‘For once I will agree with you,’ said Hal. ‘I feel the same way myself, and I am not impressionable.’
We were silent for a little. I may have closed my eyes, — it may have been longer than I thought, but it did not seem another moment when something brushed softly against my arm, and Hal in his great chair was rocking beside me.
‘Excuse me,’ said he, seeing me start. ‘This chair evidently “walks,” I’ve seen ’em before.’
So had I, on carpets, but there was no carpet here, and I thought I was awake.
He pulled the heavy thing back to the window again, and we went to bed.
Our door was open, and we could talk back and forth, but presently I dropped off and slept heavily until morning. But I must have dreamed most vividly, for he accused me of rocking in his chair half the night; said he could see my outline clearly against the starlight.
‘No,’ said I, ‘you dreamed it. You’ve got rocking-chair on the brain.’
‘Dream it is, then,’ he answered cheerily. ‘Better a nightmare than a contradiction; a vampire than a quarrel! Come on, let’s go to breakfast!’
We wondered greatly as the days went by that we saw nothing of our golden-haired charmer. But we wondered in silence, and neither mentioned it to the other.
Sometimes I heard her light movements in the room next mine, or the soft laugh somewhere in the house; but the mother’s slow, even steps were more frequent, and even she was not often visible.
All either of us saw of the girl, to my knowledge, was from the street, for she still availed herself of our chair by the window. This we disapproved of, on principle, the more so as we left the doors locked, and her presence proved the possession of another key. No; there was the door in my room! But I did not mention the idea. Under the circumstances, however, we made no complaint, and used to rush stealthily and swiftly up-stairs, hoping to surprise her. But we never succeeded. Only the chair was often found still rocking, and sometimes I fancied a faint sweet odor lingering about, an odor strangely saddening and suggestive. But one day when I thought Hal was there I rushed in unceremoniously and caught her. It was but a glimpse — a swift, light, noiseless sweep — she vanished into my own room. Following her with apologies for such a sudden entrance, I was too late. The envious door was locked again.
Our landlady’s fair daughter was evidently shy enough when brought to bay, but strangely willing to take liberties in our absence.
Still, I had seen her, and for that sight would have forgiven much. Hers was a strange beauty, infinitely attractive yet infinitely perplexing. I marveled in secret, and longed with painful eagerness for another meeting; but I said nothing to Hal of my surprising her — it did not seem fair to the girl! She might have some good reason for going there; perhaps I could meet her again.
So I took to coming home early, on one excuse or another, and inventing all manner of errands to get to the room when Hal was not in.
But it was not until after numberless surprises on that point, finding him there when I supposed him downtown, and noticing something a little forced in his needless explanations, that I began to wonder if he might not be on the same quest.
Soon I was sure of it. I reached the corner of the street one evening just at sunset, and — yes, there was the rhythmic swing of that bright head in the dark frame of the open window. There also was Hal in the street below. She looked out, she smiled. He let himself in and went up-stairs.
I quickened my pace. I was in time to see the movement stop, the fair head turn, and Hal standing beyond her in the shadow.
I passed the door, passed the street, walked an hour — two hours — got a late supper somewhere, and came back about bedtime with a sharp and bitter feeling in my heart that I strove in vain to reason down. Why he had not as good a right to meet her as I it were hard to say, and yet I was strangely angry with him.
When I returned the lamplight shone behind the white curtain, and the shadow of the great chair stood motionless against it. Another shadow crossed — Hal — smoking. I went up.
He greeted me effusively and asked why I was so late. Where I got supper. Was unnaturally cheerful. There was a sudden dreadful sense of concealment between us. But he told nothing and I asked nothing, and we went silently to bed.
I blamed him for saying no word about our fair mystery, and yet I had said none concerning my own meeting. I racked my brain with questions as to how much he had really seen of her; if she had talked to him; what she had told him; how long she had stayed.
I tossed all night and Hal was sleepless too, for I heard him rocking for hours, by the window, by the bed, close to my door. I never knew a rocking-chair to ‘walk’ as that one did.
Towards morning the steady creak and swing was too much for my nerves or temper.
‘For goodness’ sake, Hal, do stop that and go to bed!’
‘What?’ came a sleepy voice.
‘Don’t fool!’ said I, ‘I haven’t slept a wink to-night for your everlasting rocking. Now do leave off and go to bed.’
‘Go to bed! I’ve been in bed all night and I wish you had! Can’t you use the chair without blaming me for it?’
And all the time I heard him rock, rock, rock, over by the hall door!
I rose stealthily and entered the room, meaning to surprise the ill-timed joker and convict him in the act.
Both rooms were full of the dim phosphorescence of reflected moonlight; I knew them even in the dark; and yet I stumbled just inside the door, and fell heavily.
Hal was out of bed in a moment and had struck a light.
‘Are you hurt, my dear boy?’
