Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Are you sure?”

  “Perfectly. I don’t quite know what to say — how to reassure you and offer you any help—”

  He fell silent, standing there on the sidewalk, worrying his short mustache. The situation was a new one to him.

  “Suppose,” he suggested, “that you try to take a little rest. I’ll sit down on the steps—”

  She looked at him in wide-eyed alarm. “Do you mean that I should go into that house — alone!”

  “Well — you oughtn’t to stand on the steps all night. It is nearly three o’clock. You are frightened and nervous. Really you must go in and—”

  “Then you must come, too,” she said desperately. “This nightmare is more than I can endure alone. I’m not a coward; none of my race is. But I need a living being near me. Will you come?”

  He bowed. She turned, hastily gathering her filmy gown, and mounted the shadowy steps without a sound; and he followed leisurely, even perhaps warily, every sense alert.

  He was prepared to see the end of this encounter — see it through to an explanation if it took all summer. Of the situation, however, and of her, he had so far ventured no theory. The type of woman and the situation were perfectly new to him. He was aware that anything might happen in New York, and, closing the heavy front door, he was ready for it.

  The hall gas jets were burning brightly, and in the darkened drawing-room he could distinguish the heavy outlines of furniture cased in dust coverings.

  She asked him to strike a match and light the sconces in the drawing-room, and he did so, curiosity now thoroughly aroused.

  As the gas flared up, shrouded pictures and furniture sprang into view surrounding him, and in the dusk of the room beyond he saw a ray of light glimmering on the foliated carving of a gilded harp.

  Slowly he turned to the girl beside him. A warm shadow dimmed her delicate features, yet they were the loveliest he had ever looked upon.

  Suddenly he understood the mute message of her eyes: “My imprudence places me at your mercy.”

  “Your helplessness places me at yours,” he said aloud, scarcely conscious that he had spoken.

  At that a bright flush transfigured her. “I trusted you the moment I saw you,” she said impulsively. “Do you mind sitting there opposite me? I shall take this chair — rather near you—”

  She sank into an armchair; and, touched and a trifle amused, he seated himself, at a little nod from her, awaiting her further pleasure.

  She lay there for a minute or two without speaking, rounded arms resting on the gilt arms of the chair, eyes thoughtfully studying him.

  “I’ve simply got to tell you everything,” she said at length.

  “It can do no harm, I think,” he replied pleasantly.

  “No; no harm. The harm has been done. Yet, with you sitting there so near me, I am not frightened now. It is curious,” she mused, “that I should feel no apprehension now. And yet — and yet—”

  She leaned toward him, dropping her linked fingers in her lap.

  “Tell me, did you ever hear of the Sign of Venus? — the Signum Veneris?” she asked.

  “I’ve heard of it — yes,” he replied, surprised. And as she said nothing, he went on: “The distinguished gentleman who occupies the chair of Applied Psychics at the university lectures on the Sign of Venus, I believe.”

  “Did you attend the lectures?” she asked calmly.

  He said he had not, smiling a trifle.

  “I did.”

  “They were probably amusing,” he ventured.

  “Not very. Psychic phenomena bored me; I went during Lent. Psychic phenomena—” She hesitated, embarrassed at his amusement. “I suppose you laugh at that sort of thing.”

  “No, I don’t laugh at it. Queer things occur, they say. All I know is that I myself have never seen anything happen that could not be explained by natural laws.”

  “I have,” she said.

  He bent his head in polite acquiescence.

  “I went to the lectures,” she said. “I am not very intellectual; nothing he said interested me very much — which was, of course, suitable for a Lenten amusement.”

  She leaned a little nearer, small hands tightly interlaced on her knee.

  “His lecture on the Sign of Venus was the last.” She lifted a white finger, drawing the imaginary Signum Veneris in the air. Hetherford nodded gravely.

  “The lecture,” she continued, “ended with an explanation of the Sign of Venus — how, contemplating it by starlight, one might pass into that physical unconsciousness which leaves the mind free to control the soul.”

