CHAPTER XV
"I have tried to get you by telephone without success. Danilo is asking for you. I shall call with the machine at three-thirty."
Claire Robson dismissed the messenger-boy. Her heart was beating quickly. She folded the note and climbed up-stairs. Danilo is asking for you.... What tragedy and pathos lay in these simple words! She had been waiting for just this moment ever since Stillman had said to her:
"We have found Danilo ... in his old lodgings. Can you guess what has happened?"
She had known at once. Had intuition or the look in Stillman's eyes betrayed the dreadful secret? Since then only scant messages had come to her from the sick-room. Danilo still lay in his Third Street lodgings; his doctors had been afraid to risk moving him. Stillman had not left his side. Claire begged to be allowed to go to him, to see him if only for the briefest of moments, but Stillman had been obdurate.
"He must have no excitement. The doctor would not hear of such a thing. No, you must wait."
"But you are with him.... Do you realize...."
"Yes."
She said no more ... but she had suffered! Three long, unending days! And now he had asked for her. She could not define the emotion which moved her. Was it relief, or fear, or a sad hope? She dressed herself long before the appointed time, in a cool, pleasant-looking white-serge suit that had been intended for the trousseau. Miss Proll, coming upon her in the hall, gave a disapproving glance.
"I couldn't wear black!" Claire explained. "I simply couldn't!..."
"Ah yes, of course! You are right."
Her lips quivered when she finally faced Stillman.
"You are in white, I see," he said, with an air of gentle approval. "I am glad of that! It makes everything seem more cheerful."
They went down the stairs in silence. Stillman lifted her into the car—she could feel his hand tremble. After they had started she looked searchingly at Stillman's face. All his cool complacency was gone, his mouth had the parted expression of a man whose lips could not quite shape the truths that had been revealed to him, and his eyes shone like one who had been walking with visions. This was the look, Claire fancied, that shepherds fresh from solitary upland pastures must have, or a man who had walked into the shrapnel fire and come out unscathed, or a young mother fresh from the crowning experience of her life....
At the door of Danilo's room they met a priest coming out. He bowed gravely to Stillman and passed on without speaking. They went in. A thick, pleasant odor of incense had killed the smell of antiseptics for the moment. The nurse was washing her hands, an icon opposite the bed reflected unsteady flickerings from the tiny lamp in front of it.
"You may stay five minutes," the nurse whispered, and passed out.
Claire stood back and let Stillman go up to the bed. She had a sudden feeling that she was a stranger, that her presence made no difference, that these two men were sufficient to themselves. She could not see Danilo's face, but she had never imagined anything more gentle and tender than the hand which she saw Stillman lay upon the sufferer's forehead.... Presently Stillman turned about and beckoned to her. She went forward. She felt that her heart would burst.... Suddenly she was face to face with Danilo! He looked at her and smiled. She sat down upon the bed.
She could feel Danilo's hand searching for hers. "Claire ... fancy ... you!"
He closed his eyes without another word. They sat in silence.
Stillman stood the whole time, bending over, his gentle hand hovering above Danilo's black hair.... The nurse came back.
"Come," said Stillman.
Claire suffered him to withdraw her hand from Danilo's tight clasp. She rose. Danilo opened his eyes again. His lips began to move. She brought her ear on a level with his trembling mouth.
"Claire ... will you marry me now?"
"Yes," she answered.
He gave a contented sigh and turned his face to the wall. Stillman and Claire went out....
"He is making a brave fight," Stillman said at parting. "The bullet pierced the lung. But there are other complications. Bronchitis has developed. One can never tell."
She could not speak. She did not even say good-by to him.
"I shall call again for you to-morrow."
She acknowledged his words with a brief nod.
When she got home she filled the swinging-lamp in front of Danilo's name-day icon with oil and lit a floating taper. Miss Proll, who had been watching her curiously, looked puzzled. Her glance seemed to imply:
"Can it be that you believe in such foolishness?"
Claire found that it was impossible to answer a question at once so simple and so profound. There was every reasonable argument in the calendar to support Miss Proll's skepticism, but Claire was learning that life upon a reasonable basis was apt to be intolerable. It was the irrational, the impulsive, the imprudent moments that gave existence color and swift movement.
"Claire ... will you marry me now?..." Danilo's words came back to her with all their beautiful and daring simplicity. A child acknowledging a fault, and trembling upon the threshold of a joy that was likely to be denied in consequence, would have used the same tone. This was the manner of petition that must swerve even a God of Wrath from his vengeance, she thought, that could wring showers of mercy from the most pitilessly blue skies.
She thought of Stillman, too—this new Stillman, forged in the flame of a perilous spiritual experience, still glowing and warm. He had never seemed so human as at that moment when she had stood apart and watched his hands fluttering above the head of the man they both loved.... Loved? Yes, he loved Danilo—as Lycurgus loved him, as her mother had loved him. "Where is Danilo?" This had been Mrs. Robson's last question—her last words.
She could not fancy her mother calling for Stillman. It was not given to many to be a flint upon which the sparks of affection are readily struck.
She went every day with Stillman and sat for five minutes at Danilo's bedside, and on the third day Danilo, opening his eyes wide, said to her in a clear voice, so that even Stillman could hear:
"Claire, will you marry me to-morrow?"
Instinctively her eyes met Stillman's; he bowed his head for a moment, and she could see that his hands were clenched.
"If you wish it," she answered.
Danilo turned to Stillman. "My brother, do you think it will be possible?"
Stillman smiled doubtfully. "To-morrow? That is rather soon ... but when you are a little stronger...."
Danilo's face fell. At that moment the doctor came in.
It was not possible. The doctor would not hear to such a thing, and he scolded Danilo gently as one scolds a sick child.
That night Danilo's fever increased. He was restless; nothing pleased him. The doctor said next day to Stillman:
"I don't understand ... something must have irritated him. He is troubled mentally."
"It is the wedding. I'm afraid he has set his heart upon it."
"Nonsense! Doctor Danilo has had enough professional experience to know that.... Why, my dear fellow, he is a full-grown man, you must remember."
"Yes, and at heart a child.... He is like all big people."
Two more days dragged by. Danilo grew no better; in fact, he was worse, if anything.
"I can't make it out," the doctor admitted. "Physically he seems everything that one could hope for, but his mind is straining at something.... Perhaps, after all, you are right. Well, I fancy we will have to risk the excitement."
When they told Danilo he fell back upon his pillow and his face grew suddenly white.
"To-morrow!" he murmured. "Fancy!... No, it cannot be true!"
By the time Claire came he was glowing with a strange, new animation.
"Claire! Claire!" he cried. "Think, we are to be married to-morrow! And you are to wear your wedding-dress ... a real wedding-dress ... the veil and all!... Only there will be no feast. What a pity!... But no matter, when I get well again then we will have a feast, Claire. Unless...." his voice grew suddenly almost inaudible—"unless I die of joy, Claire!... of joy!"
Stillman turned away. She fell on her knees beside the white bed.
"There, there!" she said, soothingly. "You mustn't get so excited. You mustn't think about it!"
He closed his eyes. "Claire, I cannot wait until to-morrow. Will you kiss me, now?"
And for the first time their lips met.
They had planned a daytime wedding at first, but it transpired that the priest in charge of the Greek church had been called out of town and would not be back until evening. When Danilo heard this he said:
"What is the difference? A priest is a small matter! Cannot Claire's minister...."
But Claire was wiser. "No," she said. "Let us wait for the priest."
And so it was settled for eight o'clock that evening.
At the news, Miss Proll quivered with excitement. "To think that it would all end this way.... But I am so glad that you are to wear your wedding-dress."
Nellie Holmes flew over in great haste. "And who is to marry you? A priest?... Well, I suppose it is best to humor a sick man, but I don't know—somehow it seems too outlandish, all that incense and chanting and everything!... And I'm coming to the wedding! Don't forget that. You can't shut me out.... Remember, I introduced you. Come now, buck up! Don't look so anxious—it's a painless ceremony. And you'll be a stunning-looking bride, Robson.... I tell you, friend Danilo is going to be mighty glad that he was such a bad shot."
In the midst of all the excitement Claire suddenly remembered Mrs. Condor. She rang her up.
"I am to be married to-night," she said. "Would you like to come and go with us?"
"No, Claire. But if I might see you before you start...."
It was a busy day and almost before Claire realized it was time to dress.
At eight o'clock they heard the toot of Stillman's car, and to Claire's surprise Stillman himself broke in upon them. She was all dressed and ready.... He came up the stairs with a jaunty air. "This is Danilo's idea!" he cried out. "It seems in his country a friend is always sent to fetch the bride.... A Dever they call him.... I couldn't persuade him to let you come alone and in peace. He said: 'My brother, let me have an Old World custom or two.... You Americans have nothing worthy of the name, except that abominable rice-throwing and old shoes.'"
"A Dever!" ejaculated Nellie Holmes, in mildly scandalized tones. "Well, I never!"
It did seem rather ridiculous. Stillman's personality somehow didn't fit the office. But the incident gave a touch of forced gaiety to the occasion—a peg on which to hang the jester's cloak.
Claire and Miss Proll and Nellie Holmes went down first to the car, Mrs. Condor and Stillman followed.
When Lily Condor reached the curb Claire leaned out to her farewell embrace.
"Claire ... Claire ... how foolish we've all been!"
"How foolish we are still," Claire whispered back. "Thank God for that!..."
Presently they were off. The yellow street-lamps seemed to Claire to be melting into a continuous ribbon of gold. She had expected to succumb to all manner of emotions and vivid thoughts, but instead her mind seized upon a childish memory.
"Once upon a time," she thought, "there lived in a certain city...." Stillman was looking at her.... "And there came riding through the streets a prince.... And so they were married and.... How foolish we are still.... Thank God for that.... Thank God for that!"
"Come!" Stillman was saying. "We have arrived."
They had propped Danilo up as much as they dared and he lay, clean-shaven and hollow-eyed, but burning with a fire that showed through his transparent pallor like a candle set in a paper lantern. The priest had arrived promptly, and already an altar had been contrived and set up before the bed, an altar white and gleaming. Holy images were scattered about, reflecting the pale flicker of swinging lamps, and through the haze of smoke from the censer the harsh outlines of the room took on a soft, shadowy remoteness. "I had better cover my face," Claire said as she stood upon the threshold of the room.
Miss Proll drew the veil down for her and they went in. The room was crowded with men, mostly Danilo's countrymen. Lycurgus was there, and Jimmy. Claire felt faint. She clutched at Stillman's arm. "Why, I had no idea!" she said ... "so many people!"
"He wished it so.... Have courage!"
She threw her head back. "Yes," she answered.
They led her to his side. He touched her inert fingers gently. She felt crushed at the passionate purity of his deference. She wanted to fling herself forward on her face.... Danilo turned toward the priest. "Come!" he called, a bit impatiently. "Let us begin."
Claire thought the priest would never end. She had fancied that the ceremony would be cut short for Danilo's benefit, but apparently Danilo had asked for every detail, every symbol. They even exchanged crowns after the fashion of the Greek Catholic ritual. The incense grew thicker, the, tapers before the holy icons flared more and more brightly, the sonorous chant of the priest droned on and on and it seemed to Claire as if his fingers were raised continuously in midair for the sign of the cross. She thought of her mother. How scandalized her mother would have been—at the altar, at the curling incense, particularly at the sign of the cross!
Finally it was all over. Danilo, pale to a point of swooning, his black hair clustering moistly about his pillow, lay with arms outstretched like an ivory crucifix, against which Claire pressed her pallid lips.... He did not stir at her touch, but a slight color played about his cheek-bones and one hand trembled.... She drew away.... She could hear the feet of the spectators moving toward the door. She continued to kneel beside the bed. Danilo's hand was in her hair now.... Presently she felt some one touch her shoulder. She rose. The nurse stood behind her. The room was empty. She began to weep silently, almost without emotion. Nellie Holmes and Miss Proll were coming back. They led her out....
Standing in the hall, they waited until the nurse called them in again. Danilo had recovered his animation and his eyes were wide open and glowing.
"Ah, and so we are to have a feast, after all! Not I, of course ... but you shall tell me of it to-morrow!... Come, has he said nothing about it?"
Stillman laughed. "At the Ithaca," he explained to Claire. "I made arrangements to-day."
"A feast ... not really?" she stammered.
A slight cloud passed over Danilo's face. "There! She does not approve, my brother.... I was afraid of that."
"I was surprised," she said, gravely. "And then you are not to be with us."
Danilo smiled. "When I am well again.... You see, one cannot have too many excuses for a feast." He gave Stillman his hand. "My brother, what should we do without you?"
The Ithaca was crowded. The long tables had been set, and the usual decorations, fern fronds and carnations, made splashes of green and red color upon the table-cloths. Lycurgus came forward, bowing in his old manner.
"Ah, that Mr. Stillman," he whispered to Claire, "he is a man, I can tell you! Thank you! thank you!... He says nothing about prices. Only a feast ... the best to be had! And everybody invited.... I have worked myself all day in the kitchen.... You shall see!... And you are a beautiful bride! Never have I seen one more beautiful!... That Danilo is a lucky man ... and you have made him happy. Let us pray God everything goes right."
A feeling of chill had succeeded Claire's poignant emotion, but now she felt warmed—everything was so simple, so natural, so lacking in all pretense. Lycurgus led Claire to the bride's seat, Stillman followed with Nellie Holmes and Miss Proll. A little ripple of applause ran up and down the tables, but the company was still a little uncertain of what was most fitting to do. A wedding-feast without the groom was hard to sense. But presently mastica was served and the first toast drunk.... After that, constraint was banished.
Now for the first time it came upon Claire that she was at her own wedding-feast, and that Stillman was sitting beside her. It was almost as if he had yielded her up to some austere duty, as if the feast that had been spread for him was one not so much of joy as of renunciation—a last supper in the upper chamber of his heart's desire. Before her lay Stillman's tribute—a wonderful golden basket of white roses. She had never seen roses so white. What a touching thing this feast was, after all! What a long distance Stillman had traveled in order to appreciate the significance of such a childlike thing, of sensing just what it meant to Danilo! And suddenly she felt how beautiful and how tragic life was, how cleansed and scarred by the windstorms of emotion! Life was like a landscape answering sunshine and cloud in its season, always beautiful, always incomplete, veiled sometimes in the mists of morning and again palpitant and fully revealed in the noonday sun, unchanging and yet never quite the same....
In the midst of the feast champagne was served, and the guests began to move from table to table with their glasses lifted high and their lips smiling out good will. The men stopped shyly opposite Claire's seat and for the most part toasted her silently, but here and there a patron who had danced to the old tunes that she had once played clasped her by the hand and called gaily to her. Finally a young woman came forward.
"You do not remember me," she said to Claire. "But you were here, at my wedding-feast.... Do you remember?... I hope your husband will soon be well!"
Her husband! It took a woman to voice this new estate with calm simplicity. This was the first time the phrase had been used. She turned to Stillman. He looked away.
Now came music and dancing—Old World music and long lines of men swaying to its rhythm. Lycurgus insisted upon Stillman joining them. Claire wondered at him as he rose. It was purely a formality, and Stillman had nothing to do beyond walk through his part, but Claire marveled that he could have been persuaded. Nellie Holmes railed audibly, and even Miss Proll shook her head. But Claire's inner vision pierced beyond the incongruity of Stillman's performance. And she knew that he had done this thing because he understood. The fruits of a crucial instance lay beneath the surface of his smiling acceptance of the situation. When he was seated again, flushed and somewhat embarrassed for all his nonchalance, she said, softly:
"If Danilo could have seen you he would have been very happy."
The bride's cake was brought on. Claire went through the formality of cutting the first piece, and then Lycurgus bore it away to a serving-table. The company rose to their feet with upraised glasses. It was Stillman's glass that touched Claire's.
They left soon after this last formality. Lycurgus had gathered a box of sweetmeats and dainties for Danilo, and a bottle of champagne. Stillman and Claire stopped at the hotel. But the nurse denied them admittance to the sick-room.
"He is tired, as you can imagine," she explained. "And to tell the truth, he has more fever than is good."
"I wonder if we did the right thing, after all?" Claire asked Stillman as they went toward the elevator.
"We must believe so," he answered, gravely.
CHAPTER XVI
The next day was Sunday. Claire went to church. She had thought at first of spending a holy hour wrapped in the misty-blue atmosphere of Danilo's faith, of seeking out the little Greek house of worship on Seventh Street and lighting a taper for the man who had made her his wife. But in the end impulse drew her to the church of her fathers, and, sitting in the harsh, untoned light of Doctor Stoddard's meeting-house, she caught moments of cold, austere beauty, veiled and mystic with the incense of her rich experience.
She saw familiar faces about her—faces that had once had the power to draw the fire of her envy, or fill her soul with fluttering dismay, or warm her heart with their patronizing smiles. Could it be possible that there had been a day when her hopes had flown no farther than the promise of a foothold among this group bending their heads in self-satisfied prayer? For a moment the cold rebellion of her childhood had brought to the surface a feeling of fluttering scorn for them, but almost as quickly she repented her rancor. What did she know concerning the fires that lit their inner life—the faiths that supported, the sins that colored, the griefs that cleansed? How many months had passed since she had sat in cankerous silence and envied the very girls passing coffee and cake at a church social? Was it the fault of these people that she had tuned her desires to so faint and tinkling an ambition?
The star of Bethlehem no longer burned in flickering gaslight above the choir-loft, but as Claire prayerfully lifted up her eyes she could feel its almost forgotten presence. It was the one beautiful memory of the religious life of her girlhood. It had burned in sensuous beauty far above all the cold form, the ugly repressions, the wan renunciations. It had made her eager and parted-lipped, and passionate for all the brooding joys of existence. Such a star had led wise men to the feet of living revelation, but was it not also possible that such a star had lit the dim myrtle-hedged pathway in Eden down which the first courageous pair had walked to self-respect and freedom? Was it not possible that God had veiled his face in admiration instead of anger, leaving a yearning eye thus bared to the night?
And suddenly her thoughts flew to Danilo and that wonderful night when they had pledged their love in thin red wine. During the week she had climbed the tawny slopes of Telegraph Hill and stood in the glare of noonday above the fret of the town. The deserted garden where they had danced their love dance was still there, a little more ragged, a little more rock-strewn, a little more smothered under the litter of accomplished feasts. In the yellow light of midday it lay a ravished husk, its dancing feet stilled, its music a wan memory, its young ardent loves hidden like nightingales in the cool forests of the day. The strains of the wine-cup made hectic flushes upon its saffron face, and the showering petals of its lingering roses drifted in a melancholy flood before the betraying west wind. She was glad that she had seen it so, glad that the first picture was impossible to duplicate, to repeat. Life was meant to be a progression.
Presently her musings leaped to wider stretches. The world was trembling upon the threshold of peace, and, about her, people whispered sad hopes and held their breath in a silent terror of expectation. Something remote, intangible, ominous, hung in the air. She felt a great yearning for love and life and service, a reaching out to meet the kiss of fellowship half-way. And in this hour of consecration the figure of Danilo rose before her. She had never loved him so completely as she did at this moment when the memory of his irrational and human folly swept her like a waking dream.
"And now may the grace of God...." Doctor Stoddard's voice was ringing out in the impressive moment of the benediction. Claire bowed her head.... Was not life, after all, a succession of springs luminous with promise, and summers whose harvests must of necessity fall far short of all the brave anticipations?... What summer could possibly yield the marvelously golden fruits of spring's devising?
That afternoon Stillman came to the Robson flat early.
"I'm afraid," he began, "that they will not let us see Danilo to-day."
"What?... Was it the excitement?"
"No.... Septic pneumonia has developed. You know he was in a bad condition when.... He had bronchitis then."
She turned pale.... He pressed her hand.
"I am going back with you," she said, calmly, as he made a protesting gesture.
He did not dissuade her further.
When they arrived at the hotel Danilo was unconscious. The priest had just left and the fragrance of incense hung like a mysterious presence. Upon the table a candle burned feebly....
The nurse, worn out, left the room at midnight. Claire sat calm and dry-eyed at the bedside, holding Danilo's limp hand in hers.... He was very cold, she thought.... Suddenly a low, wailing, mournful sound broke the somber stillness. Claire sat rigid.
"A siren!" flashed through her mind.
And, in a twinkling, bits of broken noises, raucous with dry-throated joy, broke forth—whistles ... the clanging of bells ... the hoarse cheers of people ... the quick gasp of windows flung open to the night.
Danilo stirred. "Claire ... I hear ... yes, I hear ... a noise—a great noise."
"Yes ... yes...." she soothed. "Be quiet.... Everything will soon be right."
He turned away from her with a weary sigh. She went to the window. So it had come ... at last ... peace! Below her, in the streets, a great composite, black creature danced and sang and wept and rioted. It beat the air with sticks, and flung its thousand arms up in gestures of abandon, and called upon its new god with passionate supplications. It was a monster at once terrifying, sublime, ridiculous! Claire shuddered. And as she stood there she had a sense of doubt and faith and tenderness and brutality, such as comes only in swift moments of revelation. She knew now that life could be as horrible and as beautiful as it dared. The monster below was a genial monster for the moment, but who could predict what might come if suddenly—Instinctively she covered her eyes with a tremulous hand.... Below her the monster danced and sang and laughed for hours and hours, and for hours and hours she stood spellbound watching its turbulent antics.
Gradually a light began to quicken the east ... the morning star flickered and died ... the clouds grew wrathful. Was it Danilo who called?
She went over to the bed. His eyes were open and shining. He knew her now.
"Lift me ... up," he faltered. "Lift me up...."
She drew his wasted form upward. A smile was on his lips.... Below, the monster still bellowed.
"Did you know, dearest, that it had come?" she questioned. "It is finished.... Peace has come!"
She went over and pushed back the curtain so he might glimpse the morning. How red, how very red the sky had grown!
"Yes," she said again. "Peace has come. Now we can go back ... to your people ... and bind up wounds.... Life has begun for us...."
He put out his arms. She went to him.
"Dawn—blood-red dawn!" he muttered. "See...."
She felt a sudden terrifying limpness of his body. She drew back. He slipped from her soft caress, opened his eyes wide, drew in one long fluttering breath. And, suddenly it was morning!...
When she raised her eyes Stillman was beside her.
"Everything is over," she said.
He lifted her up. "No—not everything.... We must see to it that he lives on ... in us!"