A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

In the Quarter

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




Then, suddenly turning on Gethryn with a devilish grin, "You! tell
your mistress her mother is dying!" She laughed hatefully, but
preserved her pretense of calm, walked to the door, and as she reached
it swung round and made an insulting gesture to Gethryn.

"You! I will remember you!"

The door slammed and a key rattled in the next box.

Clinging to Gethryn, Yvonne passed down the long corridor to the
vestibule, while Elliott and Rowden silently gathered up the masks and
opera glasses. Clifford stood holding her crushed and splintered fan.
He looked at Elliott, who looked gloomily back at him, as Braith
entered hurriedly.

"What's the matter? I saw something was wrong from the floor. Rex
ill?"

"Ill at ease," said Clifford, grimly. "There's a sister turned up.
A devil of a sister."

Braith spoke very low. "Yvonne's sister?"

"Yes, a she-devil."

"Did you hear her name?"

"Name's Nina."

Braith went quietly out again. Passing blindly down the lobby, he ran
against Mr Bulfinch. Mr Bulfinch was in charge of a policeman.

"Hello, Braith!" he called, hilariously.

Braith was going on with a curt nod when the other man added:

"I've taken it out of Pick," and he stopped short. "I got my two
hundred francs worth," the artist of the London Mirror proceeded,
"and now I shall feel bound to return you yours -- the first time I
have it," he ended, vaguely.

Braith made an impatient gesture.

"Are you under arrest?"

"Yes, I am. He couldn't help it," smiling agreeably at the Sergeant
de Ville. "He saw me hit him."

The policeman looked stolid.

"But what excuse?" began Braith.

"Oh! none! Pick just passed me, and I felt as if I couldn't stand it
any longer, so I pitched in."

"Well, and now you're in for fine and imprisonment."

"I suppose so," said Bulfinch, beaming.

"Have you any money with you?"

"No, unless I have some in your pocket?" said the little man, with a
mixture of embarrassment and bravado that touched Braith, who saw what
the confession cost him.

"Lots!" said he, cordially. "But first let us try what we can do
with Bobby. Do you ever drink a petit verre, Monsieur le Sergeant de
Ville?" with a winning smile to the wooden policeman.

The latter looked at the floor.

"No," said he.

"Never?"

"Never!"

"Well, I was only thinking that over on the Corner of the Rue
Taitbout one finds excellent wine at twenty francs."

The officer now gazed dreamily at the ceiling.

"Mine costs forty," he said.

And a few minutes later the faithful fellow stood in front of the
Opera house quite alone.

Ten

The cab rolled slowly over the Pont au Change, and the wretched horse
fell into a walk as he painfully toiled up the hill of St Michel.
Yvonne lay back in the corner; covered with all her own wraps and
Gethryn's overcoat, she shivered.

"Poor little Yvonne!" was all he said as he leaned over now and then
to draw the cloak more closely around her. Not a sound but the rumble
of the wheels and the wheezing of the old horse broke the silence. The
streets were white and deserted. A few ragged flakes fell from the
black vault above, or were shaken down from the crusted branches.

The cab stopped with a jolt. Yvonne was trembling as Rex lifted her to
the ground, and he hurried her into the house, up the black stairway
and into their cold room.

When he had a fire blazing in the grate, he looked around. She was
kneeling on the floor beside a candle she had lighted, and her tears
were pouring down upon the page of an open letter. Rex stepped over
and touched her.

"Come to the fire." He raised her gently, but she could not stand,
and he carried her in his arms to the great soft chair before the
grate. Then he knelt down and warmed her icy hands in his own. After a
while he moved her chair back, and drawing off her dainty white
slippers, wrapped her feet in the fur that lay heaped on the hearth.
Then he unfastened the cloak and the domino, and rolling her gloves
from elbow to wrist, slipped them over the helpless little hands. The
firelight glanced and glowed on her throat and bosom, tingeing their
marble with opalescent lights, and searching the deep shadows under
her long lashes. It reached her hair, touching here and there a soft,
dark wave, and falling aslant the knots of ribbon on her bare
shoulders, tipped them with points of white fire.

