Restless Earth/Chapter 19

Patricia Weybourn’s departure from New Plymouth savoured of flight. Within two hours after her final encounter with Mrs. Langham she was seated in a service car headed for the south, and in her heart was fierce resolution never again to set eyes upon, or foot in, the town which had torn her life to tatters.

​She had entered the town with high hopes; but they had not been hopes of love. She had been convinced, then, that true love was merely the dream of poets and writers with too much imagination. She had had experiences with men, violent flirtations which had proved the inconstancy of human hearts, and had grown to mock those ardent fools who had proposed marriage and undying devotion.

She had been very sure of herself then. Life had been a glorious thing when she had accepted men’s tributes to her beauty and had believed her heart inviolable. Now it was hateful.

Love, to her, had been a repulsive disease whose proper name was Sex—a disease from which she had believed herself immune. Now it had struck her down, and she had hugged the affliction which had taught her the meaning of life so that she could never hope to rid herself of its hurt.

Bitterly she regretted the impulse which had sent her to the Harley bungalow on the day of the earthquake. But for that, Harley might have taken her again when the hurt of Grace’s death had been dulled by time. She would never have acted so had she not believed that Grace had survived. Oh, what use in thinking of what might have been? It was all a terrible mess.

Patricia repressed the impulse to look back at the distant houses, the bold rock of Paritutu and the gleaming sea beyond, as the car dipped into the valley of the Meeting of the Waters. She had finished with New Plymouth. She looked ahead at the magnificent mass of Egmont, rising above fertile, wooded lands, majestic, silent, age-old—a constant reminder of the transcience of human life—and an indefinable balm fell upon her heart.

She gazed upon the ever-changing aspect of the lone and glorious mountain as the car traversed the winding road at its foot; she watched the light clouds forming upon it and vanishing—airy masses which obscured it for a little while, then passed, leaving it ​as it had been for centuries, and as it will be for centuries to come.

“Life is like that,” she said musingly.

“Like what, miss?” asked the driver, beside whom she sat, who had been wondering whether this unusually beautiful passenger were of the sociable sort.

Patricia flushed and looked surprised. She had not intended to utter her thought aloud.

“Like the clouds on the mountain,” she explained unwillingly. “It comes and goes, is nothing worth mentioning, and leaves the universe as it found it.”

The driver pondered this. He had not expectad mournful philosophy in one whom he had judged to be “one of the girls.”

“That’s so,” he agreed vaguely, squinting at the mountain. “Ever been up to the top?” he asked, unwilling to allow the conversation to die now that the ice had been broken.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Have you ever climbed the mountain?”

“No.”

The driver failed to observe the finality in the monosyllable, nor did he seem to feel the coldness of the rare “Indeed?” and “Quite so” which were her only contributions to the conversation on the perils of mountaineering, the beauty of Christchurch and the horrors of earthquakes in general and the Hawke’s Bay one in particular, with which the fifty-mile journey to Hawera was beguiled.

“Staying here to-night, miss?” he asked her as he halted the car outside a hotel in Hawera. “You can pick up a bus for Wanganui this afternoon if you like. That is, of course, if you’re going on?”

“I’ll stay here, I think,” decided Patricia. “Will you help me with my bags?”

“Certainly, miss. Hope I have the pleasure of taking you back sometime. I don’t get many passengers as sociable as you are.”

Patricia wondered if that were meant as sarcasm. If it were, the driver showed a Christian spirit in the ​manner in which he piloted her into the hotel and bullied the girl in the office into allotting her the best available room on the first floor.

Hotel life was no novelty for Patricia. Consequently, she was neither embarrassed nor offended when the two commercial travellers, with whom she sat at a small table at dinner that evening, behaved after the manner of their kind in the presence of a beautiful stranger of the opposite sex.

With the ease of manner and practised politeness of true knights of the road, they were unobtrusively attentive to her wants, and, at the right moment, introduced each other by name. Patricia gave hers in exchange.

Patricia had met men of the road often during her business career. She knew their vanities and their virtues, their unquenchable optimism and their failings. She liked them as a class. They were such overgrown boys; so full of life and the knowledge of life. Little as she felt in the mood for life and cheery company, she would have felt convicted of the snobbishness she detested had she not responded in some degree to their attentions.

