Complete weird tales of.., p.494
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 494
About two thousand yards of brilliant ribbons suddenly fell from the ceiling; she looked at him with something perilously close to a sigh. Out of an old hat he produced a cage full of parrots; every parrot repeated her first name decorously, monotonously, until packed back into the hat and stuffed into a box which was then set on fire.
Her heart was pretty full now; for she was only eighteen and she had been considering his poverty. So when in due time the box burned out and from the black and charred débris the parrots stepped triumphantly forth, gravely repeating her name in unison; and when she saw that the entertainment was at an end, she rose, setting her ice-cream soda upon a table, and, although the glass instantly changed into a teapot, she walked straight up to him and held out her hand.
“I’ve had a perfectly lovely time,” she said. “And I want to say to you that I have been thinking of several things, and one is that it is perfectly ridiculous for you to be poor.”
“It is rather ridiculous,” he admitted, surprised. “Isn’t it! And no need of it at all. Your father made a fortune for my father. All you have to do is to let my father make a fortune for you.”
“Is that all?” he asked, laughing.
“Of course. Why did you not tell him so? Have you seen him?”
“No,” he said gravely.
“Why not?”
“I saw others — I did not care to try — any more — friends.”
“Will you — now?”
He shook his head.
“Then I will.”
“Please don’t,” he said quietly. Her hand still lay in his; she looked up at him; her eyes were starry bright and a little moist.
“I simply can’t stand this,” she said, steadying her voice.
“What?”
“Your — your distress—” She choked; her sensitive mouth trembled.
“Good Heavens!” he breathed; “do you care!”
“Care — care,” she stammered. “You saved my life with a laugh! You face st-starvation with a laugh! Your father made mine! Care? Yes, I care!”
But she had bent her head; a bright tear fell, spangling his polished shoes; the pulsating seconds passed; he laid his other hand above both of hers which he held, and stood silent, stunned, scarcely daring to understand.
Nor was it here he could understand or even hope — his instinct held him stupid and silent. Presently he released her hands.
She said “Good-by” calmly enough; he followed her to the door and opened it, watching her pass through the hall to her own door. And there she paused and looked back; and he found himself beside her again.
“Only,” she began, “only don’t do all those beautiful magic things for any — anybody else — will you? I wish to have — have them all for myself — to share them with no one — —”
He held her hands imprisoned again. “I will never do one of those things for anybody but you,” he said unsteadily.
“Truly?” Her face caught fire.
“Yes, truly.”
“But how — how, then, can you — can — —”
“I don’t care what happens to me!” he said. To look at him nobody would have thought him young enough to say that sort of thing.
“I care,” she said, releasing her hands and stepping back into her studio.
For a moment her lovely, daring face swam before his eyes; then, in the next moment, she was in his arms, crying her eyes out against his shoulder, his lips pressed to her bright hair.
And that was all right in its way, too; madder things have happened in our times; but nothing madder ever happened than a large, bald gentleman who came up the stairs in a series of bounces and planted his legs apart and tightened his pudgy grip upon his malacca walking stick, and confronted them with distended eyes and waistband.
In vigorous but incoherent English he begged to know whether this scene was part of an education in art.
“Papah,” she said calmly, “you are just in time. Go into the studio and I’ll come in one moment.”
Then giving her lover both hands and looking at him with all her soul in her young eyes: “I love you; I’ll marry you. And if there’s trouble” — she smiled upon her frantic father— “if there is trouble I will follow you about the country exhibiting green mice — —”
“What!” thundered her father.
“Green mice,” she repeated with an adorable smile at her lover— “unless my father finds a necessity for you in his business — with a view to partnership. And I’m going to let you arrange that together. Good-by.”
And she entered her studio, closing the door behind her, leaving the two men confronting one another in the entry.
For one so young she had much wisdom and excellent taste; and listening, she heard her father explode in one lusty Saxon word. He always said it when beaten; it was the beginning of the end, and the end of the sweetest beginning that ever dawned on earth for a maid since the first sunbeam stole into Eden.
So she sat down on her little camp stool before her easel and picked up a hand glass; and, sitting there, carefully removed all traces of tears from her wet and lovely eyes with the cambric hem of her painting apron.
“Damnation!” repeated Mr. Carr, “am I to understand that the only thing you can do for a living is to go about with a troupe of trained mice?”
“I’ve invented a machine,” observed the young man, modestly. “It ought to be worth millions — if you’d care to finance it.”
“The idea is utterly repugnant to me!” shouted her father.
The young man reddened. “If you wouldn’t mind examining it—” He drew from his pocket a small, delicately contrived bit of clockwork. “This is the machine — —”
“I don’t want to see it!”
“You have seen it. Do you mind sitting down a moment? Be careful of that kitten! Kindly take this chair. Thank you. Now, if you would be good enough to listen for ten minutes — —”
“I don’t want to be good enough! Do you hear!”
“Yes, I hear,” said young Destyn, patiently. “And as I was going to explain, the earth is circumscribed by wireless currents of electricity — —”
“I — dammit, sir — —”
“But those are not the only invisible currents that are ceaselessly flowing around our globe!” pursued the young man, calmly. “Do you see this machine?”
