Delphi Complete Works of Thorne Smith (Illustrated), page 28
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A FEW days after my encounter with Scarlet an adventure befell me out there on the lonely slopes of the sea which forever after influenced my life and which will continue to influence it until the end.
I was swimming through the choppy seas in the direction of one of the outlying islands when a small sail boat knifing dangerously across my path caused me to look up from the water. A pair of deep blue eyes gazed down into mine. It was a matter of only a moment, that swift, unexpected meeting, but as we regarded each other it was as though two creatures from another world had bewilderingly met in the midst of a mighty solitude.
The sloop cleared me neatly and left me bobbing in its wake. I turned for a last glimpse of the sea-blue eyes that had looked down into mine, then started out once more on my course, but as I thrust my face into the waves I felt as if I had suddenly buried it in a pool of liquid fire. The sharp agony of the contact caused me to throw my body half out of the water. A cry of pain broke from my lips, and blinded, I slipped back into the sea. Soft pulpy objects bobbed against my body — jellyfish in swarms. The flames were now scorching my legs and arms. I gasped for breath and a stream of salt water ran chokingly down my throat. I still had enough presence of mind to realize that I was losing control of myself and that sheer panic would soon send me to the bottom. From the black terror racing round my heart I managed to extract sufficient common sense to twist myself over on my back, and to lie floundering in the waves. Then a clear voice called down to me from somewhere close at hand and in my stricken condition it sounded almost supernaturally sweet and comforting.
The voice said, “Catch the side of the boat!”
“I can’t see the damn thing!” I gasped. “I can’t even open my eyes.”
“Oh, dear, they’ve blinded you!” the voice exclaimed with real concern. “Grab my hand — quick! Can you pull yourself over the side?”
Two small hands tugged at my arms and aided me into the boat. Still unable to open my eyes, I fell clumsily inboard, and the same ready hands saved my head from striking the swinging boom.
“You’re all right now,” said the voice. “Keep quiet a moment and get your breath.”
I felt the boat take to the wind and heel along. The waves rippled and flapped against her sides. Like a caressing hand a cool breeze ran over my face as my head fell back into the lap of my unseen rescuer.
“It’s a funny coincidence,” I said after I had recovered my breath, “being snatched like this from a school of infuriated jellyfish. I don’t know how to go about thanking you.”
“It wasn’t such a coincidence,” the voice replied, “and you’d better thank my curiosity. I’ve been following you for some time.”
“Mistaking me for a sort of fish,” I suggested.
“No,” she answered, “I was admiring your swimming and suspecting your sanity. I like to swim myself, but I seldom go any more.”
I seemed to detect a faint note of regret in her last remark.
“And out of gratitude to you,” I said, endeavoring to get up, “I’m getting you terribly wet.”
“Not yet,” the voice commanded. “Stay where you are. It’s good for me to be useful.”
Once more I caught the suggestion of a deeper meaning behind her words. She pressed a wet cloth to my eyes and held my head firmly in her lap.
“You know,” she continued, “I almost ran you down a little while ago. I lost track of you in coming about and my curiosity was getting the best of me.”
I recalled the sea-blue eyes gazing down at me from the little boat, and from the fleeting glimpse I had caught of the girl at the tiller, I tried to reconstruct her image.
“That was a startling encounter,” I remarked. “I didn’t know there was a soul within miles and then suddenly your eyes, deep blue — that’s all I can remember.”
“Didn’t you think I was rather forward to shatter your solitude at such close range?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, surprised by my own reply, “I thought you were beautiful.”
The wet cloth which had been cooling my eyes was promptly thrust into my mouth and held there, stifling further words. Through the cloth I mouthed a protest.
“Well, you deserved it,” she said, removing the cloth. “If it wasn’t for your eyes I’d keep it there.”
Then to my relief she began to laugh.
“You know,” she added, “when I looked back and saw you doing such surprising things in the water I thought you’d gone mad. I didn’t realize at first what had happened to you.”
“The ocean seemed to turn to fire,” I replied. “It was like swimming into a burning pool. Then I felt them all around me — unpleasant creatures.”
“Perhaps you’ll be more sensible the next time.”
“The islands are always a challenge,” I explained, falling into a sort of loquacious trance out of which I heard myself speaking at random. “I was trying to reach the outer one to-day. Then came the late unpleasantness, and then I heard your voice. You can’t imagine how strange it all was. It was like a small white cloud calling down to a swimmer lost among the waves — that’s what your voice was to me... a small white cloud dropping into a green valley.”
The fever in my eyes was making me drowsy. My words trailed away and for some moments I was content to rest without speaking. As the small craft lilted on its course I imagined that I was flying across the ocean with a strange and beautiful being from another world, a woman much like other women no doubt, but, in some way different. Her eyes, as I recalled them, had been different — deeper and more direct — and her voice had a different quality.
Her fingers were unconsciously running through my hair. This action seemed perfectly natural. She must have thought that I was sleeping, for when I spoke her hand was quickly withdrawn.
“May I know the name of my unseen rescuer?” I asked.
“Haven’t you any idea?” she said. “There are not so many of us on the neck of land.”
“No,” I replied, “I haven’t any idea, and that’s why I like to talk to you — that’s why I’m not afraid. All I know is that my head lies in your lap and that I am conscious of the nearness of your body. I almost envy the blind. I can sense without seeing a kind and lovely creature. Your limbs have made a cushion for my head and I hear your voice above me. It’s cool and friendly and filled with peace. It makes me think—”
“I’ll gag you again,” she interrupted in a warning voice. “MacKellar told me you were a little mad and I believe him now. Poets go on at such a great rate once you’ve given them the chance.”
This remark surprised me into opening my eyes, and gradually, as they became accustomed to the daylight, the woman’s face floated into my vision, materializing as it were from the misty sky hovering round her head.
She was not like any other woman I had ever known. I was struck by this at once. Her lips were resolute, yet tenderly conceived. The thought came to me that laughter had once been crushed on them, and that ever since they had remained a trifle rebellious, as though desirous, yet fearful, of trying the experiment again. Her cheek-bones were high and prominent, and her cheeks were tanned to a deep glow. About her face her dark brown hair, spun with copperish glints of red and gold, floated like a wind tossed cloud kindled to fire in the warm rays of the setting sun. Her throat was bare and strangely innocent looking. Delicate blue veins played beneath her clear skin. There was something lovely and fine about her, something not quite of this world, yet very much alive. From the moment my eyes rested on her face, her beauty became necessary to me. I asked nothing more of life. Oddly enough at the time the possessive instinct was absent from my thoughts. I wanted only to be allowed to remain in her presence.
She must have sensed that she was under observation, for as I lay in the bottom of the boat quietly studying her features a deeper flush crept into her cheeks. Her eyes were fixed on the sea. They were steadfast and friendly eyes, as blue as the waves she was watching. Behind her contemplative, almost trance-touched expression there seemed to stir dreams and visions that had very little to do with this world.
“Nevertheless you are very beautiful,” I said in spite of myself. “Who are you?”
She kept her eyes on the sea, but I fancied she drew a quick breath.
“Evidently,” she remarked ironically, “your eyes haven’t been permanently injured.”
“I could almost find it in my heart to regret that you are so beautiful,” I replied almost to myself. “I’d rather remember a voice.”
“You needn’t be so upset,” she said indifferently. “I’m an old married woman and in a short time I’m going to put you ashore. You’ve recovered enough to sit up now, don’t you think?”
There was nothing left for me to do but to stretch myself along the weather side of the sloop and cling on. She deftly brought the boat about.
“I can sail,” I offered in an amicable voice, hoping thereby to reopen the conversation.
“No doubt you’re remarkably gifted.”
Her small firm chin was rebukingly tilted as she looked at me. She was so studiedly cold that I felt like laughing. There was something delightfully youthful and unfledged about her pose. She had obviously overstated the case in saying that she was an old married woman. I judged that our years were nearly equal.
“Won’t you tell me who you are?” I asked.
“What does it matter who I am?” she asked suddenly, almost with a note of irritation. “Why do people have to be tagged and docketed? Think of me as a woman out of life — a chapter that was never written. Anyway you’ll find out soon enough.”
Her words produced a strange effect on me. It was almost physical. I had the impression that a shadow was creeping over the face of the ocean, trampling down the radiance of the day. And through the failing light we were scudding toward the shadow. It was not to be avoided. Somehow we knew this. And although we accepted the shadow, we feared it. There was a consciousness of fate in the air, something concealed, yet close at hand, always close at hand. Even after I came to know her better this impression still hovered in the background.
“A woman out of life,” I repeated in a low voice. “No, that’s not it... a harp that has never been played... a song that was never sung.”
Her hand worked nervously on the tiller as if she were trying to collect herself after her previous outburst. Then she turned and looked me squarely in the eyes, a faint smile on her lips.
“Minstrel,” she said, “have you the magic to strike the chords? Can you find the words in that brain of yours?”
For a moment I remained silent, considering the significance of her questions, then I said, “No, an exquisite thing makes me mute.”
“You evade,” she replied, “gracefully but not well.”
“I’m not evading now,” I said. “This is one of the times when I’m honest.”
A shade of disappointment settled in her eyes and she turned back to the sea. Instead of heading the sloop inshore as she had threatened she was sending it along parallel with the mainland.
“If you can’t sing,” she said at length, “you’ll have to steer. I’m tired.”
I rose and took the tiller. For a few moments she observed me with professional interest, then settled herself on the transom.
“So you don’t know who I am?” she said with a sarcastic smile. “Haven’t you tried to guess?”
“No,” I answered shortly.
“Well, I live in that old gray house over there,” she continued, pointing to the shore. “It dominates the beaches. One can’t get away from it. I’m Hilda Elliott. Does that mean anything to you?”
There was something more in her question than idle curiosity. Her deep eyes never left my face. They seemed to be searching my mind.
“Naturally,” I replied. “I’m ashamed of my slow wits. Hugh has said lots of things about you — favorable things.”
“Then in a way we’ve been introduced,” she said.
“But I feel that we’ve met before,” I answered, a trifle self-consciously.
“Where?” she demanded with mock seriousness. “Was it in a garden, perhaps?”
“I can’t remember where it was or when,” I said. “But why do you ask?”
“Oh, I lived in a garden once,” she replied indifferently. “I thought it was there we might have met. That was a long time ago — so long that I’ve almost forgotten the garden.”
“So did I live in a garden once,” I said, “but tell me about yours. Mine was filled with peach and cherry blossoms and there were geese with twisting necks. They used to hiss at me ill-temperedly and flap their great wings. I was afraid of them — I would be today.”
She settled her chin in her hands and looked back at the wake of the flying sloop. Some minutes passed and when she spoke a veil of remembrance had dropped like a scarf over her eyes.
“I was a little girl when I lived in the garden,” she said. “The trees were like bursts of green spray tossed high in the air. The garden was a silent place — nothing ever stirred there, nothing but the drowsy voice of the wind and the waving of boughs. All day long the boughs waved. It was like a world of them. And there were birds in the garden. Their small, happy voices were always sounding among the leaves. These sounds belonged to the garden. They were a part of its stillness.”
“Was it a real garden?” I asked. “I mean, could you go back to it now and walk beneath the trees?”
“It must have been a real garden,” she replied as if trying to convince herself. “But I could not go back to it. Don’t you see, I left the garden and came to live in that old gray house? It’s watching us even now. But sometimes I think about the garden and it gets all mixed up like a dream — the trees and the waving boughs and the strange stilly excitement of the place. It used to come over me at times when I was all alone. But the garden wasn’t a dream. I know now that it was one of the realest things in my life.”
“Realer than the old gray house?” I asked.
Once more her eyes searched mine.
“That’s the dream part,” she said deliberately. “In spite of its solid walls the old gray house is a dream. One of these days it is doomed to disappear, fading into the shadows it has created. I know this. Look now — is it still there?”
I looked shoreward and saw the stern gables of John Elliott’s house standing among the trees. Its upper windows seemed to be staring watchfully at us.
“It’s still there,” I replied, “but tell me more of your garden. It sounded like an enchanted spot.”
Without answering she sprang up quickly from the transom and with light feet made her way forward where she stood looking straight ahead of her, a steadying hand on one of the stays.
“Then head out,” she called to me. “Make for open water.”
The salt wind caressed her body and threw confusion in her hair. I could see the sensitive curve of her cheek and the soft column of her throat. Her figure was delicately balanced, yet taut and eager. As she stood there a previous remark returned to me — a harp that had never been played. She made me think of that.
Suddenly she swung around on the stay, one of her feet brushing the surface of the water, and came aft to the transom.
“There’s not much more to be told,” she said, resuming her former position. “I lived in a garden and, like the birds and the boughs, became a part of its stillness. And high up in the air there were other birds. I used to watch them until I became dizzy. Sometimes they would circle down from the sky and as they drew near they seemed to turn into people. At first they were only tiny little people spinning like specks against the blue, then is they came nearer they grew larger and brighter, and they were beautiful. They would come to me, these strangers, and tell me about places on the other side of the stars — quiet valleys cleft in clouds by rivers of flowing sunlight. And some of them would talk with me about things that were to come, beautiful adventures that thrilled the little girl. That’s why I asked if I’d met you in the garden,” she concluded abruptly. “You might have been one of the strangers, you know.”
“I must have been banished,” I replied, “without even the solace of memory.”
“Banished,” she repeated slowly. “But I wasn’t banished. I left the garden of my own free will. One day I left it to go outside in search of the great adventure which brought me at last to the old gray house. And now the garden is gone, but just the same it was real. I insist on that.”
“Perhaps we might find it again,” I suggested, “if we looked for it together.”
“Would you help?” she asked with a bright smile.
“I’d search the world over,” I replied eagerly.
“I believe you would,” she said, a bright light stirring in her eyes.
“That would be the least I could do,” I answered a little confused. “Didn’t you save me from the jellyfish? And after all, we may not need to go so far. Maybe your garden was only a frame of mind.”
When she spoke again I hardly recognized her voice. It was controlled, yet vibrant with emotion punctuated with sharp accents of bitterness and disillusionment.
“That’s impossible,” she said. “The garden can never be found nor the frame of mind recaptured. It was just like crossing a line. On one side you felt and lived and came near to things. On the other side all was different, and in the midst of life you found yourself unreal, ceasing to live, ceasing to feel, unable to touch things with understanding hands. No one knew that you had died, but you had died. Although your body still went on the life had gone out of it. And it must continue to go on until you have learned to escape it.”
