Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “I remember what you said about an anchorage; I am trying to clear these haunted eyes of mine and steer clear of phantoms — for the honour of what we once were to each other before the world. But steering a ghost-ship through endless tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind — a little more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel.

  “And now — with all these madly inked pages scattered across my desk, I draw toward me another sheet — the last I have still unstained; to ask at last the question which I have shrunk from through all these pages — and for which these pages alone were written:

  “What do you think of me? Asking you, shows how much I care; dread of your opinion has turned me coward until this last page. What do you think of me? I am perfectly miserable about Boots, but that is partly fright — though I know I am safe enough with such a man. But what sets my cheeks blazing so that I cannot bear to face my own eyes in the mirror, is the fear of what you must think of me in the still, secret places of that heart of yours, which I never, never understood. ALIXE.”

  It was a week before he sent his reply — although he wrote many answers, each in turn revised, corrected, copied, and recopied, only to be destroyed in the end. But at last he forced himself to meet truth with truth, cutting what crudity he could from his letter:

  “You ask me what I think of you; but that question should properly come from me. What do you think of a man who exhorts and warns a woman to stand fast, and then stands dumb at the first impact of temptation?

  “A sight for gods and men — that man! Is there any use for me to stammer out trite phrases of self-contempt? The fact remains that I am unfit to advise, criticise, or condemn anybody for anything; and it’s high time I realised it.

  “If words of commendation, of courage, of kindly counsel, are needed by anybody in this world, I am not the man to utter them. What a hypocrite must I seem to you! I who sat there beside you preaching platitudes in strong self-complacency, instructing you how morally edifying it is to be good and unhappy.

  “Then, what happened? I don’t know exactly; but I’m trying to be honest, and I’ll tell you what I think happened:

  “You are — you; I am — I; and we are still those same two people who understood neither the impulse that once swept us together, nor the forces that tore us apart — ah, more than that! we never understood each other! And we do not now.

  “That is what happened. We were too near together again; the same spark leaped, the same blindness struck us, the same impulse swayed us — call it what we will! — and it quickened out of chaos, grew from nothing into unreasoning existence. It was the terrific menace of emotion, stunning us both — simply because you are you and I am I. And that is what happened.

  “We cannot deny it; we may not have believed it possible — or in fact considered it at all. I did not; I am sure you did not. Yet it occurred, and we cannot deny it, and we can no more explain or understand it than we can understand each other.

  “But one thing we do know — not through reason but through sheer instinct: We cannot venture to meet again — that way. For I, it seems, am a man like other men except that I lack character; and you are — you! still unchanged — with all the mystery of attraction, all the magic force of vitality, all the esoteric subtlety with which you enveloped me the first moment my eyes met yours.

  “There was no more reason for it then than there is now; and, as you admit, it was not love — though, as you also admit, there were moments approaching it. But nothing can have real being without a basis of reason; and so, whatever it was, it vanished. This, perhaps, is only the infernal afterglow.

  “As for me, I am, as you are, all at sea, self-confidence gone, self-faith lost — a very humble person, without conceit, dazed, perplexed, but still attempting to steer through toward that safe anchorage which I dared lately to recommend to you.

  “And it is really there, Alixe, despite the fool who recites his creed so tritely.

  “All this in attempt to bring order into my own mental confusion; and the result is that I have formulated nothing.

  “So now I end where I began with that question which answers yours without the faintest suspicion of reproach: What can you think of such a man as I am? And in the presence of my second failure your answer must be that you now think what you once thought of him when you first realised that he had failed you, PHILIP SELWYN.”

  That very night brought him her reply:

  “Phil, dear, I do not blame you for one instant. Why do you say you ever failed in anything? It was entirely my fault. But I am so happy that you wrote as you did, taking all the blame, which is like you. I can look into my mirror now — for a moment or two.

