“His name is Solomon,” I whispered. “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. I’m going to have a small bit of Solomon’s glory — sh — h! ah! I’ve got him!”
It was over in a second, and I do not believe it was painful. There was a flurry of sand, a furious flapping of flame-coloured wings, a squawk! a smothered laugh — nothing more.
Mortified, furious, Solomon marched off, shaking the river sand from wing and foot, and Diane and I, with tears of laughter in our eyes, wound the scarlet feather about a spare hook, tied it close with a thread from my coat, and whipped it firmly to the shank. I looped the improvised fly to Diane’s leader, and she shook the line free. The reel sang a sweet tune as she drew the silk through the guides, and presently she motioned me to follow her out into the rippling shallows, and I went, swinging my landing-net to my shoulder. She cast once. The fly struck the swirl and sank a little, but she drew it to the surface and the current swept it under the alders. For a moment it sank again; then the ripples parted, and a broad crimson-flecked side rolled just below the surface of the water. At the same moment the light rod curved, deeply quivering, the reel screamed like the wind in the chimney, and the straining line cut through the water, moving up the pool with lightning speed.
“Strike!” I cried, and she struck heavily, but the reel sang out like a whistling buoy, and the fish tumbled into the churning water under the falls at the head of the pool.
“Now,” said Diane, with a strange quiet in her voice, “I suppose he is gone, Louis.”
But the vicious tug and long, fierce strain contradicted her, and I stepped back a pace or two to let her fight the battle to the bitter end.
The struggle was splendid. Once I believe she became a little frightened, — the rod was staggering under the furious fish, — and she spoke in a queer, small voice: “Are you there, Louis?”
“I am here, Diane.”
“Close behind?”
“Close behind.”
She said nothing more until the great fish lay floating within reach of my net.
“Now!” she gasped.
It was done in a second; and, as I bore the deep-laden net to the beach, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure among the trees on the bank above. Diane was kneeling breathlessly on a rock beside me; she did not see the figure. I did, for an instant. It was Ferris.
VII
DINNER was over. Ferris and I lingered silently over the Burgundy, and Howlett hovered in the corner with a decanter of port until Ferris shook his head.
It had been a silent dinner. Ferris tried to be cordial, and failed. Then he tried to be indifferent, with better success. We exchanged a word or two concerning a new keeper who was to be stationed at the notch in the north, and I spoke to Howlett about cleaning the lamps.
Neither of us mentioned rods or trout, although Howlett had served us a delicious sea-trout that evening which had fallen to Ferris’s rod, over which we ordinarily should have exulted.
Ferris of course knew that I had seen him among the trees on the bank above the long pool. It was my place to speak; we both understood that, but I did not. What was there to say? Suppose I should go back to the beginning and tell him — not all, but all that I was bound in honour to tell him. What would he think if I spoke of the Spirit-bird, of the Silent Land, of my long deception? An explanation was due him — I felt that with a vague sense of anger and humiliation. For weeks I had abandoned him; I never thought about his being lonely, but I knew now that he had felt it deeply. Oh, it was the underhand part of the business that sickened me, the daily deceit, the double dealing. Ferris was no infant. A word would have been enough. I had never by sign or speech spoken that word which would at least have set me right with him, and which I could have spoken honourably. And moreover, if I had spoken that word, — no, not a word even, a look would have been enough, — Ferris would never have entered the western forest belt.
We sat dawdling over our wine in the glow of the long candles while the fire crackled in the chimney place; for the evening was chilly, and Solomon brooded sullenly before the blaze. Howlett, noiseless and pompous, glided from side-board to table, decorously avoiding the evil jabs from Solomon’s curved bill, until Ferris woke up and told him he might retire, which he did with a modest “good-night, sir,” and a haughty glance at Solomon. A half hour of strained silence followed. I leaned on the table, my head on my hands, watching the candle light reflected on the fragile wine glasses. Myriads of little flames glistened on the crystal bowls, deep stained with the red wine’s glow. The fire snapped and sparkled on the hearth, and Solomon slept, his wizened head buried in the depths of his flaming plumage.
