 | CHAPTER XIV.
A MILD ORGIE. Cecil Dreeme |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
A MILD ORGIE.
Locksley came boldly in, breathlessly.
“All right, I see, Mr. Dreeme,” he panted.
“All right, Locksley! thanks to you and Mr.
Byng.”
“I 've been gone,” says the janitor, “long
enough to make all the shifts of a permutation
lock.”
He deposited a huge basket on the table.
“Bagpypes's was shut,” he continued. “So
was De Grope's. I had to go up to Selleridge's.
He 's an open-all-night-er. Selleridge's was full
of fire-company boys, taking their tods after a
run. Selleridge could n't stop pouring and mixing
and stirring and muddling. `Firemen comes
first,' says he. `They 've got to have their extinguishers
into 'em.' So I jumped up on the
counter, and says I, `Boys, I 've got a sick man
to oyster up, and if he ain't oystered up on time
he 'll be a dead shell.' So the red flannels
drawed off, like real bricks. I got my oysters,
and came away like horse-power.
Locksley took breath, and began to arrange his
vivers on the table.
“Six Shrewsburys,” he pronounced, bestowing
their portly shells before him. “For a roast, if
Mr. Dreeme likes. Twelve Blue-Pointers, every
one little as a lady's ear. Them for a stew, if
Mr. Dreeme likes better. Paper of mixed crackers,
— Boston butters, Wilson's sweets, and
Wing's pethy. Pad of butter. Plate of slaw,
ready vinegared. I wanted to leave the slaw;
but Selleridge said, `No; slaw and oysters was
man and wife, and he should n't be easy in his
mind if he sent one out and kep' the other.'
And here 's some Scotch ale, in a scrumptious
little stone jug, to wash all down.”
“You will appall Mr. Dreeme's invalid appetite
with these piles of provender,” said I.
“On the contrary, my spirits rise with the
sight of a banquet and guests to share it,”
Dreeme returned.
“Nibble on a Wing's pethy,” says Locksley,
handing the crackers, “while I plant a Shrewsbury
to cook in the stove.”
“I did not know how ravenous I was,” Dreeme
said, taking a second “pethy.”
“Dora had a hearty cry,” says the janitor,
“because she could n't get any word when she
came up with your meals to-day, Mr. Dreeme.”
“Poor child! I heard her knock in the morning;
All at once my strength, ignorantly over-tasked,
had failed. Later, I managed to struggle
up and dress myself. Then I found my way to
this arm-chair before my picture. There I sat all
day, sometimes unconscious, sometimes conscious
of a flicker of life. Dora came with my dinner.
I heard her knock. When I perceived that I
could not speak or stir in answer, utter desolation
darkened down upon me. I felt myself sink
away, and seemed to drown, slowly, slowly, without
pain or terror. Immeasurable deeps of
space crushed me. But by and by I felt my
course reversed. I was rising, slowly as I had
sunk. At last I knew the pang and thrill of life.
I woke and saw Mr. Byng restoring me.”
Dreeme recited this history with strange impassiveness.
“You take it pretty cool,” says Locksley.
“It seems as if you was making up a tale about
somebody else, — holding off your death at arm's
length and talking about it.”
“Mr. Dreeme speaks as an artist,” said I, trying,
with a blundering good-humor, to make our
parley less sombre. “He already looks at this
passage in his life as a peril quite escaped, and
so material for dramatic treatment.”
“Death and resurrection!” said Dreeme,
gravely. “Suppose, Mr. Byng, that you were
own, could you believe that such an incomplete
death as mine makes atonement? Could you
hope that your strong suffering had purged the
guilty souls clean? Could you have faith that
their lives would renew and amend, as vital force
came back to the life that had sorrowed unto
death for them?”
“Solemn questions, Mr. Dreeme,” I replied.
“Are you quite well enough yet to entertain
them?”
Here the Shrewsbury in the stove recalled us
to mundane phenomena, by giving a loud wheeze.
“There she blows!” cried Locksley.
He grappled the crustaceous grandee with the
tongs, and popped him on a plate. A little fragrant
steam issued from the calcined lips, invitingly
parted.
“Roast oysters,” says Locksley, “always
wheezes when they 're done to a bulge. If you
want 'em done dry, wait till the music 's all
cooked out of 'em. This is a bulger,” he continued,
deftly whisking off the top shell. “Down
it, Mr. Dreeme, without winking!”
Dreeme obeyed.
Locksley consigned another of the noble race
of Shrewsbury to fiery martyrdom. Then he
turned again to the painter.
“You won't go and die again?” said he.
Dreeme smiled, and shook his head.
“Not,” says the janitor, with queer earnestness
of manner, “that I would n't come in any time
on call and help liven you up, howsever dead
you might be. But it ain't good for you; it 's
unwholesome, — tell him so, Mr. Byng.”
“Be informed, then, Mr. Dreeme,” said I,
“that dying is not good for you. I intend not
to let you take any more of it. I prescribe instead
a generous life, and I hope you will allow
me to aid in administering the remedy.”
“That 's right,” says Locksley, “mix in, Mr.
Byng. And now, if you say so, I 'll run down
and get Mr. Stillfleet's volcano and stew-pan to
stew the Blue-Pointers. They 're waiting, mild
as you please, and not getting a fair show.”
The busy fellow bustled off.
“Mixing in is my trade,” said I. “I am a
chemist. Pardon me if I seem to mingle myself
too far and too soon in your affairs.”
“I feel no danger from you, Mr. Byng. I
accept most gratefully your kind and gentleman-like
interference.”