“No, I don’t!” snarled the other.
“Then—” And, leaning closer, William Augustus Destyn whispered into Bushwyck Carr’s fat, red ear.
“What!!!”
“Certainly.”
“You can’t prove it!”
“Watch me.”
* * *
Ethelinda had dried her eyes. Every few minutes she glanced anxiously at the little French clock over her easel.
“What on earth can they be doing?” she murmured. And when the long hour struck she arose with resolution and knocked at the door.
“Come in,” said her father, irritably, “but don’t interrupt. William and I are engaged in a very important business transaction.”
V
SACHARISSA
TREATING OF CERTAIN Scientific Events Succeeding the Wedding Journey of William and Ethelinda
Sacharissa took the chair. She knew nothing about parliamentary procedure; neither did her younger, married sister, Ethelinda, nor the recently acquired family brother-in-law, William Augustus Destyn.
“The meeting will come to order,” said Sacharissa, and her brother-in-law reluctantly relinquished his new wife’s hand — all but one finger.
“Miss Chairman,” he began, rising to his feet.
The chair recognized him and bit into a chocolate.
“I move that our society be known as The Green Mouse, Limited.”
“Why limited?” asked Sacharissa.
“Why not?” replied her sister, warmly.
“Well, what does your young man mean by limited?”
“I suppose,” said Linda, “that he means it is to be the limit. Don’t you, William?”
“Certainly,” said Destyn, gravely; and the motion was put and carried.
“Rissa, dear!”
The chair casually recognized her younger sister.
“I propose that the object of this society be to make its members very, very wealthy.”
The motion was carried; Linda picked up a scrap of paper and began to figure up the possibility of a new touring car.
Then Destyn arose; the chair nodded to him and leaned back, playing a tattoo with her pencil tip against her snowy teeth.
He began in his easy, agreeable voice, looking across at his pretty wife:
“You know, dearest — and Sacharissa, over there, is also aware — that, in the course of my economical experiments in connection with your father’s Wireless Trust, I have accidentally discovered how to utilize certain brand-new currents of an extraordinary character.”
Sacharissa’s expression became skeptical; Linda watched her husband in unfeigned admiration.
“These new and hitherto unsuspected currents,” continued Destyn modestly, “are not electrical but psychical. Yet, like wireless currents, their flow eternally encircles the earth. These currents, I believe, have their origin in that great unknown force which, for lack of a better name, we call fate, or predestination. And I am convinced that by intercepting one of these currents it is possible to connect the subconscious personalities of two people of opposite sex who, although ultimately destined for one another since the beginning of things, have, through successive incarnations, hitherto missed the final consummation — marriage! — which was the purpose of their creation.”
“Bill, dear,” sighed Linda, “how exquisitely you explain the infinite.”
“Fudge!” said Sacharissa; “go on, William.”
“That’s all,” said Destyn. “We agreed to put in a thousand dollars apiece for me to experiment with. I’ve perfected the instrument — here it is.”
He drew from his waistcoat pocket a small, flat jeweler’s case and took out a delicate machine resembling the complicated interior of a watch.
“Now,” he said, “with this tiny machine concealed in my waistcoat pocket, I walk up to any man and, by turning a screw like the stem of a watch, open the microscopical receiver. Into the receiver flow all psychical emanations from that unsuspicious citizen. The machine is charged, positively. Then I saunter up to some man, place the instrument on a table — like that — touch a lever. Do you see that hair wire of Rosium uncoil like a tentacle? It is searching, groping for the invisible, negative, psychical current which will carry its message.”
“To whom?” asked Sacharissa.
“To the subconscious personality of the only woman for whom he was created, the only woman on earth whose psychic personality is properly attuned to intercept that wireless greeting and respond to it.”
“How can you tell whether she responds?” asked Sacharissa, incredulously. He pointed to the hair wire of Rosium:
“I watch that. The instant that the psychical current reaches and awakens her, crack! — a minute point of blue incandescence tips the tentacle. It’s done; psychical communication is established. And that man and that woman, wherever they may be on earth, surely, inexorably, will be drawn together, even from the uttermost corners of the world, to fulfill that for which they were destined since time began.”
There was a semirespectful silence; Linda looked at the little jewel-like machine with a slight shudder; Sacharissa shrugged her young shoulders.
“How much of this,” said she, “is theory and how much is fact? — for, William, you always were something of a poet.”
“I don’t know. A month ago I tried it on your father’s footman, and in a week he’d married a perfectly strange parlor maid.”
“Oh, they do such things, anyway,” observed Sacharissa, and added, unconvinced: “Did that tentacle burn blue?”
“It certainly did,” said Destyn.
Linda murmured: “I believe in it. Let’s issue stock.”
“To issue stock is one thing,” said Destyn, “to get people to buy it is another. You and I may believe in Green Mouse, Limited, but the rest of the world is always from beyond the Mississippi.”
“The thing to do,” said Linda, “is to prove your theory by practicing on people. They may not like the idea, but they’ll be so grateful, when happily and unexpectedly married, that they’ll buy stock.”
“Or give us testimonials,” added Sacharissa, “that their bliss was entirely due to a single dose of Green Mouse, Limited.”
“Don’t be flippant,” said Linda. “Think what William’s invention means to the world! Think of the time it will save young men barking up wrong trees! Think of the trouble saved — no more doubt, no timidity, no hesitation, no speculation, no opposition from parents.”
“Any of our clients,” added Destyn, “can be instantly switched on to a private psychical current which will clinch the only girl in the world. Engagements will be superfluous; those two simply can’t get away from each other.”
“If that were true,” observed Sacharissa, “it would be most unpleasant. There would be no fun in it. However,” she added, smiling, “I don’t believe in your theory or your machine, William. It would take more than that combination to make me marry anybody.”
“Then we’re not going to issue stock?” asked Linda. “I do need so many new and expensive things.”
“We’ve got to experiment a little further, first,” said Destyn.
Sacharissa laughed: “You blindfold me, give me a pencil and lay the Social Register before me. Whatever name I mark you are to experiment with.”
“Don’t mark any of our friends,” began Linda.
“How can I tell whom I may choose. It’s fair for everybody. Come; do you promise to abide by it — you two?”
They promised doubtfully.
“So do I, then,” said Sacharissa. “Hurry up and blindfold me, somebody. The bus will be here in half an hour, and you know how father acts when kept waiting.”
Linda tied her eyes with a handkerchief, gave her a pencil and seated herself on an arm of the chair watching the pencil hovering over the pages of the Social Register which her sister was turning at hazard.
“This page,” announced Sacharissa, “and this name!” marking it with a quick stroke.
Linda gave a stifled cry and attempted to arrest the pencil; but the moving finger had written.
“Whom have I selected?” inquired the girl, whisking the handkerchief from her eyes. “What are you having a fit about, Linda?”
And, looking at the page, she saw that she had marked her own name.
“We must try it again,” said Destyn, hastily. “That doesn’t count. Tie her up, Linda.”
“But — that wouldn’t be fair,” said Sacharissa, hesitating whether to take it seriously or laugh. “We all promised, you know. I ought to abide by what I’ve done.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Linda, preparing the handkerchief and laying it across her sister’s forehead.
Sacharissa pushed it away. “I can’t break my word, even to myself,” she said, laughing. “I’m not afraid of that machine.”
“Do you mean to say you are willing to take silly chances?” asked Linda, uneasily. “I believe in William’s machine whether you do or not. And I don’t care to have any of the family experimented with.”
“If I were willing to try it on others it would be cowardly for me to back out now,” said Sacharissa, forcing a smile; for Destyn’s and Linda’s seriousness was beginning to make her a trifle uncomfortable.
“Unless you want to marry somebody pretty soon you’d better not risk it,” said Destyn, gravely.
“You — you don’t particularly care to marry anybody, just now, do you, dear?” asked Linda. “No,” replied her sister, scornfully.
There was a silence; Sacharissa, uneasy, bit her underlip and sat looking at the uncanny machine.
She was a tall girl, prettily formed, one of those girls with long limbs, narrow, delicate feet and ankles.
That sort of girl, when she also possesses a mass of chestnut hair, a sweet mouth and gray eyes, is calculated to cause trouble.
And there she sat, one knee crossed over the other, slim foot swinging, perplexed brows bent slightly inward.
“I can’t see any honorable way out of it,” she said resolutely. “I said I’d abide by the blindfolded test.”
“When we promised we weren’t thinking of ourselves,” insisted Ethelinda.
“That doesn’t release us,” retorted her Puritan sister.
“Why?” demanded Linda. “Suppose, for example, your pencil had marked William’s name! That would have been im — immoral!”
“Would it?” asked Sacharissa, turning her honest, gray eyes on her brother-in-law.
“I don’t believe it would,” he said; “I’d only be switched on to Linda’s current again.” And he smiled at his wife.
Sacharissa sat thoughtful and serious, swinging her foot.
“Well,” she said, at length, “I might as well face it at once. If there’s anything in this instrument we’ll all know it pretty soon. Turn on your receiver, Billy.”
“Oh,” cried Linda, tearfully, “don’t you do it, William!”
“Turn it on,” repeated Sacharissa. “I’m not going to be a coward and break faith with myself, and you both know it! If I’ve got to go through the silliness of love and marriage I might as well know who the bandarlog is to be.... Anyway, I don’t really believe in this thing.... I can’t believe in it.... Besides, I’ve a mind and a will of my own, and I fancy it will require more than amateur psychical experiments to change either. Go on, Billy.”
“You mean it?” he asked, secretly gratified.
“Certainly,” with superb affectation of indifference. And she rose and faced the instrument.
Destyn looked at his wife. He was dying to try it.
“Will!” she exclaimed, “suppose we are not going to like Rissa’s possible f — fiance! Suppose father doesn’t like him!”
