The Siren2
I Brassid
They tell yet, on the porches of the Crazy-Quilt House,—though it is two years,—how savage Brassid met the laughing Sea-Lady, and how, at last, he adored her laughter more the more she laughed at him, and how she loved his savagery more the more savage he was to her.
And, then, on to the consequences of that laughter and that savagery, which you are to know at the end.
Mrs. Mouthon—the lady who uses snuff—insists that it was all pretence: that Brassid was not savage—in his room, and that Miss Princeps never laughed—in her room. Mrs. Mouthon’s room was between theirs.
Nevertheless, Miss Carat, who has the one deaf ear, contends that it is absurd, absolutely absurd. For, she argues, why should they have pretended, in the first place, and why should they not, if they had liked, in the last place? But, then, Miss Carat, the other five first-class boarders whisper, always opposes anything which proceeds from Mrs. Mouthon.
It seems that Brassid, weary and seeking seclusion, arrived on the last train of a Wednesday night. The man who carried his bag up from the little station told him that the Crazy-Quilt House was a sanatorium for women with head-trouble. It appeared that Brassid and the porter, who was also many other things at the hotel, would be the only men in the house—a state of affairs which immediately created a subtle camaraderie between the two men, though the porter was colored.
“Call me in time for the first train up to-morrow morning,” said Brassid, as the friendly porter dragged himself out of his room.
“It goes at six o’clock, sir,” warned the porter, perhaps wishing to detain him a little longer, for already the porter liked Brassid amazingly. Did I mention that every one did this, in spite of his ferocity?
“No matter,” said Brassid, shivering at the thought of the unearthly hour—and of the ladies with head-trouble—Brassid, who composed poems in bed until ten in the morning!
“All right, sir,” said the porter, as if warning Brassid that he would regret it.
However, that was why Brassid appeared at the dinner-table in a dinner-coat—because he knew that the invalid ladies would be there—and that thus it would be easier for him.
There were six, and one vacant place—opposite. The lady on his left put up her lorgnon in haste. The one at the top of the table put something like a pepper-box into her ear and leaned to listen.
“Lovely weather!” said Brassid.
“Rheumatic weather!” said the lady with the pepper-box.
“It’s no such thing!” said the lady who took snuff. “It’s asthmatic!”
Something dropped with a small clatter into Brassid’s plate. The lady on his left flung her lorgnon to her eyes. Miss Carat jammed her pepper-box to her ear. Some one laughed, then checked it.
An old locket, in the fashion of a heart, lay in Brassid’s plate. A bit of ribbon gave evidence of some severed attachment. Brassid was hopelessly fitting back to its place a flake of blue enamel.
He tried to discourage the interest in his keepsake by covering it with his napkin. Then he looked up. The vacant seat was occupied, and the lady was trying to smother her laughter.
Brassid got red and crunched the napkin in a way which said plainly, “So it was you who laughed!”
She did it again.
He restored the piece of napery with a brave nonchalance, and took up the locket.
The lady’s eyes retorted as plainly as her lips could have done, “Too late!”
He remembered precisely how they did it,—out of the tops of their firm white lids,—with a movement which was personal, a fascination which was irresistible. He was to read other speeches of these eyes, often repeated. But he was to read this one only once more.
Well, Brassid broke his guard and laughed with her.
“It is no laughing matter,” said the lady with the lorgnon, fixing the lady who had laughed with its stare.
It was a critical moment: the lady who laughed might have retorted. But nothing further happened—except to Brassid. He was falling in love.
“I think it is,” he said in her defence. And he said it with all Brassid’s savagery.
“Oh, well, it’s your souvenir,” said Mrs. Mouthon, odiously.
“It is,” said Brassid.
He sprung the little case open and showed them a savage face much like his own. But there was a uniform with a high collar.
“My grandfather, the Indian-fighter. I wear it around my neck.”
And the lady opposite guiltily put her head down, permitting Brassid to see the loveliest of blond crowns, and, now and then, the edge of her smile; again, almost a laugh.
