August First Read online

what itis that has brought you to the verge of suicide? It is not your horrorof illness, nor your oddly concluded determination to marry a man whomyou do not love. Suicide is an ugly word--I notice that you avoidit--and love is a big word; I am using them understandingly andsoberly. You came to the edge of this thing for the reason that thereis not an element of bigness in your life, and there never has been.You lack the balance of large ideas. This man of whom you tell me--ofcourse you do not love him--you have not yet the capacity forunderstanding the meaning of the word. You like to ride and you liketo dance and you are fond of the things that please, but you do notlove anybody or even any thing. You are living, yes, but you areasleep. And it is because you are ignorant.

  If your letter had been designedly flippant, it would merely haveannoyed. It is the unconscious flippancy in it that is sodiscouraging. You do not know what you believe because you believenothing. Your most coherent conception of God is likely a hazy visionof a majestic figure seated on a cloud--a long-bearded patriarch,wearing a golden crown--the composite of famous pictures that youhave seen. You have been taught to believe in a personal God,and you have never taken the trouble to get beyond the notion thatpersonality--God's or anybody's--is mainly a matter of the possessionof such things as hands and feet. What can be the meaning to one likeyou of the truth that we are made in the image of God? The Kingdom ofHeaven--that whole whirling activity of the commonwealth of God--thecitizenship towards which you might be pointing Baxter Court--youhave not even imagined it. I am not being sentimental. Don'tmisunderstand. Don't fancy, for instance, that I am exhorting you togo slumming. Deliberately or not, you took a wrong impression from myfirst letter. You can't mistake this. Reach after a few of therealities. Why not shut your questioning mind a while and open yoursoul? _Live_ a little--begin to realize that there is a world outsideyourself. Try to get beyond the view-point of a child. And, if I havenot angered you beyond words, let me know how you get on.

  The unconventionality of this correspondence, you see, is not all onone side. If you found English to your taste in what I wrote before,this time you have plain truths, perhaps less satisfactory. You arenot in a position to decide some matters. I do not ask you to let medecide them for you. I have only tried to indicate some reasons whyyou must wait before you act. And I think it has made you angry. Onehas to risk that. Yesterday I could not have imagined sending a letterlike this to anybody. But it goes--and to you. I ask you to answerit. I think you owe me that. It hasn't been exactly easy to write.

  One more thing--don't trust letters to stand between you and the toy inthe dressing-table drawer. Any barrier there, to be in the leasteffective, will have to be of your own building.

  GEOFFREY McBIRNEY.

  About a month after the above letter had been received, on September10th, Geoffrey McBirney, dashing down the three flights of stairs inthe Parish House from his quarters on the top floor, peered into theletter-box on the way to morning service. He peered eagerly. Therehad been no answer to his letter; it was a month; he was surprisinglyuneasy. But there was nothing in the mail-box, so he swept along tothe vestry-room, and got into his cassock and read service to thehandful of people in the chapel, with a sense of sick depression whichhe manfully choked down at every upheaval, but which was distinctlythere quite the same. Service over, there were things to be done forthree hours; also there was to be a meeting in his rooms at twelveo'clock to consider the establishment of a new mission, his specialinterest, in the rough country at the west of the city; the rector andthe bishop and two others were coming. He hurried home and up to hisplace, at eleven-forty-five, and gave a hasty look about to see ifthings were fairly proper for august people. Not that the bishop wouldnotice. He dusted off the library table with his handkerchief, put onebook discreetly on the back side of the table instead of in front,swept an untidy box of cigarettes into a drawer, and gathered up thefresh pile of wash from a chair and put it on the bed in hissleeping-room and shut the door hard. Then he gazed about with the airof a satisfied housekeeper. He lifted up a loudly ticking clock whichwould not go except lying on its face, and regarded it. Five minutesto twelve, and they were sure to be late. He extracted a cigarettefrom the drawer and lighted it; his thoughts, loosened from immediatepressure, came back slowly, surely, to the empty mailbox, his lastletter, the girl whom he knew grotesquely as "August First." Why hadshe not written for four weeks? He had considered that question frommany angles for about three weeks, and the question rose and confrontedhim, always new, at each leisure moment. It was disproportionate, itshowed lack of balance, that it should loom so large on the horizon,with the hundred other interests, tragedies, which were there for him;but it loomed.

