Complete weird tales of.., p.728
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 728
“I wonder,” she said almost timidly, “whether you could ever listen to me.”
“Always,” he said, bending nearer to see her expression. Which having seen, he perhaps forgot to note in his little booklet, for he continued to look at her.
“I haven’t very much to say,” she said. “Only — to learn any art or trade or profession it is necessary to work at it unremittingly. But to discuss it never helped anybody.”
“My dear child,” he said, “I know that what you say was the old idea. But,” he shrugged, “I do not agree with it.”
“I am so sorry,” she said.
“Sorry? Why are you sorry?”
“I don’t know.... Perhaps because I like you.”
It was not very much to say — not a very significant declaration; but the simplicity and sweetness of it — her voice — the head bent a little in the starlight — all fixed Brown’s attention. He sat very still there in the luminous dusk of the white veranda; the dew dripped steadily like rain; the lagoon glittered.
Then, subtly, taking Brown unawares, his most treacherous enemy crept upon him with a stealth incredible, and, before Brown knew it, was in full possession of his brain. The enemy was Imagination.
Minute after minute slipped away in the scented dusk, and found Brown’s position unchanged, where he lay in his chair looking at her.
The girl also was very silent.
With what wonderful attributes his enemy, Imagination, was busily endowing the girl beside him in the starlight, there is no knowing. His muse was Thalomene, slim daughter of Zeus; and whether she was really still on Olympus or here beside him he scarcely knew, so perfectly did this young girl inspire him, so exquisitely did she fill the bill.
“It is odd,” he said, after a long while, “that merely a few hours with you should inspire me more than I have ever been inspired in all my life.”
“That,” she said unsteadily, “is your imagination.”
At the hateful word, imagination, Brown seemed to awake from the spell. Then he sat up straight, rather abruptly.
“The thing to do,” he said, still confused by his awakening, “is to consider you impersonally and make notes of everything.” And he fumbled for pencil and note-book, and, rising, stepped across to the front door, where a light was burning.
Standing under it he resolutely composed his thoughts; but to save his life he could remember nothing of which to make a memorandum.
This worried him, and finally alarmed him. And so long did he stand there, note-book open, pencil poised, and a sickly expression of dismay imprinted upon his otherwise agreeable features, that the girl rose at last from her chair, glanced in through the door at him, and then came forward.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“The matter is,” said Brown, “that I don’t seem to have anything to write about.”
“You are tired,” she said. “I think we both are a little tired.”
“I am not. Anyway, I have something to write about now. Wait a moment till I make a note of how you walk — the easy, graceful, flowing motion, so exquisitely light and — —”
“But I don’t walk like that!” she said, laughing.
“ — Graciously as a youthful goddess,” muttered Brown, scribbling away busily in his note-book. “Tell me; what motive had you just now in rising and coming to ask me what was the matter — with such a sweetly apprehensive expression in your eyes?”
“My — my motive?” she repeated, astonished.
“Yes. You had one, hadn’t you?”
“Why — I don’t know. You looked worried; so I came.”
“The motive,” said Brown, “was feminine solicitude — an emotion natural to nice women. Thank you.” And he made a note of it.
“But motives and emotions are different things,” she said timidly. “I had no motive for coming to ask you why you seemed troubled.”
“Wasn’t your motive to learn why?”
“Y-yes, I suppose so.”
He laid his head on one side and inspected her critically.
“And if anything had been amiss with me you would have been sorry, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because — one is sorry when a friend — when anyone — —”
“I am your friend,” he said. “So why not say it?”
“And I am yours — if you wish,” she said.
“Yes, I do.” He began to write: “It’s rather odd how friendship begins. We both seem to want to be friends.” And to her he said: “How does it make you feel — the idea of our being friends? What emotions does it arouse in you?”
She looked at him in sorrowful surprise. “I thought it was real friendship you meant,” she murmured, “not the sort to make a note about.”
“But I’ve got to make notes of everything. Don’t you see? Certainly our friendship is real enough — but I’ve got to study it minutely and make notes concerning it. It’s necessary to make records of everything — how you walk, stand, speak, look, how you go upstairs — —”
“I am going now,” she said.
He followed, scribbling furiously; and it is difficult to go upstairs, watch a lady go upstairs, and write about the way she does it all at the same time.
“Good-night,” she said, opening her door.
“Good-night,” he said, absently, and so intent on his scribbling that he followed her through the door into her room.
* * *
XVI
“SHE GOES UPSTAIRS as though she were floating up,” he wrote, with enthusiasm; “her lovely figure, poised on tip-toe, seems to soar upward, ascending as naturally and gracefully as the immortals ascended the golden stairs of Jacob — —”
In full flood of his treacherous imagination he seated himself on a chair beside her bed, rested the note-book on his knees, and scribbled madly, utterly oblivious to her. And it was only when he had finished, for sheer lack of material, that he recollected himself, looked up, saw how she had shrunk away from him against the wall — how the scarlet had dyed her face to her temples.
