Edgar Saltus: The Man Part 10

Careful and painstaking in the writing of letters to editors and friends, Mr. Saltus invariably wrote to me on a yellow copy pad and in pencil. In twenty years the writing against the tinted background has become indistinct, but, poor as it is, a fac-simile of one of his letters will be given. The sheets on these pads were large, and as a rule his letters covered ten or twelve of them. For the sake of brevity only the shortest are quoted, and these not in full.

These letters which poured in several at a time on every steamer, rose as a smoke between the eligibles and himself, as he expected them to do. He seemed to need me so badly. Above and beyond every other sentiment he inspired was the desire not only to protect him from the outside world--that was simple--but to protect him against the greater danger: himself and his weaknesses.

Disregarding the wishes and plans of those with whom I was stopping, November saw me on the Celtic en route for New York.

The following spring found things in statu quo. "Lords of the Ghostland"

was no nearer completion and Mr. Saltus as far from free as before. Another European trip was arranged for me. I was to sail on the Celtic early in May. Once again Mr. Saltus was disconsolate, and as before the "wows" and lamentations began. Toward the last however he appeared to accept it with a great deal of philosophy. Among the crowd of "well wishers" at the boat with arms full of fruit, flowers, pillows and sweets, was Mr. Saltus. He had said good-bye the night before with surprising calmness. The lessons of the Gita seemed to have been absorbed at last.

Before any of the others left the boat, he got up, made a gracious and formal farewell and went away. That was as it should be. Family and friends were delighted to see him go.

Half an hour later, as the boat was making its way down the bay, from somewhere behind my deck-chair a faint but unmistakable 'miaw' pierced the vibration of the propeller. I turned. Cap in one hand and steamer rug in the other, there stood Mr. Saltus, smiling at my bewilderment.

"I am the cat who came back," he said laughing, "and I am going to sit at your side and purr for a whole blissful week, and the future can take care of itself."

Though it carried conflict and confusion into the party with me, one cannot be ejected from a s.h.i.+p for effrontery. The weather was perfect, the water like gla.s.s, and the suns.h.i.+ne uninterrupted. Mr. Saltus was so carefree and happy that he romped and played like a child. He would attempt to hide and then jump out from an unexpected place. He pretended to lose my books and find them in queer corners. He played hide-and-seek and would run up the companion-way like a boy, saying he was going to catch me by the ankles.

Upon reaching London however he found himself de trop again. From the home of Lady C----, where I was stopping, to his hotel in Victoria Street one could walk without fatigue. A taxi could make it in five minutes. With the exception however of a few formal dinners Mr. Saltus was not urged to consider himself at home there. On the contrary, he was given to understand that his presence was a decided embarra.s.sment and that free from his influence I would probably annex one of the eligibles, who, outcla.s.sing him, he was told, in name, money and position, were always pushed to the fore.

All this he knew, but what was more important, he knew me, and the others did not. Hunting up his old rooms in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, he re-engaged the suite he had occupied years before while writing "Mary Magdalen." Announcing that he expected to remain all summer, he put in his mornings at the British Museum studying cuneiform.

What Mr. Saltus did with his mornings did not concern Lady C---- in the least. She was determined however that the balance of his time should be as harmless. Months before we had planned to spend our summer in Germany that year. In order that he should not conflict with these arrangements, a fortnight later saw us all in Homburg. For reasons of finance Mr. Saltus was unable to follow. He could write however, and he could send wires, and he did both rather continuously. After one of the eligibles joined our party he frequently wrote twice a day.

It was in Paris during the end of August, that he crossed our orbit again.

We were stopping at the Elysee Palace Hotel, and he at the St. James and Albany. I had advised him of our plans in time.

However unwelcome he had been before, it was hospitality compared to the hostility he encountered then, when members of the Diplomatic Corps, King's Messengers and the younger sons of the n.o.bility were welcomed. The absence of money and the existence of a wife combined to put him in the category of undesirable things. It was an unpleasant situation all around.

To thrash it out every day was too much of a f.a.g. It was easier to say nothing and do as one pleased, and Paris is wonderfully adapted to teas and tete-a-'tetes.

The autumn found me in London with Lady C---- again, and Mr. Saltus in his old rooms in Margaret Street once more. Sitting at the table where he had written "Mary Magdalen" he tried to work as before, but the Muse had fled.

