Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  The shadows we cast were whiter than snow.

  I still heard the hill winds, soft in my ears as breaking surf; a bird-note came from the dusky woodland; a star broke out overhead.

  “What is your pleasure, Sweetheart, now all is said?” I asked.

  “The world is all so fair,” she sighed; “is it fairer beyond the hills, Jack?”

  “It is fair where you pass by, north, south, and from west to west again. In France the poplars are as yellow as our oaks. In Morbihan the gorse gilds all the hills, yellow as golden-rod. Shall we go?”

  “But in the spring — let us wait until spring.”

  “Where?”

  “Here.”

  “Until spring?”

  “It is written that Time shall pass as a shadow across the sea. What is that book there under your feet — that iron-bound book, half embedded like a stone in the grass.”

  “I did not see it!”

  “Bring it to me.”

  I raised the book; it left a bare mark in the sod as a stone that is turned. Then, holding it on my knees, I opened it, and Sweetheart, leaning on my shoulder, read. The tall stars flared like candles, flooding the page with diamond light; the earth, perfumed with blossoms, stirred with the vague vibration of countless sounds, tiny voices swaying breathless in the hidden surge of an endless harmony.

  “The white shadow is the shadow of the soul,” she read. Even the winds were hushed as her sweet lips moved.

  “And what shall make thee to understand what hell is? . . . When the sun shall be folded up as a garment that is laid away; when the stars fall, and the seas boil, and when souls shall be joined again to their bodies; and when the girl who hath been buried alive shall be asked for what crime; when books shall be laid open, when hell shall burn fiercely, and when paradise shall be brought very near:

  “Every soul shall know what it hath wrought!”

  I closed my eyes; the splendour of the star-light on the page was more than my eyes could bear.

  But she read on; for what can dim her eyes?

  “O man, verily, labouring, thou labourest to meet thy LORD.

  “And thou shalt meet HIM!”

  “When the earth shall be stretched like a skin, and shall cast forth that which is therein;

  “By the heaven adorned with signs, by the witness and the witnessed;

  “By that which appeareth by night; by the daybreak and the ten nights — the ten nights;

  “The night of Al Kadr is better than a thousand months.

  “Praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures; the Most Merciful, the King of the Day of Judgment. Thee do we worship, and of thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way, in the way of those to whom thou hast been gracious; not of those against whom thou art incensed, nor of those who go astray!”

  * * * *

  In the sudden silence that spread across earth and heaven I heard the sound of a voice under the earth, calling, calling, calling.

  “It is already spring,” said Sweetheart; and she rose, placing her white hands in mine. “Shall we go?”

  “But we are already there,” I stammered, turning my eyes fearfully; for the tall pines dwindled and clustered and rose again cool and gray in the morning air, all turned to stone, fretted and carved like lace work; and where the pines had faded, the twin towers of a cathedral loomed; and where the hills swept across the horizon, the roofs of a white city glimmered in the morning sun. Bridges and quays and streets and domes and the hum of traffic and rattle of arms; and over all, the veil of haze and the twin gray towers of Notre Dame!

  “Sweetheart!” I faltered.

  But we were already in my studio.

  IV.

  The studio had not changed. The sun flooded it.

  Sweetheart sat in the broken armchair and watched me struggle with the packing. Every now and then she made an impulsive movement toward the heap of clothes on the floor, which I checked with a “Thanks! I can fix it all alone, Sweetheart.”

  Clifford seemed to extract amusement from it all, and said as much to Rowden, who was as usual ruining my zitherine by trying to play it like a banjo.

  Elliott, knowing he could be of no use to us, had the decency to sit outside the studio on one of the garden benches. He appeared at intervals at the studio door, saying, “Come along, Clifford; they don’t want you messing about. Drop that banjo, Rowden, or Jack will break your head with it — won’t you, Jack?”

  I said I would, but not with the zitherine.

  Clifford flatly refused to move unless Sweetheart would take him out into our garden and show him the solitary goldfish which lurked in the fountain under the almond trees. But Sweetheart, apparently fascinated by the mysteries of packing, turned a deaf ear to Clifford’s blandishments and Rowden’s discords.

