Richard Dehan

“ Lanter followed, the attendants mounted to their seats, and the large shiny omnibus drove away.
The sensation of moving and speaking in a dream bore heavily upon Mr. Lanter as he followed the tall, stooping figure of the giantess up a short flight of stairs and through what seemed to be a labyrinth of winding passages, each of which seemed more dark and dusky than the preceding one, and conveyed a stronger olfactory impression of gas, mice, and turpentine. But the labyrinth ended in a vast echoing chaos of shaky canvas scenes and machinery, which Miss Minota introduced as the stage. ”

“ Had he refused the invitation, and stayed at home with Mrs. Ponsonby, it would have been better for him—and for her. He would not to-day have been a silent, atrabilious man, who goes upon his way in loneliness—that mated loneliness which is of all desolate conditions on this earth the most desolate—with a vampire gnawing underneath his waistcoat. She would not have been a much-wronged, cruelly neglected woman—or the other type of sufferer, the woman who has been found out; and for ever robbed of that which women hold dearest in life—the power to create illusions. ”

“ And Yvonne saw two figures appear in the distance upon the Paimpol road, neither of which caused her any emotion. Monsieur Blandon, the Paimpol doctor, was hirpling out upon his old white mare, to visit some of his Pors Lanec patients; half an hour must elapse before he could dismount at Yvonne’s door, the mare was so old and the road so stony. She looked away, far out to sea, and watched a tossing white sail upon the inky horizon, and with the instinct of one bred by the sea knew that there would be weather yet more stormy, for the seagulls and kittiwakes were hurrying inland. ”

“ The live women who had known and envied the dead owner of the blue diamond clustered thick about the iron doors, and loaded the atmosphere of the crowded place with their perfumes, and chattered like the inmates of the parrot house at the Zoological Gardens. Not one of them but would have given her soul in exchange for even a lesser jewel if Satan had appeared at her elbow and suggested the exchange. He did come to one of them. She was a pretty woman, still almost young; she was beautifully dressed in painted silken muslin, and wore a whole king bird of Paradise in her Paris hat. ”

“ And at the Club dinner following the presentation of the prizes, Sheldrick, flushed with conquest and congratulations, had given that pledge whereby the soul of the woman who yet loved him was wrung to torture anew.
“After all that I have borne,” Mrs. Sheldrick had said to herself, sitting in her hideous red moreen-covered chair by the green Venetian-blinded window of the staring hotel sitting-room—“after three years of agony, silently, patiently endured—after all his promises, I am still upon the rack.” ”

“ He reached a copper flagon from its peg, and went as if by instinct to the cider-cask that stood by the great, carved clothes-press. Minutes passed, and Piggou came out, brighter of eye if redder of nose than when he entered, wiping his dripping beard on his ragged sleeve.
“It’s long since you and Piggou had a crack together, Mademoiselle Yvonne—years it is, and years! I’m not as fine a fellow as I used to be, though you’re a comely figure of a woman still. ”

“ The wind blew shrilly; the sky grew black with storm. Jean-Marie’s cheek was wet with rain or the woman’s tears. He was conscious of a dizziness. It was as though a web of some strange tissue were weaving in the chambers of his brain, and the pattern grew more and more familiar. The arms that clasped him were not those of a stranger; the heart that throbbed upon his own had rested there before. Even the cottage interior shown through the low doorway was familiar, and the oaken [59] benches to right and left, had he not carved his name on one of them, his and another’s? ”

“ The stone that I shall give you is an exact replica in a newly-invented paste of the stone that is the price of what I have bought from you. When the commissionaire brings round the Blue Diamond, touch the jewel boldly—take it in your hand, as it is permissible to do—and substitute the paste. Have no fear! I will undertake that the act is undetected. Thenceforth wear your prize undismayed; boast of it as you will. The one—the only—drawback to your perfect happiness must be that society will believe your jewel to be false, while you have the exquisite joy of knowing it to be genuine. ”

“ Sada Yacco joined him, and they snuffed together. It was impossible to sleep, especially when they began to discuss the situation in whimpers and short yelps. Then they began to race round the boudoir, barking in whimpers. Then, just as She had made up her mind to buy peace by letting them in, there was a sharp bark from Sada Yacco, a joyous scrape at a distant door, and a rattling of claws as the couple, emancipated from vile durance in the boudoir, joyously galloped down the passage. Then sleep soporifically stole over the senses of a wronged and brutally injured woman. ”

“ Monsieur de Courvaux, with his orders, his bald forehead, and his white whiskers, released mademoiselle at the claim of a tall, tawny-haired, hazel-eyed, fair-faced partner, a Highland gentleman, in plaid and philabeg, with sporran and claymore, the antique gold brooch upon his shoulder set with ancient amethysts, river pearls and cairngorms. And he told her how he loved her, there in the alcove of palms, and heard her little confession that, had she not been bound by a promise of marriage to Monsieur de Courvaux she would—oh, how gladly!—become the wife of Monsieur Angus Dunbar. ”

