Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Did your mother die long ago, Dulcie?”

  “Yes.”

  “In America?”

  “In Ireland.”

  “You look like her, I fancy—” thinking of Soane.

  “I don’t know.”

  Barres had heard Soane hold forth in his cups on one or two occasions — nothing more than the vague garrulousness of a Celt made more loquacious by the whiskey of one Grogan — something about his having been a gamekeeper in his youth, and that his wife— “God rest her!” — might have held up her head with “anny wan o’ thim in th’ Big House.”

  Recollecting this, he idly wondered what the story might have been — a young girl’s perverse infatuation for her father’s gamekeeper, perhaps — a handsome, common, ignorant youth, reckless and irresponsible enough to take advantage of her — probably some such story — resembling similar histories of chauffeurs, riding-masters, grooms, and coachmen at home.

  The Prophet came noiselessly into the studio, stopped at sight of his little mistress, twitched his tail reflectively, then leaped onto a carved table and calmly began his ablutions.

  Barres got up and wound up the Victrola. Then he kicked aside a rug or two.

  “This is to be a real party, you know,” he remarked. “You don’t dance, do you?”

  “Yes,” she said diffidently, “a little.”

  “Oh! That’s fine!” he exclaimed.

  Dulcie got off the sofa, shook out her reconstructed gown. When he came over to where she stood, she laid her hand in his almost solemnly, so overpowering had become the heavenly sequence of events. For the rite of his hospitality had indeed become a rite to her. Never before had she stood in awe, enthralled before such an altar as this man’s hearthstone. Never had she dreamed that he who so wondrously served it could look at such an offering as hers — herself.

  But the miracle had happened; altar and priest were accepting her; she laid her hand, which trembled, in his; gave herself to his guidance and to the celestial music, scarcely seeing, scarcely hearing his voice.

  “You dance delightfully,” he was saying; “you’re a born dancer, Dulcie. I do it fairly well myself, and I ought to know.”

  He was really very much surprised. He was enjoying it immensely. When the Victrola gave up the ghost he wound it again and came back to resume. Under his suggestions and tutelage, they tried more intricate steps, devious and ambitious, and Dulcie, unterrified by terpsichorean complications, surmounted every one with his whispered coaching and expert aid.

  Now it came to a point where time was not for him. He was too interested, enjoying it too genuinely.

  Sometimes, when they paused to enable him to resurrect the defunct music in the Victrola, they laughed at the Prophet, who sat upon the ancient carved table, gravely surveying them. Sometimes they rested because he thought she ought to — himself a trifle pumped — only to find, to his amazement, that he need not be solicitous concerning her.

  * * * * *

  A tall and ancient clock ringing midnight from clear, uncompromising bells, brought Barres to himself.

  “Good Lord!” he exclaimed, “this won’t do! Dear child, I’m having a wonderful time, but I’ve got to deliver you to your father!”

  He drew her arm through his, laughingly pretending horror and haste; she fled lightly along beside him as he whisked her through the hall and down the stairs.

  A candle burned on the desk. Soane sat there, asleep, and odorous of alcohol, his flushed face buried in his arms.

  But Soane was what is known as a “sob-souse”; never ugly in his cups, merely inclined to weep over the immemorial wrongs of Ireland.

  He woke up when Barres touched his shoulder, rubbed his swollen eyes and black, curly head, gazed tragically at his daughter:

  “G’wan to bed, ye little scut!” he said, getting to his feet with a terrific yawn.

  Barres took her hand:

  “We’ve had a wonderful party, haven’t we, Sweetness?”

  “Yes,” whispered the child.

  The next instant she was gone like a ghost, through the dusky, whitewashed corridor where distorted shadows trembled in the candlelight.

  “Soane,” said Barres, “this won’t do, you know. They’ll sack you if you keep on drinking.”

  The man, not yet forty, a battered, middle-aged by-product of hale and reckless vigour, passed his hands over his temples with the dignity of a Hibernian Hamlet:

  “The harp that wanst through Tara’s halls—” he began; but memory failed; and two tears — by-products, also, of Grogan’s whiskey — sparkled in his reproachful eyes.

  “I’m merely telling you,” remarked Barres. “We all like you, Soane, but the landlord won’t stand for it.”

  “May God forgive him,” muttered Soane. “Was there ever a landlord but he was a tyrant, too?”

  Barres blew out the candle; a faint light above the Fu-dog outside, over the street door, illuminated the stone hall.

  “You ought to keep sober for your little daughter’s sake,” insisted Barres in a low voice. “You love her, don’t you?”

  “I do that!” said Soane— “God bless her and her poor mother, who could hould up her pretty head with anny wan till she tuk up with th’ like o’ me!”

  His brogue always increased in his cups; devotion to Ireland and a lofty scorn of landlords grew with both.

  “You’d better keep away from Grogan’s,” remarked Barres.

  “I had a bite an’ a sup at Grogan’s. Is there anny harrm in that, sorr?”

  “Cut out the ‘sup,’ Larry. Cut out that gang of bums at Grogan’s, too. There are too many Germans hanging out around Grogan’s these days. You Sinn Feiners or Clan-na-Gael, or whatever you are, had better manage your own affairs, anyway. The old-time Feinans stood on their own sturdy legs, not on German beer-skids.”

  “Wisha then, sorr, d’ye mind th’ ould song they sang in thim days:

  “Then up steps Bonyparty An’ takes me by the hand, And how is ould Ireland, And how does she shtand? It’s a poor, disthressed country As ever yet was seen, And they’re hangin’ men and women For the wearing of the green!

  Oh, the wearing of the — —”

  “That’ll do,” said Barres drily. “Do you want to wake the house? Don’t go to Grogan’s and talk about Ireland to any Germans. I’ll tell you why: we’ll probably be at war with Germany ourselves within a year, and that’s a pretty good reason for you Irish to keep clear of all Germans. Go to bed!”

  CHAPTER VI

  DULCIE

  One warm afternoon late in spring, Dulcie Soane, returning from school to Dragon Court, found her father behind the desk, as usual, awaiting his daughter’s advent, to release him from duty.

  A tall, bony man with hectic and sunken cheeks and only a single eye was standing by the desk, earnestly engaged in whispered conversation with her father.

  He drew aside instantly as Dulcie came up and laid her school books on the desk. Soane, already redolent of Grogan’s whiskey, pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

  “G’wan in f’r a bite an’ a sup,” he said to his daughter, “while I talk to the gintleman.”

  So Dulcie went slowly into the superintendent’s dingy quarters for her mid-day meal, which was dinner; and between her and a sloppy scrub-woman who cooked for them, she managed to warm up and eat what Soane had left for her from his own meal.

  When she returned to the desk in the hall, the one-eyed man had gone. Soane sat on the chair behind the desk, his face over-red and shiny, his heels drumming the devil’s tattoo on the tessellated pavement.

  “I’ll be at Grogan’s,” he said, as Dulcie seated herself in the ancient leather chair behind the desk telephone, and began to sort the pile of mail which the postman evidently had just delivered.

  “Very well,” she murmured absently, turning around and beginning to distribute the letters and parcels in the various numbered compartments behind her. Soane slid off his chair to his feet and straightened up, stret
ching and yawning.

  “Av anny wan tilliphones to Misther Barres,” he said, “listen in.”

  “What!”

  “Listen in, I’m tellin’ you. And if it’s a lady, ask her name first, and then listen in. And if she says her name is Quellen or Dunois, mind what she says to Misther Barres.”

  “Why?” enquired Dulcie, astonished.

  “Becuz I’m tellin’ ye!”

  “I shall not do that,” said the girl, flushing up.

  “Ah, bother! Sure, there’s no harm in it, Dulcie! Would I be askin’ ye to do wrong, asthore? Me who is your own blood and kin? Listen then: ’Tis a woman what do be botherin’ the poor young gentleman, an’ I’ll not have him f’r to be put upon. Listen, m’acushla, and if airy a lady tilliphones, or if she comes futtherin’ an’ muttherin’ around here, call me at Grogan’s and I’ll be soon dishposen’ av the likes av her.”

  “Has she ever been here — this lady?” asked the girl, uncertain and painfully perplexed.

  “Sure has she! Manny’s the time I’ve chased her out,” replied Soane glibly.

  “Oh. What does she look like?”

  “God knows — annything ye don’t wish f’r to look like yourself! Sure, I disremember what make of woman she might be — her name’s enough for you. Call me up if she comes or rings. She may be a dangerous woman, at that,” he added, “so speak fair to her and listen in to what she says.”

  Dulcie slowly nodded, looking at him hard.

  Soane put on his faded brown hat at an angle, fished a cigar with a red and gold band from his fancy but soiled waistcoat, scratched a match on the seat of his greasy pants, and sauntered out through the big, whitewashed hallway into the street, with a touch of the swagger which always characterised him.

  * * * * *

  Dulcie, both hands buried in her ruddy hair and both thin elbows on the desk, sat poring over her school books.

  Graduation day was approaching; there was much for her to absorb, much to memorise before then.

  As she studied she hummed to herself the air of the quaint song which she was to sing at her graduation exercises. That did not interfere with her concentration; but as she finished one lesson, cast aside the book, and opened another to prepare the next lesson, vaguely happy memories of her evening party with Barres came into her mind to disturb her thoughts, tempting her to reverie and the delicious idleness she knew only when alone and absorbed in thoughts of him.

  But she resolutely put him out of her mind and opened her book.

  The hall clock ticked loudly through the silence; slanting sun rays fell through the street grille, across the tessellated floor where flies crawled and buzzed.

  The Prophet sat full in a bar of sunlight and gravely followed the movements of the flies as though specialising on the study of those amazing insects.

  Tenants of Dragon Court passed out or entered at intervals, pausing to glance at their letter-boxes or requesting their keys.

  Westmore came down the eastern staircase, like an avalanche, with a cheery:

  “Hello, Dulcie! Any letters? All right, old dear! If you see Mr. Mandel, tell him I’ll be at the club!”

  Corot Mandel came in presently, and she gave him Westmore’s message.

  “Thanks,” he said, not even glancing at the thin figure in the shabby dress too small for her. And, after peering into his letter-box, he went away with the indolent swing of a large and powerful plantigrade, gazing fixedly ahead of him out of heavy, oriental eyes, and twisting up his jet black, waxed moustache.

  A tall, handsome girl called and enquired for Mr. Trenor. Dulcie returned her amiable smile, unhooked the receiver, and telephoned up. But nobody answered from Esmé Trenor’s apartment, and the girl, whose name was Damaris Souval, and whose profession varied between the stage and desultory sitting for artists, smiled once more on Dulcie and sauntered out in her very charming summer gown.

  The shabby child looked after her through the sunny hallway, the smile still curving her lips — a sensitive, winning smile, untainted by envy. Then she resumed her book, serenely clearing her youthful mind of vanity and desire for earthly things.

  Half an hour later Esmé Trenor sauntered in. His was a sensitive nature and fastidious, too. Dinginess, obscurity — everything that was shabby, tarnished, humble in life, he consistently ignored. He had ignored Dulcie Soane for three years: he ignored her now.

  He glanced indifferently into his letter-box as he passed the desk. Dulcie said, with the effort it always required for her to speak to him:

  “Miss Souval called, but left no message.”

  Trenor’s supercilious glance rested on her for the fraction of a second, then, with a bored nod, he continued on his way and up the stairs. And Dulcie returned to her book.

  The desk telephone rang: a Mrs. Helmund desired to speak to Mr. Trenor. Dulcie switched her on, rested her chin on her hand, and continued her reading.

  Some time afterward the telephone rang again.

  “Dragon Court,” said Dulcie, mechanically.

  “I wish to speak to Mr. Barres, please.”

  “Mr. Barres has not come in from luncheon.”

  “Are you sure?” said the pretty, feminine voice.

