Fidelia/Chapter 14
THE tug from Chicago picked them up at dawn.
The captain had coffee heated and had his JL cabin, with fresh blankets, ready to be turned over to the lady.
Fidelia drank a big cup of coffee and ate two large sandwiches. She lay down in the blankets and slept soundly through the two hours the tug spent in buffeting its way back to the harbor. The captain, who was an Irishman named Maloney with a wife and five children—a fact which he frequently mentioned as proof of his knowledge of what was best for the lady ("Saints presarve us, but isn't she the grand beauty?")—forbade any one to make a noise and he prepared to stand guard personally, after the tug docked, so that "the young thing" could have her sleep out. But Fidelia was awake and she emerged from the blankets pink and lovely. She delighted Maloney and all the crew, and made them get into the picture the newspaper men took of her.
Mrs. Fansler took charge of Fidelia when Maloney had let "the darlint" go. She had sat up, or had dozed beside her telephone all night, had Mrs. Fansler; and when she got news that the tug was returning to Chicago, she had hastened to the city.
"Child," said Mrs. Fansler, kissing and clasping her. "My child, what would the world be without you?"
"You stayed up all night—for me?" Fidelia said, after Mrs. Fansler told her.
Mrs. Fansler did not blame Fidelia at all; having to blame some one, she found fault with Dave whereupon Fidelia praised him and yet managed not to offend Mrs. Fansler.
Dave wondered how she did it; and he decided it was not so much by words, or by tact, as by just being herself and being again in Mrs. Fansler's clasp. For any one who once had had her, the world would surely be drab without her, Dave thought.
He walked slowly up the plank to the dock in a manner which caused the city press reporter to comment that David Herrick was visibly weakened by the night's experience.
Dave was weakened. He had slept upon the tug but not soundly, as Fidelia had; and he had gone through an experience far more tremendous than the exhaustion from exposure. The throb of the engines, the warmth of the bunk in which he had lain, the smell of lubricating oil and coffee and the gray daylight had begun the business of returning him from under that inverted bowl of stars and the throne of Saturn, where one might dream and plan and suppose, and had brought him back to the realities of black river docks, with grimy warehouses wherein were telephones. He must use one of these to call the Sothron's number and speak to Alice. What, what in the world was he to say to her?
"It's over," he felt, as he stepped ashore; it was the end of his ecstatic sensation of "I'm away" with which he had left the shore. He was responsible to others once more.
The day being Sunday, the docks were quiet; the bridges over the river bore an unhurried, discreet traffic and less than the weekday haze of smoke hung in the sunny air. Dave always had resented the enforced dullness of the self-conscious goodness of Sunday. He did not want to feel particularly "good" according to a calendar. The smugness of Sunday seemed never so obnoxious as now. Even yet he had no idea how to speak to Alice.
When at last he had her at the telephone, he found his task considerably lessened by the fact that Alice had learned that he was safe and Fidelia also was safe and that they had been picked up together. The tug had imparted this information to the watch at the lighthouse on the government pier who had telephoned it ashore before the tug turned into the harbor.
Alice asked him: "You found Fidelia right away?"
"Right away," he told her and added: "Then we saw your fire."
He told her: "Mrs. Fansler is here."
"Down there?" said Alice.
Dave explained. "She heard from the coast station that the tug was headed in; she came right down."
He felt cheap after he had told Alice this. He related it because he was uncomfortable. He had the right to let her know that Mrs. Fansler was now with Fidelia but he had no right to suggest that Mrs. Fansler had done something which Alice also might have done. So he said hastily: "You sent the tug, Alice! We'd be half way to Michigan, if it wasn't for you!"
Alice was silent; and he thought: "What's the matter with what I said?" Then he realized how he had said "we" for Fidelia and himself.
Alice said: "I tried to go out with you, Davey. I tried to jump across the water after you. I fell in."
He asked: "What? I didn't know that. How're you now? Why you had it worse than we." There was that "we" again, that suddenly intimate "we" for Fidelia and himself.
Alice defied it. "I'm all right. I just changed my clothes and came out again. I was on the ice a lot of the night!"
