Conflict (Prouty)/Book 3/Chapter 5
Sheilah lay on the crest of a hill and gazed up at the sky. There were great banks of soft white clouds in the sky. It seemed almost as if she could touch them, if she reached up, they were so near. Much nearer than the banks of feathery treetops far below—clouds, too, gray-green, slowly rising. She lay among the blue and yellow flames of August asters, flat on her back, arms outstretched, face turned upward to the sky, on a bed of short tufted grass, soft and springy, like curled hair. She didn't know a bed could be so soft and yet so firm. Like certain hands she had known once long ago—Dr. Sheldon's hands. Or certain arms—her father's, that terrible night when he had held her from flying to pieces.
Dr. Baird had ridden over from his cabin to see Sheilah two days after she had arrived at Avidon's. He had ridden over to see Sheilah every day for the first week. Now Sheilah traveled herself, and on foot, the two miles and a half of lumber-road that lay between Avidon's and the glorified log-cabin in the woods, for a draft of the wisdom distilled there. The effect of Dr. Baird's clear, simple, unmysterious explanation of the various vagaries of Sheilah's tired nerves, had acted upon them like daylight on bugaboos and ghosts. Dr. Baird, unlike Dr. Evarts, believed in taking a patient into his confidence. Gradually Sheilah's disagreeable sensations were sneaking away, one by one. She was ever so much better.
Lying now on her hilltop (her hilltop because she sought it so often), Sheilah rejoiced in the consciousness of being better, as another might rejoice in the consciousness of physical perfection. How good to lie upon a hilltop, day after day, and feel strength running back through one's finger-tips instead of out of them. It was one of her secret delights to imagine that the hill was holding her up, like some kind friend, as far as it could reach toward the healing qualities of sun and sky and wind. And at the same time giving to her of its own healing qualities.
Now, burrowing her finger-tips down through the thick, tufted grass till they found the cool, coarse soil, she fancied that she was drinking of the hill's strength, through her fingers, as the hardy little asters surrounding her drank through their roots, or the sturdy junipers, or the two rugged pines that stood like guards above her bed. At certain moments Sheilah's rejoicing amounted almost to intoxication. Dear kind hill—dear, strong, kind hill that would not let her fall! 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord.' That was the way David had felt about hills. Sheilah would have sung, 'I will throw down my body onto the hills from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the sod,' which after all was the Lord or, anyhow, a part of Him. How good it was to feel the Lord physically beneath one!
'I'd love to write a psalm!' she suddenly exclaimed out loud.
She was not alone this afternoon. A man in greenish-brown tweeds, the color of the tufted grass, sat against one of the pines.
'What sort of a psalm would you write?'
'Terribly pagan, I'm afraid,' sighed Sheilah, and she patted the rough, curly grass beside her.
The man observed her with an amused smile.
'Nice old dog, isn't he?'
'Lovely old dog!' Sheilah agreed, and turning, burying her nose in the thick grass, drew in a deep breath.
'Smell good after his bath?' laughed the man. It had rained the night before.
'Perfectly delicious,' Sheilah laughed back, and turning her face to the sky again she closed her eyes, and the bit of conversation as light and trivial as the bit of feathered milkweed seed that floated at that moment up over the top of the hill and disappeared into space, so likewise drifted unpursued into silence. A silence in which Sheilah gave herself utterly to the sky, and sun, and the sound of the wind in the two pine trees. Sheilah loved the sound of the wind in the pine trees. So did the man at the foot of them she had discovered.
'Like waves washing on a shore a long way off,' he had remarked lightly the first time he had listened to them with Sheilah.
'Or flames in an open grate,' shyly Sheilah had replied.
'Or the swish of skirts,' the man had suggested the next day.
Sheilah, grown more courageous by then, had added, gazing up at the scudding white billows above, 'The swish of the cloud's skirts.'
The man, his eyes following her skyward gaze, had finished, 'The cloud's skirts, brushing against the blue tiles of the sky.'
'Are you a poet?' Sheilah asked.
'Are you a poetess?' the man replied, and then confessed he had cribbed the 'blue tiles of the sky' from Amy Lowell.
Building similes of this sort, collaborating in fantastic metaphors, had become an almost daily pastime between these two. Harmless and diverting. Sheilah was amazed at herself. Once she had been skillful at conversation, but it was so long ago, and for such a little while. Once, too, she had read Amy Lowell, and other modern poets (modern now no more), but she had had no time to keep up with books; nor money, nor inspiration. She hadn't talked to any gentleman (except a doctor about children's diseases, or a real-estate broker about rents, or a bond salesman about a better investment for the little property her mother had left her) since she left Wallbridge.
She thought she had forgotten how to talk about anything else. But how easily it came back! How easily wearing lovely clothes came back, too, and the confidence of manner that accompanies them. Like swimming, she supposed. One doesn't forget how—ever. Only there must be water, of course. And here at Avidon's there was water for Sheilah. Everybody had been so kind to her! Not only this man (though he had been kind first, and was still the most kind), but every one in the little group ('The Outsiders,' they called themselves), into which he had introduced her.
This man had been kind to her because of Dr. Baird. He was a personal friend of Dr. Baird's. He had been introduced by Dr. Baird, and, Sheilah suspected, had been instructed to see to it that she had a good time at Avidon's. Sheilah had been instructed by Dr. Baird to accept all friendly advances made to her half-way. More than half-way. To make friendly advances herself. In fact, it was by such coeperation, Dr. Baird told her, that her cure (her self-cure—for it must he self-cure) could be most speedily accomplished.
Moreover, Dr. Baird had instructed her to confide her personal affairs in no one. It was one of Dr. Baird's rules that his patients refrain from discussing their difficulties with each other—or with any of the guests at the hotel. Sheilah had complied. Her corner room with private balcony and bath, overlooking the purple shadows of the valley, was not in keeping with her working-woman's hands, cracked and scarred, bearing traces of vegetable-knives and recent contact with dish-water. But according to Dr. Baird's orders she persistently applied glycerine and rose-water every night, and made no explanations.
She raised her hands now against the clouds, and gazed at them smiling. Not only was she better inside, not only was her soul slowly healing, but her hands—her hands too!
And she had been at Avidon's scarcely three weeks! Perhaps it was all a dream, from which she would wake up pretty soon. And the billowy clouds above would prove to be the familiar mounds of the weekly 'wash,' waiting to be sprinkled, piled high in the clothes-basket on the kitchen table; the hill beneath her, her own bed that squeaked when she turned; the sweet smell of the damp ground, the scented powder Laetitia used lately; and the swish of the cloud's skirts, Felix at his work-bench in the dining-room.
Suddenly she said out loud.
'I've thought of something else the pine is like.'
'What?'
'A buzz-saw through a closed door.'
'What do you know about buzz-saws?'
She didn't tell him. Strange to share so many fancies with a man, and so few facts. She had scarcely more than mentioned Felix and the three children to him. He knew that she lived outside Boston somewhere, and used to live in Wallbridge before she was married, but little more.
She had met him the second night after she arrived at Avidon's. She had finished dinner early and was sitting alone on the hotel verandah in the late sunshine, keenly aware of the unfamiliar peace about her, and the still sweet coolness of the air. As if, she thought, she'd suddenly stepped inside a big empty church from off a hot, crowded side-walk. Dr. Baird had remained for dinner that night. He had seen Sheilah for the first time in the afternoon. They had talked for nearly two hours.
Sheilah had felt a strange new sense of courage stirring in her as she sat on the hotel verandah, and recalled some of the things Dr. Baird had just said—a stirring as thrilling as the first vague indefinite motion of a very much wanted child. Suddenly, one of those unaccountable moments of elation had taken possession of Sheilah, that used to, years ago. For an instant she was inexplicably happy and hopeful. She was going to get well! The black veil of despair was going to lift! Roddie was not going to grow up to be acheat. Laetitia was not going to grow up to be like Gretchen. She herself was not going to lose her love for Felix. Everything was going to come out all right! She leaned forward, and looking up, smiled into a bright shaft of sunlight, piercing the sunset clouds, and falling on her chair.
