The Black Gale

by Samuel Shellabarger

 

Chapter 1

“Mr. Fleischenberg! Mr. Fleischenberg!” sang a page-boy, flitting between marble columns. Over Persian carpets, down infinite corridors, a metropolitan lark, he pursued his quest until at last, in the far distance, a whispered “Fleischenberg” floated and died away.

“There,” said one of two gentlemen, who were occupying a remote corner of the lobby, “there you have it.”

“What?” said the other.

“New York! My dear Ainsley, New York — this Mammoth Cave of latest improvements, which reechoes to the name of its genius — Fleischenberg. You ask me why I am leaving? There’s a reason — I have others, but that’s adequate — I’m sick of Fleischenbergs and mammoths.”

In the middle distance and background before the speaker, passed at different tempos the eternal constituents of a city hostelry — business men with or without cigars, women of all ages, porters with luggage, pageboys, bell-boys, errand-boys, elevator-boys, clerks, and waiters. From all this there radiated, in gusts of heavy air through revolving doors, an odor of tobacco smoke and perfume.

“Yes,” continued the gentleman with humorous bitterness, “it would end by boring me, and there I draw the line.”

In any other place than the maelstrom of our newest hotel, the speaker in question would not have escaped observation. He was a tall, bronzed man, with dark hair slightly silvering at the temples. His age might have been between thirty-five and forty. Above all, a man of presence, of remarkable distinction, though it would be difficult to tell exactly what element of his appearance chiefly accounted for the impression. Perhaps his clothes, soberly elegant from spats to collar, perhaps the glow of a crimson ribbon at his lapel were enough to invite attention; but, after all, these would be forgotten in contrast with his features, which were gaunt and imperious — the massive nose, thin ironic lips, angular cheeks — suggesting pride, passion, and a sort of unscrupulous energy. A scar slanted from the center of his forehead to the right temple. It was the almost startling face of a freebooter immaculately disguised in the latest conventionalities of fashion. And yet, here again, it is doubtful whether his eyes were not primarily responsible for his peculiarly vivid exterior. They were large, dark, and of unusual brilliance. Although at variance with, they appeared also to unify the different features of the man, were in turn serene and savage, scornful and caressing. On the whole, to the more attentive observer, his bearing would have perhaps suggested something both restless and lawless, though curiously compounded with urbanity.

“You, Ainsley,” he went on, “are never bored; you have no idea of the leaden fetters of routine: my life, on the contrary, has been a constant strategy to avoid them; and at such unmistakable symptoms as I have noted lately in myself — yawns, indifference, and melancholy — my heart palpitates with terror. Hence, the prompt necessity of travel — at once, tomorrow.” And, as if considering the dialogue satisfactorily ended, he gathered up hat, stick, and gloves; then added: “Don’t be downcast, I leave you Fleischenberg, and my blessing. — Well, what’s the matter?”

His companion, a short, plump man with round cheeks, was engaged in wagging his head energetically from side to side. It gave him somehow the appearance of a gloomy tortoise. “What’s the matter!” he snorted, “ — disappointment. I’m disappointed in you, Morier Ravanel, and I won’t pretend but what I’m just a trifle hurt. Look here. We signed up together for this deal on my idea, bought low, sold high, made as tidy a profit as the Street’s ever seen. But, Lord, that’s only a beginning, a squeak to the noise we’d make later, you with your dash and swank, me with my experience. I’d counted on it; I had a right to count on it. And then — bang! — out of a clear sky, everything serene, you chuck the whole business, talk a lot of rubbish about Jews, and vamoose. I hate to see a man of your breed joke his life away, and I hate to be left in the lurch.”

“With five hundred thousand dollars,” added the other dryly.

“But I tell you that’s only a drop in the bucket. Look here,” said Mr. Ainsley, desperately, “what’s your price?”

