Complete weird tales of.., p.297
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 297
He drew the paper from his pocket, unrolled it, and spread it out under her frightened eyes.
“That!” she whispered, steadying herself blindly against the arm he offered. She stood a moment so, then, shuddering, covered her eyes with both hands. The Tracer of Lost Persons looked at her, turned and opened the door.
“Captain Harren!” he called quietly. Harren, pacing the anteroom, turned and came forward. As he entered the door he caught sight of the girl crouching by the window, her face hidden in her hands, and at the same moment she dropped her hands and looked straight at him.
“You!” she gasped.
The Tracer of Lost Persons stepped out, closing the door. For a moment he stood there, tall, gaunt, gray, staring vacantly into space.
“She was beautiful — when she looked at him,” he muttered.
For another minute he stood there, hesitating, glancing backward at the closed door. Then he went away, stooping slightly, his top hat held close against the breast of his tightly buttoned frock coat.
* * *
CHAPTER XI
DURING HIS FIRST year of wedded bliss, Gatewood cut the club. When Kerns wanted to see him he had to call like other people or, like other people, accept young Mrs. Gatewood’s invitations.
“Why,” said Gatewood scornfully, “should I, thirty-four years of age and safely married, go to a club? Why should I, at my age, idle with a lot of idlers and listen to stuffy stories from stuffier individuals? Do you think that stale tobacco smoke, and the idiotically reiterated click of billiard balls, and the vacant stare of the fashionably brainless, and the meaningless exchange of banalities with the intellectually aimless have any attractions for me?”
Mrs. Gatewood raised her pretty eyes in silence; Kerns returned her amused gaze rather blankly.
“Clubs!” sniffed Gatewood. “What are clubs but pretexts for wasting time? What mental, what spiritual stimulus can a man expect to find in a club? Why, Kerns, when I look back a year and think what I was, and when I look at you and think what you still are—”
“John,” said Mrs. Gatewood softly.
“Oh, he knows it!” insisted her husband, “don’t you, Tommy? You know the sort of life you’re leading, don’t you? You know what a miserable, aimless, selfish, unambitious, pitiable existence an unmarried man leads who lives at his club; don’t you?”
“Certainly,” said Kerns, blinking into the smiling gaze of Mrs. Gatewood.
“Then why don’t you marry?”
But Kerns had risen and was making his adieus with cheerful decision; and Mrs. Gatewood was laughing as she gave him her slender hand.
“Now I know a girl—” began Gatewood; but his wife was still speaking to Kerns, so he circled around them, politely suppressing the excitement of a sudden idea struggling for utterance.
Mrs. Gatewood was saying: “I do wish John would go to his clubs occasionally. Because a man is married is no reason for his losing touch with his clubs—”
“I know a girl,” broke in Gatewood excitedly, laying his arm on Kerns’s to detain him; but Kerns slid sideways through the door with a smile so noncommittal that Mrs. Gatewood laughed again and, linking her arm in her husband’s, faced partly toward him. This maneuver, and the slightest pressure of her shoulder, obliged her husband to begin a turning movement, so that Kerns might reasonably make his escape in the middle of Gatewood’s sentence; which he did with nimble and circumspect agility.
“I — I know a—” began Gatewood desperately, twisting his head over his shoulder, only to hear the deadened patter of his friend’s feet over the velvet stair carpet and the subdued clang of the front door.
“Isn’t it extraordinary?” he said to his wife. “I’ve been trying to tell Tommy, every time he comes here, about a girl I know — just the very girl he ought to marry; and something prevents him from listening every time.”
The attractive young matron beside him turned her face so that her eyes were directly in line with his.
“Did you ever know any people named Manners?” she asked.
“No. Why?”
“You never knew a girl named Marjorie Manners, did you, John?”
“No. What about her?”
“You never heard Mr. Kerns speak of her, did you, dear?”
“No, never. Tommy doesn’t talk about girls.”
“You never heard him speak of a Mrs. Stanley?”
“Never. Who are these two women?”
“One and the same, dear. Marjorie Manners married an Englishman named Stanley six years ago. Do you happen to recollect that Mr. Kerns took his vacation in England six years ago?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“He crossed to Southampton with Marjorie and her mother. He didn’t know she was going over to be married, and she didn’t tell him. She wrote to me about it, though. I was in school at Farmington; she left school to marry — a mere child of eighteen, undeveloped for her age, thin, almost scrawny, with pipe-stem arms and neck, red hair, a very sweet, full-lipped mouth, and gray eyes that were too big for her face.”
“Well,” said Gatewood with a short laugh, “what about it? You don’t think Kerns fell in love with an insect of that genus, do you?”
“Yes, I do,” smiled Mrs. Gatewood.
“Nonsense. Besides, what of it? She’s married, you say.”
“Her husband died of enteric at Ladysmith. She wrote me. She has never remarried. Think of it, John — in all these years she has never remarried!”
“Oh!” said Gatewood pityingly; “do you really suppose that Tommy Kerns has been nursing a blighted affection all these years without ever giving me an inkling? Besides, men don’t do that; men don’t curl up and blight. Besides, men don’t take any stock in big-eyed, flat-chested, red-headed pipe stems. Why do you think that Kerns ever cared for her?”
“I know he did.”
“How do you know it?”
“From Marjorie’s letters.”
“The conceited kid! Well, of all insufferable nerve! A man like Kerns — a man — one of the finest, noblest characters — spiritually, intellectually, physically — a practically faultless specimen of manhood! And a red-headed, spindle-legged — Oh, my! Oh, fizz! Dearest, men don’t worship a cage of bones with an eighteen-year-old soul in it — like a nervous canary pecking out at the world!”
“She created a furor in England,” observed his wife, smiling.
“Oh, I dare say she might over there. Besides, she’s doubtless fattened up since then. But if you suppose for one moment that Tommy could even remember a girl like that—”
Mrs. Gatewood smiled again — the wise, sweet smile of a young matron in whom her husband’s closest friend had confided. And after a moment or two the wise smile became more thoughtful and less assured; for that very day the Tracer of Lost Persons had called on her to inquire about a Mrs. Stanley — a new client of his who had recently bought a town house in East Eighty-third Street and a country house on Long Island; and who had applied to him to find her fugitive butler and a pint or two of family jewels. And, after her talk with the Tracer of Lost Persons, Mrs. Gatewood knew that her favorite among all her husband’s friends, Mr. Kerns, would never of his own volition go near that same Marjorie Manners who had flirted with him to the very perilous verge before she told him why she was going to England — and who, now a widow, had returned with her five-year-old daughter to dwell once more in the city of her ancestors.
Kerns had said very simply: “She has spoiled women for me — all except you, Mrs. Gatewood. And if Jack hadn’t married you—”
“I understand, Mr. Kerns. I’m awfully sorry.”
“Don’t feel sorry; only, if you can, call Jack off. He’s been perfectly possessed to marry me to somebody ever since he married you. And if I told him why I don’t care to consider the matter he wouldn’t believe me — he’d spend his life in trying to bring me around. Besides, I couldn’t ever tell him about — Marjorie Manners. Anyhow, nothing on earth could ever induce me to look at her again. . . . You say she is now a widow?”
“Yes, Mr. Kerns, and very beautiful.”
“Never again,” muttered Kerns. “Never! She was homely enough when I asked her to marry me. I don’t want to see her; I don’t want to know what she looks like. I’m glad she has changed so I wouldn’t recognize her, for that means the end of it all — the final elimination of the girl I remember on the ship. . . . It was probably a sort of diseased infatuation, wasn’t it, Mrs. Gatewood? Think of it! A few days on shipboard and — and I asked her to marry me! . . . I don’t blame her, after all, for letting me dangle. It was an excellent opportunity for her to study a rare species of idiot. She was justified and I am satisfied. Only, do call Jack off with a hint or two.”
“I shall try,” said young Mrs. Gatewood thoughtfully — very thoughtfully, for already every atom and fiber of her femininity was aroused in behalf of these two estranged young people whom Providence certainly had not meant to put asunder.
* * *
CHAPTER XII
“NOTHING,” SAID GATEWOOD firmly, “can make me believe that Kerns ought not to marry somebody; and I’m never going to let up on him until he does. I’ll bet I could fix him for life if I called in the Tracer to help me. Isn’t it extraordinary how Kerns has kept out of it all these years?”
The attractive girl beside him turned her face once more so that her clear, sweet eyes were directly in line with his.
“It is extraordinary,” she said seriously. “I think you ought to drop in at the club some day when you can corner him and bully him.”
“I don’t want to go to the club,” said the infatuated man.
“Why, dear?”
He looked straight at her and she flushed prettily, while a tint of color touched his own face. Which was very nice of him. So she didn’t say what she was going to say — that it would be perhaps better for them both if he practiced on her an artistic absence now and then. Younger in years, she was more mature than he. She knew. But she was too much in love with him to salt their ambrosia with common sense or suggest economy in their use of the nectar bottle.
However, the gods attend to that, and she knew they would, and she let them. So one balmy evening late in May, when the new moon’s ghost floated through the upper haze, and the golden Diana above Manhattan turned flame color, and the electric lights began to glimmer along Fifth Avenue, and the first faint scent of the young summer freshened the foliage in square and park, Kerns, stopping at the club for a moment, found Gatewood seated at the same window they both were wont to haunt in earlier and more flippant days.
“Are you dining here?” inquired Kerns, pushing the electric button with enthusiasm. “Well, that’s the first glimmer of common sense you’ve betrayed since you’ve been married!”
“Dining here!” repeated Gatewood. “I should hope not! I am just going home—”
“He’s thoroughly cowed,” commented Kerns; “every married man you meet at the club is just going home.” But he continued to push the button, nevertheless.
Gatewood leaned back in his chair and gazed about him, nose in the air. “What a life!” he observed virtuously. “It’s all I can do to stand it for ten minutes. You’re here for the evening, I suppose?” he added pityingly.
“No,” said Kerns; “I’m going uptown to Billy Lee’s house to get my suit case. His family are out of town, and he is at Seabright, so he let me camp there until the workmen finish papering my rooms upstairs. I’m to lock up the house and send the key to the Burglar Alarm Company to-night. Then I go to Boston on the 12.10. Want to come? There’ll be a few doing.”
“To Boston! What for?”
“Contracts! We can go out to Cambridge when I’ve finished my business. There’ll be etwas doing.”
“Can’t you ever recover from being an undergraduate?” asked Gatewood, disgusted.
“Well — is there anything the matter with a man getting next to a little amusement in life?” asked Kerns. “Do you object to my being happy?”
“Amusement? You don’t know how to amuse yourself. You don’t know how to be happy. Here you sit, day after day, swallowing Martinis—” He paused to finish his own, then resumed: “Here you sit, day after day, intellectually stultified, unemotionally ignorant of the higher and better life—”
“No, I don’t. I’ve a book upstairs that tells all about that. I read it when I have holdovers—”
“Kerns, I wish to speak seriously. I’ve had it on my mind ever since I married. May I speak frankly?”
“Well, when I come back from Boston—”
“Because I know a girl,” interrupted Gatewood— “wait a moment, Tommy!” — as Kerns rose and sauntered toward the door— “you’ve plenty of time to catch your train and be civil, too! I mean to tell you about that girl, if you’ll listen.”
Kerns halted and turned upon his friend a pair of eyes, unwinking in their placid intelligence.
“I was going to say that I know a girl,” continued Gatewood, “who is just the sort of a girl you—”
“No, she isn’t!” said Kerns, wheeling to resume his progress toward the cloakroom.
“Tom!”
Kerns halted.
“You’re a fine specimen!” commented Gatewood scornfully. “You spent the best years of your life in persuading me to get married, and the first time I try to do the same for you, you make for the tall timber!”
“I know it,” admitted Kerns, unashamed; “I’m bashful. I’m a chipmunk for shyness, so I’ll say good night—”
“Come back,” said Gatewood coldly.
“But my suit case—”
“You left it at the Lee’s, didn’t you? Well, you’ve time enough to go there, get it, make your train, and listen to me, too. Look here, Kerns, have you any of the elements of decency about you?”
“No,” said Kerns, “not a single element.” He seated himself defiantly in the club window facing Gatewood and began to button his gloves. When he had finished he settled his new straw hat more comfortably on his head, and, leaning forward and balancing his malacca walking stick across his knees, gazed at Gatewood with composure.
“Crank up!” he said pleasantly; “I’m going in less than three minutes.” He pushed the electric knob as an afterthought, and when the gilt buttons of the club servant glimmered through the dusk, “Two more,” he explained briskly. After a few moments’ silence, broken by the tinkle of ice in thin glassware, Gatewood leaned forward, menacing his friend with an impressive forefinger:
“Did you or didn’t you once tell me that a decent citizen ought to marry?”
“I did, dear friend.”
“Did I or didn’t I do it?”
“In the words of the classic, you done it,” admitted Kerns.
“Was I or wasn’t I going to the devil before I had the sense to marry?” persisted Gatewood.
“You was! You was, dear friend!” said Kerns with enthusiasm. “You had almost went there ere I appeared and saved you.”
“Then why shouldn’t you marry and let me save you?”
“But I’m not going to the bowwows. I’m all right. I’m a decent citizen. I awake in the rosy dawn with a song on my lips; I softly whistle rag time as I button my collar; I warble a few delicious vagrant notes as I part my sparse hair; I’m not murderous before breakfast; I go down town, singing, to my daily toil; I fish for fat contracts in Georgia marble; I return uptown immersed in a holy calm and the evening paper. I offer myself a cocktail; I bow and accept; I dress for dinner with the aid of a rascally valet, but — do I swear at him? No, dear friend; I say, ‘Henry, I have known far, far worse scoundrels than you. Thank you for filling up my bay rum with water. Bless you for wearing my imported hosiery! I deeply regret that my new shirts do not fit you, Henry!’ And my smile is a benediction upon that wayward scullion. Then, dear friend, why, why do you desire to offer me up upon the altar of unrest? What is a little wifey to me or I to any wifey?”
“Because,” said Gatewood irritated, “you offered me up. I’m happy and I want you to be — you great, hulking, self-satisfied symbol of supreme self-centered selfishness—”
“Oh, splash!” said Kerns feebly.
“Yes, you are. What do you do all day? Grub for money and study how to make life agreeable to yourself! Every minute of the day you are occupied in having a good time! You’ve admitted it! You wake up singing like a fool canary; you wear imported hosiery; you’ve made a soft, warm wallow for yourself at this club, and here you bask your life away, waddling downtown to nail contracts and cut coupons, and uptown to dinners and theaters, only to return and sprawl here in luxury without one single thought for posterity. Your crime is race suicide!”
“I — my — what!”
“Certainly. Some shirk taxes, some jury duty. You shirk fatherhood, and all its happy and sacred obligations! You deny posterity! You strike a blow at it! You flout it! You menace the future of this Republic! Your inertia is a crime against the people! Instead of pro bono publico your motto is pro bono tempo — for a good time! And, dog Latin or not, it’s the truth, and our great President”
“Splash!” said Kerns, rising.
“I’ve a good mind,” said Gatewood indignantly, “to put the Tracer of Lost Persons on your trail. He’d rope you and tie you in record time!”
Kerns’s smile was a provocation.
“I’ll do it, too!” added Gatewood, losing his temper, “if you dare give me the chance.”
“Seriously,” inquired Kerns, delighted, “do you think your friend, Mr. Keen, could encompass my matrimony against my better sense and the full enjoyment of my unimpaired mental faculties?”
“Didn’t he — fortunately for me — force me into matrimony when I had never seen a woman I would look at twice? Didn’t you put him up to it? Very well, why can’t I put him on your trail then? Why can’t he do the same for you?”