"Yes," said David and suddenly he cried: "Alice!"
She made no response but he heard her sobbing. Then she shut the sound from him by muffling the transmitter. He cried: "Alice! Alice! I'm coming there!"
She replied: "No; you've her to take home!"
"Mrs. Fansler's doing that."
Alice cried: "I'm all right. You have to sleep, I have to. Davey, to-morrow—to-morrow!" and she hung up.
Dave did not go to her; while Mrs. Fansler took Fidelia in a cab to Evanston, Dave went alone on the elevated. It satisfied him as a sort of compromise between going with Fidelia and going to Alice. To-morrow! What would to-morrow mean to Alice and to him?
To-morrow, which was Monday morning, he met her on the edge of the campus ten minutes before class time. It was his best recourse for the day, to meet her for the first time in public and as though nothing had happened.
Alice drove up that morning and, at noon, she drove home so David and she did not have a walk together to the car line. They were together only on the campus and in classes, where outwardly everything was the same. That eleven o'clock class, with Fidelia in the room with David and Alice, was especially the same—outwardly. There was Fidelia, warm and glorious with color in the edge of the sunlight; there was David, serious and busy with his note-book. Alice sat quiet, as usual, vaguely hearing the words of the lecture while she watched David.
Her peace and dreaming satisfaction had departed from this hour ever since Fidelia Netley had come; today it was become for Alice an hour of ordeal requiring her to sit still when she wanted to leap up and run from the room, when she wanted to scream, to do—anything
Every day that week, until Saturday, she subjected herself to that ordeal and went through it outwardly quiet and calm, whatever her nerves were. On Saturday was the dance, the Tau Gamma "formal," which she was to lead with David and where Fidelia would be.
Alice had a new dress for the dance and a new bracelet, a narrow band of gold with sapphires of the blue of her eyes. She had new, silver slippers with new buckles which her father, himself, selected. He had her meet him in town on Saturday morning for a shopping excursion; and she knew perfectly well what he was doing. He was trying, by money, to help her fight Fidelia.
"I've had a little luck this week," he told her, to explain his purpose otherwise. "Have anything you want." But she did no buying herself.
In the afternoon, she took all her new things in a suitcase to Willard where she was to have supper with Myra and afterwards dress in Myra's room. Lan and Dave would call for them with a cab to take them to the dance; such was their arrangement ever since Alice had taught David to dance in freshman year and the four of them began going together.
Myra was out when Alice arrived and Myra's roommate, who was doubling with another girl that night in order to lend Alice her bed, already had departed. Alice lay down, glad to be quiet and alone; it was going to be hard for her to talk to Myra but that would be better than to have to deal with the concern of her mother and father for her while she made ready for the dance. What was happening to her, was her own affair; no one, no one could help her, however well they meant, however hard it was for them to have to stand by and watch it happen. Whatever any one said or did, only made it worse for her.
Myra's room was in the modern, pleasant wing of Willard with windows to the south through which slanted yellow streaks of late afternoon sunshine. Sunshine! How often Alice thought of sunshine as an ally of Fidelia, as something which shone on Fidelia's hair. A window was partly open, for the day was warm for March; there had been a thaw all week so that the snow was gone from the walks and the lawns, leaving damp spots here and there.
To-day the college had come outdoors. Groups were in front of every house; and on the lawns, or in the street, boys were throwing baseballs; motorcars were loafing by with windows down or with side curtains off; and girls and boys were idling along the walks.
Alice could see "twos" strolling, some toward the lake, some up Orrington Avenue toward the campus, some toward the town—toward the booths and tables of "Theo's," where the doors would be standing open to-day and where every chair would be filled and there would be the clatter of students, four at a table, treating and being treated to sodas and sundaes.
The thought of "Theo's" brought to Alice an especial association with Dave; it was where he first had "treated" her back in timid, freshman days. But oh, every place about the college held especial association for David and her.
She heard the quick, cheery cadenza of the Tau Gamma whistle which announced that a boy on the street was hailing a Tau Gamma and probably wanted her to walk with him. Alice sat up and saw Myra's small, alert figure hurrying toward Willard; and the Tau Gamma whistle sounded again with more of a demand in its invitation. Alice saw Myra wait; then she saw Lan.