The gentleman with the scar stared a moment, then smiled: “If you mean money and more money, as a compensation for your everlasting treadmill,” he answered, “I have no price. What was it that young fellow at the club called me last night?”

“Pshaw,” retorted Ainsley, “didn’t think you were so sensitive. He oughtn’t to have played cards with an expert like you; but if he did, shouldn’t have welched about losing. Nobody took that seriously.”

“I did,” — the thin lips parted in a curious smile — “he called me an adventurer. I took that seriously. It was true, and he did me great honor. I was almost tempted to return him his money on the strength of it.”

“Well then?” sniffed the other, evidently surprised.

“Well then, it recalled me to myself; it gave me occasion to ask what on earth I was doing here. . . . My price?” he went on in a low voice, “see if you can find me these things in your city, and perhaps I’ll stay: vice with elegance, love with gallantry, daring with courtliness. Or, to put it another way, my price is life, colored like a window with rich dyes. An adventurer, yes; but with discrimination, taste, a fancy for the exquisite. Moreover, I have a passion for liberty. In the name of that sweet goddess, I prefer a corrupt to a sanctimonious country. — In short, I conclude that having gotten what you had to give — money — I shall go and buy elsewhere what I want.”

“Don’t understand a word of what you’re driving at,” said Ainsley; “but I take it you’re not a patriot. Well, I am and you ought to be, Morier Ravanel.”

“Men of my profession,” replied the latter, “have no country. But in self-defense, I might inquire what you were doing nine years ago — in the trenches, eh?”

“No,” coughed Ainsley, “I had a slight heart complication. Awful disappointment to me.”

“Of course, of course, but, having no trouble with my heart, nine years ago I was somewhere above the lines along the Meuse.”

“Everybody can’t be a flying ace,” protested Ainsley.

“And every ace can’t be a patriot? Well, I agree to that. And now, my dear fellow,” continued Ravanel, changing suddenly from banter to the conventionally polite, “it’s good-by, I suppose. Must look up the White Star offices — unless, of course, I can give you a lift that way.”

“But listen — ” exclaimed the plump man.

“Unfortunately I haven’t the time. Your arguments are eloquent, but wasted; for, in the words of the poet, ‘the Red Gods call me out and I must go’. Besides, I have given you my reasons, unshakeable, as you see.”

The tone of Ravanel’s voice indicating something more unshakeable than his reasons, Ainsley surrendered. “After all’s said and done,” he remarked sullenly, “the long and short of it is, that there’s a woman at the bottom of this foolishness. There’s the reason — it always is with you.”

The other drew on his gloves with a laugh. “Why, of course! I won’t deny it; I don’t go in for hypocrisy. Drop a card to Madame Angèle Laval, Avenue Kléber, Paris, and maybe she’ll inform you whether you’re right.” He extended his hand. “Au revoir, then, good luck!” And having thus briefly consigned the mushroom partnership of Ainsley and Ravanel to the limbo of discarded expedients, he proceeded jauntily through the lobby to its revolving portal beyond.

As for Ainsley, left in his corner, an unnoted castaway, it is probable that he took such moody comfort as indignation supplies. If he was even moderately profane, nobody would blame him, certainly not his former associate. Indeed, the latter, pausing for a moment at the door of his car to light a cigarette, was sufficiently penitent to sigh generously: “Poor old Ainsley, not a bad sort”; and, exhaling, the puff of smoke hovered, like a fleeting memory, in the sunlight of Broadway. Then settling himself, and with a nod to the chauffeur, Mr. Ravanel was borne luxuriously southward away from the tedious past.

 

To one who, like him, had traversed so many frontiers in the enterprise of life, the beginning of a new episode offered nothing particularly remarkable; it was rather familiar and habitual. He belonged to that perennial crop of individuals, old as humanity, which supports what has been called with acumen “the fallacy of the elsewhere,” — a philosophy, if it is one, that keeps a person on the march. It also keeps him on his own resources, makes a free-lance out of him with both its privileges and drawbacks. And one of its privileges is to be serenely undisturbed at the process of turning from one thing to another.

