Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  There was a brief and frantic scuffle; then the poet fled, his bunch of frizzled hair on end, and the two men entered the apartment.

  To the left a big studio loomed, set with artistic furniture and bric-a-brac and Mr. Waudle — the latter in motion. In fact, he was at that moment in the process of rushing at Mr. Clydesdale, and under full head-way.

  Whenever Mr. Waudle finally obtained sufficient momentum to rush, he appeared to be a rather serious proposition; for he was as tall as Clydesdale and very much fatter, and his initial velocity, combined with his impact force per square inch might have rivalled the dynamic problems of the proving ground.

  Clydesdale took one step forward to welcome him, and Waudle went down, like thunder.

  Then he got up, went down immediately; got up, went down, stayed down for an appreciable moment; arose, smote the air, was smitten with a smack so terrific that the poet, who was running round and round the four walls, squeaked in sympathy.

  Waudle sat up on the floor, his features now an unrecognisable mess. He was crying.

  “I say, Desboro, catch that poet for me — there’s a good chap,” said Clydesdale, breathing rather hard.

  The Cubist, who had been running round and round like a frantic rabbit, screamed and ran the faster.

  “Oh, just shy some bric-a-brac at him and come home,” said Desboro in disgust.

  But Clydesdale caught him, seated himself, jerked the devotee of the moon across his ponderous knees, and, grinning, hoisted on high the heavy hand of justice. And the post-impressionistic literature of the future shrieked.

  “Very precious, isn’t it?” panted Clydesdale. “You dirty little mop of hair, I think I’ll spank you into the future. Want a try at this moon-pup, Desboro? No? Quite right; you don’t need the exercise. Whew!” And he rolled the writhing poet off his knees and onto the floor, sat up breathing hard and grinning around him.

  “Now for the club and a cold plunge — eh, Desboro? I tell you it puts life into a man, doesn’t it? Perhaps, while I’m about it, I might as well beat up the other one a little more — —”

  “My God!” blubbered Waudle.

  “Oh, very well — if you feel that way about it,” grinned Clydesdale. “But you understand that you won’t have any sensation to feel with at all if you ever again even think of the name of Mrs. Clydesdale.”

  He got up, still panting jovially, pleased as a great Dane puppy who has shaken an old shoe to fragments.

  At the door he paused and glanced back.

  “Take it from me,” he said genially, “if we ever come back, we’ll kill.”

  In the street once more, they lingered on the sidewalk for a moment or two before separating. Clydesdale drew off his split and ruined gloves, rolled them together and tossed them into the passing handcart of a street sweeper.

  “Unpleasant job,” he commented.

  “I don’t think you’ll have it to do over again,” smiled Desboro.

  “No, I think not. And thank you for yielding so gracefully to me. It was my job. But you didn’t miss anything; it was like hitting a feather bed. No sport in it — but had to be done. Well, glad to have seen you again, Desboro.”

  They exchanged grips; both flushed a trifle, hesitated, nodded pleasantly to each other, and separated.

  At the office Cairns inspected him curiously as he entered, but, as Desboro said nothing, he asked no questions. A client or two sauntered in and out. At one o’clock they lunched together.

  “I understand you’re coming up for the week-end,” said Desboro.

  “Your wife was good enough to ask me.”

  “Glad you’re coming. Old Herrendene has been ordered to Governor’s Island. He expects to stop with the Lindley Hammertons over Sunday.”

  “That Daisy girl’s a corker,” remarked Cairns, “ — only I’ve always been rather afraid of her.”

  “She’s a fine girl.”

  “Rather in Herrendene’s class — lots of character,” nodded Cairns thoughtfully. “Having none myself, she always had me backed up against the rail.”

  After a silence, Desboro said: “That was a ghastly break of mine last night.”

  “Rotten,” said Cairns bluntly.

  The painful colour rose to Desboro’s temples.

  “It will be the last, Jack. I lived a thousand years last night.”

  “I lived a few hundred myself,” said Cairns reproachfully. “And what a thoroughbred your wife is!”

