Complete weird tales of.., p.632
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 632
“De merry mitt,” said a voice, promptly. Mr. De Groot smiled with sweetness and indulgence.
“I apprehend your quaint and trenchant vernacular,” he said. “It is the ‘merry mitt’ — the ‘glad glove,’ the ‘happy hand’! Fifth Avenue clasps palms with Doyers Street — —”
“Ding!” said a weary voice, “yer in wrong, boss. It’s nix f’r the Tongs wit us gents. We transfer to Avenue A.”
Mr. De Groot merely smiled indulgently. “The rich,” he said, “are not really happy.” His plump, highly coloured features altered; presently a priceless tear glimmered in his monocle eye; and he brushed it away with a kind of noble pity for his own weakness.
“Dear, dear friends,” he said tremulously, “believe me — oh, believe me that the rich are not happy! Only the perspiring labourer knows what is true contentment. The question of poverty is a great social question. With me it is a religion. Oh, I could go on forever on this subject, dear friends, and talk on and on and on — —”
Emotion again checked him — or perhaps he had lost the thread of his discourse — or possibly he had attained its limit — but he filled it out by coming down from the platform and shaking hands so vigorously that the gardenia in his lapel presently fell out.
Cyrille Caldera rose, fresh and dainty and smiling, and discoursed single-tax and duplex tenements, getting the two subjects mixed but not minding that. Also she pointed at the Calla lily and explained that the lily was the emblem of purity. Which may have had something to do with something or other.
Then Westguard arose once more and told them all about the higher type of novel he was writing for humanity’s sake, and became so interested and absorbed in his own business that the impatient shuffling of shabby feet on the floor alone interrupted him.
“Has anybody,” inquired De Groot, sweetly, “any vital question to ask — any burning inquiry of deeper, loftier import, which has perhaps long remained unanswered in his heart?”
A gentleman known usually as “Mike the Mink” arose and indicated with derisive thumb a picture among the Dankmere collection, optimistically attributed to Correggio:
“Is that Salome, mister?” he inquired with a leer.
De Groot looked at the canvas, slightly startled.
“No, my dear friend; that is a picture painted hundreds of years ago by a great Italian master. It is called ‘Danaë.’ Jupiter, you know, came to her in a shower of gold — —”
“They all have to come across with it,” remarked the Mink.
Somebody observed that if the police caught the dago who painted it they’d pinch him.
To make a diversion, and with her own fair hands, Cyrille Caldera summoned the derelicts to sandwiches and ginger-ale; and De Groot, dashing more unmanly moisture from his monocle, went about resolutely shaking hands, while Westguard and the hirsute young man sang “Comrades” with much feeling.
Quarren, still unrecognised, edged his way out and rejoined Dankmere on the front stoop. Neither made any comment on the proceedings.
Later the derelicts, moodily replete, shuffled forth into the night, herded lovingly by De Groot, still shaking hands.
From the corner of the street opposite, Quarren and Dankmere observed their departure, and, later, they beheld De Groot and Mrs. Caldera slip around the block and discreetly disappear into a 1912 touring-car with silver mountings and two men in livery on the box.
Westguard, truer to his principles, took a tram and Quarren and the Earl returned to their gallery with mixed emotions, and opened every window top and bottom.
“It’s all right in its way, I suppose,” said Quarren. “Probably De Groot means well, but there’s no conversation possible between a man who has just dined rather heavily, and a man who has no chance of dining at all.”
“Like preaching Christ to the poor from a Fifth Avenue pulpit,” said Dankmere, vaguely.
“How do you mean?”
“A church on a side street would seem to serve the purpose. And the poor need the difference.”
“I don’t know about those matters.”
“No; I don’t either. It’s easy, cheap, and popular to knock the clergy.... Still, somehow or other, I can’t seem to forget that the disciples were poor — and it bothers me a lot, Quarren.”
Quarren said: “Haven’t you and I enough to worry us concerning our own morals?”
Dankmere, who had been closing up and piling together the Undertaker’s camp-chairs, looked around at the younger man.
“What did you say?” he asked.
“I said that probably you and I would find no time left to criticise either De Groot or the clergy, if we used our leisure in self-examination.”
His lordship went on piling up chairs. When he finished he started wandering around, hands in his pockets. Then he turned out all the electric lamps, drew the bay-window curtains wide so that the silvery radiance from the arc-light opposite made the darkness dimly lustrous.
A little breeze stirred the hair on Quarren’s forehead; Dankmere dropped into the depths of an armchair near him. For a while they sat together in darkness and silence, then the Englishman said abruptly:
“You’ve been very kind to me.”
Quarren glanced up surprised.
“Why not?”
“Because nobody else has any decent words to say to me or of me.”
Quarren, amused, said: “How do you know that I have, Dankmere?”
“A man knows some things. For example, most people take me for an ass — they don’t tell me so but I know it. And if they don’t take me for an ass they assume that I’m something worse — because I have a title of sorts, no money, an inclination for the stage and the people who make a living out of it.”
“Also,” Quarren reminded him, “you are looking for a wealthy wife.”
“God bless my soul! Am I the only chap in America who happens to be doing that?”
