“Listen to me!” I said firmly. “Get this into your head. I’m not a devil. I don’t belong here. I’ve been good all my life and I—”
“I don’t believe a word of it!”
I pointed an accusing finger at her. “How did you get here? What kind of thoughts were you having?”
She dropped her proud glance. Her little ears pinked with embarrassment.
“Aha! I thought so. You know only too well that those were some of the wicked thoughts you’ve had in your life.”
“Jack,” Ethel whimpered, “is it true you aren’t really…?”
“You’re darned tootin’ it’s true. Come on, Honeybun—I’ll be forgiving if you…
“Down to business!” yelled the flunky. “Get to work!”
“Stand aside, Mac,” I yelled right back. “We’re getting out of here.”
“Nuh-uh,” said he. “You forget—you’re dead. You can’t go any place…
“Dead, huh?” I swung a haymaker. The demon bounced off the wall, then off the floor. He flashed, screaming, out of the room.
“Live ’uns!” I could hear him yell in diminuendo. “There’re live ’uns in the place!”
I couldn’t figure what had made him bounce, because when I’d swung, I hadn’t felt anything. But I guess he felt it and that’s what really let him know we were alive.
“I think I got it figured,” I said to Ethel. “Do as I say and maybe we can find our way out of here.”
I held her close to my side and we both took a step backward. Schlemiel dropped both phones from his head as we passed through his office. Another step, and we were on the sunny hilltop. I hated having to take Ethel back through my own indelicate thoughts, but I wanted to make sure we both got back. I gritted my teeth and stepped backward as rapidly as possible.
* * * *
We moved into De Valgis’ house a week after. It’s not a bad place, once you get used to it. The library now has some innocuous texts in it and lots of bare shelves. I took the junk De Valgis must have spent a lifetime collecting and stashed it away in the attic.
And the Room Without Windows? I nailed the door shut and built a new wall across in front of it.
We hardly ever go upstairs, Ethel and I, unless we are together. And neither of us ever reproaches the other for naughty thoughts. Every time we hear an unexpected step on the front porch, we both rush to fling open the door. We hope it will be Lavorine De Valgis standing there. We want to give him back his house.
THE BARGAIN OF RUPERT ORANGE, by Vincent O’Sullivan
Taken from When I Was Dead and Other Stories.
Chapter I
The marvel is, that the memory of Rupert Orange, whose name was a signal for chatter amongst people both in Europe and America not many years ago, has now almost died out. Even in New York where he was born, and where the facts of his secret and mysterious life were most discussed, he is quite forgotten. At times, indeed, some old lady will whisper to you at dinner, that a certain young man reminds her of Rupert Orange, only he is not so handsome; but she is one of those who keep the mere incidents of their past much more brightly polished than the important things of their present. The men who worshipped him, who copied his clothes, his walk, his mode of pronouncing words, and his manner of saying things, stare vaguely when he is mentioned. And the other day at a well-known club I was having some general talk with a man whose black hair is shot with white, when he exclaimed somewhat suddenly: “How little one hears about Rupert Orange now!” and then added: “I wonder what became of him?” As to the first part of this speech I kept my mouth resolutely shut; for how could I deny his saying, since I had lately seen a weed-covered grave with the early moss growing into the letters on the headstone? As to the second part, it is now my business to set forth the answer to that: and I think when the fire begins to blaze it will lighten certain recollections which have become dark. Of course, there are numberless people who never heard the story of Rupert Orange; but there are also crowds of men and women who followed his brilliant life with intense interest, while his shameful death will be in many a one’s remembrance.
