Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Don’t be frightened; the little wretch carried tons of indigestible stuff to her room and sat up half the night eating it. Where’s Philip?”

  “I don’t know. Here’s a special delivery for him. I signed for it and brought it from the house. He’ll be here from the Hook directly, I fancy. Where is Drina?”

  “In bed. I’ll take you up. Mind you, there’ll be a scene, so nerve yourself.”

  They went upstairs together. Nina knocked, peeped in, then summoned Mr. Lansing.

  “Oh, Boots, Boots!” groaned Drina, lifting her arms and encircling his neck, “I don’t think I am ever going to get well — I don’t believe it, no matter what they say. I am glad you have come; I wanted you — and I’m very, very sick. . . . Are you happy to be with me?”

  Boots sat on the bedside, the feverish little head in his arms, and Nina was a trifle surprised to see how seriously he took it.

  “Boots,” she said, “you look as though your last hour had come. Are you letting that very bad child frighten you? Drina, dear, mother doesn’t mean to be horrid, but you’re too old to whine. . . . It’s time for the medicine, too—”

  “Oh, mother! the nasty kind?”

  “Certainly. Boots, if you’ll move aside—”

  “Let Boots give it to me!” exclaimed the child tragically. “It will do no good; I’m not getting better; but if I must take it, let Boots hold me — and the spoon!”

  She sat straight up in bed with a superb gesture which would have done credit to that classical gentleman who heroically swallowed the hemlock cocktail. Some of the dose bespattered Boots, and when the deed was done the child fell back and buried her head on his breast, incidentally leaving medicinal traces on his collar.

  Half an hour later she was asleep, holding fast to Boots’s sleeve, and that young gentleman sat in a chair beside her, discussing with her pretty mother the plans made for Gladys and Gerald on their expected arrival.

  Eileen, pale and heavy-lidded, looked in on her way to some afternoon affair, nodding unsmiling at Boots.

  “Have you been rifling the pantry, too?” he whispered. “You lack your usual chromatic symphony.”

  “No, Boots; I’m just tired. If I wasn’t physically afraid of Drina, I’d get you to run off with me — anywhere. . . . What is that letter, Nina? For me?”

  “It’s for Phil. Boots brought it around. Leave it on the library table, dear, when you go down.”

  Eileen took the letter and turned away. A few moments later as she laid it on the library table, her eyes involuntarily noted the superscription written in the long, angular, fashionable writing of a woman.

  And slowly the inevitable question took shape within her.

  How long she stood there she did not know, but the points of her gloved fingers were still resting on the table and her gaze was still concentrated on the envelope when she felt Selwyn’s presence in the room, near, close; and looked up into his steady eyes. And knew he loved her.

  And suddenly she broke down — for with his deep gaze in hers the overwrought spectre had fled! — broke down, no longer doubting, bowing her head in her slim gloved hands, thrilled to the soul with the certitude of their unhappiness eternal, and the dreadful pleasure of her share.

  “What is it?” he made out to say, managing also to keep his hands off her where she sat, bowed and quivering by the table.

  “N-nothing. A — a little crisis — over now — nearly over. It was that letter^other women writing you. . . . And I — outlawed — tongue-tied. . . . Don’t look at me, don’t wait. I — I am going out.”

  He went to the window, stood a moment, came back to the table, took his letter, and walked slowly again to the window.

  After a while he heard the rustle of her gown as she left the room, and a little later he straightened up, passed his hand across his tired eyes, and, looking down at the letter in his hand, broke the seal.

  It was from one of the nurses, Miss Casson, and shorter than usual:

  “Mrs. Ruthven is physically in perfect health, but yesterday we noted a rather startling change in her mental condition. There were, during the day, intervals that seemed perfectly lucid. Once she spoke of Miss Bond as ‘the other nurse,’ as though she realised something of the conditions surrounding her. Once, too, she seemed astonished when I brought her a doll, and asked me:’ Is there a child here? Or is it for a charity bazaar?’

