Trina

“ Trina laughed aloud at the thought of summer, with its picnics and languid swims in the refilled lakes, with its music and the heavy scent of flowers and the visitors in from space for the festival. She laughed, and urged her horse faster, out of its ambling walk into a trot, a canter, until the wind streamed about her, blowing back her hair, bringing tears to her eyes as she rode homeward toward the eastern horizon—the horizon that looked so far away but wasn't really. ”

“ Everything went--everything but the few big pieces that went with the suite, and that belonged to the photographer. The melodeon, the chairs, the black walnut table before which they were married, the extension table in the sitting-room, the kitchen table with its oilcloth cover, the framed lithographs from the English illustrated papers, the very carpets on the floors. But Trina's heart nearly broke when the kitchen utensils and furnishings began to go. Every pot, every stewpan, every knife and fork, was an old friend. ”

“ Triona began to write again: some articles, a short story. The shadow shape of a new novel arose in his mind, and, in his long talks with Olivia, gradually attained coherence. This process of creation seemed to her uncanny. Where did the people come from who at first existed as formless spirits and then, in some strange way, developed into living things of flesh and blood more real than the actual folk of her acquaintance? Her intimate association with the novelist’s gift brought her nearer to him intellectually, but at the same time set him spiritually on unattainable heights. ”

“ Olivia answered, “but my heart doesn’t. You’re standing away and can see things in the round. I’m in the middle of them, and I can’t.”
If she, although his wife, had stood away; if she had been dissociated from his deceptions; if nothing more had occurred than the exposure of the Triona myth, she might have forgiven him. But the deceptions had been interwoven with the sacred threads of her love; she could not forgive that intimate entanglement. To a woman the little things are as children, as the little ones whose offenders Christ cursed with the millstone and the sea. ”

“ Teresa was scarcely eighteen years of age at the time of which we are writing. God had endowed her soul with all the perfections and virtues that an angel might desire, if he left heaven in order to seek a mortal woman as his companion for eternity, just as all those perfections had been denied to her countenance, which are the only charms sought for by men, when they look on a woman as a material being. Teresa, then, was the reverse of her brother, both physically and morally; her soul was all compassion, all love, all sadness. ”

“ Triona. We have heard so much about you. You will find us here all very earnest in our endeavour to find a Solution—for never has human problem been so intricate that a Solution has not been discovered.”
“What’s the problem?” asked Olivia.
“Why, my dear lady, there’s only one. The Way Out—or, if you have faith—The Way In.” He caught a lean, thin-bearded man by the arm. “Dawkins, let me introduce you to Miss Gale. Mr. Dawkins is our rapporteur.”
“You haven’t any tea,” said Dawkins rebukingly, as though bidden to a marriage feast she had no wedding garment. “Come with me.” ”

“ When love is dead it’s dead. There’s no resurrection. She loved Alexis Triona. Won’t you ever understand? He’s dead. The love’s dead. If I stayed with her, I should be a kind of living corpse to which she’s tied. So I’m going away—out of her life altogether.”
“And where are you going?”
“Just out into the spaciousness of the wide world,” replied Triona with a gesture. He looked suddenly at his wrist watch. “Good Lord!” he cried. “I’ve only just time to catch my train. Good-bye.”
“Wait a minute,” said Olifant. “Do you think it fair on a woman? ”

“ Was it to guide the world on this Lydian path that Blaise Olifant had given an arm and young Triona had cheerfully endured Dantesque torturings?
Myra came in and began to remove the tea-things—Myra, gaunt, with her impassive, inexpressible face, correct in black; silk blouse, stuff skirt, silk apron. Olivia, disturbed in her efforts to solve the riddle of existence, swerved in her chair and half-humorously sought the first human aid to hand.
“Myra, tell me. Why do you go on living?” ”

“ But Triona waved aside the invitation and remained standing. “The matter is that I’m an impostor and a liar, and Olivia has found it out. Listen. Don’t ask questions until I’ve done. I’m here for Olivia’s sake. You’re the only creature in the world that can understand—the only one that can help her through. And she couldn’t tell you. Her pride wouldn’t let her. And if it did, the ordeal for her! You’ll be able to go to her now and say, ‘I know everything.’ ”
“Up to now, my dear fellow,” said Olifant, “you’ve been talking in riddles. ”