  “It is brave of you to be so frank about what you think came over us. I can discuss nothing, admit nothing; but you always did reason more clearly than I. Still, whatever spell it was that menaced us I know very well could not have threatened you seriously; I know it because you reason about it so logically. So it could have been nothing serious. Love alone is serious; and it sometimes comes slowly, sometimes goes slowly; but if you desire it to come quickly, close your eves! And if you wish it to vanish, reason about it!

  “We are on very safe ground again, Phil; you see we are making little epigrams about love.

  “Rosamund is impatient — it’s a symphony concert, and I must go — the horrid little cynic! — I half believe she suspects that I’m writing to you and tearing off yards of sentiment. It is likely I’d do that, isn’t it! — but I don’t care what she thinks. Besides, it behooves her to be agreeable, and she knows that I know it does! Voilà!

  “By the way, I saw Mrs. Gerard’s pretty ward at the theatre last night — Miss Erroll. She certainly is stunning—”

  Selwyn flattened out the letter and deliberately tore out the last paragraph. Then he set it afire with a match.

  “At least,” he said with an ugly look, “I can keep her out of this”; and he dropped the brittle blackened paper and set his heel on it. Then he resumed his perusal of the mutilated letter, reread it, and finally destroyed it.

  “Alixe,” he wrote in reply, “we had better stop this letter-writing before somebody stops us. Anybody desiring to make mischief might very easily misinterpret what we are doing. I, of course, could not close the correspondence, so I ask you to do so without any fear that you will fail to understand why I ask it. Will you?”

  To which she replied:

  “Yes, Phil. Good-bye.

  “ALIXE.”

  A box of roses left her his debtor; she was too intelligent to acknowledge them. Besides, matters were going better with her.

  And that was all for a while.

  Meanwhile Lent had gone, and with it the last soiled snow of winter. It was an unusually early spring; tulips in Union Square appeared coincident with crocus and snow-drop; high above the city’s haze wavering wedges of wild-fowl drifted toward the Canadas; a golden perfumed bloom clotted the naked branches of the park shrubs; Japanese quince burst into crimson splendour; tender chestnut leaves unfolded; the willows along the Fifty-ninth Street wall waved banners of gilded green; and through the sunshine battered butterflies floated, and the wild bees reappeared, scrambling frantically, powdered to the thighs in the pollen of a million dandelions.

  “Spring, with that nameless fragrance in the air

  Which breathes of all things fair,”

  sang a young girl riding in the Park. And she smiled to herself as she guided her mare through the flowering labyrinths. Other notes of the Southern poet’s haunting song stole soundless from her lips; for it was only her heart that was singing there in the sun, while her silent, smiling mouth mocked the rushing melody of the birds.

  Behind her, powerfully mounted, ambled the belted groom; she was riding alone in the golden weather because her good friend Selwyn was very busy in his office downtown, and Gerald, who now rode with her occasionally, was downtown also, and there remained nobody else to ride with. Also the horses were to be sent to Si
lverside soon, and she wanted to use them as much as possible while the Park was at its loveliest.

  She, therefore, galloped conscientiously every morning, sometimes with Nina, but usually alone. And every afternoon she and Nina drove there, drinking the freshness of the young year — the most beautiful year of her life, she told herself, in all the exquisite maturity of her adolescence.

  So she rode on, straight before her, head high, the sun striking face and firm, white throat; and in her heart laughed spring eternal, whose voiceless melody parted her lips.

  Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of mauve-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees; she saw a crimson cardinal winging through the foliage, and amorous tanagers flashing like scarlet flames athwart the pines.

  From rock and bridge and mouldy archway tender tendrils of living green fluttered, brushing her cheeks. Beneath the thickets the under-wood world was very busy, where squirrels squatted or prowled and cunning fox-sparrows avoided the starlings and blackbirds; and the big cinnamon-tinted, speckle-breasted thrashers scuffled among last year’s leaves or, balanced on some leafy spray, carolled ecstatically of this earthly paradise.

  It was near Eighty-sixth Street that a girl, splendidly mounted, saluted her, and wheeling, joined her — a blond, cool-skinned, rosy-tinted, smoothly groomed girl, almost too perfectly seated, almost too flawless and supple in the perfect symmetry of face and figure.