“Why — why do you come — into my bedroom?” she faltered. “Does our friendship count for no more than that with you?”
“What?” he said, bewildered.
“That you do what you have no right to do. Art — art is not enough to — to — excuse — disrespect — —”
Suddenly the tears sprang to her eyes, and she covered her flushed face with both hands.
For a moment Brown stood petrified. Then a deeper flush than hers settled heavily over his features.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She made no response.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. I do respect you,” he said.
No response.
Brown gazed at her, gazed at his note-book.
Then he hurled the note-book across the room and walked over to her as she lifted her lovely head, startled and tearful.
“You are right,” he said, swallowing nothing very desperately. “You can not be studied this way. Will you — marry me?”
“What!”
“Will you marry me?”
“Why?” she gasped.
“Because I — want to study you.”
“No!” she said, looking him straight in the eyes.
Brown thought hard for a full minute.
“Would you marry me because I love you?” he asked timidly.
The question seemed to be more than she could answer. Besides, the tears sprang to her blue eyes again, and her under lip began to tremble, and she covered her face with both hands. Which made it impossible for him to kiss her.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” he said earnestly, trembling from head to foot. “Isn’t it wonderful, dear?”
“Yes,” she whispered. The word, uttered against his shoulder, was stifled. He bent his head nearer, murmuring:
“Thalomene — Thalomene — embodiment of Truth! How wonderful it is to me that at last I find in you that absolute Truth I worship.”
“I am — the embodiment — of your — imagination,” she said. “But you will never, never believe it — most adorable of boys — dearest — dearest of men.”
And, lifting her stately and divine young head, she looked innocently at Brown while he imprinted his first and most chaste kiss upon the fresh, sweet lips of the tenth muse, Thalomene, daughter of Zeus.
* * *
“Athalie,” said the youthful novelist more in sorrow than in anger, “you are making game of everything I hold most important.”
“Provide yourself with newer and truer gods, dear child,” said the girl, laughing. “After you’ve worshipped them long enough somebody will also poke fun at them. Whereupon, if you are fortunate enough to be one of those who continues to mature until he matures himself into the Ewigkeit, you will instantly quit those same over-mauled and worn out gods for newer and truer ones.”
“And so on indefinitely,” I added.
“In literature,” began the novelist, “the great masters must stand as parents for us in our first infantile steps — —”
“No,” said the girl, “all worthy aspirants enter the field of literature as orphans. Opportunity and Fates alone stand for them in loco parentis. And the child of these is known as Destiny.”
“No cubist could beat that, Athalie,” remarked Duane. “I’m ashamed of you — or proud — I don’t know which.”
“Dear child,” she said, “you will never know the true inwardness of any sentiment you entertain concerning me until I explain it to you.”
“Smitten again hip and thigh,” said Stafford. “Fair lady, I am far too wary to tell you what I think of the art of incoherence as practised occasionally by the prettiest Priestess in the Temple.”
Athalie looked at me as the sweetmeat melted on her tongue.
“You promised me a dog,” she remarked.
“I’ve picked him out. He’ll be weaned in another week.”
“What species of pup is he?” inquired Duane.
“An Iceland terrier,” I answered. “They use them for digging out walrus and seals.”
“Thank you,” said Duane pleasantly.
“After all,” observed the girl, lifting her glass of water, “it does not concern Mr. Duane what sort of a dog you have chosen for me.”
She sipped it leisurely, looking over the delicate crystal rim at Duane.
“You are young,” she said. “‘L’enfance est le sommeil de la raison.’”
“How would you like to have an Angora kitten?” he asked, reddening slightly.
“But infancy,” she added, “is always adorable.... I think I might like a white one with blue eyes.”
“Puppies, kittens, children,” remarked Stafford— “they’re all tolerable while they’re young.”
“All of these,” said the girl softly, “I should like to have.”
And she gazed inquiringly at the crystal. But it could tell her nothing of herself or of her hopes. She turned and looked out into the dark city, a trifle wearily, it seemed to me.
* * *
XVII
AFTER A SILENCE, she lay back among her cushions and glanced at us with a faint smile.
“One day last winter,” she said, “after the last client had gone and office hours were over, I sat here thinking, wondering what in the world could be worse for a girl than to have no parents.... And I happened to glance into my crystal, and saw there an incident beginning to evolve that cheered me up, because it was a parody on my more morbid train of thought. After all, the same Chance that gives a child to its parents gives the parents to that child. You may think this is Tupper,” she added, “but it is Athalie. And that being the case, nobody will laugh.”
Nobody did laugh.
“Thank you,” she said sweetly. “Now I will tell you what I saw in my crystal when I happened to be feeling unusually alone in the world.” And with a pretty nod to us, collectively, she began.
* * *
The bulk of the cargo and a few bodies were coming ashore at the eastern end of the island, and that is where the throngs were — people from the Light House, fishermen from the inlet, and hundreds of winter tourists from St. Augustine, in white flannels and summer gowns, all attracted to Ibis Island by the grewsome spectacle of the wreck.
