Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “DULCIE SOANE.”

  It was still early in the morning; he had taken a night train to town.

  So when he had been freshened by a bath and change of linen, he took his hat and went down stairs.

  A heavy, pasty-visaged young woman sat at the desk in the entrance hall.

  “Where is Soane?” he inquired.

  “He’s sick.”

  “Where is he?”

  “In bed,” she replied indifferently. The woman’s manner just verged on impertinence. He hesitated, then walked across to the superintendent’s apartments and entered without knocking.

  Soane, in his own room, lay sleeping off the consequences of an evening at Grogan’s. One glance was sufficient for Barres, and he walked out.

  On Madison Avenue he found a florist, selected a bewildering bouquet, and despatched it with a hasty note, by messenger, to Dulcie at her school. In the note he wrote:

  “I shall be there. Cheer up!”

  He also sent more flowers to his studio, with pencilled orders to Aristocrates.

  In a toy-shop he found an appropriate decoration for the centre of the lunch table.

  Later, in a jeweller’s, he discovered a plain gold locket, shaped like a heart and inset with one little diamond. A slender chain by which to suspend it was easily chosen; and an extra payment admitted him to the emergency department where he looked on while an expert engraved upon the locket: “Dulcie Soane from Garret Barres,” and the date.

  After that he went into the nearest telephone booth and called up several people, inviting them to dine with him that evening.

  It was nearly ten o’clock now. He took his little gift, stopped a taxi, and arrived at the big brick high-school just in time to enter with the last straggling parents and family friends.

  The hall was big and austerely bare, except for the ribbons and flags and palms which decorated it. It was hot, too, though all the great blank windows had been swung open wide.

  The usual exercises had already begun; there were speeches from Authority; prayers by Divinity; choral effects by graduating pulchritude.

  The class, attired in white, appeared to average much older than Dulcie. He could see her now, in her reconstructed communion dress, holding the big bouquet which he had sent her, one madonna lily of which she had detached and pinned over her breast.

  Her features were composed and delicately flushed; her bobbed hair was tucked up, revealing the snowy neck.

  One girl after another advanced and read or spoke, performing the particular parlour trick assigned her in the customary and perfectly unremarkable manner characteristic of such affairs.

  Rapturous parental demonstrations greeted each effort; piano, violin and harp filled in nobly. A slight haze of dust, incident to pedalistic applause, invaded the place; there was an odour of flowers in the heated atmosphere.

  Glancing at a programme which he had found on his seat, Barres read: “Song: Dulcie Soane.”

  Looking up at her where she sat on the stage, among her comrades in white, he noticed that her eyes were busy searching the audience — possibly for him, he thought, experiencing an oddly pleasant sensation at the possibility.

  * * * * *

  The time at length arrived for Dulcie to do her parlour trick; she rose and came forward, clasping the big, fragrant bouquet, prettily flushed but self-possessed. The harp began a little minor prelude — something Irish and not very modern. Then Dulcie’s pure, untrained voice stole winningly through the picked harp-strings’ hesitation:

  “Heart of a colleen, Where do you roam? Heart of a colleen, Far from your home? Laden with love you stole from her breast! Wandering dove, return to your nest!

  Sodgers are sailin’ Away to the wars; Ladies are wailin’ Their woe to the stars; Why is the heart of you straying so soon — Heart that was part of you, Eileen Aroon?

  Lost to a sodger, Gone is my heart! Lost to a sodger, Now we must part —— I and my heart — for it journeys afar Along with the sodgers who sail to the war!

  Tears that near blind me My pride shall dry, —— Wisha! don’t mind me! Lave a lass cry! Only a sodger can whistle the tune That coaxes the heart out of Eileen Aroon!”

  And Dulcie’s song ended.

  * * * * *

  Almost instantly the audience had divined in the words she sang a significance which concerned them — a warning — perhaps a prophecy. The 69th Regiment of New York infantry was Irish, and nearly every seat in the hall held a relative of some young fellow serving in its ranks.

