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In the Quarter

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> In the Quarter




Sepp went on again with long strides. The four little black hoofs of
the chamois stuck pitifully up out of the bag on his broad back. When
he was well out of hearing he growled aloud:

"Hab' 's schon g' wusst! Jesses, Marie and Josef! was is denn dös!"

That evening, when Rex and the Jaeger were fussing over the chamois'
beard and dainty horns inside the Hütte, Ruth and her father stood
without, before the closed door. The skies were almost black, and full
of stars. Through the wide fragrant stillness came up now and then a
Jodel from some Bursch going to visit his Sennerin. A stamp, and a
comfortable sigh, came at times from Nani's cows in their stall below.

Ruth put both arms around her father's neck and laid her head down on
his shoulder.

"Tired, Daisy?"

"Yes, dear."

Fifteen

Supper was over, evening had fallen; but there would be no music
tonight under the beech tree; the sky was obscured by clouds and a wet
wind was blowing.

Mrs Dene and Ruth were crossing the hall; Gethryn came in at the front
door and they met.

"Well?" said Rex, forcing a smile.

"Well," said Ruth. "Mademoiselle Descartes is better. Madame will
bring her down stairs by and by. It appears that wretched peasant who
drove them has been carrying them about for hours from one inn to
another, stopping to drink at all of them. No wonder they were tired
out with the worry and his insolence!"

"It appears Miss Descartes has had attacks of fainting like this more
than once before. The doctor in Paris thinks there is some weakness of
the heart, but forbids her being told," said Mrs Dene.

Ruth interposed quickly, not looking at Gethryn:

"Papa and Monsieur Bordier, where are they?"

"I left them visiting Federl and Sepp in their quarters."

"Well, you will find us in that dreadful little room yonder. It's the
only alternative to sitting in the Bauernstube with all the
woodchoppers and their bad tobacco, since out of doors fails us. We
must go now and make it as pleasant as we can."

Ruth made a motion to go, but Mrs Dene lingered. Her kind eyes, her
fair little faded face, were troubled.

"Madame Bordier says the young lady tells her she has met you before,
Rex."

"Yes, in Paris"; for his life he could not have kept down the
crimson flush that darkened his cheeks and made his temples throb.

Mrs Dene's manner grew a little colder.

"She seems very nice. You knew her people, of course."

"No, I never met any of her people," answered Rex, feeling like a
kicked coward. Ruth interposed once more.

"People!" said Ruth, impatiently. "Of course Rex only knows nice
people. Come, mother!"

Putting her arm around the old lady, she moved across the hall with
decision. As they passed into the cheerless little room, Rex held open
the door. Ruth, entering after her mother, looked in his face. It had
grown thinner; shadows were deep in the temples; from the dark circles
under the eyes to the chin ran a line of pain. She held out her hand
to him. He bent and kissed it.

He went and stood in the porch, trying to collect his thoughts. The
idea of this meeting between Ruth and Yvonne was insupportable. Why
had he not taken means -- any, every means to prevent it? He cursed
himself. He called himself a coward. He wondered how much Ruth
divined. The thought shamed him until his cheeks burned again. And all
the while a deep undercurrent of feeling was setting toward that
drooping little figure in black, as he had seen it for a moment when
she alighted from the carriage and was supported to a room upstairs.
Heavens! How it reminded him of that first day in the Place de la
Concorde! Why was she in mourning? What did the doctor mean by
"weakness of the heart"? What was she doing on mountaintops, and on
the stage of a theater if she had heart disease? He started with a
feeling that he must go and put a stop to all this folly. Then he
remembered the letter. She had told him another man had the right to
care for her. Then she was at this moment deserted for the second
time, as well as faithless to still another lover! -- to how many
more? And it was through him that a woman of such a life was brought
into contact with Ruth! And Ruth's parents had trusted him; they
thought him a gentleman. His brain reeled.

The surging waves of shame and self-contempt subsided, were forgotten.
He heard the wind sough in the Luxembourg trees, he smelled the pink
flowering chestnuts, a soft voice was in his ear, a soft touch on his
arm, her breath on his cheek, the old, old faces came crowding up.
Clifford's laugh rang faintly, Braith's grave voice; odd bits and ends
of song floated out from the shadows of that past and through the
troubled dream of face and laugh and music, so long, so long passed
away, he heard the gentle voice of Yvonne: "Rex, Rex, be true to me;
I will come back!"

"I loved her!" he muttered.

There was a stir, a door opened and shut, voices and steps sounded in
the room on his left. He leaned forward a little and looked through
the uncurtained window.

