Chambers Robert William
The Green Mouse
V
SACHARISSA
Treating of Certain Scientific Events Succeeding the Wedding Journey of William and Ethelinda
Sacharissa took the chair. She knew nothing about parliamentary procedure; neither did her younger, married sister, Ethelinda, nor the recently acquired family brother-in-law, William Augustus Destyn.
"The meeting will come to order," said Sacharissa, and her brother-in-law reluctantly relinquished his new wife's hand–all but one finger.
"Miss Chairman," he began, rising to his feet.
The chair recognized him and bit into a chocolate.
"I move that our society be known as The Green Mouse, Limited."
"Why limited?" asked Sacharissa.
"Why not?" replied her sister, warmly.
"Well, what does your young man mean by limited?"
"I suppose," said Linda, "that he means it is to be the limit. Don't you, William?"
"Certainly," said Destyn, gravely; and the motion was put and carried.
"Rissa, dear!"
The chair casually recognized her younger sister.
"I propose that the object of this society be to make its members very, very wealthy."
The motion was carried; Linda picked up a scrap of paper and began to figure up the possibility of a new touring car.
Then Destyn arose; the chair nodded to him and leaned back, playing a tattoo with her pencil tip against her snowy teeth.
He began in his easy, agreeable voice, looking across at his pretty wife:
"You know, dearest–and Sacharissa, over there, is also aware–that, in the course of my economical experiments in connection with your father's Wireless Trust, I have accidentally discovered how to utilize certain brand-new currents of an extraordinary character."
Sacharissa's expression became skeptical; Linda watched her husband in unfeigned admiration.
"These new and hitherto unsuspected currents," continued Destyn modestly, "are not electrical but psychical. Yet, like wireless currents, their flow eternally encircles the earth. These currents, I believe, have their origin in that great unknown force which, for lack of a better name, we call fate, or predestination. And I am convinced that by intercepting one of these currents it is possible to connect the subconscious personalities of two people of opposite sex who, although ultimately destined for one another since the beginning of things, have, through successive incarnations, hitherto missed the final consummation– marriage!–which was the purpose of their creation."
"Bill, dear," sighed Linda, "how exquisitely you explain the infinite."
"Fudge!" said Sacharissa; "go on, William."
"That's all," said Destyn. "We agreed to put in a thousand dollars apiece for me to experiment with. I've perfected the instrument–here it is."
He drew from his waistcoat pocket a small, flat jeweler's case and took out a delicate machine resembling the complicated interior of a watch.
"Now," he said, "with this tiny machine concealed in my waistcoat pocket, I walk up to any man and, by turning a screw like the stem of a watch, open the microscopical receiver. Into the receiver flow all psychical emanations from that unsuspicious citizen. The machine is charged, positively. Then I saunter up to some man, place the instrument on a table–like that–touch a lever. Do you see that hair wire of Rosium uncoil like a tentacle? It is searching, groping for the invisible, negative, psychical current which will carry its message."
"To whom?" asked Sacharissa.
"To the subconscious personality of the only woman for whom he was created, the only woman on earth whose psychic personality is properly attuned to intercept that wireless greeting and respond to it."
"How can you tell whether she responds?" asked Sacharissa, incredulously. He pointed to the hair wire of Rosium:
"I watch that. The instant that the psychical current reaches and awakens her, crack!–a minute point of blue incandescence tips the tentacle. It's done; psychical communication is established. And that man and that woman, wherever they may be on earth, surely, inexorably, will be drawn together, even from the uttermost corners of the world, to fulfill that for which they were destined since time began."
There was a semirespectful silence; Linda looked at the little jewel-like machine with a slight shudder; Sacharissa shrugged her young shoulders.
"How much of this," said she, "is theory and how much is fact?–for, William, you always were something of a poet."
"I don't know. A month ago I tried it on your father's footman, and in a week he'd married a perfectly strange parlor maid."
"Oh, they do such things, anyway," observed Sacharissa, and added, unconvinced: "Did that tentacle burn blue?"
"It certainly did," said Destyn.
Linda murmured: "I believe in it. Let's issue stock."
