August First

August First.

by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews and Roy Irving Murray.

"Whee!"

The long fingers pulled at the clerical collar as if they might tear it away. The alert figure swung across the room to the one window not wide open and the man pushed up the three inches possible. "Whee!" he brought out again, boyishly, and thrust away the dusty vines that hung against the opening from the stone walls of the parish house close by.

He gasped; looked about as if in desperate need of relief; struck back the damp hair from his face. The heat was insufferable. In the west black-gray clouds rolled up like blankets, shutting out heaven and air; low thunder growled; at five o"clock of a midsummer afternoon it was almost dark; a storm was coming fast, and coolness would come with it, but in the meantime it was hard for a man who felt heat intensely just to get breath. His eyes stared at the open door of the room, down the corridor which led to the room, which turned and led by another open door to the street.

"If they"re coming, why don"t they come and get it over?" he murmured to himself; he was stifling--it was actual suffering.

He was troubled to-day, beyond this affliction of heat. He was the new curate of St. Andrew"s, Geoffrey McBirney, only two months in the place--only two months, and here was the rector gone off for his summer vacation and McBirney left at the helm of the great city parish.

Moreover, before the rector was gone a half-hour, here was the worst business of the day upon him, the hour between four and five when the rector was supposed to be found in the office, to receive any one who chose to come, for advice, for G.o.dly counsel, for "any old reason," as the man, only a few years out of college, put it to himself. He dreaded it; he dreaded it more than he did getting up into the pulpit of a Sunday and laying down the law--preaching. And he seriously wished that if any one was coming they would come now, and let him do his best, doggedly, as he meant to, and get them out of the way. Then he might go to work at things he understood. There was a funeral at seven; old Mrs. Harrow at the Home wanted to see him; and David Sterling had half promised to help him with St. Agnes"s Mission School, and must be encouraged; a man in the worst tenement of the south city had raided his wife with a knife and there was trouble, physical and moral, and he must see to that; also Tommy Smith was dying at the Tuberculosis Hospital and had clung to his hands yesterday, and would not let him go--he must manage to get to little Tommy to-night. There was plenty of real work doing, so it did seem a pity to waste Lime waiting here for people who didn"t come and who had, when they did come, only emotional troubles to air. And the heat--the unspeakable heat! "I can"t stand it another second!" he burst out, aloud. "I"ll die--I shall die!" He flung himself across the window-sill, with his head far out, trying to catch a breath of air that was alive.

As he stretched into the dim light, so, gasping, pulling again at the stiff collar, he was aware of a sound; he came back into the room with a spring; somebody was rapping at the open door. A young woman, in white clothes, with roses in her hat, stood there--refreshing as a cool breeze, he thought; with that, as if the thought, as if she, perhaps, had brought it, all at once there was a breeze; a heavenly, light touch on his forehead, a glorious, chilled current rushing about him.

"Thank Heaven!" he brought out involuntarily, and the girl, standing, facing him, looked surprised and, hesitating, stared at him. By that his dignity was on top.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked gravely. The girl flushed.

"No," she said, and stopped. He waited. "I didn"t expect--" she began, and then he saw that she was very nervous. "I didn"t expect--you."

He understood now. "You expected to find the rector. I"m sorry. He went off to-day for his vacation. I"m left in his place. Can I help you in any way?"

The girl stood uncertain, nervous, and said nothing. And looked at him, frightened, not knowing what to do. Then: "I wanted to see him--and now--it"s you!" she stammered, and the man felt contrite that it was indubitably just himself. Contrite, then amused. But his look was steadily serious.

"I"m sorry," he said again. "If I would possibly do, I should be glad."

The girl burst into tears. That was bad. She dropped into a chair and sobbed uncontrollably, and he stood before her, and waited, and was uncomfortable. The sobbing stopped, and he had hopes, but the hat with roses was still plunged into the two bare hands--it was too hot for gloves. The thunder was nearer, muttering instant threatenings; the room was black; the air was heavy and cool like a wet cloth; the man in his black clothes stood before the white, collapsed figure in the chair and the girl began sobbing softly, wearily again.

"Please try to tell me." The young clergyman spoke quietly, in the detached voice which he had learned was best. "I can"t do anything for you unless you tell me."

The top of the hat with roses seemed to pay attention; the flowers stopped bobbing; the sobs halted; in a minute a voice came. "I--know.

I beg--your pardon. It was--such a shock to see--you." And then, most unexpectedly, she laughed. A wavering laugh that ended with a gasp--but laughter. "I"m not very civil. I meant just that--it wasn"t you I expected. I was in church--ten days ago. And the rector said--people might come--here--and--he"d try to help them. It seemed to me I could talk to him. He was--fatherly. But you"re"--the voice trailed into a sob--"young." A laugh was due here, he thought, but none came. "I mean--it"s harder."