  Why had he written her that hammer-and-tongs answer? he demanded ofhimself, not for the first time. Of course, it was true, but when oneis drowning, one does not want reams of truth, one wants a rope. Hehad stood on the shore and lectured the girl, ordered her to strike outand swim for it, and not be so criminally selfish as to drop into theocean; that was what he had done. And the girl--what had she done?Heaven only knew. Probably gone under. It looked more so each day.Why could he not have been gentler, even if she was undeveloped,narrow, asleep? Because she was rich--he answered his own question tohimself--because he had no belief in rich people; only a hard distrustof whatever they did. That was wrong; he knew it. He blew a cloud ofsmoke to the ceiling and spoke aloud, impatiently. "All the same,they're none of them any good," said Geoffrey McBirney, and directedhimself to stop worrying about this thing. And with that came a suddenmemory of a buoyant, fresh voice saying tremendous words like a gentlechild, of the blue flash of eyes only half seen in a storm-sweptdarkness, of roses bobbing.

  McBirney flung the half-smoked cigarette into the fireplace and liftedthe neurotic clock: twelve-twenty. The postman came again at twelve.He would risk the rector and the bishop. Down the stairs he plungedagain and brought up at the mail-box. There was a letter. Hurriedly,he snatched it out and turned the address up; a miracle--it was fromthe girl. The street door darkened; McBirney looked up. The rectorand the bishop were coming in, the others at their heels. He thrustthe envelope into his pocket, his pulse beating distinctly faster, andturned to meet his guests.

  When at three o'clock he got back to his quarters, after an excitingmeeting of an hour, after lunch at the rectory, after seeing the bishopoff on the 2.45 to New York, he locked his door first, and thenhurriedly drew out the letter lying all this time unread. He toreuntidily at the flap, and with that suddenly he stopped, and theluminous eyes took on an odd, sarcastic expression. "What a fool!" hespoke, half aloud, and put the letter down and strolled across the roomand gazed out of the window. "What an ass! I'm allowing myself to getpersonally interested in this case; or to imagine that I'm personallyinterested. Folly. The girl is nothing to me. I'll never see heragain. I care about her as I would about anybody in trouble.And--that's all. This lunacy of restlessness over the situation hasgot--to--stop." He was firm with himself. He sat down at his tableand wrote a business note before he touched the letter again; but hesaw the letter out of the tail of his eye all the time and he knew hispulse was going harder as, finally, he lifted the torn envelope withelaborate carelessness, and drew out the sheets of writing.

  My dear Mr. McBirney [the girl began], did anybody ever tell a storyabout a big general who limbered up his artillery, if that's the thingthey do, and shouted orders, and cracked whips and rattled wheels andwent through evolutions, and finally, with thunder and energy, traineda huge Krupp gun--or something--on a chipmunk? If there is such astory, and you've heard it, doesn't it remind you of your last letterat me? Not to me, I mean _at_ me. It was a wonderful letter again,but when I got through I had a feeling that what I needed was notsuicide--I do dare say the word, you see--but execution. Maybeshooting is too good for me. And you know I appreciate every minutehow unnecessary it is for you to bother with me, and to put your timeand your strength, both of which mean
much to many people, intohammering me. And how good you are to do that. I am worthless, as yousay between every two lines. Yet I'm a soul--you say that too, and soon a par with those tragic souls in North Baxter Court. Only, I feelthat you have no patience with me for getting underfoot when you're onyour way to big issues. But do have patience, please--it means as muchto me as to anybody in your tenements. I'm far down, and I'mstruggling for breath, and there seems to be no land in sight, nothingto hold to except you. I'm sorry if you dislike to have it so, but itis so; your letters mean anchorage. I'd blow out to sea if I didn'thave them to hope for. You ought to be glad of that; you're doinggood, even if it is only to a flippant, shallow, undeveloped doll. Ican call myself names--oh yes.

  I have been slow answering, though likely you haven't