"To issue stock is one thing," said Destyn, "to get people to buy it is another. You and I may believe in Green Mouse, Limited, but the rest of the world is always from beyond the Mississippi."
"The thing to do," said Linda, "is to prove your theory by practicing on people. They may not like the idea, but they'll be so grateful, when happily and unexpectedly married, that they'll buy stock."
"Or give us testimonials," added Sacharissa, "that their bliss was entirely due to a single dose of Green Mouse, Limited."
"Don't be flippant," said Linda. "Think what William's invention means to the world! Think of the time it will save young men barking up wrong trees! Think of the trouble saved–no more doubt, no timidity, no hesitation, no speculation, no opposition from parents."
"Any of our clients," added Destyn, "can be instantly switched on to a private psychical current which will clinch the only girl in the world. Engagements will be superfluous; those two simply can't get away from each other."
"If that were true," observed Sacharissa, "it would be most unpleasant. There would be no fun in it. However," she added, smiling, "I don't believe in your theory or your machine, William. It would take more than that combination to make me marry anybody."
"Then we're not going to issue stock?" asked Linda. "I do need so many new and expensive things."
"We've got to experiment a little further, first," said Destyn.
Sacharissa laughed: "You blindfold me, give me a pencil and lay the Social Register before me. Whatever name I mark you are to experiment with."
"Don't mark any of our friends," began Linda.
"How can I tell whom I may choose. It's fair for everybody. Come; do you promise to abide by it–you two?"
They promised doubtfully.
"So do I, then," said Sacharissa. "Hurry up and blindfold me, somebody. The bus will be here in half an hour, and you know how father acts when kept waiting."
Linda tied her eyes with a handkerchief, gave her a pencil and seated herself on an arm of the chair watching the pencil hovering over the pages of the Social Register which her sister was turning at hazard.
"This page," announced Sacharissa, "and this name!" marking it with a quick stroke.
Linda gave a stifled cry and attempted to arrest the pencil; but the moving finger had written.
"Whom have I selected?" inquired the girl, whisking the handkerchief from her eyes. "What are you having a fit about, Linda?"
And, looking at the page, she saw that she had marked her own name.
"We must try it again," said Destyn, hastily. "That doesn't count. Tie her up, Linda."
"But–that wouldn't be fair," said Sacharissa, hesitating whether to take it seriously or laugh. "We all promised, you know. I ought to abide by what I've done."
"Don't be silly," said Linda, preparing the handkerchief and laying it across her sister's forehead.
Sacharissa pushed it away. "I can't break my word, even to myself," she said, laughing. "I'm not afraid of that machine."
"Do you mean to say you are willing to take silly chances?" asked Linda, uneasily. "I believe in William's machine whether you do or not. And I don't care to have any of the family experimented with."
"If I were willing to try it on others it would be cowardly for me to back out now," said Sacharissa, forcing a smile; for Destyn's and Linda's seriousness was beginning to make her a trifle uncomfortable.
"Unless you want to marry somebody pretty soon you'd better not risk it," said Destyn, gravely.
"You–you don't particularly care to marry anybody, just now, do you, dear?" asked Linda. "No," replied her sister, scornfully.
There was a silence; Sacharissa, uneasy, bit her underlip and sat looking at the uncanny machine.
She was a tall girl, prettily formed, one of those girls with long limbs, narrow, delicate feet and ankles.
That sort of girl, when she also possesses a mass of chestnut hair, a sweet mouth and gray eyes, is calculated to cause trouble.
And there she sat, one knee crossed over the other, slim foot swinging, perplexed brows bent slightly inward.
"I can't see any honorable way out of it," she said resolutely. "I said I'd abide by the blindfolded test."
"When we promised we weren't thinking of ourselves," insisted Ethelinda.
"That doesn't release us," retorted her Puritan sister.
"Why?" demanded Linda. "Suppose, for example, your pencil had marked William's name! That would have been im–immoral!"
"Would it?" asked Sacharissa, turning her honest, gray eyes on her brother-in-law.
"I don't believe it would," he said; "I'd only be switched on to Linda's current again." And he smiled at his wife.
