Chambers Robert William
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IX

She read, gazed at the gulls and wild ducks, placed a bit of gum between her rose-leaf lips, read a little, glanced up to mark the majestic flight of eight pelicans, sighed discreetly, savoured the gum, deposited it in a cunning corner adjacent to her left and snowy cheek, and spoke to the boatman.

"Did you ever read this book?" she asked.

"Me! No, ma'am."

"It is very interesting. Do you read much?"

"No, ma'am."

"This is a very extraordinary book," she said. "I strongly advise you to read it."

The boatman glanced ironically at the scarlet bound volume which bore the portrait of a pretty girl on its covers.

"Is it that book by John Smith they're sellin' so many of down to the hotel?" he inquired slowly.

"I believe it was written by one Smith," she said, turning over the volume to look. "Yes, John Smith is the author's name. No doubt he is very famous in America."

"He lives down here in winter."

"Really!" she exclaimed with considerable animation.

"Oh, yes. I take him shooting and fishing. He has a shack on the Inlet Point."

"Where?"

"Over there, where them gulls is flying."

The girl looked earnestly at the point. All she saw were snowy dunes and wild grasses and seabirds whirling.

"He writes them books over there," remarked the boatman.

"How extremely interesting!"

"They say he makes a world o' money by it. He's rich as mud."

"Really!"

"Yaas'm. I often seen him a settin' onto a camp chair out beyond them dunes a-writing pieces like billy-bedam. Yes'm."

"Do you think he is there now?" she asked with a slight catch in her breath.

"Well, we kin soon find out – " He swung the tiller; the little boat rushed in a seething circle toward the point, veered westward, then south.

"Yaas'm," said the boatman presently. "Mr. Smith he's reclinin' out there onto his stummick. I guess he's just a thinkin'. He thinks more'n five million niggers, he does. Gor-a-mighty! I never see such a man for thinkin'! He jest lies onto his stummick an' studies an' ruminates like billy-bedam. Yaas'm. Would you want I should land you so's you can take a peek at him?"

"Might I?"

"Sure, Miss. Go up over them dunes and take a peek at him. He won't mind. Ten to nothin' he won't even see ye."

There was a little dock built of coquina. A power boat, a sloop, several row-boats, and a canoe lay there, riding the little, limpid, azure-tinted wavelets. Under their keels swam gar-pike, their fins and backs also shimmering with blue and turquoise green.

Lady Alene rose; her boatman aided her, and she sprang lightly to the coquina dock and walked straight over the low dune in front of her.

There was nothing whatever in sight except beach-grapes and scrubby tufts of palmetto, and flocks of grey, long-legged, long-billed birds running to avoid her. But they did not run very fast or very far, and she saw them at a little distance loitering, with many a bright and apparently friendly glance at her.

There was another dune in front. She mounted it. Straight ahead of her, perhaps half a mile distant, stood a whitewashed bungalow under a cluster of palms and palmettos.

From where she stood she could see a cove – merely a tiny crescent of sand edged by a thin blade of cobalt water, and curtained by the palmetto forest. And on this little crescent beach, in the shade of the palms, a young man lay at full length, very intent upon his occupation, which was, apparently, to dig holes in the sand with a child's toy shovel.

He was clad in white flannels; beside him she noticed a red tin pail, such as children use for gathering shells. Near this stood two camp-chairs, one of which was piled with pads of yellow paper and a few books. She thought his legs very eloquent. Sometimes they lay in picturesque repose, crossed behind him; at other moments they waved in the air or sprawled widely, appearing to express the varying emotions which possessed his deep absorption in the occult task under his nose.

"Now, what in the world can he be doing?" thought Lady Alene Innesly, watching him. And she remained motionless on top of the dune for ten minutes to find out. He continued to sprawl and dig holes in the sand.

Learning nothing, and her interest increasing inversely, she began to walk toward him. It was her disposition to investigate whatever interested her. Already she was conscious of a deep interest in his legs.

From time to time low dunes intervened to hide the little cove, but always when she crossed them, pushing her way through fragrant thickets of sweet bay and sparkle-berry shrub, cove and occupant came into view again. And his legs continued to wave. The nearer she drew the less she comprehended the nature of his occupation, and the more she decided to find out what he could be about, lying there flat on his stomach and digging and patting the sand.

