The Deaves Affair Part 6

Charley was a lean and sprawling youth with lank blonde hair, a long nose, and an incorrigible smile that spread to the furthest confines of his face. To quote himself, he was a b.u.m artist and a squarehead. He took people at their own valuation and was consequently a universal favourite.

"Carmen rented her back parlour this afternoon," he was saying--Carmen being their own moniker for their landlady Miss Carmelita Sisson. "To a female. What do you know about it? Carmen hates 'em round the house. Too nosey, she says. But the room's been vacant since spring, and roomers in summertime are as scarce as s...o...b..a.l.l.s. So she succ.u.mbed.

"Haven't seen her yet--I mean the new roomer, but my hope and my prayer is that she's a looker. I think she is because Carmen sniffed. Does our Carmen love the beautiful of her s.e.x? She does--not! She's a singing-teacher, Madame Squallerina, Carmen called her, with the rare wit for which she is famed. Already moved in with her piano and all.

I heard her moving round, but the door was closed. I'm afraid she's not going to be sociable. h.e.l.l! the parlor floor always looks down on the attic! That's a joke in case you don't know it; parlor floor looking down on the attic!

"Wish I could think of a good excuse to knock on her door. It 'ud be a stunt, wouldn't it, to raise an alarm of fire in this old tinder-box.

Say, if there's ever a fire I bags the new roomer to save--that is until I get a look at her. If it's over a hundred and fifty, I'll give the job to you, Strong-arm."

This failed to draw a smile from Evan.

"Say, you're as lively as the dressing-room of a defeated team. Wot th' h.e.l.l's the matter? Come on out and see a movie. I'll blow."

"I'm off pictures," said Evan. "Go on yourself. Maybe you'll meet Squallerina on the stairs. Take her."

"You've said it," said Charley. "I'm off."

The gas made the room hot, and Evan turned it out. The instant he did so, he became aware of the moonlight outside, and he went and rested his elbows on the sill in his customary att.i.tude.

The moon herself was behind the house, but the Square beneath his window was mantled in a tender bloom of light. As every painter knows, moonlight is most beautiful when the moon herself is out of the picture. By moonlight the dejected old trees of the Square were shapes of perfect beauty, the gra.s.s was overlaid with a delicate scarf of light; the very figures on the benches were as strangely still as if the moon had laid a spell on them.

But all this beauty only had the effect of putting an edge on Evan's dissatisfaction. The gnawing inside him was a hundred times worse by moonlight. "What's the matter with me?" he thought querulously. "I wished for something to happen. Well, something did happen, but there's no fun in it. There's no fun in anything any more. Moonlight makes me hate myself. Oh, d.a.m.n moonlight anyhow! It turns a man inside out!"

He flung away from the window and planted himself in his chair with his back to it.

Presently he became aware of a sound new in that house. His door stood open for ventilation and it came floating up the old stairs. He was aware of a vague pleasure before he localised the sound. It was music; a piano--but not the usual rooming-house instrument; a piano in tune, softly played. It drew him to the door and to the banisters outside, a poignant, haunting melody rippling in a minor treble, a melody that queerly sharpened the knife that stabbed him, yet drew him on irresistibly.

He stole down the dark stairs, guiding himself with a hand on the rail, his eyes as abstracted as a sleep walker's. The sounds were issuing from the back parlour of course. The door was partly open--so she was not as unsociable as Charley had feared, or perhaps it was only that it was hot. The room was dark inside. Evan leaned against the banisters with bent head, scarcely daring to breathe for fear of breaking the lovely spell.

The music came to an end and his spirit dropped back to earth. He lingered, silently praying for it to resume and give him wings again.

Instead, the door was suddenly opened wider and he saw the tenant of the room on the threshold. All he could see of her was that she was a little woman with a lot of hair. The moonlight shimmering through the edges of her hair made a halo around her head. Moonlight made two square patches on the floor of the room.

It was too late for him to escape. "I--I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I couldn't help listening."

"Oh!" she said. "Who are you?"