  She held out her left hand toward him. On a stretched finger a ring glistened, mounted with the Sign of Venus blazing in brilliants.

  “I had this made specially,” she said; “not that I had any particular desire to test it — no curiosity. It never occurred to me that here in New York one could — could—”

  “What?” asked Hetherford dryly.

  “ — could leave one’s own body at will.”

  “I don’t believe it could be accomplished in New York,” he said with great gravity. “And that’s a pretty safe conclusion to come to, is it not?”

  She dropped her eyes, silent for a moment, resting her delicate chin on the palm of her hand. Then she lifted her eyes to him calmly, and the direct beauty of her gaze disturbed him.

  “No, it is not a safe conclusion to come to. Listen to me. Last night they gave a dance at the Willow Brook Hunt. It was nearly two o’clock this morning when I left the club house and started home across the lawn with my mother and the maid—”

  “But how on earth could—” he began, then begged her pardon and waited.

  She continued serenely: “The night was warm and lovely, and it was clear starlight. When I entered my room I sent the maid away and sat down by the open window. The scent of the flowers and the beauty of the night made me restless; I went downstairs, unbolted the door, and slipped out through the garden to the pergola. My hammock hung there, and I lay down in it, looking out at the stars.”

  She drew the ring from her finger, holding it out for him to see.

  “The starlight caught the gems on the Sign of Venus,” she said under her breath; “that was the beginning. And then — I don’t know why — as I lay there idly turning the ring on my finger, I found myself saying, ‘I must go to New York: I must leave my body here asleep in the hammock and go to my own room in Fifty-eighth Street.’”

  A curious little chill passed over Hetherford.

  “I said it again and again — I don’t know why. I remember the ring glittered; I remember it grew brighter and brighter. And then — and then! I found myself upstairs in the dark, groping over the dresser for the matches.”

  Again that faint chill touched Hetherford.

  “I was stupefied for a moment,” she said tremulously; “then I suspected what I had done, and it frightened me. And when I lighted the candle, and saw it was truly my own room — and when I caught sight of my own face in the mirror — terror seized me; it was like a glimpse of something taken unawares. For, do you know that although in the glass I saw my own face, the face was not looking back at me.” She dropped her head, crushing the ring in both hands. “The reflected face was far lovelier than mine; and it was mine, I think, yet it was not looking at me, and it moved when I did not move. I wonder — I wonder—”

  The tension was too much. “If that be so,” he said, steadying his voice—” if you saw a face in your mirror, the face was your own.” He made an impatient gesture, rising to his feet at the same moment. “All that you have told me can be explained,” he said.

  “How can it? At this very moment I am asleep in my hammock.”

  “We will deal with that later,” he said, smiling down at her. “Where is there a looking-glass?”

  “There is one in the hallway.” She rose, slipping the ring on her finger, and led the way to where an oval gilt mirror hung partly covered with dust cloths.

  He cas
t aside the coverings. “Now look into the glass,” he said gayly. She raised her head and faced the mirror for an instant.

  “Come here,” she whispered; and he stepped behind her, looking over her shoulder.

  In the glass, as though reflected, he saw her face, but the face was in profile!

  A shiver passed over him from head to foot.

  “Did I not tell you?” she whispered. “Look! See, the other face is moving, while I am still!”

  “There’s something wrong about the glass, of course,” he muttered; “it’s defective.”

  “But who is that in the glass?”

  “It is you — your profile. I don’t exactly understand. Good Lord! It’s turning away from us!”

  She shrank against the wall, wide-eyed, breathing rapidly.

  “There is no use in our being frightened,” he said, scarcely knowing what he uttered. “This is Fifty-eighth Street, New York, 1903.” He shook his shoulders, squaring them, and forced a smile. “Don’t be frightened; there’s an explanation for all this. You are not asleep in Westchester; you are here in your own house. You mustn’t tremble so. Give me your hand a moment.”