"Is it so bad, dearest Yvonne?"

"Yes."

"Then you must go?"

"Oh, yes!"

"When?"

"At daylight."

Gethryn rose and went toward the door; he hesitated, came back and
kissed her once on the forehead. When the door closed on him she wept
as if her heart would break, hiding her head in her arms. He found her
lying so when he returned, and, throwing down her traveling bag and
rugs, he knelt and took her to his breast, kissing her again and again
on the forehead. At last he had to speak.

"I have packed the things you will need most and will send the rest.
It is getting light, dearest; you have to change your dress, you
know."

She roused herself and sat up, looking desolately about her.

"Forever!" she whispered.

"No! No!" cried Gethryn.

"Ah! oui, mon ami!"

Gethryn went and stood by the window. The bedroom door was closed.

Day was breaking. He opened the window and looked into the white
street. Lamps burned down there with a sickly yellow; a faint light
showed behind the barred windows of the old gray barracks. One or two
stiff sparrows hopped silently about the gutters, flying up hurriedly
when the frost-covered sentinel stamped his boots before the barracks
gate. Now and then a half-starved workman limped past, his sabots
echoing on the frozen pavement. A hooded and caped policeman, a
red-faced cabman stamping beside his sleepy horse -- the street was
empty but for them.

It grew lighter. The top of St Sulpice burned crimson. Far off a bugle
fluttered, and then came the tramp of the morning guard mount. They
came stumbling across the stony court and leaned on their rifles while
one of them presented arms and received the word from the sentry.
Little by little people began to creep up and down the sidewalks, and
the noise of wooden shutters announced another day of toil begun. The
point of the Luxembourg Palace struck fire as the ghastly gas-lamps
faded and went out. Suddenly the great bell of St Sulpice clashed the
hour -- Eight o'clock!

Again a bugle blew sharply from the barracks, and a troop of cavalry
danced and pawed through the gate, clattering away down the Rue de
Seine.

Gethryn shut the window and turned into the room. Yvonne stood before
the dying embers. He went to her, almost timidly. Neither spoke. At
last she took up her satchel and wrap.

"It is time," she whispered. "Let us go."

He clasped her once in his arms; she laid her cheek against his.

*

The train left Montparnasse station at nine. There was hardly anyone
in the waiting room. The Guard flung back the grating.

"Vernon, par Chartres?" asked Gethryn.

"Vernon -- Moulins -- Chartres -- direct!" shouted the Guard, and
stamped off down the platform.

Gethryn showed his ticket which admitted him to the platform, and they
walked slowly down the line of dismal-looking cars.

"This one?" and he opened a door.

She stood watching the hissing and panting engine, while Gethryn
climbed in and placed her bags and rugs in a window corner. The car
smelt damp and musty, and he stepped out with a choking sensation in
his chest. A train man came along, closing doors with a slam.

"All aboard -- ladies -- gentlemen -- voyageurs?" he growled, as if
to himself or some familiar spirit, and jerked a sullen clang from the
station bell. The engine panted impatiently.

Rex struggled against the constraint that seemed to be dividing them.

"Yvonne, you will write?"

"I don't know!"

"You don't know! Yvonne!"

"I know nothing except that I am wicked, and my mother is dying!"
She said it in low, even tones, looking away from him.

The gong struck again, with a startling clash.

The engine shrieked; a cloud of steam rose from under the wheels. Rex
hurried her into the carriage; there was no one else there. Suddenly
she threw herself into his arms.

"Oh! I love you! I love you! One kiss, no; no; on the lips. Good-bye,
my own Rex!"

"You will come again?" he said, crushing her to him.

Her eyes looked into his.

"I will come. I love you! Be true to me, Rex. I will come back."

