Complete weird tales of.., p.680
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 680
In the swaying cab the man beside her sat bent over, his face in his hands, blood striping the fingers of his gloves. With a shudder she placed the automatic weapon on the cushion beside her and shrank back, staring at him.
But his senses seemed to be returning, for presently he sat up, found his handkerchief, staunched the rather insignificant abrasion, and settled back into his corner. Without looking at her he said:
“Would you mind if I thank you? You have been very kind.”
She could not utter a word.
Presently he turned; and as he looked at her for the first time a faint flicker of humour seemed to touch his eyes.
“Where are we going — if you don’t mind?” he said pleasantly.
Then the breathless words came, haltingly.
“I’ve got to tell you something; I’ve got to! I can’t stand aside — I can’t pass by on the other side!”
“Thank you,” he said, smiling, “but Lazarus is all right now.”
“I mean — something else!” Her voice fell to a whisper. “I must speak!”
He looked pleasantly perplexed, smiling.
“Is there anything — except a broken head — that could possibly permit me the opportunity of listening to you?”
“I — have seen you before.”
“And I you.”
She leaned against her window, head resting on her hand, her heart a chaos.
“Where are you going when — when I leave you?” she said.
He did not answer.
“Where?” She turned to look at him. “Are you going back to that hotel?” And, as he made no reply: “Do you wish to become a murderer, too?” she said tremulously. “I have your pistol. I ask you not to go back there.”
After a moment he said: “No, I won’t go back. . . . Where is the pistol?”
“You shall not have it.”
“I think perhaps it would be safer with me.”
“No!”
“Very well.”
“And — I — I ask you to keep away from that man!” She grew unconsciously dramatic. “I ask you — if you have any memory which you hold sacred — to promise me on that memory not to — to — —”
“I won’t shoot him,” he said, watching her curiously. “Is that what you mean?”
“Y-yes.”
“Then I promise — on my most sacred memory — the memory of a young girl who saved me from committing — what I meant to do. . . . And I thank her very deeply.”
She said: “I did save you from — that!”
“You did — God knows.” He himself was trembling a little; his face had turned very white.
“Then — then — —” she forced her courage — lifted her frightened eyes, braving mockery and misconstruction— “then — is there a chance of my — helping you — further?”
For a moment her flushed face and timid question perplexed him; then the quick blood reddened his face, and he stared at her in silence.
“I — I can’t help it,” she faltered. “I believe in you — and in — salvation. . . . Please don’t say anything to — hurt me.”
“No,” he said, still staring, “no, of course not. And — and thank you. You are very kind. . . . You are very kind. . . . I suppose you heard somebody say — what I am.”
“Yes. . . . But that was long ago.”
“Oh, you knew — you have known — for some time?”
“Yes.”
He sat thinking for a while.
Presently they both noticed that the cab had stopped — had probably been standing for some time in front of the station; and that several red-capped porters were watching them.
“My name is Lily Hollis,” she said, “and I live at Whitebrook Farm, Westchester. . . . I am not coming to New York again — and never again to that hotel. . . . But I would like to talk to you — a little.”
He thought a moment.
“Do you want a gambler to call on you, Miss Hollis?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then he will do it. When?”
“To-morrow.”
He passed his hand over his marred young face.
“Yes,” he said quietly, “to-morrow.”
He looked up and met her eyes, smiled, opened the door, and stepped to the sidewalk. Then he went with her to her train. She turned at the gates and held out her hand to him; and, hat in hand, he bent his battered head and touched her gloves with twitching lips.
“To-morrow?”
“Certainly.”
She said, wistfully: “May I trust in you?”
“Yes. Tell me that you trust me.”
“I trust you,” she said; and laid the pistol in his hands.
His face altered subtly. “I did not mean in that way,” he said.
“How could I trust you more?”
“With — yourself.”
“That is a — lesser trust,” she said faintly. “It is for you that I have been afraid.”
He saw the colour deepen in her cheeks, looked, bit his lip in silence.
“To-morrow?” she said under her breath.
“Yes.”
“Good-bye till then.”
“Good-bye.”
* * *
XXVI
THE NEXT DAY he didn’t appear, but a letter did.
“I merely lied to you,” he wrote. “All gamblers are liars. You should have passed by on the other side.”
Yes, that is what she should have done; she realised it now alone there in the sunny parlour with his letter.
There was no chance for him; or, if there was, she had not been chosen as the instrument of his salvation.
Slowly she turned her head and looked around her at her preparations — the pitiful little preparations for him — the childish stage setting for the scene of his salvation.
The spotless parlour had been re-dusted, cleaned, rubbed to its old-time polish. Bible and prayer-book on the mahogany centre-table had been arranged and re-arranged so many times that she no longer knew whether or not her art concealed art, and was innocently fearful that he might suspect the mise-en-scène and fight shy of her preparations for his regeneration.
