Complete weird tales of.., p.647
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 647
“I’d like to know, but you must not feel obliged to tell me.”
“I do feel obliged! I must! We’re poor. We’ve spent all our money, and we can’t go anywhere else very well!”
Edgerton glanced at the luxury in the next room, astonished; then his gaze reverted to the silk-clad figure before him.
“You don’t understand, of course,” she said, flushing. “How could you suppose us to be almost penniless living here in such a beautiful place with all those new trunks and gowns and pretty things! But that is exactly why we are doing it!”
She leaned forward in her chair, the tint of excitement in her cheeks.
“After the failure, Silvette and I hadn’t anything very much! — you know how everything of uncle’s went—” She stopped abruptly. “Why — why, probably everything of yours went, too! Did it?”
He laughed: “Pretty nearly everything.”
“Oh! oh!” she cried; “what a perfectly atrocious complication! Perhaps — perhaps you haven’t money enough to — to go somewhere else for a while. Have you?”
“Well, I’ll fix it somehow.”
“Mr. Edgerton!” she said excitedly, “Silvette and I have got to go!”
“No,” he said laughing, “you’ve only got to go on with your story, Miss Tennant. I am a very interested and sympathetic listener.”
“Yes,” she said desperately, “I must go on with that, too. Listen, Mr. Edgerton; we thought a long while and discussed everything, and we concluded to stake everything on an idea that came to Silvette. So we drew out all the money we had and we paid all our just debts, and we parted with our chaperone — who was a perfect d-darling — I’ll tell you about her sometime — and we took Argent, our cat, and came straight to New York, and we hunted and hunted for an apartment until we found this! And then — do you know what we did?” she demanded excitedly.
“I couldn’t guess!” said Edgerton, smiling.
“We bought clothes — beautiful clothes! And everything luxurious that we didn’t have we bought — almost frightened to death while we were doing it — and then we advertised!”
“We had to spend all our money on clothes.”
“Advertised!”
“From here! Can you ever forgive us?”
“Of course,” he said, mystified; “but what did you advertise?”
“Ourselves!”
“What!”
“Certainly; and we’ve had replies, but we haven’t liked the people so far. Indeed, we advertised in the most respectable daily, weekly and monthly papers—” She sprang to her feet, trotted over to the sofa, picked up an illustrated periodical devoted to country life, and searching hastily through the advertising pages, found and read aloud to him, still standing there, the following advertisement:
“Two ladies of gentle birth and breeding, cultivated linguists, musicians, thoroughly conversant with contemporary events, efficient at auction bridge, competent to arrange dinners and superintend decorations, desire employment in helping to entertain house parties, week-ends, or unwelcome but financially important relatives and other visitations, at country houses, camps, bungalows, or shooting boxes.
“For terms write to or call at Apartment Five — —”
She turned her flushed face toward him.
“Your address in full follows,” she said. “Can you ever bring yourself to forgive us?”
His astonished gaze met hers. “That doesn’t worry me,” he said.
“It is generous and — splendid of you to say so,” she faltered. “You understand now, don’t you? We had to spend all our money on clothes; and we thought ourselves so fortunate in this beautiful apartment because it was certain to impress people, and nobody could possibly suspect us of poverty with that great picture by Goya over the mantel and priceless tapestries and rugs and porcelains in every direction — and our cat to make it look as though we really belonged here.” Her voice trembled a moment on the verge of breaking and her eyes grew brilliant as freshly washed stars, but she lifted her resolute little head and caught the tremulous lower lip in her teeth. Then, the crisis over, she dropped the illustrated paper, came slowly back to her chair and sank down, extending her arms along the velvet upholstery in silence.
Between them, on the floor, a sapphire rug stretched its ancient Persian folds. He looked at it gravely, thinking that its hue matched her eyes. Then he considered more important matters, plunging blindly into profound abstraction; and found nothing in the depths except that he had no money to go anywhere, but that he must go nevertheless.
He looked up after a moment.
“Would you and your sister think it inhospitable of me if I ask when you — I mean — if I — —”
“I know what you mean, Mr. Edgerton. Silvette and I are going at once.
“You can’t. Do you think I’d permit it? Please remember, too, that you’ve advertised from here, and you’ve simply got to remain here. All I meant to ask was whether you think it might be for a week or two yet, but, of course, you can’t tell — and forgive me for asking — but I was merely trying to adjust several matters in my mind to conditions — —”
“Mr. Edgerton, we cannot remain. There is not in my mind the slightest doubt concerning your financial condition. If you could let us stay until we secured employment, I’d ask it of you — because you are James Edgerton; but you can’t” — she rose with decision— “and I’m going up to the roof to tell Silvette.”
“If you stir I’ll take those suit cases and depart for good.”
“You are very generous — the Edgertons always were, I have heard, but we cannot accept — —”
He interrupted, smiling: “I think the Tennants never needed instruction concerning the finer points of obligation.” ... He stood a moment thoughtfully, turning over and over the two dollars in his pocket; then with a laugh he walked across the studio and picked up his suit cases.
“Don’t do that!” she said in a grave voice.
“There is nothing else to do, Miss Tennant.”
