East, west, north and south around him stretched away the endless waste of carpet; on every hand crowded forests of furniture, amid which rocking-chairs were in motion; their rhythmic squeak and the click of knitting needles alone broke the July silence.
The young man looked up at the high and indescribable ceiling; he gazed rather wildly at the tall marble mantels inset with hot air registers; his haunted gaze shifted from a life-size portrait of Washington to the fly-infested window panes. Outside in the street a Ford motor-car rattled jauntily down Broadway.
And the panic-stricken desperation of the trapped seized upon this young man. He must get out of Saratoga — get out instantly; he knew he must flee, or go mad and presently find himself running in circles. All in an instant he understood that the germ of madness lies latent in every human being awaiting only proper environment to develop. And suddenly he comprehended that Saratoga was that environment, and that he must go; go somewhere where he could forget; where he could learn to forget these nightmare hotels, these fly-cursed dining-rooms, this hideous forest of rocking-chairs; these fabulous Ethiopians, these spectres of old ladies knitting like the three awful Fates themselves.
Somewhere in the outer world there were real people, and real chairs, and fewer life-size pictures of Washington. Somewhere in the sane and modem world the horror of the mid-Victorian had become utterly extinct even though Queen Anne had indigestibly arisen to brood upon its ruins.
He must go! He must go at once. Madness lurked within the next five minutes.
“Mistuh John Brown, suh, if yu please! Mr. John Brown, suh, if yu please! Mistuh John—”
James Green arose mechanically and, stretching his neck above the forest of first growth furniture, gazed stupidly upon the approaching Ethiopian.
The Ethiop came on, dodging the furniture and still paging somebody named Brown; and behind him followed a woman winding a sinuous way amid the wastes of rockers while her Senegambian guide continued to recite in oily reiteration the name of Mr. Brown till the huge hall echoed the inquiry for miles around.
“Mistuh John Brown, suh — —”
And like lightning, madness struck Mr. James Green.
“I am Mr. Brown,” said the young man, looking not at the specimen of a species approaching extinction, but at the girl who followed.
Why he had suddenly said his name was Brown when it had been Green for twenty-three years he could not entirely understand. He merely understood that he had gone mad — that Saratoga already had developed the latent germ within him.
He looked at the girl and he felt the germ was already sprouting.
She was young, tall, freckled delightfully, and she wore grey eyes and chestnut hair and distractingly pretty clothes.
“Mr. Brown?” she asked with puzzled inquiry in voice and eyes.
The germ, already sprouted, matured rapidly: “Yes,” he said calmly and with the fixed smile that young men believe formality demands in the presence of the very beautiful. “Yes, I am John Brown.”
They inspected each other in silence for a moment, he, utterly astonished at his own meaningless mendacity, already exceedingly worried, but perversely prepared to go on with the adventure; she, hesitating, plainly perplexed.
Then a slight color came into her face; her lips parted as though speech were imminent; but she pressed her lips together again very firmly as though at some sudden inward decision; and the tint in her cheeks brightened. So did her eyes.
“I had you paged,” she said, “but I thought I’d save time by following him—” she looked at the nearly extinct specimen, drew a quarter of a dollar from her reticule and daintily bestowed it.
“I’m very glad,” said the young man, “that you were able to find me because we haven’t very much time, I fear, for all that we have to say to each other.” Again astonishment seized him at his own terrible temerity.
The bright tint deepened in her cheek; she looked at him intently, curiously, and he thought there was a hint, in her gaze, of unmitigated amazement — or was it a subtle hint of defiance? — or amusement? Anyway, there was brilliant animation in those grey eyes; and he knew within himself that he was now fairly launched upon his first adventure. And whatever the outcome, whether gaiety or jail, he meant to set sail across the unknown sea of Romance until his frail bark foundered or drifted into port wafted by the breezy laughter of the old and laughter-loving gods.
“Of course I need not introduce myself,” she said, dropping gracefully into the depths of a rocker.
