Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  She smiled, set the glass aside, and raised her eyes to the paling stars. When at last she stretched herself out on the bed, dawn was already lighting the room, but she fell asleep at once.

  It was a flushed and rather heavy slumber, not perfectly natural; and when Kathleen entered at nine o’clock, followed by Geraldine’s maid with the breakfast-tray, the girl still lay with face buried in her hair, breathing deeply and irregularly, her lashes wet with tears.

  The maid retired; Kathleen bent low over the feverishly parted lips, kissed them, hesitated, drew back sharply, and cast a rapid glance around the room. Then she went over to the dressing-table and lifted Rosalie’s antique flaçon; and set it back slowly, as the girl turned her face on the pillow and opened her eyes.

  “Is that you, Kathleen?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  For a few seconds she lay quite motionless, then, rising on one elbow, she passed the backs of her fingers across her lids, laughed sleepily, and straightened up, freeing her eyes from the confusion of her hair.

  “I’ve had horrid dreams. I’ve been crying in my sleep. Come here,” she said, stretching out her arms, and Kathleen went slowly.

  The girl pulled her head down, linking both arms around her neck:

  “You darling, can you ever guess what miracle happened to me yesterday?”

  “No.... What?”

  “I promised to marry Duane Mallett!”

  There was no reply. The girl clung to her excitedly, burying her face against Kathleen’s cheek, then released her with a laugh, and saw her face — saw the sorrowful amazement in it, the pain.

  “Kathleen!” she exclaimed, startled, “what is the matter?”

  Mrs. Severn dropped down on the bed’s edge, her hands loosely clasped. Geraldine’s brown eyes searched hers in hurt astonishment.

  “Aren’t you glad for me, Kathleen? What is it? Why do you—” And all at once she divined, and the hot colour stained her from brow to throat. Kathleen bent forward swiftly and caught her in her arms with a smothered cry; but the girl freed herself and leaned back, breathing fast.

  “Duane knows about me,” she said. “I told him.”

  “He knew before you told him, my darling.”

  Another wave of scarlet swept Geraldine’s face.

  “That is true.... He found out — last April.... But he and I are not afraid. I promised him—” And her voice failed as the memory of the night’s indulgence flashed in her brain.

  Kathleen began: “You promised me, too—” And her voice also failed.

  There was a silence; the girl’s eyes turned miserably toward the dressing-table, closed with a slow, inward breath which ended like a sob; and again she was in Kathleen’s arms — struggled from them only to drop her head on Kathleen’s knees and lie, tense face hidden, both hands clenched. The wave of grief and shame swept her and passed.

  After a while she spoke in a hard little voice:

  “It is foolish to say I cannot control myself.... I did not think what I was doing last night — that was all. Duane knows my danger — tendency, I mean. He isn’t worried; he knows that I can take care of myself — —”

  “Don’t marry him until you know you can.”

  “But I am perfectly certain of myself now!”

  “Only prove it, darling. Be frank with me. Who in the world loves you as I do, Geraldine? Who desires happiness for you as I do? What have I in life besides you and Scott?... And lately, dearest — I must speak as I feel — something — some indefinable constraint seems to have grown between you and me — something — I don’t exactly know what — that threatens our intimate understanding — —”

  “No, there is nothing!”

  “Be honest with me, dear. What is it?”

  The girl lay silent for a while, then:

  “I don’t know myself. I have been — worried. It may have been that.”

  “Worried about yourself, you poor lamb?”

  “A little.... And a little about Duane.”

  “But, darling, if Duane loves you, that is all cleared up, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.... But for a long time he and Rosalie made me perfectly wretched.... I didn’t know I was in love with him, either.... And I couldn’t sleep very much, and I — I simply couldn’t tell you how unhappy they were making me — and I — sometimes — now and then — in fact, very often, I — formed the custom of — doing what I ought not to have done — to steady my nerves — in fact, I simply let myself go — badly.”

  “Oh, my darling! My darling! Couldn’t you have told me — let me sit with you, talk, read to you — love you to sleep? Why did you do this, Geraldine?”

  “Nothing — very disgraceful — ever happened. It only helped me to sleep when I was excited and miserable.... I — I didn’t care what I did — Duane and Rosalie made me so wretched. And there seemed no use in my trying to be different from others, and I thought I might as well be as rotten as everybody. But I tried and couldn’t — I tried, for instance, to misbehave with Jack Dysart, but I couldn’t — and I only hated myself and him and Rosalie and Duane!”

  She sat up, flushed, dishevelled, lips quivering. “I want to confess! I’ve been horribly depraved for a week! I gambled with the Pink ‘uns and swore as fashionably as I knew how! I scorched my tongue with cigarettes; I sat in Bunny Gray’s room with the door bolted and let him teach me how to make silver fizzes and Chinese juleps out of Rose wine and saki! I let Jack Dysart retain my hand — and try to kiss me — several times — —”

  “Geraldine!”

  “I did. I wanted to be horrid.”

  She sat there breathing fast, her big brown eyes looking defiantly at Kathleen, but the child’s mouth quivered beyond control and the nervous hands tightened and relaxed.

  “How bad have I been, Kathleen? It sounds pretty bad to tell it. But Muriel says ‘damn!’ and Rosalie says ‘the devil!’ and when anything goes wrong and I say, ‘Oh, fluff!’ I mean swearing, so I thought I’d do it.... And almost every woman I know smokes and has her favourite cocktail, and they all bet and play for stakes; and from what I hear talked about, nobody’s conduct is modified because anybody happens to be married — —”

  The horror in Kathleen’s blue eyes checked her; she hid her face in her hands for a moment, then flung out her arms and crushed Kathleen to her breast.

  “I’m going to tell Duane how I’ve behaved. I couldn’t rest until he knows the very worst ... how fearfully common and bad a girl I can be. Darling, don’t break down. I don’t want to go any closer to the danger line than I’ve been. And, oh, I’m so ashamed, so humiliated — I — I wish I could go to Duane as — as clean and sweet and innocent as he would have me. For he is the dearest boy — and I love him so, Kathleen. I’m so silly about him.... I’ve got to tell him how I behaved, haven’t I?”

  “‘I want to confess! I’ve been horribly depraved for a week!’”

  “Are — are you going to?”

  “Of course I am!” ... She drew away and sat up very straight in bed, serious, sombre-eyed, hands clasped tightly about her knees.

  “Do you know,” she said, as though to herself, “it is curious that a trivial desire for anything like that” — pointing to Rosalie’s gift— “should make me restless — annoy me, cause me discomfort. I can’t understand why it should actually torment me. It really does, sometimes.”

  “That is the terrible part of it,” faltered Kathleen. “For God’s sake, keep clear of anything with even the faintest odour of alcohol about it.... Where did you find that cut-glass thing?”

  “Rosalie gave it to me.”

  “What is in it?”

  “I don’t know — crême de something or other.”

  Kathleen took the girl’s tightly clasped hands in hers:

  “Geraldine, you’ve got to be square to Duane. You can’t marry him until you cleanse yourself, until you scour yourself free of this terrible inclination for stimulants.”

  “H-how can I? I don’t intend, ever
again, to — —”

  “Prove it then. Let sufficient time elapse — —”

  “How long? A — year?”

  “Dear, if you will show a clean record of self-control for a year I ask no more. It ought not to be difficult for you to dominate this silly weakness. Your will-power is scarcely tainted. What fills me with fear is this habit you have formed of caressing danger — this childish trifling with something which is still asleep in you — with all that is weak and ignoble. It is there — it is in all of us — in you, too. Don’t rouse it; it is still asleep — merely a little restless in its slumber — but, oh, Geraldine! Geraldine! — if you ever awake it! — if you ever arouse it to its full, fierce consciousness — —”

  “I won’t,” said the girl hastily. “Oh, I won’t, I won’t, Kathleen, darling. I do know it’s in me — I feel that if I ever let myself go I could be reckless and wicked. But truly, truly, I won’t. I — darling, you mustn’t cry — please, don’t — because you are making me cry. I cried in my sleep, too.... I ought to be very happy—” She forced a laugh through the bright tears fringing her lashes, bent forward swiftly, kissed Kathleen, and sprang from the bed.

  “I want my bath and breakfast!” she cried. “If I’m to be a Louis XVI doll this week, it’s time my face was washed and my sawdust reinforced. Do fix my tray, dear, while I’m in the bath — and ring for my maid.... And when you go down you may tell Duane to wait for me on the stairs. It’s good discipline; he’ll find it stupid because I’ll be a long time — but, oh, Kathleen, it is perfectly heavenly to bully him!”

  Later she sent a note to him by her maid:

  “To the Only Man in the World,

  On the Stairs.

  “Patient Sir: If you will go to the large beech-tree beyond Hurryon Gate and busy yourself by carving upon it certain initials intertwined within the circumscribed outlines of a symbol popularly supposed to represent a human heart, your industry will be presently and miraculously rewarded by the apparition of her who presumably occupies no inconsiderable place in your affections.”

  At the Hurryon Gate Duane found Rosalie trying to unlock it, a dainty, smiling Rosalie, fresh as a blossom, and absurdly like a schoolgirl with her low-cut collar, snowy neck, and the thick braid of hair. Under her arm she carried her bathing-dress.

  “I’m going for a swim; I nearly perished with the heat last night.... Did you sleep well, Duane?”

  “Rather well.”

  She hesitated, looked up: “Are you coming with me?”

  “I have an appointment.”

  “Oh!... Are you going to let me go alone?”

  He laughed: “I’ve no choice; I really have an appointment this morning.”

  She inspected him, drew a step nearer, laid both hands lightly on his shoulders.

  “Duane, dear,” she said, “are you really going to let me drift past you out to sea — after all?”

  “What else can I do? Besides, you are not going to drift.”

  “Yes, I am. You were very nice to me yesterday.”

  “It was you who were very sweet to me.... But I told you how matters stand. You care for your husband.”

  “Yes, you did tell me. But it is not true. I thought about it all night long; I find that I do not care for him — as you told me I did.”

  He said, smiling: “Nor do you really care for me.”

  “I could care.”

  Her hands still lay lightly on his shoulders; he smilingly disengaged them, saluted the finger tips, and swung them free.

  “No, you couldn’t,” he said— “nor could I.”

  She clasped her hands behind her, confronting him with that gaily audacious allure which he knew so well:

  “Does a man really care whether or not he is in love with a woman before he makes love to her?”

  “Do you want an honest answer?”

  “Please.”

  “Well, then — if she is sufficiently attractive, a man doesn’t usually care.”

  “Am I sufficiently attractive?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then — why do you hesitate?... I know the rules of the game. When one wearies, the other must pretend to.... And then they make their adieux very amiably.... Isn’t that a man’s ideal of an affair with a pretty woman?”

  He laughed: “I suppose so.”

  “So do I. You are no novice, are you — as I am?”

  “Are you a novice, Rosalie?”

  “Yes, I am. You probably don’t believe it. It is absurd, isn’t it, considering these lonely years — considering what he has done — that I haven’t anything with which to reproach myself.”

  “It is very admirable,” he said.

  “Oh, yes, theoretically. I was too fastidious — perhaps a little bit too decent. It’s curious how inculcated morals and early precepts make mountains out of what is really very simple travelling. If a woman ceases to love her husband, she is going to miss too much in life if she’s afraid to love anybody else.... I suppose I have been afraid.”

  “It’s rather a wholesome sort of fear,” he said.

  “Wholesome as breakfast-food. I hate it. Besides, the fear doesn’t exist any more,” shaking her head. “Like the pretty girls in a very popular and profoundly philosophical entertainment, I’ve simply got to love somebody” — she smiled at him— “and I’d prefer to fall honestly and disgracefully in love with you — if you’d give me the opportunity.” There was a pause. “Otherwise,” she concluded, “I shall content myself with doing a mischief to your sex where I can. I give you the choice, Duane — I give you the disposal of myself. Am I to love — you? — or be loved by God knows whom — and make him suffer for it” — she set her little even teeth— “and pay back to men what man has done to me?”