The West Indian hurricane had done its terrific business and had gone, leaving a turquoise sky untroubled by a cloud, and a sea of snow and cobalt.
Nothing living had been washed ashore from the wreck. As for the brig, she had vanished — if there had been anything left of her to disappear except the wreckage, human and otherwise, that had come tumbling ashore through the surf all night long.
So young Gray, seeing that there was nothing for him to do, and not caring for the spectacle at the eastern end of the island, turned on his heel and walked west through thickets of sweet bay, palmetto, and beach-grape.
He wore the lightest weight solaro, with a helmet and close-fitting puttees of the same. Two straps crossed his breast, the one supporting a well filled haversack, the other a water bottle. Except for fire arms he was equipped for darkest Africa, or for anything else on earth — at least he supposed so. He was wrong; he was not equipped for what he was about to encounter on Ibis Island.
It happened in this manner: traversing the seaward dunes, because the beach no longer afforded him even a narrow margin for a footing, shoulder deep in a tangle of beach-grapes, he chanced to glance at the little sandy cove which he was skirting, and saw there an empty fruit crate tumbling in the smother of foam, and a very small setter puppy clinging to it frantically, with every claw clutching, and his drenched tail between his legs.
Even while Gray was forcing his eager way through the tangle, he was aware of somebody else moving forward through the high scrub just west of him; and as he sprang out onto the beach and laid his hand on the stranded fruit crate, another hand, slimmer and whiter than his, fell on the crate as he dragged it out of the foamy shallows and up across the dry sand, just as a tremendous roller smashed into clouds of foam behind it.
“I beg your pardon,” said a breathless voice at his elbow, “but I think I saw this little dog first.”
Gray already was reaching for the shivering little thing, but two other hands deprived him of the puppy; and he looked up, impatient and annoyed, into the excited brown eyes of a young girl.
She had taken the dripping, clawing little creature to her breast, where it shivered and moaned and whined, shoving its cold nose up under her chin.
“I beg your pardon,” said Gray, firmly, “but I am really very certain that I first discovered that dog.”
“I am sorry you think so,” she said, clasping the creature all the tighter.
“I do think so,” insisted Gray. “I know it!”
“I am very sorry,” she repeated. Over the puppy’s shivering back her brown eyes gazed upon Gray. They were very pretty, but hostile.
“There can be no question about the ownership of this pup,” persisted Gray. “Of course, I am sorry if you really think you discovered the dog. Because you didn’t.”
“I did discover him,” she said, calmly.
“I beg your pardon. I was walking through the beach-grapes — —”
“I beg yours! I also was crossing the sweet-bay scrub when I happened to glance down at the cove and saw this poor little dog in the water.”
“That is exactly what I did! I happened to glance down, and there I saw this little dog. Instantly I sprang — —”
“So did I! — I beg your pardon for interrupting you!”
“I was merely explaining that I first saw the dog, and next I noticed you. But first of all I saw the dog.”
“That is the exact sequence in my own observations,” she rejoined calmly. “First of all I saw the dog in the water, then I heard a crash in the bush, and saw something floundering about in the tangle.”
“And,” continued Gray, much annoyed by her persistency, “no sooner had I caught hold of the crate than you came up and laid your hand on it, also. You surely must remember that I had my hand on the crate before you did!”
“I am very sorry you think so. The contrary was the case. I took firm hold of the crate, and then you aided me to draw it up out of the water.”
“It is extraordinary,” he said, “how mistaken you are concerning the actual sequence of events. Not that I doubt for a moment that you really suppose you discovered the dog. Probably you were a little excited — —”
“I was perfectly cool. Possibly you were a trifle excited.”
“Not in the least,” he retorted with calm exasperation. “I never become agitated.”
The puppy continued to shiver and drive its nose up under the girl’s chin.
“Poor little thing! Poor little shipwrecked baby!” she crooned. And, to Gray: “I don’t know why this puppy should be so cold. The water is warm enough.”
“Put it in the hot sand,” he said. “We can rub it dry.”
She hesitated, flushing perhaps at her own suspicions; but nevertheless she said:
“You would not attempt to take it if I put it down, would you?”
“I don’t intend to snatch it,” he said with dignity. “Men don’t snatch.”
So they went inland a few paces where the sand was hot and loose and deep; and there they knelt down and put the puppy on the sand.
“‘I am in possession of the dog and you merely claim possession.’”
“Scrub him thoroughly,” she suggested, pouring heaping handfuls of hot, silvery sand over the little creature.
Gray did likewise, and together they rubbed and scrubbed and rolled the puppy about until the dog began to roll on his back all by himself, twisting and wriggling and waving his big, padded paws.
“What he wants is water,” asserted Gray, unstrapping his haversack and bottle. From the one he produced an aluminum pannikin; from the other he filled it with water. The puppy drank it all while Gray and the brown-eyed girl looked on intently.