"I understand," he spoke quietly. "You would feel that way. And there"s no one like the rector--one could tell him anything. I know that. But if I can help you--I"m here for that, you know. That"s all there is to consider." The impersonal, gentle interest had instant effect.

"Thank you," she said, and with a visible effort pulled herself together, and rose and stood a moment, swaying, as it an inward indecision blew her this way and that. With that a great thunder-clap close by shook heaven and earth and drowned small human voices, and the two in the dark office faced each other waiting Nature"s good time. As the rolling echoes died away, "I think I had better wait to see the rector," she said, and held out her hand. "Thank you for your kindness--and patience. I am--I am--in a good deal of trouble--" and her voice shook, in spite of her effort. Suddenly--"I"m going to tell you," she said. "I"m going to ask you to help me, if you will be so good. You are here for the rector, aren"t you?"

"I am here for the rector," McBirney answered gravely. "I wish to do all I can for--any one."

She drew a long sigh of comfort. "That"s good--that"s what I want,"

she considered aloud, and sat down once more. And the man lifted a chair to the window where the breeze reached him. Rain was falling now in sheets and the steely light played on his dark face and sombre dress and the sharp white note of his collar. Through the constant rush and patter of the rain the girl"s voice went on--a low voice with a note of pleasure and laughter in it which muted with the tragedy of what she said.

"I"m thinking of killing myself," she began, and the eyes of the man widened, but he did not speak. "But I"m afraid of what comes after.

They tell you that it"s everlasting torment--but I don"t believe it.

Parsons mostly tell you that. The fear has kept me from doing it. So when I heard the rector in church two weeks ago, I felt as if he"d be honest--and as if he might know--as much as any one can know. He seemed real to me, and clever--I thought it would help if I could talk to him--and I thought maybe I could trust him to tell me honestly--in confidence, you know--if he really and truly thought it was wrong for a person to kill herself. I can"t see why." She glanced at the attentive, quiet figure at the window. "Do you think so?" she asked.

He looked at her, but did not speak. She went on. "Why is it wrong?

They say G.o.d gives life and only G.o.d should take it away. Why? It"s given--we don"t ask for it, and no conditions come with it. Why should one, if it gets unendurable, keep an unasked, unwanted gift? If somebody put a ball of bright metal into your hands and it was pretty at first and nice to play with, and then turned red-hot, and hurt, wouldn"t it be silly to go on holding it? I don"t know much about G.o.d, anyway," she went on a bit forlornly; not irreverently, but as if pain had burned off the sh.e.l.l of conventions and reserves of every day, and actual facts lay bare. "I don"t feel as if He were especially real--and the case I"m in is awfully real. I don"t know if He would mind my killing myself--and if He would, wouldn"t He understand I just have to? If He"s really good? But then, if He was angry, might He punish me forever, afterward?" She drew her shoulders together with a frightened, childish movement. "I"m afraid of forever," she said.

The rain beat in noisily against the parish house wall; the wet vines flung about wildly; a floating end blew in at the window and the young man lifted it carefully and put it outside again. Then, "Can you tell me why you want to kill yourself?" he asked, and his manner, free from criticism or disapproval, seemed to quiet her.

"Yes. I want to tell you. I came here to tell the rector." The grave eyes of the man, eyes whose clearness and youth seemed to be such an age-old youth and clearness as one sees in the eyes of the sibyls in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel--eyes empty of a thought of self, impersonal, serene with the serenity of a large atmosphere--the unflinching eyes of the man gazed at the girl as she talked.

She talked rapidly, eagerly, as if each word lifted pressure. "It"s this way--I"m ill--hopelessly ill. Yes--it"s absolutely so. I"ve got to die. Two doctors said so. But I"ll live--maybe five years--possibly ten. I"m twenty-three now--and I may live ten years.

But if I do that--if I live five years even--most of it will be as a helpless invalid--I"ll have to get stiff, you know." There was a rather dreadful levity in the way she put it. "Stiffer and stiffer--till I harden into one position, sitting or lying down, immovable. I"ll have to go on living that way--years, you see. I"ll have to choose which way. Isn"t it hideous? And I"ll go on living that way, you see. Me. You don"t know, of course, but it seems particularly hideous, because I"m not a bit an immovable sort. I ride and play tennis and dance, all those things, more than most people. I care about them--a lot." One could see it in the vivid pose of the figure. "And, you know, it"s really too much to expect. I _won"t_ stiffen gently into a live corpse. No!" The sliding, clear voice was low, but the "no" meant itself.

From the quiet figure by the window came no response; the girl could see the man"s face only indistinctly in the dim, storm-washed light; receding thunder growled now and again and the noise of the rain came in soft, fierce waves; at times, lightning flashed a weird clearness over the details of the room and left them vaguer.

"Why don"t you say something?" the girl threw at him. "What do you think? Say it."

"Are you going to tell me the rest?" the man asked quietly.

"The rest? Isn"t that enough? What makes you think there"s more?" she gasped.

