Complete weird tales of.., p.922
Complete Weird Tales of Robert W Chambers, page 922
He had not dared any such flippancy with Rue Carew, and the girl, who knew she was exquisitely gowned, felt an odd little pang in her heart as this young man’s praise of the Princess Mistchenka fell so easily and gaily from his lips. He might have noticed her gown, as it had been chosen with many doubts, much hesitation, and anxious consideration, for him.
She flushed a little at the momentary trace of envy:
“You are too lovely for words,” she said, rising. But the Princess gently forced her to resume her seat.
“If this young man has any discrimination,” she said, “he won’t hesitate with the golden apple, Ruhannah.”
Rue laughed and flushed:
“He hasn’t noticed my gown, and I wore it for him to notice,” she said. “But he was too deeply interested in Sandy and in tea and croissants — —”
“I did notice it!” said Neeland. And, to that young man’s surprise and annoyance, his face grew hot with embarrassment. What on earth possessed him to blush like a plow-boy! He suddenly felt like one, too, and turned sharply to the little dog, perplexed, irritated with himself and his behaviour.
Behind him the Princess was saying:
“The car is here. I shan’t stop for tea, dear. In case anything happens, I am at the Embassy.”
“The Russian Embassy,” repeated Rue.
“Yes. I may be a little late. We are to dine here en famille at eight. You will entertain James ——
“James!” she repeated, addressing him. “Do you think Ruhannah sufficiently interesting to entertain you while I am absent?”
But all his aplomb, his lack of self-consciousness, seemed to be gone; and Neeland made some reply which seemed to him both obvious and dull. And hated himself because he found himself so unaccountably abashed, realising that he was afraid of the opinions that this young girl might entertain concerning him.
“I’m going,” said the Princess. “Au revoir, dear; good-bye, James — —”
She looked at him keenly when he turned to face her, smiled, still considering him as though she had unexpectedly discovered a new feature in his expressive face.
Whatever it was she discovered seemed to make her smile a trifle more mechanical; she turned slowly to Rue Carew, hesitated, then, nodding a gay adieu, turned and left the room with Neeland at her elbow.
“I’ll tuck you in,” he began; but she said:
“Thanks; Marotte will do that.” And left him at the door.
When the car had driven away down the rue Soleil d’Or, Neeland returned to the little drawing-room where Rue was indulging Sandy with small bits of sugar.
He took up cup and buttered croissant, and for a little while nothing was said, except to Sandy who, upon invitation, repeated his opinion of the Sultan and snapped in the offered emolument with unsatiated satisfaction.
To Rue Carew as well as to Neeland there seemed to be a slight constraint between them — something not entirely new to her since they had met again after two years.
In the two years of her absence she had been very faithful to the memory of his kindness; constant in the friendship which she had given him unasked — given him first, she sometimes thought, when she was a little child in a ragged pink frock, and he was a wonderful young man who had taken the trouble to cross the pasture and warn her out of range of the guns.
He had always held his unique place in her memory and in her innocent affections; she had written to him again and again, in spite of his evident lack of interest in the girl to whom he had been kind. Rare, brief letters from him were read and reread, and laid away with her best-loved treasures. And when the prospect of actually seeing him again presented itself, she had been so frankly excited and happy that the Princess Mistchenka could find in the girl’s unfeigned delight nothing except a young girl’s touching and slightly amusing hero-worship.
But with her first exclamation when she caught sight of him at the terminal, something about her preconceived ideas of him, and her memory of him, was suddenly and subtly altered, even while his name fell from her excited lips.
Because she had suddenly realised that he was even more wonderful than she had expected or remembered, and that she did not know him at all — that she had no knowledge of this tall, handsome, well-built young fellow with his sunburnt features and his air of smiling aloofness and of graceful assurance, almost fascinating and a trifle disturbing.
Which had made the girl rather grave and timid, uncertain of the estimation in which he might hold her; no longer so sure of any encouragement from him in her perfectly obvious attitude of a friend of former days.
And so, shyly admiring, uncertain, inclined to warm response at any advance from this wonderful young man, the girl had been trying to adjust herself to this new incarnation of a certain James Neeland who had won her gratitude and who had awed her, too, from the time when, as a little girl, she had first beheld him.
She lifted her golden-grey eyes to him; a little unexpected sensation not wholly unpleasant checked her speech for a moment.
This was odd, even unaccountable. Such awkwardness, such disquieting and provincial timidity wouldn’t do.
“Would you mind telling me a little about Brookhollow?” she ventured.
Certainly he would tell her. He laid aside his plate and tea cup and told her of his visits there when he had walked over from Neeland’s Mills in the pleasant summer weather.
Nothing had changed, he assured her; mill-dam and pond and bridge, and the rushing creek below were exactly as she knew them; her house stood there at the crossroads, silent and closed in the sunshine, and under the high moon; pickerel and sunfish still haunted the shallow pond; partridges still frequented the alders and willows across her pasture; fireflies sailed through the summer night; and the crows congregated in the evening woods and talked over the events of the day.
“And my cat? You wrote that you would take care of Adoniram.”
“Adoniram is an aged patriarch and occupies the place of honour in my father’s house,” he said.
“He is well?”
“Oh, yes. He prefers his food cut finely, that is all.”
“I don’t suppose he will live very long.”
“He’s pretty old,” admitted Neeland.
She sighed and looked out of the window at the kitten in the garden. And, after an interval of silence:
“Our plot in the cemetery — is it — pretty?”
“It is beautiful,” he said, “under the great trees. It is well cared for. I had them plant the shrubs and flowers you mentioned in the list you sent me.”
“Thank you.” She lifted her eyes again to him. “I wonder if you realise how — how splendid you have always been to me.”
Surprised, he reddened, and said awkwardly that he had done nothing. Where was the easy, gay and debonaire assurance of this fluent young man? He was finding nothing to say to Rue Carew, or saying what he said as crudely and uncouthly as any haymaker in Gayfield.
He looked up, exasperated, and met her eyes squarely. And Rue Carew blushed.
They both looked elsewhere at once, but in the girl’s breast a new pulse beat; a new instinct stirred, blindly importuning her for recognition; a new confusion threatened the ordered serenity of her mind, vaguely menacing it with unaccustomed questions.
Then the instinct of self-command returned; she found composure with an effort.
“You haven’t asked me,” she said, “about my work. Would you like to know?”
He said he would; and she told him — chary of self-praise, yet eager that he should know that her masters had spoken well of her.
“And you know,” she said, “every week, now, I contribute a drawing to the illustrated paper I wrote to you about. I sent one off yesterday. But,” and she laughed shyly, “my nostrils are no longer filled with pride, because I am not contented with myself any more. I wish to do — oh, so much better work!”
“Of course. Contentment in creative work means that we have nothing more to create.”
She nodded and smiled:
“The youngest born is the most tenderly cherished — until a new one comes. It is that way with me; I am all love and devotion and tenderness and self-sacrifice while fussing over my youngest. Then a still younger comes, and I become like a heartless cat and drive away all progeny except the newly born.”
She sighed and smiled and looked up at him:
“It can’t be helped, I suppose — that is, if one’s going to have more progeny.”
“It’s our penalty for producing. Only the newest counts. And those to come are to be miracles. But they never are.”
She nodded seriously.
“When there is a better light I should like to show you some of my studies,” she ventured. “No, not now. I am too vain to risk anything except the kindest of morning lights. Because I do hope for your approval — —”
“I know they’re good,” he said. And, half laughingly: “I’m beginning to find out that you’re a rather wonderful and formidable and overpowering girl, Ruhannah.”
“You don’t think so!” she exclaimed, enchanted. “Do you? Oh, dear! Then I feel that I ought to show you my pictures and set you right immediately — —” She sprang to her feet. “I’ll get them; I’ll be only a moment — —”
She was gone before he discovered anything to say, leaving him to walk up and down the deserted room and think about her as clearly as his somewhat dislocated thoughts permitted, until she returned with both arms full of portfolios, boards, and panels.
“Now,” she said with a breathless smile, “you may mortify my pride and rebuke my vanity. I deserve it; I need it; but Oh! — don’t be too severe — —”
“Are you serious?” he asked, looking up in astonishment from the first astonishing drawing in colour which he held between his hands.
“Serious? Of course — —” She met his eyes anxiously, then her own became incredulous and the swift colour dyed her face.
“Do you like my work?” she asked in a fainter voice.
“Like it!” He continued to stare at the bewildering grace and colour of the work, turned to another and lifted it to the light:
“What’s this?” he demanded.
“A monotype.”
“You did it?”
“Y-yes.”
He seemed unable to take his eyes from it — from the exquisite figures there in the sun on the bank of the brimming river under an iris-tinted April sky.
“What do you call it, Rue?”
“Baroque.”
He continued to scrutinise it in silence, then drew another carton prepared for oil from the sheaf on the sofa.
Over autumn woods, in a windy sky, high-flying crows were buffeted and blown about. From the stark trees a few phantom leaves clung, fluttering; and the whole scene was possessed by sinuous, whirling forms — mere glimpses of supple, exquisite shapes tossing, curling, flowing through the naked woodland. A delicate finger caught at a dead leaf here; there frail arms clutched at a bending, wind-tossed bough; grey sky and ghostly forest were obsessed, bewitched by the winnowing, driving torrent of airy, half seen spirits.
“The Winds,” he said mechanically.
He looked at another — a sketch of the Princess Naïa. And somehow it made him think of vast skies and endless plains and the tumult of surging men and rattling lances.
“A Cossack,” he said, half to himself. “I never before realised it.” And he laid it aside and turned to the next.
“I haven’t brought any life studies or school drawings,” she said. “I thought I’d just show you the — the results of them and of — of whatever is in me.”
“I’m just beginning to understand what is in you,” he said.
“Tell me — what is it?” she asked, almost timidly.
“Tell you?” He rose, stood by the window looking out, then turned to her:
“What can I tell you?” he added with a short laugh. “What have I to say to a girl who can do — these — after two years abroad?”