It was a bare and dingy room containing only a table, some hard
chairs, and an old "Flügel" piano with a long inlaid case.

They sat together at the table. Ruth's back was toward him; she was
speaking. Yvonne was in the full light. Her eyes were cast down, and
she was nervously plaiting the edge of her little black-bordered
handkerchief. All at once she raised her eyes and looked straight at
the window. How blue her eyes were!

Rex dropped his face in his hands.

"Oh God! I love her!" he groaned.

"Gute Nacht, gnädige Herrn!"

Sepp and Federl stood in their door with a light. Two figures were
coming down from the Jaeger's cottage. Gethryn recognized the colonel
and Monsieur Bordier.

At the risk of scrutiny from those cool, elderly, masculine eyes,
Rex's manhood pulled itself together. He went back to meet them, and
presently they all joined the ladies in the apology for a parlor,
where coffee was being served.

Coming in after the older men, Rex found no place left in the little,
crowded room, excepting one at the table close beside Yvonne. Ruth was
on the other side. He went and took the place, self-possessed and
smiling.

Yvonne made a slight motion as if to rise and escape. Only Rex saw it.
Yes, one more: Ruth saw it.

"Mademoiselle has studied seriously since I had the honor -- "

"Oui, Monsieur."

Her faint voice and timid look were more than Ruth could bear. She
leaned forward so as to shield the girl as much as possible, and
entered into the lively talk at the other end of the table.

Rex spoke again: "Mademoiselle is quite strong, I trust -- the stage
-- Sugar? Allow me! -- As I was saying, the stage is a calling which
requires a good constitution." No answer.

"But pardon. If you are not strong, how can you expect to succeed in
your career?" persisted Rex. His eyes rested on one frail wrist in
its black sleeve. The sight filled him with anger.

"I would make my debut if I knew it would kill me." She spoke at
last, low but clearly.

"But why? Mon Dieu!"

"Madame has set her heart on it. She thinks I shall do her credit.
She has been good to me, so good!" The sad voice fainted and sank
away.

"One is good to one's pupils when they are going to bring one fame,"
said Rex bitterly.

"Madame took me when she did not know I had a voice -- when she
thought I was dying -- when I was homeless -- two years ago."

"What do you mean?" said Rex sternly, sinking his voice below the
pitch of the general conversation. "What did you tell me in your
letter? Homeless!"

"I never wrote you any letter." Yvonne raised her blue eyes,
startled, despairing, and looked into his for the first time.

"You did not write that you had found a -- a home which you preferred
to -- to -- any you had ever had? And that it would be useless to --
to offer you any other?"

"I never wrote. I was very ill and could not. Afterward I went to --
you. You were gone." Her low voice was heartbreaking to hear.

"When?" Rex could hardly utter a word.

"In June, as soon as I left the hospital."

"The hospital? And your mother?"

"She was dead. I did not see her. Then I was very ill, a long time.
As soon as I could, I went to Paris."

"To me?"

"Yes."

"And the letter?"

"Ah!" cried Yvonne with a shudder. "It must have been my sister who
did that!"

The room was turning round. A hundred lights were swaying about in a
crowd of heads. Rex laid his hand heavily on the table to steady
himself. With a strong effort at self-control he had reduced the
number of lights to two and got the people back in their places when,
with a little burst of French exclamations and laughter, everyone
turned to Yvonne, and Ruth, bending over her, took both her hands.

The next moment Monsieur Bordier was leading her to the piano.

A soft chord, other chords, deep and sweet, and then the dear voice:

Oui c'est un rêve,
Un rêve doux d'amour,
La nuit lui prête son mystére

The chain is forged again. The mists of passion rise thickly, heavily,
and blot out all else forever.

Hélène's song ceased. He heard them praise her, and heard "Good
nights" and "Au revoirs" exchanged. He rose and stood near the
door. Ruth passed him like a shadow. They all remained at the foot of
the stairs for a moment, repeating their "Adieus" and
"Remerciements." He was utterly reckless, but cool enough still to
watch for his chance in this confusion of civilities. It came; for one
instant he could whisper to her, "I must see you tonight." Then the
voices were gone and he stood alone on the porch, the wet wind blowing
in his face, his face turned up to a heavy sky covered with black,
driving clouds. He could hear the river and the moaning of the trees.

It seemed as if he had stood there for hours, never moving. Then there
was a step in the dark hall, on the threshold, and Yvonne lay
trembling in his arms.

*

The sky was beginning to show a tint of early dawn when they stepped
once more upon the silent porch. The wind had gone down. Clouds were
piled up in the west, but the east was clear. Perfect stillness was
over everything. Not a living creature was in sight, excepting that
far up, across the stream, Sepp and Zimbach were climbing toward the
Schinder.