“ But she waited for Triona to say:
“Shall I ever have the pleasure of seeing you again?”
“It all depends whether you can be communicated with,” she replied. “Alexis Triona, Esq., Planet Earth, Solar System, is an imposing address; but it might puzzle the General Post Office.”
“The Vanloo Hotel, South Kensington, is very much more modest.”
“It’s well for people to know where they can find one another,” said Olivia.
“That you should do me the honour of the slightest thought of finding me——” he began.
“We’ll fix up something soon,” Lydia interrupted. “I’m Miss Gale’s elderly, adopted aunt.” ”

“ It would stir the hearts of men, and they would say: “There is but one man living who could do this and that is Alexis Triona.” And Olivia, reading it, and beholding him in it, would find her heart stirred with the rest, yet far far more deeply than the rest, and would seek him out, obeying his far-off counsel, and believe that, in his essential self and in his infinite love, he was verily her guiding-star. ”

“ Whereupon Alexis Triona thanked his stars for having led him along the true path.
Who can say that, in after years, these twain, when they shall have grown old and have gone through whatever furnaces Fate—either personal destiny or the Fate of Social Institutions—may prepare for them, will not retain imperishable memories of the idyll of that sweet spring day? There they sat, youth spiritually communing with youth; the girl urged by feminine instinct to love him for the dangers he had passed; the young man aflame with her beauty, her charm, her dryad elusiveness. ”

“ Olivia asked quickly.
“Nothing but what I said,” replied Myra. “It takes some doing. But you’ve got to believe in God and believe in yourself.”
“Where did you get your wisdom from, Myra?” asked Olivia wonderingly.
“From life, my dear,” replied Myra with unwonted softness. And picking up the last tray of removed dinner things, she left the room.
The next afternoon, she said to Myra, “Major Olifant has telephoned me that Mr. Triona is arriving at Paddington by a six-fifteen train. I should like you to come with me.” ”

“ Presently Triona repeated his thanks and declined the proffered lift. Walking would do him all the good in the world; would steady his nerves after his calamitous bump. The young man eyed him queerly. It was a strange word for a chauffeur.
“But if you would take this lady,” said Triona again.
Olivia recovered her wits.
“I will walk too, if you don’t mind. I’m only a mile from home. And this gentleman is really my husband.”
“If we can really do nothing more?” The young man raised his hat. ”

“ The freshness of subject, outlook, and treatment appealed to the vastly superior youth, the disappointed old, and the scholarly and conscientious few, who write literary criticism. The great firm of publishers smiled urbanely. Repeat orders on a gratifying scale poured in every day. Triona took Olivia to Decies Street to hear from publishing lips the splendid story. They went home in a taxi-cab, their arms around each other, intoxicated with the pride of success and the certainty of their love. ”

“ And Olivia sat, when he had left her, staring at public disgrace. Against that she could not fight. The man she had loved was a shadow, a non-existent thing; but she bore his name. She had sworn to keep bright the honour of the name before the world. And now the world would sweep it into the dustbin of ignominy. A maddening sense of helplessness, growing into a great terror, got possession of her.
The next morning, when Myra brought in her letters, she felt ill and feverish after a restless night. One of the envelopes bore Triona’s familiar handwriting. ”

“ Myra has no faith in your bachelor housekeeping and is sure you’ve eaten him out of desperation.”
He returned a light answer. Then, touching the arm of a man standing by his side:
“Miss Gale—can I introduce Mr. Alexis Triona.”
Triona bowed, stood uncovered while he took the hand which Olivia held out.
“This is my landlady,” said Olifant.
“He is privileged beyond the common run of mortals,” said Triona.
“That’s very pretty,” laughed Olivia, with a swift, enveloping glance at the slight, inconspicuous youth who had done such wonderful things. “I’ve not thought of myself as a landlady before. ”

“ I’m cutting myself out of her life.”
“You’re mad. Olivia——”
Triona put up a checking hand. “Oh, no, not Olivia.” He laughed bitterly at the indignant advocacy in Olifant’s tone. “Olivia’s there—where she always has been—among the stars. It’s I that have fallen. Good God! like Lucifer. It’s I that crawl.” He caught an accusing question in the other’s hardening eyes. “It isn’t what you might naturally think. There’s not the ghost of another woman. There never has been—never shall be. ”

