Chambers Robert William
In the Quarter
Three
When Gethryn unclosed his eyes the dazzling sunlight almost blinded him. A thousand grotesque figures danced before him, a hot red vapor seemed to envelop him. He felt a dull pain in his ears and a numb sensation about the legs. Gradually he recalled the scene that had just passed; the flying crowd lashed by that pitiless iron scourge; the cruel panic; the mad, suffocating rush; and then that crash of thunder which had crushed him.
He lay quite still, not offering to move. A strange languor seemed to weigh down his very heart. The air reeked with powder smoke. Not a breath was stirring.
Presently the numbness in his knees changed to a hot, pricking throb. He tried to move his legs, but found he could not. Then a sudden thought sent the blood with a rush to his heart. Perhaps he no longer had any legs! He remembered to have heard of legless men whose phantom members caused them many uncomfortable sensations. He certainly had a dull pain where his legs belonged, but the question was, had he legs also? The doubt was too much, and with a faint cry he struggled to rise.
``The devil!'' exclaimed a voice close to his head, and a pair of startled eyes met his own. `` The devil!'' repeated the owner of the eyes, as if to a apostrophize some particular one. He was a bird-like little fellow, with thin canary-colored hair and eyebrows and colorless eyes, and he was seated upon a campstool about two feet from Gethryn's head.
He blinked at Gethryn. ``These Frenchmen,'' said he, ``have as many lives as a cat.''
``Thanks!'' said Gethryn, smiling faintly.
``An Englishman! The devil!'' shouted the pale-eyed man, hopping in haste from his campstool and dropping a well-thumbed sketching-block as he did so.
``Don't be an ass,'' suggested Gethryn; ``you'd much better help me to get up.''
``Look here,'' cried the other, ``how was I to know you were not done for?''
``What's the matter with me?'' said Gethryn. ``Are my – my legs gone?''
The little man glanced at Gethryn's shoes.
No, they're all there, unless you originally had more than the normal number – in fact I'm afraid – I think you're all right.
Gethryn stared at him.
``And what the devil am I to do with this sketch?'' he continued, kicking the fallen block. ``I've been at it for an hour. It isn't half bad, you know. I was going to call it `Love in Death.' It was for the London Illustrated Mirror.''
Gethryn lay quite still. He had decided the little fellow was mad.
``Dead in each other's arms!'' continued the stranger, sentimentally. ``She so fair – he so brave – ''
Gethryn sprang up impatiently, but only a little way. Something held him down and he fell back.
``Do you want to get up?'' asked the stranger.
``I should rather think so.''
The other bent down and placed his hands under Gethryn's arms, and – half helped, half by his own impatient efforts – Rex sat up, leaning against the other man. A sharp twinge shot through the numbness of his legs, and his eyes, seeking the cause, fell upon the body of a woman. She lay across his knees, apparently dead. Rex remembered her now for the first time.
``Lift her,'' he said weakly.
The little man with some difficulty succeeded in moving the body; then Gethryn, putting one arm around the other's neck, struggled up. He was stiff, and toppled about a little, but before long he was pretty steady on his feet.
``The woman,'' he said, ``perhaps she is not dead.''
``Dead she is,'' said the Artist of the Mirror cheerfully, gathering up his pencils, which lay scattered on the steps of the pedestal. He leaned over the little heap of crumpled clothing.
``Shot, I fancy,'' he muttered.
Gethryn, feeling his strength returning and the circulation restored to his limbs, went over to the place where she lay.
``Have you a flask?'' he asked. The little Artist eyed him suspiciously.
``Are you a newspaperman?''
``No, an art student.''
``Nothing to do with newspapers?''
``No.''
``I don't drink,'' said the queer little person.
``I never said you did,'' said Gethryn. ``Have you a flask, or haven't you?''
The stranger slowly produced one, and poured a few drops into his pink palm.
``We may as well try,'' he said, and began to chafe her forehead. ``Here, take the whiskey – let it trickle, so, between her teeth. Don't spill any more than you can help,'' he added.
``Has she been shot?'' asked Gethryn.
``Crushed, maybe.''
