Margarita's Soul: The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty. Josephine Daskam Bacon

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СКАЧАТЬ Still later a young man with beautiful, large eyes inquired if he might sit beside her and she agreed gladly. He smelled very good. He asked where she was going and she said to find friends. He said she would find many on Broadway and that easily; she had only to show herself there. He offered to point out the way there and just as all seemed in the best possible way the buttoned man came again, frowned on the good-smelling young man and took his seat. He talked a good deal to Margarita—so much that she could not very well attend to it. At last he gave her a large grey veil and commanded her to wrap her head in it, and he would look after her when they got to New York. But when they did get to New York she eluded him and asked the way to Broadway, and then she met Roger. So, as the young man had said, there were friends on Broadway. But there were none in the town from which she took the ticket and she had no idea what its name was. Hester never mentioned it. She did not believe it had a name.

All this as the cab rested by the kerbstone. It was perfectly obvious that she was speaking the truth. They had patronised this particular driver long enough, anyway, and Roger paid him liberally and led Margarita into the draggled, dusty station; the new one was not then built. Seated beside her in a relatively dim corner he tried to formulate some plan, but the absurd emptiness of the situation baffled even his practical good sense. How could he take this girl to a town that neither he nor she knew the name of? How, on the other hand, could he fling such a projectile as Margarita into any respectable hotel? What would she do—or say? True, he might possibly have presented her as his sister and kept her sternly in view during every possible moment, but she was not sufficiently well dressed to be his sister. And his overcoat was buttoned suspiciously high. Was he to stroll out of the waiting-room and leave her abandoned, like some undesirable kitten, in the corner? The idea was ludicrous: she must be taken care of. Had she thrust herself upon him, enticed him, challenged him? Assuredly not; moved by some completely inexplicable influence, utterly alien to himself, his birth, his training, he had deliberately and persistently questioned her, prolonged a trifling encounter unjustifiably, whirled her away, literally; and now that he had found no suitable place of deposit it was incredible that he should deliver this extraordinary and self-assumed charge to civil authority. It would have been almost as well to lead her back to Broadway, he told himself sternly. The most exotic foreigner would have found herself in better case, it occurred to him, for interpreters of one sort or another can always be found. But Margarita seemed foreign to this planet, very nearly. What should be said of a person who lived on a nameless shore, served by Hester Prynne and Caliban? Who scooped hundreds—perhaps thousands—out of a chest, to flee at dawn from a town whose name she had never heard mentioned, though she had lived within walking distance of it all her life?

SCOOPED HUNDREDS—PERHAPS THOUSANDS—OUT OF A CHEST, TO FLEE AT DAWN

      It was absurd—but something must be done. Margarita sat contented and amused, devouring the shabby bustle all around her with her great deep-set eyes, willing, apparently, to sit there indefinitely.

      "Will you let me examine your bag?" Roger said at last, and she handed him the coarse, imitation-leather affair. There was a soiled, cheap handkerchief in it, some four hundred dollars in banknotes, and a torn envelope with a town and state written clearly on it.

      I have tried to write the name of this town, and when I found that impossible, I tried to invent one to take its place, but I could not do it. Surely it is nothing to any of you who may happen to read this poor attempt of mine to pass my time, nothing, and less than nothing, just what may be the name of the utterly unimportant little backwater of a village from which, if you know the way, you may walk four miles or so to Margarita's home. Undoubtedly many of you sail by it often, but it is hidden from you by the rise of the ground, the high rocks and the great, ancient-looking wall that I helped to pile. These and the reefs protect it quite sufficiently. And I do not want you there. It would prove far too interesting a spot to jaded trippers and trotters—and it is amazing how quickly your new countries grow jaded; more eager for fresh scenes than old Japan herself, Nippon the rice-blest, the imperishable, whence I send these words.

      Be satisfied, then, to know that in the direction of this torn envelope Roger held the clew to Margarita's nameless home. Yes, the young woman had sold her the bag with the clothing and advised her to put the banknotes in it. No, she did not know her name. She smelled good—like the young man who advised Broadway.

      "Come, Margarita," said Roger gravely, "let us see when you can start," and she followed him submissively to the wicket, matched her stride to his on his discovery that a train which would take them half way was just about to start, and ran beside him to the steps of the car. He motioned to her to mount and she did so, turning at the top of the steps with a face of sudden terror.

      "You are not going to leave me, Roger Bradley?" she cried, "where am I going?"

      "Certainly I shall not leave you. You are going home," he said quietly, and mounted after her. The guard stared at them, the bell clanged sadly and the train moved out of the station. The play, you see, was well along.

PART TWO

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IN WHICH THE SPRING FLOWS IN A LITTLE STREAM

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      O father, mother, let me be,

       Never again shall I have rest.

       For as I lay beside the sea,

       A woman walked the waves to me,

       And stole the heart out of my breast.

      Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden.

CHAPTER V

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ROGER FINDS THE ISLAND

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      It goes without saying that I have a retentive memory. Of course I depend very largely upon it for all the small details that Roger has from time to time vouchsafed me in regard to his relations with Margarita, or I could not very well be writing these idle memories, but Roger was always a poor writer—that is to say, so far as comment and amplification and variety of manner may be supposed to make a good one. Witness the following letter, which I received in answer to my plea for details of that strange night journey from New York to Margarita's town. It left a gap in my story of which I never happened to receive any account, and it seemed to me a fairly important gap, though you will see that this was not Roger's view of it.

      Dear Jerry:

      It is rather late in the day to ask me about that trip to——. We hardly spoke for a long time, as I am sure I have told you before—either of us. There was no berth to be had for her and no drawing-room car on, so we rode all night in the day coach with a rather mixed lot. I remember they snored and it amused her. She wanted to СКАЧАТЬ