"Evan Weir. I live up-stairs."

"Oh!" she said again, but with a different inflection.

By her voice Evan knew she was young and adorable. It was a low-pitched voice for so little a woman, low and thrilling; a mezzo-soprano. His spirit went to meet that voice.

For a moment or two they stood silently facing each other in the dark.

Evan was not conscious of any embarra.s.sment; he was too deeply moved.

His conscious self was in abeyance. Moonlight, music and woman had bewitched him. He was in the grip of forces that played on him like an instrument. But someone had to speak in the end. It was Evan.

"What was that you were playing?" he asked simply.

"The moonlight sonata," she answered.

"Of course! That's why it sounded so exactly right. Won't you play again--please?"

She could not but have been aware how genuinely moved he was, but however it may have pleased her, womanlike, she sought to pull down the conversation to a safer plane.

"Oh, I can't!" she said. "I have unpacking to do. I was coming out to get a match to light the gas. I can't find any."

"I'll light the gas for you," he said eagerly. She stood aside to let him enter. The simple act thrilled him anew; she was not afraid of him; her spirit greeted his. When she turned around he could see her face etherealised in the moonlight, a lovely pale oval with two dark pools. There was a subtle perfume in the room that made him a little dizzy. In the act of striking a match he paused.

"Oh, it's a shame!" he said involuntarily.

"What is?" she asked.

"To light the gas on such a night."

She laughed. It was a delicious little sound. It seemed to bid him be at home there. "One must!" she said. "What would the landlady say?"

But the tone of the denial encouraged him to insist. "A little more music," he begged. "I never heard anything so lovely."

She went to the piano bench obediently. "Sit down if you can find a place," she said over her shoulder.

Instead he came and leaned his elbows on the edge of the piano case.

Once more her fingers rippled over the keys, and another delicate minor air ravished his soul. She did not seem to strike the keys, but to draw out the sounds with the magical waving of her pale hands. She kept her head down, and he could not see into her face. Nor could he be sure of the colour of her hair, but only that it was shining.

In the middle of the piece the flying fingers began to falter. No doubt the intense gaze he was bending on the top of her head confused her. At any rate she broke off abruptly and jumped up.

A cry broke from Evan: "Oh, please go on!"

"I cannot! I cannot!" she said. "Light the gas." As he still hesitated she stamped her foot with delightful imperiousness. "You _must_ light the gas!"

With a sigh he struck the match. The gas flared up with a plop. Their curious eyes flew to each other's faces. Evan saw--well, he was not disappointed. His instinct had rightly told him in the dark that she was adorable. Not regularly beautiful; the most charming women are not. There were fascinating contradictions. The bright hair was gloriously red: the eyes too large for her face and brown, extraordinary eyes revealing a strong soul. They were capable both of melting and of flashing, but especially of flashing; the soul was imperious. As for the rest of her, the dear straight little nose was non-committal, the mouth fresh and childlike, with a slight, appealing droop in the corners. In short, Nature the great experimentalist had in this case endowed a most sweet and kissable little body with the soul of a warrior.

Evan could not have argued this all out, but his inner self perceived it. His feelings as he gazed at her were mixed. The dear little thing! the enchanting playmate; his arms fairly ached to gather her in.

At the same time the deeper sight was whispering to him that this was no playmate for a man's idleness, but a soul as strong as his own--or stronger, to whom he must yield all or nothing, and he was afraid.

As for her, she simply looked at him inscrutably. He could not tell if she were pleased with what she saw.

Finally self-consciousness returned to both with a rush. They blushed and turned from each other.

"You must go now," the girl said gently.

He understood from her tone that she did not greatly desire him to go, but that it was up to him to find a reason for staying.

"Let me help you get your things in order," he said eagerly. "You can't shove trunks and furniture around."

She hesitated, thinking perhaps of the censorious landlady.

Evan made haste to follow up his advantage. "This trunk. Where will you have it put?"

She gave in to him with the ghost of a shrug. "It has nothing in it that I shall want," she said. "Shove it as far back in the closet as it will go."