Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  She looked up quietly from her light revery.

  “No.”

  “You are quite alone?”

  “Yes.” After a moment she added: “ — since I was sixteen.”

  “That’s hard on a girl — or on a boy, either,” he said soberly.

  “Yes.”

  For a moment it seemed to him that she meant to say something more; then, watching the sensitive and delicately mobile features, he saw them become blank, intentionally; was aware of the effort and purpose to quietly exclude him or anything that threatened to be more than merely formal in their intercourse.

  There seemed to be no reason for it, nothing of silly self-consciousness, of any unwarranted distrust of him on her part to account for this emotionless reticence which amounted to a relentlessly vigilant discipline.

  Again, as he walked on beside her through the trees, he wondered why the gospel of utter self-repression should find such a youthful and attractive devotee.

  Truly she was attractive in all the faded shabbiness of her attire — in the almost expressionless quiet of her features.

  And it was true, too, that her features, even lacking animation, were as lovely as her supple figure — lovely, and fresh and unmarred under their creamy tint of tan.

  Instinctively his eyes sought her hands, and saw the delicate beauty of them already roughened and worn by toil.

  Yet, from moment to moment, he glanced down at them, fascinated by their slender symmetry. Deeply interested in mentally applying the surface remedies which might so easily restore what hardship had so pathetically scarred and altered, he walked beside her in silence — a silence which she shared and seemed to prefer.

  Sunlight slanting bathed the woods in a golden light; few birds were audible, the moulting season being on. There was no wind, yet a cool freshness bathed the still places through which they passed.

  Trees were in fullest leaf and green; nothing of autumn hinted yet save for the silence of the birds — the prelude to yellowing boughs and the blue-jay’s strident noise. Only the tapping of a distant woodpecker broke the quiet — or the confidential conversation of chickadees in the hemlocks, or the low whining reiteration of a nuthatch here and there exploring the roughened flanks of elm or maple.

  He said, quietly: “There is a classic charm about trout-fishing that is perhaps unequalled — a loveliness in young leaves and budding sprays and the first frail blossoms of the year. But to me, there has been always a peculiar fascination in the last days of the trout season — this rich, green silence which broods where you pass as silently along the stream, conscious of the necessity for a skill, an adroitness, and a caution not entirely necessary when the ice first goes out and the trout are hungry.”

  She had turned her head partly toward him, and was listening intently as he rambled gayly on. His rhapsody on angling and the setting which best suited the pursuit of that alluring art, seemed to hold her attention. Once, glancing around at her he found her smile so delightfully responsive that his tongue halted in the agreeable surprise of it. Then, as the animation died from her eyes and the delicate curve of her lips faded to an expressionless immobility:

  “Have you anything on your mind that troubles you, Miss Allende?” he asked with a frankness almost blunt. “Because if you have I won’t bother you by talking.”

  She made no reply for a few moments; the bright color cooled in her cheeks. Then, turning, she said:

  “When you care to talk to me I — I find it — agreeable.”

  “Really?”

  She looked away from him:

  “Yes. I have few people to talk to.”

  “I thought possibly you might be preoccupied and that—” he smiled— “my rather pointless conversation might distract you from more important reflections.”

  “Important reflections,” she repeated. There was a very gentle hint of irony in her voice, not bitter, yet scarcely gay.

  And, as on an impulse, she turned and looked at Dean with an odd little laugh on her lips:

  “What overwhelming important reflections do you suppose a resident of Anne’s Bridge might entertain, Mr. Dean?”

  “What concerns you or me or the Queen of Spain is important to each of us individually,” he said lightly: “How do I know how important your reflections may be to you?”

  She smiled, relaxing a little more: “As a matter of fact my reflections concerned trout-flies when you so abruptly questioned them.”

  “Really?”

  “Entirely. You were speaking — rather poetically — of fishing; and I was rather wondering what sort of flies were in your fly-book—”

  “Is that as much as my poetry of speech appealed to you?” he demanded, laughing.