"I must go in now. I must you -- child!" said Yvonne in her old
voice, smoothing her hair with both hands. Rex held her back.

"My wife?" he said.

"Yes!" She raised her face and kissed him on the lips, then clung to
him weeping.

"Hush! hush! It is I who should do that," he murmured, pressing her
cheek against his breast.

Once more she turned to leave him, but he detained her.

"Yvonne, come with me and be married today!"

"You know it is impossible. Today! what a boy you are! As if we
could!"

"Well then, in a few days -- in a week, as soon as possible."

"Oh! my dearest! do not make it so hard for me! How could I desert
Madame so? After all she has done for me? When I know all her hopes
are set on me; that if I fail her she has no one ready to take my
place! Because she was so sure of me, she did not try to bring on any
other pupil for next autumn. And last season was a bad one for her and
Monsieur. Their debutante failed; they lost money. Behold this
child!" she exclaimed, with a rapid return to her old gay manner,
"to whom I have explained all this at least a hundred times already,
and he asks me why we cannot be married today!"

Then with another quick change, she laid her cheek tenderly against
his and murmured:

"I might have died but for her. You would not have me desert her so
cruelly, Rex?"

"My love! No!" A new respect mingled with his passion. Yes, she was
faithful!

"And now I will go in! Rex, Rex, you are quite as bad as ever! Look
at my hair!" She leaned lightly on his shoulder, her old laughing
self.

He smiled back sadly.

"Again! After all! You silly, silly boy! And it is such a little
while to wait!"

"Belle Hélène is very popular in Paris. The piece may run a long
time."

"Rex, I must. Don't make it so hard for me!" Tears filled her eyes.

He kissed her for answer, without speaking.

"Think! think of all she did for me; saved me; fed me, clothed me,
taught me when she believed I had only voice and talent enough to
support myself by teaching. It was half a year before she and Monsieur
began to think I could ever make them any return for their care of me.
And all that time she was like a mother to me. And now she has told
everyone her hopes of me. If I fail she will be ridiculed. You know
Paris. She and Monsieur have enemies who will say there never was any
pupil, nor any debut expected. Perhaps she will lose her prestige. The
fashion may turn to some other teacher. You know what malice can do
with ridicule in Paris. Let me sing for her this once, make her one
great success, win her one triumph, and then never, never sing again
for any soul but you -- my husband!"

Her voice sank at the last words, from its eager pleading, to an
exquisite modest sweetness.

"But -- if you fail?"

"I shall not fail. I have never doubted that I should have a success.
Perhaps it is because for myself I do not care, that I have no fear.
When I had lost you -- I only thought of that. And now that I have
found you again -- !"

She clung to him in passionate silence.

"And I may not see your debut?"

"If you come I shall surely fail! I must forget you. I must think
only of my part. What do I care for the house full of strange faces? I
will make them all rise up and shout my name. But if you were there --
Ah! I should have no longer any courage! Promise me to come only on
the second night."

"But if you do fail, I may come and take you immediately before
Monsieur the Maire?"

"If you please!" she whispered demurely.

And they both laughed, the old happy-children laugh of the Atelier.

"I suppose you are bad enough to hope that I will fail," added she
presently, with a little moue.

"Yvonne," said Rex earnestly, "I hope that you will succeed. I know
you will, and I can wait for you a few weeks more."

"We have waited for our happiness two years. We will make the
happiness of others now first, n'est ce pas?" she whispered.

The sky began to glow and the house was astir. Rex knew how it would
soon be talking, but he cared for nothing that the world could do or
say.

"Ah! we will be happy! Think of it! A little house near the Parc
Monceau, my studio there, Clifford, Elliott, Rowden -- Bra--- all of
them coming again! And it will be my wife who will receive them!"

She placed a little soft palm across his lips.

"Taisez-vous, mon ami! It is too soon! See the morning! I must go.
There! yes -- one more! -- my love, Adieu!"

Sixteen

Fewer tourists and more hunters had been coming to the Lodge of late;
the crack of the rifle sounded all day. There was great talk of a hunt
which the duke would hold in September, and the colonel and Rex were
invited. But though September was now only a few days off, the colonel
was growing too restless to wait.

After Yvonne's visit, he and Ruth were much together. It seemed to
happen so. They took long walks into the woods, but Ruth seemed to
share now her father's aversion to climbing, and Gethryn stalked the
deer with only the Jaegers for company.

