The Green Mouse - Robert W. Chambers
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."