Complete weird tales of.., p.1299
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1299
“Oh, you’re getting on,” observed Courtlandt carelessly. “Good night — I’ve a word to say to Mrs. Edgerton before I go.”
“You mean to stay, don’t you?” began the other, flushing up. “It would be less trying for her—”
But Courtlandt hurried off down the stairs, muttering vaguely of engagements for Christmas Eve, leaving Edgerton staring after him through the dimly lighted hallway.
He heard Courtlandt enter the drawing-room; he could distinguish the quick, low exchange of greeting; then he went down slowly, steadying himself by the banisters.
A young girl in furs turned toward him as he entered; he caught a glimpse of blue eyes, a glint of bright hair framed in fluffy fur; he heard
Courtlandt’s cool, easy voice presenting him to his wife; he took the slim gloved hand outstretched, held it stupidly until it was withdrawn; then Courtlandt’s voice again, promising to return, and exacting her promise to wait here for him if he should be detained.
“I’m sorry I can’t remain and dine with you and Mr. Edgerton on this night before Christmas,” added Courtlandt blandly, making for the door.
“Oh!” she said, surprised, “I did not understand that Mr. Edgerton invited us.”
The color stung Edgerton’s face, and he said in a low voice: “You are at home, madam; it is for you to invite us. Perhaps Mr. Courtlandt will stay if you ask him; I will if you ask me.” She gave him a confused, brilliant little smile, a delicate tint mounting to her cheeks.
“Thank you,” she said; “you — everybody is so delightful to me. Will you stay, Mr. Courtlandt? I — we beg of you! No? Then, until I — until we have the pleasure — at nine, I believe?” From force of habit she turned to the dazed maid, who also instinctively recognized authority, and opened the door which a second later closed upon the most profoundly excited young attorney in Manhattan.
Mrs. Edgerton raised her blue eyes to her husband as a maid relieved her of her furs and little gilt-edged tricorne.
“I — I wonder if you are as embarrassed as I am?” she said, laughing and touching her golden hair with a frank side glance at the mirror.
“Dreadfully embarrassed,” admitted Edgerton, scarcely conscious of what he uttered; oblivious, too, of the usages of civilization until she sank into an armchair with a shy “May I?”
“It is for me to ask the privilege,” he said, biting his lip.
“Oh, if you please?” — she smiled, with a gesture toward the chair beside her.
Seated there with him under the crystal chandelier, she fell silent, meeting his gaze at moments with a questioning smile, partly confident, partly uncertain.
“I saw you in the park yesterday,” he said under his breath, never taking his eyes from her.
“I saw you, too,” she replied quickly. “You rode a bay. I never imagined—” she bent her head, thoughtfully studying the arabesques on the rug. “You ride very well,” she added. Then, after a moment’s silence: “And you remembered me?”
“I recognized you at once,” he said, “the instant I entered this room. It was that which startled me — made me appear stupid—”
“You did not appear stupid—”
“I was awkward, dumb—”
“I chattered sufficiently for two. Indeed, I was not at all composed.”
“Did — did you recognize me at once?”
She looked at him, she glanced at the rug, her blue eyes grew vague, lost in retrospective reverie.
He did not repeat the question, but asked her how long it was since she had been in America.
“Oh, many years — I was only three when my father went to France.” Then the warm color came into her face and she clasped her hands impulsively. “I do not believe,” she said, “that I have conveyed to you in letters my deep appreciation of your loyalty to me. I — I did not know how to express it — I do not now. Believe me, monsieur, it does exist!”
“What have you to thank me for?” he asked almost brusquely. Then, in a rush of bitterness: “Your sentiments honor yourself, not me, madam. For two years I have been responsible for your happiness. What have I done to secure it?”
She turned a trifle pale, unprepared for such a question. But she answered very sweetly: “You left me guarded by the honor of your own name. I have never wanted for anything; I have had the quiet and seclusion I desired. What more is there, Mr. Edgerton?”
