Complete weird tales of.., p.791
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 791
“Bread and fire,” she repeated half to herself, her brown eyes fixed on the sparkling waters flowing through the woodlands which already were decorating the swift currents with gaily painted autumn leaves.
“Bread and fire — for the body,” he repeated lightly. “But minds also hunger.”
“The process of starvation is slower before the mind dies, Mr. Dean.”
“And the soul?”
“That is the most fragile. It dies very easily — even unexpectedly.”
“What nonsense,” he said, smiling; “it is deathless. And you know it.” Her brown eyes stared absently at the water. “How do you know?”
“That the soul is deathless?”
“Yes. How do you know?”
“Is it necessary to cite holy writ to you, Miss Allende?”
“It is not necessary. Also it is use less. I ask for facts, not surmises. How do you know that the soul is deathless?”
“You need not tell me that you have no creed,” he insisted pleasantly.
“No, I need not tell you that.”
“Because you have a creed,” he concluded.
“You are mistaken.”
“You are mistaken. Youth always believes something.”
“Youth?” she repeated, looking up at him. And suddenly in her brown eyes he seemed to catch a glimpse of outer darkness — of depths unsuspected, terribly profound. She lowered her head again and sat absently watching the brilliant maple leaves sailing past on the hurrying current below.
“You are very young,” he said in a troubled voice.
“Yes.... If you call that youth, — If you merely count my years — or the scarcity of them. Yes, I am young enough in years.... Shall we go back to the house — if you are ready?”
“Have you no belief?”
“Are you an evangelist?” she asked almost insolently.
He reddened: “No; — I had not meant to invade your privacy.”
Her pretty head dropped slowly: She said in a low voice: “I had not meant to answer you as I did. I am sorry.”
They sat silent after that until on some swift impulse she turned toward him, perhaps to learn what expression his features might be wearing.
He looked back at her very steadily. “We were good comrades — even friends,” he said. “But I had not meant to abuse our friendship.”
“You did not abuse it.... I was not indifferent to what you were saying to me, — not impatient. Only — for me — life has been — severe.... It hurt — to hear you speak so contentedly of creeds — secure in your own agreeable belief.... Does it seem impossible to you that there are those who live their lives out without one single thing to thank God for?”
He remained silent, his eyes intent on her flushed face. Once her lip quivered, instantly bitten under control; once there was a starry glint in her eyes like a faint glimmer reflected from some deep source of tears not wholly dry.
“You do believe — something!” he said, partly to himself.
She forced a smile and shook her head slightly: “Not I, Mr. Dean,... Except that you have been amiable and kind to me.... Also, if you do leave your dogs for me to board for you, I really believe you will return in October for the shooting.”
“You think the dogs are the only ties (hat might draw me back to Anne’s Bridge?”
“And the shooting.”
“Don’t you think our friendship might draw me back?”
She rose to her feet: “Hardly,” she said.
So together they sauntered back through the woods where a few crimson leaves floated earthward now and then, and the blue-jays, not yet very noisy, were nevertheless on the Wing and already much in evidence.
At the door she said, carelessly:
“When do you go to the city?”
“In a day or two I think. I am expecting a letter which will settle matters.”
The letter came after supper by rural delivery.
Dean, who had strolled down to the stream alone, found it on the table in his bedroom when he returned.
He read it there, very carefully by candle light:
DEAR JIM:
The various properties involved aggregate something over eight thousand acres, which I feel confident is sufficient for the purpose you have in mind.
There are a dozen or more owners; some parcels may be bought in at tax sales, others require manœuvering.
I shall proceed very cautiously through several agents and brokers, covering our tracks. If suspicion were once aroused among those half starved catamounts of Sagamore County they’d sting you hard for every worthless acre.
Leave it to me to assemble the piece and round it out at rock-bed prices.
The law is very distinct concerning the stocking of any stream with trout by the State: unless all the owners of riparian rights consent, the mere stocking by the State does not close the stream to private control.
In Sagamore County the State has stocked many of the streams, but has, so far, never asked for the consent of the land owners through whose property the various streams run.
Therefore there is no question of your right to control the streams after purchase.
The titles of the several owners in these dozen or so parcels I have had searched. All titles are sound excepting only the titles of two unimportant pieces along the east boundary. One of these is an undivided parcel entailed to minors. The title to the other is cloudy. Neither are necessary to round out your estate.
One matter I think you ought to know about. The Allende property, as you know, is now controlled by a young woman, Angelina Allende, at whose house, you write me, you are boarding. It’s concerning any dealings with her that I wish to caution you. Better let me, through one or more agents, deal with her. The agent at Sagamore City, through whom I made inquiries after receiving your first letter from Anne’s Bridge, writes me that this Angelina Allende has served a term in prison and that her reputation is not good at Anne’s Bridge.