  Desboro nodded and drew a deep, unsteady breath.

  “Well,” he said, after a few moments, “it is a terrible thing for a man to learn what he really is. But if he doesn’t learn it he’s lost.”

  Cairns assented with a jerk of his head.

  “But who’s to hold up the mirror to a man?” he asked. “When his father and mother shove it under his nose he won’t look; when clergy or laymen offer him a looking-glass he shuts his eyes and tries to kick them. That’s the modern youngster — the product of this modern town with its modern modes of thought.”

  “The old order of things was the best,” said Desboro. “Has anybody given us anything better than what they reasoned us into discarding — the old gentleness of manners, the quaint, stiff formalisms now out of date, the shyness and reticence of former days, the serenity, the faith which is now unfashionable, the old-time reverence?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cairns, “what we’ve gained in the discard. I look now at the cards they offer us to take up, and there is nothing on them. And the game has forced us to throw away what we had.” He caressed his chin thoughtfully. “The only way to do is to return to first principles, cut a fresh pack, never mind new rules and innovations, but play the game according to the decalogue. And nobody can call you down.” He reddened, and added honestly: “That’s not entirely my own, Jim. There are some similar lines in a new play which Miss Lessler and I were reading this morning.”

  “Reading? Where?”

  “Oh, we walked through the Park together rather early — took it easy, you know. She read aloud as we walked.”

  “She is coming for the week-end,” said Desboro.

  “I believe so.”

  Desboro, lighting a cigarette, permitted his very expressionless glance to rest on his friend for the briefest fraction of a second.

  “The papers,” he said, “speak of her work with respect.”

  “Miss Lessler,” said Cairns, “is a most unusual girl.”

  Neither men referred to the early days of their acquaintance with Cynthia Lessler. As though by tacit agreement those days seemed to have been entirely forgotten.

  “A rarely intelligent and lovely comedienne,” mused Cairns, poking the cigar ashes on the tray and finally laying aside his cigar. “Well, Jim, I suppose the office yawns for us. But it won’t have anything on my yawn when I get there!”

  They went back across Fifth Avenue in the brilliant afternoon sunshine, to dawdle about the office and fuss away the afternoon in pretense that the awakening of the Street from its long lethargy was imminent.

  At half past three Cairns took himself off, leaving Desboro studying the sunshine on the ceiling. At five the latter awoke from his day dream, stood up, shook himself, drew a deep breath, and straightened his shoulders. Before him, now delicately blurred and charmingly indistinct, still floated the vision of his day-dream; and, with a slight effort, he could still visualise, as he moved out into the city and through its noise and glitter, south, into that quieter street where his day-dream’s vision lived and moved and had her earthly being.

  Mr. Mirk came smiling and bowing from the dim interior. There was no particular reason for the demonstration, but Desboro shook his hand cordially.

  “Mrs. Desboro is in her office,” said Mr. Mirk. “You know the way, sir — if you please — —”

  He knew the way. It was not likely that he would ever forget the path that he had followed that winter day.

  At his knock she opened the door herself.

  “I don’t know
how I knew it was your knock,” she said, giving ground as he entered. There was an expression in his face that made her own brighten, as though perhaps she had not been entirely certain in what humour he might arrive.

  “The car will be here in a few minutes,” he said. “That’s a tremendously pretty hat of yours.”

  “Do you like it? I saw it the other day. And somehow I felt extravagant this afternoon and telephoned for it. Do you really like it, Jim?”

  “It’s a beauty.”

  “I’m so glad — so relieved. Sometimes I catch you looking at me, Jim, and I wonder how critical you really are. I want you to like what I wear. You’ll always tell me when you don’t, won’t you?”

  “No fear of my not agreeing with your taste,” he said cheerfully. “By the way — and apropos of nothing — Waudle won’t bother you any more.”

  “Oh!”

  “I believe Clydesdale interviewed him — and the other one — the poet.” He laughed. “Afterward there was not enough remaining for me to interview.”

  Jacqueline’s serious eyes, intensely blue, were lifted to his.

  “We won’t speak of them again, ever,” she said in a low voice.

  “Right, as always,” he rejoined gaily.

  She still stood looking at him out of grave and beautiful eyes, which seemed strangely shy and tender to him. Then, slowly shaking her head she said, half to herself:

  “I have much to answer for — more than you must ever know. But I shall answer for it; never fear.”

  “What are you murmuring there all by yourself, Jacqueline?” he said smilingly; and ventured to take her gloved hand into his. She, too, smiled, faintly, and stood silent, pretty head bent, absorbed in her own thoughts.

  A moment later a clerk tapped and announced their car. She looked up at her husband, and the confused colour in her face responded to the quick pressure of his hands.

  “Are you quite ready to go?” he asked.

  “Yes — ready always — to go where — you lead.”

  Her flushed face reflected the emotion in his as they went out together into the last rays of the setting sun.

  “Have we time to motor to Silverwood?” she asked.

  “Would you care to?”

  “I’d love to.”

  So he spoke to the chauffeur and entered the car after her.

  It was a strange journey for them both, with the memory of their last journey together still so fresh, so pitilessly clear, in their minds. In this car, over this road, beside this man, she had travelled with a breaking heart and a mind haunted by horror unspeakable.

  To him the memory of that journey was no less terrible. They spoke to each other tranquilly but seriously, and in voices unconsciously lowered. And there were many lapses into stillness — many long intervals of silence. But during the longest of these, when the Westchester hills loomed duskily ahead, she slipped her hand into his and left it there until the lights of Silverwood glimmered low on the hill and the gate lanterns flashed in their eyes as the car swung into the fir-bordered drive and rolled up to the house.

  “Home,” she said, partly to herself; and he turned toward her in quick gratitude.

  Once more the threatened emotion confused her, but she evaded it, forcing a gaiety not in accord with her mood, as he aided her to descend.

  “Certainly it’s my home, monsieur, as well as yours,” she repeated, “and you’ll feel the steel under the velvet hand of femininity as soon as I assume the reins of government. For example, you can not entertain your cats and dogs in the red drawing-room any more. Now do you feel the steel?”

  They went to their sitting-room laughing.

  About midnight she rose from the sofa. They had been discussing plans for the future, repairs, alterations, improvements for Silverwood House — and how to do many, many wonderful things at vast expense; and how to practice rigid economy and do nothing at all.

  “And, as she rose, he was still figuring”

  It had been agreed that he was to give up his rooms in town and use hers whenever they remained in New York over night. And, as she rose, he was still figuring out, with pencil and pad, how much they would save by this arrangement. Now he looked up, saw her standing, and rose too.

  She looked at him with sweet, sleepy, humourous eyes.

  “Isn’t it disgraceful and absurd?” she said. “But if I don’t have my sleep I simply become stupid and dreary and useless beyond words.”

  “Why did you let me keep you up?” he said gently.

  “Because I wanted to stay up with you,” she said. She had moved to the centre table where the white carnations, as usual, filled the bowl. Her slender hand touched them caressingly, lingered, and presently detached a blossom.

  She lifted it dreamily, inhaling the fragrance and looking over its scented chalice at him.

  “Good-night, Jim,” she said.

  “Good-night, dearest.” He came over to her, hesitated, reddening; then bent and kissed her hand and the white flower it held.

  At her own door she lingered, turning to look after him as he crossed his threshold; then slowly entered her room, her lips resting on the blossom which he had kissed.

  CHAPTER XX

  On Saturday afternoon Cynthia arrived at Silverwood House, with Cairns in tow; and they were welcomed under the trees by their host and hostess. Which was all very delightful until Cynthia and Jacqueline paired off with each other and disappeared, calmly abandoning Cairns and Desboro to their own devices, leaving them to gaze at each other in the library with bored and increasing indifference.

