Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  For a while he remained slanting against the piano, thoughtfully attempting to pry out the strings; then Wye returned from putting Miss Carew and Miss Trent into a carriage.

  “You come to the fort with me,” he said. “That’ll sober you. I sleep near the magazine.”

  Berkley’s face looked dreadfully battered and white, but he was master of himself, careful of his equilibrium, and very polite to everybody.

  “You’re — hic! — killin’ yourself,” said Cortlandt, balancing himself carefully in the doorway.

  “Don’t put it that way,” protested Berkley. “I’m trying to make fast time, that’s all. I’m in a hurry.”

  The other wagged his head: “You won’t last long if you keep this up. The — hic! — trouble with you is that you can’t get decently drunk. You just turn blue and white. That’s what’s — matter — you! And it kills the kind of — hic! — of man you are. B-b’lieve me,” he added shedding tears, “I’m fon’ ‘v’ you, Ber — hic! — kley.”

  He shed a few more scalding tears, waved his hand in resignation, bowed his head, caught sight of his own feet, regarded them with surprise.

  “Whose?” he inquired naively.

  “Yours,” said Berkley reassuringly. “They don’t want to go to bed.”

  “Put ’em to bed!” said Cortlandt in a stem voice. “No business wand’ring ‘round here this time of night!”

  So Berkley escorted Cortlandt to bed, bowed him politely into his room, and turned out the gas as a precaution.

  Returning, he noticed the straggling retreat of cavalry and artillery, arms fondly interlaced; then, wandering back to the other room in search of his hat, he became aware of Letty Lynden, seated at the table.

  Her slim, childish body lay partly across the table, her cheek was pillowed on one outstretched arm, the fingers of which lay loosely around the slender crystal stem of a wine-glass.

  “Are you asleep?” he asked. And saw that she was.

  So he roamed about, hunting for something or other — he forgot what — until he found it was her mantilla. Having found it, he forgot what he wanted it for and, wrapping it around his shoulders, sat down on the sofa, very silent, very white, but physically master of the demoralisation that sharpened the shadows under his cheek-bones and eyes.

  “I guess,” he said gravely to himself, “that I’d better become a gambler. It’s — a — very, ve — ry good ‘fession — no,” he added cautiously, “per — fession—” and stopped short, vexed with his difficulties of enunciation.

  He tried several polysyllables; they went better. Then he became aware of the mantilla on his shoulders.

  “Some time or other,” he said to himself with precision, “that little dancer girl ought to go home.”

  He rose steadily, walked to the table:

  “Listen to me, you funny little thing,” he said.

  No answer.

  The childlike curve of the cheek was flushed; the velvet-fringed lids lay close. For a moment he listened to the quiet breathing, then touched her arm lightly.

  The girl stirred, lifted her head, straightened up, withdrawing her fingers from the wine-glass.

  “Everybody’s gone home,” he said. “Do you want to stay here all night?”

  She rose, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands, saw the mantilla he was holding, suffered him to drop it on, her shoulders, standing there sleepy and acquiescent. Then she yawned.

  “Are you going with me, Mr. Berkley?”

  “I’ll — yes. I’ll see you safe.”

  She yawned again, laid a small hand on his arm, and together they descended the stairs, opened the front door, and went out into Twenty-third Street. He scarcely expected to find a hack at that hour, but there was one; and it drove them to her lodgings on Fourth Avenue, near Thirteenth Street. Spite of her paint and powder she seemed very young and very tired as she stood by the open door, looking drearily at the gray pallor over the roofs opposite, where day was breaking.

  “Will you — come in?”

  He had prepared to take his leave; he hesitated.

  “I think I will,” he said. “I’d like to see you with your face washed.”

  Her room was small, very plain, very neat. On the bed lay folded a white night gown; a pair of knitted pink slippers stood close together on the floor beside it. There was a cheap curtain across the alcove; she drew it, turned, looked at him; and slowly her oval face crimsoned.

