Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  But circumstances altered his views; the great popular feminine upheaval in America was now in full swing; the eugenic principle had been declared; all human infirmity and degenerate imperfections were to be abolished through marriages based no longer upon sentiment and personal inclination, but upon the scientific selection of mates for the purpose of establishing the ideally flawless human race.

  This was a pretty bad business for Lord Marque. The day after his arrival he was a witness of the suffragette riots when the Mayor, the Governor, and every symmetrical city, county, and State official was captured and led blushing to the marriage license bureau. He had seen the terrible panic in Long Acre, where thousands of handsome young men were being chased in every direction by beautiful and swift-footed suffragettes. From his window in the Hotel Astor he had gazed with horror upon this bachelors’ St. Bartholomew, and, distracted, had retired under his bed for the balance of the evening, almost losing consciousness when a bell-hop knocked at his door with a supply of towels.

  Only one thought comforted him; the ocean rolled majestically between the Lady Diana, her pastry, and the last of the house of Marque.

  Never should that terrible and athletic young woman discover his whereabouts if he had to remain away from London forever; never, never would he eat that pastry!

  As he lay under his bed, stroking his short moustache and occasionally sneezing, he remembered with a shudder his flight from those solid silver hair-brushes through Regent’s Park; he recalled how, behind him, long after the heavier feminine aristocracy had given up the chase, one youthful, fleet, supple, and fearsome girl had hung to his trail — a tall, lithe, incarnation of her goddess namesake.

  She had been too far away for him to distinguish her features; only in Liverpool, where one dark night he ventured out to buy a copy of the Queen and eagerly read the details of the function, did he learn the name of his closest pursuer.

  Later, furtively haunting the smoking room on the Caramania, he learned from the gossip there of Lady Diana’s vow that she would never rest until Lord Marque had eaten her plum cake with its frosted inscription — this inscription consisting of the flippant words of his own rash speech delivered in the upper house of Parliament.

  Now, lying on his back under the bed, while outside in Long Acre the dreadful work was going on, he lighted a cigarette and pondered the situation. He didn’t believe that Lady Diana would attempt to trail him to America. That was one comfort. But, in view of the suffragette disturbances going on outside his windows, he saw little prospect of a dollar princess for the present. Meanwhile, how was he to exist?

  The vague and British convictions concerning the rapid accumulation of wealth on a “ranch” of any kind comforted Marque. He also believed them.

  And three months later he had managed to survive a personal acquaintance with the following episodes:

  First, one large revolver bullet through hat with request to answer affably when addressed by white men.

  Second, one infuriated cow.

  Third, one indigestion incubated by cumulative series of pie and complicated by attentions from one large centipede.

  Fourth, one contusion from a Montana boot with suggestion concerning monocle.

  Fifth, one 45-70 Winchester projectile severing string of monocle, accompanied by laughter and Navajo blanket.

  Sixth, comprehensive corporal casualties incident upon international altercation concerning relative importance of Guy Fawkes and July 4th.

  Seventh, physical debility due to excessive local popularity following personal encounter with one rustler.

  Eighth, complete prostration in consequence of frequent attempts to render thanks for toasts offered him at banquet in celebration of his impending departure for the East.

  Ninth, general collapse following bump of coal and forcible ejection from freight train near Albany, New York.

  XI

  The duties of young Lord Marque, the new man on the Willett estate at Caranay, left him at leisure only after six o’clock, his day being almost entirely occupied in driving a large lawn mower.

  Life, for John Marque — as he now called himself — had become exquisitely simple; eating, sleeping, driving a lawn mower — these three manly sports so entirely occupied the twenty-four hours that he had scarcely time to do much weeding — and no time at all to sympathise with himself because he was too busy by day and too sleepy at night.

  Sundays he might have taken off for the purpose of condoling with himself, had it not been for the new telephone operator.

  She was a recent incumbent at the railroad station — a tall, clear-skinned, yellow-haired girl of twenty-five who sat at her desk all day saying in a low, prettily modulated voice, “hello — hello — hello — hello” to unseen creatures of whom John Marque wotted not.

  Three things concerning her he had noticed: She wore pink gingham; she never seemed to see him when he came down to the little sunburnt platform and seated himself on the edge, feet dangling over the rails; he had never seen her except when she was seated at the pine table which was ornamented by her instrument and switchboard. She had a bed-room and kitchen in the rear. But he never saw her go into them or emerge; never saw her except seated at her switchboard, either reading or sewing, or, with the silvery and Greek-like band encircling her hair and supporting the receiver close to her small ears, repeating in her low, modulated voice: hello — hello — hello — hello.

  He wondered how tall she might be. He had never seen her standing or walking. He wondered what her direct gaze might be like. Only her profile had he yet beheld — a sweet, youthful, profile nobly outlined under the gold of her hair; but under the partly lowered lashes as she sat sewing or reading or summoning centrals from the vast expanses of North America, he divined eyes of a soft lilac-blue. And he chewed his pipe-stem and kicked his feet and thought about them.