I was hurt, and solely by his fault, for the chair was not where I supposed, but close to my bedroom door, where he must have left it to leap into bed when he heard me coming. So it was in no amiable humor that I refused his offers of assistance and limped back to my own sleepless pillow. I had struck my ankle on one of those brass-tipped rockers, and it pained me severely. I never saw a chair so made to hurt as that one. It was so large and heavy and ill-balanced, and every joint and corner so shod with brass. Hal and I had punished ourselves enough on it before, especially in the dark when we forgot where the thing was standing, but never so severely as this. It was not like Hal to play such tricks, and both heart and ankle ached as I crept into bed again to toss and doze and dream and fitfully start till morning.
Hal was kindness itself, but he would insist that he had been asleep and I rocking all night, till I grew actually angry with him.
‘That’s carrying a joke too far,’ I said at last. ‘I don’t mind a joke, even when it hurts, but there are limits.’
‘Yes, there are!’ said he, significantly, and we dropped the subject.
Several days passed. Hal had repeated meetings with the goldhaired damsel; this I saw from the street; but save for these bitter glimpses I waited vainly.
It was hard to bear, harder almost than the growing estrangement between Hal and me, and that cut deeply. I think that at last either one of us would have been glad to go away by himself, but neither was willing to leave the other to the room, the chair, the beautiful unknown.
Coming home one morning unexpectedly, I found the dullfaced landlady arranging the rooms, and quite laid myself out to make an impression upon her, to no purpose.
‘That is a fine old chair you have there,’ said I, as she stood mechanically polishing the brass corners with her apron.
She looked at the darkly glittering thing with almost a flash of pride.
‘Yes,’ said she, ‘a fine chair!’
‘Is it old!’ I pursued.
‘Very old,’ she answered briefly.
‘But I thought rocking-chairs were a modern American invention!’ said I.
She looked at me apathetically.
‘It is Spanish,’ she said, ‘Spanish oak, Spanish leather, Spanish brass, Spanish — .’ I did not catch the last word, and she left the room without another.
It was a strange ill-balanced thing, t
hat chair, though so easy and comfortable to sit in. The rockers were long and sharp behind, always lying in wait for the unwary, but cut short in front; and the back was so high and so heavy on top, that what with its weight and the shortness of the front rockers, it tipped forward with an ease and a violence equally astonishing.
This I knew from experience, as it had plunged over upon me during some of our frequent encounters. Hal also was a sufferer, but in spite of our manifold bruises, neither of us would have had the chair removed, for did not she sit in it, evening after evening, and rock there in the golden light of the setting sun.
So, evening after evening, we two fled from our work as early as possible, and hurried home alone, by separate ways, to the dingy street and the glorified window.
I could not endure forever. When Hal came home first, I, lingering in the street below, could see through our window that lovely head and his in close proximity. When I came first, it was to catch perhaps a quick glance from above — a bewildering smile — no more. She was always gone when I reached the room, and the inner door of my chamber irrevocably locked.
At times I even caught the click of the latch, heard the flutter of loose robes on the other side; and sometimes this daily disappointment, this constant agony of hope deferred, would bring me to my knees by that door, begging her to open to me, crying to her in every term of passionate endearment and persuasion that tortured heart of man could think to use.
Hal had neither word nor look for me now, save those of studied politeness and cold indifference, and how could I behave otherwise to him, so proven to my face a liar?
I saw him from the street one night, in the broad level sunlight, sitting in that chair, with the beautiful head on his shoulder. It was more than I could bear. If he had won, and won so utterly, I would ask but to speak to her once, and say farewell to both for ever. So I heavily climbed the stairs, knocked loudly, and entered at Hal’s ‘Come in!’ only to find him sitting there alone, smoking — yes, smoking in the chair which but a moment since had held her too!
He had but just lit the cigar, a paltry device to blind my eyes.
‘Look here, Hal,’ said I, ‘I can’t stand this any longer. May I ask you one thing? Let me see her once, just once, that I may say good-bye, and then neither of you need see me again!’
Hal rose to his feet and looked me straight in the eye. Then he threw that whole cigar out of the window, and walked to within two feet of me.
‘Are you crazy,’ he said, ‘ask her! I! I have never had speech of her in my life! And you—’ He stopped and turned away.
‘And I what?’ I would have it out now whatever came.
‘And you have seen her day after day — talked with her — I need not repeat all that my eyes have seen!’
‘You need not, indeed,’ said I. ‘It would tax even your invention. I have never seen her in this room but once, and then but for a fleeting glimpse — no word. From the street I have seen her often — with you!’
He turned very white and walked from me to the window, then turned again.
‘I have never seen her in this room for even such a moment as you own to. From the street I have seen her often — with you!’
We looked at each other.
‘Do you mean to say,’ I inquired slowly, ‘that I did not see you just now sitting in that chair, by that window, with her in your arms?’
‘Stop!’ he cried, throwing out his hand with a fierce gesture. It struck sharply on the corner of the chair-back. He wiped the blood mechanically from the three-cornered cut, looking fixedly at me.
‘I saw you,’ said I.
‘You did not!’ said he.
I turned slowly on my heel and went into my room. I could not bear to tell that man, my more than brother, that he lied.
I sat down on my bed with my head on my hands, and presently I heard Hal’s door open and shut, his step on the stair, the front door slam behind him. He had gone, I knew not where, and if he went to his death and a word of mine would have stopped him, I would not have said it. I do not know how long I sat there, in the company of hopeless love and jealousy and hate.
Suddenly, out of the silence of the empty room, came the steady swing and creak of the great chair. Perhaps — it must be! I sprang to my feet and noiselessly opened the door. There she sat by the window, looking out, and — yes — she threw a kiss to some one below. Ah, how beautiful she was! How beautiful! I made a step toward her. I held out my hands, I uttered I know not what — when all at once came Hal’s quick step upon the stairs.
She heard it, too, and, giving me one look, one subtle, mysterious, triumphant look, slipped past me and into my room just as Hal burst in. He saw her go. He came straight to me and I thought he would have struck me down where I stood.
‘Out of my way,’ he cried. ‘I will speak to her. Is it not enough to see?’ — he motioned toward the window with his wounded hand— ‘Let me pass!’
‘She is not there,’ I answered. ‘She has gone through into the other room.’
A light laugh sounded close by us, a faint, soft, silver laugh, almost at my elbow.
He flung me from his path, threw open the door, and entered. The room was empty.
‘Where have you hidden her?’ he demanded. I coldly pointed to the other door.
‘So her room opens into yours, does it?’ he muttered with a bitter smile. ‘No wonder you preferred the “view”! Perhaps I can open it too?’ And he laid his hand upon the latch.
I smiled then, for bitter experience had taught me that it was always locked, locked to all my prayers and entreaties. Let him kneel there as I had! But it opened under his hand! I sprang to his side, and we looked into — a closet, two by four, as bare and shallow as an empty coffin!
He turned to me, as white with rage as I was with terror. I was not thinking of him.
‘What have you done with her?’ he cried. And then contemptuously— ‘That I should stop to question a liar!’
I paid no heed to him, but walked back into the other room, where the great chair rocked by the window.
He followed me, furious with disappointment, and laid his hand upon the swaying back, his strong fingers closing on it till the nails were white.
‘Will you leave this place?’ said he.
‘No,’ said I.
‘I will live no longer with a liar and a traitor,’ said he.
‘Then you will have to kill yourself,’ said I.
With a muttered oath he sprang upon me, but caught his foot in the long rocker, and fell heavily.
So wild a wave of hate rose in my heart that I could have trampled upon him where he lay — killed him like a dog — but with a mighty effort I turned from him and left the room.
When I returned it was broad day. Early and still, not sunrise yet, but full of hard, clear light on roof and wall and roadway. I stopped on the lower floor to find the landlady and announce my immediate departure. Door after door I knocked at, tried and opened; room after room I entered and searched thoroughly; in all that house, from cellar to garret, was no furnished room but ours, no sign of human occupancy. Dust, dust, and cobwebs everywhere. Nothing else.
With a strange sinking of the heart I came back to our own door.
Surely I heard the landlady’s slow, even step inside, and that soft, low laugh. I rushed in.
The room was empty of all life; both rooms utterly empty.
Yes, of all life; for, with the love of a lifetime surging in my heart, I sprang to where Hal lay beneath the window, and found him dead.
Dead, and most horribly dead. Three heavy marks — blows — three deep, three-cornered gashes — I started to my feet — even the chair had gone!
Again the whispered laugh. Out of that house of terror I fled desperately.
From the street I cast one shuddering glance at the fateful window.
The risen sun was gilding all the housetops, and its level rays, striking the high panes on the building opposite, shone back in a calm glory on the gr
eat chair by the window, the sweet face, down-dropped eyes, and swaying golden head.
DESERTED
MRS ELLPHALET Johnson was a very hardworking woman — even her nextdoor neighbors admitted that. Her chimney blackened the soft morning air as early as any in town; her wash fluttered white under the apple boughs long before breakfast. That is, before Ellphalet’s breakfast.
Ellphalet kept store. He preferred keeping store to farming because he could sit down more. In the store it was all in the way of business. His customers sat down on every available object — the counter, the sugar barrel, the cracker box, even the cask of molasses, but not on that last until the counter and other things were full.
There were a few chairs around the store in the rear and vast political measures were discussed there — matters far beyond the reach of Mrs Johnson’s busy feminine brain.
The house was over the store. The stairs connecting the two came down in the end where the store was, and when a customer came in who wanted not a seat but service Mr Ellphalet Johnson would tip back his chair a little further, open the stair door and say, ‘Maria!’
Then Mrs Johnson would hurry down and attend to the customer. Mrs Johnson had a good head in a servile sort of way and usually kept the accounts. This she did after the store was closed and the children were in bed.
But in spite of all her efforts Ellphalet got into difficulties. He never fully explained to her what these difficulties were, but they were such as induced him to transfer the family bank account and business liabilities to her name.
This, he explained with lofty comprehensiveness, was merely a matter of form, and quite essential for the safety of the children.
‘And Maria,’ he added, seeking to bring the conversation to a more comprehensible level, ‘there’s a lady over at Clark’s, a Miss Burton, who wants board in a private family, and I told her she could come here. I knew the spare room was suitable, and one more or less wouldn’t make any difference to you.’
‘But I wanted mother for a while this summer!’ urged Maria. ‘She’d be such a help preservin’ and with the baby.’
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 145