  The applause was impulsive, stormy, persistent; the audience was demanding the young girl’s recall; the noise they made became overwhelming, checking the mediating music and baffling the next embarrassed graduate, scheduled to read an essay, and who stood there mute, her manuscript in her hand.

  Finally the principal of the school arose, went over to Dulcie, and exchanged a few words with her. Then he came forward, hand lifted in appeal for silence.

  “The music and words of the little song you have just heard,” he said, “were written, I have just learned, by the mother of the girl who sang them. They were written in Ireland a number of years ago, when Irish regiments were sent away for over-seas service. Neither words nor song have ever been published. Miss Soane found them among her mother’s effects.

  “I thought the story of the little song might interest you. For, somehow, I feel — as I think you all feel — that perhaps the day may come — may be near — when the hearts of our women, too, shall be given to their soldiers — sons, brothers, fathers — who are ‘sailin’ away to the wars.’ But if that time comes — which God avert! — then I know that every man here will do his duty.... And every woman.... And I know that:

  ‘Tears that near blind you, Your pride shall dry! — —’”

  He paused a moment:

  “Miss Soane has prepared no song to sing as an encore. In her behalf, and in my own, I thank you for your appreciation. Be kind enough to permit the exercises to proceed.”

  And the graduating exercises continued.

  Barres waited for Dulcie. She came out among the first of those departing, walking all alone in her reconstructed white dress, and carrying his bouquet. When she caught sight of him, her face became radiant and she made her way toward him through the crowd, seeking his outstretched hand with hers, clinging to it in a passion of gratitude and emotion that made her voice tremulous:

  “My bouquet — it is so wonderful! I love every flower in it! Thank you with all my heart. You are so kind to have come — so kind to me — so k-kind — —”

  “It is I who should be grateful, Dulcie, for your charming little song,” he insisted. “It was fascinating and exquisitely done.”

  “Did you really like it?” she asked shyly.

  “Indeed I did! And I quite fell in love with your voice, too — with that trick you seem to possess of conveying a hint of tears through some little grace-note now and then.... And there were tears hidden in the words; and in the melody, too.... And to think that your mother wrote it!”

  “Yes.”

  After a short interval of silence he released her hand.

  “I have a taxi for you,” he said gaily. “We’ll drive home in state.”

  The girl flushed again with surprise and gratitude:

  “Are — are you coming, too?”

  “Certainly I’m going to take you home. Don’t you belong to me?” he demanded laughingly.

  “Yes,” she said. But her forced little smile made the low-voiced answer almost solemn.

  “Well, then!” he said cheerfully. “Come along. What’s mine I look after. We’ll have lunch together in the studio, if you are too proud to pose for a poor artist this afternoon.”

  At this her sensitive face cleared and she laughed happily.

  “The pride of a high-school graduate!” he commented, as he seated himself beside her in the taxicab. “Can anything equal it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What?”

  �
�Her pride in your — friendship,” she ventured.

  Which unexpected reply touched and surprised him.

  “You dear child!” he said; “I’m proud of your friendship, too. Nothing ought to make a man prouder than winning a young girl’s confidence.”

  “You are so kind,” she sighed, touching the blossoms in her bouquet with slender fingers that trembled a little. For she would have offered him a flower from it had she found courage; but it seemed presumptuous and she dropped her hand into her lap again.

  * * * * *

  Aristocrates opened the door for them: Selinda took her away.

  Barres had ordered flowers for the table. In the middle of it a doll stood, attired in academic cap and gown, the Stars and Stripes in one hand, in the other a green flag bearing a gold harp.

  When Dulcie came in she stopped short, enchanted at the sight of the decorated table. But when Aristocrates opened the kitchen door and her three cats came trotting in, she was overcome.

  For each cat wore a red, white and blue cravat on which was pinned a silk shamrock; and although Strindberg immediately keeled over on the rug and madly attacked her cravat with her hind toes, the general effect remained admirable.

