Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  “No, I promise not to say one word about it until I have your permission. I understand quite well why you desire to keep the matter from the newspapers for the present. But — won’t it make you and Lord Dankmere rich? Tell me — please tell me. I don’t want money for myself any more, but I do want it for you. You need it; you can do so much with it, use it so intelligently, so gloriously, make the world better with it, — make it more beautiful, and people happier.

  “What a chasm, Rix, between what we were a year ago, and what we care to be — what we are trying to be to-day! Sometimes I think of it, not unhappily, merely wondering.

  “Toward what goal were we moving a year ago? What was there to be of such lives? — what at the end? Why, there was, for us, no more significance in living than there is to any overfed animal! — not as much!

  “Oh, this glorious country of high clouds and far horizons! — and alas! for the Streets of Ascalon where such as I once was go to and fro— ‘clad delicately in scarlet and ornaments of gold.’

  “‘Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the Streets of Ascalon’ — that the pavements of the Philistines have bruised my feet, and their Five Cities weary me, and Philistia’s high towers are become a burden to my soul. For their gods are too many and too strange for me. So I am decided to remain here — ere ‘they that look out of their windows be darkened’ and ‘the doors be shut in the Streets’— ‘and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.’

  “My poor comrade! Must you remain a prisoner in the Streets of Ascalon? Yet, through your soul I know as free and fresh a breeze is blowing as stirs the curtains at my open window! — You wonderful man to evoke in imagery — to visualise and conceive all that had to be concrete to cure me soul and body of my hurts!

  “I have been reading Karl Westguard’s new novel. Rix, there is no story in it, nothing at all that I can discover except a very earnest warming over of several modern philosophers’ views and conclusions concerning social problems.

  “I hate to speak unkindly of it; I wanted to like it because I like Karl Westguard. But it isn’t fiction and it isn’t philosophy, and its treatment of social problems seems to follow methods already obsolete.

  “Do you think people will buy it? But I don’t suppose Karl cares since he’s made up his quarrel with his aunt.

  “Poor old lady! Did you ever see anybody so subdued and forlorn? Something has gone wrong with her. She told me that she had had a most dreadful scene with Langly and that she had not been well since.

  “I’m afraid that sounds like gossip, but I wanted you to know. Is it gossip for me to tell you so much? I tell you about everything. If it’s gossip, make me stop.

  “And now — when are you coming to see me? I am still at Molly’s, you know. My house is being cleaned and sweetened and papered and chintzed and made livable and lovable.

  “When? — please.

  “Your friend and comrade, Strelsa.”

  Quarren telegraphed:

  “I’ll come the moment I can. Look for me any day this week. Letter follows.”

  Then he wrote her a long letter, and was still at it when Jessie Vining went to lunch and when Dankmere got onto his little legs and strolled out, also. There was no need to arouse anybody’s suspicions by hurrying, so Dankmere waited until he turned the corner before his little legs began to trot. Miss Vining would be at her usual table, anyway — and probably as calmly surprised to see him as she always was. For the repeated accident of their encountering at the same restaurant seemed to furnish an endless source of astonishment to them both. Apparently Jessie Vining could never understand it, and to him it appeared to be a coincidence utterly unfathomable.

  Meanwhile Quarren had mailed his letter to Strelsa and had returned to his workshop in the basement where several canvases awaited his attention.

  And it was while he was particularly busy that the front door-bell rang and he had to go up and open.

  At first he did not recognise the figure standing on the steps in the glare of the sun; then, surprised, he held out his rather grimy hand with that instinct of kindness toward anything that seemed to need it; and the thin pallid hand of Ledwith fell limply into his, contracting nervously the next second.

  “Come in,” said Quarren, pleasantly. “It’s very nice of you to think of me, Ledwith.”

  The man’s hollow eyes avoided his and roamed restlessly about the gallery, looking at picture after picture and scarcely seeing them. Inside his loose summer clothing his thin, nervous frame was shifting continually even while he stood gazing almost vacantly at the walls of the gallery.