  Few trains stopped at Caranay except for water; the station, an old-time farm house of small dimensions, overlooking the track and Willow Brook, contained ticket office, telephone, and telegraph in one — all presided over by the telephone operator. Sometimes as many as two people in a week bought railroad tickets; sometimes a month would pass without anybody either sending or receiving a telegram. Telephone calls were a little more frequent.

  So the girl had little to do there at her sunny open window, where mignonette and heliotrope and nasturtiums bloomed in pots, and the big bumble bees came buzzing and plundering the little window garden. And, except on Sundays, Marque had little leisure to observe her, although in the long late June evenings it was still light at eight o’clock, and he had, without understanding how or why, formed the habit of coming down to the deserted station platform to smoke his pipe and sometimes to fish in the shallow waters of Willow Brook, and watch the ripples turn from gold to purple, and listen to a certain bird that sat singing every day at sunset on the tip of a fir-balsam across the stream — a black and white bird with a rosy pink chest.

  So lovely the evening song of this bird that Marque, often watching the girl askance, wondered that the surprising beauty of the melody never caused her to lift her head from book or sewing, or even rise from the table and come out to the doorway to listen.

  But she never did; and whether or not the bird’s singing appealed to her, he could not determine.

  Nobody in the little gossiping hamlet of Caranay seemed to know more than her name; he himself knew only a few people — men who, like himself, worked on the Willett place with hoe and rake and spraying cart and barrow — comrades of roller and mower and weed-fork and mole-trap — dull-witted cullers of dandelion and rose-beetle. And mostly their names were Hiram.

  These had their own kind in the female line to “go with” — Caranay being far from the metropolis, and as yet untroubled by the spreading feminine revolution. Only stray echoes of the doings had as yet penetrated to Caranay daisy fields; no untoward consequences had as yet ensued except that old Si Dinglebat’s wife, after reading the remains of a New York
paper found on the railroad track, had suddenly, and apparently in a fit of mental aberration, attacked Si with a mop, accompanying the onslaught with the reiterated inquiry: “Air wimmen to hev their rights?”

  That was the only manifestation of the welt-weh in Caranay — that and the other welt on Si’s dome-like and knobby forehead.

  He encountered Marque that evening after supper as that young man, in clean blue jeans, carrying a fish-pole and smoking his pipe, was wandering in circles preparatory to a drift in the general direction of the railroad station.

  “Evenin’, neighbour!” he said.

  “Good evening,” said the young man.

  “Goin’ sparkin’?” inquired Si, overflowing with natural curiosity and tobacco.

  “What?”

  “Be you goin’ a-sparkin’?”

  “Nonsense!” said Marque, reddening. “I don’t know any girls in Caranay.”

  “Waal, I cal’late you know that gal down to the depot, don’t ye?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Hey? I’m a leetle deef.”

  “No!” shouted Marque, “I don’t.”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t know her, dammit!”

  “Aw, quit yer cussin’,” said Si, with a gummy wink. “Folks has been talkin’ ever since the fustest time you set onto that there platform and that Eden gal fooled ye with her lookin’ glass.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Marque impatiently.

  “Issy Eden and her pretendin’ not to see nobody — an’ her a lookin’ into the leetle glass behind her table and a seein’ of ye all the time! I know she kin see because she ketched Hi Orville’s boy a-hookin’ apples outen the bar’l that—”

  “You mean she is able to see anybody on the platform,” said Marque, confused and astounded.

  “You bet she kin. I know because I peeked in the winder an’ I seen her a-lookin’ at you when you was fishin’ — —”

  But the young fellow had recovered himself: “All right,” he interrupted; “that isn’t your business or mine. Who gave you that crack on the lid?”

  “By gum,” he said, “Hetty done it. I was that took! Forty year, and she ain’t never throwed s’much as a dish pan at me. I wa’n’t lookin’ for no sech thing at my time o’ life, young man. So when I come in to wash up for supper, I sez to my woman, ‘Hello, Het,’ sez I, an’ she up an’ screeched an’ fetched me a clip.

  “‘Lord a’mighty!’ sez I. ‘Look out what ye doin’,’ sez I. ‘Air wimmen to hev their rights?’ sez she, makin’ for me some more. ‘Is wimmen to be free?’ she sez.

  “‘Yew bet,’ sez I, grabbin’ onto her. ‘I’ll make free with ye,’ sez I. An’ I up an’ tuk an’ spanked Hetty — the first time in forty year, young man! An’ it done her good, I guess, for she ain’t never cooked like she cooked supper to-night. God a’mighty, what biscuits them was!”

  Marque listened indifferently, scarcely following the details of the domestic episode because his mind was full of the girl at the station and the amazing discovery that all these days she could have seen him perfectly well at any moment if she had chosen to take the trouble, without moving more than her dark, silky lashes. Had she ever taken that trouble? He did not know, of course. He would like to have known.

  He nodded absently to the hero of the welt-weh clash, and, pipe in one hand, pole in the other, walked slowly down the road, crossed the track, and seated himself on the platform’s edge.