On the whole, the twentieth century, perhaps any century, is averse to men of this sort; but there are certain periods which have been more favorable. They flourished under Eric and Harold, got even a religious kudos at the time of the Crusades, lined their purses fatly under the condottieri, manned the Venetian galleys and the British privateers, had a late winter blossom in the eighteenth century, and a last echo of prestige in the empire-building of forty years ago. But now, though just as numerous, they have fallen on evil times, without any professional excuse for being, and without, as it were, the former esprit de corps. They live dispersed, and satisfy themselves with such often shabby occasions for tempting Providence as organized society leaves. But their hearts are the same. They are still the sworn troop of Perhaps and Tomorrow and The Next Boat.

Different parts of the world knew Morier Ravanel in different capacities: the Balkans, as a war correspondent; Morocco, as a foreign legionary; official Paris, as an aviator; unofficial Paris, as a good many things; Wall Street, as a speculator, and so on; but everywhere, as a rover, and therefore not very well. People were inclined to raise their eyebrows at his reputation, and envy his luck; but at the same moment he was apt to have disappeared. Of course there is nothing really mysterious or romantic about this sort of thing. In plain terms, it is merely another phase of pleasure-seeking, that finds its keenest savor in variety, in the process of change. And now, for instance, although apparently languid behind the windows of his sedan, he was conscious of a pleasing exhilaration. It is the suspense of the threshold that men of his type love; once more at the direction of whim, as so often, he was preparing to pass on beyond.

So a falcon may be supposed to balance upon the rim of his crag before the day’s hunt; and Ravanel shared something of the falcon’s nature — its ferocity, skill, and eagerness. As he approached the Battery, a gust of sea air, bearing with it a heady perfume, fanned through the window of the car, and brought a sudden smile to his lips. His eyes quickened. It was both a welcome and a summons.

“Merryman,” he said to the chauffeur on alighting, “I leave tomorrow.”

The man’s heavy face showed surprised regret. “Yes, sir? Kind of sudden, Mr. Ravanel, but perhaps you ain’t going far?”

“Who knows, Merryman! Paris, the world,” replied his employer, “who knows! . . . We’ve had some gay drives together, eh? You’ve contributed chiefly to whatever pleasure I’ve found here; and it will interest you to know that when we part definitely tomorrow at the dock, I shall give you a check for six months’ wages in advance.”

The corners of the chauffeur’s mouth twitched out and upward. He brought his hand sharply to his cap. “Very handsome of you, sir. It’s been a treat to drive you.”

“I’ve sold the car,” continued Ravanel, “and you will deliver it to the Manhattan Garage tomorrow.”

“Right, sir.”

“And now listen: I’ll lunch downtown. Go back to the rooms and tell Blake to pack up. He was rather expecting it, as a matter of fact, and has probably begun. Tonight, Merryman — ”

“Yes, sir.”

“ — you will wait at the stage entrance of the Opera for Miss Carmella, and drive her to the usual place. Understand?” And turning, he entered the steamship offices, humming a popular air and twirling his cane.

Inside it was evident that a great liner would sail tomorrow. Clerks, short-tempered with last-minute changes, reservations, questions, and commissions, snapped wearily back and forth behind crowded counters. People jostled each other, stood in little groups debating, wrote telegrams, or dangled baggage-labels. Shrill-voiced mothers exchanged nervous observations with shrill-voiced daughters. The walls glared with passport regulations, steamship regulations, visa regulations, instructions to passengers. The place was a storage-battery on the point of discharging.

Securing a place at the booking counter, Ravanel surveyed the throng philosophically in something of the same fashion as a drill-sergeant observes the confusion of new recruits. “I sent my trunks by express ten days ago,” a woman was wailing at his right, “and I can’t find ‘em on the dock, I can’t find ‘em.”