Sacharissa sat thoughtful and serious, swinging her foot.
"Well," she said, at length, "I might as well face it at once. If there's anything in this instrument we'll all know it pretty soon. Turn on your receiver, Billy."
"Oh," cried Linda, tearfully, "don't you do it, William!"
"Turn it on," repeated Sacharissa. "I'm not going to be a coward and break faith with myself, and you both know it! If I've got to go through the silliness of love and marriage I might as well know who the bandarlog is to be.... Anyway, I don't really believe in this thing.... I can't believe in it.... Besides, I've a mind and a will of my own, and I fancy it will require more than amateur psychical experiments to change either. Go on, Billy."
"You mean it?" he asked, secretly gratified.
"Certainly," with superb affectation of indifference. And she rose and faced the instrument.
Destyn looked at his wife. He was dying to try it.
"Will!" she exclaimed, "suppose we are not going to like Rissa's possible f–fiance! Suppose father doesn't like him!"
"You'll all probably like him as well as I shall," said her sister defiantly. "Willy, stop making frightened eyes at your wife and start your infernal machine!"
There was a vicious click, a glitter of shifting clockwork, a snap, and it was done.
"Have you now, theoretically, got my psychical current bottled up?" she asked disdainfully. But her lip trembled a little.
He nodded, looking very seriously at her.
"And now you are going to switch me on to this unknown gentleman's psychical current?"
"Don't let him!" begged Linda. "Billy, dear, how can you when nobody has the faintest idea who the creature may turn out to be!"
"Go ahead!" interrupted her sister, masking misgiving under a careless smile.
Click! Up shot the glittering, quivering tentacle of Rosium, vibrating for a few moments like a thread of silver. Suddenly it was tipped with a blue flash of incandescence.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! There he is!" cried Linda, excitedly. "Rissy! Rissy, little sister, what have you done?"
"Nothing," she said, catching her breath. "I don't believe that flash means anything. I don't feel a bit different–not the least bit. I feel perfectly well and perfectly calm. I don't love anybody and I'm not going to love anybody–until I want to, and that will probably never happen."
However, she permitted her sister to take her in her arms and pet her. It was rather curious how exceedingly young and inexperienced she felt. She found it agreeable to be fussed over and comforted and cradled, and for a few moments she suffered Linda's solicitude and misgivings in silence. After a while, however, she became ashamed.
"Nothing is going to happen, Linda," she said, looking dreamily up at the ceiling; "don't worry, dear; I shall escape the bandarlog."
"If something doesn't happen," observed Destyn, pocketing his instrument, "the Green Mouse, Limited, will go into liquidation with no liabilities and no assets, and there'll be no billions for you or for me or for anybody."
"William," said his wife, "do you place a low desire for money before your own sister-in-law's spiritual happiness?"
"No, darling, of course not."
"Then you and I had better pray for the immediate bankruptcy of the Green Mouse."
Her husband said, "By all means," without enthusiasm, and looked out of the window. "Still," he added, "I made a happy marriage. I'm for wedding bells every time. Sacharissa will like it, too. I don't know why you and I shouldn't be enthusiastic optimists concerning wedded life; I can't see why we shouldn't pray for Sacharissa's early marriage."
"William!"
"Yes, darling."
"You are considering money before my sister's happiness!"
"But in her case I don't see why we can't conscientiously consider both."
Linda cast one tragic glance at her material husband, pushed her sister aside, arose and fled. After her sped the contrite Destyn; a distant door shut noisily; all the elements had gathered for the happy, first quarrel of the newly wedded.
"Fudge," said Sacharissa, walking to the window, slim hands clasped loosely behind her back.
VI
IN WRONG
Wherein Sacharissa Remains In and a Young Man Can't Get Out
The snowstorm had ceased; across Fifth Avenue the Park resembled the mica-incrusted view on an expensive Christmas card. Every limb, branch, and twig was outlined in clinging snow; crystals of it glittered under the morning sun; brilliantly dressed children, with sleds, romped and played over the dazzling expanse. Overhead the characteristic deep blue arch of a New York sky spread untroubled by a cloud. Her family–that is, her father, brother-in-law, married sister, three unmarried sisters and herself–were expecting to leave for Tuxedo about noon. Why? Nobody knows why the wealthy are always going somewhere. However, they do, fortunately for story writers.