``Poor little thing, look at her roll of music!'' said Gethryn, wiping a few drops of blood from her pallid face, and glancing compassionately at the helpless, dust-covered figure.
``I'm afraid it's no use – ''
``Give her some more whiskey, quick!'' interrupted the stranger.
Gethryn tremblingly poured a few more drops between the parted lips. A faint color came into her temples. She moved, shivered from head to foot, and then, with a half-choked sob, opened her eyes.
``Mon Dieu, comme je souffre!''
``Where do you suffer?'' said Gethryn gently.
``The arm; I think it is broken.''
Gethryn stood up and looked about for help. The Place was nearly deserted. The blue-jacketed hussars were still standing over by the Avenue, and an occasional heavy, red-faced cuirassier walked his sweating horse slowly up and down the square. A few policemen lounged against the river wall, chatting with the sentries, and far down the dusty Rue Royale, the cannon winked and blinked before the Church of the Madeleine.
The rumble of wheels caused him to turn. A clumsy, blue-covered wagon drew up at the second fountain. It was a military ambulance. A red-capped trooper sprang down jingling from one of the horses, and was joined by two others who had followed the ambulance and who also dismounted. Then the three approached a group of policemen who were lifting something from the pavement. At the same moment he heard voices beside him, and turning, found that the girl had risen and was sitting on the campstool, her head leaning against the little stranger's shoulder.
An officer stood looking down at her. His boots were spotless. The band of purple on his red and gold cap showed that he was a surgeon.
``Can we be of any assistance to madame?'' he inquired.
``I was looking for a cab,'' said Gethryn, ``but perhaps she is not strong enough to be taken to her home.''
A frightened look came into the girl's face and she glanced anxiously at the ambulance. The surgeon knelt quietly beside her.
``Madame is not seriously hurt,'' he said, after a rapid examination. ``The right arm is a little strained, but it will be nothing, I assure you, Madame; a matter of a few days, that is all.''
He rose and stood brushing the knees of his trousers with his handkerchief. ``Monsieur is a foreigner?''
Gethryn smiled. ``The accent?''
``On the contrary, I assure you, Monsieur,'' cried the officer with more politeness than truth. He eyed the ambulance. ``The people of Paris have learned a lesson today,'' he said.
A trooper clattered up, leading an officer's horse, and dismounted, saluting. The young surgeon glanced at his watch.
``Picard,'' he said, ``stop a closed cab and send it here.''
The trooper wheeled his horse and galloped away across the square, and the officer turned to the others.
``Madame, I trust, will soon recover,'' he said courteously. ``Madame, messieurs, I have the honor to salute you.'' And with many a clink and jingle, he sprang into the saddle and clattered away in the wake of the slowly moving ambulance.
At the corner of the Rue Royale, Gethryn saw the trooper stop a cab and point to the Obelisk. He went over and asked the canary-colored stranger, ``Will you take her home, or shall I?''
``Why, you, of course; you brought her here.''
``No, I didn't. I never saw her until I noticed her being pushed about by the crowd.'' He caught the girl's eye and colored furiously, hoping she did not suspect the nature of their discussion. Before her helplessness it seemed so brutal.
The cab drew up before the Obelisk and a gruff voice cried, ``V'la! M'ssieurs! – 'dames!''
``Put your arm on my shoulder – so,'' said Gethryn, and the two men raised her gently. Once in the cab, she sank back, looking limp and white. Gethryn turned sharply to the other man.
``Shall I go?''
``Rather,'' replied the little stranger, pleasantly.
Opening his coat in haste, he produced a square of pasteboard. ``My card,'' he said, offering one to Gethryn, who bowed and fumbled in his pockets. As usual, his card-case was in another coat.
``I'm sorry I have none,'' he said at length, ``but my name is Reginald Gethryn, and I shall give myself the pleasure of calling to thank you for – ''
``For nothing,'' laughed the other, ``excepting for the sketch, which you may have when you come to see me.''
``Thanks, and au revoir,'' glancing at the card. ``Au revoir, Mr Bulfinch.''
He was giving the signal to the cabby when his new acquaintance stopped him.
``You're quite sure – you – er – don't know any newspapermen?''
``Quite.''
``All right – all right – and – er – just don't mention about my having a flask, if you do meet any of them. I – er – keep it for others. I don't drink.''