Her lover could not speak. Doors slamming, and an impatient voice --
"Descendez donc, M'sieu!" -- roused him; he sprang from the
carriage, and the train rolled slowly out of the smoke-filled station.

How heavy the smoke was! Gethryn could hardly breathe -- hardly see.
He walked away and out into the street. The city was only half awake
even yet. After, as it seemed, a long time, he found himself looking
at a clock which said a quarter past ten. The winter sunshine slanted
now on roof and pane, flooding the western side of the shabby
boulevard, dappling the snow with yellow patches. He had stopped in
the chilly shadow of a gateway and was looking vacantly about. He saw
the sunshine across the street and shivered where he was, and yet he
did not leave the shadow. He stood and watched the sparrows taking
bold little baths in the puddles of melted snow water. They seemed to
enjoy the sunshine, but it was cold in the shade, cold and damp -- and
the air was hard to breathe. A policeman sauntered by and eyed him
curiously. Rex's face was haggard and pinched. Why had he stood there
in the cold for half an hour, without ever changing his weight from
one foot to the other?

The policeman spoke at last, civilly:

"Monsieur!"

Gethryn turned his head.

"Is it that Monsieur seeks the train?" he asked, saluting.

Rex looked up. He had wandered back to the station. He lifted his hat
and answered with the politeness dear to French officials.

"Merci, Monsieur!" It made him cough to speak, and he moved on
slowly.

Gethryn would not go home yet. He wanted to be where there was plenty
of cool air, and yet he shivered. He drew a deep breath which ended in
a pain. How cold the air must be -- to pain the chest like that! And
yet, there were women wheeling handcarts full of yellow crocus buds
about. He stopped and bought some for Yvonne.

"She will like them," he thought. "Ah!" -- he turned away, leaving
flowers and money. The old flower-woman crossed herself.

No -- he would not go home just yet. The sun shone brightly; men
passed, carrying their overcoats on their arms; a steam was rising
from the pavements in the Square.

There was a crowd on the Pont au Change. He did not see any face
distinctly, but there seemed to be a great many people, leaning over
the parapets, looking down the river. He stopped and looked over too.
The sun glared on the foul water eddying in and out among the piles
and barges. Some men were rowing in a boat, furiously. Another boat
followed close. A voice close by Gethryn cried, angrily:

"Dieu! who are you shoving?"

Rex moved aside; as he did so a gamin crowded quickly forward and
craned over the edge, shouting, "Vive le cadavre!"

"Chut!" said another voice.

"Vive la Mort! Vive la Morgue!" screamed the wretched little
creature.

A policeman boxed his ears and pulled him back. The crowd laughed. The
voice that had cried, "Chut!" said lower, "What a little devil,
that Rigaud!"

Rex moved slowly on.

In the Court of the Louvre were people enough and to spare. Some of
them bowed to him; several called him to turn and join them. He lifted
his hat to them all, as if he knew them, but passed on without
recognizing a soul. The broad pavements were warm and wet, but the air
must have been sharp to hurt his chest so. The great pigeons of the
Louvre brushed by him. It seemed as if he felt the beat of their wings
on his brains. A shabby-looking fellow asked him for a sou -- and,
taking the coin Rex gave him, shuffled off in a hurry; a dog followed
him, he stooped and patted it; a horse fell, he went into the street
and helped to raise it. He said to a man standing by that the harness
was too heavy -- and the man, looking after him as he walked away,
told a friend that there was another crazy foreigner.

Soon after this he found himself on the Quai again, and the sun was
sinking behind the dome of the Invalides. He decided to go home. He
wanted to get warm, and yet it seemed as if the air of a room would
stifle him. However, once more he crossed the Seine, and as he turned
in at his own gate he met Clifford, who said something, but Rex pushed
past without trying to understand what it was.

