 | CHAPTER IX.
LOCKSLEY'S SCARE. Cecil Dreeme |  |
9. CHAPTER IX.
LOCKSLEY'S SCARE.
Churm's steps went echoing along the corridor,
echoing down the stairs. The front door of
Chrysalis clanged to after him. Rumbling echoes
of the clang marched to and fro along the halls,
and fumbled for quiet nooks in the dark distances
of the building. There I could hear them lie
down to repose, and whisper, `Silence.'
Silence and sleep reigned.
I was little disposed to sleep. I lighted a fresh
cigar and fell into a revery.
Why, I first asked myself, had Churm so urged
the history of his unhappy love personally upon
me? Why was he so earnest and emphatic in
his warning? The two tragedies were detached.
He might have simply recalled the fact of his
guardianship, and then described the fate of his
ward. But he had gone back and forced himself
to uncover his wound, — why? Not for my
sympathy. No; he had outlived the need of
sympathy. Besides, no loyal man would betray
the error of a woman once loved, for pity's sake.
him to take a father's place, and say to me, “Beware!”
I puzzled myself awhile, inquiring, What did
he see in my temperament or my circumstances
to make this warning needful? No solution of
the question came to me. I dismissed the subject,
and thought with a livelier interest over the
Denman tragedy.
I began to perceive how much I had unconsciously
counted upon the friendship of the Denmans.
It was a rough shock to learn that I must
doubt of Denman's thorough worth. He, too,
was a friend of my father. His was an important
figure in the background of my boyish
recollections. A large, handsome man I remembered
him, a little conscious in his bearing, but
courteous, hospitable, open-handed, using wealth
splendidly, — in fact, my ideal of what a rich
man should be. It was a grave disappointment
to me to be forced to dismiss this personage, and
set up instead in my mind the Denman Churm
had described. My hero was, in plain words,
a rogue, a coward, and a slave.
I perceived, too, that half unconsciously I had
kept alive pretty little romantic fancies about
Emma and Clara. Living so many years in Italy
and France, among women with minds deflowered
by the confessional, and among the homely damsels
fresh, frank, graceful, girlish girls at home. The
Denmans had often visited my imagination, companions
of my sunniest memories of childhood.
The earliest pleasure of my return I had looked
for in the revival of this intimacy. But now I
found one dead mysteriously, the other's life
clouded by a tragedy. My pretty fancies all
perished.
I began to dread my interview with Emma
Denman to-morrow. Densdeth to be my usher!
What if she, like her father, had deteriorated
under Densdeth's influence?
To cure myself of this sorry thought, I looked
up among my treasures the letter which the two
girls had written me several years ago, upon my
father's death. It came to me in a friendless,
foreign land, one desolate summer, while I was
convalescing from an attack of the same fever
that orphaned me.
Precious little childish epistle, now yellow with
age! I remembered how I read it, slowly and
feebly, one sultry Italian day, when the sluggish
heat lay clogged and unrippled in the streets of
the furnace-like city. I recalled how I read it,
pausing between the sentences, and feeling each
as sweet as the cool, soothing touch of the hand
of love on a throbbing forehead.
I unfolded the letter, and re-read it reverently,
scribe. These were her quaint, careful characters,
her timid, stiff, serious, affectionate phrases.
I pictured to myself the two girls signing this
sisterly missive, blushing perhaps with a maidenly
shyness, smiling with maidenly confidence,
sobered by their gentle sympathy for my grief.
Then, with a sudden shifting of the scenes,
there came up before me a picture of the sad
drama so lately enacted in Mr. Denman's house.
Clara driven to madness or despair, Emma bereaved,
Denman lost to self-respect, Churm belied;
and in the background a malignant shadow,
— Densdeth.
All at once a peremptory knock at my door
disturbed me.
A stout knock, thrice repeated. The visitor
meant to be heard and answered.
I was fresh from the French theatres, where
three great blows behind the curtain announce
its lifting.
“What!” thought I, “does the drama march?
Is a new act beginning? Am I playing a part in
the Denman trilogy? And what new character
appears at midnight in the dusky halls of Chrysalis?
Who follows Densdeth and Churm? Who
precedes Emma Denman?”
I opened the door, wide and abruptly.
Locksley stood there, with fist uplifted to pound
again.
The sudden draught put out his candle. The
corridor had a sombre, mysterious look.
“Come in,” said I.
“Is Mr. Churm here?” he asked, in an anxious
tone.
“No; he left me at eleven, to go to his invalid,
down town.”
“I hoped to catch him. I wanted his advice
very much.”
He looked at me earnestly, as he spoke, as if
studying my face for a solution of some difficulty.