Alice lay down. David used to hail her like that; but he had not this week. He used to herald his coming to her house by the Tau Gamma whistle, which she had taught him long ago. This week, he had become so quiet and formal and he had avoided being alone with her.
A maid knocked and brought in a florist's box which proved to contain red roses, with a card for Alice: "From David."
She used to gasp and feel happy, and half guilty, when he sent her long-stemmed, extravagant flowers like these; now she thought: "He wanted to send them to Fidelia."
Myra entered and sat on the bed beside her saying: "Alice, I've found something out."
She seemed to be suppressing some triumph, was Myra; and Alice looked at her with dull wonder.
"About Fidelia," Myra particularized. "I've been talking to Roy Wheen."
"Who?" said Alice.
"She asked him for to-night," Myra replied, knowing that Alice had heard the name but was puzzled over Roy Wheen's significance. "Why, do you suppose?"
When Alice hazarded nothing, Myra pronounced: "He knows about her."
"What?" said Alice sitting up.
"You know I told you that night she showed up here," Myra proceeded, "that something had happened to her. Well, it had. It happened in Idaho."
"How do you know?"
"Roy Wheen told me."
"What—what happened?"
"He wouldn't tell me that. Listen. He's a sort of pathetic soul, you know. He's hardly spoken to a sorority girl, that I ever saw. I doubt if he's been to a dance since he's come here."
Try as she could, Alice did not succeed in keeping her thought upon Roy Wheen; it flew to the time when David Herrick was a sort of "pathetic soul," daring hardly to speak to a sorority girl and when he had never been to a dance.
Alice heard: "Fidelia certainly picks up with the strangest souls . . . but it seemed to me she must have some special reason for Roy Wheen . . . so I went over to the library . . . he was there and I came out when he did.
"He spoke to me and we walked . . . I mentioned Fidelia and he got fussed red. He's crazy about her, of course. I said, 'Didn't you know her before she came here?'
"He said: 'Yes. That is—'
"'What?' I said.
"Alice, he got fussed redder and redder. He hadn't exactly met her, it seemed; but she came to his home town. That's in Idaho—Mondora; it's hardly on the map. I had to let up on him as soon as he suspected I was after something. He wouldn't say a thing. Closed like a clam! She's got him; he's protecting her! That's his big thrill! Alice, it happened summer before last after she left Stanford. I ran him down on the time—"
Alice stirred with shame at herself. For the minute she had become avid, hopeful to hear something base about Fidelia, something which would destroy Fidelia Netley. But now she cried: "Myra, suppose something did happen! Isn't she trying to live it down!"
Myra was harder. "How? By sneaking Dave away—"
"She doesn't. He does it, Myra! Oh, you wouldn't have gone to Roy Wheen for yourself, My! You wouldn't have thought of it. But for me!"
Myra denied. "I didn't do it for you, Allie. I did it against her. I'd stoop lower, gladly, to show her up to Dave!"
Alice seized Myra's hands. "You're not going to tell that to Dave?" she said, aghast.
"Not yet," said Myra; and Alice had to be satisfied with that.
They dressed, helping each other; and they refrained from talking much about the dance. Neither referred directly to Fidelia again until they were both ready and waiting for the moment when David and Lan would come for them.
Alice had on all her new things; and plain little Myra, with her square, solid-looking shoulders, compared herself and adored Alice for her soft, slight gracefulness.
"You're lovely; and your skin's like satin to-night. That's just the way to do your hair." She kissed Alice. "You've never had a dress like that—"
"No; nor slippers and buckles and bracelet," Alice said. "Father got them for me to-day," she explained. "He bought them to make me beat Fidelia to-night. But I'll not; and she won't have even a new dress."
Fidelia did not. She wore that evening a dancing dress, not old, not new. It was pale green, of such shade that it seemed like silver when the light was low and when the lights were bright its sheen came in contrast to the clear, pale pink of Fidelia's shoulders, the deeper pink of her cheeks and the rich hues of her hair.