  “Quite sure,” replied Dulcie. “Wait a minute — —”

  She called Barres’s apartment; Aristocrates answered and confirmed his master’s absence with courtly effusion.

  “No, he is not in,” repeated Dulcie. “Who shall I say called him?”

  “Say that Miss Dunois called him up. If he comes in, say that Miss Thessalie Dunois will come at five to take tea with him. Thank you. Good-bye.”

  Startled to hear the very name against which her father had warned her, Dulcie found it difficult to reconcile the sweet voice that came to her over the wire with the voice of any such person her father had described.

  Still a trifle startled, she laid aside the receiver with a disturbed glance toward the wrought-iron door at the further end of the hall.

  She had no desire at all to call up her father at Grogan’s and inform him of what had occurred. The mere thought of surreptitious listening in, of eavesdropping, of informing, reddened her face. Also, she had long since lost confidence in the somewhat battered but jaunty man who had always neglected her, although never otherwise unkind, even when intoxicated.

  No, she would neither listen in nor inform on anybody at the behest of a father for whom, alas, she had no respect, merely those shreds of conventional feeling which might once have been filial affection, but had become merely an habitual solicitude.

  No, her character, her nature refused such obedience. If there was trouble between the owner of the unusually sweet voice and Mr. Barres, it was their affair, not hers, not her father’s.

  This settled in her mind, she opened another book and turned the pages slowly until she came to the lesson to be learned.

  It was hard to concentrate; her thoughts were straying, now, to Barres.

  And, as she leaned there, musing above her dingy school book, through the grilled door at the further end of the hall stepped a young girl in a light summer gown — a beautiful girl, lithe, graceful, exquisitely groomed — who came swiftly up to the desk, a trifle pale and breathless:

  “Mr. Barres? He lives here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please announce Miss Dunois.”

  Dulcie flushed deeply under the shock:

  “Mr. — Mr. Barres is still out — —”

  “Oh. Was it you I talked to over the telephone?” asked Thessalie Dunois.

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Barres has not returned?”

  “No.”

  Thessalie bit her lip, hesitated, turned to go. And at the same instant Dulcie saw the one-eyed man at the street door, peering through the iron grille.

  Thessalie saw him, too, stiffened to marble, stood staring straight at him.

  He turned and went away up the street. But Dulcie, to whom the incident signified nothing in particular except
the impudence of a one-eyed man, was not prepared for the face which Thessalie Dunois turned toward her. Not a vestige of colour remained in it, and her dark eyes seemed feverish and too large.

  “You need not give Mr. Barres any message from me,” she said in an altered voice, which sounded strained and unsteady. “Please do not even say that I came or mention my name.... May I ask it of you?”

  Dulcie, very silent in her surprise, made no reply.

  “Please may I ask it of you?” whispered Thessalie. “Do you mind not telling anybody that I was here?”

  “If — you wish it.”

  “I do. May I trust you?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Thank you—” A bank bill was in her gloved fingers; intuition warned her; she took another swift look at Dulcie. The child’s face was flaming scarlet.

  “Forgive me,” whispered Thessalie.... “And thank you, dear—” She bent over quickly, took Dulcie’s hand, pressed it, looking her in the eyes.

  “It’s all right,” she whispered. “I am not asking you to do anything you shouldn’t. Mr. Barres will understand it all when I write to him.... Did you see that man at the street door, looking through the grating?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know who he is?” whispered Thessalie.

  “No.”

  “Have you never before seen him?”

  “Yes. He was here at two o’clock talking to my father.”

  “Your father?”

  “My father’s name is Lawrence Soane. He is superintendent of Dragon Court.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Dulcie Soane.”

  Thessalie still held her hand tightly. Then with a quick but forced smile, she pressed it, thanking the girl for her consideration, turned and walked swiftly through the hall out into the street.

  * * * * *

  Dulcie, dreaming over her closed books in the fading light, vaguely uneasy lest her silence might embrace the faintest shadow of disloyalty to Barres, looked up quickly at the sound of his familiar footsteps on the pavement.