Complete weird tales of.., p.517
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 517
And one day, out of the hurly-burly, and against all laws of probability and finance, an incredible letter was handed to him. And he read it, standing by his window, and calmly realised that he was now no longer penniless.
Some inspired idiot had become a credulous market for his apparently unmarketable securities. Who this person was his brokers did not say; but, whoever it was, had bought every rotten share he held; and there was money for him in the world to help him out of it.
As he stood there, the letter in his hands, drums sounded across the street, and Stephen came in from the outer office.
“Another regiment,” he said. “Do you know where they come from?”
Berkley shook his head, and they went to the windows; below them surged the flood of dead wood driven before the oncoming waves — haggard men, ragged men, small boys, darkies, Bowery b’hoys, stray red-shirted firemen, then the police, then solid double ranks of drums battered by flashing, brass-bound drumsticks, then line after line of blue and steel, steadily flowing through the streets and away, away into the unknown.
“How young they are!” muttered Farren, the gray-haired cashier, standing behind Stephen’s shoulders. “God bless me, they’re children!”
“It’s a Vermont regiment,” said Berkley; “they’re filing out of the Park Barracks. What a lot of hawk-nosed, hatchet-faced, turkey-necked cow milkers! — all heroes, too, Steve. You can tell that because they’re in uniform and carry guns.”
Stephen watched the lank troops, fascinated by the long, silent, almost gliding stride of officers and men loaded down with knapsack, blanket, and canteen, their caps pushed high on their red and sweating foreheads. There was a halt; big hands, big red knuckles, big feet, and the delicate curve of the hawk’s beak outlining every Yankee nose, queer, humourous, restless glances sweeping Gotham streets and windows where Gotham crowded to gaze back at the halted youngsters in blue; then a far tenor cry, nasal commands, thin voices penetrating from out of the crowded distance; a sudden steadying of ranks; the level flash of shouldered steel; a thousand men marking time; and at last the drums’ quick outbreak; and the 1st Vermont Infantry passed onward into the unknown.
“I’d rather like to go there — to see what there is there,” observed
Berkley.
“Where?”
“Where they’re going — wherever that may be — and I think I know.”
He glanced absently at his letter again.
“I’ve sold some stock — all I had, and I’ve made a lot of money,” he said listlessly.
Stephen dropped an impulsive hand on his shoulder.
“I’m terribly glad, Berkley! I’m delighted!” he said with a warmth that brought a slight colour into Berkley’s face.
“That’s nice of you, Stephen. It solves the immediate problem of how to go there.”
“Go where?”
“Why — where all our bright young men are going, old fellow,” said
Berkley, laughing. “I can go with a regiment or I can go alone.
But I really must be starting.”
“You mean to enlist?”
“Yes, it can be done that way, too. Or — other ways. The main thing is to get momentum. . . . I think I’ll just step out and say good-bye and many thanks to your father. I shall be quite busy for the rest of my career.”
“You are not leaving here?”
“I am. But I’ll pay my rent first,” said Berkley, laughing.
And go he did that very afternoon; and the office of Craig & Son knew him no more.
A few days later Ailsa Paige returned to New York and reoccupied her own house on London Terrace.
A silk flag drooped between the tall pilasters. Under it, at the front door stood Colonel Arran to welcome her. It had been her father’s house; he had planted the great catalpa trees on the grassy terrace in front. Here she had been born; from here she had gone away a bride; from here her parents had been buried, both within that same strange year that left her widowed who had scarcely been a wife. And to this old house she had returned alone in her sombre weeds — utterly alone, in her nineteenth year.
This man had met her then as he met her now; she remembered it, remembered, too, that after any absence, no matter how short, this old friend had always met her at her own door-sill, standing aside with head bent as she crossed the sill.
Now she gave him both hands.
“It is so kind of you, dear Colonel Arran! It would not be a home-coming without you—” And glancing into the hall, nodded radiantly to the assembled servants — her parents’ old and privileged and spoiled servants gathered to welcome the young mistress to her own.
“Oh — and there’s Missy!” she said, as an inquiring “meow!” sounded close to her skirts. “You irresponsible little thing — I suppose you have more kittens. Has she, Susan?”
“Five m’m,” said Susan drily.
“Oh, dear, I suppose it can’t be avoided. But we mustn’t drown any, you know.” And with one hand resting on Colonel Arran’s arm she began a tour of the house to inspect the new improvements.
Later they sat together amid the faded splendours of the southern drawing-room, where sunshine regilded cornice and pier glass, turned the lace curtains to nets of gold, and streaked the red damask hangings with slanting bars of fire.
Shiftless old Jonas shuffled in presently with the oval silver tray, ancient decanters, and seedcakes.
And here, over their cakes and Madeira, she told him about her month’s visit to the Craigs’; about her life in the quaint and quiet city, the restful, old-fashioned charm of the cultivated circles on Columbia Heights and the Hill; the attractions of a limited society, a little dull, a little prim, pedantic, perhaps provincially simple, but a society caring for the best in art, in music, in literature, instinctively recognising the best although the best was nowhere common in the city.
She spoke of the agreeable people she had met — unobtrusive, gentle-mannered folk whose homes may have lacked such Madeira and silver as this, but lacked nothing in things of the mind.
She spoke of her very modest and temporary duties in church work there, and in charities; told of the advent of the war news and its effect on the sister city.
And at last, casually, but without embarrassment, she mentioned
Berkley.
Colonel Arran’s large hand lay along the back of the Virginia sofa, fingers restlessly tracing and retracing the carved foliations supporting the horns of plenty. His heavy, highly coloured head was lowered and turned aside a little as though to bring one ear to bear on what she was saying.
“Mr. Berkley seems to be an — unusual man,” she ventured. “Do you happen to know him, Colonel Arran?”
“Slightly.”
“Oh. Did you know his parents?”
“His mother.”
“She is not living, I believe.”
“No.”
“Is his father living?”
“I — don’t know.”
“You never met him?”
Colonel Arran’s forefinger slowly outlined the deeply carved horn of plenty.
“I am not perfectly sure that I ever met Mr. Berkley’s father.”
She sat, elbows on the table, gazing reflectively into space.
“He is a — curious — man.”
“Did you like him?” asked Colonel Arran with an effort.
“Yes,” she said, so simply that the Colonel’s eyes turned directly toward her, lingered, then became fixed on the sunlit damask folds behind her.
“What did you like about Mr. Berkley, Ailsa?”
She considered.
“I — don’t know — exactly.”
“Is he cultivated?”
“Why, yes — I suppose so.”
“Is he well bred?”
“Oh, yes; only—” she searched mentally— “he is not — may I say, conventional? formal?”
“It is an age of informality,” observed Colonel Arran, carefully tracing out each separate grape in the horn of plenty.
Ailsa assented; spoke casually of something else; but when Colonel Arran brought the conversation around again to Berkley, she in nowise seemed reluctant.
“He is unusually attractive,” she said frankly; “his features, at moments, are almost beautiful. I sometimes wonder whether he resembles his mother. Was she beautiful?”
“Yes.”
“I thought she must have been. He resembles her, does he not?”
“Yes.”
“His father was — is—” She hesitated, looked curiously at Colonel
Arran, then smiled.
“There was something I never thought of when I first met Mr. Berkley, but now I understand why his features seemed to me not entirely unfamiliar. I don’t know exactly what it is, but there seems to be something about him that recalls you.”
Colonel Arran sat absolutely still, his heavy hand gripping the horn of plenty, his face so gray that it was almost colourless.
Ailsa, glancing again at his profile, saw nothing now in it resembling Berkley; and, as he made no response, thought him uninterested. But when again she would have changed the subject, the Colonel stirred, interrupting:
“Does he seem — well?”
“Well?” she repeated. “Oh, yes.”
“He — seems well . . . and in good spirits? Contented? Is he that type of young man? Happy?”
“I don’t think he is really very happy, though he is cheerful and — and amusing. I don’t see how he can be very light-hearted.”
“Why?”
She shook her head:
“I believe he — I know he must be in painfully straightened circumstances.”
“I have heard so,” nodded Colonel Arran.
“Oh, he certainly is!” she said with decision. “He lost everything in the panic, and he lives in a most wretched neighbourhood, and he hasn’t any business except a very little now and then. It made me quite unhappy,” she added naively.
“And you find him personally agreeable?”
“Yes, I do. I didn’t at first—” She checked herself— “I mean I did at the very first — then I didn’t — then I did again, then I — didn’t—” The delicate colour stole into her cheeks; she lifted her wineglass, looked into it pensively, set it back on the table. “But I understand him better now, I think.”
“What, in him, do you understand better now?”
“I — don’t — know.”
“Is he a better kind of a man than you thought him at first?”
“Y-es. He has it in him to be better, I mean. . . . Yes, he is a better man than I thought him — once.”
“And you like him — —”
“Yes, I do. Colonel Arran.”
“Admire him?”
She flushed up. “How do you mean?”
“His qualities?”
“Oh. . . . Yes, he has qualities.”
“Admirable?”
“He is exceedingly intelligent.”
“Intellectual?”
“I don’t exactly know. He pretends to make fun of so many things. It is not easy to be perfectly sure what he really believes; because he laughs at almost everybody and everything. But I am quite certain that he really has beliefs.”
“Religious?”
She looked grave. “He does not go to church.”
“Does he — does he strike you as being — well, say, irresponsible — perhaps I may even say reckless?”
She did not answer; and Colonel Arran did not ask again. He remained silent so long that she presently drifted off into other subjects, and he made no effort to draw her back.
But later, when he took his leave, he said in his heavy way:
“When you see Mr. Berkley, say to him that Colonel Arran remembers him. . . . Say to him that it would be my — pleasure — to renew our very slight acquaintance.”
“He will be glad, I know,” she said warmly.
“Why do you think so?”
“Why? Because I like you!” she explained with a gay little laugh. “And whoever I like Mr. Berkley must like if he and I are to remain good friends.”
The Colonel’s smile was wintry; the sudden animation in his face had subsided.
“I should like to know him — if he will,” he said absently. And took his leave of Ailsa Paige.
Next afternoon he came again, and lingered, though neither he nor Ailsa spoke of Berkley. And the next afternoon he reappeared, and sat silent, preoccupied, for a long time, in the peculiar hushed attitude of a man who listens. But the door-bell did not ring and the only sound in tile house was from Ailsa’s piano, where she sat idling through the sunny afternoon.
The next afternoon he said:
“Does he never call on you?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Berkley.”
“I — asked him,” she replied, flushing faintly.
“He has not come, then?”
“Not yet. I suppose — business — —”
The Colonel said, ponderously careless: “I imagine that he is likely to come in the late afternoon — when he does come.”
“I don’t know. He is in business.”
“It doesn’t keep him after three o’clock at his office.”
She looked up surprised: “Doesn’t it?” And her eyes asked instinctively: “How did you know?” But the Colonel sat silent again, his head lowered and partly averted as though to turn his good ear toward her. Clearly his mind already dwelt on other matters, she was thinking; but she was mistaken.
“When he comes,” said Colonel Arran slowly, “will you have the kindness to say to him that Colonel Arran will be glad to renew the acquaintance?”
“Yes. . . . Perhaps he has forgotten the street and number. I might write to him — to remind him?” Colonel Arran made no answer.
She wrote that night:
“DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
“I am in my own house now and am very contented — which does not mean that I did not adore being with Celia Craig and Estcourt and the children.
“But home is pleasant, and I am wondering whether you might care to see the home of which I have so often spoken to you when you used to come over to Brooklyn to see me [me erased and us neatly substituted in long, sweeping characters].
“I have been doing very little since I last saw you — it is not sheer idleness, but somehow one cannot go light-heartedly to dinners and concerts and theatres in times like these, when traitors are trampling the nag under foot, and when thousands and thousands of young men are leaving the city every day to go to the defence of our distracted country.
“I saw a friend the other day — a Mrs. Wells — and three of her boys, friends of mine, have gone with the 7th, and she is so nervous and excited that she can scarcely speak about it. So many men I know have gone or are going. Stephen was here yesterday, wild to go with the 8d Zouaves, but I promised his father to use my influence — and he is too young — although it is very fine and chivalrous of him to wish to go.
“I thought I would write you a little note, to remind you that I am at home, and already it has become a letter. Please remember — when you think of it at all — that it would give me pleasure to receive you.
“Sincerely yours,
“AILSA PAIGE.”
Toward the end of the week she received a heart-broken note from Celia Craig, which caused her to hasten over to Brooklyn. She arrived late; the streets were continually blocked by departing troops, and the omnibus took a circuitous course to the ferry, going by way of Fourth Avenue and the Bowery.
“Honey-bee! O Honey-bell!” whispered her sister-in-law, taking Ailsa into her arms, “I could have behaved myse’f better if Curt were on the side of God and Justice! — But to have to let him go this way — to know the awful danger — to know he is going against my own people, my own home — against God and the Right! — O Honey-bird! Honey-bud! And the Charleston Mercury says that the South is most bitter against the Zouaves — —”
“Curt! With the Zouaves!”
“Oh yes, yes, Honey-bee! The Third Regiment. And he — some wicked old men came here yesterday and read a speech — right befo’ me — here in this ve’y room — and began to say that they wished him to be colonel of the 3d Zouaves, and that the Governor wished it and — other fools! And I rose straight up f’om my chair and I said, ‘Curt!’ And he gave me one look. Oh, Honey-bud! His face was changed; there was that same thing in it that I saw the night the news came about Sumter! And he said: ‘Gentlemen, my country educated me; now it honours me.’ And I tried to speak again and my lips were stiff; and then he said: ‘I accept the command you offer — —’”
“Oh, Celia!”
“Yes, he said it, darling! I stood there, frozen — in a corner of my heart I had been afraid — such a long time! — but to have it come real— ‘this terror! — to have this thing take my husband — come into our own home befo’ I knew — befo’ I dreamed — and take Curt! — take — my — Curt!”
“Where is he?”
“With — them. They have a camp near Fort Hamilton. He went there this morning.”
“When is he coming back?”
“I don’t know. Stephen is scaring me most to death; he is wild to go, too. And, oh — do you believe it? Captain Lent has gone with Curt to the camp, and Curt means to recommend him for his major. What a regiment! — all the soldiers are mere boys, they say — wilful, reckless, hair-brained boys who don’t know — can’t know — where they’re going. . . . And Curt is so blind without his glasses, and Captain Lent is certainly a little mad, and I’m most distracted myse’f — —”
“Darling — darling — don’t cry!”
“Cry? Oh, I could die, Ailsa. Yet, I’m Southern enough to choke back eve’y tear and let them go with a smile if they had to go fo’ God and the Right! But to see my Curt go this way — and my only son crazy to join him — Oh, it is ha’d, Honey-bee, ve’y, ve’y ha’d.”
“Dearest!”
“O Honey-bud! Honey-bud!”
And the two women mourned, uncomforted.
Ailsa remained for three unhappy days in Fort Greene Place, then fled to her own house. A light, amusing letter from Berkley awaited her. It was so like him, gay, cynical, epigrammatic, and inconsequent, that it cheered her. Besides, he subscribed himself very obediently hers, but on re-examining the letter she noticed that he had made no mention of coming to pay his respects to her.