  “You needn’t wash your face,” he said very gently.

  She crept into the depths of a big arm-chair and lay back watching him with inscrutable eyes.

  He did not disturb her for a while. After a few moments he got up and walked slowly about, examining the few inexpensive ornaments on wall and mantel; turned over the pages of an album, glanced at a newspaper beside it, then came back and stood beside her chair.

  “Letty?”

  She opened her eyes.

  “I suppose that this isn’t the — first time.”

  “No.”

  “It’s not far from it, though.” She was silent, but her eyes dropped.

  He sat down on the padded arm of the chair.

  “Do you know how much money I’ve made this week?” he said gaily.

  She looked up at him, surprised, and shook her head; but her velvet eyes grew wide when he told her.

  “I won it fairly,” he said. “And I’m going to stake it all on one last bet.”

  [Illustration: “I won it fairly, and I’m going to stake it all on one last bet.”]

  “On — what?”

  “On — you. Now, what do you think of that, you funny little thing?”

  “How — do you mean, Mr. Berkley?” He looked down into the eyes of a hurt child.

  “It goes into the bank in your name — if you say so.”

  “For — what?”

  “I don’t know,” he said serenely, “but I am betting it will go for rent, and board, and things a girl needs — when she has no man to ask them of — and nothing to pay for them.”

  “You mean no man — excepting — you?”

  “No,” he said wearily, “I’m not trying to buy you.”

  She crimsoned. “I thought — then why do you — —”

  “Why? Good God, child! I don’t know! How do I know why I do anything? I’ve enough left for my journey. Take this and try to behave yourself if you can — in the Canterbury and out of it! . . . And buy a new lock for that door of yours. Good night.”

  She sprang up and laid a detaining hand on his sleeve as he reached the hallway.

  “Mr. Berkley! I — I can’t — —”

  He said, smiling: “My manners are really better than that — —”

  “I didn’t mean — —”

  “You ought to. Don’t let any man take his leave in such a manner. Men believe a woman to be what she thinks she is. Think well of yourself. And go to bed. I never saw such a sleepy youngster in my life! Good night, you funny, sleepy little thing.”

  “Mr. Berkley — I can’t take — accept — —”

  “Oh, listen to her!” he said, disgusted. “Can’t I make a bet with my own money if I want to? I am betting; and you are holding the stakes. It depends on how you use them whether I win or lose.”

  “I don’t understand — I don’t, truly,” she stammered; “d-do you wish me to — leave — the Canterbury? Do you — what is it you wish?”

  “You know better than I do. I’m not advising you. Where is your home? Why don’t you go there? You have one somewhere, I suppose, haven’t you?”

  “Y-yes; I had.”

  “Well — where is it?”

  “In Philadelphia.”

  “Couldn’t you stand it?” he inquired with a sneer.

  “No.” She covered her face with her hands.

  “Trouble?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Man?”

  “Y-y-yes.”

  “Won’t they take you back?”

  “I — haven’t written
.”

  “Write. Home is no stupider than the Canterbury. Will you write?”

  She nodded, hiding her face.

  “Then — that’s settled. Meanwhile—” he took both her wrists and drew away her clinging hands:

  “I’d rather like to win this bet because — the odds are all against me.” He smiled, letting her hands swing back and hang inert at her sides.

  But she only closed her eyes and shook her head, standing there, slim and tear-stained in her ruffled, wine-stained dinner dress. And, watching her, he retreated, one step after another, slowly; and slowly closed the door, and went out into the dawn, weary, haggard, the taste of life bitter in his mouth.

  “What a spectacle,” he sneered, referring to himself, “the vicious god from the machine! Chorus of seraphim. Apotheosis of little Miss Turveydrop — —”

  He swayed a trine as he walked, but it was not from the wine.

  A policeman eyed him unfavourably,

  “No,” said Berkley, “I’m not drunk. You think I am. But I’m not.