  “You know, Jim,” explained the former, in unfeigned disgust, “I have quite enough of you every day, and I haven’t come sixty miles to see more of you.”

  “I sympathise with your sentiments,” said Desboro, laughing, “but Miss Lessler has never before seen the place, and, of course, Jacqueline is dying to show it to her. And, Jack — did you ever see two more engaging young girls than the two who have just deserted us? Really, partiality aside, does any house in town contain two more dignified, intelligent, charming — —”

  “No, it doesn’t!” said Cairns bluntly. “Nor any two women more upright and chaste. It’s a fine text, isn’t it, though?” he added morosely.

  “How do you mean?”

  “That their goodness is due to their characters, not to environment or to any material advantages. Has it ever occurred to you how doubly disgraceful it is for people, with every chance in the world, not to make good?”

  “Yes.”

  “It has to me frequently of late. And I wonder what I’d have turned into, given Cynthia’s worldly chances.” He shook his head, muttering to himself: “It’s fine, fine — to be what she is after what she has had to stack up against!”

  Desboro winced. Presently he said in a low voice:

  “The worst she had to encounter were men of our sort. That’s a truth we can’t blink. It wasn’t loneliness or poverty or hunger that were dangerous; it was men.”

  “Don’t,” said Cairns, rising impatiently and striding about the room. “I know all about that. But it’s over, God be praised. And I’m seeing things differently now — very, very differently. You are, too, I take it. So, for the love of Mike, let’s be pleasant about it. I hate gloom. Can’t a fellow regenerate himself and remain cheerful?”

  Desboro laughed uncertainly, listening to the gay voices on the stairs, where Jacqueline and Cynthia were garrulously exploring the house together.

  “Darling, it’s too lovely!” exclaimed Cynthia, every few minutes, while Jacqueline was conducting her from one room to another, upstairs, down again, through the hall and corridor, accompanied by an adoring multitude of low-born dogs and nondescript cats, all running beside her with tails stuck upright.

  And so, very happily together, they visited the kitchen, laundry, storeroom, drying room, engine room, cellars; made the fragrant tour of the greenhouses and a less fragrant visit to the garage; inspected the water supply; gingerly traversed the
gravel paths of the kitchen garden, peeped into tool houses, carpenters’ quarters; gravely surveyed compost heaps, manure pits, and cold frames.

  Jacqueline pointed out the distant farm, with its barns, stables, dairy, and chicken runs, from the lantern of the windmill, whither they had climbed; and Cynthia looked out over the rolling country to the blue hills edging the Hudson, and down into gray woodlands where patches of fire signalled the swelling maple buds; and edging willows were palely green. Over brown earth and new grass robins were running; and bluebirds fluttered from tree to fencepost.

  Cynthia’s arm stole around Jacqueline’s waist.

  “I am so glad for you — so glad, so proud,” she whispered. “Do you remember, once, long ago, I prophesied this for you? That you would one day take your proper place in the world?”

  “Do you know,” mused Jacqueline, “I don’t really believe that the place matters so much — as long as one is all right. That sounds horribly priggish — but isn’t it so, Cynthia?”

  “Few ever attain that self-sufficient philosophy,” said Cynthia, laughing. “You can spoil a gem by cheap setting.”

  “But it remains a gem. Oh, Cynthia! Am I such a prig as I sound?”

  They were both laughing so gaily that the flock of pigeons on the roof were startled into flight and swung around them in whimpering circles.

  As they started to descend the steep stairs, Jacqueline said casually:

  “Do you continue to find Mr. Cairns as agreeable and interesting as ever?”

  “Oh, yes,” nodded the girl carelessly.

  “Jim likes him immensely.”

  “He is a very pleasant companion,” said Cynthia.

  When they were strolling toward the house, she added:

  “He thinks you are very wonderful, Jacqueline. But then everybody does.”

  The girl blushed: “The only thing wonderful about me is my happiness,” she said.

  Cynthia looked up into her eyes.

  “Are you?”

  “Happy? Of course.”

  “Is that quite true, dear?”