Complete weird tales of.., p.673
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 673
He wondered how tall she might be. He had never seen her standing or walking. He wondered what her direct gaze might be like. Only her profile had he yet beheld — a sweet, youthful, profile nobly outlined under the gold of her hair; but under the partly lowered lashes as she sat sewing or reading or summoning centrals from the vast expanses of North America, he divined eyes of a soft lilac-blue. And he chewed his pipe-stem and kicked his feet and thought about them.
Few trains stopped at Caranay except for water; the station, an old-time farm house of small dimensions, overlooking the track and Willow Brook, contained ticket office, telephone, and telegraph in one — all presided over by the telephone operator. Sometimes as many as two people in a week bought railroad tickets; sometimes a month would pass without anybody either sending or receiving a telegram. Telephone calls were a little more frequent.
So the girl had little to do there at her sunny open window, where mignonette and heliotrope and nasturtiums bloomed in pots, and the big bumble bees came buzzing and plundering the little window garden. And, except on Sundays, Marque had little leisure to observe her, although in the long late June evenings it was still light at eight o’clock, and he had, without understanding how or why, formed the habit of coming down to the deserted station platform to smoke his pipe and sometimes to fish in the shallow waters of Willow Brook, and watch the ripples turn from gold to purple, and listen to a certain bird that sat singing every day at sunset on the tip of a fir-balsam across the stream — a black and white bird with a rosy pink chest.
So lovely the evening song of this bird that Marque, often watching the girl askance, wondered that the surprising beauty of the melody never caused her to lift her head from book or sewing, or even rise from the table and come out to the doorway to listen.
But she never did; and whether or not the bird’s singing appealed to her, he could not determine.
Nobody in the little gossiping hamlet of Caranay seemed to know more than her name; he himself knew only a few people — men who, like himself, worked on the Willett place with hoe and rake and spraying cart and barrow — comrades of roller and mower and weed-fork and mole-trap — dull-witted cullers of dandelion and rose-beetle. And mostly their names were Hiram.
These had their own kind in the female line to “go with” — Caranay being far from the metropolis, and as yet untroubled by the spreading feminine revolution. Only stray echoes of the doings had as yet penetrated to Caranay daisy fields; no untoward consequences had as yet ensued except that old Si Dinglebat’s wife, after reading the remains of a New York paper found on the railroad track, had suddenly, and apparently in a fit of mental aberration, attacked Si with a mop, accompanying the onslaught with the reiterated inquiry: “Air wimmen to hev their rights?”
That was the only manifestation of the welt-weh in Caranay — that and the other welt on Si’s dome-like and knobby forehead.
He encountered Marque that evening after supper as that young man, in clean blue jeans, carrying a fish-pole and smoking his pipe, was wandering in circles preparatory to a drift in the general direction of the railroad station.
“Evenin’, neighbour!” he said.
“Good evening,” said the young man.
“Goin’ sparkin’?” inquired Si, overflowing with natural curiosity and tobacco.
“What?”
“Be you goin’ a-sparkin’?”
“Nonsense!” said Marque, reddening. “I don’t know any girls in Caranay.”
“Waal, I cal’late you know that gal down to the depot, don’t ye?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Hey? I’m a leetle deef.”
“No!” shouted Marque, “I don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t know her, dammit!”
“Aw, quit yer cussin’,” said Si, with a gummy wink. “Folks has been talkin’ ever since the fustest time you set onto that there platform and that Eden gal fooled ye with her lookin’ glass.”
“What are you talking about?” said Marque impatiently.
“Issy Eden and her pretendin’ not to see nobody — an’ her a lookin’ into the leetle glass behind her table and a seein’ of ye all the time! I know she kin see because she ketched Hi Orville’s boy a-hookin’ apples outen the bar’l that—”
“You mean she is able to see anybody on the platform,” said Marque, confused and astounded.
“You bet she kin. I know because I peeked in the winder an’ I seen her a-lookin’ at you when you was fishin’ — —”
But the young fellow had recovered himself: “All right,” he interrupted; “that isn’t your business or mine. Who gave you that crack on the lid?”
“By gum,” he said, “Hetty done it. I was that took! Forty year, and she ain’t never throwed s’much as a dish pan at me. I wa’n’t lookin’ for no sech thing at my time o’ life, young man. So when I come in to wash up for supper, I sez to my woman, ‘Hello, Het,’ sez I, an’ she up an’ screeched an’ fetched me a clip.
“‘Lord a’mighty!’ sez I. ‘Look out what ye doin’,’ sez I. ‘Air wimmen to hev their rights?’ sez she, makin’ for me some more. ‘Is wimmen to be free?’ she sez.
“‘Yew bet,’ sez I, grabbin’ onto her. ‘I’ll make free with ye,’ sez I. An’ I up an’ tuk an’ spanked Hetty — the first time in forty year, young man! An’ it done her good, I guess, for she ain’t never cooked like she cooked supper to-night. God a’mighty, what biscuits them was!”
