Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  The sun sank lower and lower, flooding the pastures, tinging the calm meadow pools with the splendour of its fading glory. In the evening glow the turf burned like golden tapestry, the swallows twittered among the chimneys or drifted and rose high in the quiet air, and the chickens looked up with restless peeps to their roost in the lilac branches. An orange light, ever deepening, dyed the edges of the pools where the ripples of a rising fish or a low dipping gnat disturbed the surface reflection of the placid evening sky. From palest green to grey the horizon changed until, like a breath creeping over a window, a rosy flush stained the zenith. And the sun had set.

  With sunset Celia came, walking slowly over the grass that shone in the shadows with a green almost metallic. She started slightly when Garland moved in the shade of the pines, but came to him, offering her hand.

  “Then you are going,” she said simply.

  “Yes, — I am going. My train leaves at nine to-night. How did you know?”

  She glanced at his gloves and stick and smiled gently.

  “I am going,” he said, “because they want me in New York. Some day I will come back—”

  A ghost of a smile touched her lips again. He moved impatiently nearer, and she looked at his troubled eyes.

  “Shall I come back?” he asked awkwardly.

  “Yes — come; Tip will welcome you—”

  “And you?”

  “I,” — she said softly—” I don’t know.”

  “What troubles you?” he said; but she turned her head toward the sunset. “What troubles you?” he said again;— “is — is he coming?”

  She dropped her head.

  “When?” asked Garland in a hard voice. “To-night.”

  Something of the horror in her face as she turned it was reflected in his own. This, then, was the reward for her quiet struggle for life; this was the reward, — the return of this miserable actor whom she had learned to loathe — her husband! Whew! the stench of perfume and grease paint seemed to fill his nostrils; he could see the smooth fat face shaved blue, as he had seen it behind the footlights in the metropolis, the bull neck, the professional curly head!

  Then he set his teeth and dug his stick into the turf at his feet. The girl moved a step from him.

  “Celia,” he said unsteadily, “have you ever thought of divorce?”

  “Yes.”

  They were silent again. The whistle of a distant train startled Garland from his reverie and he picked up his gloves and buttoned his coat. It was the incoming train from New York. With a frightened glance at him she held out her hand, murmuring good-bye, and turned toward the house, but he stepped swiftly to her side and touched her arm.

  Oh, the terror in the eyes that met his, — and the kiss, — as she clung to his breast in the twilight there — the kiss that solved all problems, that broke down barriers and made the way plain and clear, — the way that they should travel together through life and the life to come.

  And so they went away into the world together, and Tip went with them, one dimpled hand in Garland’s, one clasping the Maltese cat close to his breast.

  THE CRIME.

  “‘How,’ says he, blessing himself, ‘would I whip this child.... if it were my child.’”

  SAMUEL, PEPYS.

  THE CRIME

  “Heark! Oh, heark! you guilty trees,

  In whose gloomy galleries

  Was the cruellest murder done

  That e’re yet eclipst the sunne.”

  I.

  NOW it happened one day in the early Springtime when the sky was china blue and filmy clouds trailed like lace across the disk of a pale sun, that I, Henry Stenhouse, nineteen years of age, well and sound in mind and body, decided to commit a crime.

  The crime which I contemplated was murder. For three years past I had watched the object of my pursuit; I had peered at him at night as he lay sleeping, I had crept stealthily to his home, evening after evening, waiting for a chance to kill him. I had seen him moving about on his daily business, growing fatter and sleeker, serene, sly, self-centred, absorbed in his own affairs, yet keeping a keen, shrewd eye upon strangers. For he mistrusted strangers; those who passed by him, not even noticing him, he mistrusted less than he did others who came to him with smiles and outstretched hands.

  He never accepted anything from anybody. A strange step or the sound of a strange voice made him shy and suspicious. But he was cold and selfish, cold-blooded as a fish — in fact he — but I had better tell you a little more about him first. He was my enemy; I determined to kill him, and perhaps he read it in my drawn face and sparkling eyes, for, as I stepped toward him, the first time, he turned and fled — fled straight across the Clovermead River.

  And although I searched the river banks up and down and up and down again, I saw no more of him that day.

  When I went home, excited, furious, I made passionate preparations to kill him. All night long I tossed feverishly in my tumbled bed, longing, aching for the morning. When the morning came I stole out of the house and bent my steps towards the river, for I had reason to believe that he lived somewhere in that neighbourhood. As I crept along, the early morning sun glittered on something that I clutched with nervous fingers. It was a weapon.

  This happened three years ago; I did not find him that morning although I searched until the shadows fell over meadow and thicket. That night too found me on his trail, but the calm Spring moon rose over Clovermead village and its pale light fell on no scene of blood.

  So for three years I trailed him and stalked him, always awaiting the moment to strike, — praying for an opportunity to slay; but he never gave me one. He was fierce and shifty, swift as lightning when aroused, but the battle that I offered he declined. Oh, he was deep, — deep and crafty, cold-blooded as a fish, — in fact, he was a fish, Mine Enemy, the Trout.

  Do you imagine that the killing of Mine Enemy was a crime? No, my friend — that, properly done, was what is known as sport; improperly done, it is murder; — there, the murder’s out! I was going to catch the trout with bait!