It was during this time that he first met Mr. G. F. Monkshood, who, under the name of Hatchard, embellished Piccadilly with a fascinating and unique bookshop. Monkshood it was who had brought out a small volume called "Wit and Wisdom of Edgar Saltus." In it were compiled epigrams, phrases and quotations from all of his earlier books. The subtle compliment pleased Mr.

Saltus very much. He had encountered so little appreciation. Mr. Monkshood and himself were congenial souls. In the funereal shelter of the Blenheim Club they drank and dined and devoured one another. Added to his other accomplishments, Mr. Monkshood was a poet. Verses written to "The Lady of the Opals" and signed by himself have smiled for years from a sc.r.a.p-book of mine.

The knowledge that he must return almost immediately to the States stupefied Mr. Saltus. He was like a man who had been sand-bagged. He could not speak of it without breaking down, and yet he had not the means to live there in idleness. He used to refer to this time as his crucifixion. We have to suffer terribly before we can learn how not to suffer at all. That lesson from the Gita we could see the beauty of and the necessity for, but we had not acquired it then. On the fly-leaf of "The Light of Asia" Mr.

Saltus had written, however, "The swiftest beast to bear you to perfection is suffering."

The week before leaving was the hardest for him. He did not want to talk.

He could not, in fact. Riding on the tops of 'busses to the extreme limits of London in all directions was his only diversion. Time and again we spent a whole afternoon on one in silence.

In the middle of September Mr. Saltus left for the States. When he finally got on the boat train for Southampton he was like a man starting for Siberia for life. One thing alone comforted him. I agreed to leave Lady C---- in a few weeks and take over his old rooms in Margaret Street. It seemed to him that some emanations of his personality persisted there, and he wanted to think of me in his old haunt.

Once more letters eight and ten pages long came on each steamer, and Mr.

Saltus hated to write letters. Sometimes there were cables of over a hundred words. The hopelessness of it all was acute. From every angle it was going around in circles and getting nowhere. One always returned to where one left off. Disgrace--even destruction lurking on one side: on the other, the necessity for cutting him out of my life like a cancer.

Upon his return he wrote:--

My dear darling Mowgy:

It is like death,--like dying, rather, to be here without you. I said it would be like prison, but it is worse. The sky is as blue as your own dear eyes. The weather is absolutely tropical. Were you here there would be pleasure in mere existence. But you are not here, my darling, and I seem to be able to be conscious only of that,--only that my little girl is far, far away. I have heart for nothing. Yesterday I pa.s.sed the Astoria, and at the knowledge that there was no chance of seeing you there, tears came to my eyes. Never can I enter the place until you return, and now when will that be? I think you would agree to come very soon if you could realize what all this means to me. From the time I kissed you last up to this moment I have done nothing but plan for your return. From that time up to now, not for an instant have you been absent from my thoughts. It is not merely that I love you, dear; I cannot live without you. Do you remember you asked me what I should do and how I should act were I to lose you? I told you I did not know. But, dear, I know now. It is not wholly for that reason that I want you back. It is first because I am so anxious and worried about you; second because I can do better for you here. Without you it will be as though I were dying by inches. But with you here I can work and I can win. I rather thought that I should have a line from your mother, but there was nothing. My father, by the way, who is here at the Murray Hill Hotel, will not outlive the winter, or it may be another month or two. Then, dear, in all the world I shall have not a relative,--not a tie. There will be only you. You alone, dear, whom I love alone in all the world. Come to me on the Oceanic,--cable me that you will and then not even death shall part us,

Your EDGAR.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fac-simile of Letter sent to Marie Saltus]

Letters like this poured in by every steamer. One did not know what to do or how to act. His pathetic words swam before my eyes and interposed between myself and the eligibles. In January Mr. Saltus fell ill--or said he was ill. His letters and cables became incoherent. Then they ceased. A note came to me from the physician who was attending him. In it he asked if I could tell him if Mr. Saltus had any relatives or friends who could be called upon. He painted a pathetic case. From his letter the delirium tremens looked up and leered.

The letter had its effect. Mr. Saltus followed it up with a cable saying that he expected to die. That was too much. Advising my family from Liverpool of my intentions, and cabling him at the same time, I sailed.

Mr. Saltus met me at the pier. He was looking pale and thin, but in no dying condition. It was the old story over again. There was no unpacking of trunks for me however. I was off again to Mexico City in a few weeks and he was alone as before, to continue going around in circles which ended where they began.

