The Salamander Part 58

Lindaberry was still sunk in long-needed slumber when she returned.

Clarice, tiptoeing out, informed her that the worst had been avoided: he had a const.i.tution and a will that was incredible; that alone had saved him from an attack of cerebral fever. What he suffered from most was insomnia and lack of rest; then, of course, there was the craving that had grown into the body, the hot thirst for alcohol. He would have to be watched every moment for days. There was the danger. She lay down on the sofa in the salon, asleep almost instantly, while Dodo, stealing back to the bedroom, encamped in a distant armchair by a fugitive gray slit of light, began to sort her Christmas mail.

There were a score of letters in all, gay with green and red stamps: some from already forgotten beaus, others from girl friends; a long annual letter from her aunt and uncle, distilling the heavy quiet and enforced lethargy of the small town; a note from Peavey; sentimental scrawls from the various props; a line in Sa.s.soon's brief peremptory style, saying that he would call that afternoon--an announcement suggestive of presents to appear; a missive from Ma.s.singale, which she reserved for the last; several envelopes in unfamiliar hands which puzzled her--in fact, odds and ends of all the curious threads that had woven into her life. She arranged them in order, the old memories first to be read and forgot the quicker, the outer cohorts of admirers, the initiated, and for the last Ma.s.singale and a letter or two that she had not peeped into, in deference to her love of the mysterious.

She began with the news from home, her body stiffening as her mind set itself to resistance. It was ten pages long, closely and painfully written out in the familiar faded and trembling hand: news of the weather and of the year's building, a record of illnesses and deaths, who had married and who had moved--the tabulated inconsequentialities of village life; and through all the complaining note of solitude and longing which always left her uneasy before the querulous pleading note of duty. She finished rapidly, and drew a long breath. The next was from her old admirer, the grocer's clerk, now full partner, faithfully announcing his marriage. She stopped a moment at the name of the woman.

"Bedelia--Bedelia Stone? Funny I can't remember. Oh, of course!

Delia--the girl with red hair and freckles who hated me so. Curious, I'd almost forgot!"

She went on to the next, shaking off the heaviness of spirit which these returning memories always laid across her ascending imagination. Then came Christmas remembrances from other outstripped chance devotees--one from a young dramatic critic in Buffalo whom she had enlisted in that short stop. She smiled at this fidelity, rather flattered. Peavey's letter, announcing a delay in his return, and the forwarding of a present, was signed, "Your devoted and faithful friend." This departure from formality left her in a reverie; she foresaw complications ahead, a new difficulty in the intimacy of the coming explanation which would require all her tact to prevent an open declaration.

Before beginning Ma.s.singale's letter she scanned anxiously the two unopened envelopes. What she had feared from the first nervous glance was a letter from Josh Nebbins. He had written her on her last birthday, and on the Christmas before--sentimental confident notes, the faith of a man who believes in the future. Each time she had determined definitely to announce the breaking of the engagement,--to her long since a thing of ridicule,--but she had delayed, mainly from cowardice, for fear that that persistent, terrible young hustler would come straight to New York.

Lately she feared him at every turn, obsessed more and more in her dreams by his pursuing shadow. To her relief, no word had come from him.

Perhaps he too had forgot, after all! She raised herself and glanced at the bed, where Lindaberry was still moving restlessly, but asleep. Then she opened Ma.s.singale's letter:

"_My Lady-of-Dreams_:

"Merry Christmas, and everything you can desire, even to impossible islands in southern seas! The bracelet I send you carries a talisman of good luck to keep you from an ugly world!

I'll come for you at twelve, to tell your especial ear all the things that are too fragile to put on crude paper, and if the snow holds, as seems probable, we'll get a sleigh and go jingling off into the new world, and I'll promise solemnly to believe everything you wish me to believe, never once to say _acting_, to be entirely docile and joyfully credulous, for a whole twenty-four hours.

"HIS HONOR."

She glanced guiltily at the clock, amazed how completely Ma.s.singale had gone out of her thoughts. It was almost noon. She arose hastily to telephone. But at this moment the man in the bed moved and opened his eyes, which remained profoundly set on her halted figure, so luminous and young in the glowing golden Russian blouse in which she had first appeared to him. She paused, poised lightly on her toes, as he stared out at her incredulously, striving to collect his thoughts.

"Dodo?" he said in a whisper, frowning before him.

She came to his bedside, all else forgot, smiling, radiant.

"Here I am!"

Suddenly some confused streak of memory seemed to cross his brain, and immediately he said, weakness in his voice:

"You--you ought not to be here!"

"I am not alone," she said, sitting down; "there is a trained nurse in the other room."

"I remember--last night--your coming suddenly. But--"

"Hush, don't try to remember!" she said quietly. "Rest; sleep all you can!"

He continued looking at her with great uncomprehending eyes.

"What day is it?" he asked slowly.

"Christmas."

"Good G.o.d!" He turned his face away, horror-stricken and ashamed; but she, struck by the movement and the shudder that pa.s.sed through his body, called to him gently:

"Garry, I don't blame you. Look at me! No, don't turn away, please."

She stretched out her hand, and slipping it under his head, brought it back to her; when he lifted his eyes, hers were smiling through her tears, compa.s.sionate and tender.

"I went to pieces," he said slowly.

"Never mind! Now I know how much you need me--what I can mean!"

"I remember nothing. Good G.o.d! where have I been?" he said bitterly, and in his eyes was the black fog of impenetrable days and nights.

"It was my fault, too; I made the mistake, Garry!" she said hastily.

"All that is over, though. Now we'll make the fight together!"

He watched her mutely, his eyes seeming to widen and deepen with the intensity of his gaze.

"Don't go away--just now--to-day...."

"I won't!"

"And wear--" He raised his hand and ran it caressingly over the golden velvet. "It's your color!"

She nodded, smiling down on him, her soothing fingers running lightly over his hot forehead.

"Lord! Such a defeat!" he said presently, shaking his head.

"Hus.h.!.+"

"What can you think of me?"

She looked down at his great frame, at the bared muscles of the arm that lay at her side, the corded brown neck, rough cut of chin, the powerful features, now so weak and so appealing. The despondency she saw in that great strength and stricken energy brought her all the closer to him, with an impulse to join all her strength to his, to take away the sting and the mortification, to raise him with confidence and hope.

The clock on the mantel began to send out its twelve tiny warning notes.

She did not remember. She was looking in his eyes, smiling, bending over him, claiming him by every gentle right; and the breath that came deeply from her moving breast descended to him, bearing all her strength, all her will, all herself.

CHAPTER XXIV

At four o'clock, Garry once more asleep to the sound of her calming voice, she ran out for a brief visit to Miss Pim's. In front of the door was an automobile that she recognized--in the heavy mediocrity of the parlor, Albert Edward Sa.s.soon. He came languidly to meet her (since her first reproof he had given up his pasha pose), unruffled and docile, a.s.suming the role of good fellows.h.i.+p, despite the fretting of the spirit he had endured.

"Oh, is that you?" she remarked nonchalantly, and gave him a limp hand, arranging her toque in the mirror while listening to his Christmas greetings.

"The humblest and the most patient of your admirers, pretty tyrant!" he said, his tired eyes scanning her with mock humility.

"You are lucky to find me; waiting long?"

As she continued standing, without a move to be seated, he drew from his pocket two jewel-cases, and said, as he moved toward the sofa: