The pioneer

One of the most harassed and uneasy men in these stormy days was Jerry Barclay. He had arrived at a point in his career where he stood arrested and uncertain between diverging paths. His infatuation for Mercedes drew him to her like a magnet and sent him from her in troubled distress, not knowing what to do, longing for his freedom and sometimes wondering whether he would marry her if he had his freedom.

He thought she loved him as other women had done, and he often wondered if he really loved her. In the sudden glimpses of clairvoyance which come to souls swayed by passion, he saw life with Mercedes as a coldly splendid waste in which he wandered, lonely and bereft of comfort. Shaken from his bondage by one of these moments of clear sight, he felt a conviction that he did not love her, declared himself free of her enchantments, and at the first glance of invitation in her eyes, the first beckoning gesture of her hand, was back at her side, as much her slave as ever.

He pushed June from his mind in these days, saw her seldom, and then showed that cold constraint of manner which the artless and unsubtile man assumes to the woman toward whom he knows his conduct to be mean and unworthy. June lay heavy on his conscience. The thought of her and what she was enduring made him feel ashamed and guilty. And he was angry that he should feel this way—angry with June, against whom he seemed to have a special grievance.

He argued with himself that he was under no obligation to her. He had never made any binding declaration to her, and he had honestly told her that he was not free to marry. How many men would have done that? If she was so unsophisticated as to take the few sentimental remarks he had made as a serious plighting of vows it was not his fault. He affected to have forgotten the remarks. Even in thinking to himself he assumed the air of one who finds it too trivial a matter for remembrance. But the truth was that every sentence was clear in his mind, and the recollection of the pure and honest feeling of that year stung him with an unfamiliar sense of shame.

In his heart he knew that of the three women who had played so prominent a part in his life, June was the one he had really loved. There were moments now, when, deep in the bottom of his consciousness, he felt that he loved her still. The clairvoyant glimpses of a life with her were very different. But he was not free! Why, he said to himself with a magnanimous air, why waste her life by encouraging her in fruitless hopes? Mercedes was quite a different person. She could take care of herself.

They were certainly troublous times for Jerry. He had a man’s hatred of a scene and the interviews he had with Mrs. Newbury were now always scenes. He left her presence sore and enraged with the fury of her taunts, or humiliated by the more intolerable outbursts of tears and pleadings, into which she sometimes broke.

He felt with a sort of aggrieved protest that after nearly ten years of devotion Lupé ought to be more reasonable. Jerry was confidently sure that, as he expressed it, he had “shown himself very much of a gentleman” where Lupé was concerned. He had been gentle and forbearing with her. Long after his affection had died he had been patient with her exactions and borne her upbraidings. He had kept a promise that had been made in the first madness of their infatuation and that many men would have regarded as ridiculous. In his behavior to his mistress Jerry saw himself a knight of chivalry. He did not tell himself that the main ingredient of his chivalry was a secret but acute fear of the violent woman whom his neglect had rendered desperate. She had threatened that she would kill herself. Once or twice of late, in what he called her “tantrums,” she had threatened to kill him. After these interviews Jerry went from her presence chilled and sobered. She was in despair and he knew it and knew her. Some day Lupé might keep her word.

One afternoon in October he had stopped in at the Newbury house to pay one of those brief visits which had replaced the long stolen interviews of the past. He had met Newbury down town in the morning and been told that Lupé was not feeling well. She had lately suffered from headaches, an unknown ailment for her. Newbury was worried; he wanted her to have the doctor, for she really looked bad and seemed very much out of spirits.

Jerry found her looking exceedingly white and very quiet. She had evidently been ill and showed the marks of suffering. He was relieved to see that she was in a fairly tranquil state of mind, with no intention of making a scene. In fact, to his secret joy he found that he could keep the conversation on the impersonal, society plane upon which he had often before attempted to maintain it, invariably without success. But Lupé to-day had evidently no spirit to quarrel or to weep. She sat in a large arm-chair in an attitude of listless weariness, her skin looking whiter, her hair and eyes blacker than usual. She had lost in weight and though in her thirty-seventh year was as handsome as she had ever been.

Jerry kept one eye on the clock. If he could get away early enough he was going to see a new horse Black Dan had just given Mercedes. A year of practice had made him very expert in bringing interviews with Lupé to an abrupt end, leaving her too quickly to give her time to change from the serenity of general conversation to the hysterical note of rage and grievance.

“Well, Lupé,” he said, rising and going to her side, “I must be going. I’m glad you’re so much better. You ought to take more exercise.”

He took her hand and smiling down at her pressed it. She looked at him with her somber eyes, large and melancholy in their darkened sockets. The look was tragic and with alarm he attempted to draw his hand away. But she held it, drew it against her bosom, and bowed her face on his arm.

“Oh, Jerry,” she almost groaned, “is this you and I?”

“Of course, dear,” he said glibly, patting her lightly on the shoulder with his free hand. “You’ll be all right soon if you’ll take more exercise. You’re just a little bit inclined to the lazy—all you Spanish women are.”

She made no answer and he could feel her body trembling.

“Come, Lupé,” he said with a touch of urgency in his voice, “I must go, my dear girl. I’ve got something to do at half-past four.”

“Are you going to Miss Gracey’s?” she said without moving or loosening her hold of his hand.

“Oh, Lupé, dear,” he answered impatiently, “don’t let’s get on those subjects to-day. I’ve had such a nice time here with you this afternoon, just because you’ve been pleasant, and quiet and reasonable. Now don’t spoil it all by beginning to fight and find fault.”

She raised her head but still held his hand pressed against her heart.

“I’m not going to fight,” she said in a low tone, “my fighting days are over.”

“That’s the most sensible thing that I’ve heard you say for a long time. You’ve just worn yourself out by the way you’ve stormed and raged. That’s why you’ve felt so sick. It isn’t worth while.”

“No, I suppose not.” She looked up at him with eyes of gloomy tenderness, and opening her fingers one by one let him draw his hand away.

“You’re going to Miss Gracey’s?” she said again.

He averted his head with a quick movement of impatience.

“Please tell me,” she pleaded, “I’m not bad tempered to-day.”

“Well, yes, since you say so, I am going there. But there’s no necessity to get excited about it. You know, Lupé, we’ve known each other a long, long time.”

He paused, furtively watching her, on the alert to fly if she showed the symptoms of storm he knew so well. But she remained passive, almost apathetic. The thought crossed his mind that she must have been much sicker than Newbury had imagined, and a gust of pity for her stirred in him. He bent down and kissed her heavy hair.

“You know,” he said gently, “when years roll by as they have with us changes come. But we’ll always be friends, won’t we, Lupé?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “always is a long word. But I’ll always love you. That’s my punishment for my sins.”

The clock chimed the half-hour and Jerry patted her again on the shoulder. It was as bad to have Lupé talk of her sins as it was to have her upbraid him with his.

“I’ll see you again soon,” he said brightly, “but I must fly now. Take good care of yourself. Try and be more cheerful and go out more. Fresh air’s the thing for you.”

When he had put on his coat in the hall he appeared at the open doorway and smiled a last good-by at her. She was sitting in the arm-chair in the same listless attitude. She nodded to him without smiling, and he was again struck by her unusual pallor and the darkness of her eyes.

“She’s really been sick,” he said to himself as he ran down the steps, for he was late. “Poor Lupé! How hard she takes everything!”

The next afternoon he was summoned from his office by a message that a woman wanted to see him in the hall outside. He went out wondering and found Pancha, the Mexican servant maid who had been in Mrs. Newbury’s service since her marriage and was in the secret of their liaison. After the fashion of her race the woman wore a black shawl over her head in place of a hat, and her face between its folds was drawn and pale. In a few broken sentences she told him that her mistress was desperately ill; something terrible had happened to her in the night. It was hard to grasp her meaning, for she spoke very poor English and Jerry had no Spanish, but he learned enough to know that Lupé was undoubtedly in a serious state. With the assurance that he would come as soon as he could he sent the woman away and went back into the office.

Half an hour later he started for the Newbury house. He was alarmed and chilled. He could not picture Lupé—a woman of superb physique—stricken down in twenty-four hours. She had been pale and listless but otherwise well yesterday. Pancha, who was not used to sickness, had probably been frightened and had exaggerated. Thus he tried to lift the weight which had suddenly fallen on his heart. He no longer loved Lupé, but he “did not want anything to happen to her,” he thought to himself as he approached the door.

Here at the curb he saw two doctors’ buggies, and, at the sight, his sense of alarm increased. There was no question about it; something serious was evidently the matter.

He asked for Newbury and after a moment’s wait in the hall saw the door into the sitting-room open and that gentleman issue forth, closing the door on a murmur of male voices. Newbury looked an aged man, gray and haggard. Without any greeting, evidently too distraught by sudden calamity to wonder how Jerry had heard the bad news, he said in a low voice:

“They’re holding a consultation in there”—his sunken eyes dwelt on the young man’s and he shook his head. “No hope, none. She can’t possibly get well. They don’t think she’ll live more than a day or two.”