And as he remained silent, she raised her head with a gay little smile: “You could not leave your affairs to come to France; you did not suggest that I come to New York. How could I know that I should—”
“What?” he urged.
But she closed her red lips, sitting mute, suddenly shy again.
After a moment she said: “Mais — he is absent a long while, Mr. Courtlandt.”
“He isn’t coming until nine o’clock,” said Edgerton. He glanced across at the clock. It was half-past seven.
“So, in the meanwhile, we are to discuss matters of importance,” she suggested seriously. “Mr. Courtlandt said so. What, monsieur, are we to discuss?”
“There is absolutely nothing that I know of to discuss,” replied Edgerton slowly.
“Nothing?” she inquired, wide-eyed and innocent.
“Nothing, except your wishes, and they admit of no discussion. You are at home now.”
“But I — but I am staying at the Holland—” Edgerton touched a button; a servant appeared.
“Mrs. Edgerton’s luggage is at the Holland,” he said quietly. “Telephone for it.”
Mrs. Edgerton half rose from her chair; then, meeting her husband’s grave eyes, she sank back, crimson to the temples.
“We are merely about to exchange quarters,” he said pleasantly. “I shall be most comfortable at the Holland.”
“Oh, you shall not! — no, it is all wrong!” she pleaded, the color fading in her face. “I cannot come into your house — into your life—”
“It is your house,” he said gently. “Still, if — if you don’t mind — there is a better way still of arranging matters. I have a whole floor on the third story; and perhaps you might not mind if I retain it. I promise,” he added, laughing, “to be a model tenant and not keep coal in my bath tub!”
She laughed, too, a little uncertainly.
“You are so generous — so kindly,” she said. “How can you endure to have a perfectly silly girl march into your house—”
“Your house!”
“Your house! Carry it by assault, capture the nicest suite, and drive you to the roof among the sparrows! No, it is shameful! More than that, it is absurd!”
“I never have occupied the rooms on the second floor,” he protested. “They have been vacant since I took this house.”
“Truly?”
“Truly. They are too pretty for a man who smokes a pipe — all rococo, and furniture with beagle legs, you know.”
“For whom were they intended?” she asked innocently.
He reddened. “I bought the house after our wedding,” he hesitated; “then, afterwards, from your letters, I fancied that you might prefer to remain abroad. So I said nothing.”
She bent her head. “I — I thought it fairer — to you,” she said in a low voice. “I would have come had you asked me. I — how was I to know, Mr. Edgerton?”
They sat silent, eyes bent on the floor. Presently he went on: “So I had that suite fixed up for you. And I moved upstairs. I am very happy that you are to occupy it.”
“Do you really desire it?”
“You have no idea how pretty it is,” he urged. “Is it so pretty?”
“Come up and look at it!”
She sprang to her feet on the impulse, smiling, confident of his kindness. And they mounted the stairs together, sans façon, arriving on the second floor breathless.
“Oh,” she cried softly, as she entered, “it is perfectly charming!” She stood a moment, gazing around, then with a delightful gesture bade him enter.
“Is this really mine?” she repeated. “How delicious!” She passed from room to room, pausing before bits of furniture that attracted her, touching and lifting the silver on dresser and table. “My own initials!” she said under her breath. “And what is this?” laying her white fingers on a jewel case. “Am I to open it? Really! Oh, the beauty of it all! I — I am perfectly overwhelmed, mons — Mr. Edgerton!” And she sat down on the edge of the bed, pressing her hands to her eyes.
A maid came to the door; the luggage from the Holland had arrived. Presently two burly expressmen entered, staggering under the first of a series of trunks. Her maid directed the men; Mrs. Edgerton sat, hands folded, smiling, blue eyes a trifle dim, while her husband, standing beside her, watched the operations.
The silvery chime of a clock sounded, striking eight times, and on either side of the dial gilt cupids fluttered their burnished wings.
“Impossible!” exclaimed Edgerton. Then with a laugh almost boyish, he said: “We’re supposed to dine at eight.”
She looked vacantly at her husband. “Dinner already! Can it be possible time has flown like that? And I — behold me! Have I time to dress?”
“Time is yours to dispose of,” he said, smiling back into her eyes; “all here are yours to dispose of as you see fit.”
“Even you, monsieur?” She laughed in her excitement and happiness, not weighing words and their meaning until their echo returned again to appall her — while her maid aided her to dress — and the echo of his answer, too, rang persistently in her ears: “Yes, to pardon, to dispose of, to command, always, as long as I have life to serve you.”
And now she was ready, smiling nervously back at her own flushed reflection in the mirror — a young girl stirred to the soul by kindness, almost intoxicated at a glimpse of her own undreamed of beauty, surprised there in the depths of the mirror.
The banisters were decorated with twisted ropes of evergreens; she descended slowly, cheeks burning, eyes fixed steadily on her husband, who stood motionless below to receive her. A tiny light here and there caught the thick tendrils of her heavy burnished hair and glimmered on her smooth, full neck and arms.
At the foot of the stairs she paused, made him a low reverence, then, gathering her silken -train, she looked fearlessly into his face and laid her hand lightly in his.
So, moving serenely side by side, they passed under holly and mistletoe and ropes of evergreen, through the long drawing-room, through the music room, slowly, more slowly, until the great velvet hangings barred their way.
There they paused, turning face to face, her small hand scarcely touching his.
“Can you forgive me?” he asked under his breath.
“Forgive you?” she repeated tremulously; “I can do — more than that.... Ask me.”
But there was no time, for the butler, bowing, had drawn the portières to the full length of the golden cords.
CHAPTER VII
THE GOLDEN POOL
SO THE DOCTOR, finding his patient’s quarters un tenanted for the first time in many months, hastened downstairs and out to the veranda, where he discovered a lean, soldierly looking young fellow clad in fishing coat fussing with rod and reel.
“Oho, my enterprising friend!” he said. “What mischief are you hatching now?”
“I’m going to try for your big trout in the Golden Pool,” said his patient calmly.
This unlooked-for energy appeared to embarrass the doctor. His grim mouth tightened.
“Don’t go now,” he said; “it’s too late in the morning.”
“I’m going anyhow,” retorted his patient.
“Don’t be obstinate; that fish won’t rise till evening.”
“I know it, but I’m going.”
“Against my orders!” demanded the exasperated doctor.
“With pleasure,” replied the young man gayly.
“And it’s your own doing, too. Do you remember what you said last night?”
“I said I saw a big fish rising in that pool,” growled the doctor.
“Exactly; and that has done more to brace me up than all your purple pills for peculiar people.”
“Don’t go to the Golden Pool now!” said the doctor with emphasis. “I have a particular reason for making this request.”
“What reason?”
“I won’t tell you.”
“You’re after that fish yourself! No, you don’t!”
“That’s idiotic.”
“Well, anyhow, good-by.”
“You shan’t!” exclaimed the doctor wrathfully. “Give me that rod!”
But his patient clung to the rod, laughing.
“Now what the devil possesses you to make for the Golden Pool at this particular minute?” demanded the vexed doctor. “You’ve been an invalid for a year and more, and up to this moment you’ve done what I told you.”
His patient continued to laugh — that same light-hearted, infectious laugh which the doctor had not heard in many a month, and he looked at him keenly.
“All the same, you’re not well yet, and you know it,” he said.
“My aversion to women?”
“Partly.”
“You mean my memory still fails me? Well, then, what do you think happened this morning?”
“What?” inquired the doctor sulkily.
“This: I went out to the stables and recognized Phelan and Riley! How’s that for a start? Then” — he glanced across the lawn where an old gardener pottered about among the petunias—” there’s Dawson, isn’t it? And this is my own place — Gleniris! Isn’t it? Besides,” he added, “my aversion to women is disappearing; I saw a girl on the lawn from my window this morning. Who is she?”
