CHAPTER XVIII
GOD'S FOREST, THEN MAN'S
The pencil and pad fell from Mr. Ransom's hands. He stared at the girlwho had made this astonishing statement, and his brain whirled.
As for her, she simply stooped and picked up the pad.
"You feel badly about that," said she. "You want me to read. I'll learn.That will make me more like sister. But I know some things now. I knowwhat you are thinking about. You are curious about my life, what it hasbeen and what kind of a girl I am. I'll tell you. I can talk if I cannothear. I heard up to two years ago. Shall I talk now? Shall I tell youwhat I told Georgian when she found me crying in the street and took mehome to her house?"
He nodded blindly.
With a smile as beautiful as Georgian's--for a moment he thought morebeautiful--she drew him to a seat. She was all fire and purpose now. Thespark of intelligence which was not always visible in her eye burnedbrightly. She would have looked lovely even to a stranger, but he was notthinking of her looks, only of the hopelessness of the situation, itsdifficulties and possibly its perils.
"I don't remember all that has happened to me," she began, speaking veryfast. "I never tried to remember, when I was little; I just lived, andran wild in the roads and woods like the weasels and the chipmunks. Thegipsies were good to me. I had not a cross word in years. The wife of theking was my friend, and all I knew I learned from her. It was not much,but it helped me to live in the forest and be happy, as long as I was alittle girl. When I grew up it was different. It was the king who waskind then, and the woman who was fierce. I didn't like his kindness, butshe didn't know this, for after one day when she caught him staring at meacross the fire, she sent me off after something she wanted in a smalltown we were camping near, and when I came back with it, the band wasgone. I tried to follow, but it was dark and I didn't know the way;besides I was afraid--afraid of him. So I crept back to the town andslept in the straw of a barn I found open. Next day I sold my earringsand got bread. It didn't last long and I tried to work, but that meantsleeping under a roof, and houses smothered me, so I did my work badlyand was turned out. Then I sold my ring. It was my last trinket, and whenthe few cents I got for it were gone, I wandered about hungry. This I wasused to and didn't mind at first, but at last I went to work again, andI did better now for a little while, till one evening I saw, through thestable window of the inn where I was working, two black eyes staring injust as they stared across the dying embers of the gipsy camp. I did notscream, but I hid myself, and when they were gone away stole out andgot on the cars, and gave the man my last dollar--all the money I hadearned--for a ride to New York. I did not know any better. I knew henever went to New York, and I thought I would be safe from him there. Butof the difference between the woods and a forest of brick and stone Inever thought; of night with no shelter but the wall of some blind alley;of hunger in the sight of food, and wild beasts in the shape of men. Ididn't know where to go or who to speak to. If any one stared at me long,I turned and ran away. I ran away once from a policeman. He thought me athief, and started to run after me. But people slipped in between us andI got away. What happened next I don't know. Perhaps I was thrown down,perhaps I fell. I had come a long way and I was tired. When I did knowanything, I was lying on my back in a narrow street, looking up at a tallbuilding that seemed to go right up into the sky like the great rocks Ihad sometimes slept under when I was with the gipsies. Only there werewindows in the rock, out of which looked faces, and I got looking backat one of these faces and the face looked at me, and I liked it and gotup on my knees and held up my arms, and the face drew back out of sight,and I felt very sorry and cried and almost laid down again. I seemed soalone and hurt and hungry. But the children--there were crowds ofchildren--wouldn't let me. They got in a ring and pulled at me, and someone cried: 'Big cheeks is coming! Big cheeks will eat her up,' and I wasangry and got up on my feet. But I couldn't walk; I screamed when I triedto, which frightened the children, and they all ran away. But I didn'tfall; an arm was round me, a good, kind arm, and though I didn't see theface of the woman who helped, for she had her head wrapped up in an oldshawl, I felt that it was the same which had looked out of the windowat me, and went willingly enough when she began to draw me toward thehouse and up the first flight of stairs, though I could hardly helpscreaming every time my foot touched the ground. At the top of the firstflight I stopped; I could go no further. The woman heard me pant, andpushing the covering from her eyes, she turned my face towards the lightand looked at it. I thought she wanted to see if I was strong enough togo on, but that wasn't it at all, for in a minute I heard her say, in avoice so sweet I thought I had never heard the like, 'Yes, you're pretty;I want a pretty girl to stay with me and go about selling my things. Ilove pretty girls; I never was pretty myself. Will you stay with me if Itake you up to my room and take care of you? I'll be good to you, littleduckling, everybody about here will tell you that; everybody but thechildren, they don't like me.' I moaned, but it was from happiness. Itseemed too good to hear that cooing voice in my ear. I thought of mymother--a dream--and my arms went up as they had in the street below. 