“No; but you’re doing it conspicuously.”
“You mean I’m honest about it?”
Quarren laughed: “Anyway perhaps that’s one reason why I like you. At first I also thought it was merely stupidity.”
Dankmere crossed his short legs and lighted his pipe:
“The majority of your better people have managed not to know me. I’ve met a lot of men of sorts, but they draw the line across their home thresholds — most of them. Is it the taint of vaudeville that their wives sniff at, or my rather celebrated indigence?”
“Both, Dankmere — and then some.”
“Oh, I see. Many thanks for telling me. I take it you mean that it was my first wife they shy at.”
Quarren remained silent.
“She was a bar-maid,” remarked the Earl. “We were quite happy — until she died.”
Quarren made a slight motion of comprehension.
“Of course my marrying her damned us both,” observed the Earl.
“Of course.”
“Quite so. People would have stood for anything else.... But she wouldn’t — you may think it odd.... And I was in love — so there you are.”
For a while they smoked in the semi-darkness without exchanging further speech; and finally Dankmere knocked out his pipe, pocketed it, and put on his hat.
“You know,” he said, “I’m not really an ass. My tastes and my caste don’t happen to coincide — that’s all, Quarren.”
They walked together to the front stoop.
“When do we open shop?” asked the Earl, briskly.
“As soon as I get the reports from our experts.”
“Won’t business be dead all summer?”
“We may do some business with agents and dealers.”
“I see. You and I are to alternate as salesmen?”
“For a while. When things start I want to rent the basement and open a department for repairing, relining and cleaning; and I’d like to be able to do some of the work myself.”
“You?”
“Surely. It interests me immensely.”
“You’re welcome I’m sure,” said Dankmere drily. “But who’s to keep the books and attend to correspondence?”
“We’ll get somebody. A young woman, who says she is well recommended, advertised in Thursday’s papers, and I wrote her from Witch-Hollow to come around Sunday morning.”
“That’s to-morrow.”
Quarren nodded.
So Dankmere trotted jauntily away into the night, and Quarren locked the gallery and went to bed, certain that he was destined to dream of Strelsa. But the sleek, narrow head and slightly protruding eyes of Langly Sprowl was the only vision that peered cautiously at him through his sleep.
The heated silence of a Sunday morning in June awoke him from a somewhat restless night. Bathed and shaved, he crept forth limply to breakfast at the Founders’ Club where he still retained a membership. There was not a soul there excepting himself and the servants — scarcely a person on the avenues and cross-streets which he traversed going and coming, only one or two old men selling Sunday papers at street-stands, an old hag gleaning in the gutters, and the sparrows.
Clothing was a burden. He had some pongee garments which he put on, installed himself in the gallery with a Sunday paper, an iced lime julep, and a cigarette, and awaited the event of the young lady who had advertised that she knew all about book-keeping, stenography, and typewriting, and could prove it.
“She came about noon — a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black gown.”
She came about noon — a pale young girl, very slim in her limp black gown, and, at Quarren’s invitation, seated herself at the newly purchased desk of the firm.
Here, at his request she took a page or two of dictation from him and typed it rapidly and accurately.
She had her own system of book-keeping which she explained to the young man who seemed to think it satisfactory. Then he asked her what salary she expected, and she told him, timidly.
“All right,” he said with a smile, “if it suits you it certainly suits me. Will you begin to-morrow?”
“Whenever you wish, Mr. Quarren.”
“Well, there won’t be very much to do for a while,” he said laughingly, “except to sit at that desk and look ornamental.”
She flushed, then smiled and thanked him for giving her the position, adding with another blush that she would do her best.
“Your best,” he said amiably, “will probably be exactly what we require.... Did you bring any letters?”
She hesitated: “One,” she said gravely. She searched in her reticule, found it, and handed it to Quarren who read it in silence, then returned it to her.
“You were stenographer in Mr. Sprowl’s private office?”
“Yes.”
“This letter isn’t signed by Mr. Sprowl.”
“No, by Mr. Kyte, his private secretary.”
“It seems you were there only six months.”
“Six months.”
“And before that where were you?”
“At home.”
“Oh; Mr. Sprowl was your first employer!”
“Yes.”
“Why did you leave?”
The girl hesitated so long that he thought she had not understood, and was about to repeat the question when something in her pallor and in her uplifted eyes checked him.
“I don’t know why I was sent away,” she said in a colourless voice.
He thought for a while, then, carelessly: “I take it that there was nothing irregular in your conduct?”
“No.”
“You’d tell me if there was, wouldn’t you?”
She lifted her dark eyes to his. “Yes,” she said.
How much of an expert he was at judging faces he did not know, but he was perfectly satisfied with himself when she took her leave.
And when Dankmere came in after luncheon he said:
“I’ve engaged a book-keeper. Her name is Jessie Vining. She’s evidently unhappy, poor, underfed, and the prettiest thing you ever saw out of a business college. So, being unhappy, poor, underfed and pretty, I take it that she’s all to the good.”
“It’s a generous world of men,” said Dankmere— “so I guess she is good.”