“Was she dressed in white?” asked the doctor. “Don’t remember.”
“You never before saw her?”
“No — I don’t know. I didn’t see her face.”
“So it seems you can’t recollect the back of a relative or a neighbor! Now what do you think of yourself?”
“Relative? Nonsense,” he laughed; “I haven’t any. As for the neighbors, give me time, for Heaven’s sake! I’m doing beautifully. There are millions of things that set me thinking and worrying now — funny flashes of memory — hints of the past, vague glimpses that excite me to effort; but nothing — absolutely nothing — yet of that blank year. Was it a year?”
“More; never mind that!”
“How long was it?” asked his patient wistfully.
“Sixteen months.”
“You said I was shot, I think.”
“No, I didn’t. You think you were, but it was done with a Malay kris. Now, what can you remember about it?”
The young man stood silent, fumbling with his rod.
“And you tell me you’re cured!” observed the doctor sarcastically, “and you can’t even recollect how you got swiped with a Malay kris!”
“I might if I could see the Malay — or the kris.” The doctor, who had begun to pace the veranda, halted and glanced sharply at his patient.
“The best way to remember things is to see ‘em? Is that your idea?”
“I think so. It’s true I’ve seen Phelan many times without remembering him, but to-day I recognized him. Isn’t that good medicine?”
The doctor thought a moment, fished out his watch from the fob pocket, regarded it absently, and came down the steps to the lawn, where his patient stood making practice casts with his light bamboo rod.
“I’ll tell you why I didn’t want you to go to the Golden Pool,” he said.
“Well, why?”
“Poachers,” replied the doctor, watching him. “They fish in the pools, and they use your canoe, and they even have the impudence to go bathing in the Golden Pool.... I didn’t want you to worry.”
“I think the poacher I catch will do the worrying,” said the young man, laughing. “Is that all?”
“That is all. Go ahead if you want to. If you run across that girl invite her to dinner. She’s a friend of mine.” And the doctor walked off, shoving his hands deep into his capacious pockets.
His patient reeled in the line, smiling to himself, and started off across the meadow at a good swinging pace. He entered the forest by the meadow bridge, where a lank yokel was mowing grass.
“Mornin’!” ventured the native, with a doubtful grin of recognition.
“Look here,” said the young man, halting in the path of the scythe, “ought I to know your name? Tell me the truth.”
“I cal’late yew orter,” replied the yokel. “I’ve been chorin’ for yew close tew ten year.”
A shadow fell over the master’s lean face, and he went on through the underbrush, muttering to himself, passing his thin hand again and again across his forehead.
“Oh, well, I’ll stick to it,” he said aloud; “a man can’t dance on a broken leg nor think with a broken head; they’ve got to be mended first — well mended.”
Walking on through the fragrant forest, the shadow of care slipped from his face again, leaving it placid once more. The scent of the June woods, the far, dull throbbing of a partridge drumming in leafy depths, the happy sighing of a woodland world astir, all these were gentle stimulants to that sanity toward the shadowy borders of which he had so long been struggling from the region of dreadful night.
Spreading branches, dew-spangled, slapped his face as he passed; the moist rich odor of clean earth filled throat and lungs; a subdued, almost breathless expectancy brooded in the wake of the south wind.
When he emerged from the forest and entered the long glade, mountain and thicket were swimming in crystalline light; ferns hung weighted with dew; the outrush of bird music was incessant.
Far in the wet woods he could hear the river flowing — or was it the breeze freshening in the pines?
Listening, enraptured, boyish recollections awoke, and he instinctively took his bearings from the blue peak in the east. So the Ousel Pool lay to the west. He would fish that uncertain water later; but first the Golden Pool, where the great trout had been seen, rising as recklessly as a minnow in a meadow brook.