``Certainly not,'' began Gethryn, but Mr T. Hoppley Bulfinch had seized his campstool and trotted away across the square.
Gethryn leaned into the cab.
``Will you give me your address?'' he asked gently.
``Rue Monsieur le Prince – 430 – '' she whispered. ``Do you know where it is?''
``Yes,'' said Gethryn. It was his own number.
``Rue Monsieur le Prince 430'', he repeated to the driver, and stepping in, softly shut the door.
Four
Rain was falling steadily. The sparrows huddled under the eaves, or hopped disconsolately along the windowsills, uttering short, ill-tempered chirps. The wind was rising, blowing in quick, sharp gusts and sweeping the forest of rain spears, rank upon rank, in mad dashes against the glass-roofed studio.
Gethryn, curled up in a corner of his sofa, listlessly watched the showers of pink and white blossoms which whirled and eddied down from the rocking chestnuts, falling into the windy court in little heaps. One or two stiff-legged flies crawled rheumatically along the window glass, only to fall on their backs and lie there buzzing.
The two bull pups had silently watched the antics of these maudlin creatures, but their interest changed to indignation when one sodden insect attempted a final ascent and fell noisily upon the floor under their very noses. Then they rose as one dog and leaped madly upon the intruder, or meant to; but being pups, and uncertain in their estimation of distances, they brought up with startled yelps against the wall. Gethryn took them in his arms, where they found consolation in chewing the buttons off his coat. The parrot had driven the raven nearly crazy by turning upside down and staring at him for fifteen minutes of insulting silence. Mrs Gummidge was engaged in a matronly and sedate toilet, interrupting herself now and then to bestow a critical glance upon the parrot. She heartily approved of his attitude toward the raven, and although the old cynic cared nothing for Mrs Gummidge's opinion, he found a sour satisfaction in warning her of her enemy's hostile intentions. This he always did with a croak, causing Mrs Gummidge to look up just in time, and the raven to hop back disconcerted.
The rain beat a constant tattoo on the roof, and this, mingling with the drowsy purr of the cat, who was now marching to and fro with tail erect in front of Gethryn, exercised a soothing influence, and presently a snore so shocked the parrot that he felt obliged to relieve his mind by a series of intricate gymnastics upon his perch.
Gethryn was roused by a violent hammering on his door. The room had grown dark, and night had come on while he slept.
``All right – coming,'' he shouted, groping his way across the room. Slipping the bolt, he opened the door and looked out, but could see nothing in the dark hallway. Then he felt himself seized and hugged and dragged back into his studio, where he was treated to a heavy slap on the shoulder. Then someone struck a match and presently, by the light of a candle, he saw Clifford and Elliott, and farther back in the shade another form which he thought he knew.
Clifford began, ``Here you are! We thought you were dead – killed through my infernal fooling.'' He turned very red, and stammered, ``Tell him, Elliott.''
``Why, you see,'' said Elliott, ``we've been hunting for you high and low since the fight yesterday afternoon. Clifford was nearly crazy. He said it was his fault. We went to the Morgue and then to the hospitals, and finally to the police – '' A knock interrupted him, and a policeman appeared at the door.
Clifford looked sheepish.
``The young gentleman who is missing – this is his room?'' inquired the policeman.
``Oh, he's found – he's all right,'' said Clifford, hurriedly. The officer stared.
``Here he is,'' said Elliott, pointing to Rex.
The man transferred his stare to Gethryn, but did not offer to move.
``I am the supposed deceased,'' laughed Rex, with a little bow.
``But how am I to know?'' said the officer.
``Why, here I am.''
``But,'' said the man, suspiciously, ``I want to know how I am to know?''
``Nonsense,'' said Elliott, laughing.
``But, Monsieur,'' expostulated the officer, politely.
``This is Reginald Gethryn, artist, I tell you!''
The policeman shrugged his shoulders. He was noncommittal and very polite.
``Messieurs,'' he said, ``my orders are to lock up this room.''
``But it's my room, I can't spare my room,'' laughed Gethryn. ``From whom did you take your orders?''
``From Monsieur the Prefect of the Seine.''
