Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  She said nothing.

  He leaned heavily on the table, dark face framed in both hands:

  “Shiela, when a man is really tired, don’t you think it reasonable for him to take a rest — and give others one?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “A rather protracted rest is good for tired people, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, if—”

  “In fact,” with a whimsical smile, “a sort of endlessly eternal rest ought to cure anybody. Don’t you think so?”

  She stared at him.

  “Do you happen to remember that my father, needing a good long rest, took a sudden vacation to enjoy it?”

  “I — I — don’t know what you mean!” — tremulously.

  “You remember how he started on that restful vacation which he is still enjoying?”

  A shudder ran over her. She strove to speak, but her voice died in her throat.

  “My father,” he said dreamily, “seems to want me to join him during his vacation—”

  “Louis!”

  “What are you frightened about? It’s as good a vacation as any other — only one takes no luggage and pays no hotel bills.... Haven’t you any sense of humour left in you, Shiela? I’m not serious.”

  She said, trembling, and very white: “I thought you meant it.” Then she rose with a shiver, turned, and mounted the stairs to her room again. But in the stillness of the place something was already at work on her — fear — a slow dawning alarm at the silence, the loneliness, the forests, the rain — a growing horror of the place, of the people in it, of this man the world called her husband, of his listening silences, his solitary laughter, his words spoken to something unseen in empty rooms, his awful humour.

  Her very knees were shaking under her now; she stared around her like a trapped thing, desperate, feeling that self-control was going in sudden, ungovernable panic.

  Scarcely knowing what she was about she crept to the telephone and, leaning heavily against the wall, placed the receiver to her ear.

  For a long while she waited, dreading lest the operator had gone. Then a far voice hailed her; she gave the name; waited interminable minutes until a servant’s sleepy voice requested her to hold the wire. And, at last:

  “Is it you?”

  “Garry, could you come here to-night?”

  “Danger? No, I am in no danger; I am just frightened.”

  “I don’t know what is frightening me.”

  “No, not ill. It’s only that I am so horribly alone here in the rain. I — I cannot seem to endure it.” She was speaking almost incoherently, now, scarcely conscious of what she was saying. “There’s a man downstairs who talks in empty rooms and listens to things I cannot hear — listens every day, I tell you; I’ve seen him often, often — I mean Louis Malcourt! And I cannot endure it — the table that moves, and the — O Garry! Take me away with you. I cannot stand it any longer!”

  “Will you come?”

  “To-night, Garry?”

  “How long will you be? I simply cannot stay alone in this house until you come. I’ll go down and saddle my mare—”

  “What?”

  “Oh, yes — yes! I know what I’m doing—”

  “Yes, I do remember, but — why won’t you take me away from—”

  “I know it — Oh, I know it! I am half-crazed, I think—”

  “Yes—”

  “I do care for them still! But—”

  “O Garry! Garry! I will be true to them! I will do anything you wish, only come! Come! Come!”

  “You promise?”

  “At once?”

  She hung up the receiver, turned, and flung open the window.

  Over the wet woods a rain-washed moon glittered; the long storm had passed.

  An hour later, as she kneeled by the open window, her chin on her arms, watching for him, out of the shadow and into the full moonlight galloped a rider who drew bridle on the distant lawn, waving her a gay gesture of reassurance.

  It was too far for her to call; she dared not descend fearing the dogs might wake the house.

  And in answer to his confident salute, she lighted a candle, and, against the darkness, drew the fiery outline of a heart; then extinguishing the light, she sank back in her big chair, watching him as he settled in his stirrups for the night-long vigil that she meant to share with him till dawn.

  The whole night long once more together! She thrilled at the thought of it — at the memory of that other night and dawn under the Southern planets where a ghostly ocean thundered at their feet — where her awakened heart quickened with the fear of him — and all her body trembled with the blessed fear of him, and every breath was delicious with terror of the man who had come this night to guard her.

