell me and I’ll tell him. I should dress also.”
“The . . . the Astor.”
“I’ll be back in an hour,” he called to her from the curb. And the big car drew away.
She was filled with uneasiness to be standing there alone. She knew very little about such things and was certain she would make some mistake. But she reckoned without her beauty and the gallantry of man.
“I wish,” she whispered to herself as she signed the register, “that I had a hundred dollars in my purse.” And to the smiling clerk, “A suite, please. A large suite. My . . . my baggage will be brought in.”
And the porter came through the door carrying new luggage with her name upon it.
When Thomas Crandall came back an hour later he stopped in wide-eyed reverence for the girl who came from the elevator. Her glowing chestnut hair swept down to naked shoulders and her gown, a graceful miracle in green, flowed closely to her to sweep out and to the floor. Finding it difficult to speak—for there seemed to be something in his throat—he helped her into the ermine wrap and led her through the lobby and down the steps as though he were escorting the sun itself.
“You . . . you are beautiful,” he said. “No, that’s not adequate. You are— Oh,” he gave it up, “where would you like to dine?”
“Where you are going?” she said.
He laughed. They both laughed. And they went away to dine.
The world became a fantasy of bright glasses and swirling color and music, a delicate sensory world, and people laughed together and waiters were quick and kind.
“Not too much,” he admonished her. “It’s not the wine. It’s the bubbles. They have fantasies in them. Each one contains a giggle or a castle or the moon.”
They danced. And the bubbles won.
Somewhat astonished she looked about her to find the last place nearly empty. A scrubwoman was already at work upon the floor and a man was piling tables and chairs. And the orchestra, when Tommy offered more largess, was too sleepy to play. There was no more champagne. There was no more music. And the edge of the roof garden was already gray and the moon had gone.
She yawned as he took her arm. She nearly fell asleep as they got into his car. She snuggled down against him and looked up at him.
He laughed at her and then grew serious. “If I thought . . . if . . . well . . . I wish I could marry you.”
“Why can’t you?” she said.
“Why can’t— Do you mean it? But, no. You’ve known me a very short time. You—”
“I have known you forever. We are to be married!”
“But what if . . . if I turn out to be a drunkard?”
“Then I will also be a drunkard.”
He looked at her for a moment. “You do love me, don’t you, as I love you?”
She pulled his head down and kissed him.
Somewhat dazedly afterward he said to his chauffeur: “There must be a place where people can get married quickly.”
“Quickly,” she murmured.
“Yes, sir,” said the chauffeur.
“Take us there,” said Tommy.
Suddenly she was terrified. She did not dare permit him to do this. For in—in twenty-six hours she would be— But she was more afraid that he would not.
She snuggled against him once more and sighed. Twenty-six hours left. Only twenty-six hours left but they could be full and she could be happy. And somehow, she would have to have the courage to face what came after. To face the loss of him . . . she drowsed.
With sixteen hours left to her she lay upon the great bed in the airy room and looked at the ceiling beams where the afternoon sunlight sent reflections dancing. He had said that he had a few phone calls to make and that there would be a party beginning at six and that the whole city—or whoever was important in the city—would be there. And she had understood suddenly that she knew about Thomas Crandall or had heard of him as a playwright, fabulously successful.
This, his home, was a palace of wonder to her, all marble and teak and ivory, filled with servants who were soft-footed and efficient—servants of whom she was secretly in awe.
She had not wished this and yet it had happened. It had been all Tommy’s idea to marry her, to bring her here, to give a great party. . . .
She did not have the courage it would take to run away now, before everyone came. For these hours were so precious that she hated to waste minutes in thinking so darkly on things. But think now she must. In sixteen hours she would be sixty-six years old, faded, delicate, starved— And Thomas Crandall—
She began to weep and, in a little while, realized that there was no solution. For what could she ask which she could retain? She could not plead that his love would not change. She knew that when he knew, he would be revolted both by her withered self and by the witchcraft which he would perceive. She could never stand to see him look at her as he would. And she could never bear to so cruelly abuse his love. For his love was not part of the wishes. If only it had been! Then he would forget—
And another knife of thought cut into her. Could she go back now, Mrs. Thomas Crandall, to a hovel on a sordid street and be happy with memory? She began to know that that could never be.
But his footstep was in the hall and he burst in followed by a train of servants who bore great boxes of clothes and flowers and little boxes full of things much more precious.
She was lost in the rapture of it. And then when she kissed him she forgot even the little boxes of velvet.