“No, of course not,” he agreed, wondering how he was to discover her name.
“You could not very well forget my name even if you never before have seen me,” she continued; “could you, Mr. Brown?”
“No,” said James Green, “I couldn’t ever forget anything concerning you.” And he began to wonder how long it would take her to discover his horrible and frivolous perfidy, and whether she would summon the Saratoga police.
“However,” he continued, “I must confess that I sometimes forget exactly how your branch of the family spells the name.”
“With an e,” said the grey-eyed girl, pleasantly. But her regard grew disconcertingly brilliant, and she seemed to gaze straight into the anguished depths of his mendacious soul.
“Oh,” he nodded, “so you spell it with an el Of course I remember!” And he continued to nod wisely to himself until interrupted by a sudden thought — a very subtle thought.
“Suppose,” he said, producing notebook and pencil, “you write it out for me. Then I shall always be certain.”
She declined the offered notebook.
“Merely write it with an e” she said. “Then you’ll never forget.”
“But won’t you—” he persisted hopefully.
“But why not write it yourself?” she asked smilingly. “It is a sure method of fixing it in your mind.”
“No need,” he said, hastily pocketing his notebook; “I’ll be sure to remember it now. I’ll always recollect that it is spelled with an e.”
She nodded, looked down, and gently joined the tips of her gloved fingers as though immersed in reverie.
“Well,” she presently inquired softly and very thoughtfully, “what decision have you come to in regard to the matter which interests us both so profoundly?”
He hesitated only a moment: “I have decided,” he said, “to leave it entirely to you.”
She looked up directly into his eyes. “I don’t quite understand, Mr. Brown.”
“I mean,” said the young man, “that whatever you decide will be entirely agreeable to me.”
“But you didn’t say so in your letters!”
“No, I believe I did not.”
“Indeed you did not. You said something very different. You reminded me of your years and experience, and that the decision must be with you in all important differences of opinion.”
“I know I said that,” admitted the mad Mr. Green, “but since meeting you in person I perceive that the difference in our ages scarcely warrants any arbitrary decision on my part—”
“But you knew I was only twenty-one; I wrote you so.”
“Well, I am only twenty-three—”
“What! You wrote that you were fifty-three!”
“Fifty-three! Did I write that?” he asked aghast. “Certainly. Otherwise I should not have felt so entirely at ease in what now appears a somewhat unconventional undertaking!”
“It was a misprint of the typewriter—”
“But you wrote it out in long hand!”
“I’m likely to write things that I don’t mean to write. I’m absent-minded. I meant twenty instead of fifty. I don’t look fifty, do I?”
She glanced up at him, studied his rather nice and guileless countenance for a second, then gazed elsewhere; and continued to gaze as though thinking very deeply.
After a nervous interval he said: “About this enterprise of ours—”
She started, turned, looked at him, then suddenly laughed —
an odd, nervous, little laugh, while in her bright eyes danced two little reckless devils.
“Very well, Mr. Brown,” she said, “I shall tell you exactly what I am ready to do. You and I ought to contribute twenty thousand dollars apiece—”
“I beg your pardon!”
“ — Unless you think thirty is necessary?”
“No,” he said hastily, “twenty ought to be enough.”
“We can tell only by experimenting,” she pointed out. “Of course. That is the only way. Then if thirty thousand dollars is necessary, or if three hundred thousand are required—” He waved his hand carelessly in termination of a sentence which was threatening to involve him.
She clasped her hands and rested her pretty chin on them.
“What,” she asked, “in your opinion, is the first thing to do in this matter?”
“I had rather hear your opinion.”
“Please — I had rather hear yours,” she insisted. “You have a most elaborate plan matured on paper. I have studied the copy you sent me and I know it by heart.”
He felt himself backed against the wall.
“That plan,” he explained, “was merely tentative, and subject to your revision—”
“Oh!”