"I don"t know what makes me. I do. Something in your manner, I suppose. You mustn"t tell me if you wish not, but I"d be able to help you better if I knew everything. As long as you"ve told me so much."

There was a long stillness in the dim room; the dashing rain and the muttering thunder were the only sounds in the world. The white dress was motionless in the chair, vague, impersonal--he could see only the blurred suggestion of a face above it; it got to be fantastic, a dream, a condensation of the summer lightning and the storm-clouds; unrealities seized the quick imagination of the man; into his fancy came the low, buoyant voice out of key with the words.

"Yes, there"s more. A love story, of course--there"s always that.

Only this is more an un-love story, as far as I"m in it." She stopped again. "I don"t know why I should tell you this part."

"Don"t, if you don"t want to," the man answered promptly, a bit coldly.

He felt a clear distaste for this emotional business; he would much prefer to "cut it out," as he would have expressed it to himself.

"I _do_ want to--now. I didn"t mean to. But it"s a relief." And it came to him sharply that if he was to be a surgeon of souls, what business had he to shrink from blood?

"I am here to relieve you if I can. It"s what I most wish to do--for any one," he said gently then. And the girl suddenly laughed again.

"For any one," she repeated. "I like it that way." Her eyes, wandering a moment about the dim, bare office, rested on a calendar in huge lettering hanging on the wall, rested on the figures of the date of the day. "I want to be just a number, a date--August first--I"m that, and that"s all. I"ll never see you again, I hope. But you are good and I"ll be grateful. Here"s the way things are. Three years ago I got engaged to a man. I suppose I thought I cared about him. I"m a fool. I get--fads." A short, soft laugh cut the words. "I got about that over the man. He fascinated me. I thought it was--more. So I got engaged to him. He was a lot of things he oughtn"t to be; my people objected. Then, later, my father was ill--dying. He asked me to break it off, and I did--he"d been father and mother both to me, you see. But I still thought I cared. I hadn"t seen the man much. My father died, and then I heard about the man, that he had lost money and been ill and that everybody was down on him; he drank, you know, and got into trouble. So I just felt desperate; I felt it was my fault, and that there was n.o.body to stand by him. I felt as if I could pull him up and make his life over--pretty conceited of me, I expect--but I felt that. So I wrote him a letter, six months ago, out of a blue sky, and told him that if he wanted me still he could have me. And he did.

And then I went out to live with my uncle, and this man lives in that town too, and I"ve seen him ever since, all the time. I know him now.

And--" Out of the dimness the clergyman felt, rather than saw, a smile widen--child-like, sardonic--a curious, contagious smile, which bewildered him, almost made him smile back. "You"ll think me a pitiful person," she went on, "and I am. But I--almost--hate him. I"ve promised to marry him and I can"t bear to have his fingers touch me."

In Geoffrey McBirney"s short experience there had been nothing which threw a light on what he should do with a situation of this sort. He was keenly uncomfortable; he wished the rector had stayed at home. At all events, silence was safe, so he was silent with all his might.

"When the doctors told me about my malady a month ago, the one light in the blackness was that now I might break my engagement, and I hurried to do it. But he wouldn"t. He--" A sound came, half laugh, half sob.

"He"s certainly faithful. But--I"ve got a lot of money. It"s frightful," she burst forth. "It"s the crowning touch, to doubt even his sincerity. And I may be wrong--he may care for me. He says so. I think my heart has ossified first, and is finished, for it is quite cold when he says so. I _can"t_ marry him! So I might as well kill myself," she concluded, in a casual tone, like a splash of cold water on the hot intensity of the sentences before. And the man, listening, realized that now he must say something. But what to say? His mind seemed blank, or at best a muddle of protest. And the light-hearted voice spoke again. "I think I"ll do it to-night, unless you tell me I"d certainly go to h.e.l.l forever."

Then the protest was no longer muddled, but defined. "You mustn"t do that," he said, with authority. "Suppose a man is riding a runaway horse and he loses his nerve and throws himself off and is killed--is that as good a way as if he sat tight and fought hard until the horse ran into a wall and killed him? I think not. And besides, any second, his pull on the reins may tell, and the horse may slow down, and his life may be saved. It"s better riding and it"s better living not to give in till you"re thrown. Your case looks hopeless to you, but doctors have been wrong plenty of times; diseases take unexpected turns; you may get well."

"Then I"d have to marry _him_," she interrupted swiftly.

"You ought not to marry him if you dislike him"--and the young parson felt himself flush hotly, and was thankful for the darkness; what a fool a fellow felt, giving advice about a love-affair!

"I _have_ to. You see--he"s pathetic. He"d go back into the depths if I let go, and--and I"m fond of him, in a way."

"Oh!"--the masculine mind was bewildered. "I understood that you--disliked him."

"Why, I do. But I"m just fond of him." Then she laughed again. "Any woman would know how I mean it. I mean--I am fond of him--I"d do anything for him. But I don"t believe in him, and the thought of--of marrying him makes me desperate."