“Tommy, if this could last forever and ever—”
“It will last. Forever and ever.” But he seemed to sense something strange in her and the dark eyes were thoughtful for just the space of a heartbeat. And her heart was racing.
“Tommy—don’t leave me. Ever!”
“Never. In a little while the mayor and I don’t know who all will be here for the wedding dinner. After your very slight wedding breakfast, I should think you would want something to eat. We’ll have pheasants and . . . and hummingbird tongues—”
He scooped her up and carried her around the room and pretended to throw her out of the window.
And so the hours fled, as vanishes a song.
>
And it was four o’clock in the morning with the summer day heralded by a false dawn. Beside her Tommy slept quietly, hair tousled, one arm flung across her. A bird began to chirp himself into groggy wakefulness and somewhere in the direction of the river a boat whistled throatily. A clock was running in the room. Running loudly. She could just see its glowing face and knew that it was four. She had just four hours left. Four hours.
And she could not trust herself. She had to run away. But she could not trust herself not to afterward come back. And everything she had been given would be taken away except the memory.
The memory!
She knew now that a memory was not enough. A memory would be pain she could not bear. She would read of his plays. And hear of his continued fame. And she—she would not be able to come near him—and she would not be able to stay away. She would come back and he would not believe her. He would turn her forth and she would see a look upon his face—
She shivered.
She knew suddenly what she had to do and so she shivered.
With gentle slowness, she removed his arm and crept from the bed. He stirred and seemed about to wake and then quieted. She bent and kissed his cheek and a small bright tear glowed there in the cold false dawn. He stirred again and muttered her name in his sleep. A frown passed over his brow and then again he was still.
She drew her robe about her and tiptoed out into the anteroom where she quickly dressed. She commanded pen and ink:
My Darling:
This has all been a dream and I am grateful. You must not think of me again for I am not worth the thought. I knew I could not be with you past this dawn and yet I allowed your love for me to grow. Darling, try to forgive me. I go into nothingness. Do not think of me as unfaithful for I shall be faithful. But I was given forty-eight hours of freedom and now— By the time you read this I shall be dead. Do not search for me. It cannot be otherwise. I am grateful to you. I love you.
Meredith
At six, Tommy Crandall woke with a terrified start. He did not know what had happened but he seemed to hear a far-off voice cry to him. Meredith was gone. He flung back the covers and leaped up to search madly for her. A valet looked strangely at him.
“Mrs. Crandall left here two hours ago, sir. She went in a taxi. She said she had left you a note— Here it is, sir.”
Tommy read the note and then, trembling, read it through again. He walked in a small circle in the middle of the room and then suddenly understood. Wildly he snatched at his clothes and got them on.
“Get the car!” he roared at the valet. “Oh, my God, get the car! I’ll find her. I have to find her!”
He did not bother to go to the Astor, for there was an urgency in the note which directed his steps immediately to the police.
And he found a sleepy sergeant at the morgue who yawned as he said, “You can look but we ain’t got nothing like that in here. Two firemen that burned up on a ship and a couple of accident cases come in about dawn. But we ain’t got no beautiful woman. No, sir, it ain’t very often you see a beautiful woman down here. When they’re beautiful they don’t let themselves—”
Tommy flung away and then turned. “How do I find a medical examiner?”
“That’s a thought,” yawned the sergeant. “Call headquarters and they’ll give you the duty desk.”
It was eight o’clock before Tommy found the medical examiner who knew. The man was still perturbed and perplexed, for he was not at ease about things. He was a small, nervous politician’s heel dog.
He ran a finger under his collar as he gazed at the overwrought young man who stood in the doorway. “Well, I thought it was irregular. But it was my duty and there was no sign of foul play. And so I took the death certificate and signed it—”
Tommy turned pale. “Then . . . then she is dead.”
“Why, yes. A funny thing,” said the coroner uncomfortably. “But she came and got me and said to come along and, of course, a beautiful woman that way and looking rich, I went along. And we came to this undertaking parlor and went in and she said she had two hundred and twenty dollars of her own money. She was very particular about its being her own money and she—”
“Are you sure she is dead?”
“Why, yes, I say, she made the arrangements on the condition that she would be buried right away without a notice sent out or anything and paid spot cash and then—well, she dropped dead.”
“How do you know?”
