Complete weird tales of.., p.561
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 561
She dropped her arms, palms outward, gazing serenely at him; then blushed vividly as he caught her to him in a close embrace, her delicate, full lips crushed to his.
“Dearest — dearest,” he whispered, “you will change your ideas when you understand me better—”
“I can love you no more than I do. Could I love you more if I were your wife?”
“Yes, you wilful, silly child!”
She laughed, her lips still touching his. “I don’t believe it, Louis. I know I couldn’t. Besides, there is no use thinking about it.”
“Valerie, your logic and your ethics are terribly twisted—”
“Perhaps. All I know is that I love you. I’d rather talk of that—”
“Than talk of marrying me!”
“Yes, dear.”
“But you’d make me so happy, so proud—”
“You darling! to say so. Think so always, Louis, because I promise to make you happy, anyway—”
He had encircled her waist with one arm, and they were slowly pacing the floor before the hearth, she with her charming young head bent, eyes downcast, measuring her steps to his.
She said, thoughtfully: “I have my own ideas concerning life. One of them is to go through it without giving pain to others. To me, the only real wickedness is the wilful infliction of unhappiness. That covers all guilt…. Other matters seem so trivial in comparison — I mean the forms and observances — the formalism of sect and creed…. To me they mean nothing — these petty laws designed to govern those who are willing to endure them. So I ignore them,” she concluded, smilingly; and touched her lips to his hand.
“Do you include the marriage law?” he asked, curiously.
“In our case, yes…. I don’t think it would do for everybody to ignore it.”
“You think we may, safely?”
“Don’t you, Louis?” she asked, flushing. “It leaves you free in your own world.”
“How would it leave you?”
She looked up, smiling adorably at his thought of her:
“Free as I am now, dearest of men — free to be with you when you wish for me, free to relieve you of myself when you need that relief, free to come and go and earn my living as independently as you gain yours. It would leave me absolutely tranquil in body and mind….” She laid her flushed face against his. “Only my heart would remain fettered. And that is now inevitable.”
He kissed her and drew her closer:
“You are so very, very wrong, dear. The girl who gives herself without benefit of clergy walks the earth with her lover in heavier chains than ever were forged at any earthly altar.”
She bent her head thoughtfully; they paced the floor for a while in silence.
Presently she looked up: “You once said that love comes unasked and goes unbidden. Do vows at an altar help matters? Is divorce more decent because lawful? Is love more decent when it has been officially and clerically catalogued?”
“It is safer.”
“For whom?”
“For the community.”
“Perhaps.” She considered as she timed her slow pace to his:
“But, Louis, I can’t marry you and I love you! What am I to do? Live out life without you? Let you live out life without me? When my loving you would not harm you or me? When I love you dearly — more dearly, more deeply every minute? When life itself is — is beginning to be nothing in this world except you? What are we to do?”
And, as he made no answer:
“Dear,” she said, hesitating a little, “I am perfectly unconscious of any guilt in loving you. I am glad I love you. I wish to be part of you before I die. I wish it more than anything in the world! How can an unselfish girl who loves you harm you or herself or the world if she gives herself to you — without asking benefit of clergy and the bureau of licenses?”
Standing before the fire, her head resting against his shoulder, they watched the fading embers for a while in silence. Then, irresistibly drawn by the same impulse, they turned toward one another, trembling:
“I’ll marry you that way — if it’s the only way,” he said.
“It is the — only way.”
She laid a soft hand in his; he bent and kissed it, then touched her mouth with his lips.
“Do you give yourself to me, Valerie?”
“Yes.”
“From this moment?” he whispered.
Her face paled. She stood resting her cheek on his shoulder, eyes distrait thinking. Then, in a voice so low and tremulous he scarce could understand:
“Yes, now,” she said, “I — give — myself.”
He drew her closer: she relaxed in his embrace; her face, white as a flower, upturned to his, her dark eyes looking blindly into his.
There was no sound save the feathery rush of snow against the panes — the fall of an ember amid whitening ashes — a sigh — silence.
Twice logs fell from the andirons, showering the chimney with sparks; presently a little flame broke out amid the débris, lighting up the studio with a fitful radiance; and the single shadow cast by them wavered high on wall and ceiling.
His arms were around her; his lips rested on her face where it lay against his shoulder. The ruddy resurgence of firelight stole under the lashes on her cheeks, and her eyes slowly unclosed.
Standing there gathered close in his embrace, she turned her head and watched the flame growing brighter among the cinders. Thought, which had ceased when her lips met his in the first quick throb of passion, stirred vaguely, and awoke. And, far within her, somewhere in confused obscurity, her half-stunned senses began groping again toward reason.
“Louis!”
“Dearest one!”
“I ought to go. Will you take me home? It is morning — do you realise it?”
She lifted her head, cleared her eyes with one slender wrist, pushing back the disordered hair. Then gently disengaging herself from his arms, and still busy with her tumbled hair, she looked up at the dial of the ancient clock which glimmered red in the firelight.
“Morning — and a strange new year,” she said aloud, to herself. She moved nearer to the clock, watching the stiff, jerking revolution of the second hand around its lesser dial.
Hearing him come forward behind her, she dropped her head back against him without turning.
“Do you see what Time is doing to us? — Time, the incurable, killing us by seconds, Louis — eating steadily into the New Year, devouring it hour by hour — the hours that we thought belonged to us.” She added, musingly: “I wonder how many hours of the future remain for us.”
He answered in a low voice:
“That is for you to decide.”
“I know it,” she murmured. She lifted one ringless hand and still without looking at him, pressed the third finger backward against his lips.
“So much for the betrothal,” she said. “My ring-finger is consecrated.”
“Will you not wear any ring?” he asked.
“No. Your kiss is enough.”
“Yet — if we are — are—”
“Engaged?” she suggested, calmly. “Yes, call it that. I really am engaged to give myself to you — ex cathedra — extra muros.”
“When?” he said under his breath.
“I don’t know…. I must think. A girl who is going to break all conventions ought to have time to consider the consequences—” She smiled, faintly— “a little time to prepare herself for the — the great change…. I think we ought to remain engaged for a while — don’t you?”
“Dearest!” he broke out, pleadingly, “the old way is the best way! I cannot bear to take you — to have you promise yourself without formality or sanction—”
“But I have already consented, Louis. Volenti non fit injuria,” she added with a faint smile. “Voluntas non potest cogi — dearest — dearest of lovers! I love you dearly for what you offer me — I adore you for it. And — how long do you think you ought to wait for me?”
She disengaged herself from his arm, walked slowly toward the tall old clock, turned her back to it and faced him with clear level eyes. After a moment she laughed lightly:
“Did ever an engaged gentleman face the prospect of impending happiness with such a long face as this suitor of mine is wearing!”
His voice broke in the protest wrung from his lips.
“You must be my wife. I tell you! For God’s sake marry me and let the future take care of itself!”
“You say so many sweet, confusing, and foolish things to me, Louis, that while you are saying them I almost believe them. And then that clear, pitiless reasoning power of mine awakens me; and I turn my gaze inward and read written on my heart that irrevocable law of mine, that no unhappiness shall ever come to you through me.”
Her face, sweetly serious, brightened slowly to a smile.
“Now I am going home, monsieur — home to think over my mad and incredible promise to you … and I’m wondering whether I’ll wake up scared to death…. Daylight is a chilly shower-bath. No doubt at all that I’ll be pretty well frightened over what I’ve said and done to-night…. Louis, dear, you simply must take me home this very minute!” She came up to him, placed both hands on his shoulders, kissed him lightly, looked at him for a moment, humorously grave:
“Some day,” she said, “a big comet will hit this law-ridden, man-regulated earth — or the earth will slip a cog and go wabbling out of its orbit into interstellar space and side-wipe another planet — or it will ultimately freeze up like the moon. And who will care then how Valerie West loved Louis Neville? — or what letters in a forgotten language spelled ‘wife’ and what letters spelled ‘mistress’? After all, I am not afraid of words. Nor do I fear what is in my heart. God reads it as I stand here; and he can see no selfishness in it. So if merely loving you all my life — and proving it — is an evil thing to do, I shall be punished; but I’m going to do it and find out what celestial justice really thinks about it.”
CHAPTER VIII
VALERIE WAS BUSY — exceedingly busy arranging matters, in view of the great change impending.
She began by balancing her check book, comparing stubs with cancelled checks, adding and verifying sums total, filing away paid bills and paying the remainder — a financial operation which did not require much time, but to which she applied herself with all the seriousness of a wealthy man hunting through a check book which will not balance, for a few pennies that ought to be his.
For since she had any accounts at all to keep, she had kept them with method and determination. Her genius for order was inherent: even when she possessed nothing except the clothes she wore, she had always kept them in perfect condition. And now that her popularity in business gave her a bank balance and permitted some of the intimate little luxuries that make for a woman’s self-respect, a perfect passion for order and method possessed her.
The tiny bedroom which she inhabited, and the adjoining bathroom, were always immaculate. Every week she made an inventory of her few but pretty garments, added or subtracted from her memorandum, went over her laundry list, noted and laid aside whatever clothing needed repairs.
Once a week, too, she inspected her hats, foot-wear, furs; dusted the three rows of books, emptied and cleaned the globe in which a solitary goldfish swam, goggling his eyes in the sunshine, and scrubbed the porcelain perching pole on which her parrot sat all day in the bathroom window making limited observations in French, Spanish, and English, and splitting red peppers and dried watermelon seeds with his heavy curved beak. He was a gorgeous bird, with crimson and turquoise blue on him, and a capacity for deviltry restrained only by a silver anklet and chain, gifts from Querida, as was also the parrot.
So Valerie, in view of the great change impending, began to put her earthly house in order — without any particular reason, however, because the great change would not affect her quarters or her living in them. Nor could she afford to permit it to interfere with her business career for which perfect independence was necessary.
She had had it out with Neville one stormy afternoon in January, stopping in for tea after posing for John Burleson’s Psyche fountain ordered by Penrhyn Cardemon. She had demanded from Neville acquiescence in her perfect freedom of action, absolute independence; had modestly requested non-interference in her business affairs and the liberty to support herself.
“There is no other way, Louis,” she explained very sweetly. “I do not think I am going to lose any self-respect in giving myself to you — but there would not be one shred of it left to cover me if I were not as free as you are to make the world pay me fairly for what I give it.”
And, another time, she had said to him: “It is better not to tell me all about your personal, private, and financial affairs — better that I do not tell you about mine. Is it necessary to burst into financial and trivial confidences when one is in love?
“I have an idea that that is what spoils most marriages. To me there is a certain respectability in reticence when a girl is very much in love. I would no more open my personal and private archives in all their petty disorder to your inspection than I would let you see me dress — even if we had been married for hundreds of years.”
[Illustration: “She began by balancing her check book.”]
And still, on another occasion, when he had fought her for hours in an obstinate determination to make her say she would marry him — and when, beaten, chagrined, baffled, he had lost his temper, she won him back with her child-like candour and self-control.
“Your logic,” he said, “is unbaked, unmature, unfledged. It’s squab-logic, I tell you, Valerie; and it is not very easy for me to listen to it.”
“I’m afraid that I am not destined to be entirely easy for you, dear, even with love as the only tie with which to bind you. The arbitrary laws of a false civilisation are going to impose on you what you think are duties and obligations to me and to yourself — until I explain them away. You must come to me in your perplexity, Louis, and give me a chance to remind you of the basic and proven proposition that a girl is born into this world as free as any man, and as responsible to herself and to others; and that her title to her own individuality and independence — her liberty of mind, her freedom to give and accept, her capability of taking care of herself, her divine right of considering, re-considering, of meeting the world unafraid — is what really ought to make her lovable.”
He had answered: “What rotten books have you been reading?” And it annoyed her, particularly when he had asked her whether she expected to overturn, with the squab-logic of twenty years, the formalisms of a civilisation several thousand years old. He had added:
“The runways of wild animals became Indian paths; the Indian paths became settlers’ roads, and the roads, in time, city streets. But it was the instinct of wild creatures that surveyed and laid out the present highways of our reasoning civilisation. And I tell you, Valerie, that the old ways are the best, for on them is founded every straight highway of modern thought and custom.”
She considered:
“Then there is only one way left — to see you no more.”
He had thought so, too, infuriated at the idea; and they had passed a very miserable and very stormy afternoon together, which resulted in her crying silently on the way home; and in a sleepless night for two; and in prolonged telephone conversation at daybreak. But it all ended with a ring at his door-bell, a girl in furs all flecked with snow, springing swiftly into his studio; a moment’s hesitation — then the girl and her furs in his arms, her cold pink cheeks against his face — a brief moment of utter happiness — for she was on her way to business — a swift, silent caress, then eyes searching eyes in silent promise — in reluctant farewell for an hour or two.
But it left him to face the problems of the day with a new sense of helplessness — the first confused sensation that hers was the stronger nature, the dominant personality — although he did not definitely understand this.
Because, how could he understand it of a young girl so soft, so yielding, so sweet, so shy and silent in the imminence of passion when her consenting lips trembled and grew fragrant in half-awakened response to his.
How could he believe it — conscious of what he had made of himself through sheer will and persistent? How could he credit it — remembering what he already stood for in the world, where he stood, how he had arrived by the rigid road of self-denial; how he had mounted, steadily, undismayed, unperturbed, undeterred by the clamour of envy, of hostility, unseduced by the honey of flattery?
Upright, calm, self-confident, he had forged on straight ahead, following nobody — battled steadily along the upward path until — out of the void, suddenly he had come up against a blank wall.
That wall which had halted, perplexed, troubled, dismayed, terrified him because he was beginning to believe it to be the boundary which marked his own limitations, suddenly had become a transparent barrier through which he could see. And what he saw on the other side was an endless vista leading into infinity. But the path was guarded; Love stood sentinel there. And that was what he saw ahead of him now, and he knew that he might pass on if Love willed it — and that he would never care to pass on alone. But that he could not go forward, ignoring Love, neither occurred to him nor would he have believed it if it had. Yet, at times, an indefinable unease possessed him as though some occult struggle was impending for which he was unprepared.
That struggle had already begun, but he did not know it.
On the contrary all his latent strength and brilliancy had revived, exquisitely virile; and the new canvas on which he began now to work blossomed swiftly into magnificent florescence.
A superb riot of colour bewitched the entire composition; never had his brushes swept with such sun-tipped fluency, never had the fresh splendour of his hues and tones approached so closely to convincing himself in the hours of fatigue and coldly sober reaction from the auto-intoxication of his own facility.
That auto-intoxication had always left his mind and his eye steady and watchful, although drugged — like the calm judgment of the intoxicated opportunist at the steering wheel of a racing motor. And a race once run and ended, a deliberate consideration of results usually justified the pleasure of the pace.