And as we sat there, there came a faint tapping at the curtained window. Ferris did not hear it I did, for it was the Spirit-bird.
“I must go,” said I, rising suddenly.
“Where?” said Ferris.
I looked at him stupidly for a moment, then sank back into my chair.
Solomon stirred in his slumber and I heard the wind rising in the chimney.
Ferris leaned across the table and touched my sleeve.
I looked at him silently.
“I must speak,” he said; “are you ready?”
I did not reply.
“Sadness and silence have no place here, between you and me. Shall I tell you a story I once read?”
“I am half asleep,” I muttered.
“This is the story,” he said, unheeding my words. “There was once a King in Carcosa—”
My hand fell heavily upon the table.
“ — And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies—”
“For God’s sake, Ferris—”
“Yes,” he said, “for God’s sake.”
We sat staring at each other across the table, and if my face was as white as his I do not know, but my hand trembled among the glasses till they tinkled.
“I was born in France,” he said at last. “You did not know it, for I never told you. What do you know about me after all? Nothing. What have years of friendship taught you about my past? Nothing. Now learn. My father was shot dead by an inferior officer in Rouen. The assassin escaped to Canada where — I found him. He died by his own hand — from choice. I did not know he had a child.”
The dull fear at my heart must have looked from my eyes. Ferris nodded.
“Yes, you know the rest,” he said; “the shame and disgrace of the suicide drove the child away — anywhere to escape it — anywhere — here, into the wilderness the woman fled where she hath a place prepared of God.”
The Spirit-bird was tapping on the window, I heard the noise of wings beating against the pane.
“I must go,” I said, and my voice sounded within me as from a great distance.
“Vengeance is God’s,” said Ferris, quietly: “lam guilty.”
“I must go,” I repeated, steadying myself with my hand on the table.
The noise of wings filled my ears. I knew the summons.
“Do you not hear?” I cried.
“The wind,” said Ferris.
Then the door slowly opened from without, the long candles flared in the wind, and the ashes stirred and drifted among the embers on the hearth. And out of the night came a slender figure, with dark eyes wide, and timid hands outstretched — outstretched until they fell into my own and lay there.
“I came from the Silent Land,” she said; “the bird lead me; see, it has entered with me, Louis.”
“It is my wife who has entered,” I said quietly to Ferris, and the little maid clung close to me, holding out one slim hand to Ferris.
There was an interval of silence.
“Father Gregory will breakfast with us tomorrow,” said Ferris to me.
“A Priest?”
“Open the window,” smiled Ferris; “there is a small grey bird here.”
So I opened the window and it flew away.
“Good-night,” whispered the little maid, and kissed her h
and to the open window.
“Diane!”
She came to me quietly. Ferris had vanished; Solomon peered dreamily at us with filmy eyes.
“The Spirit-bird has gone,” she said.
Then, with her arms about my neck, I raised her head, touching her white brow with my lips.
* * * *
When my wife read as far as you have read, she picked up the embroidery which she had dropped beside her on the table.
“Do you like my story?” I asked.
But she only smiled at me from under her straight eyebrows.
The next morning I received her ultimatum; I am to cease writing about beautiful women of doubtful antecedents who inhabit forest glades, I am to stop making fun of Howlett, I am to curb my passion for rod and gun, and, if I insist on writing about my wife, I am to tell the truth concerning her. This I have promised Ysonde to do, and I shall try to, in “The Black Water.”
THE BLACK WATER.
“Lorsque la coquette Espérance
Nous pousse le coude en passant,
Puis a tire-d’aile s’élance,
Et se retourne en souriant;
“Où va l’homme! Où son coeur l’appelle!
L’hirondelle suit le zephyr,
Et moins légère est l’hirondelle
Que l’homme qui suit son désir.”
