Complete weird tales of.., p.1338
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 1338
After reading this note several times with a subtle and absolutely inexplicable sense of disappointment, apropos of nothing, apparently, a sudden doubt assailed her: was this young man married?
Why the thought assailed her, why she should care one way or the other, also remained inexplicable to her.
He seemed to be like other men, and yet not quite like them, either. Any other man, by this time, would have been seated cross-legged on the ground beside her wicker chair, cheerfully ready for eventualities. And she would have snubbed him by this time.
Yet he was like other men — he was tall, muscular, sunburnt, well-groomed, and forever busy with swizzles, guns, dogs, and other men. That was manlike, too. But she had had no opportunity to snub him — granted the inclination.... And, considering, she found herself entirely innocent of any such inclination.
As bunches of game arrived from time to time, the formal formula of her acknowledgments varied scarcely at all, although their stilted reiteration made her nervous.
Yet she did not know what else to say to him, or how to say it, or even how to convey to him the faintest and most delicate intimation that if he cared to speak to her in person she might find it in her heart to overlook the insolence.
Now, had she suspected the real reason for his shyness, his aloofness, his offerings of game — why he continued to lay at her pretty feet the trophies of his bow and spear — had Lucille ever suspected the deep and abiding motive for all these manifestations, there is no knowing what she might have done — or whether she would have fled that spot or remained.
For the main trouble with Kent was his shyness, his ignorance of women, and his profound reverence for them.
Usually he blushed when one of them spoke to him, and partly because of that painful habit he had continued to remain aloof from them.
Fancy, then, what it had cost him to capture that scorpion — to approach this young and modest and innocent girl, resolutely swallow his terror of her in the presence of the emergency, demand of her that she reveal to his gaze her beauteous limbs without any apparent rhyme or reason, and then pluck from that sacred environment a wriggling, twisting scorpion!
What that act of sublime courage had cost him only he and his Maker knew. It had been easier for him to have swallowed the scorpion. No wonder he fled!
That was what ailed that young man — the memory of that necessary desecration. That was why, in chivalrous atonement, he sent gifts to mitigate what now could never be effaced from his mind — that exquisitely revealed picture of loveliness and of symmetry immortal.
Alas, those legs must ever stand between himself and any hope he might have dared to cherish in those blameless days when he had ventured to look at her from his veranda over the rim of his swizzle glass!
All that remained for him to do was to continue the offerings of his bow and spear as long as he remained there, and then go home and try to forget.
And had Lucille suspected this! But why speculate?
Anyway, she was becoming restless. Often she found herself, pencil in hand, pad on her knees, and with her mind wandering. Often a curious sense of impatience invaded her; sometimes she found herself sitting breathless as though listening. For what? She did not know. But the curious sense of expectancy continued to reoccur every day — several times a day — possessing her till her nerves protested and started her into motion.
So she began to take walks — she was young and vigorous — and she walked several miles every day, sometimes along the lagoon; sometimes, cutting across the bayberry scrub, she came to the ocean and marched along the beach, sturdily determined that if violent exercise could steady her nerves they should be calmed.
One day the beauty and wildness of the dunes lured her. Nobody had told her not to go into the tall, dead grass — not to ramble through sweet-bay and beech-grape tangles. So she rambled, now lingering over a sparkleberry bush alive with painted wings, now swinging onward, supple, free-limbed, the sea wind in her face, the sun crisping the burnished edges of her hair.
That night, in bed, she was restless, and in her sleep vaguely uncomfortable. Which memory next morning decided her that what she needed was more exercise of the same sort. So she took it, crossing the fragrant forest by trail from lagoon to ocean, and then swinging out across the dunes.
And very soon, what had been heretofore merely a vague discomfort became more pronounced. At first she scarcely paid it any attention, but a slight burning sensation became an itching, and the itching grew more unpleasant every moment, so that presently, to her astonishment and perplexity, it threatened to become almost unendurable. What under the sun was happening to her!