Sheer happiness kept her silent. She had not dared hope for such approval. Even now she dared not permit herself to accept it.
“I have so much to say,” she ventured, “and such an appalling amount of work before I can learn to say it — —”
“Your work is — stunning!” he said bluntly.
“You don’t think so!” she exclaimed incredulously.
“Indeed I do! Look at what you have done in two years. Yes, grant all your aptitude and talents, just look what you’ve accomplished and where you are! Look at you yourself, too — what a stunning, bewildering sort of girl you’ve developed into!”
“Jim Neeland!”
“Certainly, Jim Neeland, of Neeland’s Mills, who has had years more study than you have, more years of advantage, and who now is an illustrator without anything in particular to distinguish him from the several thousand other American illustrators — —”
“Jim! Your work is charming!”
“How do you know?”
“Because I have everything you ever did! I sent for the magazines and cut them out; and they are in my scrapbook — —”
She hesitated, breathless, smiling back at him out of her beautiful golden-grey eyes as though challenging him to doubt her loyalty or her belief in him.
It was rather curious, too, for the girl was unusually intelligent and discriminating; and Neeland’s work was very, very commonplace.
His face had become rather sober, but the smile still lurked on his lips.
“Rue,” he said, “you are wonderfully kind. But I’m afraid I know about my work. I can draw pretty well, according to school standards; and I approach pretty nearly the same standards in painting. Probably that is why I became an instructor at the Art League. But, so far, I haven’t done anything better than what is called ‘acceptable.’”
“I don’t agree with you,” she said warmly.
“It’s very kind of you not to.” He laughed and walked to the window again, and stood there looking out across the sunny garden. “Of course,” he added over his shoulder, “I expect to get along all right. Mediocrity has the best of chances, you know.”
“You are not mediocre!”
“No, I don’t think I am. But my work is. And, do you know,” he continued thoughtfully, “that is very often the case with a man who is better equipped to act than to tell with pen or pencil how others act. I’m beginning to be afraid that I’m that sort, because I’m afraid that I get more enjoyment out of doing things than in explaining with pencil and paint how they are done.”
But Rue Carew, seated on the arm of her chair, slowly shook her head:
“I don’t think that those are the only alternatives; do you?”
“What other is there?”
She said, a little shyly:
“I think it is all right to do things if you like; make exact pictures of how things are done if you choose; but it seems to me that if one really has anything to say, one should show in one’s pictures how things might be or ought to be. Don’t you?”
He seemed surprised and interested in her logic, and she took courage to speak again in her pretty, deprecating way:
“If the function of painting and literature is to reflect reality, a mirror would do as well, wouldn’t it? But to reflect what might be or what ought to be requires something more, doesn’t it?”
“Imagination. Yes.”
“A mind, anyway.... That is what I have thought; but I’m not at all sure I am right.”
“I don’t know. The mind ought to be a mirror reflecting only the essentials of reality.”
“And that requires imagination, doesn’t it?” she asked. “You see you have put it much better than I have.”
“Have I?” he returned, smiling. “After a while you’ll persuade me that I possess your imagination, Rue. But I don’t.”
“You do, Jim — —”
“I’m sorry; I don’t. You construct, I copy; you create, I ring changes on what already is; you dissect, I skate over the surface of things — Oh, Lord! I don’t know what’s lacking in me!” he added with gay pretence of despair which possibly was less feigned than real. “But I know this, Rue Carew! I’d rather experience something interesting than make a picture of it. And I suppose that confession is fatal.”
“Why, Jim?”
“Because with me the pleasures of reality are substituted for the pleasures of imagination. Not that I don’t like to draw and paint. But my ambition in painting is and always has been bounded by the visible. And, although that does not prevent me from appreciation — from understanding and admiring your work, for example — it sets an impregnable limit to any such aspiration on my part — —”
His mobile and youthful features had become very grave; he stood a moment with lowered head as though what he was thinking of depressed him; then the quick smile came into his face and cleared it, and he said gaily:
“I’m an artistic Dobbin; a reliable, respectable sort of Fido on whom editors can depend; that’s all. Don’t feel sorry for me,” he added, laughing; “my work will be very much in demand.”
CHAPTER XXIX
EN FAMILLE
THE PRINCESS MISTCHENKA came leisurely and gracefully downstairs a little before eight that evening, much pleased with her hair, complexion, and gown.
She found Neeland alone in the music-room, standing in the attitude of the conventional Englishman with his back to the fireless grate and his hands clasped loosely behind him, waiting to be led out and fed.
The direct glance of undisguised admiration with which he greeted the Princess Naïa confirmed the impression she herself had received from her mirror, and brought an additional dash of colour into her delicate brunette face.
“Is there any doubt that you are quite the prettiest objet d’art in Paris?” he enquired anxiously, taking her hand; and her dark eyes were very friendly as he saluted her finger-tips with the reverent and slightly exaggerated appreciation of a connoisseur in sculpture.
“You hopeless Irishman,” she laughed. “It’s fortunate for women that you’re never serious, even with yourself.”
