LETTERS TO A DJINN LETTERS TO A DJINN BY GRACE ZARING STONE NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1922 Copyright, 1922, by THE CENTOBT Co. PBLNTED IN IT. 8. A. LETTERS TO A DJINN 2132790 Copyright, 1922, by THK CENTDBT Co. PBrSTED IN TT. 8. A. LETTERS TO A DJINN 2132790 LETTERS TO A DJINN On board S. S. Suydam, about 33 15' 44" S., 151 12' 23" E. November, 19 . Dear Hinbad: Immediately on opening this, I want you to leave your apartment on Ninety-second Street and go somewhere it matters little where along the water-front near New York. The park down at Fort Hamilton where we used often to sit would perhaps answer the purpose, for it was there we watched the smoke of passing tramps and liners, the spread of occasional sails, and breathed strong airs fresh from the open water. You remember how we used to talk of all the ro- mance of sea wandering, sea warfare, sea traffick- ing, of those immemorial interchanges from race to race of men, of commodities and, best of all, ideas. Take my letter down there, Hinbad, sit where we always sat, and read it. I have a feel- ing that you will be in a more fitting mood for the reception of a fact that I must tell you, but that I can scarcely hope under any circumstances to 3 4 LETTERS TO A DJINN render excusable. But soon or late it must be told. Briefly stated, then, it is this : I am leav- ing Australia. Of course there is no immediate hue and cry. You would not be expected to appreciate at once its full significance. " Leaving Australia !" you repeat. "Is that all? I had feared because of all this unusual tact, that you were trying to pre- pare me for something far worse. You have, it seems, been in Australia the allotted three weeks, and are now as a matter of course returning home. ' ' "But, Hinbad, I am not exactly returning home. " "What I Yet even now I refuse to be need- lessly alarmed. It may be that the Thompsons have decided to meander over some more leisurely route of Suez or Japan or the Cape of Good Hope. And you as their secretary ac- company them. What more natural ?" "Nothing more natural, Hinbad, if it were the case; but the Thompsons sail for San Francisco in two weeks without me." "There is indeed something wrong, " you cry. "Out with it I Tell me at once the worst of what you have done or are about to do." "Hinbad, your concern is natural, and I began LETTERS TO A BJINN 5 this letter intending to confess all somewhere in the course of it. You must first know, then, that last week the Governor and Lady Denman gave a ball at Government House Please do not interrupt me, for this is highly pertinent to the matter and will soon disclose itself as such. To these big balls most of the notables in Melbourne are invited. The Thompsons, as representatives of the great Panama Commission, are notables. The invitations therefore, gilt on white, read thus: (Cliatnltf rlatn Is frutob hit tfyrtr tire (Smtrrnur-C&ntrral anil Caiuj Srttimut, tn imiitr fHr. and Mrs. 3fnlm ta a ball on -iirimpflfoaB, SfrrarmliMr -- (Sirorrnmrnt Huuar (An a0ttirr 10 But, Hinbad, remark that just after the name of the Thompsons the finger of fate for I can not believe it to have been the mere finger of a secretary traced in my own humble name. Who, you ask, would invite the social secretary, the poor relative, of the Panama Commissioner's wife to a ball at Government House? Obviously, no one. But there it was, in black on white, 6 LETTERS TO A DJINN surrounded by the tangible evidences of gilt crowns and gilt lettering! Mrs. Thompson said if I was invited I was invited, and that was the end of it. Fortunately, I had a suitable even- ing dress, so I went. You will, of course, want me to describe the function the chains of carriages over Alexandria Bridge, the white stockings and knee-breeches of the governors, their aides in plumed helmets and gold lace, the preponderance of sunburned squatters with red dust of the "back-blocks" clinging almost visibly to them, and the gaudy splendor of their spangled ladies, but I have no time to dwell on such things. I was soon sepa- rated from the Thompsons by the crush, and as no one knew me and I knew no one, I wandered about by myself, treading on the trains of dowagers and murmuring every now and then, "Oh, so sorry !" But as the evening wore on (we had come rather late) the function began to relax a little. The Governor-General's party had danced their stiff quadrille and passed in to supper, dancing became more general, tunes more rollicking, and even the old officers and councilors stood about in groups telling what I judged to be very funny stories. I strayed off through several drawing-rooms in search of the Thompsons, and came at last LETTERS TO A DJINN 7 to one seemingly empty. Almost immediately I espied in the far corner a lady engaged in fainting on a sofa. Now, there is but one remedy I know of for fainting ladies a glass of water ; so I found a servant and demanded in great excitement that he fetch me one. He departed imperturbably, while I returned to the lady. She revived enough to tell me what I might do for her: she said that I might hold her arms above her head. This seemed to me a novel method of resuscitation, and not altogether the kind of thing one pictures oneself doing at a Governor's ball. Nevertheless I did hold up her arms, and to my surprise she presently revived so completely that the glass of water when it came was