  Partly undressed, head cradled in her tumbled hair, she lay there in the darkness watching him — her paladin on guard beneath the argent splendour of the moon. Under the loosened silken vest her heart was racing; under the unbound hair her cheeks were burning. The soft lake breeze rippled the woodbine leaves along the sill, stirring the lace and ribbon on her breast.

  Hour after hour she lay there, watching him through the dreamy lustre of the moon, all the mystery of her love for him tremulous within her. Once, on the edge of sleep, yet still awake, she stretched her arms toward him in the darkness, unconsciously as she did in dreams.

  Slowly the unreality of it all was enveloping her, possessed her as her lids grew heavy. In the dim silvery light she could scarcely see him now: a frail mist belted horse and rider, stretching fairy barriers across the lawn. Suddenly, within her, clear, distinct, a voice began calling to him imperiously; but her lips never moved. Yet she knew he would hear; surely he heard! Surely, surely! — for was he not already drifting toward her through the moonlight, nearer, here under the palms and orange-trees — here at her feet, holding her close, safe, strong, till, faint with the happiness of dreams come true, she slept, circled by his splendid arms.

  And, while she lay there, lips scarce parted, sleeping quietly as a tired child, he sat his mud-splashed saddle, motionless under the moon, eyes never leaving her window for an instant, till at last the far dawn broke and the ghostly shadows fled away.

  Then, in the pallid light, he slowly gathered bridle and rode back into the Southern forest, head heavy on his breast.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  MALCOURT LISTENS

  Malcourt was up and ready before seven when his sister came to his door, dressed in her pretty blue travelling gown, hatted, veiled, gloved to perfection; but there was a bloom on cheek and mouth which mocked at the wearied eyes — a lassitude in every step as she slowly entered and seated herself.

  For a moment neither spoke; her brother was looking at her narrowly; and after a while she raised her veil, turning her face to the merciless morning light.

  “Paint,” she said; “and I’m little older than you.”

  “You will be younger than I am, soon.”

  She paled a trifle under the red.

  “Are you losing your reason, Louis?”

  “No, but I’ve contrived to lose everything else. It was a losing game from the beginning — for both of us.”

  “Are you going to be coward enough to drop your cards and quit the game?”

  “Call it that. But the cards are marked and the game crooked — as crooked as Herby’s.” He began to laugh. “The world’s dice are loaded; I’ve got enough.”

  “Yet you beat Bertie in spite of—”

  “For Portlaw’s sake. I wouldn’t fight with marked cards for my own sake. Faugh! the world plays a game too rotten to suit me. I’ll drop my hand and — take a stroll for a little fresh air — out yonder—” He waved his arm toward the rising sun. “Just a step into the fresh air, Helen.”

  “Are you not afraid?” She managed to form the words with stiffened lips.

  “Afraid?” He stared at her. “No; neither are you. You’ll do it, too, some day. If you don’t want to now, you will later; if you have any doubts
left they won’t last. We have no choice; it’s in us. We don’t belong here, Helen; we’re different. We didn’t know until we’d tried to live like other people, and everything went wrong.” A glint of humour came into his eyes. “I’ve made up my mind that we’re extra-terrestrial — something external and foreign to this particular star. I think it’s time to ask for a transfer and take the star ahead.”

  Not a muscle moved in her expressionless face; he shrugged and drew out his watch.

  “I’m sorry, Helen—”

  “Is it time to go?”

  “Yes.... Why do you stick to that little cockney pup?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You ruined a decent man to pick him out of the gutter. Why don’t you drop him back?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you — ah — care for him?”

  “No.”

  “Then why—”

  She shook her head.

  “Quite right,” said Malcourt, rising; “you’re in the wrong planet, too. And the sooner you realise it the sooner we’ll meet again. Good-bye.”

  She turned horribly pale, stammering something about his coming with her, resisting a little as he drew her out, down the stairs, and aided her to enter the depot-wagon. There he kissed her; and she caught him around the neck, holding him convulsively.

