Complete weird tales of.., p.584
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 584
“I’ll go! By jinks, I’ll go, anyway!” he exclaimed; “and I don’t care what she thinks of my face … only I think I’ll take Annan with me — just for company — or — dummy bridge on the way up…. Harry!” he shouted.
Annan cautiously appeared, ready for rapid flight.
“Aw come on in! My face suits me. Besides, thank Heaven I’ve got a reputation back of it; but yours breaks the speed laws. Will you go up there with me — like a man?”
“Where?”
“To Estwich?”
“When?” inquired Annan, sceptically.
“Now! — b’ jinks!”
“Have you sufficient nerve, this time?”
“Watch me.”
And he dragged out a suit-case and began wildly throwing articles of toilet and apparel into it,
“Come on, Harry!” he shouted, hurling a pair of tennis shoes at the suit-case; “I’ve got to go while I’m excited or I’ll never budge!”
But when, ten minutes later, Annan arrived, suit-case in hand, ready for love’s journey, he could scarcely contrive to kick and drag Sam into the elevator, and, later, into a taxicab.
Ogilvy sat there alternately shivering and attempting to invent imperative engagements in town which he had just remembered, but Annan said angrily:
“No, you don’t. This makes the seventh time I’ve started with you for Estwich, and I’m going to put it through or perish in a hand-to-hand conflict with you.”
And he started for the train, dragging Sam with him, talking angrily all the time.
He talked all the way to Estwich, too, partly to reassure Ogilvy and give him no time for terrified reflection, partly because he liked to talk. And when they arrived at the Estwich Arms he shoved Ogilvy into a room, locked the door, and went away to telephone to the Countess d’Enver.
“Yes?” she inquired sweetly, “who is it?”
“Me,” replied Annan, regardless of an unpopular grammatical convention.
“I’m here with Ogilvy. May we come to tea?”
“Is Mr. Ogilvy here?”
“Yes, here at the Estwich Arms. May I — er — may he bring me over to call on you?”
“Y-yes. Oh, with pleasure, Mr. Annan…. When may I expect hi — you?”
“In about ten minutes,” replied Annan firmly.
Then he went back and looked into Ogilvy’s room. Sam was seated, his head clasped in his hands.
“I thought you might tear up your sheets and let yourself out of the window,” said Annan sarcastically. “You’re a fine specimen! Why you’re actually lantern-jawed with fright. But I don’t care! Come on; we’re expected to tea! Get into your white flannels and pretty blue coat and put on your dinkey rah-rah, and follow me. Or, by heaven! — I’ll do murder right now!”
Ogilvy’s knees wavered as they entered the gateway.
“Go on!” hissed Annan, giving him a violent shove.
Then, to Ogilvy, came that desperate and hysterical courage that comes to those whose terrors have at last infuriated them.
“By jinks!” he said with an unearthly smile, “I will come on!”
And he did, straight through the door and into the pretty living room where Hélène d’Enver rose in some slight consternation to receive this astonishingly pale and rather desperate-faced young man.
“Harry,” said Ogilvy, calmly retaining Hélène’s hand, “you go and play around the yard for a few moments. I have something to tell the Countess d’Enver; and then we’ll all have tea.”
“Mr. Ogilvy!” she said, amazed.
But Annan had already vanished; and she looked into a pair of steady eyes that suddenly made her quail.
“Hélène,” he said, “I really do love you.”
[Illustration: “‘I am scared blue. That’s why I’m holding on to your hand so desperately.’”]
“Please—”
“No! I love you! Are you going to let me?”
“I — how on earth — what a perfectly senseless—”
“I know it. I’m half senseless from fright. Yes, I am, Hélène! Now! here! at this very minute, I am scared blue. That’s why I’m holding on to your hand so desperately; I’m afraid to let go.”
She flushed brightly with annoyance, or something or other — but he held fast to her hand and put one arm around her waist.
“Sam!” she said, exasperated. That was the last perfectly coherent word she uttered for several minutes. And, later, she was too busy to say very much.
* * * * *
When Annan returned, Hélène rose from the couch where she and Ogilvy had been seated and came across the floor, blushing vividly.
“I don’t know what on earth you think of me, Mr. Annan, and I suppose I will have to learn to endure the consequences of Mr. Ogilvy’s eccentricities—”
“Oh, I’m terribly glad!” said Annan, grinning, and taking her hand in both of his.
They had tea on the veranda. Ogilvy was too excited and far too happy to be dignified, and Hélène was so much embarrassed by his behaviour and so much in love that she made a distractingly pretty picture between the two young men who, as Rita had said, would never, never be old enough to grow up.
“Do you know,” said Hélène, “that your friends the Nevilles have recently been very nice to me? They have called, and have returned my call, and have asked me to dinner. I suppose cordiality takes longer to arrive at maturity in New York State than in any other part of the Union. But when New York people make up their minds to be agreeable, they certainly are delightful.”
“They’re a bunch of snobs,” said Ogilvy, calmly.