“Madam,” growled a clerk, who was giving her the privilege of one ear, while absorbing similar complaints with the other, “madam, the express companies won’t deliver till this afternoon, you’ll find your things then.” “But if I don’t!” “You will.” “But if — ” The clerk hurried off. Ravanel smiled.

Next him on his left, a married couple seemed to have been brought to a standstill before a momentous, if urgent, decision. And time was passing. The employee of the company balanced impatiently from one foot to the other, rustling papers.

“I’ll have to ask you to make up your minds,” he said. “We’ve held those cabins to the last possible moment, and there’re people waiting. You’ll have to take either Six-Ninety at the minimum price or Five Thirty-six.” He rustled his papers more violently than before.

“But don’t you think, Clifton, that Five Thirty-six is too expensive?” said the low, singularly pleasant voice of the woman, whose back was toward Ravanel.

“Listen, Jacklin,” replied her companion, a thin, placid man, “it’s your first trip, you’re not well, and I think we ought to make the sacrifice.”

“Not on my account, please.”

The clerk coughed, balanced, rustled.

“Thirty dollars is worth the difference,” continued the man. “There, I’ve decided — we’ll take Five Thirty-six.”

“But it’s so much money,” she protested.

“We’ll take it just the same,” triumphed the other, a sudden warmth in his rather high voice. He counted out some bills carefully. “I can’t quite make it, Jacklin; I need just ten dollars of the house-money I gave you yesterday.”

She turned to open her handbag, and here Ravanel’s smile vanished. “A strange face,” he thought at first, then added, “a beautiful face.” He had already half-consciously admired the symmetry of the woman’s figure, the graceful poise of her head, the plain refinement of dress; but now he was struck by the delicate regularity of her features, the curve of her lips, the magnificent darkness of her eyes. What had perhaps conveyed the first impression of strangeness was her extreme pallor, which lent to her face the exquisite frailness of a cameo.

Aware of his unconsciously too overt scrutiny, she turned away. “Young,” he thought, “surely in her early twenties — yes, beautiful.” Characteristically, the voyage, which he had thus far anticipated as a colorless prelude to experiences beyond, gathered suddenly in his fancy a quality of iridescent promise, which might lead far. And thus, indeed, the flickering of a speck in the distance between earth and heaven rouses the heart of the falcon.

Their passage duly paid for, the couple, obviously elated and perhaps impressed by their late extravagance, drew away toward the door, very close together, while the man said something at which she laughed. Ravanel, intent, followed them from the corner of his eye. Would she turn her head? Almost mechanically she did so, only a look. The darkness of her glance passed over his tall, debonair figure and harsh face. “A remarkable-looking person, Clifton — I wonder who he is.” And Ravanel guessed that she had spoken of him, because her husband turned also carelessly before they went out.

“What can I do for you?” said the clerk sharply. “Ah, Mr. Ravanel! Excuse me. Final payment on suite deluxe A, isn’t it?” The other nodded familiarly, smiling. “Yes, and on the extra berth for that friend of mine, Mr. Blake. By the way, though, who were those people who were just ahead of me?” “Wait a moment, I don’t recall the name.” The clerk consulted his register. “Oh, yes, Mr. and Mrs. Baron of New York.”

Several minutes later, Morier Ravanel strolled leisurely to a writing desk in a less crowded corner of the office, and wrote hurriedly a few lines. “You will place my deck chair without fai next to that of Mrs. Clifton Baron of New York. I enclose ten dollars.” When he had addressed an envelope — “Deck Steward, S. S. Cedric,” — he stood for a while pondering. Men and women passed back and forth, while the human voice ranged all its gamut from whisper to vociferation; notices and regulations glared; baggage-tags dangled; but his eyes rested musingly on the letter in his hand, as if that document were a magic prism of the future which revealed rare things.

“Poor,” he mused, “that’s good. . . . Not long married, that’s not so good. . . . But, beautiful — beautiful!”

 

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