A few feet away, inside a plate-glass window, a man had been watching Sheilah, vaguely interested, puzzled, annoyed finally.
'I think I know that woman out there, Carl,' later he said to his old friend and college classmate, Carl Baird, now become so great and wise, 'but I can't seem to place her. Who is she, anyway?'
'Nawn is her name—Mrs. Felix Nawn.'
'Means nothing to me.'
'Come and meet her, and help make it pleasant for her here, if you can. She's a patient of mine.'
Dr. Baird had left them almost as soon as he had introduced them. Sheilah without warning or preparation suddenly found herself alone with a stranger (she, who lately avoided meeting even the postman, it was such an effort to say good-morning) politely inquiring, 'May I sit here?' drawing the chair next to hers into a better position for conversation.
'Yes. Do.' Sheilah replied. What else could she reply. 'Only,' she added, half-rising, 'hadn't we better move out of the sun?'
'No, don't. Please, I beg of you. Don't move.'
The stranger was very insistent. He even put out his hand as if to push her back bodily into her chair.
'Oh, all right,' she acquiesced, and sank back again into the bright shaft of sunlight.
The stranger drew his chair away from Sheilah a little and sat down. He was an older man, at least what Sheilah then called an 'older man,' ten years or so older than herself. Dark, clean-shaven, ruddy.
'Are you an inmate?' he inquired smiling.
'An inmate?' Sheilah exclaimed. 'Is that what I am?'
'Certainly,' he shrugged, apparently enjoying her dismay, 'if you're a patient of Carl Baird's.' Where had he seen her before? 'The others are just plain ordinary hotel guests.' Where had he been where he could see her? 'The inmates are much nicer.' Sitting in a shaft of sunlight like that, looking up, smiling the way she had a moment before. 'The guests are horribly envious,' he went on. There had been sunmotes in the other shaft of sunlight, floating about her hair. 'There are usually several celebrities among the inmates.' Glorious hair, as he recalled it. Gold. Thousands of little glistening spirals escaping. 'I hope you're not a celebrity.'
'I'm not!' she assured him quickly.
But he didn't remember that glint of silver in her hair. 'Well, I'm glad of that.' And how very tired she looked to-day! 'I don't feel comfortable with lady celebrities.' Oh, she probably was just like somebody. But whom? Bother his memory, anyway. Reaching into an inside pocket he drew out a cigarette case—an old, silver, engraved affair, worn smooth like an old ten-cent piece. 'Do you mind?'
Sheilah shook her head. 'No. Do.'
'Will you?' and he offered her the open case. If they both smoked he could study her more closely, gaze without apparent impoliteness.
But again Sheilah shook her head. 'No, thanks,' she said. But it was rather nice being back among the little commonplace elegancies. She looked up and smiled again into the shaft of sunlight. 'Wait a minute!' suddenly the man opposite her exclaimed. 'By the way! Excuse me! I've got it!' And he tossed away the lighted match, half-way to his mouth, and laid down the unlighted cigarette on the piazza railing. 'It's a window!'
'What's a window?'
'There's a window in a church in Boston,' he went on, still looking at her intently, still groping his way. 'A stained-glass window, that you make me think of a little. I thought at first I'd met you somewhere, but I guess it's just a resemblance. It's a memorial window to a young girl. She's in a church, looking up—at least I think she's in the church, though By the way,' abruptly he broke off. 'Perhaps you were in the church. Pardon me, but did you ever live in Wallbridge, Massachusetts?'
'A thousand years ago.'
The man leaned forward in his chair eagerly.
'Your first name couldn't be Sheilah, could it?'
'Who are you?' Sheilah exclaimed.
