The Ragged Edge by Harold MacGrath (best beach reads .TXT) 📖

she must have known he was that. Why had she married him, off-hand, like that? She did not love him, or he knew nothing of love signs. Had she too been flying from something and had accepted this method of escape? But what frying-pan could be equal to this fire?

All this led him back to the original circle. He saw the colossal selfishness of his act; but he could not beg off on the plea of abnormality. He had been ill; no matter about that: he recollected every thought that had led up to it and every act that had consummated the deed.

To make Ruth pay for it! He wanted to get away, into some immense echoless tract where he could give vent to this wild laughter which tore at his vitals. To make Ruth pay for the whole shot! To wash away his sin by crucifying her: that was precisely what he had set about. And God had let him do it! He was-and now he perfectly understood that he was-treading the queerest labyrinth a man had ever entered.

Why had he kissed her? What had led him into that? Neither love nor passion-utter blankness so far as reducing the act to terms. He had kissed his wife on the mouth ... and had been horrified! There was real madness somewhere along this road.

He was unaware that his illness had opened the way to the inherent conscience and that the acquired had been temporarily blanketed, or that there was any ancient fanaticalism in his blood. He saw what he had done only as it related to Ruth. He would have to go on; he would be forced to enact all the obligations he had imposed upon himself.

His salvation-if there was to be any-lay in her ignorance of life. But she could not live in constant association with him without having these gaps filled. And when she learned that she had been doubly cheated, what then? His thoughts began to fall on her side of the scales, and his own misery grew lighter as he anticipated hers. He was an imaginative young man.

Never again would he repeat that kiss; but at night when they separated, he would touch her forehead with his lips, and sometimes he would hold her hand in his and pat it.

"I'll have my cot in here," said Spurlock to Ruth, "where this table is. You never can tell. I'm likely to get up any time in the night to work."

Together they were making habitable the second bungalow, which was within calling distance of McClintock's. They had scrubbed and dusted, torn down and hung up until noon.

"Whatever you like, Hoddy," she agreed, wiping the sweat from her forehead. She was vaguely happy over this arrangement which put her in the wing across the middle hall, alone. "This will be very comfortable."

"Isn't that lagoon gorgeous? I wonder if there'll be sharks?"

"Not in the lagoon. Mr. McClintock says they can't get in there, or at least they never try it."

"Lord!-think of having sharks for neighbours? Every morning I'll take a dip into the lagoon. That'll tune me up."

"But don't ever swim off the main beach without someone with you."

"I wonder where the deuce I'll be able to get some writing paper? I'm crazy to get to work again."

"Probably Mr. McClintock will have some."

"I sha'n't want these curtains. You take them. The veranda bamboo will be enough for me."

He stuffed the printed chintz into her arms and smiled into her eyes. And the infernal thought of that kiss returned-the softness of her lips and the cool smoothness of her cheeks. He turned irresolutely to the table upon which lay the scattered leaves of his old manuscripts.

"I believe I'll tear them up. So long as they're about, I'll always be rewriting them and wasting my time."

"Let me have them."

"What for? What do you want of them?"

"Why, they are ... yours. And I don't want anything of yours destroyed, Hoddy. Those were dreams."

"All right, then." He shifted the pages together, rolled and thrust them under her arm. "But don't ever let me see them again. By George, I forgot! McClintock said there was a typewriter in the office and that I could have it. I'll dig it up. I'll be feeling fine in no time. The office is a sight-not one sheet of paper on another; bills and receipts everywhere. I'll have to put some pep into the game-American pep. It will take a month to clean up. I've been hunting for this particular job for a thousand years!"

She smiled a little sadly over this fine enthusiasm; for in her wisdom she had a clear perception where it would eventually end-in the veranda chair. All this-the island and its affairs-was an old story; but her own peculiar distaste had vanished to a point imperceptible, for she was seeing the island through her husband's eyes, as in the future she would see all things.

For Ruth was in love, tenderly and beautifully in love; but she did not know how to express it beyond the fetch and carry phase. Her heart ached; and that puzzled her. Love was joy, and joyous she was when alone. But in his presence a wall of diffidence and timidity encompassed her.

The call of youth to youth, and we name it love for want of something better: a glamorous, evanescent thing "like snow upon the desert's dusty face, lighting a little hour or two, was gone." Man is a peculiar animal. No matter what the fire and force of his passion, it falters eventually, and forever after smoulders or goes out. He has nothing to fall back upon, no substitute; but a woman always has the mother love. When the disillusion comes, when the fairy story ends, if she is blessed with children, she doesn't mind. If she has no children, she goes on loving her husband; but he is no longer a man but a child.