unnecessary. She sat up and thanked me for my kindness; but I, feeling now in a measure responsible for her, sat beside her on the sofa to be sure of her complete recovery. We talked for a while of the heat, the crowd, and the costumes. Soon I said I must be going, and moved to rise ; but, glancing at her, I caught a sudden look of almost startling appeal that made me hesitate. Her isolation in this hive of people had something of dreariness and finality about it that touched my own more casual loneliness. There was a little awkward 8 LETTERS TO A DJINN pause. Then, without offering any explanation of my change of mind, I settled back beside her on the sofa. She looked at me timidly grateful and said, "My husband will be here for me in a moment. I can not think what is keeping him so long as this." "He will be here soon, no doubt," I assured her. "In the meantime, I should like, if I may, to stay here with you." "You are very kind indeed," she murmured. "But I am afraid a person like myself is not good company." a "Have you been really ill?" I asked. "I mean apart from the attack?" "Oh, I am really ill," she said, quite breathless all of a sudden. "I am afraid I won't be well for a long time. Then this morning I received bad news very bad news. It was that which upset me." I looked at her more closely. She was a wasted little woman, Hinbad, and it must have been that my sympathy showed in my eyes, for she contin- ued in a sudden rush of words: "It is my sister, you see, the only one I have. She is much younger than I, and I practically brought her up LETTERS TO A DJINN 9 as a daughter. She is very, very dear to me, and we were never separated till I brought her out here some years ago. I was, you see, a gover- ness " She hesitated over the last word, as if it might involve something distasteful to me. "Oh, I 'm a social secretary," I told her, "and before that I was an old lady's companion and a semi-nurse." "Really!" she exclaimed, evidently relieved. "Then you can appreciate something of the position it puts one in. But soon after coming here both my sister and I married. That was strange, you know; for, while she was too young to do so, I was rather too old nearly forty. My husband is a squatter, and, by the way, my name is Darwin and we live on a station out near Bro- ken Hill. But my little sister oh, she has been most unfortunate " Her eyes dimmed as she went on. "She married a mining engineer, and I Ve scarcely seen her since. But just to-day I received a letter from Singapore from her hus- band. She is ill, it seems, with a sort of melan- cholia I can't make out just what, but I fear the kind of nervous illness that sometimes comes with too long living in the tropics. The tropics have never been good for her, but she has been obliged 10 LETTERS TO A DJINN to live about in them, Borneo, Ceylon, and such places, ever since her marriage with this this husband. ' ' Mrs. Darwin paused, out of breath, while her face gradually flushed with growing excitement. "He has written me to come and fetch her. He can not or does not wish to leave. ' ' "Are you going, then?" I asked. She looked up at me despairingly. "That is just it. I can not. My husband would never let me, because of my health at least, not for some time. But she is so ill now, and her husband for the first time seems willing she should leave. I ought to go. I want oh, so much, to go ! But I can not." I was almost afraid, Hinbad, she would faint on my hands again, and I looked about apprehen- sively for the returning husband. "Can't you send some one for her?" I sug- gested at random. "Of course that is the obvious thing. But who ? I told you I was a governess here ; I have lived out on a station since. That means I have really no friends. I don't know who would go for me." It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest that her husband might go, but it occurred to me that LETTERS TO A DJINN 11 there would always be a host of highly plausible reasons to prevent a man from undertaking this particular sort of inconvenience. I felt im- mensely sorry for her, Hinbad. I can't tell you all the deplorable droop of the little creature in her spangled evening frock. The persistent hum of near-by people, the absurd gilt-legged sofa on which she sat, all accentuated her confusion and her helplessness. "Then send a nurse," I suggested. "Oh, a nurse!" she cried feverishly. "But you don't know these nurses out here. I was in a hospital once in Sydney, and I can 't tell you the things I endured. Once they let two scalding hot-water bottles break under me and waited al- most an hour to change the sheets. No, no; I want some one kindly and gentle. Trained nurses, alas! are so seldom that." She took a long gulp from the glass of water I still held. "No; I want some one capable, with presence of mind, a lady, if possible, but above all else kindly." She handed me back the glass, and stopped to stare at me with a sudden wonder. "A lady," she repeated, "and above all kindly." Just then a heavy sunburned man in ill-fitting evening clothes slouched across the room to us. It was the husband. 