“Oh!” said Hélène with a distressed glance at Annan.
“He’s one, too,” observed her affianced, coolly nodding toward Annan. “We’re a sickening lot, Hélène — until some charming and genuine person like you comes along to jounce us out of our smiling and imbecile self-absorption.”
“I,” said Annan gravely, “am probably the most frightful snob that ever wandered, in a moment of temporary aberration, north of lower Fifth Avenue.”
“I’m worse,” observed Sam gloomily. “Help us, Hélène, toward loftier aspirations. Be our little uplift girl—”
“You silly things!” she said indignantly.
Later two riders passed the house, Cameron and Stephanie Swift, who saluted Hélène most cordially, and waved airy recognition to the two men.
“More snobs,” commented Sam.
“They are very delightful people!” retorted Hélène hotly.
“Most snobs are when they like you.”
“Sam! I won’t have you express such sentiments!”
He bent nearer to her:
“Dearest, I never had any sentiments except for you. And only the inconvenient propinquity of that man Annan prevents me from expressing them.”
“Please, Sam—”
“Don’t be afraid; I won’t. He wouldn’t care; — but I won’t…. Hello! Why look who’s here!” he exclaimed, rising. “Why it’s the great god Kelly and little Sunshine!” — as Neville and Valerie sprang out of Mrs. Collis’s touring car and came up the walk.
Hélène went forward to meet them, putting one arm around Valerie and holding out the other to Neville.
“When did you arrive, darling?” she exclaimed. “How do you do, Mr. Neville? Valerie, child, I’m perfectly enchanted to see you. But where in the world are you stopping?”
“At Ashuelyn,” said the girl, looking straight into Hélène’s eyes. A faint flash of telepathy passed between them; then, slowly, Hélène turned and looked at Neville.
“Will you wish us happiness?” he said, smiling.
“Oh-h,” whispered Hélène under her breath— “I do — I do — God knows. I wish you everything that makes for happiness in all the world!” she stammered, for the wonder of it was still on her.
Then Sam’s voice sounded close at hand:
“Why,” he said admiringly, “it looks like lovey and dovey!”
“It is,” said Valerie, laughing.
“You! — and Kelly!”
“We two.”
Sam in his excitement became a little wild and incongruous:
”’My wife’s gone to the country!
Hooray! Hooray!’”
he shouted, holding hands with Annan and swinging back and forth.
“Sam!” exclaimed Hélène, mortified.
“Darling? — oh, gee! I forgot what is due to decorum! Please, please forgive me, Hélène! And kindly inform these ladies and gentlemen that you have consented to render me eternally and supremely happy; because if I tried to express to them that delirious fact I’d end by standing on my head in the grass—”
“You dear!” whispered Valerie, holding tightly to Hélène’s hands.
“Isn’t it dreadful?” murmured Hélène, turning her blue eyes on the man who never would grow old enough to grow up. “I had no such intention, I can assure you; and I don’t even understand myself yet.”
“Don’t you?” said Valerie, laughing tenderly;— “then you are like all other women. What is the use of our ever trying to understand ourselves?”
Hélène laughed, too:
“No use, dear. Leave it to men who say they understand us. It’s a mercy somebody does.”
“Isn’t it,” nodded Valerie; and they kissed each other, laughing.
“My goodness, it’s like the embrace of the two augurs!” said Ogilvy. “They’re laughing at us, Kelly! — at you, and me and Harry! — and at man in general! — innocent man! — so charmingly and guilelessly symbolised by us! Stop it, Hélène! You make me shiver. You’ll frighten Annan so that he’ll never marry if you and Valerie laugh that way at each other.”
“I wonder,” said Hélène, quieting him with a fair hand laid lightly on his sleeve, “whether you all would remain and dine with me this evening — just as you are I mean; — and I won’t dress—”
“I insist proh pudeur,” muttered Sam. “I can’t countenance any such saturnalia—”
“Oh, Sam, do be quiet, dear—” She caught herself up with a blush, and everybody smiled.
“What do we care!” said Sam. “I’m tired of convention! If I want to call you darling in public, b’jinks! I will! Darling — darling — darling — there!—”
“Sam!”
“Dearest—”
“Sam!”
“Ma’am?”
Hélène looked at Valerie:
“There’s no use,” she sighed, “is there?”
“No use,” sighed Valerie, smiling at the man she loved.
THE END
The Adventures of a Modest Man
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
TO
MR. AND MRS. C. WHEATON VAUGHAN
This volume packed with bric-à-brac
I offer you with my affection, —
The story halts, the rhymes are slack —
Poor stuff to add to your collection.
Gems you possess from ages back:
It is the modern junk you lack.
We three once moused through marble halls,
Immersed in Art and deep dejection,
Mid golden thrones and choir-stalls
And gems beyond my recollection —
Yet soft! — my memory recalls
Red labels pasted on the walls!
And so, perhaps, my bric-à-brac
May pass the test of your inspection;
Perhaps you will not send it back,
But place it — if you’ve no objection —
Under some nick-nack laden rack
Where platters dangle on a tack.
So if you’ll take this book from me
And hide it in your cupboards laden
Beside some Dresden filigree
And frivolously fetching maiden —
Who knows? — that Dresden maid may see
My book — and read it through pardie!
R. W. C.
“Senilis stultitia quae deliratio appellari
solet, senum levium est, non omnium.”
AN INADVERTENT POEM
There is a little flow-urr
In our yard it does grow
Where many a happy hou-urr
I watch our rooster crow;
While clothes hang on the clothes-line
And plowing has began
— And the name they call this lit-tul vine
Is just “Old Man.”
Old Man, Old Man
A-growing in our yard,
Every spring a-coming up
While yet the ground is har-rrd;
Pottering ‘round the chickens’ pan,
Creeping low and slow,
And why they call it Old Man
I never asked to know.
I never want to know.
Crawling through the chick-weed,
Dragging through the quack,
Pussly, tansy, tick-weed
Almost break his back.
Catnip, cockle, dock prevent
His travelling all they can,
But still he goes the ways he’s went,
Poor Old Man!
Old Man, Old Man,
What’s the use of you?
No one wants to see you, like
As if you hadn’t grew.
You ain’t no good to nothing
So far as I can see,
Unless some maiden fair will sing
These lines I’ve wrote to thee.
And sing ’em soft to me.
Some maiden fa-hair
With { ra-haven } hair
{ go-holden }
Will si-hing this so-hong
To me-hee-ee!
CHAPTER I
CONCERNING TWO GENTLEMEN FROM LONG ISLAND, DESTINY, AND A POT OF BLACK PAINT
“HELLO, OLD MAN!” he began.
“Gillian,” I said, “don’t call me ‘Old Man.’ At twenty, it flattered me; at thirty, it was all right; at forty, I suspected double entendre; and now I don’t like it.”
“Of course, if you feel that way,” he protested, smiling.
“Well, I do, dammit!” — the last a German phrase. I am rather strong on languages.
Now another thing that is irritating — I’ve got ahead of my story, partly, perhaps, because I hesitate to come to the point.
For I have a certain delicacy in admitting that my second visit abroad, after twenty years, was due to a pig. So now that the secret is out — the pig also — I’ll begin properly.
* * *
I purchased the porker at a Long Island cattle show; why, I don’t know, except that my neighbor, Gillian Schuyler Van Dieman, put me up to it.
We are an inoffensive community maintaining a hunt club and the traditions of a by-gone generation. To the latter our children refuse to subscribe.
Our houses are what are popularly known as “fine old Colonial mansions.” They were built recently. So was the pig. You see, I can never get away from that pig, although — but the paradox might injure the story. It has sufficiently injured me — the pig and the story, both.
The architecture of the pig was a kind of degenerate Chippendale, modified by Louis XVI and traces of Bavarian baroque. And his squeal resembled the atmospheric preliminaries for a Texas norther.
Van Dieman said I ought to buy him. I bought him. My men built him a chaste bower to leeward of an edifice dedicated to cows.
Here I sometimes came to contemplate him while my horse was being saddled.
That particular morning, when Van Dieman saluted me so suspiciously at the country club, I had been gazing at the pig.
And now, as we settled down to our morning game of chess, I said:
“Van, that pig of mine seems to be in nowise remarkable. Why the devil do you suppose I bought him?”
“How do I know?”
“You ought to. You suggested that I buy him. Why did you?”
“To see whether you would.”
I said rather warmly: “Did you think me weak-minded enough to do whatever you suggested?”
“The fact remains that you did,” he said calmly, pushing the king’s knight to queen’s bishop six.
“Did what?” I snapped.
“What you didn’t really want to do.”
“Buy the pig?”
“Exactly.”
I thought a moment, took a pawn with satisfaction, considered.
“Van,” I said, “why do you suppose I bought that pig?”
“Ennui.”
“A man doesn’t buy pigs to escape from ennui!”
“You can’t predict what a man will do to escape it,” he said, smiling. “The trouble with you is that you’re been here too long; you’re in a rut; you’re gone stale. Year in, year out, you do the same things in the same way, rise at the same time, retire at the same hour, see the same people, drive, motor, ride, potter about your lawns and gardens, come here to the club — and it’s enough to petrify anybody’s intellect.”
“Do you mean to say that mine — —”
“Partly. Don’t get mad. No man who lives year after year in a Long Island community could escape it. What you need is to go abroad. What you require is a good dose of Paris.”
“For twenty odd years I have avoided Paris,” I said, restlessly. “Why should I go back there?”
“Haven’t you been there in twenty years?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Well, for one thing, to avoid meeting the entire United States.”
“All right,” said Van Dieman, “if you want to become an old uncle foozle, continue to take root in Long Island.” He announced mate in two moves. After I had silently conceded it, he leaned back in his chair and lighted a cigarette.