``Oh, it is all right, then,'' said Gethryn. ``Take a seat.''
He went to his desk, wrote a hasty note, and then called the man. ``Read that, if you please, Monsieur Sergeant de Ville.''
The man's eyes grew round. ``Certainly, Monsieur, I will take the note to the Prefect,'' he said; ``Monsieur will pardon the intrusion.''
``Don't mention it,'' said Rex, smiling, and slipped a franc into his big red fist. The officer pocketed it with a demure ``Merci, Monsieur,'' and presently the clank of his bayonet died away on the stairs.
``Well,'' said Elliott, ``you're found.'' Clifford was beginning again with self-reproaches and self-abasement, but Rex broke in: ``You fellows are awfully good – I do assure you I appreciate it. But I wasn't in any more danger than the rest of you. What about Thaxton and the Colossus and Carleton?'' He grew anxious as he named them.
``We all got off with no trouble at all, only we missed you – and then the troops fired, and they chased us over the bridge and scattered us in the Quarter, and we all drifted one by one into the Café des Écoles. And then you didn't come, and we waited till after dinner, and finally came here to find your door locked – ''
``Oh!'' burst out Clifford, ``I tell you, Rex – damn it! I will express my feelings!''
``No, you won't,'' said Rex; ``drop 'em, old boy, don't express 'em. Here we are – that's enough, isn't it, Shakespeare?''
The bird had climbed to Gethryn's shoulder and was cocking his eye fondly at Clifford. They were dear friends. Once he had walked up Clifford's arm and had grabbed him by the ear, for which Clifford, more in sorrow than in anger, soaked him in cold water. Since that, their mutual understanding had been perfect.
``Where are you going to, you old fiend?'' said Clifford, tickling the parrot's throat.
``Hell!'' shrieked the bird.
``Good Heavens! I never taught him that,'' said Gethryn.
Clifford smiled, without committing himself.
``But where were you, Rex?'' asked Elliott.
Rex flushed. ``Hullo,'' cried Clifford, ``here's Reginald blushing. If I didn't know him better I'd swear there's a woman in it.'' The dark figure at the end of the room rose and walked swiftly over, and Rex saw that it was Braith, as he had supposed.
``I swear I forgot him,'' laughed Elliott. ``What a queer bird you are, Braith, squatting over there as silent as a stuffed owl!''
``He has been walking his legs off after you,'' began Clifford, but Braith cut him short with a brusque –
``Where were you, Rex?''
Gethryn winced. ``I'd rather – I think'' – he began, slowly –
``Excuse me – it's not my business,'' growled Braith, throwing himself into a seat and beginning to rub Mrs Gummidge the wrong way. ``Confound the cat!'' he added, examining some red parallel lines which suddenly decorated the back of his hand.
``She won't stand rubbing the wrong way,'' said Rex, smiling uneasily.
``Like the rest of us,'' said Elliott.
``More fool he who tries it,'' said Braith, and looked at Gethryn with an affectionate smile that made him turn redder than before.
``Rex,'' began Clifford again, with that fine tact for which he was celebrated, ``own up! You spent last night warbling under the windows of Lisette.''
``Or Frisette,'' said Elliott, ``or Cosette.''
``Or Babette, Lisette, Frisette, Cosette, Babette!'' chanted the two young men in a sort of catch.
Braith so seldom swore, that the round oath with which he broke into their vocal exercises stopped them through sheer astonishment. But Clifford, determined on self-assertion and loving an argument, especially out of season, turned on Braith and began:
``Why should not Youth love?''
``Love! Bah!'' said Braith.
``Why Bah?'' he persisted, stimulated by the disgust of Braith. ``Now if a man – take Elliott, for example – ''
``Take yourself,'' cried the other.
``Well – myself, for example. Suppose when my hours of weary toil are over – returning to my lonely cell, I encounter the blue eyes of Ninette on the way, or the brown eyes of Cosette, or perhaps the black eyes of – ''
Braith stamped impatiently.
``Lisette,'' said Clifford, sweetly. ``Why should I not refresh my drooping spirits by adoring Lisette – Cos– ''
``Oh, come, you said that before,'' said Gethryn. ``You're getting to be a bore, Clifford.''