  “Later I found her writing a letter at my desk. She left it unfinished when she went to drive — a mere scrap. I thought it best to enclose it, which I do, herewith.”

  The enclosure he opened:

  “Phil, dear, though I have been very ill I know you are my own husband. All the rest was only a child’s dream of terror—”

  And that was all — only this scrap, firmly written in the easy flowing hand he knew so well. He studied it for a moment or two, then resumed Miss Casson’s letter:

  “A man stopped our sleigh yesterday, asking if he was not speaking to Mrs. Ruthven. I was a trifle worried, and replied that any communication for Mrs. Ruthven could be sent to me.

  “That evening two men — gentlemen apparently — came to the house and asked for me. I went down to receive them. One was a Dr. Mallison, the other said his name was Thomas B. Hallam, but gave no business address.

  “When I found that they had come without your knowledge and authority, I refused to discuss Mrs. Ruthven’s condition, and the one who said his name was Hallam spoke rather peremptorily and in a way that made me think he might be a lawyer.

  “They got nothing out of me, and they left when I made it plain that I had nothing to tell them.

  “I thought it best to let you know about this, though I, personally, cannot guess what it might mean.”

  Selwyn turned the page:

  “One other matter worries Miss Bond and myself. The revolver you sent us at my request has disappeared. We are nearly sure Mrs. Ruthven has it — you know she once dressed it as a doll — calling it her army doll! — but now we can’t find it. She has hidden it somewhere, out of doors in the shrubbery, we think, and Miss Bond and I expect to secure it the next time she takes a fancy to have all her dolls out for a ‘lawn-party.’

  “Dr. Wesson says there is no danger of her doing any harm with it, but wants us to secure it at the first opportunity—”

  He turned the last page; on the other side was merely the formula of leave-taking and Miss Casson’s signature.

  For a while he stood in the centre of the room, head bent, narrowing eyes fixed; then he folded the letter, pocketed it, and walked to the table where a directory lay.

  He found the name, Hallam, very easily — Thomas B. Hallam, lawyer, junior in the firm of Spencer, Boyd & Hallam. They were attorneys for Jack Ruthven; he knew that.

  Mallison he also found — Dr. James Mallison, who, it appeared, conducted some sort of private asylum on Long Island.

  And when he had found what he wanted, he went to the telephone and rang up Mr. Ruthven, but the servant who answered the telephone informed him that Mr. Ruthven was not in town.

  So Selwyn hung up the receiver and sat down, thoughtful, grim, the trace of a scowl creeping across his narrowing gray eyes.

  Of the abject cowardice of Ruthven he had been so certain that he had hitherto discounted any interference from him. Yet, now, the man was apparently preparing for some sort of interference. What did he want? Selwyn had contemptuously refused to permit him to seek a divorce on the ground of his wife’s infirmity. What was the man after?

  The man was after his divorce, that was what it all meant. His first check on the long trail came with the stupefying news of Gerald’s runaway marriage to the young girl he was laying his own plans to marry some day in the future, and at first the news staggered him, leaving him apparently no immediate incentive for securing his freedom.

  But Ruthven instantly began to realise that what he had lost he might not have lost had he been free to shoulder aside the young fellow who had forestalled him. The chance
had passed — that particular chance. But he’d never again allow himself to be caught in a position where such a chance could pass him by because he was not legally free to at least make the effort to seize it.

  Fear in his soul had kept him from blazoning his wife’s infirmity to the world as cause for an action against her; but he remembered Neergard’s impudent cruise with her on the Niobrara, and he had temporarily settled on that as a means to extort revenue, not intending such an action should ever come to trial. And then he learned that Neergard had gone to pieces. That was the second check.

  Ruthven needed money. He needed it because he meant to put the ocean between himself and Selwyn before commencing any suit — whatever ground he might choose for entering such a suit. He required capital on which to live abroad during the proceedings, if that could be legally arranged. And meanwhile, preliminary to any plan of campaign, he desired to know where his wife was and what might he her actual physical and mental condition.