  And I’m too tired to tell you how I left my happy, happy home.”

  In the rosy gray of the dawn he sat down on the steps of his new lodgings and gazed quietly into space.

  “This isn’t going to help,” he said. “I can stand years of it yet. And that’s much too long.”

  He brooded for a few moments.

  “I hope she doesn’t write me again. I can’t stand everything.”

  He got up with an ugly, oblique glance at the reddening sky.

  “I’m what he’s made me — and I’ve got to let her alone. . . . Let her alone. I—” He halted, laid his hand heavily on the door, standing so, motionless.

  “If I — go — near her, he’ll tell her what I am. If he didn’t, I’d have to tell her. There’s no way — anywhere — for me. And he made me so. . . . And — by God! it’s in me — in me — to — to — if she writes again—” He straightened up, turned the key calmly, and let himself in.

  Burgess was asleep, but Berkley went into his room and awoke him, shining a candle in his eyes.

  “Burgess!”

  “S-sir?”

  “Suppose you knew you could never marry a woman. Would you keep away from her? Or would you do as much as you could to break her heart first?”

  Burgess yawned: “Yes, sir.”

  “You’d do all you could?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was a long silence; then Berkley laughed. “They drowned the wrong pup,” he said pleasantly. “Good night.”

  But Burgess was already asleep again.

  CHAPTER IX

  And now at last she knew what it was she feared. For she was beginning to understand that this man was utterly unworthy, utterly insensible, without character, without one sympathetic trait that appealed to anything in her except her senses.

  She understood it now, lying there alone in her room, knowing it to be true, admitting it in all the bitter humiliation of self-contempt. But even in the light of this new self-knowledge her inclination for him seemed a thing so unreasonable, so terrible, that, confused and terrified by the fear of spiritual demoralisation, she believed that this bewildering passion was all that he had ever evoked in her, and fell sick in mind and body for the shame of it.

  A living fever was on her night and day; disordered memories of him haunted her, waking; defied her, sleeping; and her hatred for what he had awakened in her grew as her blind, childish longing to see him grew, leaving no peace for her.

  What kind of love was that? — founded on nothing, nurtured on nothing, thriving on nothing except what her senses beheld in him. Nothing higher, nothing purer, nothing more exalted had she ever learned of him than what her eyes saw; and they had seen only a man in his ripe youth, without purpose, without ideals, taking carelessly of the world what he would one day return to it — the material, born in corruption, and to corruption doomed.

  It was night she feared most. By day there were duties awaiting, or to be invented. Also, sometimes, standing on her steps, she could hear the distant sound of drums, catch a glimpse far to the eastward of some regiment bound South, the long rippling line of bayonets, a flutter of colour where the North was passing on God’s own errand. And love of country became a passion.

  Stephen came sometimes, but his news of Berkley was always indefinite, usually expressed with a shrug and emphasised in silences.

  Colonel Arran was still in Washington, but he wrote her every day, and always he asked whether Berkley had come. She never told him.

  Like thousands and thousands of other women in New York she did what she could for the soldiers, contributing from her purse, attending meetings, making havelocks, ten by eight, for the soldiers’ caps, rolling bandages, scraping lint in company with other girls of her acquaintance, visiting barracks and camps and “soldiers’ rests,” sending endless batches of pies and cakes and dozens of jars of preserves from her kitchen to the various distributing depots.

  Sainte Ursula’s Church sent out a call to its parishioners; a notice was printed in all the papers requesting any women of the congregation who had a knowledge of nursing to meet at the rectory for the purpose of organisation. And Ailsa went and enrolled herself as one who had had some hospital experience.

  Sickness among the thousands of troops in the city there already was, also a few cases of gunshots in the accident wards incident on the carelessness or ignorance of raw volunteers. But as yet in the East there had been no soldier wounded in battle, no violent death except that of the young colonel of the 1st Fire Zouaves, shot down at Alexandria.