The knowledge of this case I got over a year ago; and I would have written then, had my hands been free. But there has recently died at Vienna the Countess de Volnay, whose notorious connection with Orange was at one time the subject of every man’s bruit. Her I met two years since in Paris, where she was living like a work-woman. I learned that she had sold her house, and her goods she had given to the poor. She was still a remarkable woman, though her great beauty had faded, and despite a restless, terrified manner, which gave one the monstrous idea that she always felt the devil looking over her shoulder. Her hair was white as paper, and yet she was far from the age when women cease to grin in ball-rooms. A great fear seemed to have sprung to her face and been paralyzed there: a fear which could be detected in her shaking voice. It was from her that I learned certain primary facts of this narration; and she cried to me not to publish them till I heard of her death--as a man on the gallows sometimes asks the hangman not to adjust the noose too tight round his neck. I am altogether sure that what Orange himself told her, he never told any one else. I wish I had her running tongue instead of my slow pen, and then I would not be writing slovenly and clumsily, doubtless, for the relation; vainly, I am afraid, for the moral.
Now Rupert Orange lived with his aunt in New York till he was twenty-four years old, and when she died, leaving her entire estate to him, a furious contest arose over the will. Principal in the contest was Mrs. Annice, the wife of a discarded nephew; and she prosecuted the cause with the pertinacity and virulence which we often find in women of thirty. So good a pursuivant did she prove, that she and her husband leaped suddenly from indigence to great wealth: for the Court declared that the old lady had died lunatic; that she had been unduly influenced; and, that consequently her testament was void. But this decision, which raised them up, brought Rupert to the ground. There is no worse fall than the fall of a man from opulence to poverty; and Rupert, after his luxurious rearing, had to undergo this fall. Yet he had the vigour and confidence of the young. His little verses and sonnets had been praised when he was an amateur; now he undertook to make his pen a breadwinner--with the direst results. At first, nothing would do him but the great magazines; and from these, week after week, he received back his really clever articles, accompanied by cold refusals. Then for months he hung about the offices of every outcast paper, waiting for the editor. When at length the editor did come, he generally told Rupert that he had promised all his outlying work to some bar-room acquaintance. So push by push he was brought to his knees; and finally he dared not walk out till nightfall, for fear some of those who knew him in prosperity might witness his destitution.
One night early in December, about six o’clock, he left the mean flat-house on the west side of the city in which he occupied one room, and started (as they say in New York) “up town.” The snow had frozen in lumps, and the gas lamps gleamed warmly on it for the man who had not seen a fire in months. When he reached Fifty-ninth Street, he turned east and skirted Central Park till he came to the Fifth Avenue. And here a sudden fancy seized him to walk this street, which shame and pride had kept him off since his downfall. He had not proceeded far, when he was stopped by an old man.
“Can you tell me, sir,” says the old man, politely, “if this street runs on further than Central Park?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Rupert, scraping at his throat; for he had not spoken to a soul for five days, and the phlegm had gathered. “It goes up a considerable distance from here.”
“You’ll forgive me asking you,” went on the ancient. “I am only passing through the city, and I want to find out all I can.”
“You’re quite welcome,” said Orange. “That,” he added, pointing, “is St. Luke’s Hospital.”
They spoke a few more sentences
, then as the stranger turned “down town,” Rupert fell in with his walk. He did this partly because he was craving for fellowship; partly, too, from that feeling which certain men have--men who have never done anything for themselves in this world, and never will do anything--that distant relations, and even total strangers, are apt at any moment to fling fortunes into their hands. As they proceeded along the avenue, Orange turned to survey his companion. A shrewd wind was blowing, and it tossed the old gentleman’s long beard over his shoulder, and ruffled the white hair under his soft hat. His clothes were plain, even shabby; and he had an odd trick of planting his feet on the ground without bending his knees, as though his legs were broomsticks. Orange thought, bitterly enough! how short a time had passed since the days when he would have taken poison as an alternative to walking down the Fifth Avenue with such an associate. Now, they were equal: or indeed the old man was the better off of the two: for if he wore impossible broad-toed boots, Orange had to stamp his feet to keep the cold from striking through his worn-out shoes. What cared he for the criticism of the smart, well-fed “Society” now, when numbers of that far greater society, of which he was one, were starving in garrets! As he thought these things a late afternoon reception began to pour out its crowds, and a young man and a girl, who had known Rupert in the days of his prosperity, came forth and glared with contempt at the two mean passengers. Not a muscle in Rupert’s face quivered: he even afforded those two the tribute of a sneer.
