The Gay Rebellion - free ebook by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

THE GAY REBELLION

Illustration "She looked at him almost insolently. . . . 'Presently,' she said." [Page 82]...

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The

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ROBERT W. CHAMBERS

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SUZANNE CARROLL

Though J. H. jeer And "Smith" incline to frown, I do not fear To write these verses down And publish them in town. The solemn world knows well that I'm no poet; So what care I if two gay scoffers know it? Buck up, my Muse! Wing high thy skyward way, And don't refuse To let me say my say As bravely as I may. To praise a lady fair I father verses, Which Admiration cradles, Homage nurses. For you, Suzanne, Long since have won my heart; You break it, too, And leave the same to smart full sore Whenev

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PREFACE

These stories, mademoiselle, as your intuition tells you, are for old-fashioned young people only; and should be read in the Golden Future, some snowy evening by the fire after a home dinner à deux. Your predestined husband, mademoiselle, is to extend his god-like figure upon a sofa, with an ash-tray convenient. You are to do the reading, curled up in the big velvet wing-chair, with the lamp at your left elbow and the fender under your pretty feet. As for me, I shall venture to smile at you now

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FOREWORD

The attention of the civilized world is, at present, concentrated upon The Science of Eugenics. The author sincerely trusts that this important contribution to the data now being so earnestly nosed out and gathered, may aid his fellow students, scientifically, politically and anthropologically. Miris modis Di ludos faciunt hominibus! R. W. C. Untitled illustration Untitled illustration Untitled illustration "Facta canam; sed erunt qui me finxisse loquantur."— Ovid. Untitled illustration Untitled

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I

The year had been, as everybody knows, a momentous and sinister year for the masculine sex; marriages and births in the United States alone had fallen off nearly eighty per cent.; the establishment of Suffragette Unions in every city, town, and village of the country, their obedience to the dictation of the Central National Female Franchise Federation; the financial distress of the florists, caterers, milliners and modistes incident to the almost total suspension of social functions throughout t

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II

Langdon , very greasy with fly ointment, very sleepy from a mosquitoful night, squatted cross-legged by the camp fire, nodding drowsily. Sayre fought off mosquitoes with one grimy hand; with the other he turned flapjacks on the blade of his hunting-knife. All around them lay the desolate Adirondack wilderness. The wire fence of a game preserve obstructed their advance. It was almost three-quarters of a mile to the nearest hotel. Here and there in the forest immense boulders reared their prehisto

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III

Sayre had been fishing for some time with the usual result when the slightest rustle of foliage caught his ear. He looked up. She was standing directly behind him. He got to his feet immediately and pulled off his cap. That was too bad; he was better looking with it on his head. "I wondered whether you'd come again," he said, so simply and naturally that the girl, whose grey eyes had become intent on his scanty hair with a surprised and pained expression, looked directly into his smiling and agr

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IV

About two o'clock that afternoon Sayre rushed into camp with his scanty hair on end. Langdon, who had been attempting to boil a blank-book for dinner, gazed at him in consternation. "What is it? Bears, William?" he asked fearfully. "D-d-don't be f-f-frightened; I'll stand by you." "It isn't bears, you simp! I've just unearthed the most colossal conspiracy of the century! Curtis, things are happening in these woods that are incredible, abominable, horrible——" " What is happening?" faltered Langdo

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V

One week later Curtis Langdon sat on the banks of a trout stream fishing, apparently deeply absorbed in his business; but he was listening so hard that his ears hurt him. A few yards away, ambushed behind a rock on which was painted "Votes for Women," lurked William Sayre. A net lay on the ground beside him, fashioned with ring and detachable handle like a gigantic butterfly net. He, too, tremendously excited, was listening and watching the human bait—Langdon being cast for the bait. Perfect and

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VI

All over the United States conditions were becoming terrible, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of militant women, wives, widows, matrons, maidens, and stenographers had gone on strike. Non-intercourse with man was to be the punishment for any longer withholding the franchise; husbands, fathers, uncles, fiancés, bachelors, and authors held frantic mass meetings to determine what course to pursue in the imminence of rapidly impending industrial, political, and social disaster. But, although men'