'Iwill stay,' I said. She caught my hands and that is all I remember till Ifound myself in bed, with my ankle bound up and a gentle hand smoothingmy hair. It was a month before I walked again. All the time this womantended me, but always from behind. I did not see her face--not well--onlyby glimpses and then only partly, for the shawl was always over her head,covering everything but her eyes and mouth. These were small, thesmallest I ever saw, little pig eyes, and little screwed up mouth; butthe look of them was kindly and that was all I cared about then; that andher talk, which made me cry one minute and laugh the next. I have nevercried so much or laughed so much in my life as I did that one month. Shetold such sad things and she told such funny ones. She made me glad tosee her come in and sorry to see her go out. She let no one else comenear me. I did not care; I liked her too well. I was never tired oflistening to her praises and she praised me a great deal. I even did notmind sleeping under a roof as much as I had before, perhaps because wewere so near it; perhaps because the room was so full of all sorts ofthings, I never got tired of looking at them. Pretty things she calledthem, but when I saw more things, things outside in shop windows and thehouses I afterwards went into, I knew they were very cheap things and notalways pretty. But she thought they were, and used to talk about them bythe hour and tell me stories she had made up about the pictures she hadcut out of newspapers. And I learned something; I could not help it, andeven began to think a bit--something I had never done before. But when Igot on my feet again, and was given the choice of staying there all thetime, I did not know at first whether I wanted to or not. For Mother Dudahad been very honest with me, and the minute she found that I could walkagain had told me that I would have to have great patience if I livedwith her, and endure a very disagreeable sight. Then she pulled off hershawl and I saw her as she was and almost screamed, she looked so horridto me, but I didn't quite, for her eyes wouldn't let me. They seemed toask me not to care, but to love her a little though she was a fright tolook at, and I tried but I couldn't, I could only keep from screaming.
"She had a goitre; that is what she called it, and the great pocket offlesh hanging down on either side of her neck frightened me. Itfrightened everybody; she was used to that, but she said she loved me andfelt my fear more than she did others. Could I bear to live with her,knowing what her shawl hid? If I could she would be good to me, but if Icouldn't she would do what she could to get me honest work in some otherplace. I didn't answer at first, but I did before she had put her shawlon again. I told her that I would forget everything but her good smile,and stay with her a little while. I stayed three years, helping her bygoing about and selling the tatting work she made.
"She could make beautiful patterns and so neat, but she couldn't sellthem, on account of her awful appearance. So I was very useful to her,and felt I was earning my meat and drink and the kind looks and wordswhich made them taste good. It taught me a l
ot, going around. I sawpeople and how they lived and what was nice and what wasn't. I was onlysorry that Mother Duda couldn't go too. She loved pretty things so. Butshe never went out except at a very early hour in the morning, so earlythat it was still dark. It seemed a terrible hour to me, but she alwayscame in with a smile, and when one day I asked her why, she said, becauseshe saw so many other poor creatures out at this same hour, who wereworse to look at than she was. This didn't seem possible to me, and onceI went out with her to see. But I never went again. Such faces as we met;such deformity--men who never showed themselves by day--women who lovedbeauty and were hideous. We saw them on street corners--coming up cellarsteps, slinking in and out of blind alleys--never where it was light--andthey shrank from each other, but not from the policeman. They were notafraid of his eye; they were used to him and he to them. After I hadpassed a dozen such miserable creatures, I felt myself one of them andnever wanted to go out at this hour again.
"Don't you believe this part of my story," she suddenly asked, looking upinto Mr. Ransom's troubled face? "Ask the policeman who tramps aboutthose streets every night; he'll tell you."
The question on Ransom's lips died. What use of asking what she could nothear.
"I wish I knew what you were thinking," she now murmured softly, sosoftly that he hardly caught the words. "But I never shall, I nevershall. I will tell you now how I became deaf," she promised after amoment of wistful gazing. "Is there any one near? Can anybody hear me?"she continued, with a suspicious look about her.
He shook his head. It was the first movement he had made since she beganher story.