  “Upon my word,” she said gaily, “you are certainly spring incarnate, Miss Erroll — the living embodiment of all this!” She swung her riding-crop in a circle and laughed, showing her perfect teeth. “But where is that faithful attendant cavalier of yours this morning? Is he so grossly material that he prefers Wall Street, as does my good lord and master?”

  “Do you mean Gerald?” asked Eileen innocently, “or Captain Selwyn?”

  “Oh, either,” returned Rosamund airily; “a girl should have something masculine to talk to on a morning like this. Failing that she should have some pleasant memories of indiscretions past and others to come, D.V.; at least one little souvenir to repent — smilingly. Oh, la! Oh, me! All these wretched birds a-courting and I bumping along on Dobbin, lacking even my own Gilpin! Shall we gallop?”

  Eileen nodded.

  When at length they pulled up along the reservoir, Eileen’s hair had rebelled as usual and one bright strand eurled like a circle of ruddy light across her cheek; but Rosamund drew bridle as immaculate as ever and coolly inspected her companion.

  “What gorgeous hair,” she said, staring. “It’s worth a coronet, you know — if you ever desire one.”

  “I don’t,” said the girl, laughing and attempting to bring the insurgent curl under discipline.

  “I dare say you’re right; coronets are out of vogue among us now. It’s the fashion to marry our own good people. By the way, you are continuing to astonish the town, I hear.”

  “What do you mean, Mrs. Fane?”

  “Why, first it was Sudbury, then Draymore, and how everybody says that Boots—”

  “Boots!” repeated Miss Erroll blankly, then laughed deliciously.

  “Poor, poor Boots! Did they say that about him? Oh, it really is too bad, Mrs. Fane; it is certainly horridly impertinent of people to say such things. My only consolation is that Boots won’t care; and if he doesn’t, why should I?”

  Rosamund nodded, crossing her crop.

  “At first, though, I did care,” continued the girl. “I was so ashamed that people should gossip whenever a man was trying to be nice to me—”

  “Pooh! It’s always the men’s own faults. Don’t you suppose the martyr’s silence is noisier than a shriek of pain from the house-tops? I know — a little about men,” added Rosamund modestly, “and they invariably say to themselves after a final rebuff: ‘Now, I’ll be patient and brave and I’ll bear with noble dignity this cataclysm which has knocked the world galley-west for me and loosened the moon in its socket and spoiled the symmetry of the sun.’ And they go about being so conspicuously brave that any débutante can tell what hurts them.”

  Eileen was still laughing, but not quite at her ease — the theme being too personal to suit her. In fact, there usually seemed to be too much personality in Rosamund’s conversation — a certain artificial indifference to convention, which she, Eileen, did not feel any desire to disregard. For the elements of reticence and of delicacy were inherent in her; the training of a young girl had formalised them into rules. But since her début she had witnessed and heard so many violations of convention that now she philosophically accepted such, when they came from her elders, merely reserving her own convictions in matters of personal taste and conduct.

  For a while, as they rode, Rosamund was characteristically amusing, sailing blandly over the shoals of scandal, though Eileen never suspected it — wittily gay at her own expense, as well as at others, flitting airily from topic to topic on the wings of a self-assurance that becomes some women if they know when to stop. But presently the mischievous perversity in her bubbled up again; she was tired of being good; she had often meant to try the effect of a gentle shock on Miss Erroll; and, besides, she wondered just how much truth there might be in the unpleasantly persistent rumour of the girl’s unannounced engagement to Selwyn.

  “It would be amusing, wouldn’t it?” she asked with guileless frankness; “but, of course, it is not true — this report of their reconciliation.”

  “Whose reconciliation?” asked Miss Erroll innocently.

  “Why, Alixe Ruthven and Captain Selwyn. Everybody is discussing it, you know.”

  “Reconciled? I don’t understand,” said Eileen, astonished. “They can’t be; how can—”

  “But it would be amusing, wouldn’t it? and she could very easily get rid of Jack Ruthven — any woman could. So if they really mean to remarry—”

  The girl stared, breathless, astounded, bolt upright in her saddle.

  “Oh!” she protested, while the hot blood mantled throat and cheek, “it is wickedly untrue. How could such a thing be true, Mrs. Fane! It is — is so senseless—”

  “That is what I say,” nodded Rosamund; “it’s so perfectly senseless that it’s amusing — even if they have become such amazingly good friends again. I never believed there was anything seriously sentimental in the situation; and their renewed interest in each other is quite the most frankly sensible way out of any awkwardness,” she added cordially.

  Miserably uncomfortable, utterly unable to comprehend, the girl rode on in silence, her ears ringing with Rosamund’s words. And Rosamund, riding beside her, cool, blond, and cynically amused, continued the theme with admirable pretence of indifference:

  “It’s a pity that ill-natured people are for ever discussing them; and it makes me indignant, because I’ve always been very fond of Alixe Ruthven, and I am positive that she does not correspond with Captain Selwyn. A girl in her position would be crazy to invite suspicion by doing the things they say she is doing—”

  “Don’t, Mrs. Fane, please, don’t!” stammered Eileen; “I — I really can’t listen. I simply will not!” Then bewildered, hurt, and blindly confused as she was, the instinct to defend flashed up — though from what she was defending him she did not realise: “It is utterly untrue!” she exclaimed hotly— “all that yo — all that they say! — whoever they are — whatever they mean. I cannot understand it — I don’t understand, and I will not! Nor will he!” she added with a scornful conviction that disconcerted Rosamund; “for if you knew him as I do, Mrs. Fane, you would never, never have spoken as you have.”

  Mrs. Fane relished neither the naïve rebuke nor the intimation that her own acquaintance with Selwyn was so limited; and least of all did she relish the implied intimacy between this red-haired young girl and Captain Selwyn.

  “Dear Miss Erroll,” she said blandly, “I spoke as I did only to assure you that I, also, disregard such malicious gossip—
”

  “But if you disregard it, Mrs. Fane, why do you repeat it?”

  “Merely to emphasise to you my disbelief in it, child,” returned Rosamund. “Do you understand?”

  “Y-es; thank you. Yet, I should never have heard of it at all if you had not told me.”

  Rosamund’s colour rose one degree:

  “It is better to hear such things from a friend, is it not?”

  “I didn’t know that one’s friends said such things; but perhaps it is better that way, as you say, only, I cannot understand the necessity of my knowing — of my hearing — because it is Captain Selwyn’s affair, after all.”

  “And that,” said Rosamund deliberately, “is why I told you.”

  “Told me? Oh — because he and I are such close friends?”

  “Yes — such very close friends that I” — she laughed— “I am informed that your interests are soon to be identical.”

  The girl swung round, self-possessed, but dreadfully pale.

  “If you believed that,” she said, “it was vile of you to say what you said, Mrs. Fane.”

  “But I did not believe it, child!” stammered Rosamund, several degrees redder than became her, and now convinced that it was true. “I n-never dreamed of offending you, Miss Erroll—”

  “Do you suppose I am too ignorant to take offence?” said the girl unsteadily. “I told you very plainly that I did not understand the matters you chose for discussion; but I do understand impertinence when I am driven to it.”

  “I am very, very sorry that you believe I meant it that way,” said Rosamund, biting her lips.

  “What did you mean? You are older than I, you are certainly experienced; besides, you are married. If you can give it a gentler name than insolence I would be glad — for your sake, Mrs. Fane. I only know that you have spoiled my ride, spoiled the day for me, hurt me, humiliated me, and awakened, not curiosity, not suspicion, but the horror of it, in me. You did it once before — at the Minsters’ dance; not, perhaps, that you deliberately meant to; but you did it. And your subject was then, as it is now, Captain Selwyn — my friend—”