  “I imagined,” said Clifford, somewhat hurt, “that you would delight in taking upon yourself the duties of a hostess. I should be pleased to believe that I am not an unwelcome guest.”

  “So should I,” echoed Rowden; “I d be pleased too.”

  “What a shame for you to bother, Jack! she said. “Mr. Clifford shall go and make some tea directly. Mr. Rowden, you may take a table out by the fountain — and stay there.”

  Clifford, motioning Elliott to take the other end of the Japanese table, backed with it through the hallway and out to the gravel walk, expostulating.

  “The sugar is there in that tin box by the model stand,” she said, when he reappeared, “and the extra spoons are lying in a long box on Jack’s big easel.”

  When Rowden, reluctantly relinquishing the zitherine, followed Clifford, bearing the cups and alcohol lamp, I raised my head and wiped the dust from my forehead. I believe I swore a little in French. Sweetheart looked startled. She knew more French than I supposed she did.

  “What is it, Jack?”

  “Mais — rien, ça m’embête — cette espèce de malle — —”

  “Then why won’t you let me help you, Jack? I can at least put in my gowns.”

  “But I must pack my colour box first, and the gun case, and the box of reels, and the pastel case, and our shooting boots, and the water-colour box, and the cartridge belt, and your golf shoes, and — —”

  “O dear!” said Sweetheart with a shudder.

  I stood up and scowled at the trunk.

  “To look at you, Jack,” murmured Sweetheart, “one might think you unhappy.”

  Unhappy! At the thought our eyes met across the table.

  “Unhappy!” I whispered.

  Then Clifford came stumbling in, wearing a pair of Joseph’s sabots, and, imitating that faithful domestic in voice and manner, invited us to tea under the lilacs and almond blossoms.

  “In a moment,” cried Sweetheart impatiently. “Go and pour the tea.”

  Clifford looked aghast. “No, no!” he cried; “it’s impossible — I won’t believe that you two are deliberately getting rid of me so you can be alone to spoon! And your honeymoon already a year old, and — —”

  Sweetheart frowned, and tapped her foot.

  Clifford retired indignant.

  Then she raised her eyes to mine, and a delicate colour stained her cheeks and neck.

  “Yes,” I said, “we have been married nearly a year, Sweetheart.”

  We looked at our white shadows on the floor.

  V.

  Sweetheart sat under the lilac blossoms pouring out tea for Clifford, Elliott, and Rowden. She was gracious to Clifford, gentle to Elliott, and she took Rowden under her wing in the sweetest way possible, to which Clifford stated his objections.

  “Mr. Rowden is younger than you are,” she said gravely. “Monsieur Clifford, I do not wish you to torment him.”

  “Rowden’s no baby; he’s as old as Jack is, and Jack doesn’t murder music.”

  “I am glad to see you acknowledge Jack’s superiority in all matters,” said Sweetheart with a dangerous smile.

  “I don’t,” cried Clifford laughing; “and I don’t see what you
find to care about in a man who clips his hair like a gendarme and paints everything purple.”

  “Everything is purple — if Jack paints it so,” said Sweetheart, smiling at her reflected face in the water. She stood at the rim of the little stone fountain with her hands clasped behind her back. Elliott and Clifford were poking about in the water plants to dislodge the solitary goldfish, while Rowden gathered dewy clusters of lilacs as an offering.

  “There he goes!” said Elliott.

  “Poor fellow, living there all alone!” said Sweetheart. “Jack must leave word with Joseph to get him a little lady fish to pay his court to.”

  “Better put in another gentleman fish, then, if you’re following Nature,” said Clifford, with an attempt at cynicism which drew the merriest laugh from Sweetheart.

  “Oh, how funny is Monsieur Clifford when he wants to be like Frenchmen!” she murmured.

  “Jack,” said Elliott, as I came from the studio and picked up a cup of tea grown cold, “Clifford’s doing the world-worn disenchanted roué.”

  “And — and I fear he will next make love to me!” cried Sweetheart.

  “You’d better look out, Jack,” said Clifford darkly, and pretended to sulk until Sweetheart sent him off to buy the bonbons she would need for the train.