``You at least can no longer reproach me,'' said the other, with a quick look that increased Gethryn's embarrassment.
``Let him talk his talk of bewitching grisettes, and gay students,'' said Braith, more angry than Rex had ever seen him. ``He's never content except when he's dangling after some fool worse than himself. Damn this `Bohemian love' rot! I've been here longer than you have, Clifford,'' he said, suddenly softening and turning half apologetically to the latter, who nodded to intimate that he hadn't taken offense. ``I've seen all that shabby romance turn into such reality as you wouldn't like to face. I've seen promising lives go out in ruin and disgrace – here in this very street – in this very house – lives that started exactly on the lines that you are finding so mighty pleasant just now.''
Clifford was in danger of being silenced. That would never do.
``Papa Braith,'' he smiled, ``is it that you too have been through the mill? Shall I present your compliments to the miller? I'm going. Come, Elliott.''
Elliott took up his hat and followed.
``Braith,'' he said, ``we'll drink your health as we go through the mill.''
``Remember that the mill grinds slowly but surely,'' said Braith.
``He speaks in parables,'' laughed Clifford, halfway downstairs, and the two took up the catch they had improvised, singing, ``Lisette – Cosette – Ninette – '' in thirds more or less out of tune, until Gethryn shut the door on the last echoes that came up from the hall below.
Gethryn came back and sat down, and Braith took a seat beside him, but neither spoke. Braith had his pipe and Rex his cigarette.
When the former was ready, he began to speak. He could not conceal the effort it cost him, but that wore away after he had been talking a while.
``Rex,'' he began, ``when I say that we are friends, I mean, for my own part, that you are more to me than any man alive; and now I am going to tell you my story. Don't interrupt me. I have only just courage enough; if any of it oozes out, I may not be able to go on. Well, I have been through the mill. Clifford was right. They say it is a phase through which all men must pass. I say, must or not, if you pass through it you don't come out without a stain. You're never the same man after. Don't imagine I mean that I was brutally dissolute. I don't want you to think worse of me than I deserve. I kept a clean tongue in my head – always. So do you. I never got drunk – neither do you. I kept a distance between myself and the women whom those fellows were celebrating in song just now – so do you. How much is due in both of us to principle, and how much to fastidiousness, Rex? I found out for myself at last, and perhaps your turn will not be long in coming. After avoiding entanglements for just three years – '' He looked at Rex, who dropped his head – ``I gave in to a temptation as coarse, vulgar and silly as any I had ever despised. Why? Heaven knows. She was as vulgar a leech as ever fastened on a calf like myself. But I didn't think so then. I was wildly in love with her. She said she was madly in love with me.'' Braith made a grimace of such disgust that Rex would have laughed, only he saw in time that it was self-disgust which made Braith's mouth look so set and hard.
``I wanted to marry her. She wouldn't marry me. I was not rich, but what she said was: `One hates one's husband.' When I say vulgar, I don't mean she had vulgar manners. She was as pretty and trim and clever – as the rest of them. An artist, if he sees all that really exists, sometimes also sees things which have no existence at all. Of these were the qualities with which I invested her – the moral and mental correspondencies to her blonde skin and supple figure. She justified my perspicacity one day by leaving me for a loathsome little Jew. The last time I heard of her she had been turned out of a gambling hell in his company. His name is Emanuel Pick. Is not this a shabby romance? Is it not enough to make a self-respecting man hang his head – to know that he has once found pleasure in the society of the mistress of Mr Emanuel Pick?''
A long silence followed, during which the two men smoked, looking in opposite directions. At last Braith reached over and shook the ashes out of his pipe. Rex lighted a fresh cigarette at the same time, and their eyes met with a look of mutual confidence and goodwill. Braith spoke again, firmly this time.
``God keep you out of the mire, Rex; you're all right thus far. But it is my solemn belief that an affair of that kind would be your ruin as an artist; as a man.''
``The Quarter doesn't regard things in that light,'' said Gethryn, trying hard to laugh off the weight that oppressed him.
``The Quarter is a law unto itself. Be a law unto yourself, Rex – Good night, old chap.''
``Good night, Braith,'' said Gethryn slowly.