“Come in out of the dark and cold!” said I.
He entered. The bristly man had a worried,
doubtful look, quite different from his alert, warlike
expression of the morning. He was porcupine
still, but porcupine badly badgered. He
glanced nervously about the room, with the air
of one excited and slightly apprehensive. The
suit of armor with the spiked mace, standing
sentry at the lumber-room door, gave him a start.
“Empty iron!” said I; “and he can't strike
with that billy he holds.”
“I 've seen the old machine a hundred times,”
Locksley rejoined. “It only jumped me because
I 'm all on end with worry.”
“Can I help? My advice is at your service,
if it 's worth having, and you choose to trust a
stranger.”
“O, I know you 're the right sort. We 've
down to the Janitory. But I don't want to
bother you.”
“Never mind! What is the trouble? Burglars?
Or slow fire?”
“Why, you see, sir,” said Locksley, “I 'm in
considerable of a scare about that young painter
up-stairs.”
He pointed to the centre-piece of the arabesqued
ceiling. I looked up, almost expecting
to see a pair of legs dangling through, according
to my fancy of the afternoon.
“What?” said I, my interest wide awake.
“The one overhead?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Cecil Dreeme? I saw the name on a
card above.”
“Mr. Cecil Dreeme, and I 'm afraid something
's come to him.”
“Is he missing?”
“No; he 's there. But I have n't seen him
these two days. Dora went up with his breakfast
this morning, and with his dinner. No one
answered when she knocked. I 've just been
up, and hammered a dozen thumps on his door.
I could n't raise a sound inside.”
Locksley's voice sank to an anxious whisper
as he spoke.
“What do you fear?” said I.
“Sickness or starvation, — one of them I 'm
afraid has come to him. Or perhaps he 's
punying away for want of open air and sunshine,
and some friend to say `Hurrah boys!' to
him.”
“You have a pass-key, of course; why did n't
you push in?”
“I would have shoved straight through, and
seen what was the matter, if Mr. Dreeme had
been like other young fellows. But he is n't.
He might be there dying alone, and I should n't
like to interfere on my own hook, against his
particular orders not to be disturbed. What do
you say, Mr. Byng? Suppose it 's a case of life
and death, — shall I break in?”
“It is a delicate matter to advise upon. A
gentleman's house is his castle. I must have
my facts before I become accomplice to a burglary.
What do you know of Mr. Dreeme's
health or habits to make you anxious?”
“Not over much. But more than any one
else.”
“He is reserved then?” My curiosity about
the name was increasing, as the slight mystery
seemed to thicken.
“Reserved, sir! I don't believe a soul in the
city knows a word of him, except us Locksleys.
He 's one of the owl kind.”
“A friendless stranger,” said I, recalling my
with the shyness and jealousy of an artist awaiting
recognition. He does not wish to be known
at all until he is known to fame.”
“That sounds like it, partly,” Locksley returned.
“But there must be other reasons for
his keeping so uncommon dark.”
“What! Poverty? Creditors? Crime?”
“Crime and Mr. Dreeme! You 'd drop that
notion, if you saw him. Not that! No; nor
poverty exactly. He can pay his omnibus yet,
and need n't go on the steps, and risk a `Cut
behind.'”
“What then?” I asked, unwilling to pry disloyally,
and yet eager to hear more.
“I suspicion that something 's hit him where
he lives, and he 's lying by till the wound
heals. I know how a man feels when the
world 's mean to him. He wants to get out
of sight, and hide in a den like old Chrysalis.
That was the way with me when I failed, and
Mr. Densdeth put up my creditors not to let
me take the Stillwell. I was mighty near hiding
in Hellgate.”
“How did he happen to shelter in Chrysalis?”
I asked.
“I shall have to tell you all the little I
know. I 've halted because we Locksleys promised
Mr. Dreeme not to be public about him.
kind, Mr. Byng, that a man naturally wants
to open his self to.”
“I 'm not leaky; depend upon that!”
“Well,” said Locksley, fairly uncorked at last,
and overrunning with his story; “Mr. Dreeme
came in, after ten, one night about three months
ago, and says he, `I 've just got to town by
the late train. The last time I was down, I
saw the card out, “Studios to Let.” Will you
show me what there is?' `Well, says I.' `It 's
pretty well along in the night to be hiring a
studio!' `Yes,' says he, mild as you please,
but knowing his own mind; `but I 've got to
have one. I 'm not hard to satisfy, and if I
could move in right off, I should save the money
they 'd take from me at the Chuzzlewit, or some
other costly hotel.' `You 're not so flush as
you 'd like to be, perhaps,' says I. `No,' says
he, `if flush means rich, I 'm not.'”
