Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “Why even our own British officers have been disturbed by these slanders,” she said, “and I think Sir Henry Clinton half believes that our Royal Greens and Rangers are merciless marauders, and that Walter Butler is a demon incarnate.”

  “I admit,” said I, “that we here in New York have doubted the mercy of the Butlers and Sir John Johnson.”

  “Then let me paint these gentlemen for you,” she said quickly.

  “But they say these gentlemen are capable of painting themselves,” I observed, tempted to excite her by the hint that the Rangers smeared their faces like painted Iroquois at their hellish work.

  “Oh, how shameful!” she cried, with a little gesture of horror. “What do you think us, there in Canada? Because our officers must needs hold a wilderness for the King, do you of New York believe us savages?”

  The generous animation, the quick color, charmed me. She was no longer English, she was Canadienne — jealous of Canadian reputation, quick to resent, sensitive, proud — heart and soul believing in the honor of her own people of the north.

  “Let me picture for you these gentlemen whom the rebels cry out upon,” she said. “Sir John Johnson is a mild, slow man, somewhat sluggish and overheavy, moderate in speech, almost cold, perhaps, yet a perfectly gallant officer.”

  “His father was a wise and honest gentleman before him,” I said sincerely. “Is his son, Sir John, like him?”

  She nodded, and went on to deal with old John Butler — nor did I stay her to confess that these Johnsons and Butlers were no strangers to me, whose blackened Broadalbin home lay a charred ruin to attest the love that old John Butler bore my family name.

  And so I stood, smiling and silent, while she spoke of Walter Butler, describing him vividly, even to his amber black eyes and his pale face, and the poetic melancholy with which he clothed the hidden blood-lust that smoldered under his smooth pale skin. But there you have it — young, proud, and melancholy — and he had danced with her at Niagara, too, and — if I knew him — he had not spared her hints of that impetuous flame that burned for all pure women deep in the blackened pit of his own damned soul.

  “Did you know his wife?” I asked, smiling.

  “Walter Butler’s — wife!” she gasped, turning on me, white as death.

  There was a silence; she drew a long, deep breath; suddenly, the gayest, sweetest little laugh followed, but it was slowly that the color returned to lip and cheek.

  “Is he not wedded?” I asked carelessly — the damned villain — at his Mohawk Valley tricks again! — and again she laughed, which was, no doubt, my wordless answer.

  “Does he dance well, this melancholy Ranger?” I asked, smiling to see her laugh.

  “Divinely, sir. I think no gentleman in New York can move a minuet with Walter Butler’s grace. Oh, you New Yorkers! You think we are nothing — fit, perhaps, for a May-pole frolic with the rustic gentry! Do not deny it, Mr. Renault. Have we not heard you on the subject? Do not your officers from Philadelphia and New York come mincing and tiptoeing through Halifax and Quebec, all smiling and staring about, quizzing glasses raised? And— ‘Very pretty! monstrous charming! spike me, but the ladies powder here!’ And, ‘Is this green grass? Damme, where’s the snow — and the polar bears, you know?’”

  I laughed as she paused, breathlessly scornful, flushed with charming indignation.

  “And is not Canada all snow?” I asked, to tease her.

  “Snow! It is sweet and green and buried in flowers!” she cried.

  “In winter, madam?”

  “Oh! You mean to plague me, which is impertinent, because I do not know you well enough — I have not known you above half an hour. I shall tell Lady Coleville.”

  “So shall I — how you abuse us all here in New York — —”

  “I did not. You are teasing me again, Mr. Renault.”

  Defiant, smiling, her resentment was, after all, only partly real.

  “We are becoming friends much too quickly to suit me,” she said deliberately.

  “But not half quickly enough to suit me,” I said.

  “Do you fancy that I take that silly speech as compliment, Mr. Renault?”

  “Ah, no, madam! On such brief acquaintance I dare not presume to offer you the compliments that burn for utterance!”

  “But you do presume to plague me — on such brief acquaintance!” she observed.

  “I am punished,” I said contritely.

  “No, you are not! You are not punished at all, because I don’t know how to, and — I am not sure I wish to punish you, Mr. Renault.”

  “Madam?”

  “If you look at me so meekly I shall laugh. Besides, it is hypocritical. There is nothing meek about you!” I bowed more meekly than ever.