Ruth and her father used to come home with their arms full of wild
flowers -- the fair, lovely wild blossoms of Bavaria which sprang up
everywhere in their path. The colonel was great company on these
expeditions, singing airs from obsolete operas of his youth, and
telling stories of La Grange, Brignoli and Amodio, of the Strakosches
and Maretzeks, with much liveliness. Sometimes there would be a
silence, however, and then if Ruth looked up she often met his eyes.
Then he would smile and say:

"Well, Daisy!" and she would smile and say:

"Well, dear!"

But this could not last. About a week after Yvonne's visit, the
colonel, after one of these walks, instead of joining Rex for a smoke,
left him sitting with Ruth under the beech tree and mounted the stairs
to Mrs Dene's room.

It was an hour later when he rose and kissed his wife, who had been
sitting at her window all the time of their quiet talk, with eyes
fixed on the young people below.

"I never dreamed of it!" said he.

"I did, I wished it," was her answer. "I thought he was -- but they
are all alike!" she ended sadly and bitterly. "To think of a boy as
wellborn as Rex -- " But the colonel, who possibly knew more about
wellborn boys than his wife did, interrupted her:

"Hang the boys! It's Ruth I'm grieved for!"

"My daughter needs no one's solicitude, not even ours!" said the old
lady haughtily.

"Right! Thank God!" said the veteran, in a tone of relief. "Good
night, my dear!"

Two days later they left for Paris.

Rex accompanied them as far as Schicksalsee, promising to follow them
in a few days.

The handsome, soldierly-looking Herr Förster stood by their carriage
and gave them a "Glück-liche Reise!" and a warm "Auf Wiedersehen!"
as they drove away. Returning up the steps slowly and seriously, he
caught the eye of Sepp and Federl, who had been looking after the
carriage as it turned out of sight beyond the bridge:

"Schade!" said the Herr Förster, and went into the house.

"Schade!" said Federl.

"Jammer-schade!" growled Sepp.

On the platform at Schicksalsee, Rex and Ruth were walking while they
waited for the train. "Ruth," said Rex, "I hope you never will need
a friend's life to save yours from harm; but if you do, take mine."

"Yes, Rex." She raised her eyes and looked into the distance. Far on
the horizon loomed the Red Peak.

The clumsy mail drew up beside the platform. It was the year when all
the world was running after a very commonplace Operetta with one
lovely stolen song: a Volks-song. One heard it everywhere, on both
continents; and now as the postillion, in his shiny hat with the
cockade, his light blue jacket and white small clothes, and his curly
brass horn, came rattling down the street, he was playing the same
melody:

Es ist im Leben häßlich eingerichtet --

The train drew into the station. When it panted forth again, Gethryn
stood waving his hand, and watched it out of sight.

Turning at last to leave the platform, he found that the crowd had
melted away; only a residue of crimson-capped officials remained. He
inquired of one where he could find an expressman and was referred to
a mild man absorbing a bad cigar. With him Gethryn arranged for having
his traps brought from Trauerbach and consigned to the brothers
Schnurr at the "Gasthof zur Post," Schicksalsee, that inn being
close to the station.

This settled, he lighted a cigarette and strolled across to his hotel,
sitting down on a stone bench before the door, and looking off at the
lake.

It was mid-afternoon. The little place was asleep. Nothing was
stirring about the inn excepting a bandy Dachshund, which came
wheezing up and thrust a cold nose into the young man's hand. High in
the air a hawk was wheeling; his faint, querulous cry struck Gethryn
with an unwonted sense of loneliness. He noticed how yellow some of
the trees were on the slopes across the lake. Autumn had come before
summer was ended. He leaned over and patted the hound. A door opened,
a voice cried, "Ei Dachl! du! Dachl!" and the dog made off at the
top of his hobbyhorse gait.

The silence was unbroken except for the harsh cries of the hawk,
sailing low now in great circles over the lake. The sun flashed on his
broad, burnished wings as he stooped; Gethryn fancied he could see his
evil little eyes; finally the bird rose and dwindled away, lost
against the mountainside.

He was roused from his reverie by angry voices.

"Cochon! Kerl! Menteur!" cried someone.

The other voice remonstrated with a snarl.

"Bah!" cried the first, "you lie!"

"Alsatians," thought Rex; "what horrible French!"

The snarling began again, but gradually lapsed into whining. Rex
looked about him.

The quarreling seemed to come from a small room which opened out of
the hotel restaurant. Windows gave from it over the front, but the
blinds were down.

"No! No! I tell you! Not one sou! Starve? I hope you will!" cried
the first voice, and a stamp set some bottles and glasses jingling.

"Alsatians and Jews!" thought Rex. One voice was unpleasantly
familiar to him, and he wondered if Mr Blumenthal spoke French as he
did English. Deciding with a careless smile that of course he did, Rex
ceased to think of him, not feeling any curiosity to go and see with
whom his late fellow-lodger might be quarreling. He sat and watched
instead, as he lounged in the sunshine, some smart carriages whirling
past, their horses stepping high, the lackeys muffled from the
mountain air in winter furs, crests on the panels.

An adjutant in green, with a great flutter of white cock's feathers
from his chapeau, sitting up on the box of an equipage, accompanied by
flunkies in the royal blue and white of Bavaria, was a more agreeable
object to contemplate than Mr Blumenthal, and Gethryn felt as much
personal connection with the Prince Regent hurrying home to Munich,
from his little hunting visit to the emperor of Austria, as with the
wrangling Jews behind the close-drawn blinds of the coffee-room at his
back.

The sun was slowly declining. Rex rose and idled into the
smoking-room. It was deserted but for the clerk at his desk, a railed
enclosure, one side of which opened into the smoking-room, the other
side into the hall. Across the hall was a door with "Café --
Restaurant," in gilt letters above it. Rex did not enter the café; he
sat and dreamed in the empty smoking-room over his cigarette.

But it was lively in the café, in spite of the waning season. A good
many of the tables were occupied. At one of them sat the three
unchaperoned Miss Dashleighs, in company with three solemn,
high-shouldered young officers, enjoying something in tall, slender
tumblers which looked hot and smelled spicy. At another table Mr
Everett Tweeler and Mrs Tweeler were alternately scolding and stuffing
Master Irving Tweeler, who expressed in impassioned tones a desire for
tarts.

"Ur--r--ving!" remonstrated Mr Tweeler.

"Dahling!" argued Mrs Tweeler. "If oo eats too many 'ittle cakies
then oo tant go home to Salem on the puffy, puffy choo-choo boat."

Old Sir Griffin Damby overheard and snorted.

When Master Tweeler secured his tarts, Sir Griffin blessed the meal
with a hearty "damn!"

He did not care for Master Tweeler's nightly stomach aches, but their
rooms adjoined. When "Ur--r--ving" reached unmolested for his
fourth, Sir Griffin rose violently, and muttering, "Change me room,
begad!" waddled down to the door, glaring aggressively at the
occupants of the various tables. Near the exit a half suppressed
squeal caused him to swing round. He had stepped squarely on the toe
of a meager individual, who now sat nursing his foot in bitter
dejection.

"Pardon -- " began Sir Griffin, then stopped and glared at the
sallow-faced person.

Sir Griffin stared hard at the man he had stepped on, and at his
female companion.

"Damn it!" he cried. "Keep your feet out of the way, do you hear?"
puffed his cheeks, squared his shoulders and snorted himself out of
the café.

The yellow-faced man was livid with rage.

"Don't be a fool, Mannie," whispered the woman; "don't make a row
-- do you know who that is?"

"He's an English hog," spluttered the man with an oath; "he's a
cursed hog of an Englishman!"

"Yes, and he knows us. He was at Monaco a few summers ago. Don't
forget who turned us out of the Casino."

Emanuel Pick turned a shade more sallow and sank back in his seat.

Neither spoke again for some moments. Presently the woman began to
stir the bits of lemon and ice in her empty tumbler. Pick watched her
sulkily.

"You always take the most expensive drinks. Why can't you order
coffee, as others do?" he snarled.

She glanced at him. "Jew," she sneered.

"All right; only wait! I've come to the end of my rope. I've got just
money enough left to get back to Paris -- "

"You lie, Mannie!"

He paid no attention to this compliment, but lighted a cigar and
dropped the match on the floor, grinding it under his heel.

"You have ten thousand francs today! You lie if you say you have
not."

Mr Pick softly dropped his eyelids.

"That is for me, in case of need. I will need it too, very soon!"

His companion glared at him and bit her lip.

"If you and I are to remain dear friends," continued Mr Pick, "we
must manage to raise money, somehow. You know that as well as I do."

Still she said nothing, but kept her eyes on his face. He glanced up
and looked away uneasily.

"I have seen my uncle again. He knows all about your sister and the
American. He says it is only because of him that she refuses the
handsome offer."

The woman's face grew tigerish, and she nodded rapidly, muttering,
"Ah! yes! Mais oui! the American. I do not forget him!"

"My dear uncle thinks it is our fault that your sister refuses to
forget him, which is more to the purpose," sneered Pick. "He says
you did not press that offer he made Yvonne with any skill, else she
would never have refused it again -- that makes four times," he
added. "Four times she has refused an establishment and -- "

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