Complete weird tales of.., p.1254
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1254
The Ambassador sullenly did his duty and took Clifford back to the lawn and beat him five games of croquet. But even this triumph was wet-blanketed, for Amyce, holding Henry James to her chin, came out to the lawn to “watch papa” and encourage “papa,” and condole with Clifford for his bad fortune. Only he knew how good that fortune had been — and, perhaps, she suspected it.
Amyce suggested tea on the lawn; his Excellency began to object, but Fate was there and took another fall out of his Excellency, for Amyce had already ordered it, and a servant appeared with tables and trays on the porch.
The Ambassador cropped thin slices of bread-and-butter; Amyce poured tea; Clifford, in a daze of love, saw everything through pink haze. From this dream he was abruptly roused by the advent of Captain Stanley of the cavalry. He saw Amyce feed the brute with tea; he heard her laugh softly when the Captain told some imbecile story or imitated Count Fantozzi. He measured the Captain, he accorded him six feet two, a pair of superb legs, and a cavalry moustache.
“Granted him cards and spades,” thought Clifford, “I’ll beat him yet. I know I can.”
He was an honest youth with no more vanity than you or I.
III.
In the Quarter, Clifford’s attitude became unbearable. Rumours were afloat that he had outgrown the Quarter and its simple lurid pleasures; that he had put away childish things; that he consorted exclusively with the ostentatious great. When garden parties were given at the English Embassy, Clifford’s name figured among the guests, — and the Quarter read it in the Figaro and chafed.
Elliott, incredulous at first, observed the absence of Clifford from all Quarter rites with astonishment and grief. The studio grew lonelier and lonelier. Elliott drank cocktails and brooded.
“See here,” he blurted out, one day, “how long are you going to keep this up?”
“What?” replied Clifford, placing violets in his buttonhole.
“This confounded pose of yours — this tolerating the Quarter — this Embassy nonsense!”
“I prefer it to Bullier,” said Clifford—” or,” he added maliciously, “to the ‘Bal à l’Hôtel-de-Ville.’”
Then he put on his gloves, humming:
“Des chapeaux melon et des chapeaux rond!”
Dame! c’est pas d’ia petite bière! — eu!
Tous ces gueux là
Ils ont pigé ça
‘A la Belle Jardinière! — eu!”
Elliott arose in fury.
“Very well,” he said, “go and eat thin bread-and-butter and talk to fat princesses! — go and learn baccarat from that yellow mummy Fantozzi! — go and play imbecile croquet games with his Excellency and marry his daughter and live in the Parc Monçéaux. But you’ll regret it! oh yes, you’ll be sorry. And you’ll think of the Luxembourg and of Jacquette and the old studio, and you’ll hear a nursery full of babies squawling and you’ll see Fantozzi leering at your wife and—”
Clifford looked around with gently raised eyebrows.
“I won’t be back to dinner,” he said amiably.
“Where are you going — dressed like that!” burst out Elliott with new violence.
“Going to shoot pigeons in the Bois.”
They stood for a while in silence. Presently Elliott arose, went over to his manikin, and began to dress it; the manikin at present was doing duty as a French fireman for Elliott’s great picture, “Saved!”
He mechanically placed the brass pot-helmet on the manikin’s papier-maché head, twisted the neck viciously, straightened out a sawdust stuffed arm, placed a rope in the hand, and closed the jointed fingers. Then he hauled out his easel, opened his colour box, and clattered the brushes.
Clifford watched him.
Elliott set his palette rainbow fashion, touched the canvas with the tip of his third finger, rolled a badger brush in rose-dorée, and began to glaze.
“Don’t glaze yet,” said Clifford.
“Why?” snapped Elliott without turning.
“Because you make the flames too pink.”
“What do you know about flames or pictures or glazing?” said Elliott bitterly. “Go and shoot pigeons and get married.”
Clifford went out haughtily; yet there was an unaccustomed pang in his breast. He suddenly realised how utterly out of it he was; he began to comprehend that he was afloat on the Rubicon in a very leaky boat. There was nothing to warrant his hopes of Amyce except a superb self-confidence. He saw he was alienating the Quarter; — he noticed it now, as he walked, when Selby passed with a constrained smile, when Lambert bowed to him with unaccustomed rigidity, when, as he crossed the Luxembourg, Jacquette, passing with Marianne Dupoix, averted her pretty eyes.
He knew that an announcement of his engagement would be followed by excommunication from the Quarter. He had intended, in the event of betrothal, to confine his Quarter visits to Elliott and Selby and Rowden, but the prospect of involuntary exclusion had small attraction for him. He thought of Jacquette; the odour of violets from a street flower-stand recalled her.
He was in a bad humour when he reached the Tir aux Pigeons. Before he entered he saw Captain Stanley laughing on the lawn with Amyce. That, and the apparition of Fantozzi, completed his irritation and his score at the traps was ridiculous.
“You play croquet better,” observed his Excellency, at his elbow.
That was the last straw, and Clifford forced a smile and went across the lawn.
“What was your score?” asked Amyce, looking up at him from the shade of her white parasol.
He was compelled to confess it.
Fantozzi, interrupted in the recountal of recent personal experience with an electric tram-car, raised his eyebrows superciliously.
“Pooh,” said Captain Stanley, “everybody gets out of form at times.”
Clifford looked gratefully at his generous rival; Amyce also raised her eyes to the well-knit military figure. Generosity is sometimes its own reward — sometimes it even receives perquisites.
Fantozzi continued his dramatic recital of the discourteous tram-car.
“I would come in a tram electrique — Mademoiselle — behold me on the corner street! — the tram approach! — I nod my head! — he do not hear me—”
“Couldn’t hear you nod your head?” inquired Stanley sympathetically.
“Wonder his brains didn’t rattle,” muttered Clifford to himself.
“I nod! I nod!” repeated Fantozzi with mercurial passion; “I permit myself to make observation to stop! Cease! arrest ze tram! He regard me insolent! the tram vanishes itself! I am left on the corner street! The miserable laugh!”
“Are you sure you called to the motor-man to stop?” asked Stanley gravely.
“Parbleu! I did say stop! I said it! I did hear myself say it!”
“Mr. Clifford,” said Amyce, “who is shooting?” She raised her lorgnettes: “Oh, Count Routier! Do you know I am not pleased to see little birds shot. Captain Stanley, it is your turn next. Have you no pity for those poor pigeons?”
“Monsieur Clifford had,” said Count Fantozzi. Amyce frowned a little; Fantozzi, prepared to laugh at his own wit, winced at the silence.
“Well,” said Stanley, “I must go and perform. Shall I miss every bird — is it your pleasure?” he added, looking at Amyce.
Amyce smiled, her face was an enigma.
“Do as you please, I wish you good fortune in any event,” she said.
Fantozzi pretended to shudder for the pigeon victims; Stanley walked thoughtfully across the lawn; Clifford, on fire with mixed emotions of jealousy and love, pretended to be absorbed in the shooting. He glanced indifferently at the gaily-dressed groups on the green, recognised some people and bowed, returned the salutes of other people who recognised him, and finally sat down on a camp-stool near Amyce.
Others were joining the group; a lieutenant of hussars, in sky-blue and silver, a brilliant-eyed diplomatic group from Brazil, one or two tall Englishmen, scrubbed pink, and finally his Excellency the United States Ambassador.
Clifford loathed them all; yet, Amyce was very kind to him. While Captain Stanley stood shooting, she scarcely glanced at the traps, and when that sober-faced young cavalryman sauntered back and confessed he had killed every bird, she scarcely raised her eyebrows. Was it displeasure?
“It is but a sport brutal,” whispered Fantozzi close behind her.
“Like your bull-fights,” said Clifford, seriously. He and Stanley were quits. It was war with Fantozzi.
The Spanish attaché with the Italian name glared blankly at Clifford who returned his glance wickedly.
“Croquet is better sport,” bleated his Excellency, accepting a glass of champagne and a thin slice of bread-and-butter.
Clifford’s turn came again at the traps; he missed right and left. He heard Fantozzi laugh. When he came back Amyce had gone away with his Excellency and Captain Stanley. However, Fantozzi was there and Clifford succeeded in picking a quarrel with him and followed it with a smile and the slightest touch on the Count’s shirt front.
Fantozzi turned a delicate green, then crimson. Then he went away to the club-house and called for a cab, and drove to his Embassy at a speed that interested pedestrians along the Champs Elysée.
Clifford withdrew a little later to the Café Anglais where he sullenly brooded and dined too freely. About nine o’clock, he went to see Stanley; at halfpast ten a handsome young Spaniard called to pay his respects and bring courteous greetings from Fantozzi.
Clifford left the Spaniard and Stanley deeply interested in each other’s society, and took a cab to the United States Embassy, where, as an artist, he was to oversee the decorative preparations for next evening’s garden-party. His Excellency had requested it; Amyce appeared pleasantly cordial; so Clifford went to direct the hanging of lanterns and gaily-coloured scarfs, and, incidentally to propose marriage to his Excellency’s only daughter.
His Excellency was smoking a cigar on the lawn as Clifford entered, mentally thanking all the saints that it was too late to play croquet. Servants moved through the shrubbery; a few lanterns threw an orange light among the chestnut branches.
His Excellency was in good humour; he pattered about, as though driven by improved mechanism; he chuckled at times that irritating chuckle incident to victory at croquet.
“We’ll have electric lights next week,” he said; “ever play croquet by moonlight?”
“There is no moon to-night,” said Clifford, triumphantly.
“I know it,” sighed his Excellency.
Presently the Ambassador exhibited a desire to interfere with Clifford’s directions to the servants; he insisted on mounting a ladder and fussing with a string of crimson lanterns. The first, second, and third Secretaries of the Embassy were summoned to steady the ladder; Clifford saw an opportunity and seized it.
Amyce, who had been standing on the porch, observed Clifford’s advance with mixed sentiments.
“Are all the lanterns hung?” she asked.
“No,” said Clifford, “his Excellency has proposed modifications.”
“Man proposes—” began Amyce, gaily, then stopped.
The silence was startling.
Presently Amyce picked a rose from the vine at her elbow.
“Is it mine?” asked Clifford.
“Yours? I — I don’t know.”
She held it a moment, then he took if “And the giver?” he whispered.
“I — I don’t know,” said Amyce.
“Then,” said Clifford, “I shall take her — as I took the rose;” and he moved toward her up the steps.
At that moment Fate, who had been listening as usual, somewhere among the shadows, took a hand in the proceedings; there was a crunch of footsteps on the gravel walk, the dim glimmer of a cigar, and Captain Stanley entered the house, bowing pleasantly to Amyce and casting a look at Clifford that meant, “Follow me.”
Before Clifford could move, Amyce passed him with a pale smile and crossed the lawn toward the lantern-hangers.
His emotions were indescribable; he damned Stanley, then, buoyed with the intoxicating thought that Amyce had not refused him, he went into the house and found Stanley waiting in the smoking-room.
“Well,” said Clifford ungraciously.
Stanley appeared a trifle surprised but said: “I’m sorry you are in this mess, old fellow. Fantozzi naturally wants a shot at you.”
An unpleasant sensation passed through Clifford; Fantozzi and his shot were repulsive at the moment.
“When?” asked Clifford.
“To-morrow at sunrise. I’ve notified Bull.”
Clifford grew angry: “Then he can have his shot,” he said savagely, and sat down for a conference, interrupted about eleven o’clock by his Excellency.
The Ambassador was in no mood for bed. Perhaps something in the lighted lanterns had roused the long smouldering spark of revelry, dormant in every masculine bosom. Being an Anglo-Saxon he knew of no lighter gaiety than heavy drinking. He began to tell stories — quite pointless tales — and he would not let Clifford go, and he spoke vaguely of wonderful brands of whisky past and whisky to come. He sat there, his limpid hazel eyes meeker than any lambkin’s, a carefully dressed lay-figure, irresponsible to God and man, and for whom nobody was responsible except his Constructor.
About midnight he became entirely automatic; his eyes seemed to plead for somebody to wind him up and set him going again.
“When he gets this way he has a tendency to wander,” whispered Stanley; “I usually lock him in his room; if I didn’t he’d be all over town — like an escaped toy.”
Clifford went out on the porch; Stanley followed. “At sunrise,” said Clifford soberly. “Will you call for me in a carriage?”
“At sunrise,” replied Stanley offering his hand. Then Clifford went away, and Stanley, lingering to watch him to the gate, walked slowly back to the smoking-room.
To his horror his Excellency had disappeared. The west porch door swung wide open.
“He’ll be all over Paris!” groaned Stanley smiting his head with both hands.
IV.
Clifford did not go back to the studio; he took a long drive in a cab to steady his nerves. He alternately thought of Amyce, of Fantozzi, of his Excellency’s incoherent stories, of Elliott and the studio, — and, perhaps, of Jacquette. Two hours before dawn he found himself standing in front of Sylvain’s; and, wondering why he had wandered there, he went in and upstairs. The long glittering room reeked with cigar smoke; voices rose harshly from the disordered tables; a piano tinkled faintly on the floor above. He looked at his watch; it lacked an hour of the appointed time when he was to meet Stanley with the carriage at the studio. He turned toward the portal impatiently; somebody entered as he opened the leather doors; he glanced up and met his Excellency face to face.
His Excellency began a mechanical trot into the room; Clifford involuntarily detained him and the Ambassador stopped obediently as though somebody had arrested his running-gear. He examined Clifford with mild vitreous eyes as though he had never before seen him. He was perfectly docile, perfectly contented to be started again in any new direction. He needed a few repairs; Clifford saw that at once. It would never do to send his Excellency home with such a hat and collar and tie; the personnel at the Embassy must never see his Excellency in such disorder.
“Come,” said Clifford gently. There was a cab at the door; he stowed his Excellency away in one corner and followed, ordering the cabby to hasten to the studio in the rue Notre Dame. There was not much time to lose when they reached the studio. Clifford attempted to adorn his Excellency with clean linen, but found that it might take some hours as the machinery had run down and the Ambassador evinced an unmistakable inclination to slumber. He seated his Excellency in an arm-chair, and hurriedly changed his own evening dress for morning clothes. Then he went up to Elliott’s bedroom, but that young man’s bed was untenanted and undisturbed. The Ambassador slept peacefully in the studio; after a moment’s thought Clifford scribbled a note:
“DEAR ELLIOTT
When you come in please give this gentleman clean linen and a new hat and brush his clothes and send him to the United States Embassy p d. q.
“Yours,
“CLIFFORD.”
As he finished he heard carriage-wheels in the street outside and he thrust the note into his Excellency’s hat-band, jammed the hat on the slumbering diplomat’s head, and hurried out to the street where Stanley and Bull were waiting in the dim grey of the coming dawn.
“Not had coffee!” exclaimed Bull; “nonsense, it’s traditional!”
“We’ll take it at St. Cloud,” said Stanley. “Are you ready, old fellow?”
The carriage door slammed, the wheels rattled faster and faster.
“By the way,” said Clifford, “his Excellency paid me a visit this morning. I’ll see he gets home in good shape.”
“Thank heaven!” cried Stanley; “I’ve been hunting him all night!”
A moment later he looked earnestly at Clifford: “Is your hand steady?”
“Yes,” said Clifford pleasantly.
“You’d better shoot closer than you did at the pigeons,” suggested Bull.
“Why? Is Fantozzi a good shot?”
“Rotten,” said Stanley.
“He’s the more to be feared then,” observed Bull cynically.
“Why, you know,” confessed Clifford with a frank smile, “I feel certain that I’m not going to be hit. I was nervous last night, but not on that account.”
And he smiled confidently, thinking of Amyce.
“But,” insisted Bull, “are you going to hit your man?”
“Perhaps. What bosh it all is, anyway,” laughed Clifford.
V.
It was not yet sunrise when Elliott, entering the studio with Selby, lighted the gas and started to prepare for bed. As Elliott turned up the gas Selby encountered the owl-like eyes of his Excellency, blinking, limpid, vacant.
“What’s that?” he said nervously. But when he saw the evening dress, the disordered tie, the hat, he approached the Ambassador curiously. Presently he reached up, slipped the note from his Excellency’s hat-band, opened it, read it in silence, then passed it to Elliott without a word.