12 Now, what do you think of all this, Hinbad? Does the lady rouse your sympathy or interest? Is there any air of probability? Above all, did I ever appear to you before as a person capable and kindly? " Preposterous I" I hear you exclaim. "You are a heartless featherbrain." But do not be too hasty. As to this last, re- member, please, that while you know me to be a heartless featherbrain, she on the contrary had seen me show great presence of mind in calling for a glass of water, and had poured into my willing ear all her confidences. You interrupt me, of course, in great alarm: " Don't try to make me believe, however, that she engaged you for her errand!" Believe it or not, Hinbad, if you will glance again at the heading of this letter you will see that I am on a Dutch boat bound for Singapore. Of course, there was more to it than just this, but I intend to leave a large hiatus here. I in- tend to suppress all the details of what followed of interviews with the Thompsons, of the search- ing of references on both sides, of the arguments and ponderings. Mrs. Darwin clung to her strange fancy for me, and the belief that I was one sent from heaven to relieve this situation. I will LETTEKS TO A DJINN 13 not disguise from you, however, that the Thomp- sons were far from enthusiastic, or that the hus- band regarded it as other than a mania of his wife due to her condition and necessarily to be hu- mored on that account, though I believe he also se- cretly saw in it the merit of saving him from the disagreeable alternative of going himself. For several days I myself swung alternately between horror and delight before the prospect. But, to be brief and concrete, the matter stood thus: the Darwins would pay my fare to Singa- pore, where Mr. Shepley was to turn over his wife to my charge, and pay, instead of Mrs. Dar- win's fare, mine, her emissary's, back to Sydney. On my successful return there I was to receive from the Darwins fifty pounds for my pains, be- sides which the Thompsons, before my departure, would pay me in cash the sum of my return fare to New York, which they would otherwise have expected to pay a matter of about four hundred dollars, making a slight margin of safety. All these risks, such as they are, I finally de- cided to take; but the real moment of decision came to me just before sailing. Imagine, Hin- bad, the four of them sitting around my cabin, with the blare and bustle of departure going on outside : Mrs. Darwin weeping on the edge of my 14 LETTERS TO A DJINN trunk; her husband in the doorway, stolid and bored; Mr. Thompson pretending to look out the port with the resolute air of "I wash my hands of the whole matter"; and Mrs. Thompson in her ceremonious way presenting to me, as a final token, one of those heavy silver scarfs she is so fond of. I was thanking her for it and holding it for Mrs. Darwin's approval, when Mrs. Thomp- son suddenly laid her hand on my arm and said very seriously: "It is not too late even now to withdraw if you wish to." Somehow, Hinbad, this made me catch my breath. It so suddenly occurred to me that this element of sharp decision in adventure is what finely distinguishes it from mere vulgar, elemen- tal chance. (That there is more in adventure, however, than the quality of decision, do not bother to remind me, for I am well aware of it. If that were all there was to it, we need go no further in search of it than the selection of our own hats.) But you are right; I digress, when I was only trying to make clear to you the pleas- ure it gave me to reply to Mrs. Thompson's sug- gestion : "But I have no wish at all to withdraw." On the heels of this, startling as an answering challenge, the "all ashore" bugle sounded. LETTERS TO A DJINN 15 With varying good-bys, they left me to my cabin. I have just been watching them melt into the crowds on the dock, while we steam out toward the gray Heads of Sydney harbor toward open water. But right here, Hinbad, is where I peter out. I have told you everything. I have no more to say. I am breathless, suddenly abashed. If I could see your face, hear your exclamation, I might realize wherein further to excuse myself. But I have told you this deaf and blind ; you must make the best you can of it, while for me remains the joyous task, the arduous task, of justifying to myself my own decision. So now for a time good-by. SINBAD. At sea. November, 19 . Dear Hinbad: When I had finished writing to you, I heaved a sigh of relief and said to myself, "Well, that is over!" The only thing that might possibly have been added would have been the assurance that I am entirely capable of looking after myself. Then, just as I was about to go up on deck, you, Hinbad, appeared before me in the form of a djinn. You must not be surprised that you 16 LETTEES TO A DJINN should do this, for I can not tell you the number of times you have already done so enough that I have ceased to be startled by it, till now I welcome you quite naturally, as if I expected you; for, indeed, I often do expect you, though you are as apt to appear at unimportant moments as at crises, while there are even times when I wish very much for you that you won't come at all. But I was saying that you appeared. "Not so fast," you said to me sharply. "Sit down and think over the first thing to be done." "I have no idea what you mean," I said. "Don't be exasperating," you replied. "I only ask you to exercise prudence, discretion, and the usual, every-day, common sense." "Try to make yourself clear, my dear Hinbad. These stuffy qualities you speak of I have always associated with middle age, and I can not see their possible connection with myself." "Sinbad," you replied sadly, "