  For a little while Quarren endeavoured to interest him in the canvases, meaning only charity to a man who had clearly lost his grip on things; then, afraid of bewildering and distressing a mind so nearly extinct, the young fellow remained silent, merely accompanying Ledwith as he moved purposelessly hither and thither or halted capriciously, staring into space and twitching his scarred fingers.

  “You’re busy, I suppose,” he said.

  “Yes, I am,” said Quarren, frankly. “But that needn’t make any difference if you’d care to come to the basement and talk to me while I’m at work.”

  Ledwith made no reply for a moment, then, abruptly:

  “You’re always kind to me, Quarren.”

  “Get over that idea,” laughed the younger man. “Strange as it may seem my natural inclination is to like people. Come on downstairs.”

  In the littered disorder of the basement he found a chair for his visitor, then, without further excuse, went smilingly about his work, explaining it as it progressed:

  “Here’s an old picture by some Italian gink — impossible to tell by whom it was painted, but not difficult to assign it to a certain date and school.... See what I’m doing, Ledwith?

  “That’s what we call ‘rabbit glue’ because it’s made out of rabbits’ bones — or that’s the belief, anyway. It’s gilder’s glue.

  “Now I dissolve this much of it in hot water — then I glue over the face of the picture three layers of tissue-paper, one on top of the other — so!

  “Now here is a new chassis or stretcher over which I have stretched a new linen canvas. Yesterday I sponged it as a tailor sponges cloth; and now it’s dry and tight.

  “Now I’m going to reline this battered old Italian canvas. It’s already been relined — perhaps a hundred years ago. So first I take off the old relining canvas — with hot water — this way — cleaning off all the old paste or glue from it with alcohol....

  “Now here’s a pot of paste in which there is also glue and whitening; and I spread it over the back of this old painting, and then, very gingerly, glue it over the new linen canvas on the stretcher.

  “Now I smooth it with this polished wooden block, and then — just watch me do laundry work!”

  He picked up a flat-iron which was moderately warm, reversed the relined picture on a marble slab, and began to iron it out with the skill and precaution of an expert laundress doing frills.

  Ledwith looked on with a sort of tremulously fixed interest.

  “In three days,” said Quarren, laying the plastered picture away, “I’ll soak off that tissue paper with warm water. I have to keep it on, you see, so that no flakes of paint shall escape from the painting and no air get in to blister the surface.”

  He picked up another picture and displayed it:

  “Here’s a picture that I believe to be a study by Greuze. You see I have already relined it and it’s fixed on its new canvas and stretcher and is thoroughly dry and ready for cleaning. And this is how I begin.”

  He took a fine sponge, soaked it in a weak solution of alcohol, and very gingerly washed the blackened and dirty canvas. Then he dried it. Then he gave it a coat of varnish.

  “Looks foolish to varnish over a filthy and discoloured picture like this, doesn’t it, Ledwith? But I’ll tell you why. When that varnish dries hard I shall place my hand on the face of that canvas and begin very cautiously but stea
dily to rub the varnished surface with my fingers and thumb. And do you know what will happen? The new varnish has partly united with the old yellow and opaque coating of varnish and dust, and it all will turn to a fine gray powder under the friction and will come away leaving the old paint underneath almost as fresh — very often quite as fresh and delicate as when the picture was first painted.

  “Sometimes I have to use three or more coats of new varnish before I can remove the old without endangering the delicate glaze underneath. But sooner or later I get it clean.

  “Then I dig out any old patches or restorations and fill in with a composition of putty, white lead, and a drier, and smooth this with a cork. Then when it is sunned for an hour a day for three weeks or more — or less, sometimes — I’m ready to grind my pure colours, mix them, set my palette, and do as honest a piece of restoring as a study of that particular master’s methods permits. And that, Ledwith, is only a little part of my fascinating profession.