He climbed the dreary old stairs and came to his silent studio. He sat
down by the fireless hearth and gazed at a long, slender glove among
the ashes. At his feet her little white satin slippers lay half hidden
in the long white fur of the rug.

He felt giddy and weak, and that hard pain in his chest left him no
peace. He rose and went into the bedroom. Her ball dress lay where she
had thrown it. He flung himself on the bed and buried his face in the
rustling silk. A faint odor of violets pervaded it. He thought of the
bouquet that had been placed for her at the dinner. Then the flowers
reminded him of last summer. He lived over again their gay life --
their excursions to Meudon, Sceaux, Versailles with its warm meadows,
and cool, dark forests; Fontainebleau, where they lunched under the
trees; St Cloud -- Oh! he remembered their little quarrel there, and
how they made it up on the boat at Suresnes afterward.

He rose excitedly and went back into the studio; his cheeks were
aflame and his breath came sharp and hard. In a corner, with its face
to the wall, stood an old, unfinished portrait of Yvonne, begun after
one of those idyllic summer days.

When Braith walked in, after three times knocking, he found Gethryn
painting feverishly by the last glimmer of daylight on this portrait.
The room was full of shadows, and while they spoke it grew quite dark.

That night Braith sat by his side and listened to his incoherent talk,
and Dr White came and said "Pleuro-pneumonia" was what ailed him.
Braith had his traps fetched from his own place and settled down to
nurse him.

Eleven

C arnival was over. February had passed, like January, for most of the
fellows, in a bad dream of unpaid bills. March was going in much the
same way. This is the best account Clifford, Elliott and Rowden could
have given of it. Thaxton and Rhodes were working. Carleton was
engaged to a new pretty girl -- the sixth or seventh.

Satan found the time passing delightfully. There was no one at present
to restrain him when he worried Mrs Gummidge. The tabby daily grew
thinner and sadder-eyed. The parrot grew daily more blasé. He sneered
more and more bitterly, and his eyelid, when closed, struck a chill to
the soul of the raven.

At first the pups were unhappy. They missed their master. But they
were young, and flies were getting plentiful in the studio.

For Braith the nights and the days seemed to wind themselves in an
endless chain about Rex's sickbed. But when March had come and gone
Rex was out of danger, and Braith began to paint again on his belated
picture. It was too late, now, for the Salon; but he wanted to finish
it all the same.

One day, early in April, he came back to Gethryn after an unusually
long absence at his own studio.

Rex was up and trying to dress. He turned a peaked face toward his
friend. His eyes were two great hollows, and when he smiled and spoke,
in answer to Braith's angry exclamation, his jaws worked visibly.

"Keep cool, old chap!" he said, in the ghost of a voice.

"What are you getting up for, all alone?"

"Had to -- tired of the bed. Try it yourself -- six weeks!"

"You want to go back there and never quit it alive -- that's what you
want," said Braith, nervously.

"Don't, either. Come and button this collar and stop swearing."

"I suppose you're going back to Julien's the day after tomorrow,"
said Braith, sarcastically, after Rex was dressed and had been helped
to the lounge in the studio.

"No," said he, "I'm going to Arcachon tomorrow."

"Arca--- twenty thousand thunders!"

"Not at all," smiled Rex -- a feeble, willful smile.

Braith sat down and drew his chair beside Gethryn.

"Wait a while, Rex."

"I can't get well here, you know."

"But you can get a bit stronger before you start on such a journey."

"I thought the doctor told you the sooner I went south the better."

That was true; Braith was silent a while.

At last he said, "I have all the money you will want till your own
comes, you know, and I can get you ready by the end of this week, if
you will go."

Rex was no baby, but his voice shook when he answered.

"Dear old, kind, unselfish friend! I'd almost rather remain poor, and
let you keep on taking care of me, but -- see here -- " and he handed
him a letter. "That came this morning, after you left."

Braith read it eagerly, and looked up with a brighter face than he had
worn for many a day.

"By Jove!" he said. "By Jupiter!"