He spoke with marked dignity. Indeed, although
the circumstances of our meeting had
brought us so near together, the reserve and settled
self-possession of his manner kept me at a
wide distance. No fear that he would not protect
himself against intrusion.
Locksley now reappeared with the stew-pan
and alcohol-lamp. He went at his cookery with
a blundering frenzy of good-will. It was quite
idle for Dreeme to protest that he would be killed
by this culinary kindness.
“Just one Blue-Pointer!” says the janitor-cook,
forking out a little oyster of pearly complexion
from where it lay heads and points
among its fellows. “Just one! It 'll top off
the Shrewsburys, as a feather tops off a commodore.”
The bristly fellow's earnestness, as he stood
seductively holding up the neat morsel, was so
comic, that Dreeme let himself laugh heartily.
I had heard no laugh since Densdeth's at the
Chuzzlewit dinner-table. That scoffing tone of
his which broke in upon my queries to Churm
regarding Cecil Dreeme was still in my ears.
The memory of Densdeth's laugh still misrepresented
to me all laughter. Laughter, if I took
that as its type, was only the loud sneer of a
ruthless cynic. Such a laugh made honor seem
folly, truth weakness, generosity a bid for richer
requital, chivalry the hypocrisy of a knave.
I was hardly conscious how much faith had
gone out of me, expelled by his sneering tone,
until Dreeme's musical, child-like laugh redressed
the wrong. Instantly the wound of Densdeth's
cynicism was healed. I was freshened again, and
seemed wisdom; truth the only strength; generosity
its own reward; chivalry the expression in
manners of a loyal heart. All the brave joyousness
of my nature responded to this laugh of
Dreeme's, and spoke out boldly in my echoing
one. Each of us perceived new sympathy in the
other.
Locksley now made his reappearance with the
volcano. The oysters crackled in the stove,
fizzed and bubbled over the lamp on the table.
The poetic temperament takes in happiness and
good cheer as a bud takes sunshine. Dreeme
expanded more and more. His silver laugh
flowed free in chastened merriment. He seemed
to forget that an hour ago he had been dying,
friendless and alone; to forget whatever sorrow
or terror had driven him to this unnatural seclusion,
up in the shabby precincts of Chrysalis
College.
We were a merry trio. Reaction after the
anxiety of the evening exhilarated me to my
best mood. Locksley too was in high feather.
His harangue at Selleridge's had loosed his
tongue, — never in truth a very tight one, —
and he vented no end of odd phrases over the
banquet.
Stillfleet's antique flasks and goblets figured
decorously at the board. They were spectators
Dreeme's health.
“I hardly expected, Locksley,” said I in reply,
“when Stillfleet warned you that I would try to
introduce the Orgie here, that you were to be
my chief abettor.”
“The mildest Orgie ever known!” said
Dreeme.
“Rather a feast of thanksgiving. But shall
we end it now? I see you grow weary.”
“I do, healthily weary. Ah, Mr. Byng! you
cannot conceive the blissful revulsion in my life
since last night, when I fell asleep alone and
without hope, — over-weary with work, weary
to death of life.”
“Would you like me to camp with a blanket
on your floor, in case you should need anything?”
“No,” he replied, rather coldly. “I shall do
well. I would not incommode you.”
“Good night then, my dear Mr. Dreeme.
Pray understand that our new friendship must
not be slept out of existence.”
No doubt my tone betrayed that his sudden
cold manner had made me fancy such a result.
“O no!” he said ardently. “I am not a
person of many professions, but I do not forget.
And I need your kindness still, and shall need
it. Pray,” continued he, “keep my secret. I
is over. Locksley has been pretty faithful thus
far.”
“Until Mr. Byng arrived to make a traitor of
me,” said the janitor, with compunction.
“Such treachery is higher loyalty,” Dreeme
rejoined. “You find me hiding my light under
a bushel, but don't suspect me, Mr. Byng, of
anything worse than a freak, or an ambitious
fancy.”
Not either of these, I was sure, from his unhappy
attempt at a smile as he spoke. But he
threw himself upon my good faith so utterly, that
I resolved never to open my eyes, to shut them
even to any flash of suspicion of his secret that
any circumstance might reveal.
“Good night!” And so we parted.
“We 've hit the bull's-eye true,” said Locksley,
as we descended. “You suited him even
better than Mr. Churm could have done.”
“Mysterious business! Such an odd place
to hide in! And his name on the door, too!”
“Who would think of searching for a runaway
in a respectable old den like this. Perhaps
the name is not his. A wrong name puts people
on the wrong scent. It 's having no name that
is suspicious. And if he 'd put `Panther,' instead
of `Painter,' on his door, it would n't have kept
people away any better. Who goes to a young
get any notice.”
“I believe you are right. Will you come in
and let me give you a cigar?”
“No I think you, sir. Miss Locksley has got
a natural nose against tobacco. If I go to bed
scented, she 'll wake up and scallop me with
questions. Good night, sir.” And we parted
at the main staircase.
“A full day,” I thought, as I entered my
room. No danger of my being bored, if events
crowd in this way in America. Here certainly
is romance. Destiny has brought Cecil Dreeme
and me together without a break-down on his
side of the ceiling, or a pistol-shot from me below.
Poor fellow! who knows but, even so young, he
has had some cruel experience like Churm's?
But hold! I must not pry into his affairs. I
might strike tragedy, and tragedy I do not love.
So to bed, and no dreams of Dreeme.
| CHAPTER XIV.
A MILD ORGIE. Cecil Dreeme | |