“So you got him as a tenant,” said I, trying
to hurry the narrator.
“Yes; he was such a pleasant-spoken young
man that I took to him. Besides, not being
flush made him one of my family, — and a big
family it is!”
“We must not forget, Locksley, that while
we discuss, he may be suffering.”
“That 's true. I must talk short, and talking
iron trains a man to be slow, just as hammering
iron practises him to bounce his words like
a sledge on an anvil. Well; I took Mr. Dreeme
up-stairs, and showed him the studio overhead.
It has closets and bath, like this room. He
said that would do him. He paid me a quarter
in advance, and camped right in, with a small
bundle he had.”
“Gritty fellow!”
“Grit as the Quincy quarry! or he 'd never
have stuck there alone for three months, paint
ing like time, and never stirring out till night.”
“That is enough to kill the man! Never till
night! Not to meals, or to buy materials? Not
to meet a friend, to see the world?”
“The world and people are what he wants to
dodge. I buy him all his materials. He took
the last tenant's furniture just as it stood, — and
it 's only about Sing-Sing allowance. He don't
seem to need all sorts of old rubbish to put ideas
into him, as the other painters do. I fitted him
out, according to list, with sheets and towels,
and clothes too. He said he could n't knock
off work for no such nonsense as clothes. He
must paint, or he should n't have money for
clothes or victuals.”
“A resolute recluse, concentred upon his art,”
said I. “And about his meals?”
“Mother Locksley cooks 'em, and Dora takes
'em up when I 'm off. But he don't eat enough
to keep a single-action cockroach on his rounds.”
“Poor fellow! I don't wonder he has but a
hermit's appetite.” I am ashamed to say that
interest in this determined withdrawal from the
world made me forget for a moment that the
exile might be in urgent need of relief.
“Mrs. Locksley,” continued the janitor, “has
never seen him. He has had the children up,
and drawn their likenesses, like as they can be.
But women he don't seem to want to have anything
to do with.”
“Ah!” cried I. “Here we have a clew!
Some woman has wronged him; so he is going
through a despair. That is an old story. He
edits it with unusual vigor.”
“That 's what my wife and I think,” says
Locksley. “He loved some girl, she went crooked,
and so things look black to him.”
“What!” thought I. “Is he passing through
Churm's `dark waters'? Strange if I should
encounter at once another illustration of that
sorrow!”
After my dramatic fashion of identifying myself
with others, I put myself in Mr. Dreeme's
place, and shrank from so miserable a solution
of his exile.
“Perhaps,” I propounded, “some flirt has
realize that we all must take our Bachelor of
Arts at a flirt's school, to become Master of the
Arts to know and win a true woman.”
Locksley smiled, then shook his head, and his
worried look returned.
“No,” said he; “that kind of a girl makes a
man want to be among folks and forget her.
Mr. Dreeme has had a worse hurt than that.
But whatever wounded him, for the last two
weeks he 's been growing paler and punier every
day. Some says the smell of paint is poison. I
don't believe there 's any strychnine so bad as
moping off alone, and never seeing a laugh, and
never playing at give and take, rough and smooth,
out in the world.”
“You 're right,” said I; “but let us get
through our talk, and see what is to be done.”
“To-night,” continued Locksley, “just as I
was wrastling to get off my wet boots, — they
stuck like all suction, did them boots, but I
could n't go to bed in 'em, — just then my wife
began talking to me about Mr. Dreeme. `What
do you suppose has come to him?' says she. `No
answer when Dora went up with his breakfast;
no answer when she knocked with his dinner.
I mistrust he 's sick,' says she. While she was
talking, a scare — the biggest kind of a scare —
come to me about him. `Wife,' says I, `a scare
prickly scare, William?' says she. `Prickly
outside and in,' says I; `I feel as if I 'd swallowed
a peck of teazles, and was rolling in a bin of 'em.'
`William,' says she, `scares is sent, and the
prickly scares calls for hurries. Just you run
up, and lay your fist hard against Mr. Dreeme's
door, and if he don't speak, and you can't hear
him snore through the keyhole, go to Mr. Churm,
and whatever he says do, you do! Mr. Churm
always threads the eye the first shove.' So I
went up, and rapped, and the more I knocked, the
emptier and deader it sounded. Mr. Churm is
gone. What shall we do, Mr. Byng? The
young man may be up there on his back with a
knife into him, or too weak to call out, and panting
for brandy or opodildoc. My scare gets
worse and worse.”
“I begin to share it. We will go and break
in at once. Light your candle, while I find a
bottle of Mr. Stillfleet's brandy.”
| CHAPTER IX.
LOCKSLEY'S SCARE. Cecil Dreeme | |