  He had supposed her to be, or to have been, ill — at least erratic and not to be trusted with her own freedom; therefore he had been quite prepared to hear from those whom he employed to trace and find her that she was housed in some institution devoted to the incarceration of such unfortunates.

  But Ruthven was totally unprepared for the report brought him by a private agency to the effect that Mrs. Ruthven was apparently in perfect health, living in the country, maintaining a villa and staff of servants; that she might be seen driving a perfectly appointed Cossack sleigh any day with a groom on the rumble and a companion beside her; that she seemed to be perfectly sane, healthy in body and mind, comfortable, happy, and enjoying life under the protection of a certain Captain Selwyn, who paid all her bills and, at certain times, was seen entering or leaving her house at Edgewater.

  Excited, incredulous, but hoping for the worst, Ruthven had posted off to his attorneys. To them he naïively confessed his desire to be rid of Alixe; he reported her misconduct with Neergard — which he knew was a lie — her pretence of mental prostration, her disappearance, and his last interview with Selwyn in the card-room. He also gave a vivid description of that gentleman’s disgusting behaviour, and his threats of violence during that interview.

  To all of which his attorneys listened very attentively, bade him have no fear of his life, requested him to make several affidavits, and leave the rest to them for the present.

  Which he did, without hearing from them until Mr. Hallam telegraphed him to come to Edgewater if he had nothing better to do.

  And Ruthven had just arrived at that inconspicuous Long Island village when his servant, at the telephone, replied to Selwyn’s inquiry that his master was out of town.

  Mr. Hallam was a very busy, very sanguine, very impetuous young man; and when he met Ruthven at the Edgewater station he told him promptly that he had the best case on earth; that he, Hallam, was going to New York on the next train, now almost due, and that Ruthven had better drive over and see for himself how gaily his wife maintained her household; for the Cossack sleigh, with its gay crimson tchug, had but just returned from the usual afternoon spin, and the young chatelaine of Willow Villa was now on the snow-covered lawn, romping with the coachman’s huge white wolf-hound. . . . It might he just as well for Ruthven to stroll up that way and see for himself. The house was known as the Willow Villa. Any hackman could drive him past it.

  As Hallam was speaking the New York train came thundering in, and the young lawyer, facing the snowy clouds of steam, swung his suit-case and himself aboard. On the Pullman platform he paused and looked around and down at Ruthven.

  “It’s just as you like,” he said. “If you’d rather come back with me on this train, come ahead! It isn’t absolutely necessary that you make a personal inspection now; only that fellow Selwyn is not here to-day, and I thought if you wanted to look about a bit you could do it this afternoon without chance of running into him and startling the whole mess boiling.”

  “Is Captain Selwyn in town?” asked Ruthven, reddening.

  “Yes; an agency man telephoned me that he’s just back from Sandy Hook—”

  The train began to move out of the station. Ruthven hesitated, then stepped away from the passing car with a significant parting nod to Hallam.

  As the train, gathering momentum, swept past him, he stared about at the snow-covered station, the guard, the few people congregated there.

  “There’s another train at four, isn’t there?” he asked an official.

  “Four-thirty, express. Yes, sir.”

  A hackman came up soliciting patronage. Ruthven motioned him to follow, leading the way to the edge of the platform.

  “I don’t want to drive to the village. What have you got there, a sleigh?”

  It was the usual Long Island depot-wagon, on runners instead of wheels.

  “Do you know the Willow Villa?” demanded Ruthven.

  “Wilier Viller, sir? Yes, sir. Step right this way—”

  “Wait!” snapped Ruthven. “I asked you if you knew it; I didn’t say I wanted to go there.”

  The hackman in his woolly greatcoat stared at the little dapper, smooth-shaven man, who eyed him in return, coolly insolent, lighting a cigar.

  “I don’t want to go to the Willow Villa,” said Ruthven; “I want you to drive me past it.”

  “Sir?”

  “Past it. And then turn around and drive back here. Is that plain?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ruthven got into the closed body of the vehicle, rubbed the frost from the window, and peeked out. The hackman, unhitching his lank horse, climbed to the seat, gathered the reins, and the vehicle started to the jangling accompaniment of a single battered cow-bell.