THE BLACK WATER
“Oh! could you view the melodie
Of ev’ry grace,
And musick of her face,
You’d drop a teare,
Seeing more harmonie
In her bright eye,
Then now you heare.”
LOVELACE.
I.
YSONDE swung her racquet. Her laughter was very sweet. A robin on the tip of a balsam-tree cocked his head to listen; a shy snow-bird peered at her through the meadow grass.
“What are you laughingat?” I asked, uneasily. I spoke sharply — I had not intended to. The porcupine on the porch lifted his head, his rising quills grating on the piazza; a drab-coloured cow, knee deep in the sedge, stared at me in stupid disapproval.
“I beg your pardon, Ysonde,” I said, sulkily, for I felt the rebuke of the cow. Then Ysonde laughed again; the robin chirped in sympathy, and the snow-bird crept to the edge of the tennis-court.
“Deuce,” I said, picking up a ball, “are you ready?”
She stepped back, making me a mocking reverence. Her eyes were bluer than the flowering flax behind her.
I had intended to send her a swift service, and I should have done so had I not noticed her eyes.
“Deuce,” I repeated, pausing to recover the composure necessary for good tennis. She made a gesture with her racquet. The service was a miserable failure. I drove the second ball into the net, and then, placing the butt of my racquet on the turf, sat down on the rim.
“Vantage out,” said I, gritting my teeth; “what were you laughing at, Ysonde?”
“Vantage out,” she repeated; “I am not laughing.”
“You were,” I said; “you are now.”
She went to the boxwood hedge, picked out one ball and sent it back; then she drove the other over the net and retired to her corner swinging her racquet. I did not move.
“You are spoiling your racquet,” she said.
I was sitting on it. I knew better.
“And your temper,” she said, sweetly.
“Vantage out,” I repeated, and raised my tennis-bat for a smashing service. The ball whistled close to the net, and the white dust flew from her court, but her racquet caught it fair and square and I heard the ring of the strings as the ball shot along my left alley and dropped exactly on the service line. How I got it I don’t know, but the next moment a puff of dust rose in her vantage court, there was a rustle of skirts, a twinkle of small tennis shoes, and the ball rocketed, higher, higher, into the misty sunshine.
“Oh,” gasped Ysonde, and bit her lip.
The ball began to come down. I had time to laugh before it struck, — to laugh quietly and twirl my short moustache.
“I shall place that ball,” said I, “where you will not find it easily”; and I did, deliberately.
For a second Ysonde was disappointed, I could see that, but I imagined there was the slightest tremour of relief in her voice when she said:
“Brute force is useless, Bobby; listen to the voice of the Prophetess.”
“I hear,” I said, “the echo of your voice in the throat of every bird.”
“Which is very pretty but unfair,” said Ysonde, looking at the snow-birds beside her. “It is unfair,” she repeated.
“Yes,” said I, “it is unfair; are you ready?”
“Let us finish the game this afternoon,” she suggested; “look at these snow-birds, Bobby; if I raise my racquet it will frighten them.”
“And you imagine,” said I, “that these snowbirds are going to interrupt the game — this game?”
“What a pity to frighten them; see — look how close they come to me? Do you think the little things are tamed by hunger?”
“Some creatures are not tamed by anything,” I said.
“Are you hungry?” she asked, innocently.
I was glad that I suppressed my anger.
“Ysonde,” I said, “you know what this game means to me — to us.”
“I know nothing about it,” she said, hastily, retreating to her corner; “play — it’s deuce you know.”
“I know,” I replied, and sent a merciless ball shooting across her deuce court.
“Vantage in,” I observed, trying not to smile.
A swift glance from her wide eyes, a perceptible tremble of the long lashes — that was all; but I knew what I knew, for I have hunted wild creatures.
The porcupine on the piazza rose, sniffed, blinked in the sunlight, and lumbered down the steps, every quill erect.
“Billy! Go back this minute!” said Ysonde.
The quills on Billy’s back flattened.
“Billy,” I repeated, “go and climb a tree.”