“Everything I ever mean to do is subject to your revision!” he continued a trifle wildly as the sprouting germ within him put forth buds.
“Thank you,” she said, “but of course you don’t mean that—”
“I do — I—” he checked himself.
She smiled and said with heightened colour: “You are speaking figuratively of course.”
“Oh, yes,” he replied, getting a grip on himself, “I am speaking, so to speak, in a general generalization.”
“Entirely. So, if you please, what in your opinion is the first thing we ought to do?”
“Have you lunched?” he inquired with sudden inspiration.
“I — why, no—”
“Then that” he said triumphantly, “is the very first thing to do.”
She looked at him; her grey eyes were very bright but inscrutable.
“Do you think we have time to lunch?” she asked gravely.
“Time? Why not?”
“But we have a long distance to go and much to do.”
“I know it,” he said, wondering where on earth they were bound for, and what they were going to do when they arrived.
“I shall have to be back in Albany by six, in time to dress,” she reminded him.
“Naturally,” he admitted.
“And you no doubt expect to return to Albany in time for the meeting this evening?”
“Perhaps I can telephone—”
“But I understood that you are to preside! You wrote so.”
“Oh,” he said carelessly, “I often preside at meetings by telephone.”
“How can you?”
“It’s easy. I can do it without any trouble. Trust me, Miss—” he turned very red. “Lord!” he said, “I’ve forgotten how to spell your name again! I’m sorry! But do let us lunch together and talk over this matter—”
He rose; she stood up as though reluctant and a little bewildered; but as she looked up at him, into her eyes leaped suddenly the two little demons of gaiety, and she laughed as though scarcely knowing why.
“Mr. Brown, you are odd, unusual. I suppose all great philanthropists are a little eccentric.”
All great philanthropists! The dreadful clue began to enlighten him. This lovely young girl mistook him for the celebrated philanthropist, John Brown.
For a second he wavered; the golden sails on his bark of Romance fluttered and sagged in a dead calm. Should he pursue the adventure? Did jail lie that way? What was the penalty for impersonating philanthropists? Would the frivolous and jocose plea, “just for fun,” mitigate the sentence? Could he, indeed, plead Saratoga insanity?
Oh, and worse than all, worse than jail, worse than the anger of a great and wealthy philanthropist, worse than anything he ever heard of, would be the amazement, indignation and scorn of this grey-eyed girl — the prettiest girl he had ever beheld in all his uneventful life.
But, while he wavered, the old gods, lingering near, unseen, fell a-laughing and nudging one another, and their ambrosial breath stirred the idle golden sails and filled them; and the frail bark of Romance began to move out over uncharted and sapphire seas. And James Green remained on board.
They lunched together in a fly-haunted void where amid interstellar space dusky forms from Ethiop wafted spices of Araby in the outward form of fried chicken and succotash.
“How delicious the food is in this hotel,” said that infatuated young man.
“It really is delicious,” said the girl, vaguely surprised to find it so. However, she had a keen appetite, having motored from Albany.
She said: “Then I shall not see you at the meeting this evening?”
“Why not?” he asked, as though capable of slaying anybody who attempted to prevent him from attending any meeting adorned by her.
“I thought you intended to preside by telephone.”
“I’ve changed my mind. I shall certainly attend any meeting which you — —”
“Fm so glad,” she exclaimed hurriedly. “I really was disappointed. Besides, your personal presence there and your twenty-thousand-dollar contribution would insure a most generous support from the others.”
He nodded, but his appetite became troubled. The mere mention of such sums depressed him; vaguely he realized how utterly out of the running he really was in company with this wealthy and charming philanthropist.
He glanced at her furtively. She looked disconcertingly wealthy in her fresh, supple, perfectly groomed beauty — clear-eyed, dear-skinned, faultless, unapproachable.
And Oh, how she was going to scorn him some day! It hurt already. But the old gods were still laughing and, lying cheek by jowl, were amusing themselves by blowing the golden sales full of fragrant puffs of wind. “This plan of yours—” he began.