  She laid her hand in his obediently; it shook like a leaf. He held it firmly, touching the fluttering pulse.

  “You are certainly no spirit,” he said, smiling; “your hand is warm and yielding. Ghosts don’t have hands like that, you know.”

  Her fingers lay in his, quite passive now, but the pulse quickened.

  “The explanation of it all is this,” he said: “You have had a temporary suspension of consciousness, during which time you, without being aware of what you were doing, came to town from Willow Brook. You believe you went to the dance at the Hunt Club, but probably you did not. Instead, during a lapse of consciousness, you went to the station, took a train to town, came straight to your own house—” He hesitated.

  “Yes,” she said, “I have a key to the door. Here it is.” She drew it from the bosom of her gown; he took it triumphantly.

  “You simply awoke to consciousness while you were groping for the matches. That is all there is to it; and you need not be frightened at all!” he announced.

  “No, not frightened,” she said, shaking her head; “only — only I wonder how I can get back. I’ve tried to fix my mind on my ring — on the Sign of Venus — I cannot seem to—”

  “But that’s nonsense!” he protested cheerfully. “That ring has nothing to do with the matter.”

  “But it brought me here! Truly I am asleep in my hammock. Won’t you believe it?”

  “No; and you mustn’t, either,” he said impatiently. “Why, just now I explained to you—”

  “I know,” she said, looking down at the ring on her hand; “but you are wrong — truly you are.”

  “I am not wrong,” he said, laughing. “It was only a dream — the dance, the return, the hammock — all these were parts of a dream so intensely real that you cannot shake it off at once.”

  “Then — then who was that we saw in the mirror?”

  “Let us try it again,” he said confidently. She suffered him to lead her again to the mirror; again they peered into its glimmering depths, heads close together.

  A second’s breathless silence, then she caught his hand in both of hers with a low cry; for the strange profile was slowly turning toward them a face of amazing beauty — her own face transfigured, radiantly glorified.

  “My soul!” she gasped, and would have fallen at his feet had he not held her and supported her to the stairs, where she sank down, hiding her face in her arms.

  As for him, he was terribly shaken; he strove to speak, to reason with her, with himself, but a stupor chained body and mind, and he only leaned there on the newel post, vaguely aware of his own helplessness.

  Far away in the night the bells of a church began striking the hour — one, two, three, four. Presently the distant rattle of a wagon sounded. The city stirred in its slumbers.

  He found himself bending beside her, her passive hands in his once more, and he was saying: “As a matter of fact, all this is quite capable of an explanation. Don’t be distressed — please don’t be frightened or sad. We’ve both had some sort of hallucination, that’s all — really that is all.”

  “I am not frightened now,” she said dreamily. “I am quite sure that — that I am not dead. I am only asleep in my hammock. When I awake—”

  Again, in spite of himself, he shivered.

  “Will you do one more thing for me?” she asked.

  “Yes — a million.”

  “Only one. It is unreasonable, it is perhaps silly — and I have no right to ask—”

  “Ask it,” he begged.

  “Then — then, will you go to Willow Brook? Now?”

  “Now?” he repeated blankly.

  “Yes.” She looked down at him with the shadow of a smile touching lips and eyes. “I am asleep in the hammock; I sleep very, very soundly — and very, very late into the morning. They may not find me there for a long while. So would you mind going to Willow Brook to awaken me?”

  “I — I — but you do not expect me to leave you here and find you in Westchester!” he stammered.

  “You need not go,” she said quietly. “If you will telephone to the house and ask somebody to go out to the pergola—”

  “No,” he said, “I will go; I will go anywhere on earth for you.”

  He stood up, his senses in a whirl. She rose, too, leaning lightly on the balustrade.

  “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “When you awake me, give me this.” She held out the Signum Veneris; and he took it, and bending his head slowly, raised it to his lips.

  It was almost morning when he entered his own house. In a dull trance he dressed, turned again to the stairs, and crept out into the shadowy street.