This apparently reassured her, for she proceeded at once to say:
"Mother Duda had never told me anything about herself. It scared me thenwhen one morning I found sitting at the breakfast table a man who shesaid was her son. He was big and pale looking, and had a slight swellingon one side of his neck which made me sick; but I tried to be polite,though I did not like him at all and had a sudden feeling of having nohome any more. That was the first day. The next two were worse. For hedidn't hate me as I did him, and wouldn't leave the house while I wasthere, saying he could not bear to be away from his mother. But heskipped out quick enough after I was gone, so the neighbors said, andsometimes I think he followed me. Mother Duda wasn't like her old self atall. She loved him, he was her son, but she didn't like all he did. Shewanted him to work; he wouldn't work. He sat and stared at me as thegipsy king used to stare, and if I grew red and hot it was from shame andfear and horror of the great throat I saw growing from day to day, andwhich would some time be like his mother's. He knew I didn't like him,but he wasn't good like Mother Duda, and told me one day that he wasgoing to make me his wife, whether I wanted him to or not, and talkedabout a great secret, and the big man he would be some day. This made meangry, and I said that all the bigness he would ever have would be in hisneck. At which he struck me, right across the ear, hard, so hard that Ifell on the floor with a scream, and Mother Duda came running. He wassorry then and threw down the thing he had in his hand; but the harm hadbeen done and I was sick a month and had doctors and awful pain, and whenI was well again I couldn't hear a sound with that ear. Hans wasn't therewhile I was ill; I shouldn't have got well if he had been; but he cameback when I was up again and was very meek though he didn't stop lookingat me. I thought I would run away one day, and went out without mybasket, but after I had tried two whole days to get work and couldn't, Iwent back. Mother Duda almost squeezed the heart out of me for joy, andHans went down on his knees and promised not to do or say anything morethat I didn't like. He even promised to go to work, but his work was of aqueer kind. It kept him in his little room and meant spending money, andnot getting it. Men came to see him and were locked up with him in hislittle room. And if he went out, he locked the door and took the keyaway, and said great times were coming and that I would be glad to marryhim some day, whether his neck was big or small. But I knew I shouldn'tand kept very close to Mother Duda and begged her to get me a new home,and she promised and I was feeling happier, when one day Hans was calledout by a man and went away so fast that he forgot to lock his door, andMother Duda and I went into the room, and it was then that the thinghappened which spoiled all my life. I don't understand it. I never did,for no one could tell me anything after that day. Mother Duda had goneup to a table and was moving things about, trying to see what they were,when everything turned black, the room shook, and I was whirling allabout, trying to take hold of things which seemed to be falling about me,till I too fell. When I knew anything, there was lots of people lookingat me; people of the house, men, women, and children, but what wasstrangest of all was the awful stillness. No one made any sound--nothingmade any sound, though I saw an old book-shelf tumble down from the wallwhile I was looking, and people moved about and opened their lips andseemed to be talking. Had Hans struck me again? I began to think so, andgot up from the floor where I was lying and tried to call out, but myvoice made no noise though people looked around as if it had, and I feltan awful fright, not only for myself but for Mother Duda, who was beingcarried out of the door by two men, and who did not move at all and whonever moved again. Poor Mother Duda, she was killed and I was deaf. Iknew it after a little while, but I don't know what did it; somethingthat Hans had; something that Mother Duda touched--a square something--Ihad just caught a glimpse of it in Mother Duda's hand when the room flewinto a wreck and I became what I am now."
"Dynamite," murmured Ransom; then paused and had a small struggle withhis heart, for she was looking up into his face, demanding sympathy withGeorgian's eyes; and being close together on the short seat, he could nothelp but feel her shudders and share the intense excitement which chokedher.
"Oh," she cried, as he laid his hand a moment on her arm and then took itaway again, "one minute to hear! the next to find the world all still,always still,--a poor girl--not knowing how to read or write! But youcannot care about that; you cannot care about me. It's sister you wantto hear about, how she came to find me; how we came here for new andterrible things to happen; always for new and terrible things to happenwhich I don't understand.
"Hans never came back. All sorts of policemen came into the house,doctors came, priests came, but no Hans. Mother Duda was buried, I rodein a coach at the funeral, but still no Hans. The old life was over, andwhen the food was all gone from the shelves, I took my little basket andwent out, not meaning to come back again. And I did not. I sold my basketout; got a handful of pennies and went to the market to get something toeat. Then I went into a park, where there were benches, and sat down torest. I did not know of any place to go to and began to cry, when a ladystopped before me, and I looked up and saw myself.