'Your name used to be Sheilah Miller,' he announced triumphantly.
Sheilah stared, open-eyed and dazed. 'I suppose I ought to know you,' she floundered, 'but I didn't even listen when Dr. Baird introduced you. I don't even know your name.'
'Dallinger. Roger Dallinger.'
She repeated it. 'I'm afraid it doesn't help me very much.' And yet Dallinger—Roger Dallinger—it had a vaguely familiar sound. If she had read the papers, as she should, she would no doubt know who he was. 'Probably you're the celebrity,' she said.
'Oh, no, I'm not.'
She made a helpless shrug. 'Well, won't you help me a little and tell me why I ought to know you?'
'You oughtn't to. You never saw me before. But I've seen you. I've every reason in the world for remembering you. The whole course of my life was changed by you.' His eyes (dark eyes, framed dark, that is) were sparkling beneath their charcoal arches, as if he very much enjoyed the situation. And he did enjoy it. There was a streak of boyish fun in him that he had never outgrown, never would. The expression of amazement in Sheilah's face was too delicious to resist. He would amaze her still more. 'Why, I suppose,' he went on gleefully, impulsively (he had never outgrown impulsiveness, either), 'I'd be a settled married man with grown-up children by this time but for you.'
Did older men talk like that nowadays? Of course boys used to, years ago. They called it 'a line.' Sheilah remembered perfectly this particular kind of line. Hyperbole. Extravagant exaggeration. She remembered too how she used to respond to it. Calmly, unperturbed. So now, leaning back in her chair, she replied serenely, 'You needn't think I'm going to appear curious.'
'And you needn't think I'm going to satisfy a repressed instinct, if curiosity is an instinct. Is it? You'll know and can tell me after you've been here a week, and studied psychology under Carl Baird. Hello, Jake. Hello, Persis,' he exclaimed, addressing a man and woman strolling toward them. 'Come here, I want you to meet Mrs. Nawn. Mrs. Palmer, Mr. Palmer. Mrs. Nawn is an old acquaintance of mine,' he added, with a special twinkle in his eyes for Sheilah alone.
A moment later two other couples joined them, and again Sheilah, with the special twinkle, was introduced as an 'old acquaintance of mine.'
'Where did you know each other?' inquired one of the women of Roger Dallinger.
'Oh, that's telling, Judith,' he replied with a great air of mystery.
'Oh, excuse me,' said Judith—Judith Lorimer. The Lorimers were from outside Philadelphia. There were also Mr. and Mrs. Sterling, from outside Chicago. 'All Outsiders, you see,' Mr. Dallinger had explained to Sheilah with a smile. The Palmers were from outside New York.
For a minute Sheilah felt shy and ill at ease. The women were so perfectly dressed. But only for a minute, for she soon became aware of her own dress, perfect also, gray chiffon-cloth, untrimmed, undecorated, with gray shoes to match. How wonderful of Cicely to have foreseen, and to have provided! How easy to assume the old poise again, inside the protecting armor of a lovely gown. Her heart was fluttering, but she bowed, quietly acknowledging the introductions, one after another, with her old grace and charm.
The 'Outsiders' (for it appeared these four couples completed the select group) accepted her almost immediately as one of them. Not only, as she imagined, because Mr. Dallinger had introduced her 'as an old acquaintance,' but because they recognized her as one of their kind.
The next day, when she told them that she came from outside Boston, Mr. Palmer had exclaimed, 'Good! another recruit for the Outsiders! Will you join us?'
And the very first night, scarcely ten minutes after her introduction, they had asked her to dance, to play bridge. She had begged off. What would they think of her hands? 'And I really haven't done either for years,' frankly she had confessed. So instead they had all gone to the moving-pictures in the casino, and afterward to the grill.
It was nearly twelve o'clock when Sheilah, who for three months had been to bed by nine o'clock, and felt too tired even to hear Roddie's and Phil's prayers, escaped to her room, feeling suddenly rather weak in the knees.