She came to a dead halt at the edge of the dune, where the narrow, blue inlet runs between snowy sands from lagoon to ocean.
Dismayed, not understanding, she stood on the sand for a moment, striving to surmise what on earth was the matter with her. The itching and burning was driving her almost frantic; her legs seemed to be on fire to her knees.
Then the moment arrived when endurance became impossible. Tears started in her eyes; frightened, she sat down in the sand, pulled off her shoes, tore off the white stockings, and gazed at her limbs.
Nothing seemed to be the matter with them, except that they were rather rosy instead of white.
But the fiery torture never ceased; and with a frightened sob she stepped out into the sparkling water of the inlet, wading in the blue coolness to her knees.
It seemed to help, yet as soon as she waded out again the fiery torture returned, scaring her, driving her back to the water as a fly-scourged doe is driven into a northern lake.
What had happened to her! In the confusion of mind and stress of physical misery, dreadful ideas gathered. Had she contracted, somehow, some hideous tropical disease? Was it a horrible species of fever that first attacked and consumed the extremities? Would it be a swift and sudden end? — or would it be slow, lingering, insidious?
Again and again she examined the smooth skin, but could see nothing except a deepening flush there. And the very absence of anything to alarm the eye began to terrify her.
As her tragic, blue gaze was lifted toward the sky in mute and agonized appeal to a firmament that “as impotently rolls as you and I,” into the range of her vision walked a man.
She was far too frightened to blush.
“Please,” she called unsteadily, “something very dreadful has happened to me. Will you come here?”
He came swiftly, straight down from the dunes, his gun barrels glistening, his heavy, leather puttees scraping through grass and brush and scrub.
“It’s — it’s my legs again,” she faltered, standing there knee-deep in the blue water. “Would you — k-kindly — look at them?”
“Yes,” he said with an effort. And turned a delicate brick colour.
Slowly she waded toward him, and halted ankle-deep.
“They’re burning up,” she said simply, but her mouth quivered pitifully and the tears glimmered in her eyes. “Is — is it some terrible tropical disease?”
“No,” he said, “it’s red-bugs.”
“What!”
“Red-bugs. Have you been walking in the tall grass?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what it is. You shouldn’t have done it. I wear leather leggins, you see.”
“W-what are red-bugs?” she asked, shuddering.
“Insects.”
“But — but I can’t see any on my skin!”
“They’re too small to see.”
“How perfectly horrid!” she exclaimed, scarlet with shame and indignation. “What a horrible country! And Oh, how m-miserable I am!... Thank you — I shall go home; I—” she glanced around her, apparently searching for something.
“Where are my shoes and stockings!” she exclaimed. “Where did you place them?” he asked uneasily. “Why — I placed them — there was a little sand-spit here just now — just a few minutes ago—”
“It’s the tide,” he said. “It’s rising.”
“But — but — where are my shoes and stockings, Mr. Kent!” she exclaimed, wringing her pretty hands in consternation.
“Floating somewhere in the lagoon by this time,” he said calmly.
There is a kind of courage that comes to the timid when too long badgered and driven into a hopeless corner. Such courage now welled up and possessed John Kent.
“There’s only one thing to do,” he said— “get you home and put ointment on you.”
“I — I can put it on myself—”
“Certainly! I didn’t mean that. I merely mean that you have got to be taken home.”
“How? I can’t walk in bare feet.”
“I know it. I shall — carry you.”
There was a silence; she stood ankle-deep in the water, drying her eyes with a bit of lace. Presently she glanced at him. It was a comprehensive glance, including his entire six feet and sturdy shoulders.
“Can you?” she asked innocently.
“Yes, I can. Are you ready?”
She stepped gingerly upon the snowy sand. It was no whiter than her pretty feet.
His gun had a strap: he unloaded it, slung it at his back: she folded her skirts, then looked up at him.