“If you speak to him he will bristle again,’, said Ysonde, walking over to the porcupine.
“Billy, my child, climb this pretty balsam tree for the gentleman; come — you are interrupting the game, and the gentleman is impatient.”
“The gentleman is very impatient, Billy,” I said.
I saw Ysonde colour — a soft faint tint, nothing more; I saw Billy receive a gentle impulse — oh, very gentle indeed, from the point of her slender tennis shoes. So the porcupine was hustled up the balsam-tree, where he lay like an old mat, untidy, mortified, nursing his wrath, while two blue-birds tittered among the branches above him.
Ysonde came back and stood in the game court.
“It is vantage, I believe,” she said, indifferently.
“Out,” said I, with significance. Ysonde looked at me.
“Out,” I repeated.
“Play,” she said, desperately.
“No,” I replied, sitting down upon the edge of my racquet again — I knew better— “let us clearly understand the consequences first.”
She swung her racquet and looked me full in the eyes.
“What consequences?” she said.
“The consequences incident upon my winning this set.”
“What consequences?” she insisted, defiantly.
“The forfeit,” said I.
“When you win the set we will discuss that,” she said. “Do you imagine you will win?”
She was a better player than I; she could give me thirty on each game.
“Yes,” I said, and I believe the misery in my voice would have moved a tigress to pity.
Now perhaps it was because there is nothing of the tigress about Ysonde, perhaps because I showed my fear of her — I don’t know which — but I saw her scarlet lips press one upon the other, and I saw her eyes darken like violet velvet at night.
“Play,” she said; “lam ready.”
The first ball struck the net; the racquet turned in
my nerveless hand, and she smiled.
“Play!” I cried, and the second ball bit the lime dust at her feet. I saw the flash of her racquet, I saw a streak of gray lightning, and I lifted my racquet, but something struck me in the face, — the tennis-balls were heavy and wet, — and I staggered about blindly, faint with pain.
“Oh, Bobby!” cried Ysonde, and stood quite still.
“I’m a duffer, I muttered, trying to open my eye, but the pain sickened me. I placed my hand over it and looked out upon the world with one eye. The drab-coloured cow was watching me; she was chewing her cud; the porcupine had one sardonic eye fixed upon me; the robin, balanced on the tip of the balsam, mocked me. It was plain that the creatures were all on her side. The wild snow-birds scarcely moved as Ysonde hastened across the court to my side. I heard the blue-birds tittering over head, but I did not care; I had heard the tones of Ysonde’s voice, and I was glad that I had been banged in the eye. It was true she had only said, “Oh, Bobby!”
“Is it very painful?” she asked, standing close beside me.
“Yes,” I replied, seriously.
“Let me look,” she said, laying one hand on the sleeve of my cricket shirt.
“Billy will rejoice at this,” said I, removing my handkerchief so she could see the eyes. The pain was becoming intense. With my uninjured eye I could see how white her hand was.
She stood still a moment; my arm grew warm beneath her hand.
“It will cheer Billy,” I suggested; “did I tell you that he bit me yesterday and I whacked him? No? Well, he did, and I did.”
“How can you!” she murmured; “how can you speak of that ridiculous Billy when you may have — have to be blind?”
“Nonsense,” I said, with a shiver.
She crossed the turf to the spring and brought her handkerchief back soaking and cold as ice. I felt her palm on my cheek as she adjusted it. It was smooth, like an apricot.
“Hold it there,” I said, bribing my conscience; “it is very pleasant.” She thought I meant the wet handkerchief.
“If — if I have ruined your sight”: she began.
Now it was on the tip of my tongue to add— “and yet you are going to ruin my life by beating me at tennis,” but my conscience revolted.
“Do you think it is serious?” she asked, in a voice so low that I bent my head involuntarily. She mistook the gesture for one of silent acquiescence. A tear — a large warm one — fell on my wrist; I thought it was a drop of water from the handkerchief at first. Then I opened my uninjured eye and saw her mistake.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 1061