  So there was no regular hospital duty asked of Ailsa Paige, none required; and she and a few other women attended a class of instruction conducted by her own physician, Dr. Benton, who explained the simpler necessities of emergency cases and coolly predicted that there would be plenty of need for every properly instructed woman who cared to volunteer.

  So the ladies of Sainte Ursula’s listened very seriously; and some had enough of it very soon, and some remained longer, and finally only a small residue was left — quiet, silent, attentive women of various ages who came every day to hear what Dr. Benton had to tell them, and write it down in their little morocco notebooks. And these, after a while, became the Protestant sisterhood of Sainte Ursula, and wore, on duty, the garb of gray with the pectoral scarlet heart.

  May went out with the booming of shotted guns beyond the, Southern horizon, amid rumours of dead zouaves and cavalrymen somewhere beyond Alexandria. And on that day the 7th Regiment returned to garrison the city, and the anxious city cheered its return, and people slept more soundly for it, though all day long the streets echoed with the music of troops departing, and of regiments parading for a last inspection before the last good-byes were said.

  Berkley saw some of this from his window. Never perfectly sober now, he seldom left his rooms except at night; and all day long he read, or brooded, or lay listless, or as near drunk as he ever could be, indifferent, neither patient nor impatient with a life he no longer cared enough about to either use or take.

  There were intervals when the deep despair within him awoke quivering; instants of fierce grief instantly controlled, throttled; moments of listless relaxation when some particularly contemptible trait in Burgess faintly amused him, or some attempted invasion of his miserable seclusion provoked a sneer or a haggard smile, or perhaps an uneasiness less ignoble, as when, possibly, the brief series of letters began and ended between him and the dancing girl of the Canterbury.

  ”DEAR MR. BERKLEY:

  ”Could you come for me after the theatre this evening?

  ”LETITIA LYNDEN.”

  ”DEAR LETTY:

  ”I’m afraid I couldn’t.

  ”Very truly yours,

  ”P. O. BERKLEY.”

  ”DEAR MR. BERKLEY:

  ”Am I not to see you again? I think perhaps you

  might care to hear that I have been doing what you

  wished ever since t
hat night. I have also written home,

  but nobody has replied. I don’t think they want me

  now. It is a little lonely, being what you wish me to

  be. I thought you might come sometimes. Could you?

  ”LETITIA LYNDEN.”

  ”DEAR LETITIA:

  ”I seem to be winning my bet, but nobody can ever

  tell. Wait for a while and then write home again.

  Meantime, why not make bonnets? If you want to, I’ll

  see that you get a chance.

  ”P. O. BERKLEY.”

  ”DEAR MR. BERKLEY:

  ”I don’t know how. I never had any skill. I was

  assistant in a physician’s office — once. Thank you for

  your kind and good offer — for all your goodness to me.

  I wish I could see you sometimes. You have been better

  to me than any man. Could I?

  ”LETTY.”

  ”DEAR LETTY:

  ”Why not try some physician’s office?”

  ”DEAR MR. BERKLEY:

  ”Do you wish me to? Would you see me sometimes

  if I left the Canterbury? It is so lonely — you don’t

  know, Mr. Berkley, how lonely it is to be what you wish

  me to be. Please only come and speak to me.

  ”LETTY.”

  ”DEAR LETTY:

  ”Here is a card to a nice doctor, Phineas Benton,

  M.D. I have not seen him in years; he remembers me

  as I was. You will not, of course, disillusion him. I’ve

  had to lie to him about you — and about myself. I’ve

  told him that I know your family in Philadelphia, that

  they asked me about the chances of a position here for

  you as an assistant in a physician’s office, and that now

  you had come on to seek for such a position. Let me

  know how the lie turns out.

  ”P. O. BERKLEY.”

  A fortnight later came her last letter:

  ”DEAR MR. BERKLEY: