Complete weird tales of.., p.631
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 631
“I won’t talk to you of love any more,” he whispered. “You poor little girl — you poor little thing. I didn’t realise — I don’t want to think about it — —”
“I don’t either,” she said. “You will be kind to me, won’t you?”
“Of course — of course — you little, little girl. Nobody is going to find fault with you, nobody is going to blame you or be unkind or hurt you or demand anything at all of you or tell you that you make mistakes. People are just going to like you, Strelsa, and you needn’t love them if you don’t want to. You shall feel about everything exactly as you please — about Tom, Dick, and Harry and about me, too.”
Her hot face against his shoulder was quivering.
“There,” he whispered— “there, there — you little, little girl. That’s all I want of you after all — only what you want of me. I don’t wish to marry you if you don’t wish it; I won’t — I perhaps couldn’t really love you very deeply if you didn’t respond. I shall not bother you any more — or worry or nag or insist. What you do is right as far as I am concerned; what you offer I take; and whenever you find yourself unable to respond to anything I offer, say so fearlessly — look so, even, and I’ll understand. Is all well between us now, Strelsa?”
“Yes.... You are so good.... I wanted this.... You don’t mean anything, do you by — by your arm around me — —”
“No more than your face against my shoulder means.” He smiled— “Which I suppose signifies merely that you feel very secure with me.”
“I — begin to.... Will you let me?”
“Yes.... Do you feel restless? Do you want to lift your head?”
She moved a little but made no reply. He could see only the full, smooth curve of her cheek against his shoulder. It was rather colourless.
“I believe you are worn out,” he said.
“I have not rested for weeks.”
“On account of that Trust business?”
“Yes.... But I was tired before that — I had done too much — lived too much — and I’ve felt as though I were being hunted for so long.... And then — I was unhappy about you.”
“Because I had joined in the hunt,” he said.
“You were different, but — you made me feel that way, too — a little — —”
“I understand now.”
“Do you really?”
“Yes. It’s been a case of men following, crowding after you, urging, importuning you to consider their desires — to care for them in their own way — all sorts I suppose, sad and sentimental, eager and exacting, head-long and boisterous — all at you constantly to give them what is not in you to give — what has never been awakened — what lies stunned, crippled, perhaps mangled in its sleep — —”
“Killed,” she whispered.
“Perhaps.” He raised his eyes and looked absently out across the sparkling water. Sunlight slanted on his shoulder and her hair, gilding the nape of her white neck where the hair grew blond and fine as a child’s. And like a child, still confused by memories of past terror, partly quieted yet still sensitive to every sound or movement, Strelsa lay close to the arm that sheltered her, thinking, wondering that she could endure it, and all the while conscious that the old fear of him was no longer there.
“Do you — know about me?” she asked in a still, low voice.
“About the past?”
“About my marriage.”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Some things.”
“You know what the papers said?”
“Yes.... Don’t speak of it — unless you care to, Strelsa.”
“I want to.... Do you know this is the first time?”
“Is it?”
“The first time I have ever spoken of it to anybody.... As long as my mother lived I did not once speak of it to her.”
She rested in silence for a while, then:
“Could I tell you?”
“My dear, my dear! — of course you can.”
“I — it’s been unsaid so long — there was nobody to tell it to. I’ve done my best to forget it — and for days I seem to forget it. But sometimes when I wake at night it is there — the horror of it — the terror sinking deeper into my breast.... I was very young. You knew that?”
“Yes.”
“You knew my mother had very slender means?”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn’t have cared; I was an imaginative child — and could have lived quite happy with my fancies on very, very little.... I was a sensitive and affectionate child — inclined to be demonstrative. You wouldn’t believe it, would you?”
“I can understand it.”
“Can you? It’s odd because I have changed so.... I was quite romantic about my mother — madly in love with her.... There is nothing more to say.... In boarding-school I was perfectly aware that I was being given the best grooming that we could afford. Even then romance persisted. I had the ideas of a coloured picture-book concerning men and love and marriage. I remember, as a very little child, that I had a picture-book showing Cinderella’s wedding. It was a very golden sort of picture. It coloured my ideas long after I was grown up.”
She moved her head a little, looked up for an instant and smiled; but at his answering smile she turned her cheek to his shoulder, hastily, and lay silent for a while. Presently she continued in a low voice:
“It was when we were returning for the April vacation — and the platform was crowded and some of the girls’ brothers were there. There were two trains in — and much confusion — I don’t know how I became separated from Miss Buckley and my schoolmates — I don’t know to this day how I found myself on the Baltimore train, and Gladys Leeds’s brother laughing and talking and the train moving faster and faster.... There is no use saying any more. I was as ignorant as I was innocent — a perfect little fool, frightened, excited, even amused by turns.... He had been attentive to me. We both were fools. Only finally I became badly scared and he talked such nonsense — and I managed to slip away from him and board the train at Baltimore as soon as we arrived there.... If he hadn’t found me and returned to New York with me, it might not have been known. But we were recognised on the train and — it was a dreadful thing for me when I arrived home after midnight....”
She fell silent; once or twice he looked down at her and saw that her eyes were closed. Then, with a quick, uneven breath:
“I think you know the rest, don’t you?”
“I think so.”
But she went on in a low, emotionless voice: “I was treated like a damaged gown — for which depreciation in value somebody was to be made responsible. I suffered; days and nights seemed unreal. There were lawyers; did you know it?”
“No.”
“Yes,” she said wearily, “it was a bad dream — my mother, others — his family — many people strange and familiar passed through it. Then we travelled; I saw nothing, feeling half dead.... We were married in the Hawaiian Islands.”
“I know.”
“Then — the two years began.”
After a long while she said again: “That was the real nightmare. I passed through the depths as in a trance. There was nothing lower, not even hell.... We travelled in Europe, Africa, and India for two years.... I scarcely remember a soul I saw or one single object. And then — that happened.”
“I know, dear.”
A slight shudder passed over her:
“I’ve told you,” she whispered— “I’ve told you at last. Shall I tell you more?”
“Not unless — —”
“I don’t know whether I want to — about the gendarmes — and that terrible woman who screamed when they touched her with the handcuffs — and how ill I was — —”
She had begun to tremble so perceptibly that Quarren’s arm tightened around her; and presently she became limp and motionless.
“This — what I have told you — is a very close bond between us, isn’t it?” she said.
“Very close, Strelsa.”
“Was I much to blame?”
“No.”
“How much?”
“You should have left him long before.”
“Why, he was my husband! I had made a contract; I had to keep it and make the best of it.”
“Is that your idea?”
“That was all I could see to do about it.”
“Don’t you believe in divorce?”
“Yes; but I thought he’d be killed; I thought he was a little insane. If he’d been well mentally and merely cruel and brutal I would have left him. But one can’t abandon a helpless person.”
“Every word you utter,” he said, “forges a new link in my love for you.”
“You don’t mean — love?”
“We mean the same I think — differing only in degree.”
“Thank you. That is nice of you.”
He nodded, smiling to himself; then, graver:
“Is your little fortune quite gone, Strelsa?”
“All gone — all of it.”
“I see.... And something has got to be done.”
“You know it has.... And I’m old before my time — tired, worn out. I can’t work — I have no heart, no courage. My heart and strength were burnt out; I haven’t the will to struggle; I have no capacity to endure. What am I to do?”
“Not what you plan to do.”
“Why not? As long as I need help — and the best is offered — —”
“Wouldn’t you take less — and me?”
“Oh, Rix! I couldn’t use you!”
She turned and looked up at him, blushed, and dis-engaged herself from his arm.
“I — I — you are my friend. I couldn’t do that. I have nothing to give anybody — not even you.” She smiled, tremulously— “And I suspect that as far as your fortune is concerned, you can offer me little more.... But it’s sweet of you. You are generous, having so little and wishing to share it with me — —”
“Could you wait for me, Strelsa?”
“Wait? You mean until you become wealthy? Why, you dear boy, how can I? — even if it were a certainty.”
“Can’t you hold on for a couple of years?”
“Please tell me how? Why, I can’t even pay my attorneys until I sell my house.”
He bit his lip and frowned at the sunlit water.
“Besides,” she said, “I haven’t anything to offer you that I haven’t already given you — —”
“I ask no more.”
“Oh, but you do!”
“No, I want only what you want, Strelsa — only what you have to offer of your own accord.”
They fell silent, leaning forward on their knees, eyes absent, remote.
“I don’t see how it can be done; do you?” she said.
“If you could wait — —”
“But Rix; I’ve told him that I would marry him.”
“Does that count?”
“Yes — I don’t know. I don’t know how dishonest I might be.... I don’t know what is going to happen. I’m so poor, Rix — you don’t realise — and I’m tired and sad — old before my time — perplexed, burnt out — —”
She rested her head on one slender curved hand and closed her eyes. After a while she opened them with a weary smile.
“I’ll try to think — after you are gone.... What time does your train leave?”
He glanced at his watch and rose; and she sprang up, too:
“Have I kept you too long?”
“No; I can make it. We’ll have to walk rather fast — —”
“I’d rather you left me here.”
“Would you? Then — good-bye — —”
“Good-bye.... Will you come up again?”
“I’ll try.”
“Shall we write?”
“Will you?”
“Yes. I have so much to say, now that you are going. I am glad you came. I am glad I told you everything. Please believe that my heart is enlisted in your new enterprise; that I pray for your success and welfare and happiness. Will you always remember that?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Then — I mustn’t keep you a moment longer. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye.”
They stood a moment, neither stirring; then he put his arms around her; she touched his shoulder once more, lightly with her cheek — a second’s contact; then he kissed her clasped hands and was gone.