  “They’re packed,” I said, “every trunk of them!”

  Sweetheart was enchanted. “All my new gowns, and the shoes from Rix’s — Jack, you didn’t forget the shoes and the bath robes and — —”

  “All packed,” I said, swallowing the tea with a wry face.

  “Oh,” she cried reproachfully, “don’t drink that! Here, I will have some hot tea in a moment,” and she ran over and perched on the arm of the garden bench while I lighted the alcohol lamp and then a cigarette.

  Rowden came up with his offering of lilacs, and she decorated each of us with a spray.

  It was growing late. The long shadows fell across the gravel walks and flecked the white walls of the sculptor’s studio opposite.

  “It’s the nine-o’clock train, isn’t it?” said Elliott.

  “We will meet you at the station at eight-thirty,” added Rowden.

  “You don’t mind, do you, our dining alone?” said Sweetheart shyly; “it’s our last day — Jack’s and mine — in the old studio.”

  “Not the last, I hope,” said Elliott sincerely.

  We all sat silent for a moment.

  “O Paris, Paris — how I fear it!” murmured Sweetheart to me; and in the same breath, “No, no, we must love it, you and I.”

  Then Elliott said aloud, “I suppose you have no idea when you will return?”

  “No,” I replied, thinking of the magic second that had become a year.

  And so we dined alone, Sweetheart and I, in the old studio.

  At half-past eight o’clock the cab stood at the gate with all our traps piled on top, and Joseph and his wife and the two brats were crying, “Au revoir, madame! au revoir, monsieur! We will keep the studio well dusted. Bon voyage! bon voyage!” and all of a sudden my arm was caught by Sweetheart’s little gloved hand, and she drew me back through the long ivy-covered alley to the garden where the studio stood, its doorway closed and silent, the hollow windows black and grim. Truly the light had passed away with the passing of Sweetheart. Her hand slipped from my arm, and she went and knelt down at the threshold and kissed it.

  “I first knew happiness when I first crossed it,” she said; “it breaks my heart to leave it. Only that magic second! but it seems years that we have lived here.”

  “It was you who brought happiness to it,” I said.

  “Good-bye! good-bye, dear, dear, old studio!” she cried. “Oh, if Jack is always the same to me as he has been here — if he will be faithful and true in that new home!”

  The new home was to be in a strange land. Sweetheart was a little frightened, but was dying to go there. Sweetheart had never seen the golden gorse ablaze on the moors of Morbihan.

  VI.

  I went inside the brass railing and waited my turn to buy the tickets. When it came, I took two first class to Quimperlé, for it was to be an all-night ride, and there was no sleeping car. Clifford had taken charge of the baggage, and I went with him to have it registered, leaving Sweetheart with Elliott and Rowden. All the traps were there the big trunks, the big valises, my sketching kit, the zitherine in a leather case, two handbags, a bundle of umbrellas and canes, and a huge package of canvases. The toilet case and the rugs and waterproofs we took with us into the compartment.

  The compartment was empty. Sweetheart nestled into one corner, and when I had placed our traps in the racks overhead I sat down opposite, while Clifford handed in our sandwiches, a bottle of red wine, and Sweetheart’s box of bonbons.

  We didn’t say much; most had been said before starting. Clifford was more affected than he cared to show — I know by the way he grasped my hand. They are dear fellows, everyone. We did not realize that we were actually going going, perhaps, forever. She laughed, and chatted, and made fun of Clifford, and teased Rowden, aided and abetted by Elliott, until the starting gong clanged and a warning whistle sounded along the gaslit platform.

  “Jack,” cried Clifford, leaning in the window, “God bless you! God bless you both!”

  Elliott touched her hand and wrung mine, and Rowden risked his neck to give us both one last cordial grasp.

  “Count on me — on us,” cried Clifford, speaking in English, “if you are troubled!”

  By what, my poor Clifford? Can you, with all your gay courage, turn back the hands of the dials? Can you, with all your warm devotion, add one second to the magic second and make it two? The shadows we cast are white.