“Would you mind putting your arms around my neck?” he asked, blushing vividly.
It seemed that she could muster courage sufficient to do that. So he swung her up into his arms, whistled to his dog, turned, and strode away straight across the thorny brush and bay scrub.
They said nothing; but his thoughts were very busy. Fate was hustling him into the whither — a relentless fate that had now pursued him for weeks. It is true that he did not run away very fast.
Twice he was obliged to rest, the second time in the woods. She slid from his arms to the log which he selected and sat there, pale and silent, her little, bare feet drawn up under her skirt.
“Are you suffering very much?” he asked.
“It burns like fire.”
“I know.... I’ve had ‘em.”
“C-can they be cured?”
“Certainly. I have an ointment. I’ll send it to you.”
“You are so good.”
He blushed:
“Are you ready?”
“Oh, please wait. You are not rested!” she exclaimed. “I’m all right.”
“No — please! I am very heavy—”
She was heavy, despite the slender allure of her pretty figure and delicately moulded limbs. She was young, healthy, and sturdy, and weighed to an ounce exactly what she should have weighed. No wonder his shoulders and arms were perfectly aware of it.
But Kent was absorbed in a very different problem — a deep, intricate matter which taxed his intellect.
It was a good intellect for a business man, but rather sensitively inclined to chivalrous instincts.
One of these instincts had seized him. He faced the problem with the courage characteristic of a bashful, timid, but conscientious man driven into a corner and at bay.
“I am ready,” he said, rising.
She supposed he was only ready to lift her, never dreaming what other resolution he had come to.
He said:
“When I pick you up and start to walk with you, I am going to tell you something.”
As he swung her up in his strong arms, she turned her golden head and looked up at him inquiringly.
“It’s this,” he said, blushing scarlet. “I’d like to marry you, if you don’t mind.”
“What!”
“I’d like to marry you,” he repeated doggedly.
“Put me down, Mr. Kent!”
He found a log, strode over to it, deposited her, and stood before her.
“Why did you say such a thing to me?” she asked in a low, unsteady voice. And as she spoke she realized for the first time that this tall, young fellow was only a great big boy.
“Because you have a right to ask it of me,” he said.
“What!!!”
“A modest woman can demand that right when a man — has — so frequently — invaded her — modesty.”
At first she did not comprehend, and sat there staring at the painful colour in his face. There could be no doubt concerning his modesty or his sincerity — whatever was in his mind. And suddenly, intuitively, she knew what was in his mind — what curious, chivalrous, ridiculous twist his brain had taken. A desire to laugh, almost hysterical, seized her.
“You — you think you ought to give me a chance to marry you because you’ve seen — more than is conventional — of my — my l-legs!” she asked.
He couldn’t turn any redder; he looked at her in a distressed, boyish way.
“Is that it?” she asked.
“Partly — yes.”
“Lift me.... And take me home.”
As he swung her up again she looked at him curiously, no longer afraid, no longer conscious of her arms clasped around his neck.
“Is there,” she asked, “any other reason in the world why you might have asked me to marry you?”
“No other,” he said.
“No other?”
“None.... Except—”
When she had waited a long time she turned her cheek from his shoulder and looked up at him again.
And he looked down into her dim, blue eyes.
“No other reason,” he said, “ — except that — I love you.”
She lay very still, her eyes on his.
When they came to the wood’s edge he kissed her. She closed her eyes, but her arms tightened around his neck in silence.
Inter arma leges silent.
A NURSERY TALE
THE CAPTAIN RID himself of a minutely masticated quid.
“This, suh,” said he, “is Sapphiah City!”
“Good heaven!” remonstrated Burke, as the Sea Cow glided gently along the mud bank and a deck hand ran out the landing plank. “This can’t be my destination!”
“It suhtinly is, suh,” returned the captain, giving the wheel another spin and his maxillary muscles another quid.
“But where is Sapphire City?”