  The melancholy clamour of the bell annoyed little Mr. Ruthven; he was horribly cold, too, even in his fur coat. Also the musty smell of the ancient vehicle annoyed him as he sat, half turned around, peeping out of the rear window into the white tree-lined road.

  There was nothing to see but the snowy road flanked by trees and stark hedges; nothing but the flat expanse of white on either side, broken here and there by patches of thin woodlands or by some old-time farmhouse with its slab shingles painted white and its green shutters and squat roof.

  “What a God-forsaken place,” muttered little Mr. Ruthven with a hard grimace. “If she’s happy in this sort of a hole there’s no doubt she’s some sort of a lunatic.”

  He looked out again furtively, thinking of what the agency had reported to him. How was it possible for any human creature to live in such a waste and be happy and healthy and gay, as they told him his wife was. What could a human being do to kill the horror of such silent, deathly white isolation? Drive about in it in a Cossack sleigh, as they said she did? Horror!

  The driver pulled up short, then began to turn his horse. Ruthven squinted out of the window, but saw no sign of a villa. Then he rapped sharply on the forward window, motioning the driver to descend, come around, and open the door.

  When the man appeared Ruthven demanded why he had turned his horse, and the hackman, pointing to a wooded hill to the west, explained that the Willow Villa stood there.

  Ruthven had supposed that the main road passed the house; he got out of the covered wagon, looked across at the low hill, and dug his gloved hands deeper into his fur-lined pockets.

  For a while he stood in the snow, stolid, thoughtful, puffing his cigar. A half-contemptuous curiosity possessed him to see his wife once more before he discarded her; see what she looked like, whether she appeared normal and in possession of the small amount of sense he had condescended to credit her with.

  Besides, here was a safe chance to see her. Selwyn was in New York, and the absolute certainty of his personal safety attracted him strongly, rousing all the latent tyranny in his meagre soul.

  Probably — but he didn’t understand the legal requirements of the matter, and whether or not it was necessary for him personally to see this place where Selwyn maintained her, and see her in it — probably
he would be obliged to come here again with far less certainty of personal security from Selwyn. Perhaps that future visit might even be avoided if he took this opportunity to investigate. Whether it was the half-sneering curiosity to see his wife, or the hope of doing a thing now which, by the doing, he need not do later — whether it was either of these that moved him to the impulse, is not quite clear.

  He said to the hackman: “You wait here. I’m going over to the Willow Villa for a few moments, and then I’ll want you to drive me back to the station in time for that four-thirty. Do you understand?”

  The man said he understood, and Ruthven, bundled in his fur coat, picked his way across the crust, through a gateway, and up what appeared to be a hedged lane.

  The lane presently disclosed itself as an avenue, now doubly lined with tall trees; this avenue he continued to follow, passing through a grove of locusts, and came out before a house on the low crest of a hill.

  There were clumps of evergreens about, tall cedars, a bit of bushy foreland, and a stretch of snow. And across this open space of snow a young girl was moving, followed by a white wolf-hound. Once she paused, hesitated, looked cautiously around her. Ruthven, hiding behind a bush, saw her thrust her arm into a low evergreen shrub and draw out a shining object that glittered like glass. Then she started toward the house again.

  At first Ruthven thought she was his wife, then he was not sure, and he cast his cigar away and followed, slinking forward among the evergreens. But the youthful fur-clad figure kept straight on to the veranda of the house, and Ruthven, curious and determined to find out whether it was Alixe or not, left the semi-shelter of the evergreens and crossed the open space just as the woman’s figure disappeared around an angle of the veranda.

  Vexed, determined not to return without some definite discovery, Ruthven stepped upon the veranda. Just around the angle of the porch he heard a door opening, and he hurried forward impatient and absolutely unafraid, anxious to get one good look at his wife and be off.

  But when he turned the angle of the porch there was no one there; only an open door confronted him, with a big, mild-eyed wolf-hound standing in the doorway, looking steadily up at him.