  You, dear brethren of the angle, brave fly-fishermen, all, wet or dry, turn not from me with loathing! Hear my confession, the confession of one who was tempted, listened, fell, and fished for a trout with a worm!

  Anyway, it’s your own fault if you throw down this book and beat your breasts with cruel violence. I told you that my story was to be the story of a crime, and if you don’t like to read about crimes, you had no business to begin this tale. There are worse crimes too, — some people habitually fish with bait; some net fish, and there exist a few degraded objects in human shape who snare trout with a wicked wire loop on the end of a sapling.

  Now I don’t propose to tell you about these things, I am no depraved realist, so thank your stars that the crime I contemplated was no worse than it was, and listen to the story of an erring brother. Mea culpa!

  I was only nineteen, a student at the State School of Engineering, and in my senior year. What I did in engineering was barely sufficient to carry me through my examination; what I did in shooting and trout fishing might have furnished material for a sporting library. I had no particular aversion to my profession; my father before me had been a mining engineer. I was not entirely ignorant either; I knew mica-chist from malachite, and I could — but that’s of no consequence now. It is true, however, that instead of applying myself to the studies of my profession I spent a great deal of time contributing to a New York sporting journal called the Trigger. I produced a couple of columns a week on such subjects as “German Trout versus Natives,”

  “Do Automatic Reels Pay?” and “Experiments with the Amherst Pheasant.” But my article entitled “The Enemies of the Spawning-Beds,” won me recognition, and I became a regular contributor to the Trigger.

  How I ever passed my examinations is one of those mysteries that had better remain uninvestigated. I don’t remember that I studied or attended many lectures. I was too busy, shooting or fishing, or writing for the Trigger.
>
  Also there existed a girls’ boarding-school a mile away.

  This school was run by two old maids, the Misses Timmins. It was the Timmins sisters’ aim in life to prevent the members of their school from coming into contact with the engineers from Clovermead; therefore we knew them all.

  The means of communication were varied and ingenious, for the little maidens at the boarding-school were quite as enthusiastic as we were. We never went through the formality of an introduction, — it was not expected; we spoke when we had the chance, and thanked fortune for the chance.

  There was, however, one weird custom laid down by the boarding-school maidens, a tradition which had existed as long as the school; and this was well understood by the Clovermead Engineers. It was this: no youth could expect to spoon with any Timmins maiden unless he first declared his intentions by serenading her.

  We were not all blessed with a high order of musical ability, — I played a harmonica, — but we were willing to try. I had tried several times. The results were very sweet, — I don’t mean in a musical way.

  So between the boarding-school and the Trigger I found little leisure, and the less leisure I had the less I felt inclined to occupy it with engineering problems. Besides, there was the big trout to think of, Mine Enemy, whom I had sworn to drag from the depths of that most delicious of streams, the Clovermead River.

  During these three years while I persistently fished for Mine Enemy (and goodness knows I had never before beheld so lusty a trout!) every fly known to anglers, and many flies unknown to anybody but myself, I tried on that impassive fish.

  And he grew fatter and fatter.

  I remember well the day of the temptation. I was sitting at the foot of the big oak tree that spreads above the pool where Mine Enemy lurked. Wearied with casting, I had sought the shadow of the oak and had lighted a cigarette to change my luck. And as I sat on the cool turf, I was aware of an angle worm, travelling along at my feet on business of its own. Scarcely conscious of what I did, I picked up a twig and tossed the little worm over the bank.

  Then, in a moment, I was sorry, for I never willingly bother little things. I watched the worm sinking slowly into the crystalline depths of the pool.

  When at last the little worm struck the bottom I suppose it was both astonished and indignant for it began to twist and turn and shoot out like a telescope over the gravelly bottom.

  I was sorry, as I say, and I hoped it might make its way to the bank again and bore into it.

  Several inquisitive minnows, half as long as the angle worm, gathered around it staring and opening their diminutive mouths. Then, all at once, the minnows darted away, scattering in every direction, and a huge shadow fell upon the gravel, a trout, monstrous, lazy, slowly gliding out from the dark bank to where the worm wriggled, pushing its pink head among the pebbles.

  Very deliberately the great fish opened his mouth — not very wide — and the little worm was gone. For five minutes the trout lay there, and I watched him, scarcely daring to breathe. After a while I cautiously reached for my rod, freed the line and leader, bent a little forward, and cast over the fish. Lightly as snowflakes falling on window panes, the flies drifted onto the placid surface of the pool. The trout did not stir.

  It was at this moment that temptation overtook me; my sinful eyes roved over the turf where the angle worm had been, and, brethren, forgive me! — I lusted after bait!!

  “It will be so easy,” whispered the tempter, “no one will ever know!”

  “Get behind me, Satan,” said I.

  “But it’s so easy, — and the big trout will never touch artificial flies!”

  “Avaunt Apollyon!” I groaned while the sweat stood in beads on my eyebrows.

  So I overcame the devil, and went away to avoid further contention. And Heaven rewarded me with the sight of a pretty girl playing a guitar at her window.