Rex smiled sadly at his enthusiasm.

"This means health, and a future, and -- everything to you, Rex!"

"Health and wealth, and happiness," said Gethryn bitterly.

"Yes, you ungrateful young reprobate -- that's exactly what it means.
Go to your Arcachon, by all means, since you've got a fortune to go on
-- I say -- you -- you didn't know your aunt very well, did you?
You're not cut up much?"

"I never saw her half a dozen times in my whole life. But she's been
generous to me, poor old lady!"

"I should think so. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a nice
sum for a young fellow to find in his pocket all on a sudden. And now
-- you want to go away and get well, and come back presently and begin
where you left off -- a year ago. Is that it?"

"That is it. I shall never get well here, and I mean to get well if I
can," -- he paused, and hesitated. "That was the only letter in my
box this morning."

Braith did not answer.

"It is nearly two months now," continued Rex, in a low voice.

"What are your plans?" interrupted Braith, brusquely.

Rex flushed.

"I'm going first" -- he answered rather drily, "to Arcachon. You
see by the letter my aunt died in Florence. Of course I've got to go
and measure out a lot of Italian red tape before I can get the money.
It seems to me the sooner I can get into the pine air and the sea
breezes at Arcachon, the better chance I have of being fit to push on
to Florence, via the Riviera, before the summer heat."

"And then?"

"I don't know."

"You will come back?"

"When I am cured."

There was a long silence. At last Gethryn put a thin hand on Braith's
shoulder and looked him lovingly in the face.

"You know, and I know, how little I have ever done to deserve your
goodness, to show my gratitude and -- and love for you. But if I ever
come back I will prove to you -- "

Braith could not answer, and did not try to. He sat and looked at the
floor, the sad lines about his mouth deeply marked, his throat moving
once or twice as he swallowed the lump of grief that kept rising.

After a while he muttered something about its being time for Rex's
supper and got up and fussed about with a spirit lamp and broths and
jellies, more like Rex's mother than a rough young bachelor. In the
midst of his work there came a shower of blows on the studio door and
Clifford, Rowden and Elliott trooped in without more ado.

They set up a chorus of delighted yells at seeing Rex dressed and on
the studio lounge. But Braith suppressed them promptly.

"Don't you know any better than that?" he growled. "What did you
come for, anyway? It's Rex's supper time."

"We came, Papa," said Clifford, "to tell Rex that I have reformed.
We wanted him to know it as soon as we did ourselves."

"Ah! he's a changed man! He's worked all day at Julien's for a week
past," cried Elliott and Rowden together.

"And my evenings?" prompted Clifford sweetly.

"Are devoted to writing letters home!" chanted the chorus.

"Get out!" was all Rex answered, but his face brightened at the
three bad boys standing in a row with their hats all held politely
against their stomachs. He had not meant to tell them, dreading the
fatigue of explanations, but by an impulse he held out his hand to
them.

"I say, you fellows, shake hands! I'm going off tomorrow."

Their surprise having been more or less noisily and profusely
expressed, Braith stepped decidedly in between them and his patient,
satisfied their curiosity, and gently signified that it was time to
go.

He only permitted one shake apiece, foiling all Clifford's rebellious
attempts to dodge around him and embrace Gethryn. But Rex was lying
back by this time, tired out, and he was glad when Braith closed the
studio door. It flew open the next minute and an envelope came
spinning across to Rex.

"Letter in your box, Reggy -- good-bye, old chap!" said Clifford's
voice.

The door did not quite close again and the voices and steps of his
departing friends came echoing back as Braith raised a black-edged
letter from the floor. It bore the postmark: Vernon.

Twelve

R ound about the narrow valley which is cut by the rapid Trauerbach,
Bavarian mountains tower, their well timbered flanks scattered here
and there with rough slides, or opening out in long green alms, and
here at evening one may sometimes see a spot of yellow moving along
the bed of a half dry mountain torrent.