CHAPTER VIII

There is nothing more delightful than travel, but roaming the world like a Peer Gynt is not the same thing. Amusing at first, it finally gets on the nerves,--and living in trunks for years is highly disorganizing. The letters which followed me to Mexico City from Mr. Saltus said that his father was going downhill rapidly.

Never close to his younger son in any sense, during his last days, however, Francis Saltus turned to him more and more, relied on him and was comforted by his presence. While Mr. Saltus' letters threw out hints of coming to Mexico, where he hoped the New York Journal would find some work for him to do,--his father's unwillingness to have such a distance between them, and the real necessity for his presence within telephone distance, put an end to that. Letters of introduction were sent by him, however, to his old friend Eli G.o.ddard, who was then living in Cordova, and to his brother-in-law, Prince Poniatowski. Their visits to the home of my cousins were duly recorded and sent to him, but they failed to keep him in a cheerful mood.

However, the home,--the understanding, and the unselfish interest of Miss G---- did much to keep him from moods and melancholy. No woman Mr. Saltus knew up to that time was a more uplifting influence than she. Calm, dependable, her feet well on the earth, her emanations were sweet and soothing. The occasions on which Mr. Saltus saw his young daughter were holidays to him. To take her to the Plaza Hotel for tea and a chat was enough to brighten an entire week for him.

Of Bob Davis, Mr. Saltus saw quite a bit during this time. He is one of the few men whom Mr. Saltus really loved.

"Bob," he used to say, "is unique. There is no one like him. He stimulates me like champagne."

Many were the lunches and dinners they had together. Mr. Davis was particularly fond of apple pancakes. Whenever he came to the Manhattan Club they were ordered for his especial benefit, and Mr. Saltus used to address him when writing to him as "Your Highness, The Duke of Apple-Pancake." He was lunching with Bob Davis when one of his peculiarities crept out. A number of letters and telegrams were brought to him. Never by any chance did Mr. Saltus open letters unless from the postmark or the handwriting he could be sure from whom they had been sent. That was not all,--he had to be equally convinced that they contained no unpleasant news. Letters in unknown handwriting were consigned unopened to the trash basket. If he happened to be in his rooms when sorting them, and one or more were in the doubtful cla.s.s, they were tossed into a bureau drawer to be considered later. In this way he lost not only cheques but many interesting communications. People who wrote to him must have gone on wondering why no reply was ever forthcoming. They will know now.

Letters from editors were unmistakable. They could be identified from their envelopes. My writing, and that of his closest friends, he could take in at a glance. Why take chances on the rest? What he did not know could not worry him. There was serenity in an unopened letter. Any unpleasantness in a note, however slight it might be, upset him to such an extent that he could not concentrate his mind or write a line of copy that day.

On the occasion of this luncheon with Bob Davis, Mr. Saltus took in his letters at a glance,--decided that there was nothing he cared to take a chance on, and picking them up unopened he tore the lot into fragments. In telling of it he said:--

"Bob always thought I was a bit queer. Now he must be certain that I am quite mad."

This habit, instead of decreasing, grew with the years. He had a horror of opening letters of any kind for some time before he died,--the courage of youth having left him. After his death, his daughter and I spent two afternoons going through one of his old trunks and some bureau drawers.

Hundreds of unopened letters, many with special delivery stamps on them, were opened, read and destroyed by us. Several of them contained cheques years old. It was incredible to his daughter that any one could have kept them unopened during so many years. It was a fancy to which I had become accustomed. He had not kept them because he was interested in them. He had been too much occupied and too indifferent to destroy them.

Spring came, and the summer followed. Quoting from a letter of his, Mr.

Saltus wrote:

"There is green on the trees and the joy of springtime, but there is nothing in my heart but despair. When is this nightmare to end? When you were in Margaret Street I could picture you. I was a part of it all. Now it is chaos. Letters from Mexico City, from Orizaba and Cuernavaca, and the devil knows where, tell me that you are surrounded by beauty,--the beauty of living things. Colour you say is the consciousness of nature.

Only the consciousness of desolation and despair is mine."

The rainy season is the time to leave Mexico. Joining a party, among whom was a friend of Eli G.o.ddard's, a very charming Spaniard, and still moving on like the Wandering Jew, I went north through Los Angeles and Santa Barbara to San Francisco. Spaniards are very gallant. In writing of this one I perhaps emphasized him overmuch. Telegrams of worry and warning followed.

A fortnight after I reached the St. Francis Hotel a wire from Mr. Saltus read:--"My father died yesterday.

Leaving for San Francisco next week. Eternamente.