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VII

It is a surprising and trying moment for a girl who throws water upon a young man's face to see that face begin to dissolve and come off, feature by feature, in polychromatic splendour. She did not faint; her intellect reeled for a moment; then she dropped her hands from her eyes and saw him sitting up on the ground, blinking at her gravely from a streaked and gaudy countenance. His wig was tilted over one eye; rouge and pearl powder made his cheeks and chin very gay; and his handsome, silky mou

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VIII

At the gate of the New Race University and Masculine Beauty Preserve the pretty gate-keeper on duty looked at Langdon, then at his fair captor, in unfeigned astonishment. "Why, Ethra!" she said, "is that all you've brought home?" "Did you think I was going to net a dozen?" asked Ethra Leslie, warmly. "Please unlock the gate. Mr. Langdon is tired and hungry, and I want the Regents to finish with him quickly so that he can have some luncheon." The gate-keeper, a distractingly pretty red-haired gir

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IX

The collective and individual charms of the Board of Regents so utterly over-powered Langdon that he scarcely realised what was happening to him. First, at their request, he sat cross-legged on the ground; and they walked round and round him, inspecting him. Under such conditions no man could be at his best; there was a silly expression on his otherwise attractive face, which, as their attitude toward him seemed to waver between indifference and disapproval, became unconsciously appealing. "Kind

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X

The riots in London culminated in an episode so cataclysmic that it sobered the civilised world. Young Lord Marque, replying to a question in the House of Lords, said: "As long as the British peerage can summon muscular vigour sufficient to keep a monocle in its eye and extract satisfaction from a cigarette, no human woman in the British Empire shall ever cast a bally ballot for any bally purpose whatever. What!" And the House of Lords rose to its wavering legs and cheered him with an enthusiasm

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XI

The duties of young Lord Marque, the new man on the Willett estate at Caranay, left him at leisure only after six o'clock, his day being almost entirely occupied in driving a large lawn mower. Life, for John Marque—as he now called himself—had become exquisitely simple; eating, sleeping, driving a lawn mower—these three manly sports so entirely occupied the twenty-four hours that he had scarcely time to do much weeding—and no time at all to sympathise with himself because he was too busy by day

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XII

Whenever he went to Moss Centre with the wagon he telephoned and telegraphed to himself, and about a month after he had begun this idiot performance he ventured to speak to her. It occurred late in July, just before sunset. He had placed his rod, lighted his pipe, and seated himself on the platform's edge, when, all of a sudden, and without any apparent reason, a dizzy sort of recklessness seized him, and he got up and walked over to her window. "Good evening," he said. She looked around leisure

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XIII

He came every day; and every day, at sundown, she sat sewing by the window behind her heliotrope and mignonette waiting. Sometimes he caught perch and dace and chub, and she accepted half, never more. Sometimes he caught nothing; and then her clear, humorous eyes bantered him, and sometimes she even rallied him. For it had come to pass in these sunset moments that she was learning to permit herself a friendliness and a confidence for him which was very pleasant to her while it lasted, but, after

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XIV

The situation in Great Britain was becoming deplorable; the Home Secretary had been chased into the Serpentine; the Prime Minister and a dozen members of Parliament had taken permanent refuge in the vaults of the Bank of England; a vast army of suffragettes was parading the streets of London, singing, cheering, and eating bon-bons. Statues, monuments, palaces were defaced with the words "Votes for Women," and it was not an uncommon sight to see some handsome young man rushing distractedly throug

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XV

The Governor of the great State of New York was now running up Broadway with his borrowed sword between his legs and his borrowed uniform covered with confetti—footing it as earnestly as though he were running behind his ticket with New York County yet to hear from. After him sped bricks, vegetables, spot-eggs, and several exceedingly fashionable suffragettes, their perfectly gloved hands full of horsewhips, banners, and farm produce. But his excellency was now running strongly; one by one his e

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XVI

It was now growing rather dark in the room. "I'm terribly sorry you feel this way," he said. She had averted her eyes and was now seated, chin in hand, looking out of the window. "Do you know," he said, "this is a rotten condition of affairs." "What do you mean?" she asked. "This attitude of women." "Is it more odious than the attitude of men?" "After all," he said, "man is born with the biceps. He was made to do the fighting." "Not all of the intellectual fighting." "No, of course not. But—you

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XVII

A few minutes later, amid a hideous scene of riot, where young men were fleeing distractedly in every direction, where excited young girls were dragging them, struggling and screaming, into cabs, where even the police were rushing hither and thither in desperate search for a place to hide in, the Governor of New York and Professor Elizabeth Challis might have been seen whirling downtown in a taxicab toward the marriage license bureau. Her golden head lay close to his; his moustache rested agains