Again and again she had re-arranged the flowers and books and rumpled the un-read morning newspaper to give to the scene a careless and casual every-day allure; again and again she had straightened the rugs, then tried them in less symmetrical fashion. She let the kitten in to give a more home-like air to the room, but it squalled to go out, and she had to release it.
Also, from the best spare room she had brought Holman Hunt’s “Shadow of the Cross” — and it had taxed her slender strength to hang it in place of the old French mezzotint of Bacchus and Ariadne.
But the most difficult task was to disseminate among the stiff pieces of furniture and the four duplicate sofa cushions an atmosphere of pleasant and casual disorder — as though guests had left them where they were — as though the rigid chairs were accustomed to much and intimate usage.
But the effect troubled her; every formal bit of furniture seemed to be arranged as for an ambuscade; the cushions on the carved sofa sat in a row, like dwarfs waiting; the secretary watched, every diamond pane a glittering eye. And on the wall the four portraits of her parents and grand-parents were behaving strangely, for she seemed never to be out of range of their unwinking painted eyes.
From other rooms she had brought in ornaments, books, little odds and ends — and the unaccustomed concentration of household gods caused her much doubt and uncertainty, so fearful was she that his wise dark eyes might smilingly detect her effort.
There had been much to do in the short time pending his arrival — the gravel path to be raked, the lawn to be rolled and cut, the carefully weeded flower beds to be searched for the tiniest spear of green which did not belong there, the veranda to be swept again, and all the potted plants to be re-arranged and the dead leaves and blossoms to be removed.
Then there were great sheafs of iris to gather; and that, and the cutting of peonies and June roses, were matters to go about with thought and discretion, so that no unsightly spaces in bloom and foliage should be apparent to those dark, wise eyes of his that had looked on so many things in life — so many, many things of which she knew nothing.
Also she was to offer him tea; and the baking of old-fashioned biscuits and sweets was a matter for prayerful consideration. And Hetty, the hired girl, had spent all the morning on her grand-mother’s silver, and William Pillsbury, executor of chores, had washed the doorstep and polished the windows and swept the maple-pods and poplar silk from the roof-gutters, and was now down on his knees with shears, trimming the grass under the picket-fence.
And he was not coming after all. He was never coming.
For a little while she failed to realise it; there was a numb sensation in her breast, a dull confusion in her mind. She sat alone in the parlour, in her pretty new gown, looking straight ahead of her, seeing nothing — not even his letter in her hand.
And she sat there for a long while; the numbness became painful; the tension a dull endurance. Fatigue came, too; she rested her head wearily on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. But the tall clocks ticking slowly became unendurable — and the odour of the roses hurt her.
Suddenly, through and through her shot a pang of fright; she had just remembered that she had given him back his pistol.
On her feet now, startled as though listening, she stood, lips slightly parted, and the soft colour gone from them. Then she went to the window and looked down the road; and came back to stand by the centre-table, her clasped hands resting on the Bible.
For a while fear had its way with her; the silent shock of it whitened her face and left her with fair head bowed above her clasped hands.
Once or twice she opened the Bible and tried to understand, choosing what she cared for most — reading of Lazarus, too. And she read about miracles — those symbolic superfluities attributed to a life which in itself was the greatest of all miracles.
And ever through the word of God glittered the memory of the pistol till fear made her faint, and she rose, her hands against her breast, and walked unsteadily out under the trees.
A bird or two had begun its sunset carol; the tree-trunks were stained with the level crimson light. Far away her gaze rested on the blue hills. Beyond them lay the accursed city.
The dull reiteration in her brain throbbed on unceasingly; she had given him his pistol; he had lied to her; she had trusted him; he had lied; and the accursed city lay beyond those hills — and he was there — with his pistol; and he had lied to her — lied! lied! God help them both!
Across her clover fields the ruddy sunlight lay in broad undulating bands, gilding blossom and curling trefoil. On every side of her the farm stretched away over a rolling country set with woods; sweet came the freshening air from the hills; she heard her collie barking at the cattle along the pasture brook; a robin carolled loudly from the orchard; orioles answered; gusts of twittering martins swept and soared and circled the chimneys.
Erect, anguished hands clenched, she stood there, wide eyes seeing nothing, and in her shrinking ears only the terrible reiteration of her growing fears.
Then the level sun struck her body with a bar of light; all the world around her smouldered rose and crimson. But after a little the shadows fell through the fading light; and she turned her head, shivering, and went back to the house — back to the room she had prepared for him, and sat there watching the shapes of dusk invade it; the vague grey ghosts that came crawling from corners and alcoves to gather at her feet and wait and wait there with her for him who would never come into her life again.
* * *
XXVII
“MISS LILY?”
She lifted her head from the sofa cushion in the dark, dazzled by the sudden lamp-light.
“What is it?” she asked, averting her face.
“There’s a gentleman says he’d like to see you — —”
The girl turned, still dully confused; then, rigid, sat bolt upright.
“Who?”
“A gentleman — said you don’t know his name. Shall I show him in?”
She managed to nod; her heart was beating so violently that she pressed her hand over it.
He saw her sitting that way when he entered.
She did not rise; pain and happiness, mingled, confusing her for a moment; and he was already seated near her, looking at her with an intentness almost expressionless.
“You see,” he said, “what the honour of a gambler is worth. I have lied to you twice already.”
His words brought her to her senses. She rose with an effort and, as he stood up, she gave him her hand.
“Don’t think me rude,” she said. “I was resting — not expecting you — and the lamp and — your coming — confused me.”
“You were not expecting me,” he said, retaining her hand an instant. Then she withdrew it; they seated themselves.
“I don’t know,” she said, “perhaps I was expecting you — and didn’t realise it.”
“Had you thought — much about it?”
“Yes,” she said.
Then it seemed as though something sealed her lips, and that nothing could ever again unseal them. All that she had to say to him vanished from her mind; she could not recall a single phrase she had prepared to lead up to all she must somehow say to him.
He talked quietly to her for a while about nothing in particular. Once she saw him turn and look around the room; and a moment afterward he spoke of the old-time charm of the place and the pretty setting such a room made for the old-fashioned flowers.
He spoke about gardens as though he had known many; he spoke of trees and of land and of stock; and, as he spoke in his pleasant, grave young voice, he noticed the portraits on the wall; and he spoke of pictures as though he had known many, and he spoke of foreign cities, and of old-world scenes. And she listened in silence and in such content that the happiness of it seemed to invade her utterly and leave her physically numb.
From time to time his dark eyes wandered from her to the objects in the room; they rested for a moment on the centre-table with its Book, lingered, passed on. For a little while he did not look at her — as though first it were necessary to come to a conclusion. Whatever the conclusion might have been, it seemed to make his eyes and mouth alternately grave and amused — but only very faintly amused — as though the subject he was considering held him closely attentive.
And at last he looked up at her, gently, not all the curiosity yet quenched.
“You are kind enough to wish to know about me; and too well bred to ask — now that the time is come. Shall I speak of myself?”
Her voiceless lips found a word.
“Then — It began in college — after my uncle died and left nothing for me to go on with. . . . I worked my way through — by my wits. . . . Up to that time it was only luck and card-sense — and luck again — the ability to hold the best cards at the best time — hold them honestly, I mean. It happens — I don’t know why or what laws govern it. Some men hold them — always hold them — with intervals of bad fortune — but only intervals.”
He gazed thoughtfully at the rag carpet, passed a well-shaped hand over his forehead.
“Yes, it is the truth. . . . And so, Fortune linked arms with me . . . and I drifted into it — gradually — not all at once . . . lower — always a little lower — until — what you saw occurred.”
She would not meet his eyes, perhaps with an idea of sparing him.
He said: “You know nothing of such things, of course. . . . I am — on a commission basis for doing what — they threw me out of that hotel for doing. . . . Of course, a man can fall lower — but not much lower. . . . The business from which I receive commissions is not honest — a square game, as they say. Some games may be square for a while; no games are perfectly square all the time. . . . I have heard of honest gamblers; I never saw one. . . . There may be some; but I’m afraid they’re like good Indians. . . . And that is the way in which Life and I are situated.”
After a while she managed to look at him.
“Could you tell me — are you — your circumstances — —”
“I am not in want,” he said gently.
“Then it is not — not necessity — —”
“No. It is easier and more interesting than for me to earn a decent living.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Have you no — regrets?”
“Sometimes. . . . I am not immune to shame. . . . I wonder whether you know what it cost me to come here.”
A dull flush mounted to his forehead, but he faced her steadily enough.
“You saw me kicked out of a hotel by an Irish servant because I was not fit to be tolerated among reputable people. . . . And you did not pass by on the other side. . . . Under your clear eyes my spirit died a thousand shameful deaths while I went with you to your destination. . . . The contempt of the whole world burnt me; and your compassion drove every flame into me — —” He checked himself, swallowed, forced a smile, and went on in his low, pleasant voice: “I am afraid I have been dramatic. . . . All I meant to say is that my humiliation, witnessed by you, is a heavier price to pay — a more painful reckoning with Fate, than I had really ever looked for.”
“I — I had no contempt for you,” she faltered.
“You could not escape it; but it is kind of you to say that.”
“You don’t understand. I had no contempt. I was — it — the dread of harm to you — frightened me. . . . And afterward I was only so sorry for you — and wanted to — to help — —”
He nodded. “The larger charity,” he said. “You may read all about it there in that Bible, but — the world takes it out in reading about it. . . . I do not mean to speak bitterly. . . . There is nothing wrong with me as far as the world goes — I mean my world. . . . Only — in the other and real world there is — you. . . . You, who did not pass by on the other side; and to whom the Scriptures there are merely the manual which you practice — for the sake of Christ.”