"I thought I was dreaming or had the fever again, as when I was sick withmy ear, and I thought it was myself as I would look in heaven, for shehad such beautiful clothes on and looked so happy. But when she talked, Icould see her lips move and I couldn't hear; and I knew that I was justin the park with my empty basket and my onion and bread, and that thelady was a lady and no one I knew, only so like what I had seen of myselfin the glass that I was shaking all over, and she was shaking all over,and neither of us could look away. And still her lips moved, and seeingher at last look frightened and angry that I didn't answer, I spoke andsaid that I was deaf; that I was very sorry that I couldn't hear becausewe looked so much alike, though she was a great lady and I was a very,very poor girl who hadn't any home or any friends, or anything to wear oreat but what she saw. At this her eyes grew bigger even than before, andshe tried to talk some more, and when I shook my head she took hold of myarm and began drawing me away, and I went and we got on the cars, and shetook me to a house and into a room where she took away my basket and putme in a chair, and took off first her hat, then my own, and showed me thetwo heads in a glass, and then looked at me so hard that I cried out,'Sister,' which made her jump up and put her hand on her heart, then lookat me again harder and harder, till I remembered way back in my life, andI said:
"'When I was a little girl I had a sister they called my twin. That wasbefore I lived in the woods with the gipsies. Are you that sister grownup? The place where we played together had a tall fence with points atthe top. There were flowers and there were bushes with currants on themall round the fence.'
"She made a sudden move, and I felt her arms about my neck. I think shecried a little. I didn't, I was too glad. I knew she was that sister themoment our faces touched, and I knew she would care for me, and that Ineedn't go back into the streets any more. So I kissed her and talked agood deal and told her what I've been telling, and she tried to answer,tried as you did to write, but all I could understand was that she meantto keep me, but not in the place where we were, and that I was to go outagain. But she fixed me up a little before we went out, and she boughtme some things, so that I looked different. Then we went into anotherhouse, where she talked with a woman for a long time, and then sat downwith me and moved her lips very patiently, motioning me to watch and tryto understand. But I was frightened and couldn't. So she gave up and,kissing me, made motions with her hands which I understood better; shewanted me to stay there while she went away, and I promised to if shewould come back soon. At this she took out her watch. I was pleased withthe watch, and she let me look at it, and inside against the cover I sawa picture. You know whose it was."
The depths to which her voice sank, the trembling of her tones, startledRansom. Had she been less unfortunate, he would have moved to a differentseat, but he could not show her a discourtesy after so pitiful a tale.But the nod he gave her was a grave one, and her cheek flushed and herhead fell, as she softly added: "It was the first time I ever saw a faceI liked--you won't mind my saying so,--and I wanted to keep the watch,but sister carried it away. She didn't tell me what it meant, her havingyour picture where she could see it all the time, but when she came againshe made me know that you and she were married, by pointing at thepicture and then throwing something white over her head; I didn't ask forthe watch after that, but--"
A far-away look, a trembling of her whole body, finished this ingenuousconfession. Ransom edged himself away and then was sorry for it, for herlip quivered and her hands, from being quiet, began that nervousinterlacing of the fingers which bespeaks mental perturbation.
"I am very ignorant," she faltered; "perhaps I have said something wrong.I don't mean to, I want to be a good girl and please you, so that youwon't send me away now sister is gone. Ah, I know what you want," shesuddenly broke out, as he seized her by the arm and looked inquiringly ather. "You want me to tell why I jumped out of the carriage that night andvexed Georgian and was naughty and wouldn't speak to her. I can't, Ican't. You wouldn't like it if I did. But I'm sorry now, and will nevervex you, but do just what you want me to. Shall I go up-stairs now?"
He shook his head. How could he let her go with so much unsaid? She hadtalked frankly till she had reached the very place where his greatestinterest lay. Then she had suddenly shown shyness of her subject andleaped the gap, as it were, to the present moment. How recall her to thehour when she had seen Georgian for the second time? How urge her into adescription of those days succeeding his wife's flight from the hotel, ofwhich he had no account, save the feverish lines of the letter she hadsent him. He was racking his brain for some method of communicating hiswishes to Anitra, when he heard steps behind him, and, turning, saw theclerk approaching him with a telegram.
He glanced at her slyly as he took it. Somehow he couldn't get used toher deafness, and expected her to give some evidence of surprise orcuriosity. But she was still studying her hands, and as his eyes lingeredon her downcast face he saw a tear well from her lids and wet the cheekshe held partly turned from him. He wanted to kiss that tear, butrefrained and opened his telegram instead. It was from Mr. Harper, andran thus:
Expect a visitor. The man we know has left the St. Denis.