  Aristocrates seated Dulcie. Upon her plate was the box containing chain and locket. And the girl cast a swift, inquiring glance across the centre flowers at Barres.

  “Yes, it’s for you, Dulcie,” he said.

  She turned quite pale at sight of the little gift. After a silence she leaned on the table with both elbows, shading her face with her hands.

  He let her alone — let the first tense moment in her youthful life ebb out of it; nor noticed, apparently, the furtive and swift touch of her best handkerchief to her closed eyes.

  Aristocrates brought her a little glass of frosted orange juice. After an interval, not looking at Barres, she sipped it. Then she took the locket and chain from the satin-lined box, read the inscription, closed her lids for a second’s silent ecstasy, opened them looking at him through rapturous tears, and with her eyes still fixed on him lifted the chain and fastened it around her slender neck.

  The luncheon then proceeded, the Prophet gravely assisting from the vantage point of a neighbouring chair, the Houri, more emotional, promenading earnestly at the heels of Aristocrates. As for Strindberg, she possessed neither manners nor concentration, and she alternately squalled her desires for food or frisked all over the studio, attempting complicated maneuvres with every curtain-cord and tassel within reach.

  Dulcie had found her voice again — a low, uncertain, tremulous little voice when she tried to thank him for the happiness he had given her — a clearer, firmer voice when he dexterously led the conversation into channels more familiar and serene.

  They talked of the graduating exercises, of her part in them, of her classmates, of education in general.

  She told him that since she was quite young she had learned to play the piano by remaining for an hour every day after school, and receiving instruction from a young teacher who needed a little extra pin money.

  As for singing, she had had no instruction. Her voice had never been tried, never been cultivated.

  “We’ll have it tried some day,” he said casually.

  But Dulcie shook her head, explaining that it was an expensive process and not to be thought of.

  “How did you pay for your piano lessons?” he asked.

  “I paid twenty-five cents an hour. My mother left a little money for me when I was a baby. I spent it all that way.”

  “Every bit of it?”

  “Yes. I had $500. It lasted me seven years — from the time I was ten to now.”

  “Are you seventeen? You don’t look it.”

  “I know I don’t. My teachers tell me that my mind is very quick but my body is slow. It annoys me to be mistaken for a child of fifteen. And I have to dress that way, too, because my dresses still fit me and clothes are very expensive.”

  “Are they?”

  Dulcie became confidential and loquacious:

  “Oh, very. You don’t know about girls’ clothes, I suppose. But they cost a very great deal. So I’ve had to wear out dresses I’ve had ever since I was fourteen and fifteen. And so I can’t put up my hair because it would make my dresses look ridiculous; and that renders the situation all the worse — to be obliged to go about with bobbed hair, you see? There doesn’t seem to be any way out of it,” she ended, with a despairing little laugh, “and I was seventeen last February!”

  “Cheer up! You’ll grow old fast enough. And now you’re going to have a jolly little salary as my model, and you ought to be able to buy suitable clothes. Oughtn’t you?”

  She did not answer, and he repeated the question. And drew from her, reluctantly, that her father, so far, had absorbed what money she had earned by posing.

  A dull red gathered under the young man’s cheek-bones, but he said carelessly:

  “That won’t do. I’ll talk it over with your father. I’m very sure he’ll agree with me that you should bank your salary and draw out what you need for your personal expenses.”

  Dulcie sat silent over her fruit and bon-bons. Reaction from the keen emotions of the day had, perhaps, begun to have their effect.

  They rose and reseated themselves on the sofa, where she sat in the corner among gorgeous Chinese cushions, her reconstructed dress now limp and shabby, the limp madonna lily hanging from her breast.

  It had been for her the happiest day of her life. It had dawned the loneliest, but under the magic of this man’s kindness the day was ending like a day in Paradise.

  To Dulcie, however, happiness was less dependent upon receiving than upon giving; and like all things feminine, mature and immature, she desired to serve where her heart was enlisted — began to experience the restless desire to give. What? And as the question silently presented itself, she looked up at Barres:

  “Could I pose for you?”