  “Nonsense,” he said good-humouredly; “isn’t there anything except playing at love that counts in the world?”

  “Nothing counts without it. I’ve learned that much.”

  “Some people have done pretty well without it.”

  “You haven’t. You might have been a really good painter if you cared for a woman who cared for you. There’s no tenderness in your work; it’s all technique and biceps.”

  He said gravely: “You are right.”

  “Am I?... Do you think you could try to care for me — even for that reason, Duane — to become a better painter?”

  “I’m afraid not,” he said pleasantly.

  There was a silence; her expression changed subtly, then the colour came back and she smiled and nodded adieu.

  “Good-bye,” she said; “I’m going to get into all sorts of mischief. The black flag is hoisted. Malheur aux hommes!”

  “There’s one now,” said Duane, laughing as Delancy Grandcourt’s bulk appeared among the trees along Hurryon Water. “Lord! what a bungler he is on a trout-stream!”

  Rosalie turned and gazed at the big, clumsy young man who was fishing with earnestness and method every unlikely pool in sight.

  “Does he belong to anybody?” she asked, considering him. “I want to do real damage. He is usually at Geraldine’s heels, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, let him alone,” said Duane; “he’s an awfully decent fellow. If a man of that slow, plodding, faithful species ever is thoroughly aroused by a woman, it will be a lively day for his tormentor.”

  Rosalie’s blue eyes sparkled: “Will it?”

  “Yes, it will. You had better not play hob with Delancy. Are you intending to?”

  “I don’t know. Look at the man! That’s the fourth time he’s landed his line in a bush! He’ll fall into that pool if he’s not — mercy! — there he goes! Did you ever see such a genius for clumsiness?”

  She was moving forward through the trees as she spoke; Duane called after her in a warning voice:

  “Don’t try to do anything to disturb him. It’s not good sport; he’s a mighty decent sort, I tell you.”

  “I won’t play any tricks on your good young man,” she said with a shrug of contempt, and sauntered off
toward the Gray Water. Her path, however, crossed Grandcourt’s, and as she stepped upon the footbridge she glanced down, where, wading gingerly in mid-stream, Delancy floundered and panted and barely contrived to maintain a precarious footing, while sending his flies sprawling down the rapids.

  “Good-morning,” she nodded, as he caught sight of her. He attempted to take off his cap, slipped, wallowed, and recovered his balance by miracle alone.

  “There’s a thumping big trout under that bridge,” he informed her eagerly; “he ran downstream just now, but I can’t seem to raise him.”

  “You splash too much. You’d probably raise him if you raised less of something else.”

  “Is that it?” he inquired innocently. “I try not to, but I generally manage to raise hell with every pool before I get a chance to fish it. I’ll show you just where he lies. Watch!”

  His cast of flies whistled wildly; there was a quick pang of pain in her shoulder and she gave a frightened cry.

  “Good Lord! Have I got you?” he exclaimed, aghast.

  “You certainly have,” she retorted, exasperated, “and you had better come up and get this hook out! You’ll need it if you want to fish any more.”

  Dripping and horrified, he scrambled up the bank to the footbridge; she flinched, but made no sound, as he freed her from the hook; a red stain appeared on the sleeve of her waist, above the elbow.

  “It’s fortunate that it was a b-barbless hook,” he stammered, horribly embarrassed and contemplating with dismay the damage he had accomplished; “otherwise,” he added, “we would have had to cut out the hook. We’re rather lucky, I think. Is it very painful?”

  “Sufficiently,” she said, disgusted. “But I suppose this sort of thing is nothing unusual for you.”

  “I’ve hooked one or two people,” he admitted, reddening. “I suppose you won’t bother to forgive me, but I’m terribly sorry. If you’ll let me put a little mud on it — —”

  She disdained to reply. He hovered about her, clumsily solicitous, and whichever way she turned, he managed to get underfoot, until, thoroughly vexed, she stood stock-still and opened her arms with a hopeless gesture: