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A TRANSIENT GUEST,
AND OTHER EPISODES.
BY EDGAR SALTUS
BELFORD, CLARKE & CO.
CHICAGO, NEW YORK, AND SAN FRANCISCO
PUBLISHERS
London, HENRY J. DRANE, Lovell's Court, Paternoster Row
COPYRIGHT, 1889,
BY EDGAR SALTUS.
Press of
E. B. Sheldon & Co.
New Haven, Conn.
TO
K. J. M.
_New York, 1st June, 1889._
CONTENTS.
A TRANSIENT GUEST
THE GRAND DUKE'S RUBIES
A MAID OF MODERN ATHENS
FAUSTA
A TRANSIENT GUEST.
I.
Since the _Koenig Wilhelm_, of the Dutch East India Service, left
Batavia, the sky had been torpidly blue, that suffocating indigo which
seems so neighborly that the traveller fancies were he a trifle taller
he could touch it with the ferule of his stick. When night came, the
stars would issue from their ambush and stab it through and through, but
the glittering cicatrices which they made left it bluer even, more
persistent than before. And now, as the ship entered the harbor, there
was a cruelty about it that exulted and defied. The sun, too, seemed to
menace; on every bit of brass it placed a threat, and in the lap of the
waters there was an understanding and a pact. Beyond, to the right, was
one long level stretch of sand on which the breakers fawned with
recurrent surge and swoon. Behind it were the green ramparts of a
forest; to the left were the bungalows and booths of Siak; while in the
distance, among the hills and intervales, where but a few years before
natives lurked beneath the monstrous lilies and clutched their kriss in
fierce surmise, a locomotive had left a trail of smoke.
"Sumatra, too, has gone the way of the world," thought one who lounged
on deck.
He was a good-looking young fellow, browner far than he had been when he
left New York, and he was garbed in a fashion which would have attracted
the notice of the most apathetic _habitue_ of Narragansett Pier. Save
for a waistband of yellow silk, he was clad wholly in that dead white
which is known as _fromage a la creme_. Had his cork hat been decorated
with a canary bird's feather, you would have said a prince stepped from
a fairy tale. At his heels was a fox terrier, which he had christened
Zut. When he wished to be emphatic, however, Zut was elongated into Zut
Alors.
"The general's compliments, sir, and are you ready?"
It was the polyglot steward addressing him, with that deference which is
born of tips.
Tancred Ennever--the only son of Furman Ennever, who, as every one
knows, is head and front of the steadiest house in Wall Street--turned
and nodded. "Got my traps up?" he asked, and without waiting for a
reply sauntered across the deck. He had met the general--Petrus van
Lier, Consul of the Netherlands to Siak--at the Government House at
Batavia, and although the trip which he had outlined for himself
consisted, for the moment at least, in making direct for that sultry
hole which is known as Singapore, yet the general had so represented the
charms and pleasures of Sumatra that he had consented to become his
guest. In extending the invitation the general may have had an ulterior
motive, but in that case he let no inkling of it escape.
And now, as Tancred crossed the deck, the general stretched his hand. He
was a man whose fiftieth birthday would never be feted again. He had the
dormant eyes of his race, those eyes in which apathy is a screen to
vigilance, and his chin had the tenacity of a rock. His upper lip was
furnished with a cavalry moustache of indistinctest gray, the ends
upturned and fierce. In stature he was short and slim. It should be
added that he was bald.
Though the ship had barely halted, already it was surrounded by prahus
and sampans, the indigenous varieties of skiff, and among them one there
was so trim it might have come from a man-of-war. In the bow a
fluttering pennon proclaimed it a belonging of the Dutch. The coxswain
had already saluted, and sat awaiting the orders of his chief.
The general motioned with a finger, the coxswain touched his forehead,
and in a moment the boat was at the slanting ladder. Tancred and the
general descended, there was a sullen command, and the oarsmen headed
for the shore.
"We are so late my people will be worried," confided the consul, as the
landing was reached. "Usually--" and, as he ran on dilating on the
unpunctuality of the service, Tancred remembered to have heard that his
host was about to be married to an English widow, who, with her brother,
was then stopping at the consul's bungalow.
"Be still, Zut," ordered Tancred, for the dog was yelping like mad at a
fawn-colored butterfly that floated, tantalizingly, just out of reach.
It was as big as a bird, and its eyes were ruby. "Be still."
On the wharf a crowd of Malays and Chinese impeded the way, the
Celestials garbed in baggy breeches and black vests, the Malays,
nakeder, wickeder, darker, and more compact. Beyond was an open square,
a collection of whitewashed booths, roofed with tiles of mottled red,
and cottages of thatched palm. In the air was the odor of spices and
cachous.
Guided by his host, Tancred entered an open vehicle that waited there.
Then, after a brisk drive through the town, a long sweep through a quiet
lane that was bordered now by rice-fields, now by giant trees festooned
by lianas and rattans, and again by orchards of fruit and betel-nut, at
last, in a grove of palms, a house was reached, a one-story dwelling,
quaint, roomy, oblong, and still. An hour later the general and his
guest were waiting dinner in the bale-bale of the bungalow.
Presently from the panoplied steps came the tinkle of moving feet. The
general rose from his chair.
"My future wife," he announced, in an aside. "Mrs. Lyeth," he continued,
"this is Mr. Ennever."
She was a woman such as the midland counties alone produce, one whom it
would be proper to describe as queenly, were it not that queens are
dowds. She just lacked being tall. Her hair was of that hue of citron
which is noticeable in very young children, and it was arranged in the
fashion we have copied from the Greeks, but her features were wholly
English, features that the years would remold with coarser thumb, but
which as yet preserved the freshness and the suavity of a pastel. One
divined that her limbs were strong and supple. She held herself with a
grace of her own, on her cheeks was a flush, her mouth seemed to promise
more than any mortal mouth could give; in short, she was beautiful, a
northern splendor in a tropic frame.
Tancred, who had risen with the general, stared for a second and bowed.
"Muhammad's prophecy is realized," he murmured; and as Mrs. Lyeth eyed
him inquiringly, "At sunset," he added, "I behold a rising sun."
And moving forward he took her wrist and brushed it with his lips.
"One might fancy one's self at Versailles," Mrs. Lyeth replied, and sank
into a wicker chair.
"Olympus, rather," Tancred corrected, and found a seat at her side.
"H'm," mused the lady; but evidently nothing pertinent could have
occurred to her, for she hesitated a moment and then graciously enough
remarked, "The general tells me he knows your father."
"Yes, it may even be that we are connected; there was a Sosinje van Lier
who married an Ennever, oh, ages ago. The general, however, thinks she
was not a relative of his."
"I have forgotten," the general interjected, and glanced at his future
bride. "Is Liance never coming?"
From without came the hum of insects, a hum so insistent, so enervating,
and yet so Wagnerian in intensity that you would have said a nation of
them celebrating a feast of love. Presently the murmurs were punctuated
by the beat of a wooden gong, and as the reverberations fainted in the
night, a young girl appeared.
The general left his chair again.
"My daughter," he announced; and as Tancred bowed he remembered that the
general had been a widower before he became engaged to the divinity that
sat at his side.
"You're an American, aren't you?" the girl asked.
There was nothing forward in her manner: on the contrary, it was languid
and restrained, as though the equatorial sky had warped her nerves. But
her eyes had in them the flicker of smoldering fire; they seemed to
project interior flames. Her complexion was without color, unless indeed
olive may be accounted one. Her abundant hair was so dark it seemed
nearly blue. At the corners of her upper lip was the faintest trace of
down. Her frock was like the night, brilliant yet subdued; it was black,
but glittering with little sparks; about her bare arms were coils of
silver, and from her waist hung cords of plaited steel. She looked as
barbaric as Mrs. Lyeth looked divine.
"Yes," Tancred answered, smilingly; but before he could engage in
further speech, the general's "boy" announced that dinner was served.
"What do you think of it there?" asked Mrs. Lyeth, whose arm he found
within his own.
And as they passed from the bale-bale, as an uninclosed pavilion is
called, to the dining-room beyond, Tancred answered:
"What does one think of the Arabian Nights?"
But there was nothing Arabesque about the meal of which he was then
called upon to partake. It began with oysters, rather brackish but good,
and ended with cheese. Save for some green pigeons with their plumage
undisturbed, and a particularly fiery karri, it was just such a dinner
as the average diner-out enjoys on six nights out of seven. There were
three kinds of French wine and a variety of Dutch liqueurs. During its
service the general held forth, as generals will, on the subject of
nothing at all. And when the meal was done, for several hours the little
group, reunited in the bale-bale, exchanged the usual commonplace views.
During that interchange Tancred kept himself as near as he could to Mrs.
Lyeth, and when at last the party broke up and he found himself alone in
his room he drew a breath which might have been almost accounted one of
relief.
Through the open windows came a heaviness, subtle as the atmosphere of a
seraglio. Beyond, some palms masked a cluster of stars, but from above
rained down the light and messages of other worlds. In the distance was
the surge of the sea, sounding afar the approach and retreat of the
waves. Beneath, in the underbrush, fire-flies glittered, avoiding each
other in abrupt ziz-zags and sudden loops of flame. The moon had not yet
risen, but the sky still was visibly blue.
And as Tancred dropped on a seat he loosened his neck-cloth with a
thrust of the thumb. "That claret was heady," he told himself, and with
a bit of cambric he mopped his brow. But was it the claret? For a little
space he sat gazing at the invitations of the equator. In his ears the
hum of insects still sounded, and to his unheeding eyes the stars danced
their saraband. The sea seemed to beckon and the night to wait.
Thus far his life had been precisely like that of any other
well-nurtured lad of twenty-two. He had been educated at Concord, he was
a graduate of Harvard; but during his school and college days the
refinement of his own home had accompanied him afar. He was one of those
young men, more common now than a few years since, who find it awkward
to utter one word that could not be said aloud in a ball-room. And in
this he was guided less perhaps by good breeding--for breeding, like
every varnish, may cloak the coarsest fibre--than by native comeliness
of thought. He shrank from the distasteful as other men shrink from the
base. His parents had had the forethought to provide him with two
sisters, one a year older than himself, one a year his junior; and these
girls, who at the present hour suggest in our metropolitan assemblies
the charm and allurements of a politer age, had taken their brother in
hand. They had taught him what is best left undone, the grace of
self-effacement, and they had given him some breath of the aroma which
they themselves exhaled. To this his parents had added a smile of
singular beauty, and features clear-cut and sure. In short, his people
had done their best for him. And now that he was seeing the world in
that easiest way, which consists in travelling around it, his letter of
credit was not only in his pocket, but in his face and manner as well.
"I must go to-morrow," he continued. And as he tried to map his
departure, the tinkle of a footfall across the hall routed and disturbed
his thoughts. Unsummoned there visited him a melody, heard long since,
the accompaniment of a song of love. With a gesture he forced it back.
Had he not understood--? No; he remembered now there was no boat from
Siak for several days. He might engage a prahu, though, and in it effect
a crossing to Perang; he could even take the train and journey to
another place. Indeed, he reflected, he might readily do that. And as he
told himself this, from across the hall a tinkle fainter than before
reached his ear. He heard a whispering voice, a door closed, and some
one beat upon a gong of wood. It was midnight, he knew.
He threw his coat aside and stared at the stars. They were taciturn
still, yet more communicative than ever before. One in particular, that
shone sheer above the bale-bale, seemed instinct with lessons and
sayings of sooth. And to the precepts it uttered, its companions
acquiesced, and smiled. Everything, even to the immaterial, the surge
of the sea, the trail of the fire-flies, and the glint of a moonbeam,
now aslant at his feet, conspired to coerce his will. The very air was
alive with caresses, redolent with the balm and the odors of bamboo.
Slowly he undid the lachets of a shoe.
"It is wrong," he muttered, and a breeze that loitered answered, "It is
right." "I will go," he continued, and the great stars chorused, "You
will stay."
Meditatively still he continued to disrobe; but in spite of the stars
and the moonbeams the light must have been insufficient, for presently
he lit a candle, monologuing to himself the while. And as he monologued
he was aware of that fettering, overmastering force which visits youth
but once--the abnegation of self before that which is.
In that struggle in which we lay our arguments down and rejoice in
defeat he had wrestled with all the weakness of his years. And now, as
he flung himself on the bed, he clasped a pillow in his arms and sighed.
He hoped for nothing, he expected nothing; but it was bliss to be
conquered and enchained. The contest was done. During the coming week
his captor would move before him, a luring melody, a clear accord
sounded for his own delight, and then he would go, leaving the melody
undisturbed, yet bearing a strain of it to feed on, a memory of enduring
joy.
From without the hum of insects still persisted, and the waves were
noisier than before. His eyes closed, and he smiled. For a moment that
may have outlasted an hour he dreamed of the fabulous days in which
goatherds dared to fall in love with goddesses. And such is the
advantage of a classical education, that he mumbled a line from a Greek
pedant, another from a Roman bore. In the dactyls and the spondees he
caught the rhythm of tinkling feet; and as the measures sank him into
deeper sleep a monstrous beetle shot through the casement and put the
candle out.
The whir of wings disturbed him ever so little. For an instant he was
bending over sandals, caressing a peplum's hem. Then all was blank.
"Tuan! Tuan!"
It was a Malay servant, hailing the foreign lord, admonishing him to
rise.
The room was filled with sunlight, and on a palm tree opposite Tancred
caught a glimpse of a red monkey scratching his knee, chattering and
grimacing at a paroquet.
II.
At tiffin, that noon, the general was absent. It was usually so, his
daughter explained; the duties of the consulate at Siak claimed the
clearer hours of the day, and it was only now and then, on high days and
festivals, that he permitted himself the surcease of a siesta at home.
"He is indefatigable," she added, and shook her peerless head.
During the morning Tancred had explored the grounds; he had idled on the
red-road and lost himself among the invitations of a green ravine. A
grove of tamarinds had called to him, a stretch of aroids had entreated
him that way, the sky had imprisoned him beneath a palm, a brook had
murmured to him, a lake had coaxed him to its cool embrace. And then,
Zut sniffing at his heels, he had returned in time for luncheon at the
bungalow.
In pauses of the stroll he had promised himself that during the
afternoon he would endeavor to find an opportunity in which to say
something of that which was on his mind. This, however, an accident
prevented. Miss Van Lier announced that she and her future step-mother
were obliged to attend the funeral of a neighbor, a function at which of
course it were idle for him to assist. He watched their departure
without a protest, and gave a few more hours to the wonders of the
woods. When the sun went down his forbearance was rewarded. The general
was detained at Siak. Tancred and the ladies dined as they had
lunched--alone.
That evening Mrs. Lyeth seemed even more magnificent than the night
before. And beside her the sultry insouciance of the maiden heightened
the matron's charm. They were sheerly dissimilar, daughters of antipodal
climes and race--the one loquacious and at ease, the other taciturn and
absorbed. But it was in eyes they differed most. Those of the general's
bride-elect were moist as some blue flower plucked at dawn; the dew
seemed still upon them. Those of the general's daughter were sidereal,
not white nor cobalt, but something that combined the two. To a lapidary
they would have suggested gems.
As Tancred's attention wavered between the charm of the one and the
beauty of the other, Mrs. Lyeth had been describing some of the
surprises in which Sumatra abounds; but her speech had been lost to him,
and it was only the rising inflection with which she terminated a phrase
that prompted him to reply.
"In the States, I fancy, you have nothing like it?"
"In the States, no; but in Mexico I believe--"
And Tancred was about to draw on his imagination when a servant offered
him some sweets. He would have let them pass, but this Mrs. Lyeth
prevented.
"You should try one," she said. "Liance"--and at this she glanced at the
girl--"Liance is the inventor; she will be offended if you--"
And, as she again glanced, Liance arched her brows. At the moment it
occurred to Tancred that the relations between Mrs. Lyeth and her
future step-child might be a trifle strained.
With the aid of a silver prong Tancred helped himself to a confection.
It was yellow of hue, and, he presently discovered, agreeable to the
mouth. It had the flavor of honey and of meal, but it was slightly acid,
as though the rind of a lemon had been mixed therewith.
"I will give one to Zut, if I may," he said, and thereat he tossed one,
which the dog caught on the fly and swallowed with the discreetest
blink. And then, with the appreciation of a gourmet, Tancred added:
"It is excellent; may I have another?"
The dish again was passed to him. Before he rose from the table the
majority of the sweets had disappeared. It was evident that both master
and dog had a taste for just such comestibles as these. As he devoured
one and then another, he noticed that Liance was watching him.
"The general was in Mexico some years ago," Mrs. Lyeth added,
inconsequently. "I have heard him speak of the beauty of the women. But
in New York they are more beautiful still, are they not?"
"Yes, they are pretty enough," Tancred answered.
"I hear they propose to the men," Liance interjected.
"Ah, that is a libel. In leap-year, perhaps, and in jest, such a thing
may occur, but--"
"They are well behaved, then?"
"Yes, indeed. I remember, though, one girl--her name was--there, I have
forgotten it. However, a young fellow was evidently taken with her, and
she, as evidently, was taken with him. But for some reason or other he
never seemed to get to the point. One afternoon, when he was drinking
tea with her, the heat of the room--our houses, you know, are fearfully
hot--must have affected her. She went off like that! The young fellow
was at his wits' end. It may be that he had never seen anyone faint
before. 'What shall I do? what shall I do?' he exclaimed, and he was
about to scream for assistance, when the girl in her swoon murmured:
'Kiss me.' He did so and she recovered at once. H'm--they were married
last spring."
During the telling of this anecdote Tancred noticed that the girl's eyes
were still on his. But as the ultimate phrase dropped from him she rose
and left the room.
"She is exquisite," Tancred confided in a whisper to Mrs. Lyeth. To this
that lady assented. "But you--" he added, and then stopped short.
"Let us go to the pavilion, it is cooler there." Mrs. Lyeth had risen,
and Tancred, hesitant still, followed as she led the way.
"But you," he added at last, "you are perfect."
She had found a seat and he another. A fan which she held she unfurled
and shut again with a sudden click. For a moment she toyed with a fold
of her frock, but presently her hand fell to her side. He caught it up
and kissed the finger-tips. At once she drew it from him.
"It is the climate that has affected you," she said, "not I."
"It is you," he muttered, "it is you."
"Even so, there let it rest."
"I cannot," he insisted; "I love you." As he spoke he started, startled
at his own temerity. And as her eyelids drooped he tried to catch her
hand again.
"Then, if you love me, say nothing." She had straightened herself and
looked him now in the face. "If the general should even imagine--" A
gesture completed the sentence.
Tancred nodded. He seemed confident and assured. Evidently the general
had aroused no fear in him.
"It was in Mexico," she continued. "Liance was in the cradle. Her
mother"--and Mrs. Lyeth turned her head and looked cautiously
around--"her mother was younger than I am now. She was beautiful, I have
understood; more so even than her daughter. The general suspected that
she was flirting with the Austrian attache. He had him out and shot him.
His wife he drove to suicide. It is only recently I learned this. And
yet it is not for that reason that I fear. I have no intention of
flirting with you; you know that. It is because--because--"
"Don't hunt for a reason. I am willing to be shot."
Mrs. Lyeth hastened to laugh, but her laugh was troubled. It sounded
thin, as forced laughter ever does. She unfurled her fan again, and
agitated it with sudden vigor.
"It may not be," she murmured.
Her voice was so low that even the breeze did not catch it. And now, as
she turned to her companion, it seemed to him that her eyes were
compassionate, sympathetic even, awake to possibilities yet careless of
result.
At the moment there came to Tancred that annoyance which visits us in
dream. Before him was a flower more radiant than any parterre had ever
produced. With a reach of the arm it could be his, but his arm had lost
its cunning. Do what he might, it refused to move. And still the flower
glowed, and still the arm hung pendent and quasi-paralyzed at his side.
It may be--such things have happened--it may be that of the inward
effort Mrs. Lyeth marked some sign. She shut her fan again, and made as
though to rise. But this movement of hers, like the clock in the fable,
must have dissolved the spell. Abruptly Tancred was on his feet.
"One instant," he said. "There, you can give me that. Nay, see, if you
wish to--go."
And at this he stood aside, as though to let her pass. The magnetism,
however, which youth possesses, may have coerced her. In any event she
made no further effort to leave; she sat, her eyes a trifle dilated, a
whiteness quivering beneath the lace-work at her neck.
"That is good of you," he added; "I have but a word to say. Listen to
it, will you? I was sure you would. Last night--or was it last
night?--it seems a year ago. H'm, there are people whom we meet--you
must have experienced the same thing--people that disturb us with
suggestions of something that has gone before. When I saw you last
evening--no, not that; but when I heard your voice, there came with it a
reminiscence of earlier and forgotten days. It was not of the present I
thought, but of a past I remembered I had dreamed. It was like a tangled
skein. One after another the threads unloosed, and as they separated
from each parting knot a memory returned. You were not a stranger, you
were a friend I had lost. I could have sat with you, and from yesterday
I could have led you back from one horizon to another until that
posting-house was reached where our destiny changed its horses and our
hands were first unclasped."
This fine speech delivered, he looked down and plucked at his cuff. And
presently, as he was about to speak again, Mrs. Lyeth raised her fan.
"After that I have either to thank you or to go!" Her voice was less
severe than pained, and she seemed to retreat yet further in her chair.
"And I thank you," she added, after a pause, "but it is you that must
go."
To this Tancred answered nothing. He contented himself with looking
insubordinate and cross.
"My poor boy!" she murmured, and sighed--or was it a sigh?--a sound that
seemed to come less from the heart than the spirit. "My poor boy! But
don't you know that you are absurd? I have three brothers--one of them,
by the way, is here now; he went down the coast on Tuesday with some
friends; he will be back, though, to-morrow or the day after. However,
each of my brothers has fallen in love with a woman older than himself,
and each of them has fallen in love again and again. I am, believe me,
grateful for your homage. What you have said is enough to make any woman
pleased. And were I younger--well, then, since you will have it so--were
I free, I would ask to hear it until I knew the words by heart. It
would be pleasant, that. Oh, there might be so very many pleasant
things; yet that is one that may not be. To-morrow, the next day, no
matter, presently you will go; a week later you will find some beauty in
Madras, and, if you think of me then, it will be but with a smile."
She had risen at last, and stood now smiling too. For the life of him
Tancred could not imagine anything fairer, more debonair, nor yet more
just than she.
"If I vex you," he said, "I will hold my tongue. But at least you might
stay. I will promise this--"
But whatever the intended promise may have been it remained
unformulated. In the entrance of the bale-bale Liance had suddenly
appeared.
"It is late, is it not?" Mrs. Lyeth, for countenance sake, inquired.
The girl shrugged her shoulders. A gong in the distance answered in her
stead.
"It _is_ late," Mrs. Lyeth announced. "We had better go in."
She moved from the pavilion, and presently all three reached the house.
The hallway was unlighted, a flicker from the dining-room beyond serving
only to make the darkness more opaque.
"Where is Atcheh?" she asked, and called the "boy" by name.
"There," said Tancred, "let me try to find a match."
He groped down the corridor to his room and in a moment or two returned.
On the way back he passed some one he took to be Liance.
"I could not find one," he exclaimed.
So well as he was able to make out, Mrs. Lyeth had not moved. To his
speech she answered nothing. He advanced a little nearer and tried to
take her hand again, but it eluded him. And in an effort to possess
himself of it he approached nearer still. Her face seemed to be in the
way; for one fleeting second his lips rested on it, then a noise of
hoofs must have alarmed him, for he wheeled like a rat surprised. And
presently, after he had reached his room again, he heard Mrs. Lyeth
welcoming her future husband on the porch.
III.
From his window the next morning Tancred caught a glimpse of Mrs. Lyeth
entering the pavilion beyond. He left the house at once and hastened to
join her; but Liance must have preceded him. When he reached the
pavilion she was already there. On her head was a hat unribboned and
broad of brim, in her hand a basket. She struck Tancred as being more
restless than usual, but the widow was thoroughly at ease. Apparently
the episode in the hallway had not disturbed her in the least. For a few
moments there was a common indulgence in those amiable platitudes of
which the morning hours are prolific, and then Liance stood up.
"If you are going to the coppice, take Mr. Ennever," Mrs. Lyeth
suggested. "He looks bored to death."
"Certainly I will," the girl answered.
Her voice was cordial and her eyes and mouth seemed to invite. Tancred,
however, did not on that account experience any notable desire to
accompany her. On the contrary, he infinitely preferred to remain where
he was. But there was no help for him, not even an excuse. He had his
choice between going and being downright rude. Accordingly he smiled,
but inwardly he swore.
"Show him the rafflesia," Mrs. Lyeth added.
"The what?"
"You shall see it; come."
Liance turned and led the way, and as Tancred followed he marvelled at
the widow's attitude. If he had not kissed her at all she could not have
appeared more unconcerned.
To the left was a grove of betel-nut palms, to the right a patch of
aroids, broad and leathery of leaf. Save for a whir of pheasants in the
distance, and the hum of insects, the hour was still. Even the sea was
silent; and had it not been for the odors of strange plants Tancred
could have closed his eyes and fancied himself in some New England
intervale, loitering through a summer noon. It needed but the toll of a
bell to make it seem a Sabbath. A mosquito alighted on his hand, and he
slaughtered it with a slap. Presently he found himself in a part of the
plantation which he had not yet visited, a strip of turf, the
background defended by trees. And there, in the centre, was an object
such as he had never seen before. He turned inquiringly to Liance; her
eyes were on his own.
"The rafflesia," she lisped, and nodded.
And as he moved to get a nearer view she caught him by the arm.
"Be careful," she added, and warned him with a glance.
But Tancred was not one to fear the immobile; he moved yet nearer to it,
the girl hovering at his side. And as he moved there came to greet him a
heavy, sullen odor, a smell like to that of an acid burning and blent
with rose.
"The heart is poisonous," the girl continued; "don't touch it without
gloves."
The admonition, however, was unnecessary. Tancred was motionless with
surprise. Before him was a flower, its petals of such consistency and of
such unpleasant hue that they resembled huge slabs of uncooked veal. The
chalice was deep enough to hold two gallons of liquid, the pistil was
red, and the supporting stem was gnarled and irruptive with
excrescences. In appearance it suggested an obese and giant lily, grown
in a nightmare and watered with blood. It was hideous yet fascinating,
as monstrosity ever is. And as Tancred stared, a page of forgotten
botany turned in his mind, and he remembered that he had read of this
plant, which Sumatra alone produces, and in whose pistil lurks a poison
swifter than the cantarella of the Borgias, deadlier than the essences
of Locuste.
The odor, more pungent now, drove him back a step. At the moment it
seemed to carry with it a whiff of that atmosphere of creosote and
tooth-wash which is peculiar to the dentist's chair. And slaughtering
another mosquito, he moved yet further away.
"What do you think of it?" asked Liance.
"It would hardly do for the button-hole, would it?" he answered.
The girl nodded appreciatively. Evidently she was of the same mind as
he.
"There are few of them here," she continued. "This is the only one in
Siak, but back there," and she pointed to the mountains, "they are
plentiful. When a Malay prepares for war he slashes the pistil with his
kriss. The wound that that kriss makes is death."
"H'm," mused Tancred, with an uncomfortable shrug, "if I happened to
fall out with a Malay--"
"Don't."
The monosyllable fell from her like a stone.
"I will do my best," he said.
She turned again and led him back through the coppice. The air was
sultrier than ever, heavy with fragrance and enervating with forebodings
of a storm. And now, as the girl preceded him, her step seemed more
listless than before. She is tired, he reflected. These noons are
fierce.
"You are to be with us some time, are you not?" Liance asked.
"No, a day or two at the most. When the next steamer goes, so must I."
"Could you not stay longer?" She stopped and looked at him, the little
basket swaying to and fro.
"I should like to, really I should like to very much," he replied. The
episode with Mrs. Lyeth was still oppressing him, and in answer to the
oppression he added aloud, "But perhaps it is better I should not."
Liance lowered her eyes, and with the point of her shoe tormented a tuft
of grass.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because--well, because I feel an intruder."
The girl raised her eyes at once, her lips quivered.
"You are wrong, so wrong."
And then, curiously enough, as such things happen, Tancred--who was not
a bit stupider than the rest of us--felt an oracle within him. It was
more than probable, he told himself, that widow and maid, being nearly
of an age, had, in their Sumatran idleness, become the fastest friends;
and at once, with that logic which is peculiar to those that love, he
decided that, being friends, they must be confidantes as well, and he
concluded that two fair heads had come together and determined he should
remain. That woman is variable, was a song he knew by heart, and he also
knew that woman is apt to do one thing and mean another--to dismiss, for
instance, the very man whom she wishes most at her feet.
These ruminations, however long in the telling, did not in reality
outlast a moment's space. It was all very clear to him now, and his
blood pulsed quickly.
"If _you_ tell me so, I must indeed be wrong," he answered. "And let me
add," he continued, impetuously, "it is a boon to know it."
To his face a flush had come, and his eyes were eager. He had never been
accounted anything else than good-looking, but now he was attractive as
well.
"You will not be in haste to go, then?"
"In haste to go--" His face completed the sentence. "Tell her from me,"
he was about to say, when from the girl's loosening fingers the basket
fell; she drooped like a flower, her eyes half closed, and he had but
the time to hold out his arm when she sank unconscious on it.
The grass seemed an inviting couch, and very gently he let her from him.
"It is the heat," he reflected, and kneeling at her side he took her
small hand and beat it with his own. "What shall I do?" he wondered.
Her cheeks were colorless, though her lips were red, and as, in his
perplexity, he gazed at them, he saw them move. "Kiss me," they seemed
to say. Her eyes opened and she smiled.
And still he stared. "Merciful heaven!" he thought; "she thinks I am in
love with _her_;" and feigning that the invitation had passed unheard he
sprang to his feet.
"Help me," she murmured, smiling still; and as he bent again to aid her,
before him in the coppice stood Mrs. Lyeth. Already the girl was on her
feet. Whether she had been aware of Mrs. Lyeth's approach, who shall
say? She patted out a rumpled fold of her frock, and picking the basket
up, glanced over at her father's choice.
"I almost fell," she announced. "Mr. Ennever was gallant enough to
prevent me."
In single file all three then returned to tiffin at the bungalow.
IV.
The afternoon slipped by like a chapter in a fairy tale. It promised but
it did not fulfil, and at dinner the champagne sparkled, but the
conversation was flat. When the cloth was removed the general manifested
a desire to look over some papers, and Tancred and the ladies retreated
to the pavilion beyond. Yet even there the wheels of talk were clogged.
Mrs. Lyeth indeed discoursed amiably enough on the subject of nothing at
all, and now and then Liance interjected an apposite sally; but Tancred
was taciturn. He divided his time between biting his moustache and
bidding Zut be still. And when at last through some channel of thought
Mrs. Lyeth anchored herself in the shallows of Anglo-Saxon verse, for a
moment the young man fancied that the girl was about to go. Liance made
a movement, but whether some signal from her future step-mother detained
her, or whether of her own accord she reconsidered her purpose, Tancred
was unable to decide. The girl resumed her seat, and, one arm extended
on the woodwork, the other pendent at her side, her feet crossed, her
head thrown back, she sat staring at the stars in that abstracted
attitude which powder and shot are alone qualified to disturb.
There is much in an opportunity that might be and is not. In
recollection it appears more fecund in possibilities than any other
opportunity ever enjoyed. And later on, when Tancred, without having
had the opportunity to exchange in private so much as a word with Mrs.
Lyeth, found himself in his room, he ravened at fate and at his own
ill-luck. Nothing that he could imagine would have been sweeter to him
than to have sat the evening through alone with that human flower. There
would have been no need of speech; the languors of the night, the caress
of the stars, the scent of palms and of orchids, the accent of the waves
beyond, these things would have spoken for him more subtly than words
could do. Through their silence the breeze would have whispered, and who
does not know what a breeze can say? Though they sat apart, the stars
that the old gods used as go-betweens were there to join their hands.
They might be timid, but is not the surge of the sea a call that stirs
the pulse? And the palms had their secrets to tell, and they would have
told them, too; nay, the very fire-flies would have conspired together
and made the night more dark. And, instead of a communion such as that,
there had been an aimless chit-chat, an awkwardness that was sentient,
and an embarrassment terminated only by a chill "Good-night." Truly Zut,
who had treed a hedgehog, was to be envied. His evening at least had not
been squandered and misspent.
The morrow differed from the day preceding merely in this, that not for
one instant during it did Tancred have an opportunity of seeing either
Mrs. Lyeth or Liance alone. After tiffin they were inseparate. And
Tancred, who had made plans for the afternoon, then made plans for the
evening. But the hope which buoyed him was idle. The evening which
followed was a counterpart of the one that had gone before, save in
this, the general, having no papers to look over, held forth as generals
will, and Zut searched for a hedgehog in vain. That night, for the first
time, Tancred entered fully into the feelings of Tantalus and those of
Sisyphus too. He was dumbly exasperated, the more so perhaps in that he
divined that to one cleverer than he no obstacle would exist. If a woman
has an ear, and as a rule women have, there is always a way to get at
it. Unfortunately for Tancred, the way in this case was by no means
clear, and what helped to confuse him was the fact that he was impatient
to find it at once, no, but there and then, and without delay. And as in
his exasperation he dashed his head against the pillow, he told himself
that he had been abrupt, that he had unmasked his batteries too soon,
that he had frightened where he had meant to charm. Of Liance he gave no
thought whatever, except to decide that she was a nuisance. And such is
the selfishness of man, that he wished she would topple over again and
sprain a joint; in short, that anything might happen which would keep
her to her room and out of the way of Mrs. Lyeth. The idea that the
general's bride-elect might be keeping her purposely at her side was one
that never occurred to him. She is a nuisance, he decided, and dismissed
her from his thoughts.
Before he fell asleep his mind was clear as to one thing; to wit, that
in a small household it is more difficult to be alone with one
particular person than in a household where there are many. Whether he
was correct or not is a matter of the smallest possible importance. The
next morning, when Atcheh appeared with coffee and fruit, he was aware
that he had wandered through an assortment of dreams in which the
rafflesia and the general were confusedly connected; at one moment the
general had changed into that unhallowed flower, at another the
rafflesia had bristled with the moustaches of his host. And as he rose
from these fancies to his coffee he encountered a scheme which he
detained and examined. It was not particularly shrewd, yet at the moment
it seemed luminous to him. It was to the effect that if he were
inhibited from private speech with Mrs. Lyeth, there was no reason in
the world why he should not write. And as he mused, from the porch
beyond rose the sound of her voice.
He was too far away to hear what she was saying, and, parenthetically,
had he been nearer he would not have listened. But now the intonation,
the trailing accent of her speech affected him as a balm. The irritation
faded, as irritation ever does; he found some paper, and as, to the
accompaniment of her voice, he prepared to write one of those letters in
which punctuation is disregarded and sequence of idea forgot, he heard
her waving inflection cut by a harsher note. It was the general, he
knew. For the moment he wondered why he had not already gone to the
consulate, but presently the noise of hoofs, the creak of wheels, a
shrill cry, and the hiss of a whip seemed to announce that the
conveyance which took the consul each morning to Siak was at the door.
Tancred's window did not give on the road, but on the coppice and the
pavilion, yet when again he caught the creak of wheels it demanded
little imagination on his part to picture the general sitting bolt
upright in a gharry, driving to the sun-smitten town beyond. And as the
clatter of hoofs fainted in the distance, Tancred took up the pen again.
The letter which he then succeeded in producing was one similar to what
we have all of us written and all of us received--a clear call of love,
in which the words are less jotted than shaken from the end of the pen.
Its transcription here is needless.
A love-letter which can pleasure anyone save the recipient proceeds not
from the heart but the head. Moreover, when Tancred began it he had not
the faintest idea what he intended to say, and when it was finished he
did not remember what he had written. Oh, sweethearts and swains! mind
ye of this: when a love-letter differs from that, it emanates from a
poet or a fraud. Tancred was neither. He was simply a young man suddenly
enthralled by the charm of a woman older than himself. He intended no
wrong, and if you or I or any other implacable moralist had happened
that way and told him, as would have been our duty, that he was
betraying the sacredest of trusts, the confidence of a host, he would
have exhibited the surprise of a child frowned at for innocent prattle.
Bear with him then; of wrong he intended none. It is the essence of
crime that it be committed with malice aforethought, that the intention
to commit it be clear. In the present case the intention was wholly
lacking. Tancred was carried along by one of those unreasoning impulses
which the psychologist recognizes and cannot explain. And that impulse,
after throwing him at Mrs. Lyeth's feet and dictating a letter to her,
left his conscience unruffled and at peace.
His pulse, however, still was stirred. And, the letter completed, he was
not in a greater hurry to do anything else than to get it safely in her
hand. The manner in which this was to be accomplished was another
matter. He might offer it to her in person, or he might leave it in her
room. He might even watch his opportunity and slip it into her hand;
but, for that, he immediately reflected he would have to wait the
opportunity--a tedious operation at best; and, moreover, was he not in
haste? And as he mused he remembered that Dugald Maule, a New Yorker
like himself, finding himself in similar strait, had, under the very
nose of a duenna, deliberately abstracted a handkerchief from his
inamorata's pocket, and, wrapping a letter up in it, handed it back with
the civilest inquiry as to whether she had not just let the handkerchief
fall? That was a remarkably neat trick, Tancred told himself, but
somehow it seemed to demand a degree of assurance of which he felt
unpossessed. Besides, it was a trick, and as such distasteful to him.
And as he twirled his moustache, vaguely perplexed, undecided in what
way to act, determining that it were better perhaps to leave it all to
chance, he caught a glimpse of Mrs. Lyeth entering the pavilion alone.
She was in white from head to foot, alluring as spring, and doubtless
every whit as fragrant; she moved easily, her body erect and unswayed,
and as Tancred caught sight of her he would have taken his chances then
and there, but almost simultaneously he saw Liance following behind. In
the annoyance he filliped forefinger and thumb together, and tried to
possess his soul with patience. It was not impossible that in a moment
the girl might go, and then his time would come. Meanwhile it behooved
him to be careful and to remain unseen. But no, Liance must have seated
herself at the other side of the pavilion, for he could hear Mrs. Lyeth
address her, and the murmurs of the girl's replies. Presumably they
would remain together until tiffin, and if before tiffin the note was
not delivered, another afternoon, the evening too, perhaps, would be
wasted and lost.
And as he thought of this, behind him he divined rather than heard
Atcheh's noiseless tread. He turned at once. Another idea had come to
him, one on which he determined to act at once. The "boy" was already
retreating, a tray in his hand.
"Dja keno," Tancred called.
On shipboard he had not been altogether idle. The Malay tongue is as
easy to speak badly as Italian, and Tancred had found slight difficulty
in acquiring enough mouthfuls for ordinary needs. "Dja keno--come here."
The sultry savage wheeled and obeyed.
"Ba gnio inong--take this to the lady." And as Tancred spoke he pointed
through the lattice to Mrs. Lyeth.
The Malay took the note and bowed.
"Bae, Tuan," he answered. "Your lordship, it is well."
In a moment the man had gone, and in another moment Tancred saw him
approach Mrs. Lyeth and place the letter in her hand. He could see that
she was eying it, wonderingly no doubt, for now she turned her head, but
already the Malay had disappeared. And as she still looked about her,
holding the letter unopened before her, Tancred felt as though something
were clutching at his throat. From out the coppice, not a dozen yards
distant, the general had suddenly emerged.
In a state similar to that mental paralysis which visits us in dream,
Tancred marked his advance. It seemed perfectly natural that he should
be there; without an effort he recalled the fact, forgotten albeit until
now, yet still the unaccountable fact that it was Sunday; and presently,
as the general halted, his thin figure erect, a bamboo switch in his
hand, his cavalry moustache more bristling than ever, and
proprietor-fashion surveyed the grounds, it was to Tancred as though he
had been there for all of time. Then at once the cerebral swoon
departed, in a confusion of visions, with that thing still clutching at
his throat and his heart beating like mad, he saw on one side Mrs. Lyeth
open the letter, and on the other the general decapitate a poppy with
his switch.
Already Mrs. Lyeth had turned the initial page; she had read the second
and was beginning at the last, when the general, to whose presence
behind her she was obviously oblivious, advanced on tiptoe to where she
sat. Tancred saw him raise a warning finger to his lips, beneath the
moustache he divined a smile, invisible to him, yet apparent, doubtless,
to Liance, at whom the warning gesture must have been made, and then,
bending over his _fiancee's_ shoulder, he peered at the letter which
she held. Yet before he could have deciphered so much as a line of it,
Mrs. Lyeth started, as we all do when taken unaware. In an instant,
however, she recovered her self-possession. She turned to the general,
her mouth compressed into a pout.
"Do you know," she said, from the tips of her lips, "you are as bad as
Atcheh. A cat would make more noise."
At this reproof the general laughed aloud, and, as though in sheer
excess of glee, beat his leg with the switch. Tancred could see it was,
indeed, a merry jest to him.
"My bonny Kate!" he gurgled. "I frightened her, did I not?" And again he
beat his leg and laughed. "And whom is the missive from?" he asked. "I
heard the gharry's wheels an hour ago. Will you pay me if I wager and I
win? Will you pay me? I wager it is from--h'm--let me see. I wager it is
from that coffee planter's wife you met at Singapore."