paula and charter in several settings feel the energy of the great good that drives the world
charter roused, after an unknown time, to the realization that the woman was in his arms; later, that he was sitting upon a slimy stone in a subterranean cell filled with steam. the slab of stone held him free from the four or five inches of almost scalding water on the floor of the cistern. the vault was square, and luckily much larger than its circular orifice; so that back in the corner they were free from the volcanic discharge which had showered down through the mouth of the pit—the cause of the heated water and the released vapors. an earthquake years before had loosened the stone-lining of the vault. with every shudder of the earth now, under the wrath of pelée, the walls, still upstanding, trembled.
charter was given much time to observe these matters; and to reckon with mere surface disorders, such as a bleeding right hand, lacerated from the rusty chain; a torn shoulder, and a variety of burns which he promptly decided must be inconsequential, since they stung so in the hot vapor. then, someone with a powerful arm was knocking out three-cushion caroms in his brain-pan. this spoiled good thinking results. it is true, he did not grasp the points of the position, with the remotest trace of the sequence in which they are put down. indeed, his mind, emerging from the depths into which the shock of eruption had felled it, held alone with any persistence the all-enfolding miracle that the woman was in his arms....
presently, his brain began to sort the side-issues. her head had lain, upon his shoulder during that precipitous plunge, and her hair had fallen when he first caught her up. he remembered it blowing and covering his eyes in a manner of playful endearment quite impossible for an outsider to conceive. meanwhile, the blast from pelée was upon the city; traversing the six miles from the crater to the morne, faster than its own sound; six miles in little more than the time it had taken him to cross the lawn from the veranda to the cistern. a second or two had saved them.
the fire had touched her hair.... her bare arm brushed his cheek, and his whole nature suddenly crawled with the fear that she might not wake. his head dropped to her breast, and he heard her heart, light and steadily on its way. his eyes were straining through the darkness into her face, but he could not be sure it was without burns. there was cumulative harshness in the fear that her face, so fragile, of purest line, should meet the coarse element, burning dirt. his hands were not free, but he touched her eyes, and knew that they were whole.... she sighed, stirred and winced a little—breath of consciousness returning. then he heard:
"what is this dripping darkness?"
the words were slowly uttered, and the tones soft and vague, as from one dreaming, or very close to the gates.... in a great dark room somewhere, in a past life, perhaps, he had heard such a voice from someone lying in the shadows.
"we are in the old cistern—you and i——"
"i—knew—you—would—come—for—me."
it was murmured as from someone very weary, very happy—as a child falling asleep after a dream, murmurs with a little contented nestle under the mother-wing.
"but how could you know?" he whispered quickly. "my heart was too full—to take a mere mountain seriously—until the last minute——"
"skylarks—always—know!"
torrents of rain were descending. pelée roared with the after-pangs. though cooled and replenished by floods of black rain, the rising water in the cistern was still hot.
"it was always hard for me to call you wyndam——"
"harder to hear, quentin charter...."
"but are you sure you are not badly burned?" he asked for the tenth time.
"i don't feel badly burned.... i was watching for you from the window in my room. i didn't like the way my hair looked, and was changing it when i saw you coming—and the black behind you. i tried to fasten it with one pin, as i ran downstairs.... it fell. it is very thick and kept the fire from me——"
"from us." he would have preferred his share of the red dust.
she shivered contentedly. "what little is burned will grow again. red mops invariably do."
" ... and to think i should have found the old cistern in the night!... one night when i could not sleep, i walked out here and explored. the idea came then——"
"i watched you from the upper window.... the shutter wiggled as you went away. it was the next day that the 'fraids got me. you rushed off to the mountain."
often they verged like this beyond the borders of rational quotation. one hears only the voices, not the words often, from rapture's roadway.
"just as i begin to think of something pelée erupts all over again in my skull——"
"i didn't know men understood headache matters.... don't you think—don't you really think—i might be allowed to stand a little bit?"