She sat between them on a chesterfield in the lounge after dinner, drinking coffee and meditatively smoking a cigarette as they exchanged reminiscences of their roving lives—stories of laughable adventures by road and rail, mildly spiced with amorous moments in widely-scattered hostelries.

After all, she reasoned, this was better than sitting alone in one’s room and brooding on the imposible. Here, she might forget for a moment at least.

She accepted one of the three cocktails which one of the knights, Baden, had ordered on leaving the table. She found, somewhat to her surprise, that it did her good—“lightened the darkness,” as she phrased it obscurely to her new friends.

“We rather suspected the darkness,” smiled the other knight, one George. “You look rather peeked—washed-out, you know. Charity work?”

​Patricia nodded.

“Something of the kind,” she admitted.

“Atta girl!” exclaimed Baden heartily. “You’ve earned another.”

“No more, thank you,” replied Patricia, smiling.

“Non-sense!” protested the knights simultaneously, uttering their “pass-word” with gusto.

“You must, please,” urged Baden.

“You’ll offend us, if you refuse,” urged George.

“But, really, I couldn’t! I———”

“Non-sense!”

Patricia yielded.

A few more stories, and the little comedy was repeated. More “darkness-dispellers” were ordered, and laughter advertised their potency.

So it went on. A few more stories———

By nine o’clock Patricia was almost gay. George and Baden had crossed their near arms about her shoulders, and their stories had become racier and more involved. She had almost convinced herself that she didn’t care about anything—about Jimmy, or Grace, the earthquake, Sheeny Ezekiel or fat Mrs. Langham!

The world would not thank her for breaking her heart. It would sneer at her—laugh at her—and with justification. Good Heavens! Was Jimmy the only man on earth? Either of these two men beside her were as presentable as he, and surely less conscious-tied. Where was James Harley now? What was he doing? Mooning in the wreckage of Napier, no doubt, and cursing her alive and dead for a woman without morals or pity! he trouble with James Harley was that he was just a man—that unhappy creature blended of beast and god—neither one thing nor the other—setting himself a code and suffering the tortures of hell in his foolish effort to conform to it on all occasions.

To the men beside her the code was a banner, something to look at and admire and to conform to when they felt the urge to do so.

​Baden told a story of a detective who lost the sight of one eye while gathering evidence for a divorce.

Patricia recalled a line from a detective play which had thrilled her years before. She rose to her feet unsteadily and held her wine-glass above her head.

“‘What does it all matter, Watson?’” she declaimed addressing the ceiling and scorning the condemnatory glances of two women who were knitting beside the empty fire-place: “‘The warm breath of a few more summers—the cold chill of a few more winters—and then———’?”

She tossed her glass from her with a nonchalant gesture, tottered slightly and slumped back upon the chesterfield.

The knights applauded gravely.

“Wonderful!” declared Baden, winking significantly at George.

“Marvellous!” echoed George, returning the wink. “I think the effort calls for another dispeller. Baden, depress the doings.”

Baden pressed the bell.

“Same again,” he ordered, when the waiter bowed before them.

“Not so, not so!” objected George with drunken gravity. “We have suffered the indignity of coloured waters long enough, my friend. We will have a man’s drink. Varlet, three whiskeys-and-sodas.”

The waiter looked dubiously at Patricia, who sat with her eyes closed, careless what she drank.

“Just as you say,” agreed Baden easily; “just as you say. Three whiskeys-and-soda.”

Whiskey-and-soda was a strategical error on the part of George. The knights realised that some minutes later when the girl became drowsy. She lay back against their linked arms and closed her eyes, and experienced that uncomfortable sensation of floating in space with the heels much higher than the head.

​Patricia had enjoyed her share of youthful parties, and had experienced the exhilarations which alcohol brings when taken sparingly. Now she experienced drunkenness and was ashamed. She tried to rouse herself, but the effort made her feel worse. Perhaps if she lay still for a little while the whirlings in her brain would stop.

Twice she opened her eyes and stared fixedly at the gyrating ceiling in order to overcome the nausea induced by the sensation of falling over backwards into a bottomless pit; then the voices of the knights receded into the distance, and she slept.

She was shaken to wakefulness by Baden.

“Come on, old thing,” he was saying. “Time to wind the cat and put the clock out.”