“What—what—is it?” stammered Jerry, horror-stricken. “What’s happened to her?”

“A paralytic stroke. She had it early in the evening. Pancha found her lying on the sofa like a person resting, but she was paralyzed and couldn’t speak. That was what the headaches meant and we were such fools we didn’t think anything of them.”

“Is she conscious? Does she know?” Jerry asked, not knowing what to say, his whole being flooded with a sense of repulsion and dread.

“I think so and so does Pancha. The doctors don’t. She can’t speak or move but her eyes look full of life and intelligence, and once or twice she’s tried to smile.”

A soft footfall on the stairs above caught their ears and they looked up. The Mexican woman was descending, her eyes on Jerry. Newbury cried at her in Spanish, his voice suddenly hoarse with a muffled agony of fear. She shook her head and answered in the same language, speaking at some length. Newbury translated:

“She’s told Lupé that you’re here and thinks she wants to see you. She says she’s tried to speak, and, as far as she can follow, she’s under the impression that Lupé’s asked for you.”

It was a hateful suggestion to Jerry. He was shocked enough already without having to suffer seeing Lupé in this unfamiliar state. He detested sad things and kept them out of his life with the utmost care. But Newbury and the woman were watching him. He realized that they both expected him to go. Deep down in the inner places of his soul the thought that Lupé could not speak passed with a vibration of relief.

They followed Pancha up the softly carpeted stairs and along the passage. The woman passed through a doorway, making a gesture for them to wait, then put her head out and beckoned them in.

The darkness of evening had fallen and the large room was well-lighted. By the bed two gas jets, burning under ground-glass globes, threw a brilliant light over the sick woman. She was lying straight and stark on her back, the bed-clothes smooth over the undulations of her body and raised into points by her feet. Spreading over the pillow beside her, like the shadow of death waiting to cover her, was her hair, a black, dense mass, crossing the bed and falling over its edge. Her face was as white as the pillow, her eyes staring straight before her with a stern, frowning look. A stillness reigned in the room; death was without the door waiting to get in.

Newbury went toward her. Jerry hung back gazing fearfully at her. She was invested with a strange, alien terror, a being half initiated into awful mysteries. The inflexible sternness of her face did not soften as her husband bent over her and said gently:

“Dearest, Jerry came to see how you were. He’s here. Would you like to see him?”

She gave a low sound, undoubtedly an affirmative. Pancha, who was at the foot of the bed, enunciated a quick phrase in Spanish. Newbury stepped aside and beckoned Jerry forward. As her lover came within her line of vision her eyes softened, the stiffened lips expanded with difficulty into a slight smile.

“Of course she knows you,” Newbury said in a choked whisper. “Oh, my poor Lupé!”

His voice broke and he turned away convulsed and walked to the window. With the Mexican woman watching him from the foot-board, Jerry bent down and kissed her very softly on the forehead and both eyes. She made an effort to lift her face to his caress like a child, and as he drew back her eyes dwelt on his, full of the somber and unquenchable passion that had killed her. He tried to speak to her but found it impossible. Memories of the old days rushed upon him—of her resistance to his fiery wooing, of the first years of their intimacy and the tortures of her conscience that her love could never deaden, and now this ending amid the ruins of her anguish and his hard coldness.

He turned and groped his way out of the room. On the stairs Newbury joined him, touched beyond measure at the sight of his grief. With assurances that he would be up in the morning to inquire, Jerry escaped from the house and fled into the night, now dark and full of the chill of fog.

He could not sleep, and in the morning walked up to the house before breakfast for news. The servant at the door told him that Mrs. Newbury was dead, having passed away quietly without renewal of consciousness or speech as the day was dawning.

Without a word he turned from the door and walked down the street to where a car line crossed it. Standing on the corner waiting for the car, he was accosted by a boy selling the morning papers, and mechanically, without consciousness of his action, he bought one.

In the same mazed state he opened it and looked at the front page. The first paragraph that met his eye was an announcement that the rumored strike of a great ore-body of astounding richness in the Cresta Plata was confirmed. The excitement in Virginia was intense, the mine being regarded as second only to the Con. Virginia. “This,” concluded the paragraph, “will raise the fortunes of the Gracey boys far above the six naught mark, well up on the list of bonanza millionaires.”