  “I admitted that it was poetry, didn’t I. So you see at least I noticed it....

  And, conceding that—” she smiled delightfully at him with the faintest hint of malice in her eyes— “would you mind telling me what sort of fly you propose to try this morning?”

  “I’ve the usual stock,” he said— “the old stand-bys — coachmen of various varieties, hare’s-ears, duns, hackles, gnats. Won’t any of these do?”

  She said diffidently: “My father taught me to tie flies for him. He used only a few kinds — and they have no particular names, I believe. But they seem to be best on the waters in this region.”

  She drew from one of her pouches an old-time fly-book, strapped, dog-eared, and thick, and, opening it as she walked, displayed a fly here and there — odd, dull-tinted tufts of silk and feather destitute of hackle and tinsel.

  “I brought them for you,” she said— “if you care to try them.”

  He thanked her and reminded her that he was in her hands. And involuntarily his glance fell again on those slim marred hands, so eloquent with secrets if only he could understand the language of each slender, weather-roughened finger.

  The refreshing noise of a rocky stream somewhere not far away had been filling his ears for the last few minutes; and now, descending a tree-clad slope, they came to it — a cold clear flashing little mountain river, clattering over silvery and greenish stones, here rushing into a swirling cauldron, there flowing out into a long diamond-clear pool with ripples at the foot.

  “This is charming!” he exclaimed— “the ideal trout stream! Where is that magic fly you promised to bestow upon me?”

  She offered the old-time fly-book again but he insisted that she choose for him, and she selected a fly of indecisive tint — the very phantom of what a trout fly ought to be, he declared, as he looped it on the leader.

  “Now, Miss Allende!” he said briskly, stepping aside and waving invitation.

  “Please!” she said hastily and much flushed, “I should not care to be considered except as a guide.”

  “Aren’t you going to fish?”

  “Yes, if you wish.”

  “You don’t suppose I am going to permit you to fish behind me?”

  “Mr. Dean — I had rather not fish at all than—”

  “There’s room for us to cast standing side by side! Come, Miss Allende; I could find no pleasure in any other method.”

  “Will you break even with me? And behave like a good comrade and a good angler?”

  “It would be—” she glanced at him, still flushed and troubled, caught his eye squarely:

  “Yes,” she said, with an effort of decision made apparent by a slight catch in her breath — like a child who decides suddenly to disobey.

  He waited while she looped on a fly. Then she went to the edge of the water and waded out into the stream beside him.

  “Now!” he said.

  The silken lines whistled, looped, uncoiled in the long back casts, straightened out, and darted forward. Just under where her fly settled and swung shoreward on the foamy edge of an eddy, a broad glimmer of pink and silver flashed.

  “That’s a fine fish!” exclaimed Dean. “He showed his colors. Did you see?”

  “Try him,” she said in a low voice.

/>   “No indeed!”

  “Please, Mr. Dean!” she turned and looked at him with a delightful little smile. “Please put me at my ease. I do so much wish to earn my dollar and keep my self-respect.”

  “It’s rotten of me — but if you’d feel better—”

  “I should, really. I do want you to take that trout. He’s worth it!”

  “All right!” he said briefly, and cast in a business-like manner, lightly, deadly accurate, so that the fly dropped on the edge of the whirling foam almost exactly where her fly had fallen, and cocked up, floating landward with the eddy.

  Deep in the water there was another dim gleam of pink, a swirl. Then, as he struck, the thin shriek of his reel confirmed the staggering curve of the rod. He was in for it.

  Intent, breathless, the girl stood at his elbow watching the fight in all its varying and nerve-racking phases. The great trout bored steadily toward the further shore where a mass of dangerous tree-roots promised disaster for the angler. The full, steady strain of the rod turned the fish at last; this way and that he raced, the taut line cutting the water; then there came a halfleap and splash that sent the spray flying; and the great trout was off again scarcely controlled by the quivering rod.