“ And the steps came nearer. As the dining-room door opened, he fell back, helplessly, behind it. The wall seemed to open and swallow him—thick, suffocating folds fell before his face; he had backed into the curtained recess whence the Pantheress had emerged thirty fateful minutes previously. Through a three-cornered rent in the stuff, just the height of his eye from the ground, and through which that beast of prey had probably watched him, he looked—and saw his wife!
She wore a loose white wrapping gown; her hair—the hair—hung in waves about her shoulders. ”

“ Come, my old gossip, my handsome Yvonne, don’t play the fool with Daddy Piggou. You’re not so cracked as you pretend to be, d’ye comprehend me? You know this waiting game’s a farce. He, your Yann, won’t come back; not because he’s dead, but because he’s alive. Alive and married to Louet Kergueven, that he had an eye on because of her dad’s money; and they’ve as many children as peas in a pod—the eldest as fine a lad of eighteen as ever trod in his father’s footsteps all the ways to Pors Lanec. ”

“ Quartermaster Casey, a dozen yards of cheap Liberty muslin, a gross of Japanese fans, one or two pieces of Oriental drapery, and a few articles of furniture of the tottery bamboo kind, had converted for the time being into a boudoir. Only for the time being, she said to herself, because when she got her rights she would enjoy all the splendors now usurped by the real Peggy Donohoe—Miss Emmie, as she called the usurper when she forgot, which was not often. ”

“ Women of Petronella’s kind always enthusiastically uphold the dignity of the devil. She told him what she thought, and she wound up in the red-papered hall of the one-sided Hampstead villa by saying that he and she had better part. She added, as women of Petronella’s type invariably do add, that the dead past might bury its dead. And she drew off her engagement ring—an olivine, imposed by a Bond Street jeweler upon the too-confiding Canwarden as an emerald, harnessed between two indifferent diamonds of yellowish hue—and thrust it back upon him, and went upstairs to her room and locked the door ”

“ Even when you are there with me—and when every postman’s knock, or telegraph boy’s ring, or telephone message has for the moment ceased to be fraught with hideous, often-dreamed-of, never-forgotten possibilities ... when each newsboy’s voice, yelling in the streets, has temporarily ceased to be the voice of Fate for me—it is no longer home! It is a caravanserai, from which Hope and Content and Peace of Mind may go out before the next day’s dawning, leaving [5] the door open that Death and Despair may the more freely enter in!”
“Ella!” exclaimed Sheldrick, looking at her open-eyed. ”

“ HOW THE MISTRESS CAME HOME THE avenue of lofty elms was veiled in a white fog; upon the low-lying parklands, cropped meadows, and sere stubble-fields, the same woolly vapor lay dankly. But the square windows of the fine old Tudor manor-house flashed with ruddy light, and the hospitable hearth-fires of the hall diffused glow and radiance through open doors. Sir Vivian and Lady Wroth were coming home after a honeymoon of eight months’ duration spent in scampering over the face of the habitable globe ”

“ Listen—and look at the jewels,” whispered the smooth, caressing voice in the ear of the woman who had just signed away her soul in exchange for the sensation of the day. And as a giant commissionaire bearing pearl ropes and tiaras, bracelets and rings and necklaces, nervously paraded up and down the central aisle left for his convenience, and the chattering and screaming of the society cockatoos redoubled, in envious admiration of each swaggering, glittering, covetable gewgaw, the devil told the woman very plainly how the thing was to be done. ”

“ Pichon, crushing his cap, bowed and stammered gratitude, and backed out, leading the girl, who turned upon the threshold to send one passionate glance of gratitude from her great, melancholy, black eyes at the beautiful stately figure with the gold-gray hair, clad in shining silks and costly lace. As the door closed upon the homely figures, the little Marquise heaved a sigh of relief.
“Ouf! Pitiable as it all is, one can hardly expect anything better. The standard of morality is elevated in proportion to the standard of rank, the caliber of intellect, the level of refinement. ”

“ In all human probability the man was innocent.” He said again, “Women are hard!” as he creaked up the hotel staircase.
He found her in the sick-room. She had changed her dress for something that gave out no assertive silken rustle in answer to her movements, something that draped the charming contour of her figure—she had a charming figure—with soft, quiet folds, like the wings of a dun hawkmoth. That fell composure still walled her in as with ramparts of steel. She held the bed-curtain back as the Doctor stooped over the livid, discolored face upon the pillow. ”

“ Present good for future gain!... Doubtless you will recall the quotation, but so uncertain a futurity is well bartered for such a jewel as they have in there. Think—you will snatch it from the great dealers—from the private connoisseurs. You will hold and display and flaunt it in the face of society. You will be beautiful—wearing it! You should be envied, wearing it! You may be happy—doubtless you will be so! And now, just as a mere form, prick your left wrist slightly with this diamond-pointed pencil and inscribe your name upon a leaf of these ebony tablets. ”

“ In these books or dramas Vice was generally personified by an adventuress—a brazen, defiant person, who had made up her mind to ruin somebody or another; and Virtue, by an innocent girl or pure young wife, who pleaded until the hardened heart was melted, the fierce eyes moistened by an unaccustomed tear—until, in short, the naughty woman abandoned her unhallowed purpose and left the nice one mistress of the field. ”

“ This pleased the leading ladies hugely, even when their eyes were not of sapphire; but stage-managers found Urban Canwarden’s stage directions a trial. If he had been firmly seated in the motor-car of public approval, both hands on the driving-wheel as he ripped along the track of success, they would have smiled even while they writhed. But Canwarden was not yet famous, and the stage-managers were free not to disguise their feelings. However, he went on; getting thin—thin for a plump man—in the effort to make enough to marry on. ”

“ Then he sat down in an armchair, unbuttoned his white waistcoat, loosened his collar, and prepared to be lonelily convivial. He thought of his girl-like bride asleep upstairs, with her cheek upon her hand, and her gold-brown hair swamping the pillow. It says much for the state of Ponsonby’s affections, that while he knew the uses of the monthly half pint of peroxide which was an unfailing item on the chemist’s bill, he could still be poetical about that tinge of gold. But newly married men seldom look into the roots of anything. ”

“ Two men stood together at the Selma’s after-rail: a short, square man of muscular build, with a slight stoop that told of scholarly habits, and thick, fair hair, streaked with white, and a deeply-lined, clean-shaven face, with pale, far-seeing eyes that were set in a network of fine wrinkles. The other man was Hawting-Holliday, who had announced his intention, at the last minute, of accompanying the Expedition as far as Madeira for the sake of the sea-blow. ”

“ Yethill was good at imitating handwriting!—and he absented himself from the domestic hearth for several days together whenever there was a recurrence of the symptoms. The method wrought a wonderful cure; but Mrs. Yethill began to grow elderly from about this period. You could hardly have called her a young woman, when the baby came, and brought his mother’s lost youth back to her, clenched in one pudgy hand. The vanished roses fluttered back and perched upon her thin cheekbones again. She was heard to laugh. ”

“ And here comes the commissionaire with the Diamond.... Only an alumina in hexagonal arrangement crystallized in the cooling of this planet you call ‘the World’ as arrogantly as though there were no others, and yet how unique, how exquisite! See how the violet rays leap from the facets, even the noblest sapphire looks cold and pale beside the glorious gem. Murder has been committed for its shining sake over and over again in ages of which your history has no cognizance. ”

“ Canwarden would say, “I have been able to write of noble women. You have inspired me; everything that is best in me comes from you; everything I have done that is good I owe to you....”
“You dear, exaggerating, Romantic Thing!” was invariably the reply of Petronella. “And when we are married we shall have a 28 h.p. Gohard with nickel fittings and a changeable body, and a chauffeur in livery. I used to dream of a dear little private brougham when we were first engaged, but nobody who wants to be thought Anybody would have such an old-fashioned thing now. ”

“ He wished [67] to bring about a rupture between Jean-Marie and Gaud. The girl was penniless; Jean-Marie a love-sick young fool. Besides, his wife would never consent to a union of their families; she had never ceased to be jealous of the sweetheart to whom Yann had played false. “You threw her over for my money, rogue that you are!” she would say to him, when red wine dashed with cider had made her quarrelsome.
The night drew on. Drifting clouds no longer obscured the faces of the stars; the December night might, for mildness, have been May, or so it seemed to Yann and to Yvonne. ”

“ Petronella was a girl whose white and well-developed bosom was the home of emotions but little livelier than those that animate the beautiful person of a Regent-street wax-doll. Sawdust will burn, it is true, but the costlier puppets are stuffed with choicer stuffing. She had not fallen in love with Urban Canwarden; she had simply frozen on to him. She had liked sitting in the author’s box on First Nights, while the author tore his hair at his Club or in his chambers. She liked his person, his friends, his prospects. ”

“ She was married in a traveling-gown, without any bridesmaids; and after the wedding-breakfast Captain and Mrs. Yethill drove home to their lodgings on the Common. The wedding-trip had been abandoned—from no lack of money, but because Yethill said he had had enough of traveling, and the custom of carrying a bride away, as if in triumph, to the accompaniment of rice and slippers, was “guff.” He certainly played the gorilla as if to the manner born. The poor little woman loved him; he loved her. ”

“ Her bosom heaved, and the ivory paleness of her face was darkened with a rush of blood. “Honor is involved. You are bound in honor to keep your word to others, but free to deceive, to defraud, to cheat and lie to—your wife!”
“Take care what you’re saying!”
Sheldrick leaped out of his chair, fiery red and glaring angrily. Mrs. Sheldrick looked at him out of her glittering, narrowed eyes, and laughed, and her laugh was ugly to hear. ”

“ Shelmadine’s creed was that for a man to look thoroughly well dressed he must have a perfect silhouette. Every line about him must be perfect. The sweep of the shoulders, the spring of the hips, the arch over the instep, and so forth, must display the cut of scissors wielded by an artist—not a mere workman. ”