I turned to my great barn of a room. You couldn"t get chummy with that, either. I began to unpack, with furious energy. In vain I turned every gas jet blazing high. They only cast dim shadows in the murky vastness of that awful chamber. A whole Fourth of July fireworks display, Roman candles, sky-rockets, pin-wheels, set pieces and all, could not have made that room take on a festive air.
As I unpacked I thought of my cosy room at Knapfs", and as I thought I took my head out of my trunk and sank down on the floor with a satin blouse in one hand, and a walking boot in the other, and wanted to bellow with loneliness. There came to me dear visions of the friendly old yellow brocade chair, and the lamplight, and the fireplace, and Frau Nirlanger, and the Pfannkuchen. I thought of the aborigines. In my homesick mind their b.u.mpy faces became things of transcendent beauty. I could have put my head on their combined shoulders and wept down their blue satin neckties. In my memory of Frau Knapf it seemed to me that I could discern a dim, misty halo hovering above her tightly wadded hair.
My soul went out to her as I recalled the shining cheek-bones, and the ap.r.o.n, and the chickens stewed in b.u.t.ter. I would have given a year out of my life to have heard that good-natured, "Nabben"." One aborigine had been wont to emphasize his after-dinner arguments with a toothpick brandished fiercely between thumb and finger. The brandisher had always annoyed me. Now I thought of him with tenderness in my heart and reproached myself for my fastidiousness. I should have wept if I had not had a walking boot in one hand, and a satin blouse in the other. A walking boot is but a cold comfort. And my thriftiness denied my tears the soiling of the blouse. So I sat up on my knees and finished the unpacking.
Just before dinner time I donned a becoming gown to chirk up my courage, groped my way down the long, dim stairs, and telephoned to Von Gerhard.
It seemed to me that just to hear his voice would instill in me new courage and hope. I gave the number, and waited.
"Dr. von Gerhard?" repeated a woman"s voice at the other end of the wire. "He is very busy. Will you leave your name?"
"No," I snapped. "I"ll hold the wire. Tell him that Mrs. Orme is waiting to speak to him."
"I"ll see." The voice was grudging.
Another wait; then--"Dawn!" came his voice in glad surprise.
"h.e.l.lo!" I cried, hysterically. "h.e.l.lo! Oh, talk! Say something nice, for pity"s sake! I"m sorry that I"ve taken you away from whatever you were doing, but I couldn"t help it. Just talk please! I"m dying of loneliness."
"Child, are you ill?" Von Gerhard"s voice was so satisfyingly solicitous. "Is anything wrong? Your voice is trembling. I can hear it quite plainly. What has happened? Has Norah written--"
"Norah? No. There was nothing in her letter to upset me. It is only the strangeness of this place. I shall be all right in a day or so."
"The new home--it is satisfactory? You have found what you wanted? Your room is comfortable?"
"It"s--it"s a large room," I faltered. "And there"s a--a large view of the lake, too."
There was a smothered sound at the other end of the wire. Then--"I want you to meet me down-town at seven o"clock. We will have dinner together," Von Gerhard said, "I cannot have you moping up there all alone all evening."
"I can"t come."
"Why?"
"Because I want to so very much. And anyway, I"m much more cheerful now.
I am going in to dinner. And after dinner I shall get acquainted with my room. There are six corners and all the s.p.a.ce under the bed that I haven"t explored yet."
"Dawn!"
"Yes?"
"If you were free to-night, would you marry me? If you knew that the next month would find you mistress of yourself would you--"
"Ernst!"
"Yes?"
"If the gates of Heaven were opened wide to you, and they had "Welcome!"
done in diamonds over the door, and all the loveliest angel ladies grouped about the doorway to receive you, and just beyond you could see awaiting you all that was beautiful, and most exquisite, and most desirable, would you enter?"
And then I hung up the receiver and went in to dinner. I went in to dinner, but not to dine. Oh, shades of those who have suffered in boarding-houses--that dining room! It must have been patterned after the dining room at Dotheboys" hall. It was bare, and cheerless, and fearfully undressed looking. The diners were seated at two long, unsociable, boarding-housey tables that ran the length of the room, and all the women folks came down to dine with white wool shawls wrapped snugly about their susceptible black silk shoulders. The general effect was that of an Old People"s Home. I found seat after seat at table was filled, and myself the youngest thing present. I felt so criminally young that I wondered they did not strap me in a high chair and ram bread and milk down my throat. Now and then the door would open to admit another snuffly, ancient, and be-shawled member of the company. I learned that Mrs. Schwartz, on my right, did not care mooch for shteak for breakfast, aber a leedle l"mb ch"p she likes. Also that the elderly party on my left and the elderly party on my right resented being separated by my person. Conversation between E. P. on right, and E. P.
on left scintillated across my soup, thus:
"How you feel this evening Mis" Maurer, h"m?"
"Don"t ask me."
"No wonder you got rheumatism. My room was like a ice-house all day.
Yours too?"
"I don"t complain any more. Much good it does. Barley soup again? In my own home I never ate it, and here I pay my good money and get four time a week barley soup. Are those fresh cuc.u.mbers? M-m-m-m. They haven"t stood long enough. Look at Mis" Miller. She feels good this evening. She should feel good. Twenty-five cents she won at bridge. I never seen how that woman is got luck."
I choked, gasped, and fled.