“ But the very craziness of the habitation made for their selfish joy. The universe, just for these twain, had gone joyously mad. A cocky little villa made to the model of a million others would have defeated the universe’s benign intention. Nothing could be nearer to Triona’s dream nest in a cliff. Their first half-hour’s exploring, hand in hand, was that of children let loose in a fairy tale castle.
“There’s only one egg-cup,” croaked Myra, surveying an exiguous row of crockery.
“How many more do we want?” cried Olivia. “We can only eat one egg at a time.” ”

“ The flawlessness of Olivia he accepted as an axiom. Equally axiomatic was his own faultiness. In their daily lives he was aware of his thousand lapses from her standard of grace, when John Briggs happened to catch Alexis Triona at unguarded moments and threw him from his seat. But, in a flash, the instinctive, the super-instinctive, the nothing less than Divine hand, was stretched out to restore him to his throne. As a guide to conduct she became his conscience.
Work and love and growing friendship filled his care-free days. His novel was running serially in a weekly and attracting attention. ”

“ She took off the dusty black velvet hat, passed a hand over her hair with a gesture that was more tired than tidy, and sat back, her eyes shut, her body inert, her head sagging on her breast.
The voices in the back of the house had ceased. From the kitchen came the slipslop of Tina's slovenly feet. Mary Gowd opened her eyes and sat up very straight as Tina stood in the doorway. There was nothing picturesque about Tina. Tina was not one of those olive-tinted, melting-eyed daughters of Italy that one meets in fiction. ”

“ He laughed. “It’s very dear of you to think of me, Lady Olivia—but the change is not in me. I’ve remained the same. It’s your eyes that have grown so accustomed to the radiant gladness of a happy man that they expect the same in any old fossil on the beach.”
“Now you make me feel utterly selfish,” she cried.
“How?”
“We oughtn’t to look so absurdly happy. It’s indecent.”
“But it does one good,” said he.
Triona entered with the tray, and administered whisky and soda to his guest. ”

“ Penthesilea was the tallest and most beautiful of the Amazons, and shone among her twelve maidens like the moon among the stars, or the bright Dawn among the Hours which follow her chariot wheels. The Trojans rejoiced when they beheld her, for she looked both terrible and beautiful, with a frown on her brow, and fair shining eyes, and a blush on her cheeks. To the Trojans she came like Iris, the Rainbow, after a storm, and they gathered round her cheering, and throwing flowers and kissing her stirrup, as the people of Orleans welcomed Joan of Arc when she came to deliver them. ”

“ My soul waits in my eyes, and leaves my body
Senseless.
Trin. Then swear to keep my counsel.
Arm. I swear
By th' beauteous eyes of Trincalo.
Trin. Why, I am Trincalo.
Arm. Your worship, sir! why do you flout your servant,
Right worshipful Antonio, my reverend master?
Trin. Pox of Antonio! I am Tom Trincalo.
Why laugh'st thou?
Arm. 'Tis desire and joy
To see my sweetest.
Trin. Look upon me, and see him.
Arm. I say I see Antonio, and none other.
Trin. I am within, thy love; without, thy master.
Th' astrologer transform'd me for a day.
Arm. Mock not your poor maid, pray you, sir. ”

“ Teresa arose quickly, no longer humble and timid, but haughty as a queen whom a ruffian has insulted, and said—
"Listen to me, Don Suero, for you do not deserve that my lips should give you the dear name of brother; perhaps you may be able to escape the justice of men; perhaps God will permit you to escape even His justice for some time; perhaps you will torture me as long as I live; but the Infanta of Carrion will never bestow her hand on the son of the Count of Cabra, nor on anyone whom her heart has not chosen. ”

“ You will think of Marianna, and her vision by the fire.
In a convent, old and quiet, near a little country town,
On a chestnut-shaded hillside, to the river sloping down,
Dwelt a few of those good sisters who go out among the poor,
Who must labour late and early, and much weariness endure;
And the one who did in patience and in all good works excel
Was the Sister Marianna, she whose story now I tell.
She was ever kind and willing, for each heavy task prepared:
No one ever thought to spare her, and herself she never spared. ”