  At last Dean spoke without turning his head: “Have you the landing-net ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. I think I can bring him near enough now.”

  After a few moments he said: “Now, Miss Allende!”

  There came a quick splash, a long sigh of delight and relief from Dean, and the splendid fish lay dripping in the landing-net.

  Down on their knees together on the bank they bent over the big trout, excited, garrulous, praising the noble dimensions of the fish aloud and calling each other’s attention to its several charms of color and proportion. -

  “Miss Allende!” he cried, extending his dripping hand, “you’re a thoroughbred! AH thoroughbreds are better than their promises. Please congratulate me!”

  She laid her own wet hand in his, laughed, took his firmly in her slender grip:

  “Are you really so much pleased? Or only kind to my efforts?”

  “Pleased! I’m the proudest biped in North America! Look at that trout! Why, I never dreamed there were such fish at Anne’s Bridge. I am happy and grateful to the most wonderful guide in the entire state!”

  “Then I do congratulate you, Mr. Dean,” she said with a swift grip of her closing fingers. And they smiled at each other as their hands parted.

  He said: “There’s one thing I need to complete my absolute contentment.”

  She lifted her brown eyes interrogatively. They both stood up.

  “I desire,” he said, “to see you match that trout with one of your own.”

  She laughed: “I must admit,” she said, “that there are not many trout in the stream as large as this. I’m so very glad that you chanced to get him.”

  “Anyway,” he said, happily, “let us go on. This day has started very wonderfully for me.”

  As he stood there shaking his line free, the sunshine falling on his carefree face, he looked very boyish, even almost handsome — so agreeably does happiness transfigure what otherwise is not remarkable.

  As for the girl, the radiant imprint of a care-free moment still lingered like sunlight itself on her face; and as he looked up at her where she stood on the wooded bank his smiling eyes fell on her neck where below her open collar its dazzling whiteness was revealed in contrast to the throat’s creamy tint of tan.

  His eyes sought the line which he was still engaged in freeing, and he became grave and silent, disconcerted by a sharp and sudden knowledge that this young girl was lovelier than he had taken the trouble to realize.

  “May I help you — if your leader is tangled?” she asked, coming up to him and leaning over the snarl which he was patiently untangling.

  Suddenly he became conscious of her nearness. A subtle sense of something young and sweet and fresh and very close invaded him.

  He picked rather blindly at the tangle, looked up at her, unsmiling, and offered the snarl to her to unravel.

  Then he laid his rod on the moss, walked a few steps along the bank, and halted, gazing rather earnestly at nothing.

  III

  With the first day of September trout fishing in Sagamore County ended. Already the spawning season had begun; sandy shallows in every stream were alive with the brilliant fins of male trout, gorgeous in their wedding livery of fire and gold.

  On that day the slim, dusky brides of the lords of the stream were already rubbing hollows in the silvery bottom sands of every swift running shallow. Velvety reaches of gravel had been furrowed by fin and tail, and over these floated the female trout, suspended above their own shadows, motionless save when seized by a desire for further excavations in the shining bed of sand beneath them.

  Elegant of shape, small headed, dainty, her bridal garb clouded with dull rich tints of salmon-pink and silver, Mademoiselle Salvelina alternately prepared, surveyed, and rested in silent watchfulness above the partly fashioned bridal couch which she was constructing to her fastidious taste.

  Around each busy demoiselle loitered Monsieur de Fontenalis, carelessly displaying his painted charms, looking fiercely gallant with his newly curved hooked nose and his crimson spots aglow like coals.

  Sometimes he ventured a premature caress, sidling nearer with winnowing scarlet fins ivory-edged; sometimes he ventured to do a little excavating in the sand offering unsolicited aid to his preoccupied sweetheart; sometimes he swirled in anger, offering single combat to other lingering suitors. And sometimes, alas! he got on Mademoiselle’s nerves, and she flew at him and drove him and the other aspirants right and left before her feminine fury.