  “Sometimes I lift the entire skin of paint from a canvas — picking out the ancient threads from the rotten texture — and transfer it to a new canvas or panel. Sometimes I cross-saw a panel, then chisel to the plaster that lies beneath the painting, and so transfer it to a new and sound support. Sometimes—” he laughed— “but there are a hundred delicate and interesting surgical operations which I attempt — a thousand exciting problems to solve — experiments without end that tempt me, innovations that allure me — —”

  He laughed again:

  “You ought to take up some fad and make a business and even an art out of it!”

  “I?” said Ledwith, dully.

  “Why not? Man, you’re young yet, if — if — —”

  “Yes, I know, Quarren.... But my mind is too old — very old and very infirm — dying in me of age — the age that comes through those centuries of pain that men sometimes live through in a few months.”

  Quarren looked at him hopelessly.

  “Yet,” he said, “if only a man wills it, the world is new again.”

  “But — if the will fails?”

  “I don’t know, Ledwith.”

  “I do.” He drew up his cuff a little way, his dead eyes resting on Quarren, then, in silence, he drew the sleeve over the scars.

  “Even that can be cured,” said the younger man.

  “If there is a will to cure it, perhaps.”

  “Even a desire is enough.”

  “I have not that desire. Why cure it?”

  “Because, Ledwith, you haven’t gone your limit yet. There’s more of life; and you’re cheating yourself out of it.”

  “Yes, perhaps. But what kind of life?” he asked, staring vaguely out into the sunshine of the backyard. “Life in hell has no attractions for me.”

  “We make our own hells.”

  “I didn’t make mine. They dug the pit and I fell into it — Hell’s own pit, Quarren — —”

  “You are wrong! You fell into a pit which hurt so much that you supposed it was the pit of hell. And, taking it for granted, you burrowed deeper in blind fury, until it became a real hell. But you dug it. There is no hell that a man does not dig for himself!”

  In Ledwith’s dull eyes a smouldering spark seemed to flash, go out, then glimmer palely.

  “Quarren,” he said, “I am not going to live in hell alone. I’m going there, shortly, but not alone.”

  Something new and sinister in his eyes arrested the other’s attention. He considered the man for a few moments, then, coolly:

  “I wouldn’t, Ledwith.”

  “Why not?”

  “He isn’t worth it — even as company in hell.”

  “Do you think I’m going to let him live on?”

  “Do you care to sink to his level?”

  “Sink! Can I sink any lower than I am?”

  Quarren shrugged:

  “Easily, if you commit murder.”

  “That isn’t murder — —”

  But Quarren cut him short continuing:

  “Sink lower, you ask? What have you done, anyway — except to commit this crime against yourself?” — touching him on the wrist. “I’m not aware of any other crime committed by you, Ledwith. You’re clean as you stand — except for this damnable insult and injury you offer yourself! Can’t you reason? A bullet-stung animal sometimes turns and bites itself. Is that why you are doing it? — to arouse the amusement and contempt of your hunter?”

  “Quarren! By God you shall not say that to me — —”

  “Why not? Have you ever considered what that man must think of you to see you turn and tear at the body he has crippled?”

  Ledwith’s sunken eyes blazed; he straightened himself, took one menacing step forward; and Quarren laid a light, steady hand on his shoulder.

  “Listen to me,” he said; “has it never occurred to you that you could deal him no deeper blow than to let him see a man stand up to him, face to face, where a creature lay writhing before, biting into its own vitals?”

  He smiled into the fixed eyes of the almost mindless man:

  “If you say the word I’ll stand by you, Ledwith. If all you want to do is to punish him, murder isn’t the way. What does a dead man care? Cut your own throat and the crime might haunt him — and might not. But kill! — Nonsense. It’s all over then — except for the murderer.”

  He slid his hand quietly to Ledwith’s arm, patted it.

  “To punish him you need a doctor.... It’s only a week under the new treatment. You know that, don’t you? After that a few months to get back nerve and muscle and common sense.”

  “And then?” motioned Ledwith with dry lips.