  “Mr. Renault?”

  “Madam?”

  She picked up her plumed fan impatiently and snapped it open.

  “If you don’t stop being meek and answering ‘Madam’ I shall presently go distracted. Call me something else — anything — just to see how we like it. Tell me, do you know my first name?”

  “Elsin,” I said softly, and to my astonishment a faint, burning sensation stung my cheeks, growing warmer and warmer. I think she was astonished, too, for few men at twenty-three could color up in those days; and there was I, a hardened New Yorker of four years’ adoption, turning pink like a great gaby at a country fair when his sweetheart meets him at the ginger bower!

  To cover my chagrin I nodded coolly, repeating her name with a critical air— “Elsin,” I mused, outwardly foppish, inwardly amazed and mad— “Elsin — um! ah! — very pretty — very unusual,” I added, with a patronizing nod.

  She did not resent it; when at last I made bold to meet her gaze it was pensive and serene, yet I felt somehow that her innocent blue eyes had taken my measure as a man — and not to my advantage.

  “Your name is not a usual one,” she said. “When I first heard it from Sir Peter I laughed.”

  “Why?” I said coldly.

  “Why? Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Renault! It sounded so very young — Carus Renault — it sounds so young and guileless — —”

  Speechless with indignation, I caught a glimmer under the lowered lids that mocked me, and I saw her mouth quiver with the laugh fluttering for freedom.

  She looked up, all malice, and the pent laughter rippled.

  “Very well,” I said, giving in, “I shall take no pity on you in future.”

  “My dear Mr. Renault, do you think I require your pity?”

  “Not now,” I said, chagrined. “But one day you may cry out for mercy — —”

  “Which you will doubtless accord, being a gallant gentleman and no Mohawk.”

  “Oh, I can be a barbarian, too, for I am, by adoption, an Oneida of the Wolf Clan, and entitled to a seat in Council.”

  “I see,” she said, “you wear your hair à l’Iroquois.”

  I reddened again; I could not help it, knowing my hair was guiltless of powder and all awry.

  “If I had supposed you were here, do you imagine I should have presented myself unpowdered and without a waistcoat?” I said, exasperated.

  Her laughter made it no easier, though I strove to retrieve myself and return to the light badinage she had routed me from. Lord, what a tease was in this child, with her deep blue eyes and her Dresden porcelain skin of snow and roses!

  “Now,” she said, recovering her gravity, “you may return to your letter-writing, Mr. Renault. I have done with you for the moment.”

  At that I was sobered in a trice.

  “What letter-writing?” I made out to answer calmly.

  “Were you not hard at work penning a missive to some happy soul who enjoys your confidence?”

  “Why do you believe I was?” I asked.

  She tossed her head airily. “Oh! for that matter, I could even tell you what you wrote: ‘Nothing remarkable; the Hon. Elsin Grey still keeps her chamber’ — did you not write that?”

  She paused, the smi
le fading from her face. Perhaps she thought she had gone too far, perhaps something in my expression startled her.

  “I beg your pardon,” she said quickly; “have I hurt you, Mr. Renault?”

  “How did you know I wrote that?” I asked in a voice I hoped was steady.

  “Why, it is there on your shirt, Mr. Renault, imprinted backward from the wet ink. I have amused myself by studying it out letter by letter. Please forgive me — it was dreadfully indiscreet — but I only meant to torment you.”

  I looked down, taking my fine lawn shirt in both hands. There was the impression — my own writing, backward, but distinct. I remembered when I had done it, when I had gathered my ink-wet papers under my arms and leaned forward to listen to the creaking of the attic stairway. Suppose it had been Sir Peter! Suppose the imprint had been something that could have admitted of but one interpretation? I turned cold at the thought.

  She was watching me all the while, a trifle uneasy at my silence, but my smile and manner reassured her, and my gaiety she met instantly.

  “I am overwhelmed,” I said, “and can offer no excuse for this frowsy dress. If you had any idea how mortified I am you would have mercy on me.”

  “My hair not being dressed à l’Iroquois, I consent to show you mercy,” she said. “But you came monstrous near frightening me, too. Do you know you turned white, Mr. Renault? Lud! the vanity of men, to pale at a jest touching their status in fopdom as proper macaroni!”