  “Nonsense,” he whispered. “I’ve talked it all over with father; he and I’ll talk it over some day with you. Then you’ll understand.” And backing away he called to the coachman: “Drive on!” ignoring his brother-in-law, who sat huddled in a corner, glassy eyes focused on him.

  Portlaw almost capered with surprise and relief when at breakfast he learned that the Tressilvains had departed.

  “Oh, everything is coming everybody’s way,” said Malcourt gaily— “like the last chapter of a bally novel — the old-fashioned kind, Billy, where Nemesis gets busy with a gun and kind Providence hitches ’em up in ever-after blocks of two. It takes a rotten novelist to use a gun on his villains! It’s never done in decent literature — never done anywhere except in real life.”

  He swallowed his coffee and, lighting a cigarette, tipped back his chair, balancing himself with one hand on the table.

  “The use of the gun,” he said lazily, “is obsolete in the modern novel; the theme now is, how to be passionate though pure. Personally, being neither one nor the other, I remain uninterested in the modern novel.”

  “Real life,” said Portlaw, spearing a fish-ball, “is damn monotonous. The only gun-play is in the morning papers.”

  “Sure,” nodded Malcourt, “and there’s too many shooting items in ’em every day to make gun-play available for a novel.... Once, when I thought I could write — just after I left college — they took me aboard a morning newspaper on the strength of a chance I had to discover a missing woman.

  “She was in hiding; her name had been horribly spattered in a divorce, and the poor thing was in hiding — had changed her name, crept off to a little town in Delaware.

  “Our enlightened press was hunting for her; to find her was termed a ‘scoop,’ I believe.... Well — boys pull legs off grasshoppers and do other damnable things without thinking.... I found her.... So as I knocked at her door — in the mean little farmhouse down there in Delaware — she opened it, smiling — she was quite pretty — and blew her brains out in my very face.”

  “Wh-what!” bawled Portlaw, dropping knife and fork.

  “I — I want to see that girl again — some time,” said Malcourt thoughtfully. “I would like to tell her that I didn’t mean it — case of boy and grasshopper, you know.... Well, as you say, gun-play has no place in real novels. There wouldn’t be room, anyway, with all the literature and illustrations and purpose and purple preciousness; as anachronismatically superfluous as sleigh-bells in hell.”

  Portlaw resumed his egg; Malcourt considered him ironically.

  “Sporty Porty, are you going to wed the Pretty Lady of Pride’s Hall at Pride’s Fall some blooming day in June?”

  “None of your infernal business!”

  “Quite so. I only wanted to see how the novel was coming out before somebody takes the book away from me.”

  “You talk like a pint of shoe-strings,” growled Portlaw; “you’d better find out whose horse has been denting the lawn all over and tearing off several yards of sod.”

  “I know already,” said Malcourt.

  “Well, who had the nerve to—”

  “None of your bally business, dear friend. Are you riding over to Pride’s to-day?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I think I’ll go, too.”

  “You’re not expected.”

  “That’s the charm of it, old fellow. I didn’t expect to go; they don’t expect me; they don’t want me; I want to go! All the elements of a delightful surprise, do you notice?”

  Portlaw said, irritably: “They asked Mrs. Malcourt and me. Nothing was said about you.”

  “Something will be said if I go,” observed Malcourt cheerfully.

  Portlaw was exasperated. “There’s a girl there you behaved badly to. You’d better stay away.”

  Malcourt looked innocently surprised.

  “Now, who could that be! I have, it is true, at times, misbehaved, but I can’t ever remember behaving badly—”

  Portlaw, too mad to speak, strode wrathfully away toward the stables.

  Malcourt was interested to see that he could stride now without waddling.

  “Marvellous, marvellous! — the power of love!” he mused sentimentally; “Porty is no longer rotund — only majestically portly. See where he hastens lightly to his Alida!