  The train stole out into the night, and I saw them grouped on the platform, silhouettes in the glare of the yellow signals. I drew in my head and shut the window. Sweetheart’s face had grown very serious, but now she smiled across from her corner.

  “Aren’t you coming over by me, Jack?”

  VII.

  We must have been moving very swiftly, for the car rocked and trembled, and it was probably that which awoke me. I looked across at Sweetheart. She was lying on her side, one cheek resting on her gloved hand, her travelling cap pushed back, her eyes shut. I smoothed away the curly strands of hair which straggled across her cheeks, and tucked another rug well about her feet. Her feet were small as a child’s. I speak as if she were not a child. She was eighteen then.

  The next time I awoke we lay in a long gaslit station. Some soldiers were disembarking from the forward carriages, and a gendarme stalked up and down the platform.

  I looked sleepily about for the name of the station. It was painted in blue over the buffet— “Petit St. Yves.” “Is it possible we are in Brittany?” I thought. Then the voices of the station hands, who were hoisting a small boat upon the forward carriage, settled my doubts. “Allons! tire hardiment, Jean Louis! mets le cannotte deboutte.”

  Arrête toi Yves! doucement! doucement! Sacré garce!”

  Somewhere in the darkness a mellow bell tolled. I settled back to slumber, my eyes on Sweetheart.

  She slept.

  VIII.

  I awoke in a flood of brightest sunshine. From our window I could look into the centre of a most enchanting little town, all built of white limestone and granite. The June sunshine slanted on thatched roof and painted gable, and fairly blazed on the little river slipping by under the stone bridge in the square.

  The streets and the square were alive with rosy-faced women in white head-dresses. Everywhere the constant motion of blue skirts and spotless coiffes, the twinkle of varnished socks, the clump! clump! of sabots.

  Like a black shadow a priest stole across the square. Above him the cross on the church glowed like a live cinder, flashing its reflection along the purple-slated roof from the eaves of which a cloud of ash-gray pigeons drifted into the gutter below. I turned from the window to encounter Sweetheart’s eyes. Her lips moved a little, her long lashes heavy with slumber dro
oped lower, then with a little sigh she sat bolt upright. When I laughed, as I always did, she smiled, a little confused, a little ashamed, murmuring: “Bonjour, mon cheri! Quelle heure est-il?” That was always the way Sweetheart awoke.

  “O dear, I am so rumpled!” she said. “Jack, get me the satchel this minute, and don’t look at me until I ask you to.”

  I unlocked the satchel, and then turning to the window again threw it wide open. Oh, how sweet came the morning air from the meadows! Some young fellows below on the bank of the stream were poking long cane fishing-rods under the arches of the bridge.

  “Sweetheart,” I said over my shoulder, “I believe there are trout in this stream.”

  “Mr. Elliott says that whenever you see a puddle you always say that,” she replied.

  “What does he know about it?” I answered, “for I am touchy on the subject; “he doesn’t know a catfish from a — a dogfish.”

  “Neither do I, Jack dear, but Fm going to learn. Don’t be cross.”

  She had finished her toilet and came over to the window, leaning out over my shoulder.

  “Where are we?” she cried in startled wonder at the little white town and the acres of swaying clover. “Oh, Jack, is is this the country?”

  A man in uniform passing under our window looked up surprised.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded; then, seeing Sweetheart, he took off his gold-laced cap, and added, with a bow: “This carriage goes no farther, monsieur — madame —— —”

  “Merci!” exclaimed Sweetheart, “we wish to go to Quimperlé!”

  “And we have tickets for Quimperlé,” I insisted.

  “But,” smiled the official, “this is Quimperlè.”

  It was true. There was the name written over the end of the station; and, looking ahead, I saw that our car had heen detached and was standing in stately seclusion under the freight shed. How long it had been standing so Heaven alone knows; but they evidently had neglected to call us, and there we were inhabiting a detached carriage in the heart of Quimperlé. I managed to get a couple of porters, and presently we found all our traps piled up on the platform, and a lumbering vehicle with a Breton driver waiting to convey us to the hotel.

  “Which,” said I to the docile Breton, “is the best hotel in Quimperlé?”