  “I do love to appear well,” I said resentfully.

  “Now do you expect me to assure you that you do appear well? that even the dress of a ragged forest-runner would detract nothing from your person? Ah, I shall say nothing of the sort, Mr. Renault! Doubtless there are women a-plenty in New York to flatter you.”

  “No,” I said; “they prefer scarlet coats and spurs, as you will, too.”

  “No doubt,” she said, turning her head to the sunset.

  There was enough wind to flutter the ribbons on her shoulders and bare neck, and to stir the tendrils of her powdered hair, a light breeze blowing steadily from the bay as the sun went down into the crimson flood. Bang! A cloud of white smoke hung over Pearl Street where the evening gun had spoken; the flag on the fort fluttered down, the flag on the battery followed. Out on the darkening river a lanthorn glimmered from the deck of the Jersey; a light sparkled on Paulus Hook.

  “Hark! hear the drums!” she murmured. Far down Broadway the British drums sounded, nearer, nearer, now loud along Dock Street, now lost in Queen, then swinging west by north they came up Broad, into Wall; and I could hear the fifes shrilling out, “The World turned Upside-down,” and the measured tread of the patrol, marching to the Upper Barracks and the Prison.

  The drummers wheeled into Broadway beneath our windows; leaning over I saw them pass, and I was aware of something else, too — a great strapping figure in a drover’s smock, watching the British drums from the side path across the way — my friend of Nassau Street — and clinging to his arm, a little withered man, wrinkled, mild-eyed, clad also like a drover, and snapping his bull-whip to accent the rhythm of the rolling drums.

  “I think I shall go down,” said a soft voice beside me; “pray do not move, Mr. Renault, you are so picturesque in silhouette against the sunset — and I hear that silhouettes are so fashionable in New York fopdom.”

  I bowed; she held out her hand — just a trifle, as she passed me, the gesture of a coquette or of perfect innocence — and I touched it lightly with finger-tip and lip.

  “Until supper,” she said— “and, Mr. Renault, do you suppose we shall have bread for supper?”

  “Why not?” I asked, all unsuspicious.

  “Because I fancied flour might be scarce in New York” — she glanced at my unpowdered head, then fled, her blue eyes full of laughter.

  It is true that all hair powder is made of flour, but I did not use it like a Hessian. And I looked after her with an uncertain smile and with a respect born of experience and grave uncertainty.

  CHAPTER II

  THE HOUSEHOLD

  About dusk Sir Peter arrived from lower Westchester while I was dressing. Warned by the rattle of wheels from the coach-house at the foot of the garden, and peering through the curtains, I saw the lamps shining and heard the trample of our horses on the stable floor; and presently, as I expected, Sir Peter came a-knocking at my door, and my servant left the dressing of my hair to admit the master of the house. He came in, his handsome face radiant — a tall, graceful man of forty, clothed with that elegant carelessness which we call perfection, so strikingly unobtrusive was his dress, so faultless and unstudied his bearing.

  There was no dust upon him, though he had driven miles; his clean skin was cool and pleasantly tinted with the sun of summer, spotless his lace at cuff and throat, and the buckles flashed at stock and knee and shoe as he passed through the candle-light to lay a familiar hand upon my shoulder.

  “What’s new, Carus?” he asked, and his voice had ever that pleasant undertone of laughter which endears. “You villain, have you been making love to Elsin Grey, that she should come babbling of Mr. Renault, Mr. Renault, Mr. Renault ere I had set foot in my own hallway? It was indecent, I tell you — not a word for me, civil or otherwise, not a question how I had ‘scaped the Skinners at Kingsbridge — only a flutter of ribbons and a pair of pretty hands to kiss, and ‘Oh, Cousin Coleville! Is Mr. Renault kin to me, too? — for I so take it, having freely bantered him to advantage at first acquaintance. Was I bold, cousin? — but if you only knew how he tempted me — and he is kin to you, is he not? — and you are Cousin Betty’s husband.’ ‘God-a-mercy!’ said I, ‘what’s all this about Mr. Renault? — a rogue and a villain I shame to claim as kin, a swaggering, diceing, cock-fighting ruffler, a-raking it from the Out-Ward to Jew Street! Madam, do you dare admit to me that you have found aught to attract you in the company of this monument of foppery known as Carus Renault?’”