  “On a day like this! Nonsense, Dulcie. This is your holiday.”

  “I’d really like to — if you want me — —”

  “No. Curl up here and take a nap. Slip off your gown so you won’t muss it and ask Selinda for a kimono. Because you’re going to need your gown this evening,” he added smilingly.

  “Why? Please tell me why?”

  “No. You’ve had enough excitement. Tell Selinda to give you a kimono. Then you can lie down in my room if you like. Selinda will call you in plenty of time. And after that I’ll tell you how we’re going to bring your holiday to a gay conclusion.”

  She seemed disinclined to stir, curled up there, her eyes brilliant with curiosity, her lips a trifle parted in a happy smile. She lay that way for a few moments, looking up at him, her fingers caressing the locket, then she sat up swiftly.

  “Must I take a nap?”

  “Certainly.”

  She sprang to her feet, flashed past him, and disappeared in the corridor.

  “Don’t forget to wake me!” she called back.

  “I won’t forget!”

  When he heard her voice again, conversing with Selinda, he opened the studio door and went down stairs.

  Soane, rather the worse for wear, was at the desk, and, standing beside him, was a one-eyed man carrying two pedlar’s boxes under his arms. They both looked around quickly when Barres appeared. Before he reached the desk the one-eyed man turned and walked out hastily into the street.

  “Soane,” said Barres, “I’ve one or two things to say to you. The first is this: if you don’t stop drinking and if you don’t keep away from Grogan’s, you’ll lose your job here.”

  “Musha, then, Misther Barres — —”

  “Wait a moment; I’m not through. I advise you to stop drinking and to keep away from Grogan’s. That’s the first thing. And next, go on and graft as much as you like, only warn your pedlar-friends to keep away from Studio No. 9. Do you understand?”

  “F’r the love o’ God — —”

  “Cut out the injured innocence, Soane. I�
��m telling you how to avoid trouble, that’s all.”

  “Misther Barres, sorr! As God sees me — —”

  “I can see you, too. I want you to behave, Soane. This is friendly advice. That one-eyed pedlar who just beat it has been bothering me. Other pedlars come ringing at the studio and interrupt and annoy me. You know the rules. If the other tenants care to stand for it, all right. But I’m through. Is that plain?”

  “It is, sorr,” said the unabashed delinquent. The faintest glimmer of a grin came into his battered eyes. “Sorra a wan o’ thim ever lays a hand to No. 9 bell or I’ll have his life!”

  “One thing more,” continued Barres, smiling in spite of himself at the Irish of it all. “I am paying Dulcie a salary — —”

  “Wisha then — —”

  “Stop! I tell you that she’s in my employment on a salary. Don’t ever touch a penny of it again.”

  “Sure the child’s wages — —”

  “No, they don’t belong to the father. Legally, perhaps, but the law doesn’t suit me. So if you take the money that she earns, and blow it in at Grogan’s, I’ll have to discharge her because I won’t stand for what you are doing.”

  “Would you do that, Mr. Barres?”

  “I certainly would.”

  The Irishman scratched his curly head in frank perplexity.

  “Dulcie needs clothes suitable to her age,” continued Barres. “She needs other things. I’m going to take charge of her savings so don’t you attempt to tamper with them. You wouldn’t do such a thing, anyway, Soane, if this miserable drink habit hadn’t got a hold on you. If you don’t quit, it will down you. You’ll lose your place here. You know that. Try to brace up. This is a rotten deal you’re giving yourself and your daughter.”

  Soane wept easily. He wept now. Tearful volubility followed — picturesque, lit up with Hibernian flashes, then rambling, and a hint of slyness in it which kept one weeping eye on duty watching Barres all the while.

  “All right; behave yourself,” concluded Barres. “And, Soane, I shall have three or four people to dinner and a little dancing afterward. I want Dulcie to enjoy her graduating dance.”