Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  Outside of her own house and farm she had land to sell to the landed and republican gentry; and she sold it and they bought it with an avidity that placed her financial independence beyond doubt.

  All the morning she transacted business downtown with the lawyer. In the afternoon she went to a matinée all by herself, and would have had a most blissful day had it not been for the unquiet memory of a young man who, she had learned that morning, was fairly certain of eternal damnation.

  That evening she went back to Westchester absent-minded and depressed.

  XXV

  It was in early June when she arrived in town again. He was in the lobby as usual; he lunched at the table by the window as usual. There seemed to be nothing changed about him except that he was a handsomer man than she had supposed him.

  She ate very little luncheon. As usual, he glanced at her once — a perfectly pleasant and inoffensive glance — and resumed his luncheon and his newspaper. He was always quiet, always alone. There seemed to be a curious sort of stillness which radiated from him, laying a spell upon his environment for a few paces on every side of him. She had felt this; she felt it now.

  Downtown her business was finally transacted; she went to a matinée all by herself, and found herself staring beyond the painted curtain and the mummers — beyond the bedizened scenery — out into the world somewhere and into two dark, boyish eyes that looked so pleasantly back at her. And suddenly her own eyes filled; she bent her head and touched them with her handkerchief.

  No, she must never again come to the Hotel Aurora Borealis. There were reasons. Besides, it was no longer necessary for her to come to town at all. She must not come any more. . . . And yet, if she could only know what became of him — whether salvation ever found him ——

  The curtain fell; she rose and pinned on her hat, gathered her trifles, and moved out with the others into the afternoon sunshine of Broadway.

  That evening she dined in her room. She had brought no luggage. About ten o’clock the cab was announced.

  As she walked through the nearly deserted lobby she looked around for him. He stood near the door, talking to the hotel detective.

  Halting a moment to button her gloves, she heard the detective say:

  “Never mind the whys and whats! You fade away! Understand?”

  “By what authority do you forbid me entrance to this hotel?” asked the young man coolly.

  “Well, it’s good enough for you that I tell you to keep out!”

  “I can not comply with your suggestion. I have an appointment here in half an hour.”

  “Now you go along quietly,” said the detective. “We’ve had our eyes on you. We know all about you. And when the hotel gets wise to a guy like you we tip him off and he beats it!”

  “We can discuss that to-morrow; I tell you I have an appointment — —”

  “G’wan out o’ here!” growled the detective.

  The young man quietly fell into step beside him, but on the sidewalk he turned on him, white and desperate.

  “I tell you I’ve got to keep that appointment.” He stood aside as the girl passed him, head lowered, and halted to wait for her cab. “I tell you I’ve got to go back — —”

  “Here, you!” The detective seized his arm as he attempted to pass; the young man wheeled and flung him aside, and the next instant reeled back as the detective struck him again with his billy, knocking him halfway into the street.

  “You damned dead-beat!” he panted, “I’ll show you!”

  The young man stood swaying, his hands against his head; porters, cabmen, and the detective saw him stagger and fall heavily. And the next moment the girl was kneeling beside him.

  “Let him alone, lady,” said somebody. “That bum isn’t hurt.”

  The “bum,” in fact, was getting to his feet, groping for some support; and the girl’s arm was offered and he leaned on it a moment, clearing his eyes with a gloved hand. Suddenly he made a movement so quick that she never understood how she wrenched the short, dull-blue weapon from his hand.

  “Pick up your hat!” she gasped. “Do what I tell you!”

  He looked at her, dazed, then the blood blotted his dark eyes again. She stooped swiftly, caught up his hat, and, holding tightly to his arm, opened the other door of the taxicab.

  “They’ll kill you here,” she whispered. “Come with me. I’ve got to talk to you!”

  “Lady — are you crazy?” demanded the tall head-porter, aghast.

  But she had got him into the cab. “Drive on,” she said through clenched teeth. And the chauffeur laughed and started east.

  In the swaying cab the man beside her sat bent over, his face in his hands, blood striping the fingers of his gloves. With a shudder she placed the automatic weapon on the cushion beside her and shrank back, staring at him.

  But his senses seemed to be returning, for presently he sat up, found his handkerchief, staunched the rather insignificant abrasion, and settled back into his corner. Without looking at her he said:

  “Would you mind if I thank you? You have been very kind.”

  She could not utter a word.

  Presently he turned; and as he looked at her for the first time a faint flicker of humour seemed to touch his eyes.

  “Where are we going — if you don’t mind?” he said pleasantly.

  Then the breathless words came, haltingly.

  “I’ve got to tell you something; I’ve got to! I can’t stand aside — I can’t pass by on the other side!”

  “Thank you,” he said, smiling, “but Lazarus is all right now.”

  “I mean — something else!” Her voice fell to a whisper. “I must speak!”

  He looked pleasantly perplexed, smiling.

  “Is there anything — except a broken head — that could possibly permit me the opportunity of listening to you?”

  “I — have seen you before.”

  “And I you.”

  She leaned against her window, head resting on her hand, her heart a chaos.