Patricia blinked at George, who was rubbing his ankle, and then at the clock over the fire-place.

The time was almost half-past eleven.

“Good Heavens!” she exclaimed, sitting up and swaying a little. “Have I been sleeping?”

“I trust so,” answered Baden. “Otherwise you must have heard the shocking language of George when you kicked him in your dreams.”

Patricia flushed with shame, but managed a lop-sided smile.

“I’m awfully sorry,” she apologised.

“Quite all right, Pat,” grinned George. “I guess you thought I was Jimmy and forgot you had your shoes on.”

“And what about introducing Little Grace some day ?” chuckled Baden. “The name rather takes our fancy. Sweet and old-fashioned.”

“Lavender and old lace,” chimed George.

Patricia, inexpressibly shocked to know that she had spoken of her sins to these hardened philanderers, rose to her feet and moved to the stairs as steadily as she might.

“I think I’ll go to bed,” she said shakily. “Thanks so much for a jolly evening. I’m afraid I made rather an ass of myself———”

​The knights followed her to the foot of the stairs.

“Don’t go yet,” pleaded Baden, leaning heavily upon the banister. “The night’s still young.”

“You can’t go to bed as you are, old thing,” George informed her. “Better come for a little spin in the car. Blow away some of the wine-dust. You’ll have an awfully thick head in the morning if you don’t.”

“No, thank you. Really, it’s been nice to have you look after me. I’ll see you again in the morning, I’m catching the express to Wellington. Good-night.”

She allowed them both to kiss her hand with the exaggerated courtesy of the cavalier.

“Marry, ’tis a sorry blow to be deprived of thy sweet presence, Lorena,” mourned George, when she smiled down upon them as she mounted the staircase wearily.

“Odds bodkins, marry and forsooth,” agreed his companion.

She waved a hand as she disappeared upon the landing above.

The two knights leaned against the banisters for some moments in silence. They smiled and nodded at each other in understanding.

“What is the betting?” asked Baden, in subdued tones.

“Fifty of Ardath,” answered George.

“You’re on.”

They linked arms and strolled into the commercial room, where they found a pack of cards, and a night-porter who resented their intention to indulge in play at this hour of the night.

****

Patricia sat upon her bed for a long time, thinking. She held her head in her hands and stared at the weaving floor. Reaction had set in. The fall from false gaiety to renewed despair was swift and terrible. Her head ached abominably. She was ​nauseated. Everything was wrong! It was all wrong!

She prayed that the night might be eternal. She had no desire to endure the hopeless longing of a fresh day. She was an outcast—a wanderer on the face of the earth. Oh, that she had courage to end it all! And yet, some day she might meet Jimmy again. Someday he might grow tired of his grief and his conscience———

At last she threw herself face downwards upon the bed, her arms stretched above her head, her heart crying for James Harley.

Presently she slept.

A light, insistent touch upon her shoulder awakened her. She sat up swiftly, startled.

The knight, Baden, stood beside her bed and looked down with a confident smile. He was swathed in an expensive dressing-gown, and his feet were bare.

“Hello, old thing,” he whispered.

Patricia, wise in the ways of the road, rose to her feet angrily. The knight retreated a step and his smile vanished as she confronted him.

“Get out!” she commanded in a low voice, pointing to the door.

“Now look here, Pat,” whispered the intruder, making hushing motions with his outspread hands and frowning warningly, “don’t behave as though———”

“Get out!” she repeated a little louder. “Get out, before I have you thrown out!”

The knight’s lower jaw came forward and his lips pouted. For a moment it seemed that he would lay violent hands upon her. He moved forward a step.

The girl did not flinch.

“Get out!”

The knight relaxed, shrugged his shoulders, smiled whimsically, and turned to the door.

“My mistake,” he apologised, as he unlocked and opened the door softly. “But, tell me this,” he requested, thrusting his head in again when he had stepped into the corridor. “What kind of woman ​are you? Do you know, you’ve cost me fifty of Ardath?”

As Patricia gave him no answer to either question, he sighed comically, and, with a whispered “Cheerio!” closed the door.

Patricia waited for a few moments, then moved to the door and locked it.

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror on the dressing table as she turned.

“That is the question,” she said, bitterly. “What kind of woman are you, Pat Weybourn?”

She disrobed with savage gestures and went to bed.