"It's quite as beautiful here," thought Sacharissa to herself, "as it is in the country. I'm sorry I'm going."
Idling there by the sunny window and gazing out into the white expanse, she had already dismissed all uneasiness in her mind concerning the psychical experiment upon herself. That is to say, she had not exactly dismissed it, she used no conscious effort, it had gone of itself–or, rather, it had been crowded out, dominated by a sudden and strong disinclination to go to Tuxedo.
As she stood there the feeling grew and persisted, and, presently, she found herself repeating aloud: "I don't want to go, I don't want to go. It's stupid to go. Why should I go when it's stupid to go and I'd rather stay here?"
Meanwhile, Ethelinda and Destyn were having a classical reconciliation in a distant section of the house, and the young wife had got as far as:
"Darling, I am so worried about Rissa. I do wish she were not going to Tuxedo. There are so many attractive men expected at the Courlands'."
"She can't escape men anywhere, can she?"
"N-no; but there will be a concentration of particularly good-looking and undesirable ones at Tuxedo this week. That idle, horrid, cynical crowd is coming from Long Island, and I don't want her to marry any of them."
"Well, then, make her stay at home."
"She wants to go."
"What's the good of an older sister if you can't make her mind you?" he asked.
"She won't. She's set her heart on going. All those boisterous winter sports appeal to her. Besides, how can one member of the family be absent on New Year's Day?"
Arm in arm they strolled out into the great living room, where a large, pompous, vividly colored gentleman was laying down the law to the triplets–three very attractive young girls, dressed precisely alike, who said, "Yes, pa-pah!" and "No pa-pah!" in a grave and silvery-voiced chorus whenever filial obligation required it.
"And another thing," continued the pudgy and vivid old gentleman, whose voice usually ended in a softly mellifluous shout when speaking emphatically: "that worthless Westbury–Cedarhurst–Jericho– Meadowbrook set are going to be in evidence at this housewarming, and I caution you now against paying anything but the slightest, most superficial and most frivolous attention to anything that any of those young whip-snapping, fox-hunting cubs may say to you. Do you hear?" with a mellow shout like a French horn on a touring car.
"Yes, pa-pah!"
The old gentleman waved his single eyeglass in token of dismissal, and looked at his watch.
"The bus is here," he said fussily. "Come on, Will; come, Linda, and you, Flavilla, Drusilla, and Sybilla, get your furs on. Don't take the elevator. Go down by the stairs, and hurry! If there's one thing in this world I won't do it is to wait for anybody on earth!"
Flunkies and maids flew distractedly about with fur coats, muffs, and stoles. In solemn assemblage the family expedition filed past the elevator, descended the stairs to the lower hall, and there drew up for final inspection.
A mink-infested footman waited outside; valets, butlers, second-men and maids came to attention.
"Where's Sacharissa?" demanded Mr. Carr, sonorously.
"Here, dad," said his oldest daughter, strolling calmly into the hall, hands still linked loosely behind her.
"Why haven't you got your hat and furs on?" demanded her father.
"Because I'm not going, dad," she said sweetly.
The family eyed her in amazement.
"Not going?" shouted her father, in a mellow bellow. "Yes, you are! Not going! And why the dickens not?"
"I really don't know, dad," she said listlessly. "I don't want to go."
Her father waved both pudgy arms furiously. "Don't you feel well? You look well. You are well. Don't you feel well?"
"Perfectly."
"No, you don't! You're pale! You're pallid! You're peaked! Take a tonic and lie down. Send your maid for some doctors–all kinds of doctors–and have them fix you up. Then come to Tuxedo with your maid to-morrow morning. Do you hear?"
"Very well, dad."
"And keep out of that elevator until it's fixed. It's likely to do anything. Ferdinand," to the man at the door, "have it fixed at once. Sacharissa, send that maid of yours for a doctor!"
"Very well, dad!"
She presented her cheek to her emphatic parent; he saluted it explosively, wheeled, marshaled the family at a glance, started them forward, and closed the rear with his own impressive person. The iron gates clanged, the door of the opera bus snapped, and Sacharissa strolled back into the rococo reception room not quite certain why she had not gone, not quite convinced that she was feeling perfectly well.
For the first few minutes her face had been going hot and cold, alternately flushed and pallid. Her heart, too, was acting in an unusual manner–making sufficient stir for her to become uneasily aware of it.
"Probably," she thought to herself, "I've eaten too many chocolates." She looked into the large gilded box, took another and ate it reflectively.
A curious languor possessed her. To combat it she rang for her maid, intending to go for a brisk walk, but the weight of the furs seemed to distress her. It was absurd. She threw them off and sat down in the library.
A little while later her maid found her lying there, feet crossed, arms stretched backward to form a cradle for her head.
"Are you ill, Miss Carr?"
"No," said Sacharissa.
The maid cast an alarmed glance at her mistress' pallid face.
"Would you see Dr. Blimmer, miss?"
"No."
The maid hesitated:
"Beg pardon, but Mr. Carr said you was to see some doctors."
"Very well," she said indifferently. "And please hand me those chocolates. I don't care for any luncheon."
"No luncheon, miss?" in consternation.
Sacharissa had never been known to shun sustenance.
The symptom thoroughly frightened her maid, and in a few minutes she had Dr. Blimmer's office on the telephone; but that eminent practitioner was out. Then she found in succession the offices of Doctors White, Black, and Gray. Two had gone away over New Year's, the other was out.
The maid, who was clever and resourceful, went out to hunt up a doctor. There are, in the cross streets, plenty of doctors between the Seventies and Eighties. She found one without difficulty–that is, she found the sign in the window, but the doctor was out on his visits.
She made two more attempts with similar results, then, discovering a doctor's sign in a window across the street, started for it regardless of snowdrifts, and at the same moment the doctor's front door opened and a young man, with a black leather case in his hand, hastily descended the icy steps and hurried away up the street.
The maid ran after him and arrived at his side breathless, excited:
"Oh, could you come–just for a moment, if you please, sir! Miss Carr won't eat her luncheon!"
"What!" said the young man, surprised.
"Miss Carr wishes to see you–just for a–"
"Miss Carr?"
"Miss Sacharissa!"
"Sacharissa?"
"Y-yes, sir–she–"
"But I don't know any Miss Sacharissa!"
"I understand that, sir."
"Look here, young woman, do you know my name?"
"No, sir, but that doesn't make any difference to Miss Carr."
"She wishes to see me!"
"Oh, yes, sir."
"I–I'm in a hurry to catch a train." He looked hard at the maid, at his watch, at the maid again.
"Are you perfectly sure you're not mistaken?" he demanded.
"No, sir, I–"
"A certain Miss Sacharissa Carr desires to see me? Are you certain of that?"
"Oh, yes, sir–she–"
"Where does she live?"
"One thousand eight and a half Fifth Avenue, sir."
"I've got just three minutes. Can you run?"
"I–yes!"
"Come on, then!"
And away they galloped, his overcoat streaming out behind, the maid's skirts flapping and her narrow apron flickering in the wind. Wayfarers stopped to watch their pace–a pace which brought them to the house in something under a minute. Ferdinand, the second man, let them in.
"Now, then," panted the young man, "which way? I'm in a hurry, remember!" And he started on a run for the stairs.
"Please follow me, sir; the elevator is quicker!" gasped the maid, opening the barred doors.
The young man sprang into the lighted car, the maid turned to fling off hat and jacket before entering; something went fizz-bang! snap! clink! and the lights in the car were extinguished.
"Oh!" shrieked the maid, "it's running away again! Jump, sir!"
The ornate, rococo elevator, as a matter of fact, was running away, upward, slowly at first. Its astonished occupant turned to jump out–too late.
"P-push the third button, sir! Quick!" cried the maid, wringing her hands.
"W-where is it!" stammered the young man, groping nervously in the dark car. "I can't see any."
"Cr-rack!" went something.
"It's stopped! It's going to fall!" screamed the maid. "Run, Ferdinand!"
The man at the door ran upstairs for a few steps, then distractedly slid to the bottom, shouting:
"Are you hurt, sir?"
"No," came a disgusted voice from somewhere up the shaft.
Every landing was now noisy with servants, maids sped upstairs, flunkeys sped down, a butler waddled in a circle.
"Is anybody going to get me out of this?" demanded the voice in the shaft. "I've a train to catch."
The perspiring butler poked his head into the shaft from below:
"'Ow far hup, sir, might you be?"
"How the devil do I know?"
"Can't you see nothink, sir?"
"Yes, I can see a landing and a red room."
"'E's stuck hunder the library!" exclaimed the butler, and there was a rush for the upper floors.
The rush was met and checked by a tall, young girl who came leisurely along the landing, nibbling a chocolate.
"What is all this noise about?" she asked. "Has the elevator gone wrong again?"
Glancing across the landing at the grille which screened the shaft she saw the gilded car–part of it–and half of a perfectly strange young man looking earnestly out.
"It's the doctor!" wailed her maid.
"That isn't Dr. Blimmer!" said her mistress.
"No, miss, it's a perfectly strange doctor."
"I am not a doctor," observed the young man, coldly.
Sacharissa drew nearer.
"If that maid of yours had asked me," he went on, "I'd have told her. She saw me coming down the steps of a physician's house–I suppose she mistook my camera case for a case of medicines."
"I did–oh, I did!" moaned the maid, and covered her head with her apron.
"The thing to do," said Sacharissa, calmly, "is to send for the nearest plumber. Ferdinand, go immediately!"
"Meanwhile," said the imprisoned young man, "I shall miss my train. Can't somebody break that grille? I could climb out that way."
"Sparks," said Miss Carr, "can you break that grille?"
Sparks tried. A kitchen maid brought a small tackhammer–the only "'ammer in the 'ouse," according to Sparks, who pounded at the foliated steel grille and broke the hammer off short.
"Did it 'it you in the 'ead, sir?" he asked, panting.
"Exactly," replied the young man, grinding his teeth.
Sparks 'oped as 'ow it didn't 'urt the gentleman. The gentleman stanched his wound in terrible silence.
Presently Ferdinand came back to report upon the availability of the family plumber. It appeared that all plumbers, locksmiths, and similar indispensable and free-born artisans had closed shop at noon and would not reopen until after New Year's, subject to the Constitution of the United States.
"But this gentleman cannot remain here until after New Year's," said Sacharissa. "He says he is in a hurry. Do you hear, Sparks?"
The servants stood in a helpless row.
"Ferdinand," she said, "Mr. Carr told you to have that elevator fixed before it was used again!"
Ferdinand stared wildly at the grille and ran his thumb over the bars.
"And Clark"–to her maid–"I am astonished that you permitted this gentleman to risk the elevator."
"He was in a hurry–I thought he was a doctor." The maid dissolved into tears.
"It is now," broke in the voice from the shaft, "an utter impossibility for me to catch any train in the United States."
"I am dreadfully sorry," said Sacharissa.
"Isn't there an ax in the house?"
The butler mournfully denied it.
"Then get the furnace bar."
It was fetched; nerve-racking blows rained on the grille; puffing servants applied it as a lever, as a battering-ram, as a club. The house rang like a boiler factory.
"I can't stand any more of that!" shouted the young man. "Stop it!"
Sacharissa looked about her, hands closing both ears.
"Send them away," said the young man, wearily. "If I've got to stay here I want a chance to think."
After she had dismissed the servants Sacharissa drew up a chair and seated herself a few feet from the grille. She could see half the car and half the man–plainer, now that she had come nearer.
He was a young and rather attractive looking fellow, cheek tied up in his handkerchief, where the head of the hammer had knocked off the skin.
"Let me get some witch-hazel," said Sacharissa, rising.
"I want to write a telegram first," he said.
So she brought some blanks, passed them and a pencil down to him through the grille, and reseated herself.