  “Where are you going when — when I leave you?” she said.

  He did not answer.

  “Where?” She turned to look at him. “Are you going back to that hotel?” And, as he made no reply: “Do you wish to become a murderer, too?” she said tremulously. “I have your pistol. I ask you not to go back there.”

  After a moment he said: “No, I won’t go back. . . . Where is the pistol?”

  “You shall not have it.”

  “I think perhaps it would be safer with me.”

  “No!”

  “Very well.”

  “And — I — I ask you to keep away from that man!” She grew unconsciously dramatic. “I ask you — if you have any memory which you hold sacred — to promise me on that memory not to — to — —”

  “I won’t shoot him,” he said, watching her curiously. “Is that what you mean?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Then I promise — on my most sacred memory — the memory of a young girl who saved me from committing — what I meant to do. . . . And I thank her very deeply.”

  She said: “I did save you from — that!”

  “You did — God knows.” He himself was trembling a little; his face had turned very white.

  “Then — then — —” she forced her courage — lifted her frightened eyes, braving mockery and misconstruction— “then — is there a chance of my — helping you — further?”

  For a moment her flushed face and timid question perplexed him; then the quick blood reddened his face, and he stared at her in silence.

  “I — I can’t help it,” she faltered. “I believe in you — and in — salvation. . . . Please don’t say anything to — hurt me.”

  “No,” he said, still staring, “no, of course not. And — and thank you. You are very kind. . . . You are very kind. . . . I suppose you heard somebody say — what I am.”

  “Yes. . . . But that was long ago.”

  “Oh, you knew — you have known — for
some time?”

  “Yes.”

  He sat thinking for a while.

  Presently they both noticed that the cab had stopped — had probably been standing for some time in front of the station; and that several red-capped porters were watching them.

  “My name is Lily Hollis,” she said, “and I live at Whitebrook Farm, Westchester. . . . I am not coming to New York again — and never again to that hotel. . . . But I would like to talk to you — a little.”

  He thought a moment.

  “Do you want a gambler to call on you, Miss Hollis?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then he will do it. When?”

  “To-morrow.”

  He passed his hand over his marred young face.

  “Yes,” he said quietly, “to-morrow.”

  He looked up and met her eyes, smiled, opened the door, and stepped to the sidewalk. Then he went with her to her train. She turned at the gates and held out her hand to him; and, hat in hand, he bent his battered head and touched her gloves with twitching lips.

  “To-morrow?”

  “Certainly.”

  She said, wistfully: “May I trust in you?”

  “Yes. Tell me that you trust me.”

  “I trust you,” she said; and laid the pistol in his hands.

  His face altered subtly. “I did not mean in that way,” he said.

  “How could I trust you more?”

  “With — yourself.”

  “That is a — lesser trust,” she said faintly. “It is for you that I have been afraid.”

  He saw the colour deepen in her cheeks, looked, bit his lip in silence.

  “To-morrow?” she said under her breath.

  “Yes.”

  “Good-bye till then.”

  “Good-bye.”

  XXVI

  The next day he didn’t appear, but a letter did.

  “I merely lied to you,” he wrote. “All gamblers are liars. You should have passed by on the other side.”

  Yes, that is what she should have done; she realised it now alone there in the sunny parlour with his letter.

  There was no chance for him; or, if there was, she had not been chosen as the instrument of his salvation.

  Slowly she turned her head and looked around her at her preparations — the pitiful little preparations for him — the childish stage setting for the scene of his salvation.

  The spotless parlour had been re-dusted, cleaned, rubbed to its old-time polish. Bible and prayer-book on the mahogany centre-table had been arranged and re-arranged so many times that she no longer knew whether or not her art concealed art, and was innocently fearful that he might suspect the mise-en-scène and fight shy of her preparations for his regeneration.

  Again and again she had re-arranged the flowers and books and rumpled the un-read morning newspaper to give to the scene a careless and casual every-day allure; again and again she had straightened the rugs, then tried them in less symmetrical fashion. She let the kitten in to give a more home-like air to the room, but it squalled to go out, and she had to release it.

  Also, from the best spare room she had brought Holman Hunt’s “Shadow of the Cross” — and it had taxed her slender strength to hang it in place of the old French mezzotint of Bacchus and Ariadne.

  But the most difficult task was to disseminate among the stiff pieces of furniture and the four duplicate sofa cushions an atmosphere of pleasant and casual disorder — as though guests had left them where they were — as though the rigid chairs were accustomed to much and intimate usage.

  But the effect troubled her; every formal bit of furniture seemed to be arranged as for an ambuscade; the cushions on the carved sofa sat in a row, like dwarfs waiting; the secretary watched, every diamond pane a glittering eye. And on the wall the four portraits of her parents and grand-parents were behaving strangely, for she seemed never to be out of range of their unwinking painted eyes.

  From other rooms she had brought in ornaments, books, little odds and ends — and the unaccustomed concentration of household gods caused her much doubt and uncertainty, so fearful was she that his wise dark eyes might smilingly detect her effort.

