Angel Island - Inez Haynes Gillmore (novels to improve english .TXT) 📗

kind of people they were?”

 

“And do you remember” - Chiquita rippled a low laugh - “how we would

leap into the air if they stirred or spoke in their sleep? Once, Honey

started to wake up - and we were off over the water before he could get

his eyes open.”

 

“Oh, but Honey told me that he heard us laugh that time,” Lulu

explained. “He told the men the next day and, oh, how they joked him.”

 

“And then,” Chiquita went on, “once Billy actually did wake up. You were

bending over him, Julia. I remember we all kept as still as the dead.

And you - oh, Julia, you were wonderful - you did not even breathe. He

seemed to fade back into sleep again.”

 

“He says now that I hypnotized him,” Julia explained.

 

“Do you remember,” Clara took it up, “that we even considered kidnapping

one of them? If we’d known what to do with him, I think we might have

tried it.”

 

“Yes,” said Chiquita. “But I think it was just as well we didn’t. We

wouldn’t have carried it off well. There’s something about them that’s

terrifying. Do you remember that time we saved Honey from the shark, how

we trembled all the time we carried him through the air. He knew it, too

- I noticed how triumphantly he smiled.”

 

“Honey told me once” - Lulu lowered her voice - “that it was the fact

that we trembled - that we seemed so much women, in spite of being

creatures of the air - that made him determine to capture us.”

 

“Well, there’s something about them that weakens you,” Chiquita said in

a puzzled tone. “It’s like a spell. At first I always felt quivery and

trembly if I stood near them.”

 

“It’s power,” Julia explained.

 

“I used even to be afraid of their voices,” Chiquita went on.

 

“Oh, so was I,” Lulu agreed. “I felt as I did when I heard thunder for

the first time. It went through me. It made me shake. I was afraid, but

I wanted to hear it again.”

 

“Do you remember the first time we saw them walk!” Clara said. Her face

twisted with the expression of a past loathing. “How it disgusted us! It

seemed to me the most hideous motion I had ever seen - so unnatural, so

ungraceful, so repellent. It took me a long time to get used to that.

And as for their running - “

 

“It’s curious how that feeling still lingers in us,” exclaimed Peachy.

“That contempt for the thing that walks. Occasionally Angela starts to

imitate the boys - it seems as if I would fly out of my skin with

horror. I shall always feel superior to Ralph, I know.”

 

“Do you remember the first talks we ever had after we’d got our first

glimpse of them?” asked Clara. “How astonished we were - and half

frightened and yet - in a queer way - excited and curious?

 

“And after we got over our fright,” Lulu carried the memories along,

“and had made up our minds we didn’t care whether they discovered us or

not, what fun we had with them! How we played over the entire island and

yet it took them such a long time to discover us.”

 

“Oh, they’re awfully stupid about seeing or guessing things,” Peachy

said disdainfully. “My mind always leaps way ahead of Ralph’s.”

 

“Do you remember that at first we used to have regular councils,” Lulu

asked, “before - before - - “

 

“Before we agreed each to go her own way,” Peachy finished it for her.

 

“All of us pitted against you, Julia.” Chiquita sighed. “I often think

now, Julia, how you used to talk to us. How you used to beg us not to go

to the island. How you argued with us! The prophecies you made! They’ve

all come true. I can hear you now: ‘Don’t go to the island.’ ‘Come away

with me and we will fly back south before it is too late.’ ‘Come away

while you can!’ ‘In a little while it will be too late.’ In a little

while I shall not be able to help you!”

 

“And how we fought you, Julia!” Clara said. “How we denied everything

you said, every one of us knowing in her heart that you were right!”

 

“But,” Julia said, “later, I told you that I might not be able to help

myself, and you see I wasn’t.”

 

“Did they ever guess that we had quarrelled, I wonder?” Clara asked.

 

“Yes,” Lulu answered eagerly. Honey guessed it. Now, wasn’t that clever

of him?”

 

“Not so very,” Clara replied languidly. “I guessed that they had

quarrelled. And I had a strong suspicion,” she added consciously, “that

it was about us.”

 

“I wonder,” Peachy said somberly, “what would have happened if we had

taken Julia’s advice.”

 

“Are you sorry, Peachy?” Julia asked.

 

“No, I’m not sorry exactly,” Peachy answered slowly. “I have Angela, of

course. Are you sorry, Julia?”

 

“No,” replied Julia.

 

“Julia,” Peachy said, “what was it changed you? I have always wanted to

ask but I have never dared. What brought you to the island finally? What

made you give up the fight with us?”