When the pair of walkers reached Thirty-fourth Street they switched into Broadway. A silence had fallen between them, and it was in silence they paraded the thoroughfare. Here all was garish light and glare: carriages darted to and fro, restaurants were thronged, theatres ablaze, women smiling: everything told of a great city starting a night of pleasure. Besides the love of pleasure which was his main characteristic, Orange was distinctly gregarious; and the sight of all this joy, which he had once revelled in himself, struck like a knife into his hungry, lonely heart. At that moment he thought he would give his very soul to get some money.
“All these people seem happy,” says the old man, suddenly.
“Yes,” replied Orange. “They are happy enough!”
The old man caught the reply, and noticed the sour twang in it. He looked up quickly and saw that Rupert’s eyes watered. “Why, man,” he exclaimed, “I believe you’re crying! Or perhaps you’re cold! Come in here, come right in to the Hoffman House!” he went on, tugging at Rupert’s coat.
Rupert hesitated. The sensitiveness of one who had never taken a favour which he could not repay, held him back. But the desire for warmth and sympathy prevailed, so he entered. The usual crowd of loafers was about the bar, and those who composed it looked scoffingly at Orange’s shiny overcoat and time-eaten trousers. Believe me, the man in rags is not half so pitiable as the poor creature who tries to maintain the appearance of a gentleman the man who inks scams by night which grow all white by day who keeps his fingers close pressed to his palm lest the rents in his glove be seen; who walks with his arm across his breast for fear his coat should fly open and proclaim its lack of buttons. Even the waiters looked disparagingly at Orange; and a waiter’s jibes, or any flunkey’s, are, perhaps, the sorest of all. But the old man, without noticing, sat down at a table and ordered a bottle of champagne. When the wine was brought, the two sat together some time in a muse. Then, of a sudden, the greybeard broke out.
“Wealth!” he cried, staring into Rupert’s eyes, “wealth is the only thing worth striving for in this world! Your tub-philosophers may laugh at it, but they only laugh to keep away from themselves a cankering envy and desire which would be more bitter than their present lack. Let any man whom you call a genius arrive at this hotel to-night, and let a millionaire arrive at the same moment, and I’ll bet you the millionaire gets the attention every time! A millionaire travels round the earth, and he gets respect everywhere he goes--why? Because he buys it. That’s the way to get respect in the nineteenth century--buy it! Do the fine works of art which are sold each year go to the pauper student who worships them? No, sir, they go to the man who has the money) and who shells out the biggest price. I repeat, my young friend, that what’s there” (and he slapped his pocket) “is what counts in the struggle of life.”
“I agree with you,” answered Orange, “that money counts for a great deal.”
“A great deal repeated the other, scornfully, being now, perhaps, somewhat warmed with wine. A great deal! What have you to offer instead? Religion? Ministers are the parasites of rich men. Art? Go into the studio of any friend of yours to-morrow, and see whom he’ll speak to first--you, or the man with a cheque in his hand. Why, if a poor man had the brains of Shakespeare, or our Emerson, and was mud-splashed by the carriage wheels of a wealthy woman, the only answer to his protests would be a policeman’s ‘move on!’”
“I know it! I know it!” cried Orange, in anguish. “I know it fifty times better than you do! I tell you I would sell my whole life now, for one year’s perfect enjoyment of riches.”
“Not one year,” said the greybeard, leaning over the table and speaking so intensely that Rupert could hardly follow him. His old face had become ghastly and looked livid in contrast to the white hair. “Not one year, my boy, but five years! Think, only think, of the gloriousness of it all! This evening a despised pauper, to-morrow a rich man! Take courage, make up your mind to yield your life at the end of five years, and in return I will promise you, pledge you, that to-morrow morning you shall be in as sound a financial position as any man in New York.”
