Complete weird tales of.., p.508
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 508
“Was he my father?”
“I am taking the chance that he was not.”
“You had reason to believe — —”
“I thought so. But — your mother remained silent. And her answer to my letters was to have you christened under the name you bear to-day, Philip Ormond Berkley. And then, to force matters, I made her status clear to her. Maybe — I don’t know — but my punishment of her may have driven her to a hatred of me — a desperation that accepted everything — even you!”
Berkley lifted a countenance from which every vestige of colour had fled.
“Why did you tell me this?”
“Because I believe that there is every chance — that you may be legally entitled to my name. Since I have known who you are, I — I have had you watched. I have hesitated — a long while. My brokers have watched you for a year, now; my attorneys for much longer. To-day you stand in need of me, if ever you have stood in need of anybody. I take the chance that you have that claim on me; I offer to receive you, provide for you. That is all, Berkley. Now you know everything.”
“Who else — knows?”
“Knows what?”
“Knows what you did to my mother?”
“Some people among the families immediately concerned,” replied
Colonel Arran coolly.
“Who are they?”
“Your mother’s relatives, the Paiges, the Berkleys — my family, the
Arrans, the Lents — —”
“What Lents?” interrupted the young man looking up sharply.
“They live in Brooklyn. There’s a brother and a sister, orphans; and an uncle. Captain Josiah Lent.”
“Oh. . . . Who else?”
“A Mrs. Craig who lives in Brooklyn. She was Celia Paige, your mother’s maid of honour.”
“Who else?”
“A sister-in-law of Mrs. Craig, formerly my ward. She is now a widow, a Mrs. Paige, living on London Terrace. She, however, has no knowledge of the matter in question; nor have the Lents, nor any one in the Craig family except Mrs. Craig.”
“Who else?”
“Nobody.”
“I see. . . . And, as I understand it, you are now stepping forward to offer me — on the chance of — of — —”
“I offer you a place in this house as my son. I offer to deal with you as a father — accepting that belief and every responsibility, and every duty, and every sacrifice that such a belief entails,”
For a long time the young fellow stood there without stirring, pallid, his dark, expressionless eyes, fixed on space. And after a while he spoke.
“Colonel Arran, I had rather than all the happiness on earth, that you had left me the memory of my mother. You have chosen not to do so. And now, do you think I am likely to exchange what she and I really are, for anything more respectable that you believe you can offer?
“How, under God, you could have punished her as you did — how you could have reconciled your conscience to the invocation of a brutal law which rehabilitated you at the expense of the woman who had been your wife — how you could have done this in the name of duty and of conscience, I can not comprehend.
“I do not believe that one drop of your blood runs in my veins.”
He bent forward, laying his hands flat on the cloth, then gripping it fiercely in clenched fists:
“All I want of you is what was my mother’s. I bear the name she gave me; it pleased her to bestow it; it is good enough for me to wear. If it be hers only, or if it was also my father’s, I do not know; but that name, legitimate or otherwise, is not for exchange! I will keep it, Colonel Arran. I am what I am.”
He hesitated, rigid, clenching and unclenching his hands — then drew a deep, agonised breath:
“I suppose you have meant to be just to me, I wish you might have dealt more mercifully with my mother. As for what you have done to me — well — if she was illegally my mother, I had rather be her illegitimate son than the son of any woman who ever lived within the law. Now may I have her letters?”
“Is that your decision, Berkley?”
“It is. I want only her letters from you — and any little keepsakes — relics — if there be any — —”
“I offer to recognise you as my son.”
“I decline — believing that you mean to be just — and perhaps kind — God knows what you do mean by disinterring the dead for a son to look back upon — —”
“Could I have offered you what I offer, otherwise?”
“Man! Man! You have nothing to offer me! Your silence was the only kindness you could have done me! You have killed something in me. I don’t know what, yet — but I think it was the best part of me.”
“Berkley, do you suppose that I have entered upon this matter lightly?”
Berkley laughed, showing his teeth. “No. It was your damned conscience; and I suppose you couldn’t strangle it. I am sorry you couldn’t. Sometimes a strangled conscience makes men kinder.”
Colonel Arran rang. A dark flush had overspread his forehead; he turned to the butler.
“Bring me the despatch box which stands on: my study table.”
Berkley, hands behind his back, was pacing the dining-room carpet.
“Would you accept a glass of wine?” asked Colonel Arran in a low voice.
Berkley wheeled on him with a terrible smile.
“Shall a man drink wine with the slayer of souls?” Then, pallid face horribly distorted, he stretched out a shaking arm. “Not that you ever could succeed in getting near enough to murder hers! But you’ve killed mine. I know now what died in me. It was that! . . . And I know now, as I stand here excommunicated by you from all who have been born within the law, that there is not left alive in me one ideal, one noble impulse, one spiritual conviction. I am what your righteousness has made me — a man without hope; a man with nothing alive in him except the physical brute. . . . Better not arouse that.”
“You do not know what you are saying, Berkley” — Colonel Arran choked; turned gray; then a spasm twitched his features and he grasped the arms of his chair, staring at Berkley with burning eyes.
Neither spoke again until Larraway entered, carrying an inlaid box.
“Thank you, Larraway. You need not wait.”
“Thank you, sir.”
When they were again alone Colonel Arran unlocked and opened the box, and, behind the raised lid, remained invisibly busy for some little time, apparently sorting and re-sorting the hidden contents. He was so very long about it that Berkley stirred at last in his chair; and at the same moment the older man seemed to arrive at an abrupt decision, for he closed the lid and laid two packages on the cloth between them.
“Are these mine?” asked Berkley.
“They are mine,” corrected the other quietly, “but I choose to yield them to you.”
“Thank you,” said Berkley. There was a hint of ferocity in his voice. He took the letters, turned around to look for his hat, found it, and straightened up with a long, deep intake of breath.
“I think there is nothing more to be said between us, Colonel
Arran?”
“That lies with you.”
Berkley passed a steady hand across his eyes. “Then, sir, there remain the ceremonies of my leave taking—” he stepped closer, level-eyed— “and my very bitter hatred.”
There was a pause. Colonel Arran waited a moment, then struck the bell:
“Larraway, Mr. Berkley has decided to go.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will accompany Mr. Berkley to the door.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And hand to Mr. Berkley the outer key of this house.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And in case Mr. Berkley ever again desires to enter this house, he is to be admitted, and his orders are to be obeyed by every servant in it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Arran rose trembling. He and Berkley looked at each other; then both bowed; and the butler ushered out the younger man.
“Pardon — the latch-key, sir.”
Berkley took it, examined it, handed it back.
“Return it to Colonel Arran with Mr. Berkley’s undying — compliments,” he said, and went blindly out into the April night, but his senses were swimming as though he were drunk.
Behind him the door of the house of Arran clanged.
Larraway stood stealthily peering through the side-lights; then tiptoed toward the hallway and entered the dining-room with velvet tread.
“Port or brandy, sir?” he whispered at Colonel Arran’s elbow.
The Colonel shook his head.
“Nothing more. Take that box to my study.”
Later, seated at his study table before the open box, he heard Larraway knock; and he quietly laid away the miniature of Berkley’s mother which had been lying in his steady palm for hours.
“Well?”
“Pardon. Mr. Berkley’s key, with Mr. Berkley’s compliments, sir.”
And he laid it upon the table by the box.
“Thank you. That will be all.”
“Thank you, sir. Good night, sir.”
“Good night.”
The Colonel picked up the evening paper and opened it mechanically:
“By telegraph!” he read, “War inevitable. Postscript! Fort Sumter! It is now certain that the Government has decided to reinforce Major Andersen’s command at all hazards — —”
The lines in the Evening Post blurred under his eyes; he passed one broad, bony hand across them, straightened his shoulders, and, setting the unlighted cigar firmly between his teeth, composed himself to read. But after a few minutes he had read enough. He dropped deeper into his arm-chair, groping for the miniature of Berkley’s mother.
As for Berkley, he was at last alone with his letters and his keepsakes, in the lodgings which he inhabited — and now would inhabit no more. The letters lay still unopened before him on his writing table; he stood looking at the miniatures and photographs, all portraits of his mother, from girlhood onward.
One by one he took them up, examined them — touched them to his lips, laid each away. The letters he also laid away unopened; he could not bear to read them now.
The French clock in his bedroom struck eight. He closed and locked his desk, stood looking at it blankly for a moment; then he squared his shoulders. An envelope lay open on the desk beside him.
“Oh — yes,” he said aloud, but scarcely heard his own voice.
The envelope enclosed an invitation from one, Camilla Lent, to a theatre party for that evening, and a dance afterward.
He had a vague idea that he had accepted.
The play was “The Seven Sisters” at Laura, Keene’s Theatre. The dance was somewhere — probably at Delmonico’s. If he were going, it was time he was afoot.
His eyes wandered from one familiar object to another; he moved restlessly, and began to roam through the richly furnished rooms. But to Berkley nothing in the world seemed familiar any longer; and the strangeness of it, and the solitude were stupefying him.
When he became tired trying to think, he made the tour again in a stupid sort of way, then rang for his servant, Burgess, and started mechanically about his dressing.
Nothing any longer seemed real, not even pain.
He rang for Burgess again, but the fellow did not appear. So he dressed without aid. And at last he was ready; and went out, drunk with fatigue and the reaction from pain.
He did not afterward remember how he came to the theatre. Presently he found himself in a lower tier box, talking to a Mrs. Paige who, curiously, miraculously, resembled the girlish portraits of his mother — or he imagined so — until he noticed that her hair was yellow and her eyes blue. And he laughed crazily to himself, inwardly convulsed; and then his own voice sounded again, low, humorous, caressingly modulated; and he listened to it, amused that he was able to speak at all.
“And so you are the wonderful Ailsa Paige,” he heard himself repeating. “Camilla wrote me that I must beware of my peace of mind the moment I first set eyes on you — —”
“Camilla Lent is supremely silly, Mr. Berkley — —”
“Camilla is a sibyl. This night my peace of mind departed for ever.”
“May I offer you a little of mine?”
“I may ask more than that of you?”
“You mean a dance?”
“More than one.”
“How many?”
“All of them. How many will you give me?”
“One. Please look at the stage. Isn’t Laura Keene bewitching?”
“Your voice is.”
“Such nonsense. Besides, I’d rather hear what Laura Keene is saying than listen to you.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Incredible as it may sound, Mr. Berkley, I really do.”
He dropped back in the box. Camilla laid her painted fan across his arm.
“Isn’t Ailsa Paige the most enchanting creature you ever saw? I told you so! Isn’t she?”
“Except one. I was looking at some pictures of her a half an hour ago.”
“She must be very beautiful,” sighed Camilla.
“She was.”
“Oh. . . . Is she dead?”
“Murdered.”
Camilla looked at the stage in horrified silence. Later she touched him again on the arm, timidly.
“Are you not well, Mr. Berkley?”
“Perfectly. Why?”
“You are so pale. Do look at Ailsa Paige. I am completely enamoured of her. Did you ever see such a lovely creature in all your life? And she is very young but very wise. She knows useful and charitable things — like nursing the sick, and dressing injuries, and her own hats. And she actually served a whole year in the horrible city hospital! Wasn’t it brave of her!”
Berkley swayed forward to look at Ailsa Paige. He began to be tormented again by the feverish idea that she resembled the girl pictures of his mother. Nor could he rid himself of the fantastic impression. In the growing unreality of it all, in the distorted outlines of a world gone topsy-turvy, amid the deadly blurr of things material and mental, Ailsa Paige’s face alone remained strangely clear. And, scarcely knowing what he was saying, he leaned forward to her shoulder again.
“There was only one other like you,” he said. Mrs. Paige turned slowly and looked at him, but the quiet rebuke in her eyes remained unuttered.
“Be more genuine with me,” she said gently. “I am worth it, Mr.
Berkley.”
Then, suddenly there seemed to run a pale flash through his brain,
“Yes,” he said in an altered voice, “you are worth it. . . . Don’t drive me away from you just yet.”
“Drive you away?” in soft concern. “I did not mean — —”
“You will, some day. But don’t do it to-night.” Then the quick, feverish smile broke out.
“Do you need a servant? I’m out of a place. I can either cook, clean silver, open the door, wash sidewalks, or wait on the table; so you see I have every qualification.”
Smilingly perplexed, she let her eyes rest on his pallid face for a moment, then turned toward the stage again.
The “Seven Sisters” pursued its spectacular course; Ione Burke, Polly Marshall, and Mrs. Vining were in the cast; tableau succeeded tableau; “I wish I were in Dixie,” was sung, and the popular burlesque ended in the celebrated scene, “The Birth of the Butterfly in the Bower of Ferns,” with the entire company kissing their finger-tips to a vociferous and satiated audience.
Then it was supper at Delmonico’s, and a dance — and at last the waltz promised him by Ailsa Paige.
Through the fixed unreality of things he saw her clearly, standing, awaiting him, saw her sensitive face as she quietly laid her hand on his — saw it suddenly alter as the light contact startled both.
Flushed, she looked up at him like a hurt child, conscious yet only of the surprise.
Dazed, he stared back. Neither spoke; his arm encircled her; both seemed aware of that; then only of the swaying rhythm of the dance, and of joined hands, and her waist imprisoned. Only the fragrance of her hair seemed real to him; and the long lashes resting on curved cheeks, and the youth of her yielding to his embrace.
Neither spoke when it had ended. She turned aside and stood motionless a moment, resting against the stair rail as though to steady herself. Her small head was lowered.
He managed to say: “You will give me the next?”
“No.”
“Then the next — —”
“No,” she said, not moving.
A young fellow came up eagerly, cocksure of her, but she shook her head — and shook her head to all — and Berkley remained standing beside her. And at last her reluctant head turned slowly, and, slowly, her gaze searched his.
“Shall we rest?” he said.
“Yes. I am — tired.”
Her dainty avalanche of skirts filled the stairs as she settled there in silence; he at her feet, turned sideways so that he could look up into the brooding, absent eyes.
And over them again — over the small space just then allotted them in the world — was settling once more the intangible, indefinable spell awakened by their first light contact. Through its silence hurried their pulses; through its significance her dazed young eyes looked out into a haze where nothing stirred except a phantom heart, beating, beating the reveille. And the spell lay heavy on them both.
“I shall bear your image always. You know it.”
She seemed scarcely to have heard him.
“There is no reason in what I say. I know it. Yet — I am destined never to forget you.”
She made no sign.
“Ailsa Paige,” he said mechanically.
And after a long while, slowly, she looked down at him where he sat at her feet, his dark eyes fixed on space.
CHAPTER II
ALL THE MORNING she had been busy in the Craig’s backyard garden, clipping, training, loosening the earth around lilac, honeysuckle, and Rose of Sharon. The little German florist on the corner had sent in two loads of richly fertilised soil and a barrel of forest mould. These she sweetened with lime, mixed in her small pan, and applied judiciously to the peach-tree by the grape-arbour, to the thickets of pearl-gray iris, to the beloved roses, prairie climber, Baltimore bell, and General Jacqueminot. A neighbour’s cat, war-scarred and bold, traversing the fences in search of single combat, halted to watch her; an early bee, with no blossoms yet to rummage, passed and repassed, buzzing distractedly.