 

The faraway look in Julia’s eyes grew, if possible, more faraway. She

did not speak for a while. Then, “I’ll tell you,” she said simply. “It

is something that I have never told anybody but Billy. When you first

began to leave me to come to this island alone, I was very unhappy. And

I grew more and more unhappy. I missed flying with you. And especially

flying by night. Flying alone seemed melancholy. I came here at first,

only because I was driven by my loneliness. I said to myself that I’d

drift with the current. But that did not help any. You were all so

interested in your lovers that it made no difference whether I was with

you or not. I began to think that you no longer cared for me, that you

had out-grown me, that all my influence over you had vanished, that, if

I were out of the way, the one tie which held you to me would break and

you would go to these men. I grew more and more unhappy every instant.

That was not all. I was in love with Billy, but I did not know it. I

only knew that I was moody and strange and in desperate despair. And,

so, one day I decided to kill myself.”

 

There was a faint movement in the group, but it was only the swish of

draperies as the four recumbent women came upright. They stared at

Julia. They did not speak. They seemed scarcely to breathe.

 

“One day, I flew up and up. Never before had I gone half so high. But I

flew deliberately higher and higher until I became cold and colder and

numb and frozen - until my wings stopped. And then - ” She paused.

 

“What happened?” Clara asked breathlessly.

 

“I dropped. I dropped like a stone. But - but - the instant I let myself

go, something strange happened - a miracle of self-revelation. I knew

that I loved Billy, that I could not live in any world where he could

not come to me. And the instant that I realized that I loved him, I knew

also that I could not die. I tried to spread my wings but they would not

open. It was terrific. And that sense of despair, that my wings which

had always responded - would not - now - oh, that was hell. How I

fought! How I struggled! It was as though iron bands were about me. I

strained. I tore. Of course, all this was only a moment. But one thinks

a million things in a moment like that - one lives a thousand years. It

seemed an eternity. At last my wings opened and spread. They held. I

floated until I caught my breath. Then I dropped slowly. I threw myself

over the bough of a tree. I lay there.”

 

There was an interval of intense silence.

 

“Did you faint?” Peachy asked in an awed voice.

 

“I wept.”

 

“You wept, Julia?” Peachy said. “You!”

 

“I had not wept since my childhood. It was strange. It frightened me

almost as much as the fall. Oh, how fast the tears came - and in such

floods! Something melted and went away from me then. A softness came

over me. It was like a spell. I have never been the same creature since.

I cry easily now.”

 

“Did you tell Billy?” Clara asked.

 

“He saw me,” Julia answered.

 

“He saw - .” It came from her four listeners as from one woman.

 

“That’s what changed him. That’s what determined him to help capture us.

He said that he was afraid I would try it again. I wouldn’t have,

though.”

 

Nobody spoke for a long time.

 

“Julia! It was Chiquita who broke the silence this time. There is

something I, too, have always wanted to ask you. But I have never dared

before. What was it tempted you to go into the Clubhouse that day? At

first you tried to keep us from going in. You never seemed to care for

any of the things they gave us. You threw away the fans and the slippers

and the scarfs. And you smashed your mirror.”

 

“Billy asked me this same question once,” Julia answered. “It was that

big diamond - the Wilmington ‘Blue.’ I caught a glimpse of it through

the doorway as it lay all by itself on the table, flashing in the

sunlight. I had never before in my life seen any thing that I really

wanted. But this was so exquisite, so chiseled, so tiny, so perfect,

There was so much fire and color in it. It seemed like a living

creature. I was enchanted by it. When I told Billy, he laughed. He said

that the lust for diamonds was a recognized earth-disease among

earth-people, especially earth-women. He said that many women had been

ruined by it. He said that it was a common saying among men that you

could catch any woman in a trap baited with diamonds. I have never got

over the sting of that. I blush always when I think of it. Because -

although I don’t exactly understand why - it was not quite true in my

case. That is a thing which always bothers me in conversation with the

men. They talk about us as if they knew all about us. You’d think they’d

invented us. Not that we’re not simple enough. We’re perfectly simple,

but they’ve never bothered to study us. They say so many things about

us, for instance, that are only half true - and yet I don’t know exactly

how to confute them. None of us would presume to say such things about

them. I’m glad,” she ended with a sudden fierceness, “that I threw the

diamond away.”

 

“Julia,” and now it was Lulu who questioned, “why do you not marry Billy

when you love him so?” The seriousness of her tone, the warmth of

affection in her little brown face robbed this question of any

appearance of impertinence.

 

“Lulu,” Julia answered simply, “I don’t know why. Only that something

inside has always said, ‘Wait!’”

 

“Well, you did well,” Peachy said bitterly, for, at least, Billy loves

you just as much as at first. I don’t see him racing over to the

Clubhouse the moment his dinner is eaten. I don’t see him spending his

Sundays in long exploring tramps. I don’t