  “Then? Oh, anything that you fancy. It’s according to a man’s personal taste. You can take him by the neck and beat him up in public if you like — or knock him down in the club as often as he gets up. It all depends, Ledwith. Some of us maintain self-respect without violence; some of us seem to require it. It’s up to you.”

  “Yes.”

  Quarren said carelessly: “If I were you, I think that I’d face the world as soon as I was physically and mentally well enough — the real world I mean, Ledwith — either here or abroad, just as I felt about it.

  “A man can get over anything except the stigma of dishonesty. And — personally I think he ought to have another chance even after that. But men’s ideas differ. As for you, what you become and show that you are, will go ultimately with the world. Beat him up if you like; but, personally, I never even wished to kick a cur. Some men kick ’em to their satisfaction; it’s a matter of taste I tell you. Besides — —”

  He stopped short; and presently Ledwith looked up.

  “Shall I say it?”

  “Yes. You are kind to me, always.”

  “Then — Ledwith, I don’t know exactly how matters stand. I can only try to put myself in your present place and imagine what I ought to do, having arrived where you have landed.... And, do you know, if I were you, and if I listened to my better self, I don’t think that I’d lay a finger on Langly Sprowl.”

  “Why?”

  “For the sake of the woman who betrayed me — and who is now betrayed in turn by the man who betrayed us both.”

  Ledwith said through his set teeth: “Do you think I care for her? If I nearly kill him, do you imagine I care what the public will say about her?”

  “You are generous enough to care, Ledwith.”

  “I am not!” he said, hoarsely. “I don’t care a damn!”

  “Then why do you care whether or not he keeps his word to her and shares with her a coat of social whitewash?”

  “I — she is only a little fool — alone to face the world now — —”

  “You’re quite right, Ledwith. She ought to have another chance. First offenders are given it by law.... But even if that chance lay in his marrying her, could you better it by killing him if he won’t do it? Or by battering him with a dog-whip?

  “It isn’t really much of a chance, considering it on a higher level than the so
cial viewpoint. How much real rehabilitation is there for a woman who marries such a man?”

  He smiled: “Because,” he continued, “my viewpoint has changed. Things that once seemed important to me seem so no longer. To live cleanly and do your best in the real world is an aspiration more attractive to me than social absolution.”

  Ledwith remained silent for a long while, then muttered something indistinctly.

  “Wait a moment,” said Quarren, throwing aside his painter’s blouse and pulling on his coat. “I’ll ring up a taxi in a second!... You mean it, Ledwith?”

  The man looked at him vacantly, then nodded.

  “You’re on!” said Quarren, briskly unhooking the telephone.

  While they were waiting Ledwith laid a shaking hand on Quarren’s sleeve and clung to it. He was trembling like a leaf when they entered the cab, whimpering when they left it in front of a wide brown-stone building composed of several old-time private residences thrown together.

  “Stand by me, Quarren,” he whispered brokenly— “you won’t go away, will you? You wouldn’t leave me to face this all — all alone. You’ve been kind to me. I — I can do it — I can try to do it just at this moment — if you’ll stay close to me — if you’ll let me keep hold of you — —”

  “Sure thing!” said Quarren cheerfully. “I’ll stay as long as you like. Don’t worry about your clothes; I’ll send for plenty of linen and things for us both. You’re all right, Ledwith — you’ve got the nerve. I — —”

  The door opened to his ring; a pleasant-faced nurse in white ushered them in.

  “Dr. Lydon will see you in a moment,” she said, singling out Ledwith at a glance.

  Later that afternoon Quarren telephoned to Dankmere that he would not return for a day or two, and gave careful instructions which Dankmere promised to observe to the letter.

  Then he sent a telegram to Strelsa:

  “Unavoidably detained in town. Hope to be up next week. Am crazy to see your house and its new owner.

  R. S. Q.”

  Dankmere at the other end of the telephone hung up the receiver, looked carefully around him to be certain that Jessie Vining was still in the basement where she had gone to straighten up one or two things for Quarren, then, with a perfectly serious face, he began to dance, softly.