Also her naturally calm and British heart was beating irregularly and fast, because she realised the fact that she was approaching the vicinity of one of those American young men who did things in books that she never dreamed could be done anywhere. Nay – under her arm was a novel written by this very man, in which the hero was still kissing a Balkan Princess, page 169. And it occurred to her vaguely that her own good taste and modesty ought to make an end of such a situation; and that she ought to finish the page quickly and turn to the next chapter to relieve the pressure on the Princess.

Confused a trifle by a haunting sense of her own responsibility, by the actual imminence of such an author, and by her intense curiosity concerning what he was now doing, she walked across the dunes down through little valleys all golden with the flowers of a flat, spreading vine. The blossoms were larger and lovelier than the largest golden portulacca, but she scarcely noticed their beauty as she resolutely approached the cove, moving forward under the cool shadow of the border forest.

He did not seem to be aware of her approach, even when she came up and stood by the camp-chairs, parasol tilted, looking down at him with grave, lilac-blue eyes.

But she did not look at him as much as she gazed at what he was doing. And what he was doing appeared perfectly clear to her now.

With the aid of his toy shovel, his little red pail, and several assorted shells, he had constructed out of sand a walled city. Houses, streets, squares, market place, covered ways, curtain, keep, tower, turret, crenelated battlement, all were there. A driftwood drawbridge bridged the moat, guarded by lead soldiers in Boznovian uniform.

And lead soldiers were everywhere in the miniature city; the keep bristled with their bayonets; squads of them marched through street and square; they sat at dinner in the market place; their cannon winked and blinked in the westering sun on every battlement.

And after a little while she discovered two lead figures which were not military; a civilian wearing a bowler hat; a feminine figure wearing a crown and ermines. The one stood on the edge of the moat outside the drawbridge: the other, in crown and ermines, was apparently observing him of the bowler hat from the top of a soldier-infested tower.

It was plain enough to her now. This amazing young man was working out in concrete detail some incident of an unwritten novel. And the magnificent realism of it fascinated the Lady Alene. Genius only possesses such a capacity for detail.

Without even arousing young Smith from his absorbed preoccupation, she seated herself on the unincumbered camp-chair, laid her book on her knees, rested both elbows on it, propped her chin on both clasped hands, and watched the proceedings.

The lead figure in the bowler hat seemed to be in a bad way. Several dozen Boznovian soldiers were aiming an assortment of firearms at him; cavalry were coming at a gallop, too, not to mention a three-gun battery on a dead run.

The problem seemed to be how, in the face of such a situation, was the lead gentleman in the bowler hat to get away, much less penetrate the city?

Flight seemed hopeless, but presently Smith picked him up, marched him along the edge of the moat, and gave him a shove into it.

"He's swimming," said Smith, aloud to himself. "Bang! Bang! But they don't hit him… Yes, they do; they graze his shoulder. It is the only wound possible to polite fiction. There is consequently a streak of red in the water. Bang – bang – bang! Crack – crack! The cavalry empty their pistols. Boom! A field piece opens – Where the devil is that battery – "

Smith reached over, drew horses, cannoniers, gun and caisson over the drawbridge, galloped them along the moat, halted, unlimbered, trained the guns on the bowler hatted swimmer, and remarked, "Boom!"

"The shell," he murmured with satisfaction, "missed him and blew up in the casemates. Did it kill anybody? No; that interferes with the action… He dives, swims under water to an ancient drain." Smith stuck a peg where the supposed drain emptied into the moat.

"That drain," continued Smith thoughtfully, "connects with the royal residence… Where's that Princess? Can she see him dive into it? Or does she merely suspect he is making for it? Or – or – doesn't she know anything about it?"

"She doesn't know anything about it!" exclaimed Lady Alene Innesly. The tint of excitement glowed in her cheeks. Her lilac-tinted eyes burned with a soft, blue fire.

X

Slowly as a partly paralysed crab, Smith raised himself to a sitting posture and looked over his shoulder into the loveliest face that he had ever beheld, except on the paper wrappers of his own books.

"I'm sorry," said the Lady Alene. "Shouldn't I have spoken?"

The smoke and turmoil of battle still confused Smith's brain; visualisation of wall and tower and crowns and ermines made the Lady Alene's fresh, wholesome beauty very unreal to him for a moment or two.

When his eyes found their focus and his mind returned to actuality, he climbed to his feet, hat in hand, and made his manners to her. Then, tumbling books and pads from the other camp-chair, he reseated himself with a half smiling, half shamed glance at her, and a "May I?" to which she responded, "Please! And might I talk to you for a few moments?"