  “Did you truly say that, Sir Peter?” I asked, wincing while my ears grew hot.

  “Say it? I did not say it, I bellowed it!” He shrugged his shoulders and took snuff with an air. “The minx finds you agreeable,” he observed; “why? — God knows!”

  “I had not thought so,” I said, in modest deprecation, yet warming at his words.

  “Oh — had not thought so!” he mimicked, mincing over to the dressing-table and surveying the array of perfumes and pomades and curling irons. “Carus, you shameless rake, you’ve robbed all Queen Street! Essence, pomade-de-grasse, almond paste, bergamot, orange, French powder! By Heaven, man, do you mean to take the lady by storm or set up a rival shop to Smith’s ‘Sign of the Rose’? Here, have your man leave those two puffs above the ears; curl them loosely — that’s it! Now tie that queue-ribbon soberly; leave the flamboyant papillon style to those damned Lafayettes and Rochambeaux! Now dust your master, Dennis, and fetch a muslinet waistcoat — the silver tambour one. Gad, Carus, I’d make a monstrous fine success at decorating fops for a guinea a head — eh?”

  He inspected me through his quizzing glass, nodded, backed away in feigned rapture, and presently sat down by the window, stretching his well-shaped legs.

  “Damme,” he said, “I meant to ask what’s new, but you chatter on so that I have no chance for a word edgeways. Now, what the devil is new with you?”

  “Nothing remarkable,” I said, laughing. “Did you come to terms with Mr. Rutgers for his meadows?”

  “No,” he replied irritably, “and I care nothing for his damned swamps full of briers and mud and woodcock.”

  “It is just as well,” I said. “You can not afford more land at present.”

  “That’s true,” he admitted cheerfully; “I’m spending too much. Gad, Carus, the Fifty-fourth took it out of us at that thousand-guinea main! Which reminds me to say that our birds at Flatbush are in prime condition and I’ve matched them.”

  I looked up at him doubtfully. Our birds had brought him nothing but trouble so far.

  “Let
it pass,” he said, noticing my silent disapproval; “we’ll talk to Horrock in the morning. Which reminds me that I have no money.” He laughed, drew a paper from his coat, and unfolding it, read aloud:

  “1 pipe Madeira

  @ £90 per pipe — £90

  1 pipe Port

  @ £46 per pipe — £46

  20 gallons Fayal

  @ 5s. per gal. —

  20 gallons Lisbon

  @ 5s. per gal. —

  10 gallons Windward I. rum

  @ 4s. per gal.”

  He yawned and tossed the paper on my dresser, saying, “Pay it, Carus. If our birds win the main we’ll put the Forty-fifth under the table, and I’ll pay a few debts.”

  Standing there he stretched to his full graceful height, yawning once or twice. “I’ll go bathe, and dress for supper,” he said; “that should freshen me. Shall we rake it to-night?”

  “I’m for cards,” I said carelessly.

  “With Elsin Grey or without Elsin Grey?” he inquired in affected earnestness.

  “If you had witnessed her treatment of me,” I retorted, “you’d never mistake it for friendly interest. We’ll rake it, if you like. There’s another frolic at the John Street Theater. The Engineers play ‘The Conscious Lovers,’ and Rosamund Barry sings ‘Vain is Beauty’s Gaudy Flower.’”

  But he said he had no mind for the Theater Royal that night, and presently left me to Dennis and the mirror.

  In the mirror I saw a boyish youth of twenty-three, dark-eyed, somewhat lean of feature, and tinted with that olive smoothness of skin inherited from the Renaults through my great-grandfather — a face which in repose was a trifle worn, not handsome, but clearly cut, though not otherwise remarkable. It was, I believed, neither an evil nor a sullen brooding face, nor yet a face in which virtue molds each pleasing feature so that its goodness is patent to the world.

  Dennis having ended his ministrations, I pinned a brilliant at my throat — a gift from Lady Coleville — and shook over it the cobweb lace so it should sparkle like a star through a thin cloud. Then passing my small sword through the embroidered slashing of my coat, and choosing a handkerchief discreetly perfumed, I regarded myself at ease, thinking of Elsin Grey.