“There’s another bedroom.”
They stood, not regarding one another, considering there in the sunshine.
“Will you wait until I return?” she asked, looking up. “I want to talk to Silvette.... I’d like to have Silvette see you. Will you wait? Because I’ve come to one of my quick conclusions — I’m celebrated for them, Mr. Edgerton. Will you wait?”
“Yes,” he said, smiling.
So she trotted away in her little straw sandals and flowery vestments and butterfly sash; and he began to pace the studio, hands clasped behind him, trying to think out matters and ways and means — trying to see a way clear which offered an exit from this complication without forcing him to do that one thing of which he had a steadfast horror — borrow money from a friend.
Mingled, too, with his worried cogitations was the thought of Henry Tennant’s nieces — these young California girls of whom he had vaguely heard without any particular interest. New Yorkers are never interested in relatives they never saw; seldom in any relatives at all. And, long ago, there had been marriage between Tennant and Edgerton — in colonial days, if he remembered correctly; and, to his own slight surprise, he felt it now as an added obligation. It was not enough that he efface himself until they found employment; more than that was due them from an Edgerton. And, as he had nothing to do it with, he wondered how he was to do anything at all for these distant cousins.
Standing there in the sunshine he cast an ironical glance around him at the Beauvais tapestries, the old masters, the carved furniture of Charles II’s time, rugs dyed with the ancient splendor of the East, made during the great epoch when carpets of Ispahan, Damascus — and those matchless hues woven with gold and silver which are called Polish — decorated the palaces of Emperor and Sultan.
Not one thing could he sell under the will of Peter Edgerton to save his body from starvation or his soul from anything else; and he jingled the two dollars in his pocket and thought of his talents, and wondered what market there might be for any of them in a city where bricklayers were paid higher wages than school teachers, and where the wealthy employed others to furnish their new and gorgeous houses with everything from pictures and books to the ancient plate from which they ate.
And, thinking of these things, his ears caught a slight rustle of silk; and he lifted his head as Diana Tennant and her sister Silvette came toward him through the farther room.
CHAPTER III
SUB JUDICE
“ISN’T THIS A mess!” said Silvette in a clear, unembarrassed voice, giving him her hand. “Imagine my excitement up on the roof, Mr. Edgerton, when Diana appeared and told me what a perfectly delightful man had come to evict us!”
“I didn’t say it that way,” observed Diana, her ears as pink as the powder-puff peonies above them. “My sister,” she explained, “is one of those girls whose apparent frankness is usually nonsense. I’m merely warning you, Mr. Edgerton.”
Silvette — a tall, free-limbed, healthy, and plumper edition of her sister — laughed. “In the first place,” she said, “suppose we have luncheon. There is a fruit salad which I prepared after breakfast. Our maid is out, but we know how to do such things, having been made to when schoolgirls.”
“You’ll stay, won’t you?” asked Diana.
“Poor Mr. Edgerton — where else is he to go?” said Silvette calmly. “Diana, if you’ll set places for three at that very beautiful and expensive antique table, I’ll bring some agreeable things from the refrigerator.”
“Could I be of any use?” inquired Edgerton, smiling.
“Indeed, you can be. Talk to Diana and explain to her how respectable we are and you are, and how everything is certain to be properly arranged to everybody’s satisfaction. Diana has a very wonderful idea, and she’s come to one of her celebrated snap-shot conclusions — a conclusion, Mr. Edgerton, most flattering to you. Ask her.” And she went away toward the kitchenette not at all embarrassed by her pretty morning attire nor by the thick braid of golden hair which hung to her girdle.
Diana cast a swift glance at Edgerton, and, seeing him smile, smiled, too, and set about laying places for three with snowy linen, crystal, silver, and the lovely old Spode porcelain which had not its match in all the city.
“It’s like a play or a novel,” she said; “the hazard of our coming here the way we did, and of you coming back to America; but, of course, the same cause operated in both cases, so perhaps it isn’t so remarkable after all! And” — she repressed a laugh— “to think that I should mistake you for a malefactor! Did it seem to you that I behaved in a silly manner?”
“On the contrary, you exhibited great dignity and courage and self-restraint.”
“Do you really mean it? I was nearly scared blue, and I was perfectly certain you’d stuffed your suit cases full of our toilet silver. Wasn’t it funny, Mr. Edgerton! And what did you think when you looked into your studio and saw a woman?”
“I was — somewhat prepared.”
“Of course — after a glimpse into our bedroom! But that must have astonished you, didn’t it?”
“Slightly. The first thing I saw was a white cat staring at me from the top of a trunk.”
She laughed, arranging the covers with deft touch.
“And what next did you see?”
“Garments,” he explained briefly.
“Oh! Yes, of course.”
“Also a silk-flowered slipper with a very high heel on the threshold.”
“Mine,” she said. “You see, in the days of our affluence, I used to have a maid. I forget, and throw things about sometimes.”
“You’ve a maid now, haven’t you?”
“Oh, just a combination cook and waitress until we can find employment. She’s horridly expensive, too, but it can’t be helped, because it would create an unfavorable impression if Silvie or I answered the door bell.”