  Then the shallow water boiled and flashed with the rush and leap and scatter of jewelled fish; and, sometimes, as far as one could see across the vista of rushing shallows in every pool trout were splashing and spray flying as though by some preconcerted signal the demoiselles militant had begun the fashionable revolt of the century.

  Angelina Allende standing on the bank of the stream beside Dean looked far down along the forest vista set with sparkling pools where dashes of spray and flashes of rose and pearl marked the amatory aquatic combats.

  “He’s rather a miserable specimen of lover after all — the male trout,” she remarked— “fierce, ruthless, savagely selfish. If it lay with him the race of trout would be exterminated in a single season.”

  “If it depended upon the male animal,” said Dean, smilingly, “there wouldn’t be much life of any sort remaining on this planet. He is the Destroyer. His twin brother is Death.”

  She did not smile; her dark eyes bent on the water grew sombre as she listened.

  He said: “The male is born to destroy. In science his symbol is this—” he drew pencil and note book from his pocket and made a rapid outline— “The helmet of Mars,” he explained. “It stands for destruction.”

  She turned her pretty head to look at the sketch. He drew again with the pencil another symbol “In science,” he said, “this figure represents the feminine in nature — the life giver, preserver, perpetuator.”

  “What does that figure actually symbolize?” she asked, following his pencil with her sombre eyes.

  He laughed mischievously: “A looking glass! The hand mirror of Venus. Rather a frivolous origin for so vital a symbol, isn’t it, Miss Allende? Yet, in the eternal battle for the perpetuation of the human species, your sex employs it legitimately to discover any flaw in its armor before going forth to battle.”

  “And the woman who discovers flaws in the armor she wears?” inquired the girl with a faint smile.

  “Oh, she patches up the flaws and paints them over, or she remains at home a non-combatant.”

  “As — I do,” remarked Miss Allende, her eyes reverting to the splashing trout in the pool below.

  “I can discover no flaws in your armor,” said Dean lightly.

  “There are plen
ty,” she said carelessly.

  “Where?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, then with a slightly disdainful gesture touched her sunburnt skin and turned her slim hands palm upward in the sun, making eloquent every weatherworn blemish.

  “Nonsense,” he scoffed gayly. “Leisure and lotions cure such surface accidents.”

  “Both unobtainable at Anne’s Bridge,” she retorted. “Time alone is free to all, here at Anne’s Bridge; and time will some day make these flaws indelible.” She shrugged again: “Therefore, Mr. Dean, I remain as you see a non-combatant while little by little my armor rusts.”

  “And your heart?” he asked pleasantly.

  “That? Oh there’s nothing left of it; not even rust.”

  “No traces of good cheer?” he inquired smilingly. “No residue of courage?”

  “Courage? I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what courage is.”

  “The brave are always unconscious of their courage.”

  She looked steadily down at the water. “I have nothing to be brave about. I am nothing, have nothing, do nothing. There is no problem to confront me except the universal one of maintaining good relations between soul and body. And that is merely a matter of sufficient bread and fire. And if they fail — there remains no problem.”

  She had started to stroll on along the water. He followed. A fallen tree blocked her progress. She seated herself on the mossy trunk where the full morning sunlight fell on her head and across her shabby flannel waist and skirt.

  “Bread and fire,” she repeated half to herself, her brown eyes fixed on the sparkling waters flowing through the woodlands which already were decorating the swift currents with gaily painted autumn leaves.

  “Bread and fire — for the body,” he repeated lightly. “But minds also hunger.”

  “The process of starvation is slower before the mind dies, Mr. Dean.”

  “And the soul?”

  “That is the most fragile. It dies very easily — even unexpectedly.”

  “What nonsense,” he said, smiling; “it is deathless. And you know it.” Her brown eyes stared absently at the water. “How do you know?”