She flushed slightly when she danced; she loved to dance; she loved the warmth of it with the movement and the rhythm. Dave, dancing with her, clasped her hand with palm pleasantly moist against his palm; his arm which surrounded her felt the rhythmic draw and relax of her body, as she danced and her bosom rose with her full, even breathing.
He had anticipated much in a dance with her; he remembered how he had felt when she skated with him, how she put all her body into it in a way unlike other girls; but he had not been able to anticipate this pleasure from her feeling for rhythm, for motion slow or swifter but always positive yet effortless, powerful but never pulling upon him. She never tried to "lead"; he never thought of her as possibly trying. She followed him perfectly; always the initiative, the direction, the choice of step was his. Sometimes she warned him of couples threatening to collide in approach from a direction in which he could not see. She did this by sudden, pleasant pressure of her fingers about his; and as soon as she had warned him, she gave herself to his guiding again.
"Don't you ever lead?" he asked her.
"Not dancing with a man," she replied; and after she had thought a minute, "nor with girls either, I guess."
"Why not?"
"I don't like it. Do you?"
"For you?" said Dave. "No." And he clasped her closer as he gave himself to the joy of the dance with her; and he felt new delight in her at his realization of the docility which underlay her nature. She was strong and possessed of endurance beyond any other girl he knew; and she would of herself undertake risks and adventures; she liked to submit herself to hazard; yet she was a most manageable person, too.
Imagining himself married to her, he felt his way would always be pleasant; his way would be hers.
He felt the flattery of others' attention. Every one had to look at her; she was glorious to see and far more satisfactory to have in one's arms. He thought how he had pretended that she was a Goddess when he was following her in the little ice valleys of the shore at sunrise; now she was too close, she was too warm, too much within his arms for him to consider her like that.
The exultation of "A Woman Waits for Me!" ran in his veins. He felt Fidelia "contains all, nothing is lacking . . . warm blooded and sufficient for me."
Sufficient for him! He had never suspected what sufficiency might be until he had found Fidelia. Here she was, warm and lovely and strong and docile.
No; he had never felt sufficiency like this; not with Alice. But he did not let himself think definitely of Alice . . . not until the music had ceased.
He sat with Fidelia, with others about them, during the interval before the next dance; when the music began again, he sought Alice who had been left by her last partner at a further corner of the floor. He felt relaxed and he tried to freshen himself for Alice; but he realized, "She knows"; and even as he crossed the floor, his mind was on his next dance with Fidelia. For he would have two.
It had been a matter of much dispute with himself how many dances with her he could take; in fact, he had argued whether he should engage Fidelia for any dances; but his wish had conquered and he had reënforced it by the argument that it would look "queer" to the college.
When he reached Alice, she was sitting alone with deserted chairs on both sides. "Ours" he said and tried to make it sound in the old way when "ours" told a thrilling thing and his pulses pricked with his impatience for her.
She sat looking up at him and his eyes went from hers to her white, slender shoulders. Her new dress was blue, almost the color of the sapphires in the new bracelet on her slender arm. The slightness, the whiteness of her, which this blue accentuated, used to stir him, and her sweetness with that look of love which would fill her eyes.
It was not there now, that look; in its place, fear. She tried to smile. He thought with alarm: "She's going to cry."
But Alice didn't; she stood up and gave her right hand to his left and he put his arm about her.
How small she seemed; how cool; how dully she danced. He gripped her tighter to rouse her and she responded at the instant but after a second, it was the same as before. Her right hand, clasping his left hand and extended, pulled at him to go this way, now that way, in response to her instinct to guide him. It offended him out of all proportion to its gentle impulse. Naturally she did this; she had taught him to dance; and this unconscious reminder of their first days together used to stir tenderness. Now he thought of Fidelia, warm, all alive but following, docile to him.
Alice tried to talk. She said: "Don't you like the music?" He replied: "It's great."
They might be strangers, he and she who had shared three and a half years so closely, who had come to believe they were meant for each other and so had been preparing to marry on the twenty-second of June.
She felt him trying to rouse her; and, responding, she tried to satisfy him; then she ceased to try. She realized: "It's no use; I can't be Fidelia."