“You’re quite right,” he said; “people have a curious aversion to employing those who really need it. Prosperity never lacks employment. It’s odd, isn’t it?”
“It’s rather cruel,” she said under her breath.
Silvette came in bringing a chilled fruit salad, bread and butter, cold chicken, and tea. “We’ll have to put it all on at once. You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Edgerton?”
He said smilingly but distinctly: “One’s own family can do no wrong. That is my creed.”
Diana looked up at him.
“I wondered whether you knew we were relations,” she said, flushing deliriously.
“You see,” added Silvette, “it was not for us to remind you.”
“Of our kinship? Why not?”
“Because you might have considered it an added obligation toward us,” said Diana, blushing.
“I do — a delightful one; and it is very gracious of you to acknowledge it.”
“But we don’t mean to presume on it,” interrupted Silvette hastily. “Some day we really do mean to regulate our financial obligations toward you.”
“There are no such obligations. Please remember what roof covers you — —”
“Mr. Edgerton!”
“And whose salt — —”
“It’s our salt, anyway,” said Diana; “I bought it myself!”
They seated themselves, laughing; then suddenly Edgerton remembered, and he went away with a hasty excuse, only to return again with a brace of decanters.
“My uncle’s port and sherry,” he said.
“‘My uncle’s port and sherry,’ he said.”
Silvette jumped up and found half-a-dozen old-time glasses; and the luncheon continued.
“Isn’t it ridiculous!” observed the young fellow, glancing around the studio; “here am I surrounded by a fortune in idiotic antiquities, lunching from a table that the Metropolitan Museum inherits after my death, sipping a sherry which came from the cellars of a British monarch — with two dollars and several cents in my pockets, and not the slightest idea where to get more. Isn’t it funny!”
Silvette forced a smile, then glanced significantly at her sister. Diana said, gravely:
“We have several hundred dollars. Would you be kind enough to let us offer you what you require for immediate use until — —”
“Why, you blessed child!” he said, laughing, “that isn’t what worries me now!”
“Then — what is it?” inquired Silvette.
“You and your sister.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Edgerton?”
“I mean that I’m worried over your prospects!”
“Why, they are perfectly bright!” exclaimed Diana; “In a few days somebody will employ us to help entertain a number of stupid and wealthy people. We’ll make a great deal of money, I expect; don’t you, Silvie?”
“Certainly; but I’m wondering what Mr. Edgerton is going to do with two dollars in his pocket and us in his apartment.”
“So am I,” said Diana.
“It’s perfectly charming of you to care.”
“What an odd thing to say to us! Is it not very natural to care? Besides your being related, you have also been so considerate and so nice to us that we’d care anyway, I think. Don’t you, Silvie?”
Silvette nodded her golden-crowned head.
“The thing to do for the present,” she said, “is for you to take that farther room. It was Diane’s idea, and I entirely agree with her — after seeing you.”
“That was the sudden conclusion of which I spoke to you,” explained Diana. “Such things come to me instinctively. I thought to myself, ‘If he mentions the kinship between us, then we’ll ask him to remain.’ And you did. And we do ask you; don’t we, Silvie?”
“Certainly. If two old maids wish to entertain their masculine cousin for a week or two, whose affair is it? Let Mrs. Grundy shriek; I don’t care. Do you, Diane?”
“No, I don’t. Besides,” she added naïvely, “she’s out of town.”
They all laughed. The germ of a delightful understanding was beginning to take shape; it had already become nascent and was developing in every frank smile, every candid glance, every unembarrassed question and reply.
“We have no parents,” said Diana gravely. “You have none, have you?”
“No,” he said.
“Then it seems natural to me, our being here together; but” — and Diana glanced sideways at him— “in the East, I believe, people consider relationship of little or no importance.”
He sipped his sherry, reflecting.
“As a rule,” he said; “but” — and he laughed— “if any Easterner even suspected he had two such California cousins, he’d start for the Pacific coast without his breakfast!”
“Did you ever hear anything half as amiable?” asked Silvette, laughing.
“I never did,” replied Diana; “especially as we’re probably his twenty-second cousins.”
“That distance may lend an enchantment to the obligations of kinship!” he said gayly.
Diana looked up, grave as a youthful Japanese goddess.
“You don’t mean that, do you?”
“No, I don’t,” he said, reddening. “If I did, the janitor ought to throw me out.”
Silvette nodded seriously.
“We know you said it in joke; but the only straw to float Diane’s idea is our kinship, Mr. Edgerton. And we grasped at it — for your sake.”
“Please cling to it for your own sakes,” too, he said, also very serious now; “it may become a plank to float us all.... I realize the point you are straining out of kindness to me. If I accept shelter here for a day or two, I shall know very well what it costs you to offer it.”
“It doesn’t cost us anything,” interrupted Diana hastily. “Silvette meant only that you should understand why our consciences and common sense sanction your remaining if we remain.”
“You must remain anyway!” he said.
“So must you, cousin,” said Silvette, laughing. “Anyway, you’ve probably sent your trunks here — haven’t you?”
“By jinks! I forgot that!” he exclaimed. “I believe that racket on the stairs means that my trunks are arriving!”