“I’m sure of it. She was Sprowl’s private stenographer — and he sent her away.... There are three reasons why he might have dismissed her. I’ve taken my choice of them.”
“Did he give her a letter?”
“No.”
“Oh. Then I’ve taken my choice, too.”
“Kyte ventured to give her a letter,” said Quarren. “I’ve heard that Kyte could be decent sometimes.”
“I see.”
Nothing further was said about the new book-keeper. His lordship went into the back parlour and played the piano until satiated; then mixed himself a lime julep.
That afternoon they went over the reports of the experts very carefully. From these reports and his own conclusions Quarren drafted a catalogue while Dankmere went about sticking adhesive labels on the frames, all numbered. And, as he trotted blithely about his work, he talked to himself and to the pictures:
“Here’s number nine for you, old lady! If I’d had a face like that I’d have killed the artist who transferred it to canvas!... Number sixteen for you there in your armour! Somebody in Springfield will buy you for an ancestor and that’s what will happen to you.... And you, too, in a bag-wig! — you’ll be some rich Yankee’s ancestor before you know it! That’s the way you’ll end, my smirking friend.... Hello! Tiens! In Gottes namen — whom have we here? Why, it’s Venus!... And hot weather is no excuse for going about that way!... Listen to this, Quarren, for an impromptu patter-song —
“‘Venus, dear, you ought to know What the proper caper is — Even Eve, who wasn’t slow, Robbed the neighbours’ graperies! Even Mænads on the go, Fat Bacchantes in a row — Even ladies in a show Wear some threads of naperies! Through the heavens planet-strewn Where a shred of vapour is Quickly clothes herself the Moon! Get you to a modiste soon Where the tissue-paper is, Cut in fashions fit for June — Wear ‘em, dear, for draperies — —’”
“Good heavens!” protested Quarren— “how long can you run on like that?”
“Years and years, my dear fellow. It’s in me — born in me! Can you beat it? Though I appear to be a peer appearance is a liar; cast for a part apart from caste, departing I climb higher toward the boards to bore the hordes and lord it, sock and buskin dispensing sweetness, art, and light as per our old friend Ruskin — —”
“Dankmere!”
“Heaven-born?”
“Stop!”
“I remain put.... What number do I stick on this gentleman with streaky features?”
“Eighteen. That’s a Franz Hals.”
“Really?”
“Yes; the records are all here, and the experts agree.”
His lordship got down nimbly from the step-ladder and came over to the desk:
“Young sir,” he said, “how much is that picture worth?”
“All we can get for it. It’s not a very good example.”
“Are you going to tell people that?”
“If they ask me,” said Quarren, smiling.
“What price are you going to put on it?”
“Ten thousand.”
“And do you think any art-smitten ass will pay that sum for a thing like that?”
“I think so. If it were only a decent example I’d ask ten times that — and probably get it in the end.”
Dankmere inspected the picture more respectfully for a few moments, then pasted a label on an exquisite head by Greuze.
“She’s a peach,” he said. “What price is going to waft her from my roof-tree?”
“The experts say it’s not a Greuze but a contemporary copy. And there’s no pedigree, either.”
“Oh,” said the Earl blankly, “is that your opinion, too?”
“I haven’t any yet. But there’s no such picture by Greuze extant.”
“You don’t think it a copy?”
“I’m inclined not to. Under that thick blackish-yellow varnish I believe I’ll find the pearl and rose texture of old Greuze himself. In the meantime it’s not for sale.”
“I see. And this battle-scene?”
“Wouverman’s — ruined by restoring. It’s not worth much.”
“And this Virgin?”
“Pure as the Virgin Herself — not a mark — flawless. It’s by ‘The Master of the Death of Mary.’ Isn’t it a beauty? Do you notice St. John holding the three cherries and the Christ-child caressing the goldfinch? Did you ever see such colour?”
“It’s — er — pretty,” said his lordship.
And so during the entire afternoon they compiled the price-list and catalogue, marking copies for what they were, noting such pictures as had been ruined by restoring or repainted so completely as to almost obliterate the last original brush stroke. Also Quarren reserved for his own investigations such canvases as he doubted or of which he had hopes — a number that under their crocked, battered, darkened or discoloured surfaces hinted of by-gone glories that might still be living and only imprisoned beneath the thick opacity of dust, soot, varnish, and the repainting of many years ago.
And that night he went to bed happier than he had ever been in all his life — unless his moments with Strelsa Leeds might be termed happy ones.
* * *
Monday morning brought, among other things, a cloudless sun, and little Miss Vining quite as spotless and radiant; and within ten minutes the click of the typewriter made the silent picture-plastered rooms almost gay.
In shirtwaist and cuffs she took her place behind the desk with a sort of silent decision which seemed at once to invest her with suzerainty over all that corner of the room; and Dankmere coming in a little later, whistling merrily and twirling his walking-stick, sheered off instinctively on his breezy progress through the rooms, skirting Jessie Vining’s domain as though her private ensign flew above it and earthworks, cannon and trespass notices flanked her corner on every side.
In the back parlour he said to Quarren: “So that is the girl?”
“It sure is.”
“God bless my soul! she acts as though she had just bought in the whole place.”
“What’s she doing?”