And so Brassid fell in love.
They cross-examined him with the precision and directness of barristers. He informed them that he came from the city, and who his parents were, and their parents, and theirs, all of whom seemed to be known to some of the six. The lady opposite kept her head down, but the smile came and went, nearer and nearer to laughter.
“Do you intend making some stay with us, sir?” inquired the lady with the one deaf ear.
“It is quite possible,” said Brassid, and the lady opposite barely restrained her inclination to look up. “It is such a delightful little place, and the swimming must be fine.”
Now Miss Princeps did look up. She seemed a little startled, and, then, did Brassid detect a bit of pleasure for her in his announcement? At the same moment all of the six looked toward Miss Princeps and detected her. Perhaps they more than detected her.
“Bill” (that was the porter) “said that you were going up on the morning train.”
Brassid laughed.
“Do you, then, swim?” asked Mrs. Mouthon.
“I am a very good swimmer,” declared Brassid.
Again Miss Princeps looked up, sharply now, not caring that the six again stared at her. She inspected Brassid with some care. She seemed satisfied.
“Miss Princeps swims,” said Miss Carat.
Now the eyes of the lady opposite met the eyes of Brassid in a frank stare. Brassid blushed, as we do when we think we have overstated our accomplishments in the presence of some one who knows.
“There is nothing the matter with her,” one of the invalids said, referring to head-troubles, and Brassid answered with tremendous conviction:
“No!”
Before the meal was over the lady with the pepper-box asked Brassid’s first name, and formally presented him, including the lady opposite. But it was only as she rose to go and swept the table with a little smiling bow that Brassid really saw her superbness.
When she had left the room he found himself still on his feet staring out of the door whence she had vanished. They caught him in a sigh.
“Sit down!” commanded the lady who took snuff.
And they kept Brassid there and bullied him till he wanted to get up and fight the lot of them man-fashion.
They informed him severally that she was an actress; that she was a widow with a deformed child of which she was ashamed; that she was a deserted wife; that she had once been married to a very wicked man of title; that she was “strange”—sat for hours on the beach alone, sang, swam, walked, did everything but flock with them.
“God bless her!” said Brassid.
The lady who snuffed arose.
“Lord help you!” she said grimly.
“Eh?” said Brassid.
“What were those women who lured a man into a cave and made a swine of him?”
Her appeal was to Brassid.
“I suppose you mean the sirens.”
“Yes, that was their name. That woman is a siren!”
“And you’re in love with her!” charged the lady who was deaf, in a thick voice.
“In love!” laughed Brassid. “Ha, ha, ha!”
“Yes, ha, ha, ha!” mimicked the lady who snuffed.
“I never saw her till to-day,” said Brassid.
“Neither did that other man see the sirens until he passed them on his way home.”
This convicted him before the six.
And, in the solitude of his room, it went far toward convicting him before himself, though he still laughed his hollow ha, ha, ha!
“Love at first sight! You! Old Brassid! Ha, ha, ha!”
He was speaking to the gentleman who faced him in the mirror.
At that moment she passed his door. She was softly singing:
“They sailed away
In a gallant bark.”
He had seen her but once, yet he knew the rustle of her silken skirts!
The next morning at ten Brassid was composing poems in bed, quite as he did at home—about her! He hummed and sang the things he fetched from within in a fashion which lent color to Mrs. Mouthon’s theory.
Some one knocked on his door.
“Come in!” sang Brassid, happily.
But it was only the colored porter.
He was winking his eyes rapidly, fancying that in that way he looked penitent while he did not feel so. The rumor of Brassid’s infatuation had reached the porter.
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the porter.
“Oh! What for, Bill?” So, suddenly had their comradeship grown to first names! “Everybody is sorry now and then. Brace up!”
The porter stared.
“The six-o’clock train, sir.”
Now Brassid stared.
“I forgot it, sir.”
“Thank you,” said Brassid, and he gave the porter a dollar for forgetting the six-o’clock train! He had forgotten it more than the porter.