  There had been much to do in the short time pending his arrival — the gravel path to be raked, the lawn to be rolled and cut, the carefully weeded flower beds to be searched for the tiniest spear of green which did not belong there, the veranda to be swept again, and all the potted plants to be re-arranged and the dead leaves and blossoms to be removed.

  Then there were great sheafs of iris to gather; and that, and the cutting of peonies and June roses, were matters to go about with thought and discretion, so that no unsightly spaces in bloom and foliage should be apparent to those dark, wise eyes of his that had looked on so many things in life — so many, many things of which she knew nothing.

  Also she was to offer him tea; and the baking of old-fashioned biscuits and sweets was a matter for prayerful consideration. And Hetty, the hired girl, had spent all the morning on her grand-mother’s silver, and William Pillsbury, executor of chores, had washed the doorstep and polished the windows and swept the maple-pods and poplar silk from the roof-gutters, and was now down on his knees with shears, trimming the grass under the picket-fence.

  And he was not coming after all. He was never coming.

  For a little while she failed to realise it; there was a numb sensation in her breast, a dull confusion in her mind. She sat alone in the parlour, in her pretty new gown, looking straight ahead of her, seeing nothing — not even his letter in her hand.

  And she sat there for a long while; the numbness became painful; the tension a dull endurance. Fatigue came, too; she rested her head wearily on the back of the chair and closed her eyes. But the tall clocks ticking slowly became unendurable — and the odour of the roses hurt her.

  Suddenly, through and through her shot a pang of fright; she had just remembered that she had given him back his pistol.

  On her feet now, startled as though listening, she stood, lips slightly parted, and the soft colour gone from them. Then she went to the window and looked down the road; and came back to stand by the centre-table, her clasped hands resting on the Bible.

  For a while fear had its way with her; the silent shock of it whitened her face and left her with fair head bowed above her clasped hands.

  Once or twice she opened the Bible and tried to understand, choosing what she cared for most — reading of Lazarus, too. And she read about miracles — those symbolic superfluities attributed to a life which in itself was the greatest of all miracles.

  And ever through the word of God glittered the memory of the pistol till fear made her faint, and she rose, her hands against her breast, and walked unsteadily out under the trees.

  A bird or two had begun its sunset carol; the tree-trunks were stained with the level crimson light. Far away her gaze rested on the blue hills. Beyond them lay the accursed city.

  The dull reiteration in her brain throbbed on unceasingly; she had given him his pistol; he had lied to her; she had trusted him; he had lied; and the accursed city lay beyond those hills — and he was there — with his pistol; and he had lied to her — lied! lied! God help them both!

  Across her clover fields the ruddy sunlight lay in broad undulating bands, gilding blossom and curling trefoil. On every side of her the farm stretched away over a rolling country set with woods; sweet came the freshening air from the hills; she heard her collie barking at the cattle along the pasture brook; a robin carolled loudly from the orchard; orioles answered; gusts of twittering martins swept and soared and circled the chimneys.

  Erect, anguished hands clenched, she stood there, wide eyes seeing nothing, and in her shrinking ears only the terrible reiteration of her growing fears.

  Then the level sun struck her body with a bar of light; all the world around her smouldered rose and crimson. But after a little the shadows fell through the fading light; and she turned her head, shivering, and went back to the house — back
to the room she had prepared for him, and sat there watching the shapes of dusk invade it; the vague grey ghosts that came crawling from corners and alcoves to gather at her feet and wait and wait there with her for him who would never come into her life again.

  XXVII

  “Miss lily?”

  She lifted her head from the sofa cushion in the dark, dazzled by the sudden lamp-light.

  “What is it?” she asked, averting her face.

  “There’s a gentleman says he’d like to see you — —”

  The girl turned, still dully confused; then, rigid, sat bolt upright.

  “Who?”

  “A gentleman — said you don’t know his name. Shall I show him in?”

  She managed to nod; her heart was beating so violently that she pressed her hand over it.

  He saw her sitting that way when he entered.

  She did not rise; pain and happiness, mingled, confusing her for a moment; and he was already seated near her, looking at her with an intentness almost expressionless.

  “You see,” he said, “what the honour of a gambler is worth. I have lied to you twice already.”

  His words brought her to her senses. She rose with an effort and, as he stood up, she gave him her hand.

  “Don’t think me rude,” she said. “I was resting — not expecting you — and the lamp and — your coming — confused me.”

  “You were not expecting me,” he said, retaining her hand an instant. Then she withdrew it; they seated themselves.

  “I don’t know,” she said, “perhaps I was expecting you — and didn’t realise it.”

  “Had you thought — much about it?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Then it seemed as though something sealed her lips, and that nothing could ever again unseal them. All that she had to say to him vanished from her mind; she could not recall a single phrase she had prepared to lead up to all she must somehow say to him.

  He talked quietly to her for a while about nothing in particular. Once she saw him turn and look around the room; and a moment afterward he spoke of the old-time charm of the place and the pretty setting such a room made for the old-fashioned flowers.