Therefore, your suggestion that you personally conduct the negotiations for the property might be injudicious. Real estate deals and the acquiring of any considerable acreage are matters for delicate negotiation and require, usually, the services of agents experienced in that business. This is all the more true when one of the parties to the deal is of doubtful antecedents — or is, as it happens in this case, of antecedents about which, unfortunately, there can remain no doubt.
Consequently I think you had better permit me, through proper agents, to deal with the Allende woman.
On hearing from you I shall start things in that direction, as I have already begun the preliminaries in other directions.
With best wishes, and awaiting your reply, I am, Yours always, ALEXANDER WELDEN.
His candle had burned to the socket before he moved, straightened his shoulders, slowly folded the letter, and place it carefully in his breast pocket.
For a few moments longer he sat there, leaning slightly forward, his eyes fixed on the blank wall. Then slowly, he drew a sheet of note paper toward him and wrote:
DEAR ALEX:
I am convinced that you have made a terrible mistake in regard to Miss Allende. The agent at Sagamore City must have confused Miss Allende with somebody else.
I am absolutely certain of this, and that Miss Allende is a woman of purest character and highest probity. Therefore I shall say to her very frankly at the proper moment that I should be glad to purchase her property. And I shall certainly pay whatever she decides it to be worth.
Yours,
JAMES DEAN, JR.
P. S. — Be good enough to notify this agent of yours that he is in error concerning Miss Allende’s antecedents, and suggest to him that he inform himself more accurately in future before he ventures to place such a stigma upon anybody, and, in particular, upon an upright and blameless woman. It’s the limit, Alex!
He sealed, stamped, and directed his letter. About midnight he arose from his bed, relighted the remains of his candle, pasted several more stamps on the envelope and wrote under them “special delivery.”
But he could not sleep even after that, and it was almost dawn before he finally closed his eyes.
IV
HE AWOKE NERVOUS and upset.
The more he thought of Welden’s letter the more angry and disgusted he became: the stupid irresponsibility of such charges incensed him.
In that frame of mind a man is inclined toward extremes; and when Dean came in to breakfast there was in his greeting of Miss Allende a directness and warmth which perhaps over-colored his accustomed cordiality, This attitude of his, so entirely new to them both, left her flushed and reticent; but he chatted on gaily as she came and went between alcove and kitchen; and, at moments she paused in her routine to raise her brown eyes and cast a swift, half curious, half disconcerted glance at him, conscious of the subtle change in their tranquil relations but uncertain as to its exact nature.
Afterward he seemed to desire her companionship for a walk in the woods; proposed that they take their luncheon with them, too. But she had ironing to do, and mending — and a multitude of other duties which had accumulated during the two weeks fishing with him and acting as his daily guide.
Nor did his sincere offer of assistance seem to appeal to her, and she told him smilingly that his aid would only impede and embarrass her.
However, she permitted him to split kindlings, detach a few ears of corn and disinter several necessary potatoes. Then she suggested that he amuse himself otherwise. So he went for a long walk with his dogs to perfect their field work; and they stood several native woodcock in a most exemplary manner, and Mike disgraced himself only once with the grouse, — losing his head and breaking point where he stood in a brier patch the centre of a whirling maelstrom of rising birds.
That night Miss Allende retired early. Her boarder sat alone in the starlight on the stone step before the door. The parrot, half asleep on his apple bough, croaked at intervals in his dreams. And, as Dean finally arose and went indoors, he heard the drowsy bird muttering about trouble — plenty of it — plenty. And lay sleepless for hours, restless, aware of stars through his open window shining far away above the woods.
When he entered the breakfast alcove the next morning, he happened to be wearing his moccasins, which made no sound on the bare floor; and so failed to arouse her where she sat listlessly awaiting his appearance.
Her arms were folded across the back of a kitchen chair; her cheek rested on them; every fibre in her seemed relaxed, inert; only her brown eyes wide and darkly brooding betrayed that she was awake.
When she suddenly became aware of him she rose as though startled; and he could see the color returning slowly to her cheeks.
“Didn’t you sleep well?” he asked, frankly concerned.
“Yes. I always sleep.”
“You seem a trifle pale.”
Busy with her breakfast she made no answer, coming and going in silence through the early sunshine which slanted in wide bands through the window.
When again he suggested a ramble together she shook her head explaining that many duties awaited her in house and garden. And again he took himself off to the yellowing woods where for hours he wandered along the stream watching the courtships and combats of the trout darting and dashing hither and thither amid the floating painted leaves of autumn.
After dinner he went back to the stream again and remained there until supper time, thinking.
There was a letter beside his plate when he returned at eventide. He glanced at the sealed envelope, marked “private,” from time to time, as he ate; then, rising, he took the letter to his room, lighted a candle, and broke the three red seals:
DEAR JIM:
Here are the facts as guardedly communicated to me by Max Blenker, our agent at Sagamore City.
I telephoned him at once upon receiving your letter, asking him to substantiate his serious charges concerning the young woman in question.
In an hour he called me up again; I made a shorthand copy of what he said; and here is the entire substance of his report:
Her mother was an eastern woman of refinement, education, and wealth. She died in childbirth. The baby lived and was named Angelina.
Her father, Dr. Allende, put all the money which his wife left him into farms, mills, wood-lots, water-rights, and city lots at Anne’s Bridge.
The girl was sent to a boarding school in New York when she was twelve. She remained there until she became sixteen, when her father died from a combination of morphine and broken heart.
She bad to leave school; there was nothing left her except the ruined property at Anne’s Bridge.
She went back there and tried to do something with the place. Imagine! A schoolgirl! Finally she advertised the property for sale. There were no offers. About a year later, however, when the girl was seventeen, a man wrote her about the property and she entered into negotiations with a real estate agent in New York named Bink, and, at his request, went on to consult him personally. (This is part of her testimony.)
She had no experience; she was only seventeen; and she got in wrong. This man, Adolph Bink, took her about, introduced her to various masculine and feminine friends, and nearly succeeded in getting the title to her property away from her. He might have succeeded had he not been drunk and premature.
It appears that he gave a noisy supper party one night at the Red Stocking Inn; it ended in a row and a shot or two. It seems that the Allende girl struck Bink with a flower bowl. The police pulled the whole bunch. Bink was sent up on charges preferred by some prowling P. M. agent; the others were fined or handed a few days apiece — all except the little Allende girl.
Three judges sat to consider her case; and they concluded to send her to the Samaritan Reformatory for three years.
That’s the history. It’s not as serious as I supposed. It was not prison; it was the reformatory — your choice of two unsavory odors.
Her record seems to have been bad there; she tried to escape several times — if you call that “bad.” She behaved “like an enraged wild bird in a cage,” so they told me at the reformatory when I went there this noon to investigate.
After her release she returned to Anne’s Bridge. And that is her record.
As for her reputation at Anne’s Bridge, you know what the malice of a backwoods hamlet can be.
Innocent or guilty, her record damns her among the God-fearing of Sagamore County.
Whether she remained an innocent victim, or -whether she became, at heart and in morals, one of Bink’s bunch, I don’t know. It’s to her credit that she tried to kill Bink.
At the Samaritan they charged her only with sullenness, reticence, and untiring attempts to escape.
Now, Jim, use your own judgment. But if you take my advice, fight shy of any personal financial dealings with anybody whose moral turpitude has landed them at any time within the meshes of the law. You can never be certain about such people. You can’t afford to give them the benefit of the doubt. Business is business.
Shall I start my agents in negotiating for the Allende property? Wire me at once.
WELDEN.
When the young man finished the letter he flung himself on his bed to face the third white night at Anne’s Bridge. —
It was an interminable night, and full of stars and vibrant with the fairy trilling of a little owl which hunted incessantly among the willows of the waterside.
His dogs also heard it: far and dull from the recesses of the locked barn came their muffled barking. And always, incessant, louder as the breeze rose, softer as it failed, the sighing of the pines and the steady undertone of flowing water filled his ears.
Very early in the morning Dean, fully dressed, hailed the rural mail deliverer and gave him a telegram to be sent from Tamarack Junction.
The telegram said: “I shall conduct negotiations here as I see fit. Attend to other parcels at once.” no The rising sun striped the dewy grass with slender shadow’s as he turned toward the old yellow house again; a few birds sang; masses of blue asters and powdery thickets of golden-rod glimmered with dew; acres of elfin spider-webs carpeted the ground sagging with iridescent drops.
Smoke drifted above one dilapidated chimney of the yellow house: evidently Miss Allende was already astir.
She looked around in pretty surprise when he appeared at the kitchen door, then her eyes grew more intent, for the wear of sleepless nights was pallidly imprinted on his smiling features.
He denied that he had not slept well.
“I made up my mind,” he explained, “that I am tired of breakfasting, dining, and supping in my own company. I shall do half the work and we shall hereafter sit at table together!”
“That is not convenient,” she said, flushing to her ear-tips.
“Make it so. If you are my landlady you ought to behave like one!” She protested that she was also cook and chamber-maid, still smiling at him in her pretty, flushed manner; but he would concede nothing to her. And he began to prowl about the range and handle pots and pans and kettles until in her laughing distress she promised to honor him with her company at breakfast.
She kept her word and they breakfasted opposite each other, he gay and talkative, she inclined to silence with now and then an upward glance from her brown eyes at this smiling guest of hers who had so abruptly developed a talent for having his own way.
And after breakfast he rolled up the sleeves of his gray fishing shirt and told her firmly that many seasons of camp life had qualified him for housework.
She protested, even seriously, but his gay spirits and boyish bullying left her helpless: and presently she was favored by the spectacle of a sunburnt young man in knickerbockers and flannel shirt scrubbing tableware and dishes, setting water to boil, stoking the range and shaking it down, and finally coming over to her for commendation, requesting it so naively that there floated from her pretty lips the first real, untroubled laugh that he had heard since he first set eyes on her.
“Have I done well?” he insisted. “If I have won’t you come for a walk with me?”