Back in my own mausoleum once more I put things in order, dragged my typewriter stand into the least murky corner under the bravest gas jet and rescued my tottering reason by turning out a long letter to Norah.
That finished, my spirits rose. I dived into the bottom of my trunk for the loose sheets of the book-in-the-making, glanced over the last three or four, discovered that they did not sound so maudlin as I had feared, and straightway forgot my gloomy surroundings in the fascination of weaving the tale.
In the midst of my fine frenzy there came a knock at the door. In the hall stood the anemic little serving maid who had attended me at dinner.
She was almost eclipsed by a huge green pasteboard box.
"You"re Mis" Orme, ain"t you? This here"s for you."
The little white-cheeked maid hovered at the threshold while I lifted the box cover and revealed the perfection of the American beauty buds that lay there, all dewy and fragrant. The eyes of the little maid were wide with wonder as she gazed, and because I had known flower-hunger I separated two stately blossoms from the glowing cl.u.s.ter and held them out to her.
"For me!" she gasped, and brought her lips down to them, gently.
Then--"There"s a high green jar downstairs you can have to stick your flowers in. You ain"t got nothin" big enough in here, except your water pitcher. An" putting these grand flowers in a water pitcher--why, it"d be like wearing a silk dress over a flannel petticoat, wouldn"t it?"
When the anemic little boarding-house slavey with the beauty-loving soul had fetched the green jar, I placed the shining stems in it with gentle fingers. At the bottom of the box I found a card that read: "For it is impossible to live in a room with red roses and still be traurig."
How well he knew! And how truly impossible to be sad when red roses are glowing for one, and filling the air with their fragrance!
The interruption was fatal to book-writing. My thoughts were a chaos of red roses, and anemic little maids with glowing eyes, and thoughtful young doctors with a marvelous understanding of feminine moods. So I turned out all the lights, undressed by moonlight, and, throwing a kimono about me, carried my jar of roses to the window and sat down beside them so that their exquisite scent caressed me.
The moonlight had put a spell of white magic upon the lake. It was a light-flooded world that lay below my window. Summer, finger on lip, had stolen in upon the heels of spring. Dim, shadowy figures dotted the benches of the park across the way. Just beyond lay the silver lake, a dazzling bar of moonlight on its breast. Motors rushed along the roadway with a roar and a whir and were gone, leaving a trail of laughter behind them. From the open window of the room below came the slip-slap of cards on the polished table surface, and the low buzz of occasional conversation as the players held postmortems. Under the street light the popcorn vender"s cart made a blot on the mystic beauty of the scene below. But the perfume of my red roses came to me, and their velvet caressed my check, and beyond the noise and lights of the street lay that glorious lake with the bar of moonlight on its soft breast. I gazed and forgave the sour-faced landlady her dining room; forgave the elderly parties their shawls and barley soup; forgot for a moment my weary thoughts of Peter Orme; forgot everything except that it was June, and moonlight and good to be alive.
All the changes and events of that strange, eventful year came crowding to my mind as I crouched there at the window. Four new friends, tried and true! I conned them over joyously in my heart. What a strange contrast they made! Blackie, of the elastic morals, and the still more elastic heart; Frau Nirlanger, of the smiling lips and the lilting voice and the tragic eyes--she who had stooped from a great height to pluck the flower of love blooming below, only to find a worthless weed sullying her hand; Alma Pflugel, with the unquenchable light of gratefulness in her honest face; Von Gerhard, ready to act as buffer between myself and the world, tender as a woman, gravely thoughtful, with the light of devotion glowing in his steady eyes.
"Here"s richness," said I, like the fat boy in Pickwick Papers. And I thanked G.o.d for the new energy which had sent me to this lovely city by the lake. I thanked Him that I had not been content to remain a burden to Max and Norah, growing sour and crabbed with the years. Those years of work and buffeting had made of me a broader, finer, truer type of womanhood--had caused me to forget my own little tragedy in contemplating the great human comedy. And so I made a little prayer there in the moon-flooded room.
"O dear Lord," I prayed, and I did not mean that it should sound irreverent. "O dear Lord, don"t bother about my ambitions! Just let me remain strong and well enough to do the work that is my portion from day to day. Keep me faithful to my standards of right and wrong. Let this new and wonderful love which has come into my life be a staff of strength and comfort instead of a burden of weariness. Let me not grow careless and slangy as the years go by. Let me keep my hair and complexion and teeth, and deliver me from wearing soiled blouses and doing my hair in a k.n.o.b. Amen."
I felt quite cheerful after that--so cheerful that the strange b.u.mps in the new bed did not bother me as unfamiliar beds usually did. The roses I put to sleep in their jar of green, keeping one to hold against my cheek as I slipped into dreamland. I thought drowsily, just before sleep claimed me:
"To-morrow, after office hours, I"ll tuck up my skirt, and wrap my head in a towel and have a housecleaning bee. I"ll move the bed where the wash-stand is now, and I"ll make the chiffonnier swap places with the couch. One feels on friendlier terms with furniture that one has shoved about a little. How brilliant the moonlight is! The room is flooded with it. Those roses--sweet!--sweet!--"
When I awoke it was morning. During the days that followed I looked back gratefully upon that night, with its moonlight, and its roses, and its great peace.
CHAPTER XVII. THE SHADOW OF TERROR