  She was at her desk, reading. And the young man felt himself turning red as he realised that, if she had chosen, she could have seen him sitting here every evening with his eyes fixed — yes, sentimentally fixed upon the back of her head and her pretty white neck and the lovely contour of her delicately curved cheek.

  All by himself he sat there and blushed, head lowered, apparently fussing with his line and hook and trying to keep his eyes off her, without much success.

  His angling methods were simple; he crossed the grass-grown track, set his pole in position, and returned to seat himself on the platform’s edge, where he could see his floating cork and — her. Then, as usual, he relapsed into meditation.

  If only just once she had ever betrayed the slightest knowledge of his presence in her vicinity he might, little by little, cautiously, and by degrees, have ventured to speak to her.

  But she never had evinced the slightest shadow of interest in anything as far as he had noticed.

  Now, as he sat there, the burnt out pipe between his teeth, watching alternately his rod and his divinity, the rose-breasted grosbeak began to sing in the pink light of sunset. Clear, pure, sweet, the song rang joyously from the tip of the balsam’s silver-green spire. He rested his head on one hand and listened.

  The song of this bird, the odour of heliotrope, the ruddy sunlight netting the ripples — these, for him, must forever suggest her.

  He had curious fancies about her and himself. He knew that, if she ever did turn and look at him out of those lilac-tinted eyes, he must fall in love with her, irrevocably. He admitted to himself that already he was in love with all he could see of her — the white neck and dull gold hair, the fair cheek’s curve, the glimpse of her hand as she deliberately turned a page in the book she was reading.

  But that evening passed as had the others; night came; she lowered her curtain; a faint tracery of lamplight glimmered around the edges; and, as always, he lighted his pipe and took his fish, and shouldered his pole and went home to die the little death we call sleep until the sun of toil should glitter above the eastern hills once more.

  A few days later he decided to make an ass of himself, having been sent with a wagon to Moss Centre, a neighbouring metropolis.

  First he sent a telegram to himself at Caranay, signing it William Smith. Then he went to the drug store telephone, and called up Caranay.

  “Hello! What number, please?” came a far, sweet voice; and Marque trembled: “No number. I want to speak to Mr. Marque — Mr. John Marque.”

  “He isn’t here.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Perfectly. I saw him driving one of Mr. Willett’s wagons across the track this morning.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. Could I — might I — ask a little information of you?”

  “Certainly.”

  “What sort of a fellow is this John Marque? He doesn’t amount to much I understand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I might want to employ him, but I don’t believe he is the sort of man to trust — —”

  “You are mistaken!” she said crisply.

  “You mean he is all right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Honest?”

  “Of course.”

  “Capable?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Sober?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “M-moral?”

  “Unquestionably!” she said indignantly.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I have means of information which I am not at liberty to disclose. Who is this speaking?”

  “William Smith of Minnow Hollow.”

  “Are you going to take Mr. Marque to Minnow Hollow?”

  “I may.”

  “You can’t. Mr. Willett employs him.”

  “Suppose I offer him better wages — —”

  “He is perfectly satisfied here.”

  “But I — —”

  “No! Mr. Marque does not care to leave Caranay.”

  “But — —”

  “I am sorry. It is useless to even suggest it to him. Good-bye!”

  With cheeks flushed and a slightly worried expression she resumed her sewing through the golden stillness of the afternoon. Now and then the clank of wagon wheels crossing the metals caused her to glance swiftly into her mirror to see what was going on behind her. And at last she saw Marque drive up, cross the track, then, giving the reins to the boy who sat beside h
im, turn and walk directly toward the station. And her heart gave a bound.

  For the first time he came directly to her window; she saw and heard him, knew he was waiting behind the mignonette and heliotrope, and went on serenely sewing.

  “Miss Eden?”

  She waited another moment — time enough to place her sewing leisurely on the table. Then, very slowly she turned in her chair and looked at him out of her dark lilac-hued eyes.

  He heard himself saying, as in a dream:

  “Is there a telegram for me?”

  And, as her delicate lifted brows questioned him:

  “I am John Marque,” he said.

  She picked up the telegram which lay on her table and handed it to him.

  “Thank you,” he said. After he had gone she realised that she had not spoken.

  XII

  Whenever he went to Moss Centre with the wagon he telephoned and telegraphed to himself, and about a month after he had begun this idiot performance he ventured to speak to her.

  It occurred late in July, just before sunset. He had placed his rod, lighted his pipe, and seated himself on the platform’s edge, when, all of a sudden, and without any apparent reason, a dizzy sort of recklessness seized him, and he got up and walked over to her window.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  She looked around leisurely.

  “Good evening,” she said in a low voice.

  “I was wondering,” he went on, scared almost to death, “whether you would mind if I spoke to you?”

  After a few seconds she said:

  “Well? Have you decided?”

  Badly frightened, he managed to find voice enough to express his continued uncertainty.

  “Why did you care to speak to me?” she asked.

  “I — we — you — —” and he stuck fast.

  “Had you anything to say to me?” she asked in a lower — and he thought a gentler — voice.