Miss Ruth Dene stood in front of the Forester's lodge at Trauerbach
one evening at sunset, and watched such a spot on the almost
perpendicular slope that rose opposite, high above her head. Some
Jaegers and the Forester were looking, too.

"My glass, Federl! Ja! 's ist'n gams!"

"Gems?" inquired Miss Dene, excited by her first view of a chamois.

"Ja! 'n Gams," said the Forester, sticking to his dialect.

The sun was setting behind the Red Peak, his last rays pouring into
the valley. They fell on rock and alm, on pine and beech, and turned
the silver Trauerbach to molten gold.

Mr Isidor Blumenthal, sitting at a table under one of the windows,
drinking beer, beheld this phenomenon, and putting down his quart
measure, he glared at the waste of precious metal. Then he lighted the
stump of a cigar; then he looked at his watch, and it being almost
supper time, he went in to secure the best place. He liked being early
at table; he liked the first cut of the meats, hot and fat; he loved
plenty of gravy. While waiting to be served he could count the antlers
on the walls and estimate "how much they would fetch by an
antiquar," as he said to himself. There was nothing else marketable
in the large bare room, full of deal tables and furnished with benches
built against the wall. But he could pick his teeth demonstratively --
toothpicks were not charged in the bill -- and he could lean back on
two legs of his chair, with his hands in his pockets, and stare
through the windows at Miss Dene.

The Herr Förster and the two Jaegers had gone away. Miss Dene stood
now with her slender hands clasped easily behind her, a Tam O'Shanter
shading her sweet face. She was tall, and so far as Mr Blumenthal had
ever seen, extremely grave for her years. But Mr Blumenthal's
opportunities of observing Miss Dene had been limited.

The "gams" had disappeared. Miss Dene was looking down the road that
leads to Schicksalsee. There was not much visible there except a whirl
of dust raised by the sudden evening wind.

Sometimes it was swept away for a moment; then she saw a
weather-beaten bridge and a bend in the road where it disappeared
among the noble firs of a Bavarian forest.

The sun sank and left the Trauerbach a stream of molten lead. The
shadows crept up to the Jaeger's hut and then to the little chapel
above that. Gusts of whistling martins swept by.

A silk-lined, Paris-made wool dress rustled close beside her, and she
put out one of the slender hands without turning her head.

"Mother, dear," said she, as a little silver-haired old lady took it
and came and leaned against her tall girl's shoulder, "haven't we had
enough of the `Först-haus zu Trauerbach?"'

"Not until a certain girl, who danced away her color at Cannes,
begins to bloom again."

Ruth shrugged, and then laughed. "At least it isn't so -- so
indigestible as Munich."

"Oh! Absurd! Speaking of digestion, come to your Schmarn und
Reh-braten. Supper is ready."

Mother and daughter walked into the dingy "Stube" and took their
seats at the Forester's table.

Mr Blumenthal's efforts had not secured him a place there after all;
Anna, the capable niece of the Frau Förster, having set down a large
foot, clad in a thick white stocking and a carpet slipper, to the
effect that there was only room for the Herr Förster's family and the
Americans.

"I also am an American!" cried Mr Blumenthal in Hebrew-German.
Nevertheless, when Ruth and her mother came in he bowed affably to
them from the nearest end of the next table.

"Mamma," said Ruth, very low, "I hope I'm not going to begin being
difficult, but do you know, that is really an odious man?"

"Yes, I do know," laughed her easy-tempered mother, "but what is
that to us?"

Mr Blumenthal was reveling in hot fat. After he had bowed and smiled
greasily, he tucked his napkin tighter under his chin and fell once
more upon the gravy. He sopped his bread in it and scooped it up with
his knife. But after there was no more gravy he wished to converse. He
scrubbed his lips with one end of the napkin and called across to
Ruth, who shrank behind her mother: "Vell, Miss Dene, you have today
a shammy seen, not?"

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.