  People began to pass him; an early electric tram whizzed up Forty-second Street as he entered the railway station. Presently he found himself in a car, clutching his ticket in one hand, her ring in the other.

  “It is I who am mad, not she,” he muttered as the train glided from the station, through the long yard, dim in morning mist, where green and crimson lanterns still sparkled faintly.

  Again he pressed the Signum Veneris to his lips. “It is I who am mad — love mad!” he whispered as the far treble warning of the whistle aroused him and sent him stumbling out into the soft fresh morning air.

  The rising sun smote him full in the eyes as he came in sight of the club house among the still green trees, and the dew on the lawn flashed like the gems of the Signum Veneris on the ring he held so tightly.

  Across the club house lawn stood another house, circled with gardens in full bloom; and to the left, among young trees, the white columns of a pergola glistened, tinted with rose from the early sun.

  There was not a soul astir as he crossed the lawn and entered the garden, brushing the dew from overweighted blossoms as he passed.

  Suddenly, at a turn in the path, he came upon the pergola, and saw a brilliant hammock hanging in the shadow.

  Over the hammock’s fringe something light and fluffy fell in folds like the billowy frills of a ball gown. He stumbled forward, dazed, incredulous, and stood trembling for an instant.

  Then, speechless, he sank down beside her, and dropped the ring into the palm of her half-closed and unconscious hand.

  A ray of sunlight fell across her hair; slowly her blue eyes unclosed, smiling divinely.

  And in her partly open palm the Sign of Venus glimmered like dew silvering a budding rose.

  CHAPTER III

  THE CASE OF MR. HELMER

  He had really been too ill to go; the penetrating dampness of the studio, the nervous strain, the tireless application, all had told on him heavily. But the feverish discomfort in his head and lungs gave him no rest; it was impossible to lie there in bed and do nothing; besides, he did not care to disappoint his hostess. So he managed to crawl into his clothes, summon a cab, and depart. The raw night air cooled his head
and throat; he opened the cab window and let the snow blow in on him.

  When he arrived he did not feel much better, although Catharine was glad to see him. Somebody’s wife was allotted to him to take in to dinner, and he executed the commission with that distinction of manner peculiar to men of his temperament.

  When the women had withdrawn and the men had lighted cigars and cigarettes, and the conversation wavered between municipal reform and contes drolatiques, and the Boznovian attaché had begun an interminable story, and Count Fantozzi was emphasizing his opinion of women by joining the tips of his overmanicured thumb and forefinger and wafting spectral kisses at an annoyed Englishman opposite, Helmer laid down his unlighted cigar and, leaning over, touched his host on the sleeve.

  “Hello! what’s up, Philip?” said his host cordially; and Helmer, dropping his voice a tone below the sustained pitch of conversation, asked him the question that had been burning his feverish lips since dinner began.

  To which his host replied, “What girl do you mean?” and bent nearer to listen.

  “I mean the girl in the fluffy black gown, with shoulders and arms of ivory, and the eyes of Aphrodite.”

  His host smiled. “Where did she sit, this human wonder?”

  “Beside Colonel Farrar.”

  “Farrar? Let’s see” — he knit his brows thoughtfully, then shook his head. “I can’t recollect; we’re going in now and you can find her and I’ll—”

  His words were lost in the laughter and hum around them; he nodded an abstracted assurance at Helmer; others claimed his attention, and by the time he rose to signal departure he had forgotten the girl in black.

  As the men drifted toward the drawing-rooms, Helmer moved with the throng. There were a number of people there whom he knew and spoke to, although through the increasing feverishness he could scarce hear himself speak. He was too ill to stay; he would find his hostess and ask the name of that girl in black, and go.

  The white drawing-rooms were hot and overthronged. Attempting to find his hostess, he encountered Colonel Farrar, and together they threaded their way aimlessly forward.

  “Who is the girl in black, Colonel?” he asked; “I mean the one that you took in to dinner.”