* * *
CHAPTER XI
QUARREN ARRIVED IN town about twilight. Taxis were no longer for him nor he for them. Suit-case and walking-stick in hand, he started up Lexington Avenue still excited and exhilarated from his leave-taking with Strelsa. An almost imperceptible fragrance seemed to accompany him, freshening the air around him in the shabby streets of Ascalon; the heat-cursed city grew cooler, sweeter for her memory. Through the avenue’s lamp-lit dusk passed the pale ghosts of Gath and the phantoms of the Philistines, and he thought their shadowy forms moved less wearily; and that strange faces looked less wanly at him as they grew out of the night— “clothed in scarlet and ornaments of gold” — and dissolved again into darkness.
Still thrilled, almost buoyant, he walked on, passing the high-piled masonry of the branch Post-Office and the Central Palace on his left. Against high stars the twin Power-House chimneys stood outlined in steel; on the right endless blocks of brown-stone dwellings stretched northward, some already converted into shops where print-sellers, dealers in old books, and here and there antiquaries, had constructed show-windows.
Firemen lounged outside the Eighth Battalion quarters; here and there a grocer’s or wine-seller’s windows remained illuminated where those who were neither well-to-do nor very poor passed to and fro with little packages which seemed a burden under the sultry skies.
At last, ahead, the pseudo-oriental towers of a synagogue varied the flat skyline, and a moment later he could see the New Thought Laundry, the Tonsorial Drawing Rooms, the Undertaker’s discreetly illuminated windows, and finally the bay-window of his own recent Real-Estate office, now transmogrified into the Dankmere Galleries of Old Masters, Fayre and Quarren, proprietors.
The window appeared to be brilliantly illuminated behind the drawn curtains; and Quarren, surprised and vexed, concluded that the little Englishman was again entertaining. So it perplexed and astonished him to find the Earl sitting on the front steps, his straw hat on the back of his head, smoking. At the same moment from within the house a confused and indescribable murmur was wafted to his ears as though many people were applauding.
“What on earth is going on inside?” he asked, bewildered.
“You told me over the telephone that Karl Westguard might have the gallery for this evening,” said the Englishman calmly. “So I let him have it.”
“What did he want of it? Who has he got in there?” — demanded Quarren as another ripple of applause sounded from within.
Dankmere thought a moment: “I really don’t know the audience, Quarren — they’re not a very fragrant lot.”
“What audience? Who are they?”
“You Americans would call them a ‘tough-looking bunch — except Westguard and Bleecker De Groot and Mrs. Caldera — —”
“Cyrille Caldera and De Groot! What’s that silly old Dandy doing down here?”
“Diffusing sweetness and light among the unwashed; telling them that there are no such things as classes, that wealth is no barrier to brotherhood, that the heart of Fifth Avenue beats as warmly and guilelessly as the heart of Essex Street, and that its wealth-burdened inhabitants have long desired to fraternise with the benchers in Paradise Park.”
“Who put Westguard up to this?” asked Quarren, aghast.
“De Groot. Karl is writing a levelling novel calculated to annihilate caste. The Undertaker next door furnished the camp-chairs; the corner grocer the collation; Westguard, Mrs. Caldera, and Bleecker De Groot the mind-food. Go in and look ’em over.”
The front door was standing partly open; the notes of a piano floated through; a high and soulful tenor voice was singing “Perfumes of Araby,” but Quarren did not notice any as he stepped inside.
“A high and soulful tenor was singing ‘Perfumes of Araby.’”
Not daring to leave his suit-case in the hallway he kept on along the passage to the extension where the folding doors were locked. Here he deposited his luggage, locked the door, then walked back to the front parlour and, unobserved, slipped in, seating himself among the battered derelicts of the rear row.
A thin, hirsute young man had just finished scattering the perfumes of Araby; other perfumes nearly finished Quarren; but he held his ground and gazed grimly at an improvised platform where sat in a half-circle and in full evening dress, Karl Westguard, Cyrille Caldera and Bleecker De Groot. Also there was a table supporting a Calla lily.
Westguard was saying very earnestly: “The world calls me a novelist. I am not! Thank Heaven, I aspire to something loftier. I am not a mere scribbler of fiction; I am a man with a message — a plain, simple, earnest, warm-hearted humanitarian who has been roused to righteous indignation by the terrible contrast in this miserable city between wealth and poverty — —”
“That’s right,” interrupted a hoarse voice; “it’s all a con game, an’ the perlice is into it, too!”
“T’hell wit te bulls! Croak ‘em!” observed another gentleman thickly.
Westguard, slightly discountenanced by the significant cheers which greeted this sentiment, introduced Bleecker De Groot; and the rotund old Beau came jauntily forward, holding out both immaculate hands with an artlessly comprehensive gesture calculated to make the entire East Side feel that it was reposing upon his beautifully laundered bosom.
“Ah, my friends!” cried De Groot, “if you could only realise how great is the love for humanity within my breast! — If you could only know of the hours and days and even weeks that I have devoted to solving the problems of the poor!
“And I have solved them — every one. And this is the answer!” — grasping dauntlessly at a dirty hand and shaking it— “this!” seizing another— “and this, and this! And now I ask you, what is this mute answer which I have given you?”