“Brother, when they’re dead, they’re dead. My stethoscope doesn’t lie. And no sign of foul play or poison whatever. And, well, I took my pen in hand and signed. She didn’t want an autopsy because she said she couldn’t stand being cut up, and she didn’t want to be embalmed. So they just took her and buried—”
“What funeral parlor?” demanded Tommy savagely.
“I’ll give you the address,” said the examiner. And he did.
The professional manner of the undertaker Tommy dashed aside. “A lady by the name of Meredith Smith Crandall was here this morning.”
“Why, yes,” said the sad gentleman. “Yes, that is true.” He looked upset. “Is there anything wrong?”
“No. Nothing wrong—no trouble for you, I mean. What happened?”
“Why, she came in and paid for a funeral on the condition that she would be buried right away and so we buried her, of course. She paid cash, double price on our cheapest funeral. She insisted it was her own money. I don’t know why. The thing is very regular. We have a certificate—”
“Take me to the cemetery!” cried Tommy in anguish.
“Certainly,” said the undertaker respectfully. “But she has been legally buried and an exhumation order—”
“Take me there!”
They drove between the gateposts of Woodpine and it was twenty minutes of ten. The undertaker pointed to the grave where the turf was still raw. A workman was starting to clear away to put sod on the place and another was hauling away spare dirt.
The undertaker looked at Tommy with amazement. The workmen stared. Tommy immediately seized a spade and began to throw back the earth. When they attempted to stop him he struck at them with the implement and kept on digging. And then, because his very savageness had cowed them, they helped him lift the cheap, sealed coffin from the earth. Tommy knocked off the lid with the spade.
A little old lady lay there, clad in decent if ragged garments, her fine gray hair a halo above the delicate oval of her face. But she was not lying with crossed arms. And she had not died with a smile. She had been so tiny that she had been able to turn over in her coffin and now she lay, with a bruised and bloodied face and torn hands, huddled on her side, and her expression did not indicate that she had died in peace.
It was ten o’clock.
The workmen suddenly drew away from Tommy. The undertaker gasped and involuntarily crossed himself. For the man who clutched the body to him and wept was no longer young. He was an old man of more than sixty now where he had been young before, and the good garments he had worn had become carefully kept but threadbare tweed. What hair he had now was gray. And the tears which coursed down his cheeks made their way through furrows put there by loneliness and privation.
You see, Georgie had made two calls the day before.
The Devil’s Rescue
The Devil’s Rescue
HE had been cold so long that he had even ceased to dream of the great logs crackling in the old manor fireplace of his home. He just shivered now and then and ached, becoming conscious of the fact that it was bitter for a moment and then relapsing into a blue ache which ate him from the mop of his salt-encrusted hair to his cracked feet.
He had stopped courting the madness of envisioning great dinners he had eaten, recalling rather the peculiarly delicious flavor of the last biscuit in the breadbox, which moldy and inedible had vanished to
its last crumb some two days before.
At the end of sixty hours he had been exhausted with holding himself against the sick lurches, the violent pitches and whipping rolls of the nineteen-foot lifeboat but now he braced himself not at all but lay prone in five inches of water and limply shifted with it from side to side.
It was hell to open his eyes once the salt had formed over them while shut, but some deep instinct in him bade him, now and then, to look up at the tattered ensign which hung upside down on the mast. The savage energy of the wind tearing into the red and white and blue wool wearied him and again he shut his eyes.
It was almost sunset. Sunset of his twenty-second day in an open boat somewhere south and west of that ironically named place, the Cape of Good Hope.
First he had unloaded the cabin boy over the rail and into the grey restlessness of the sea. He had done it with great sorrow at the time, although it seemed to him now that the important thing about it was how strong he had been. What determination had shone out of him that he would not suffer a like fate! How bravely had he braced himself against that oar, bidding the crew bend their backs until the wind shifted and he could set the sail.
Then he had unloaded the cook. It had seemed strange that the fellow had not been able to live longer on his fat. And the wind hadn’t shifted and when dawn rose, the reason why he’d had to carry so much starboard helm the last hour became apparent and so they had dumped the bow oar into the sea.
That was all after the wind had started to blow straight off the Cape. There was nothing astern but auks, he told them. Auks and ice, and they had nothing to lose but their lives which weren’t worth much anyway. And so they’d dumped the bow oar’s dead heaviness into the sea, whipped into a creamy froth now by the rising wind.
About then he had ceased keeping track of the rest of his crew. The captain, had he not been dead on the schooner’s house and in a hundred fathom by now, would have kept a very punctual log about it, doubtless. But not his mate.