Marque listened indifferently, scarcely following the details of the domestic episode because his mind was full of the girl at the station and the amazing discovery that all these days she could have seen him perfectly well at any moment if she had chosen to take the trouble, without moving more than her dark, silky lashes. Had she ever taken that trouble? He did not know, of course. He would like to have known.
He nodded absently to the hero of the welt-weh clash, and, pipe in one hand, pole in the other, walked slowly down the road, crossed the track, and seated himself on the platform’s edge.
She was at her desk, reading. And the young man felt himself turning red as he realised that, if she had chosen, she could have seen him sitting here every evening with his eyes fixed — yes, sentimentally fixed upon the back of her head and her pretty white neck and the lovely contour of her delicately curved cheek.
All by himself he sat there and blushed, head lowered, apparently fussing with his line and hook and trying to keep his eyes off her, without much success.
His angling methods were simple; he crossed the grass-grown track, set his pole in position, and returned to seat himself on the platform’s edge, where he could see his floating cork and — her. Then, as usual, he relapsed into meditation.
If only just once she had ever betrayed the slightest knowledge of his presence in her vicinity he might, little by little, cautiously, and by degrees, have ventured to speak to her.
But she never had evinced the slightest shadow of interest in anything as far as he had noticed.
Now, as he sat there, the burnt out pipe between his teeth, watching alternately his rod and his divinity, the rose-breasted grosbeak began to sing in the pink light of sunset. Clear, pure, sweet, the song rang joyously from the tip of the balsam’s silver-green spire. He rested his head on one hand and listened.
The song of this bird, the odour of heliotrope, the ruddy sunlight netting the ripples — these, for him, must forever suggest her.
He had curious fancies about her and himself. He knew that, if she ever did turn and look at him out of those lilac-tinted eyes, he must fall in love with her, irrevocably. He admitted to himself that already he was in love with all he could see of her — the white neck and dull gold hair, the fair cheek’s curve, the glimpse of her hand as she deliberately turned a page in the book she was reading.
But that evening passed as had the others; night came; she lowered her curtain; a faint tracery of lamplight glimmered around the edges; and, as always, he lighted his pipe and took his fish, and shouldered his pole and went home to die the little death we call sleep until the sun of toil should glitter above the eastern hills once more.
A few days later he decided to make an ass of himself, having been sent with a wagon to Moss Centre, a neighbouring metropolis.
First he sent a telegram to himself at Caranay, signing it William Smith. Then he went to the drug store telephone, and called up Caranay.
“Hello! What number, please?” came a far, sweet voice; and Marque trembled: “No number. I want to speak to Mr. Marque — Mr. John Marque.”
“He isn’t here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Perfectly. I saw him driving one of Mr. Willett’s wagons across the track this morning.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Could I — might I — ask a little information of you?”
“Certainly.”
“What sort of a fellow is this John Marque? He doesn’t amount to much I understand.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I might want to employ him, but I don’t believe he is the sort of man to trust — —”
“You are mistaken!” she said crisply.
“You mean he is all right?”
“Absolutely.”
“Honest?”
“Of course.”
“Capable?”
“Certainly.”
“Sober?”
“Perfectly.”
“M-moral?”
“Unquestionably!” she said indignantly.
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“How do you know?”
“I have means of information which I am not at liberty to disclose. Who is this speaking?”
“William Smith of Minnow Hollow.”
“Are you going to take Mr. Marque to Minnow Hollow?”
“I may.”
“You can’t. Mr. Willett employs him.”
“Suppose I offer him better wages — —”
“He is perfectly satisfied here.”
“But I — —”
“No! Mr. Marque does not care to leave Caranay.”
“But — —”
“I am sorry. It is useless to even suggest it to him. Good-bye!”
With cheeks flushed and a slightly worried expression she resumed her sewing through the golden stillness of the afternoon. Now and then the clank of wagon wheels crossing the metals caused her to glance swiftly into her mirror to see what was going on behind her. And at last she saw Marque drive up, cross the track, then, giving the reins to the boy who sat beside him, turn and walk directly toward the station. And her heart gave a bound.
For the first time he came directly to her window; she saw and heard him, knew he was waiting behind the mignonette and heliotrope, and went on serenely sewing.
“Miss Eden?”
She waited another moment — time enough to place her sewing leisurely on the table. Then, very slowly she turned in her chair and looked at him out of her dark lilac-hued eyes.
He heard himself saying, as in a dream:
“Is there a telegram for me?”
And, as her delicate lifted brows questioned him:
“I am John Marque,” he said.
She picked up the telegram which lay on her table and handed it to him.
“Thank you,” he said. After he had gone she realised that she had not spoken.
* * *
XII
WHENEVER HE WENT to Moss Centre with the wagon he telephoned and telegraphed to himself, and about a month after he had begun this idiot performance he ventured to speak to her.
It occurred late in July, just before sunset. He had placed his rod, lighted his pipe, and seated himself on the platform’s edge, when, all of a sudden, and without any apparent reason, a dizzy sort of recklessness seized him, and he got up and walked over to her window.
“Good evening,” he said.
She looked around leisurely.
“Good evening,” she said in a low voice.
“I was wondering,” he went on, scared almost to death, “whether you would mind if I spoke to you?”
After a few seconds she said:
“Well? Have you decided?”
Badly frightened, he managed to find voice enough to express his continued uncertainty.
“Why did you care to speak to me?” she asked.
“I — we — you — —” and he stuck fast.
“Had you anything to say to me?” she asked in a lower — and he thought a gentler — voice.
“I’ve a lot to say to you,” he said, finding his voice again.
“Really? What about?”
He looked at her so appealingly, so miserably, that the faintest possible smile touched her lips.
“Can I do anything for you, Mr. Marque?”
“If — if you’d only let me speak to you — —”
“But I am letting you.”
“I mean — to-morrow, too — —”
“To-morrow? To-morrow is a very, very long way off. It is somewhere beyond those eastern hills — but a very, very long way off! — as far as the East is from the West. No; I know nothing about to-morrow, so how can I promise anything to anybody?”
“Will your promise cover to-day?”
“Yes. . . . The sun has nearly set, Mr. Marque.”
“Then perhaps when to-morrow is to-day you will be able to promise — —”
“Perhaps. Have you caught any fish?”
After a moment he said: “How did you know I was fishing? You didn’t turn to look.”
She said coolly: “How did you know I didn’t?”
“You never do.”
She said nothing.
At her window, elbows on the sill, the blossoms in her window-box brushing his sunburnt face, he stood, legs crossed, pipe in hand, the sunset wind stirring the curly hair at his temples.
“Did you hear the bird this evening?” he asked.
“Yes. Isn’t he a perfect darling!”
Her sudden unbending was so gracious, so sweet that, bewildered, he remained silent for a while, recovering his breath. And finally:
“I never knew whether or not you noticed his singing,” he said.
“How could you suppose any woman indifferent to such music?” she asked indignantly. She was beginning to realise how her silence had starved her all these months, and the sheer happiness of speech was exciting her. Into her face came a faint glow like a reflection from the pink clouds above the West.
“That little bird,” she said, “sings me awake every morning. I can hear his happy, delicious song above the rushing chorus of dawn from every thicket. He dominates the cheery confusion by the clear, crystalline purity of his voice.”
It scarcely surprised him to find himself conversing with a cultivated woman — scarcely found it unexpected that, in her, speech matched beauty, making for him a charming and slightly bewildering harmony.
Her slim hands lay in her lap sometimes; sometimes, restless, they touched her bright hair or caressed the polished instruments on the table before her. But, happy miracle! her face and body remained turned toward him where he stood leaning on her window-sill.
“There is a fish nibbling your hook, I think,” she said.
He regarded his bobbing cork vaguely, then went across the track and secured the plump perch. At intervals during their conversation he caught three more.
“Now,” she said, “I think I had better say good-night.”
“Would you let me give you my fish?”
She replied, hesitating: “I will let you give me two if you really wish to.”
“Will you bring a pan?”
“No,” she said hastily; “just leave them under my window when you go.”
Neither spoke again for a few moments, until he said with an effort:
“I have wanted to talk to you ever since I first saw you. Do you mind my saying so?”
She shook her head uncertainly.
He lingered a moment longer, then took his leave. Far away into the dusk she watched him until the trees across the bridge hid him. Then the faint smile died on her lips and in her eyes; her mouth drooped a little; she rested one hand on the table, rose with a slight effort, and lowered the shade. Listening intently, and hearing no sound, she bent over and groped on the floor for something. Then she straightened herself to her full height and, leaning on her rubber-tipped cane, walked to the door.
* * *
XIII
HE CAME EVERY day; and every day, at sundown, she sat sewing by the window behind her heliotrope and mignonette waiting.
Sometimes he caught perch and dace and chub, and she accepted half, never more. Sometimes he caught nothing; and then her clear, humorous eyes bantered him, and sometimes she even rallied him. For it had come to pass in these sunset moments that she was learning to permit herself a friendliness and a confidence for him which was very pleasant to her while it lasted, but, after he had gone, left her with soft lips drooping and gaze remote.
Because matters with her, with them both, she feared, were not tending in the right direction. It was not well for her to see him every day — well enough for him, perhaps, but not for her.
Some day — some sunset evening, with the West flecked gold and the zenith stained with pink, and the pink-throated bird singing of Paradise, and the brook talking in golden tones to its pebbles — some such moment at the end of day she would end all of their days for them both — all of their days for all time.
But not just yet; she had been silent so long, waiting, hoping, trusting, biding her time, that to her his voice and her own at eventide was a happiness yet too new to destroy.
That evening, as he stood at her window, the barrier of mignonette fragrant between them, he said rather abruptly:
“Are you ill?”
“No,” she said startled.
“Oh, I am relieved.”
“Why did you ask?”
“Because every Tuesday I have seen the doctor from Moss Centre come in here.”