She dragged in the dance which become more and more unendurable. They danced near Fidelia who now had Roy Wheen for a partner. He was not a good dancer but Fidelia was doing well with him; he was flushed and excited. "He's happy," Alice thought; and this sight of them seemed to deny Myra's story that Roy Wheen "knew" something about Fidelia and that she was afraid of him and that was why he was here. Nothing in Fidelia's manner suggested the forced or perfunctory with Roy Wheen or hinted at fear. Fidelia seemed to be having a good time, too.
Alice thought: "But you can't tell anything about her." And feeling that Dave ceased to try to rouse her and that he did not care, Alice suddenly had a wild, insane impulse to make a scene; for the instant it shook her; it seemed that it must conquer her and she must drop David's hand and thrust his arm from about her and she must step to Roy Wheen and stop Fidelia and him from dancing, stop everybody from dancing and hush the music and in the silence make Roy Wheen tell what he knew.
Dave felt her shaking. "What is it?" he said.
"David, I'm sick."
At his exclamation, she declared: "I'm sick, sick. That's all."
"You want me to take you home?"
"No! No! I'll lie down in the dressing room. Don't bother about me."
"Alice!" he protested.
They had come to the edge of the ball-room and she slipped away into the dressing room where she remained until midnight when, as the clock turned to morning and Sunday, the Tau Gamma formal was over.
Dave had had his other regular dance with Fidelia; then he had claimed an "extra"—the unnumbered dance, not on the program, which the orchestra leader suddenly announced, "The Tau Gamma extra."
For this dance, each man asked a partner from the floor without pre-arrangement; but for three years Dave and Alice had danced it together. To-night he had Fidelia.
It was a feature dance, always a waltz with emotional music; and at the first encore, the ball-room lights went out except for one cluster of colored bulbs at the center of the room which formed the Tau Gamma shield; so everybody danced slowly and silently in the dim glow of the colored lights.
Following that dance, Dave cast off discretion. He "cut in" on Fidelia's partners and obtained three "encores." He knew that everybody was watching him; he knew that somebody was sure to bring word to Alice in the dressing room.
Alice and Dave with Myra and Lan drove together back to Williard Hall. Alice was "all right now." She had become calm, in danger neither of crying nor of giving way to insane impulse. She leaned forward as they drove, not to be nearer to Dave, who faced her on an opposite seat, but to feel the cool of the air through the open window of the door.
Nobody talked. There was not a word since Dave's inquiry about Alice, when she had come out to the cab; and that, Myra had answered.
Dave and Lan got out first when the cab halted at the south door of Willard where the watchman checked the return of the girls who had had permission away for the evening. Myra stepped down but Alice stayed in her seat; and Dave leaned in and asked: "You want to go home?"
She shook her head. Myra whispered to Lan and, when Dave stepped back, Lan offered: "I'll take you home, Alice."
She replied: "Ask him to go on a little." And Lan understood that she meant the driver and, also, that she did not want Myra and himself. So the cab proceeded a few feet to clear the entrance: Myra went into the building and Lan departed to the walk by the street. Dave followed the cab and got in and sat beside Alice. Behind them, other cabs halted, let out girls who called happy good nights and the cabs disappeared.
Alice's voice came to David from the dark. "You want to kiss me?"
It was an honest, serious, deadly serious question, impossible for him to answer falsely or lightly or to evade.
"Oh, I want to want to," he said.
"You want—" she took another word—"you would like to hold me as you—" again she changed her word—"as we did that night Fidelia came?"
"Not now."
"You want," said Alice's voice and each syllable was deliberate and distinct. She had thought out each word while she lay her hours in the dressing room and now, with each word of this doom, she thought out each again before speaking it, "to be free of me?"
He did not answer and she struck him. Her little clenched fist came down upon his knee. Otherwise they had no contact at all.
"You say it! You've got to say it! You've got to! I never will! Never! Never!"
"Yes," said Dave.
She opened the door beside her; it was the door away from the Hall. She whispered: "You are! You hear me? You hear me?"
"Yes," said Dave.
She was on the ground and, running about the rear of the cab, she disappeared into the Hall.