  “Shepherd fair and maidens all — Too-ri-looral! Too-ri-looral!”

  And, very gracefully, he sketched a step or two in contra-dance to his own shadow on the grass.

  “Shepherd fair and maidens all — Truly rural, Too-ri-looral, Man prefers his maidens plural; One is none, he wants them all! Too-ri-looral! Too-ri-looral—”

  And he sauntered off humming gaily, making playful passes at the trees with his riding-crop as he passed.

  Later he aided his wife to mount and stood looking after her as she rode away, Portlaw pounding along heavily beside her.

  “All alone with the daisies,” he said, looking around him when they had disappeared.

  Toward noon he ordered a horse, ate his luncheon in leisurely solitude, read yesterday’s papers while he smoked, then went out, mounted, and took the road to Pride’s Fall, letting his horse choose his own pace.

  Moving along through the pretty forest road, he glanced casually right and left as he advanced, tapping his riding-boots in rhythm to the air he was humming in a careless undertone — something about a shepherd and the plural tastes of man.

  His mood was inspired by that odd merriment which came from sheer perversity. When the depths and shallows of his contradictory character were disturbed a ripple of what passed for mirth covered all the surface; if there was any profundity to the man the ripple obscured it. No eye had ever penetrated the secrecy of what lay below; none ever would. Perhaps there was nothing there.

  He journeyed on, his horse ambling or walking as it suited him, or sometimes veering to stretch a long glossy neck and nip at a bunch of leaves.

  The cock-partridge stood on his drumming-log and defied the forest rider, all unseen; rabbit and squirrel sat bolt upright with palpitating flanks and moist bright eyes at gaze; overhead the slow hawks sailed, looking down at him as he rode.

  Sometimes Malcourt whistled to himself, sometimes he sang in a variably agreeable voice, and now and then he quoted the poets, taking pleasure in the precision of his own diction.

  “C’est le jour des morts, Mirliton, Mirlitaine! Requiescant in pace!”

  he chanted; and quoted more of the same bard with a grimace, adding, as he spurred his horse:

  “Poeta nascitur, non fit! — the poet’s nasty and not fit. Zut! Boum-boum! Get along, old fellow, or we’ll never see the pretty
ladies of Pride’s this blooming day!”

  There was a shorter cut by a spotted trail, and when he saw the first blaze glimmering through the leaves he steered his horse toward it. The sound of voices came distantly from the wooded heights above — far laughter, the faint aroma of a wood fire; no doubt some picnickers — trespassing as usual, but that was Mrs. Ascott’s affair.

  A little later, far below him, he caught a glimpse of a white gown among the trees. There was a spring down there somewhere in that thicket of silver birches; probably one of the trespassers was drinking. So, idly curious, he rode that way, his horse making no sound on the thick moss.

  “If she’s ornamental,” he said to himself, “I’ll linger to point out the sin of trespassing; that is if she is sufficiently ornamental—”

  His horse stepped on a dead branch which cracked; the girl in white, who had been looking out through the birch-trees across the valley, turned her head.

  They recognised each other even at that distance; he uttered a low exclamation of satisfaction, sprang from his saddle, and led his horse down among the mossy rocks of the water-course to the shelf of rock overhanging the ravine where she stood as motionless as one of the silver saplings.

  “Virginia,” he said, humorously abashed, “shall I say I am glad to see you, and how d’you do, and offer you my hand? — or had I better not?”

  He thought she meant to answer; perhaps she meant to, but found no voice at her disposal.

  He dropped his bridle over a branch and, drawing off his gloves, walked up to where she was standing.

  “I knew you were at Pride’s Hall,” he said; “I’m aware, also, that nobody there either expected or wished to see me. But I wanted to see you; and little things of that sort couldn’t keep me away. Where are the others?”

  She strove twice to answer him, then turned abruptly, steadying herself against a birch-tree with one arm.

  “Where are the others, Virginia?” he asked gently.