Smith shot a keen glance at the book on her knees. Resignation and pride altered his features, but when again he looked at the Lady Alene he experienced a pleasure in his resignation which hitherto no curious tourist, no enterprising reporter had ever aroused. Smilingly he composed himself for the impending interview.

"Until now," said the girl earnestly, "I think I have not been entirely convinced by your novels. Somehow or other I could not bring myself to comprehend the amazing realism of your plots. But now I understand the basis of great and fundamental truth on which you build so plausibly your splendid novels of love and life."

"What?" said Smith.

"To see you," she continued, "constructing the scenes of which later you are to write, has been a wonderful revelation to me. It has been a privilege the importance of which I can scarcely estimate. Your devotion to the details of your art, your endless patience, your almost austere absorption in truth and realism, have not only astounded me but have entirely convinced me. The greatest thing in the world is Truth. Now I realise it!"

She made a pretty gesture of enthusiasm:

"What a wonderful nation of young men is yours, Mr. Smith! What qualities! What fearlessness – initiative – idealism – daring – ! What invention, what recklessness, what romance – "

Her voice failed her; she sat with lips parted, a soft glow in her cheeks, gazing upon Smith with fascinated eyes. And Smith gazed back at her without a word.

"I don't believe," she said, "that in all England there exists a single man capable even of conceiving the career for which so many young Americans seem to be equipped."

After a moment Smith said very quietly:

"I am sorry, but do you know I don't quite understand you?"

"I mean," she said, "that you Americans have a capacity for conceiving, understanding, and performing everything you write about."

"Why do you think so?" asked Smith, a trifle red.

"Because if Englishmen could understand and do such things, our novelists would write about them. They never write about them. But you Americans do. You write thousands of most delightful novels about young men who do things unheard of, undreamed of, in England. Therefore, it is very clear to me that you Americans are quite capable of doing what you write about, and what your readers so ardently admire."

"I see," said Smith calmly. His ear-tips still burned.

"No doubt," said the girl, "many of the astonishing things you Americans write about are really done. Many astounding episodes in fiction are of not uncommon occurrence in real life."

"What kind of episodes?" asked Smith gravely.

"Why, any of them you write about. They all are astonishing enough. For example, your young men do not seem to know what fear is."

"No," said Smith, "they don't."

"And when they love," said the girl, "nothing can stop them."

"Nothing."

"Nothing!" she repeated, the soft glow coming into her cheeks again. " – Nothing! Neither rank nor wealth nor political considerations nor family prejudices, nor even the military!"

Smith bit his lip in silence. He had heard of irony; never had he dreamed it could be so crushing: he had heard of sarcasm; but the quiet sarcasm of this unknown young girl was annihilating him. Critics had carved him in his time; but the fine mincemeat which this pretty stranger was making of him promised to leave nothing more either to carve or to roast.

"Do you mind my talking to you?" she asked, noting the strained expression of his features.

"No," he said, "go ahead."

"Because if I am tiring you – "

He said he was not tired.

" – or if it bores you to discuss your art with a foreigner who so truly admires it – "

He shot a glance at her, then forced a laugh.

"I am not offended," he said. "What paper do you represent?"

"I?" she said, bewildered.

"Yes. You are a newspaper woman, are you not?"

"Do you mean a reporter?"

"Naturally."

"No," she said very seriously, "I am not a reporter. What an odd idea!"

"Do you think it odd?"

"Why, yes. Do not many admirers of your works express their pleasure in them to you?"

He studied her lovely face coolly and in detail – the dainty arch of the questioning eyebrows, the sensitive curve of the mouth, the clear, sweet eyes. Could it be possible that such candour masked irony? Could all this be the very essence of the art of acting, concealing the most murderous sarcasm ever dreamed of by a terrified author?

And suddenly his face went red all over, and he understood that the essence of this young girl was a candour so utterly free of self-consciousness – a frankness so absolutely truthful, that the simplicity of her had been a miracle too exquisite for him to comprehend.

"You do like what I write!" he exclaimed.

Her blue eyes widened: "Of course I do," she said, amazed. "Didn't you understand me?"

"No," he said, cooling his burning face in the rising sea-wind. "I thought you were laughing at me."

"I'm sorry if I was stupid," she said.

"I was stupid."

"You!" She laughed a little.

The sinking sun peered through the palm forest behind them and flung a beam of blinding light at her.

"Am I interrupting your work, Mr. Smith? I mean, I know I am, but – "

"Please don't go away."

"Thank you… I have noticed what agreeable manners you Americans have in novels. Naturally you are even more kindly and polite in real life."

"Have you met many Americans?"

"No, only you. In the beginning I did not feel interested in Americans."

"Why?"

"The young men all seemed to resemble one another," she said frankly, "like Chinese. But now that I really know an American I am intensely interested."

"You notice no Mongolian monotony in me?" he inquired gravely.

"Oh, no – " She coloured; then discovering that he was laughing, she laughed, too, rather faintly.

"That was a joke, wasn't it?" she said.

"Yes, that was a joke."

"Because," she said, "there is no Mongolian uniformity about you. On the contrary, you remind me in every way of one of your own heroes."

"Oh, really now!" he protested; but she insisted with serious enthusiasm.

"You are the counterpart of the hero in this book," she repeated, resting one hand lightly on the volume under her elbow. "You wear white flannels, you are tall, well built, straight, with very regular features and a fasci – a smile," she corrected herself calmly, "which one naturally associates with your features."

"Also," she continued, "your voice is cultivated and modulated with just enough of the American accent to make it piquantly agreeable. And what you say is fasci – is well expressed and interesting. Therefore, as I have said, to me you resemble one of your own heroes."

There was enough hot colour in his face to make it boyishly bashful.

"And you appear to be as modest as one of your own heroes," she added, studying him. "That is truly delightful."

"But really, I am nothing like any of my heroes," he explained, terribly embarrassed.

"Why do you say that, Mr. Smith?"

"Because it's true. I don't even resemble 'em superficially."

She made a quick, graceful gesture: "Why do you say that, when here you are before me, the exact and exciting counterpart of the reckless and fasci – the reckless and interesting men you write about?"

He said nothing. She closed the parasol and considered him in silence for a moment or two. Then:

"And I have no doubt that you are capable of doing the very things that your heroes do so adroitly and so charmingly."

"What, for example?" he asked, reddening to his temples.

"Reconstructing armies, for instance."

"Filibustering?"

"Is that what it is called?"

"It's called that in the countries south of the United States."

"Well, would you not be capable of overturning a government and of reconstructing the army, Mr. Smith?"

"Capable?"

"Yes."

"Well," he said cautiously, "if it was the thing I wanted to do, perhaps I might have a try at it."

"I knew it," she exclaimed triumphantly.

"But," he explained, "I never desired to overturn any government."

"You probably have never seen any that you thought worth while overturning."

Her confident rejoinder perplexed him and he remained silent.

"Also," she continued, still more confidently, "I am certain that if you were in love, no obstacles would prove too great for you to surmount. Would they?"

"Really," he said, "I don't know. I'm not very enterprising."

"That is the answer of a delightfully modest man. Your own hero would return me such an answer, Mr. Smith. But I – and your heroine also – understand you – I mean your hero."

"Do you?" he asked gravely.

"Certainly. I, as well as your heroine, understand that no obstacles could check you if you loved her – neither political considerations, diplomatic exigencies, family prejudices, nor her own rank, no matter what it might be. Is not that true?"

Eager, enthusiastic, impersonally but warmly interested, she leaned a little toward him, intent on his reply.

He looked into the lovely, flushed face in silence for a while. Then:

"Yes," he said, "it is true. If I loved, nothing could check me except – " he shrugged.

"Death?" She nodded, fascinated.

He nodded. He had meant to say the police.

She said exultantly: "I knew it, Mr. Smith! I was certain that you are the living embodiment of your own heroes! The moment I set eyes on you playing in the sand with your lead soldiers, I was sure of it!"

Thrilled, she considered him, her soft eyes brilliant with undisguised admiration.

"I wish I could actually see it!" she said under her breath.

"See what?"

"See you, in real life, as one of your own heroes – doing some of the things they do so cleverly, so winningly – careless of convention, reckless of consequences, oblivious to all considerations except only the affair in hand. That," she said excitedly, "would be glorious, and well worth a trip to the States!"

"How far," he asked, "have you read in that book of mine?"

"In this book?" She opened it, impulsively, ran over the pages, hesitated, stopped.

"He was – was kissing the Balkan Princess," she said. "I left them —in statu quo."

"I see… Did he do that well?"

"I – suppose so."

"Have you no opinion?"

"I think he did it – very – thoroughly, Mr. Smith."

"It ought to be done thoroughly if done at all," he said reflectively.

"Otherwise," she nodded, "it would be offensive."

"To the reader?"

"To her, too. Wouldn't it?"

"You know better than I."

"No, I don't know. A nice girl can not imagine herself being kissed – except under very extraordinary circumstances, and by a very extraordinary man… Such a man as you have drawn in this book."

"Had you been that Balkan Princess, what would you have done?" he asked, rather pale.

"I?" she said, startled.

"Yes, you."

She sat considering, blue eyes lost in candid reverie. Then the faintest smile curved her lips; she looked up at Smith with winning simplicity.

"In your story, Mr. Smith, does the Balkan Princess return his kiss?"

"Not in that chapter."

"I think I would have returned it – in that – chapter." Then, for the first time, she blushed.

The naïve avowal set the heart and intellect of Mr. Smith afire. But he only dropped his well-shaped head and didn't look at her. Which was rather nice of him.

"Romance," he said after a moment or two, "is all well enough. But real life is stranger than fiction."

"Not in the British Isles," she said with decision. "It is tea and curates and kennels and stables – as our writers depict it."

"No, you are mistaken! Everywhere it is stranger than fiction," he insisted – "more surprising, more charming, more wonderful. Even here in America – here in Florida – here on this tiny point of sand jutting into the Atlantic, life is more beautiful, more miraculous than any fiction ever written."

"Why do you say that?" she asked.

"I am afraid I can't tell you why I say it."

"Why can't you tell me?"

"Only in books could what I might have to tell you be logically told – and listened to – "

"Only in books? But books in America reflect actual life," she said. "Therefore, you can tell me what you have to tell. Can't you?"

"Can I?" he asked.

"Yes…" Far in the inmost recesses of her calm and maiden heart something stirred, and her breath ceased for a second… Innocent, not comprehending why her breath missed, she looked at him with the question still in her blue eyes.

"Shall I tell you why real life is stranger than fiction?" he asked unsteadily.

"Tell me – yes – if – "

"It is stranger," he said, "because it is often more headlong and romantic. Shall we take ourselves, for example?"

"You and me?"

"Yes. To illustrate what I mean."

She inclined her head, her eyes fixed on his.

"Very well," he said. "Even in the most skillfully constructed story – supposing that you and I were hero and heroine – no author would have the impudence to make us avow our love within a few minutes of our first meeting."

"No," she said.

"In the first chapter," he continued, "certain known methods of construction are usually followed. Time is essential – the lapse of time. How to handle it cleverly is a novelist's business. But even the most skillful novelist would scarcely dare make me, for example, tell you that I am in love with you. Would he?"

"No," she said.

"And in real life, even if a man does fall in love so suddenly, he does not usually say so, does he?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"But he does fall in love sometimes more suddenly than in fiction. And occasionally he declares himself. In real life this actually happens. And that is stranger than any fiction. Isn't it?"

"Yes," she said.

"One kind of fiction," he continued very unsteadily, "is that in which, when he falls in love – he doesn't say so – I mean in such a case as ours – supposing I had already fallen in love with you. I could not say so to you. No man could say it to any girl. He remains mute. He observes very formally every convention. He smiles, hat in hand, as the girl passes out of his life forever… Doesn't he? And that is one kind of fiction – the tragic kind."

She had been looking down at the book in her lap. After a moment she lifted her troubled eyes to his.

"I do – not know what men do – in real life," she said. "What would they do in the —other kind of fiction?"

"In the other kind of fiction there would be another chapter."

"Yes… You mean that for us there is only this one chapter."

"Only one chapter."

"Or – might it not be called a short story, Mr. Smith?"

"Yes – one kind of short story."

"Which kind?"

"The kind that ends unhappily."

"But this one is not going to end unhappily, is it?"

"You are about to walk out of the story when it ends."

"Yes – but – " She bit her lip, flushed and perplexed, already dreadfully confused between the personal and the impersonal – between fact and fancy.

"You see," he said, "the short story which deals with – love – can end only as ours is going to end – or the contrary."

"How is ours going to end?" she asked with candid curiosity.

"It must be constructed very carefully," he said, "because this is realism."

"You must be very skillful, too," she said. "I do not see how you are to avoid – "

"What?"

"A – an – unhappy – ending."

He looked gravely at his sand castle. "No," he said, "I don't see how it can be avoided."

After a long silence she murmured, half to herself:

"Still, this is America – after all."

He shrugged, still studying his sand castle.

"I wish I had somebody to help me work it out," he said, half to himself.

"A collaborator?"

"Yes."

"I'm so sorry that I could not be useful."

"Would you try?"

"What is the use? I am utterly unskilled and inexperienced."

"I'd be very glad to have you try," he repeated.