Now it is strange that this outrageous proposal, made in thebar-room of an hotel situate in one of the most prosaic cities in the world, did not strike Rupert Orange as at all preposterous. Probably on account of his mystical, dreaming mind, he never took thought to doubt the speaker’s sincereness, but at once fell to balancing the advantages and drawbacks of the scheme.
Five years! Before his young eyes they stretched out like fifty years. It did not occur to him (it rarely occurs to any young man) to hark back to the five preceding years and note how few and, swift were the strides which brought him over them to this very day he was living. Five years! They lay before him all silver with, sunshine, as he looked out from his present want and darkness. This was his point of view; and let us never forget this point of’, view when we are passing judgment on him. No doubt, if the matter had been placed before a man of wealth, he would have denied it even momentary consideration: but the smell of cooking, is only disgusting to one who has dined; it is the vagrant who sniffs eagerly the air of the kitchen through the iron grating on, the street. For Rupert, at this moment, money meant all the world. He was a man who hated to face the bitter things of life and money included release from insolent creditors, from snubs and flouts, from a small, cold, dark room, and, chief of all! Release from that horror which he saw drawing nearer and nearer: the gaol.
“There is one more word to be said,” observed the old man, smoothly. “Leaving aside the contingency of your starving to death--which, by the way, I think very likely--there is a chance of your being run over by a cart when you leave this hotel. There is an even chance of your contracting some disease during the winter. How would you like to die in a pauper hospital, where the nurses sing as they close a dead man’s eyes? Now, what I propose is, that you shall be free from any physical pain for five years.”
“If I should accept,” said Orange, swirling the wine round in his glass till it creamed and foamed, “I’d desire some slight ills to take the very sweetness out of life.” Probably he meant, for fear that when his time came he should hate to die.
He thought again. He was like to a man who arrives suddenly at a mountain village on the feast of the Blessed Sacrament, and loitering in the street with his eyes enchanted by the tawdry decorations and festoons of the houses, forgets to look beyond at the awful mountain standing against the sky, with menacing thunder clouds abou
t its breast. Before Orange’s mind a gay and tempting pageant defiled. He thought of the travels he would be able to make, of luxurious palaces, of exquisite banquets, of priceless wines, of laughing, rapturous women. He thought, too, for he was far from being a merely sensuous man, of the first editions he could buy, of the rare gems, of dainty bindings. Sweetest of all were the thoughts, that he would be at his ease to do the best work that it was in him to do, and that he would be powerful enough to wreak his vengeance on his enemies very slowly, inch by inch. With that, like the crack of a rifle shot, came the thought of Mrs. Annice.
He sprang to his feet. “Listen!” he cried, in such a voice that the idlers at the bar turned round for a moment; but observing that no row was in progress to divert them, they fell once more to their drinking. “Listen!” cried Rupert Orange again, gripping the side of the table with one hand and pointing a shaking finger at the old man. “There is one woman alive in this city to-night who has brought me to the degradation which you witness now. She flung me to the ground, she covered me with dust, she crushed me beneath her merciless heel! Give her to me that I may lower her pride! Let me see her as abject and despised as the poorest trull that walks the streets, and I swear by God Most High to make the bargain!”
The old man grasped Rupert’s cold hand, and pressed it between his own feverishly hot palms. “It is an unusual taste,” he murmured, glancing into Rupert’s eyes, and smiling faintly.
Chapter II
Orange started, “up town” with a song in his heart. Curiously enough, he had not the slightest doubt about the genuineness of the contract, nor had he the least sorrow for what he had done. It mattered little about snubs and side looks to-night: to-morrow men and women would joyfully begin pawing him and fawning. So happy was he, his blood danced through his veins so merrily, that he ran for three or four blocks; and once he laughed a loud laugh, which caused a policeman to menace him with a club. But this Only brought him more merriment; to-morrow, if he liked, he could laugh from Central Park to Madison Square without molestation.
The Devils & Demons MEGAPACK ®: 25 Modern and Classic Tales Page 40