“Of yours!” she corrected him. “The honor of suggesting this splendid charity is yours alone, Mr. Brown.”
“You are too kind,” he said, miserably. “If you knew how little I deserve—”
“How can you? You who have done so much to alleviate human woe!”
“I did it,” he said, desperately, “because I’ve been a bad man!” —
“What?”
“That’s why I did it. That’s why I’ve given all these millions to charity—”
“I don’t believe it! What nonsense! You are famous for the ideal purity of your family life.”
“No, I’m not!” he exclaimed excitedly. “I’m a domestic demon!”
“You are not! Your wife and children —— —”
“What!”
“Your wife and children are held up as perfect models of domestic happiness by every Sunday newspaper in New York. And it is all due to the nobility, purity, and generosity of your life!”
Flushed, smiling, and a trifle excited she assaulted her orange ice with unfeigned satisfaction; he, aghast, gazed out of the window, trying to realize how far he had already entangled himself in the identity of a famous and moral philanthropist, and in the career of a generous and beautiful and innocent young daughter of unknown and multimillionaire parentage. But while he sat cogitating, the bark of adventure drifted on toward Scylla.
“This is an awful deal I’m handing her,” he thought. “I’ll stay with the game until she leaves for Albany, then I’ll take poison quietly somewhere under somebody’s bed. They can sweep me out in the morning. Maybe she’ll think less unkindly of me then—”
“Mr. Brown?”
He remembered that it was his name and turned with a forced gaiety entirely ghastly.
“I think I wrote you that I should come ever to Saratoga in my car, didn’t I?”
“I believe you did.”
“It’s a fast little Snapper runabout, and we ought to make Iron Ridge in two hours. I drive very nicely,�
�� she added with one of those frank smiles which had begun to do him unutterable damage.
He had no idea where Iron Ridge might be or why they were going there; but he went to the desk, signed their check, summoned a fabled Ethiop, and suddenly remembered that he didn’t know whose car to send for. Shameful discovery confronted him; disaster glared at him out of mocking eyes.
There was a moment’s deadly silence on his part during which both ears were nearly burnt off, then the girl unclosed her lips which had tightened spasmodically:
“Miss Grey’s car,” she said sweetly to the darker individual.
“Yaas, Miss.”
She turned and glanced at Green who had put on the name and attributes of Brown. He was fixedly regarding the street. The street was full of sunshine and of nothing else. Maybe he was a sun worshipper.
When the smartest of little grey Snapper runabouts was brought around, they descended to the street, Miss Grey stepped in and took the wheel, the pseudo Brown got in beside her, the self-starter clicked, the engine whirred, then in silence the runabout glided away through the sunny, empty streets of Saratoga, carrying one remorseful, bewildered, and madly infatuated young man whose salary, he realized, would not have paid for a summer gown of the young girl beside him.
Out in the country they swung westward, the car increasing its speed over the fine state road, and before them opened the hazy hills of northern New York, rolling toward the blue Adirondacks, set with oak and elm and pines, clothed with sweet fern and wild grass, or more rarely squared with crops that grow on sandy loam — oats, barley, buckwheat, potatoes, and Indian corn.
An aromatic wind blew warmly in their faces; robin and bluebird and golden-winged woodpecker scattered into flight before them; burly, furry woodchucks scuttled across the road into tussock or stone wall; slow, poised mouse-hawks looked down at them from the blinding summer blue, and saw a young girl driving a smart grey car, very intent on her business, and a young man looking at her in fascinated and troubled silence.
A long while passed before they said anything; the gaunt, rocky, worn-out country came into view before they spoke — that desolate region of sand and charred slashings where dead trees stand stark and spectral amid brambles and fireweed; where shrunken streams clatter through tangled gulleys; where the marks of man’s stupidity and ravage affront the pure and undefiled sky.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1185