“This, suh, is Sapphiah City.”
“There’s nothing here but a forest,” protested Burke. “There’s not a single house, not even a wharf — not one solitary sign of civilization” — he glanced across the gang plank— “except that muddy path running into the woods!”
“What you call a path, suh, happens to be Main Street,” remarked the captain coldly. “The state of Florida may be as yet undeveloped, suh, but the people of this sovereign State, suh, stand foh progress and improvement! Improvements in Sapphiah City, suh, are now under way.”
“But I”
“Suh!” interrupted the captain of the Sea Cow, “in the bright lexicon of this sovereign State there is no such word as skedaddle! We may be few: we may be comparatively po’; but to our courage and our nerve there exist no bounds! A vast cataclysm of wealth lies hidden in these woods and swamps, ready for the reaping; awaiting, suh, the rainbow of promise — the transmogrification of fulfillment!... Bill, take the gentleman’s guns and valises ashore!”
The deck hand obeyed, setting the luggage in a dry place on the edge of the woods, first driving from the spot a thumping big snake.
“Now, suh,” said the captain of the Sea Cow, “I shall sound my whistle. The signal, suh, will bring the gentleman who is to entertain you in Sapphiah City.” Three loud toots on the Sea Cow’s whistle shattered the primeval silence; the captain bowed Burke down the gang plank; the little, white steamboat, which was too long to turn at the head of navigation on Spanish Creek, began to back away.
“Suppose,” shouted Burke, with sudden misgiving, “that nobody comes for me!”
The captain of the Sea Cow waved his hand courteously:
“We shall return in two weeks, suh.”
“And what am I to do for two weeks!” demanded Burke, exasperated. “I don’t mind the quiet; I like it. But I can’t live here totally alone!”
“Look around, suh. Make yo’se’f acquainted with Sapphiah City, the richest soil in the garden spot of the South. Here one may behold the orange, the pomelo, the lemon, in fruit and in bloom—”
“Particularly the latter!” suggested Burke, grinding his teeth. But the Sea Cow had now backed away down the creek too far for the captain to catch the sarcasm; and he merely bowed with a courtesy and urbanity unequalled north of Dixon’s historic line.
Burke sat down on his suit-case and stared at the vanishing steamboat. Long after it had disappeared beyond the first bend of Spanish Creek he could hear the far plash of paddle wheels. But this sound finally died away; and the young man sat alone on the edge of the woods at the head of navigation, in the middle of Main Street, Sapphire City, Inca County, Florida.
The terminal pool of Spanish Creek appeared to be a vast spring, limpid as a blue crystal — a huge, transparent bowl set in a forest of palm, palmetto, water oak, and magnolia.
The perfume of jasmine tinctured the heated silence; great black and gold butterflies hovered high among the trees; crimson cardinal birds flitted from branch to branch; parula warblers darted through the glade, and a Spanish mocker, sitting motionless on a dead limb, surveyed the underbrush with cold, cruel eyes.
Burke grimly lit a cigarette, drew from an inner pocket a newspaper, unfolded it, found the item he wanted, and carefully re-read it so that he might better digest it in the light of his present knowledge and experience.
The newspaper was the Verbena Herald, published daily at Verbena — a watering place situated at the confluence of Spanish Creek and the Atlantic Ocean, thirty miles away.
The item he read was as follows:
A gentleman, living alone with his daughter at Sapphire City, desires boarders. Bathing, boating, fishing, plenty of shade and quiet. Terms very moderate. Address Darrel, Sapphire City, Inca County, Florida, per steamboat Sea Cow, Captain Crum.
The trouble with Burke was that he had not addressed “Darrel”; he had carelessly and unthinkingly boarded the Sea Cow for his destination without making many inquiries or notifying “Darrel.”
Clearly it was his own fault. The only inquiries he had made concerned the shooting and the quiet. He was assured that it was quiet and that there was plenty of shooting.