  She was so pretty that the fact alone was reward enough, but Heaven never does things by halves, Madame, and when for an instant I paused by the brier hedge to listen, the pretty girl gave me one of those swift, provoking sidelong glances, and then, touching her guitar, looked innocently up into the sky.

  And this is what she sang:

  “Young am I, and yet unskilled

  How to make a lover yield; How to keep and how to gain,

  When to love and when to feign!”

  “Take me, take me some of you

  While I yet am young and true; He that has me first is blest,

  For I may deceive the rest.”

  And the guitar went strum! tum-tum! strum! turn-turn! tinkle-tinkle-tinkle-strum! tum-tum!

  “The little innocent thing,” I thought, and looked at her through the hedge.

  She was not so very young; she might have been my own age. She was sitting in one of the windows of the dormitory which belonged to the Misses Timmins’ Select Boarding-school for Young Ladies!

  Evidently the Misses Timmins were not in the immediate neighbourhood.

  “Dear little innocent thing,” I repeated to myself.

  I moved slightly. She looked at me with that dreamy confiding look that stirs the pulses of some people. I am one of those people.

  “She is lonely,” said I to myself, “it is the duty — nay, the precious privilege of the happy to sympathize with the lonely.”

  There was a bud of sweet-brier beside my cheek. I picked it, sniffed it pensively, and looked at the girl in the window.

  She looked at me, glanced down at her guitar, thrummed a little, sighed a little, and ate a bonbon.

  Ah, that sigh! — gentle, troubling, irresistible.

  “She,” thought I to myself, “shall be my goddess, — this humble dormitory shall be my temple, this window my shrine! Hither will I come to worship and bring burnt offerings, — almonds and bon-bons. This village will not be so dull after all,” I thought to myself.

  “What time,” said I, speaking very gently, for I did not wish to disturb the Misses Timmins with my rude voice,— “what time, Mademoiselle, would it be advisable for an enamoured lover to serenade the delicious object of his adoration?”

  “We retire at half-past nine, fair sir,” said the maiden innocently.

  I knew I was not mistaken. The poor child was lonely.

  “Heavens!” said I,— “driven to retire at half past nine! Are — er — the — Misses Timmins — er — fierce?”

  “They are deaf,” said the maiden, with a childlike smile.

  “Ah, — unhappy ladies! This is a fine old building, a noble façade. Are you fond of architecture?”

  “My window is the one I am sitting in,” said the maid with simple confidence, “I could let down a string in case you had matters of grave import or state despatches to communicate.”

  “Ahem!” said I, “have you a string there now?”

  “Yes, fair sir.”

  So I slid through the hedge and stood under her window holding up my creel.

  “I have,” said I, “a few small brook trout here — nothing to boast of — but if you would accept —— — —”

  “Indeed you are too kind—”

  “They may vary the monotony of prunes and weak tea for supper—”

  “Fair sir, I see you have known other boarding-school maidens!”

  “Foi de gentilhomme!” I protested.

  “Which is not pronounced the way we pronounce French here,” she said,—” let me see the trout.”

  I opened the creel.

  “I will accept,” said the girl graciously, and let down a string, to which I fastened my creel.

  “You are very daring — how do you know that the whole school are not watching?”

  “Because,” said I, “this is the afternoon when the whole school takes a solemn ramble into the country.”

  “I am not rambling,” she said.

  “All do not ramble on days of recreation,” I replied significantly.

  “You know a great deal about this boarding-school, fair sir. I suppose you a
lso know I am confined to my room as a disciplinary precaution.”

  ‘‘ Monstrous!” I cried, suppressing my satisfaction.

  “I only made a cider cocktail,” she said.

  “Monstrous!” I repeated, “cider cocktails are no good.”

  By this time she had lowered the creel to me again and I slung it on my shoulders and picked up my rod from the lawn.

  “I will bring offerings,” I said, “do you like bon-bons, gentle maiden?”

  “Yes, and pickles,” she said gravely.

  “And music?”

  “Sometimes — not too classical—”

  “I will serenade you!” I cried enthusiastically,— “you say the Misses Timmins are deaf?”

  “Shame on you! you know they are. What do you play? I am not sure that I will accept a serenade.”

  “The banjo and the harmonica — not both at once. I play the harmonica best, but I can’t sing to it at the same time, you know. Shall I come?”

  “Y — es. Are you fond of pickled peaches? I can let some down to you.”

  I was on the point of accepting a pickled peach, — I would have accepted a pickled turnip from her, — when, out of the tail of my eye, I saw the tops of multi-coloured sunshades appearing above the crest of the hill, and I knew that the Misses Timmins were returning with their flock.

  “You must go!” she whispered hurriedly,— “go quickly!”

  “Good-bye, — good-night,” I said, “you are the loveliest, sweetest—”

  “Quick, — what?”

  “Angel, — divine, glorious, — er—”

  “Oh, hasten! What?”

  “And I love you!”

  “You mustn’t say that; — must you? Oh, hurry and say it again — if you must—”

  “Oh, I must!” I cried, heedless of all the Timminses on earth, “I really must—”

  “My name is May Thorne — go quickly now.”