"water's still too hot," he replied briefly.
the cavern was not so utterly dark. the circle of the orifice was sharply lit with gray.... they lost track of the hours; for moments at a time forgot physical distress, since they had known only mystic journeys before.... they whispered the fate of saint pierre—a city's soul torn from the shrieking flesh; shadows lifted from the mystery of the little wine-shop; clearly they saw how the occultist, his magnetism crippled, had used jacques and soronia; and charter recalled now where he had seen the face of paula before—the photograph in the bellingham-cabin on the panther.... a second cloudburst cooled and eased them, though they stood in water.... it seemed that peter stock should have made an effort to reach them by this time. save that the gray was unchangeable in the roof the world, charter could not have believed that this was all one day. the power which had devastated the city, and with unspent violence swept the morne, might have reached three leagues at sea!... above all these probabilities arose their happiness.
"it seems that i've become a little boy," he said, "on one of those perfect christmas mornings. don't you remember, the greatest moment of all—coming downstairs, partly dressed, into the room they had made ready? that moment, before you actually see—just as you enter the mingled dawn and fire-light and catch the first glisten of the tree?... i'm afraid, paula linster, you have found——"
"a boy," she whispered. her face was very close in the gray.... "the loved dream-boy. the boy went away to meet sternness and suffering and mazes of misdirection—had to compromise with the world to fit at all. ah, i have waited long, and the man has come back to me—a boy."
"la montagne pelée is artistic."
"it may be in this marvellous world, where men carry on their wars and their wooings," she went on strangely, "some pursuing their little ways of darkness, some bursting into blooms of valor and tenderness;—it may be that two of earth's people, after a dreadful passage through agony and terror, have been restored to each other—as we are. it may be that in the roll of earth's tableaux, another such film is curled away from another age and another cataclysm."
"paula," he declared, after a moment, "i have found a living truth in this happiness—the great good that drives the world! i think i shall not lose it again. glimpses of it came to me facing the east—as i wrote and thought of you. one glimpse was so clear that i expressed it in a letter, 'i tell you there is no death, since i have heard the skylark sing....' i lost the bright fragment, for a few days in new york—battled for the prize again both in new york and yesterday at the mountain. to-day has brought it to me—always to keep. it is this: were you to die, i should love you and know you were near. this is love above flesh and death—the old mystifying interchangeables. this happiness is the triumph over death. it is a revelation, a mighty adoring—not a mere woman in my arms, but an ineffable issue of eternity. a woman, but more—love and labor and life and the great good that drives the world! this is the happiness i have and hold to-day: though you died, i should know that you lived and were mine."
"i see it—it is the triumph over death—but, quentin charter—i want you still!"
"don't you see, it is the strength you give me!—that girds me to say such things?"
so they had their flights into silence, while the eternal gray lived in their round summit of sky—until the voices of the rescuers and their own grateful answers.... the sailor was sent back to the boat for rope, while macready cheered them with a fine and soothing gaelic oil.... they lifted paula, who steadied and helped herself by the chain; then sent the noose down for charter.
"have you the strent', sir, to do the overhand up the chain?" macready questioned, and added in a ghost's whisper, "with the fairest of tin thousand waitin' at the top?"
charter laughed. to lift his right arm was thrashing pain, but he made it easy as he could for them; and in the gray light faced the woman.
she saw his lacerated hand, the mire, fire-blisters upon his face, the blood upon his clothing, swollen veins of throat and temples, and the glowing adoration in his eyes.... she had bound her hair, and there was much still to bind. no mortal hurt was visible. behind her was the falling sea. on her right hand the smoking ruin of the palms; to the left, pelée and his tens of thousands slain; above, the hot, leaden, hurrying clouds.... ernst, macready and the sailor moved discreetly away. backs turned, they watched the puffs of smoke and steam that rose like gray-white birds from the valley of the dead city.
"ernst, lad," said macready, "the boss and the leadin' lady are havin' an intellekchool repast in the cinter av the stage by the old well. bear in mind you're a chorus girl and conduct yourself in accord. have you a drop left in the heel av the flask, adele, dear?"
they were nearing the saragossa in the dusk, and their call had been answered with a rousing cheer from the ship....
"please, sir, you said you would take me sailing," paula called, as she readied the head of the ladder.
though he could not stand, peter stock had an arm for each; and they were only released to fall into the embrace of father fontanel. they saw it now in the ship's light: pelée had stricken the old priest, but not with fire.... the two were together shortly afterward at supper, in clean dry make-shifts, very ludicrous.
"i came to you empty-handed, and soiled from the travail of the journey," she whispered. "all but myself was in a certain room that faced the north."
"there are booties, flounces and ribands in the shops of fort de france," charter replied with delight. "peter stock shall be allowed certain privileges, but not to make any such purchases. i carry circular notes—and insist on straightening them out."
"haven't you discovered that skylarks are not of the insisting kind—even when they need new plumage? anything that looks like insistence nearly scares the life out of them. isn't it a dear world?"
all this was smoothly coherent to him.... alone that night, they drew deck-chairs close together forward; and snugly wrapped, would have nothing whatever to do with peter stock's sumptuous cabins. they needed floods of rest, but were too happy, save just to take little sips of sleep between talk.
"you must have been afraid at first," she said, "of turning a foolish person's head with all that beauty of praise in your letters.... i think you were writing to some image you wanted to believe lived somewhere, but had little hope ever really to find. i could not take it all home to me at first.... i felt that you were writing to a lovely, shadowy sister who was safely put away in a kind of twilight faëry—a little figure by a well of magical waters. sometimes i could go to her, reach the well, but i could not drink at first—only listen to the music of the water, watch it bubble and flash in the moon."
"i love your mind, paula linster," he said suddenly, "—every phase of it. by the way—love's a word i never used before to-day—not even in my work, save as an abstraction."
she remembered that selma cross had said this of him—that he never used that word.
"you could not have said that to 'wyndam'——"
"yes—for skylark was singing more and more about her. i soon should have had to say it to 'wyndam.'"
"i loved your fidelity to skylark," she told him softly.
dust of pelée would fall upon the archipelago for weeks, but this of starless dark was their supreme night. "feel the sting of the spray," he commanded. "hear the bows sing!... it's all for us—the loveliest of earth's distances and the sky afterward——"
"but behind," she whispered pitifully.
"yes—pelée 'splashed at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comet's hair.'"
the next night had fallen, and the two were through with the shops of fort de france. paula's dress was white and lustrous, a strange native fabric which the man regarded with seriousness and awe. he was in white, too. his right hand was swathed for repairs, the arm slung, and a thickness of lint was fitted under his collar. about his eyes and mouth was a slight look of strain still, which could not live another day before the force of recuperative happiness.... up through the streets of the capital, they made their way. casements were open to the night and the sea, but the people were dulled with grief. martinique had lost her first born, and fort de france, the gentle sister of saint pierre, was bowed with the spirit of weeping. they had loved and leaned on each other, this boy and girl of the mother island.
through the silent crowds, charter and paula walked, a part of the silence, passing the groves and towers, where the laws of france are born again for the little aliens; treading streets of darkness and moaning. a field of fire-lights shone ahead—red glow shining upon new canvas. this was the little colony of father fontanel, sustained by his american friend,—brands plucked from the burning of saint pierre. they passed the edge of the bivouac. a woman sat nursing her babe, fire-light upon her face and breast, drowsy little ones about her. coffee and night-air and quavering lullabies; above all, ardent josephine in marble, smiling and dreaming of europe among the stars.... it was a powerful moment to quentin charter. great joy and thrilling tragedy breathed upon his heart. he saw a tear upon paula's cheek, and heard the low voice of father fontanel—like an echo across a stream. he saw them and hastened forward, more than white in the radiance.
"it is the moment of ten thousand years!" he exclaimed, grasping their hands.
paula started, and turned to charter whose gaze sank into her brain.... and so it came about unexpectedly; in the fire-light among the priest's beloved, under the seven palms and the ardent mystic smile of the empress....
go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for god hath already accepted thy works.... let thy garments be always white; and let not thy head lack ointment. live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest, all the days of thy life.
the words rang in their ears, when they were alone in the city's darkness, and the fire-lights far behind.
on the third day following, they stood together on the morne d'orange—the three. father fontanel had been in feverish haste to gaze once more upon his city; while charter and paula had a mission among the ruins.... the saragossa was sitting for a new complexion in the harbor of fort de france, so they had been driven over from the capital, along the old sea-road. the wind was still; the sun shone through silent towers of smoke, and it was noon. sunlight bathed the stripped fields of cane, and, seemingly inseparable from the stillness, brooded upon the blue caribbean. the wreck of the old plantation-house was hunched closer to the ground.
they left father fontanel in the carriage, and approached the cistern. charter halted suddenly at the edge of the stricken lianas, grasping paula's arm. the well-curbing was broken away, and the earth, for yards surrounding, had caved into the vault. they stood there without speaking for a moment or two, and then he led her back to the carriage.... father fontanel did not seem aware of their coming or going, but smiled when they spoke. his eyes, charmed with sunlight, were lost oversea.
at last they stood, the priest between them, at the very edge of the morne overlooking the shadowed rue victor hugo—a collapsed artery of the whited sepulchre.... the priest caught his breath; his hands lifted from their shoulders and stretched out over the necropolis. his face was upraised.
"god, love the world!" he breathed, and the flesh sank from him.... much death had dulled their emotions, but this was translation. for an instant they were lifted, exalted, as by the rushing winds of a chariot.
they did not enter the city that day, but came again, the fourth day after the cataclysm. out of the heat from the prone city, arose a forbidding breath, so that paula was prevailed upon to stay behind on the morne.... sickened and terrified by the actualities, dreadful beyond any imaging, charter made his way up the cluttered road into rue rivoli. saint pierre, a smoky pestilential charnel, was only alive now through the lamentations of those who had come down from the hills for their dead.
the wine-shop had partly fallen in front. the stone-arch remained, but the wooden-door had been levelled and was partially devoured by fire. a breath of coolness still lingered in the dark place, and the fruity odor of spilled wine mingled revoltingly with the heaviness of death. the ash-covered floor was packed hard, and still wet from the gusts of rain that had swept in through the open door and the broken-backed roof; stained, too, from the leakage of the casks. charter's boot touched an empty bottle, and it wheeled and careened across the stones—until he thought it would never stop.... steady as a ticking clock, came the "drip-drip" of liquor, escaping through a sprung seam from somewhere among the merciful shadows, where the old soldier of france had fallen from his chair.
he climbed over the heap of stones, which had been the rear-door, and entered the little court from which the song-birds had flown. across the drifts of ash, he forced his steps—into the semi-dark of the living-room behind.
the great head that he had come to find, was rigidly erect, as if the muscles were locked, and faced the aperture through which he had entered. it seemed to be done in iron, and was covered with white dust—pelée's dust, fresh-wrought from the fire in which the stars were forged. the first impression was that of calm, but charter's soul chilled with terror, before his eyes fathomed the reality of that look. under the thick dust, there suddenly appeared upon the features, as if invisible demons tugged at the muscles with hideous art, a reflection from the depths.... bellingham was sitting beside a table. he had seen death in the open door. the colossal energies of his life had risen to vanquish the foe, yet again. his mind had realized their failure, and what failure meant, before the end. out of the havoc of nether-planes, where abominations are born, had come a last call for him. that glimpse of hell was mirrored in the staring dustless eyes.... around his shoulders, like a golden vine, and lying across his knees, clung the trophy of defeat—soronia. denied the lily—he had taken the tiger-lily.... under the unset stones of the floor, a lizard croaked.
charter, who had fallen of old into the caverns of devouring, backed out into the court of the song-birds, in agony for clean light, for he had seen old hells again, in the luminous decay of those staring eyes.... he recalled the end of father fontanel and this—with reverent awe, as one on the edge of the mystery. through the ends of these two, had some essential balance of power been preserved in the world?