A dog appeared unexpectedly upon the threshold. He was yellow and coarse of hair; flea-bitten, too; and even as he smiled at Ruth and wagged his stumpy tail, he was forced to turn savagely upon one of these disturbers who had no sense of the fitness of things.

"Well, well; look who's here!" cried Spurlock.

He started toward the dog with the idea of ejecting him, but Ruth intervened.

"No, please! It is good luck for a dog to enter your house. Let me keep him."

"What? Good Lord, he's alive with fleas! They'll be all over the place."

"Please!"

She dropped the curtains and the manuscripts, knelt and held out her arms. The dog approached timidly, his tail going furiously. He suspected a trap. The few whites he had ever known generally offered to pet him when they really wanted to kick him. But when Ruth's hand fell gently upon his bony head, he knew that no one in this house would ever offer him a kick. So he decided to stay.

"You want him?"

"Please!" said Ruth.

"All right. What'll we call him-Rollo?"-ironically.

"I never had a pet. I never had even a real doll," she added, as she snuggled the flea-bitten head to her heart. "See how glad he is!"

His irony and displeasure subsided. She had never had a pet, never had a real doll. Here was a little corner of the past-a tragic corner. He knew that tragedy was as blind as justice, that it struck the child and the grown-up impartially. He must never refuse her anything which was within his power to grant-anything (he modified) which did not lead to his motives.

"You poor child!-you can have all the dogs on the island, if you want them! Come along to the kitchen, and we'll give Rollo a tubbing."

And thus their domesticity at McClintock's began-with the tubbing of a stray yellow dog. It was an uproarious affair, for Rollo now knew that he had been grieviously betrayed: they were trying to kill him in a new way. Nobody will ever know what the fleas thought.

The two young fools laughed until they cried. They were drenched with water and suds. Their laughter, together with the agonized yowling of the dog, drew a circle of wondering natives; and at length McClintock himself came over to see what the racket was about. When he saw, his roars could be heard across the lagoon.

"You two will have this island by the ears," he said, wiping his eyes. "Those boys out there think this is some new religious rite and that you are skinning the dog alive to eat him!"

The shock of this information loosened Spurlock's grip on the dog, who bolted out of the kitchen and out of the house, maintaining his mile-a-minute gait until he reached the jungle muck, where he proceeded to neutralize the poison with which he had been lathered by rolling in the muck.

But they found him on the veranda when they returned from McClintock's that evening. He had forgiven everybody. From then on he was Ruth's dog.

Nothing else so quickly establishes the condition of comradeship as the sharing of a laughable incident. Certain reserves went down on both sides. Spurlock discussed the affairs of the island and Ruth gave him in exchange her adventures with the native girl who was to be their servant.

This getting up at dawn-real dawn-and working until seven was a distinct novelty. From then until four in the afternoon there was nothing to do-the whole island went to sleep. Even the chattering monkeys, parrots, and parrakeets departed the fruit groves for the smelly dark of the jungle. If, around noon, a coconut proa landed, the boys made no effort to unload. They hunted up shady nooks and went to sleep; but promptly at four they would be at the office, ready for barter.

Spurlock had found the typewriter, oiled and cleaned it, and began to practise on it in the night. He would never be able to compose upon it, but it would serve to produce the finished work. Above the work-table was a drop-light-kerosene. The odour of kerosene permeated the bungalow; but Ruth mitigated the nuisance to some extent by burning native punk in brass jars.

He was keen to get to work, but the inspiration would not come. He started a dozen stories, but they all ended in the waste-basket. Then, one night, he glanced up to behold Ruth and Rollo in the doorway. She crooked her finger.

"What is it?"

"The night," she answered. "Come and see the lagoon in the moonlight."

He drew down the lamp and blew it out, and followed her into the night, more lovely than he had ever imagined night to be. There was only one sound-the fall of the sea upon the main beach, and even that said: "Hush! Hush! Hus-s-sh!" Not a leaf stirred, not a shadow moved. The great gray boles of the palms reminded him of some fabulous Grecian temple.

"Let us sit here," she said, indicating the white sand bordering the lagoon; "and in a minute or two you will see something quite wonderful . . . . There!"

Out of the dark unruffled sapphire of the lagoon came vertical flashes of burning silver, singly and in groups.

"What in the world is it?" he asked.

"Flying fish. Something is feeding upon them. I thought you might like to see. You might be able to use the picture some day."

"I don't know." He bent his head to his knees. "Something's wrong.