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XVIII

As the extremes of fashionable feminine costume appear first on Fifth Avenue in late November, and in early December are imitated in Harlem, and finally in January pervade the metropolitan purlieus, so all the great cities of the Union, writhing in the throes of a fashionable suffragette revolution, presently inoculated the towns; and the towns infected the villages, and the villages the hamlets, and the hamlets passed the contagion along into the open country, where isolated farms and dicky-bir

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XIX

While he waited the cat looked up at him, curiously but pleasantly. "Hello, old lady," he said; and she arched her back and rubbed lightly against his nigh leg while the kittens tumbled over his shoes and played frantically with the frayed bottoms of his trousers. This preliminary welcome seemed to comfort him out of all proportion to its significance; he gazed complacently about at the trees and flowers, drew in deep breaths of the lilac's fragrance, and waited, listening contentedly for the co

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XX

He went, first depositing his suit-case on the step outside by the cats, and followed her into a large, comfortable sitting room. "By jove," he said, "you know this is really mighty pretty! What a corking collection of old furniture! Where in the world did you find—or perhaps this is the original furniture of the place?" She said, looking around the room as though slightly perplexed: "This furniture was made to order for me in Boston." "Then it isn't genuine," he said, disappointed. "But it's a

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XXI

" Listen !" she whispered; "did you hear that?" "What?" he asked, dazed. "On the Bedford road! do you hear the horses? Do you hear them running?" "W-what horses?" "Tarleton's!" she gasped, pressing her white face between her hands. "Can't you hear their iron scabbards rattle? Can't you hear their bugle horn? Where is Jack? Where is Jack?" A flurry of mellow music burst out among the trees, followed by a loud report. "Oh, God!" she whispered, "the British!" Brown stared at her. "Why, that's only

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XXII

As they left the house an hour later, walking down the path slowly, shoulder to shoulder, she said: "Mr. Brown, I want you to like that house." A sudden and subtly hideous idea glided into his brain. " You don't believe in suffragettes, do you?" he said, forcing a hollow laugh. "Why, I am one. Didn't you know it?" " You! " "Certainly. Goodness! how you did run! But," she added with innocent satisfaction, "I think I have secured every bit as good a one as the one Gladys chased out of a tree with

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XXIII

The Eugenic Revolution might fairly be said to have begun with the ignominious weddings of Messrs. Reginald Willett, James Carrick, De Lancy Smith, and Alphonso W. Green. Its crisis culminated in the Long Acre riots. But the great suffragette revolution was now coming to its abrupt and predestined end; the reaction, already long overdue, gathered force with incredible rapidity and exploded from Yonkers to Coney Island, in a furious counter-revolution. The revolt of the Unfit was on at last. Mobs

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XXIV

She knew so little about the metropolis that, on her first visit, a year before, she had asked the driver of the taxicab to recommend a respectable hotel for a lady travelling alone; and he had driven her to the Hotel Aurora Borealis—that great, gay palace of Indiana limestone and plate glass towering above the maelstrom of Long Acre. When, her business transacted, she returned to the Westchester farm, still timid, perplexed, and partly stunned by the glitter and noise of her recent metropolitan

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XXV

It was in early June when she arrived in town again. He was in the lobby as usual; he lunched at the table by the window as usual. There seemed to be nothing changed about him except that he was a handsomer man than she had supposed him. She ate very little luncheon. As usual, he glanced at her once—a perfectly pleasant and inoffensive glance—and resumed his luncheon and his newspaper. He was always quiet, always alone. There seemed to be a curious sort of stillness which radiated from him, layi

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XXVI

The next day he didn't appear, but a letter did. "I merely lied to you," he wrote. "All gamblers are liars. You should have passed by on the other side." Yes, that is what she should have done; she realised it now alone there in the sunny parlour with his letter. There was no chance for him; or, if there was, she had not been chosen as the instrument of his salvation. Slowly she turned her head and looked around her at her preparations—the pitiful little preparations for him—the childish stage s

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XXVII

" Miss lily? " She lifted her head from the sofa cushion in the dark, dazzled by the sudden lamp-light. "What is it?" she asked, averting her face. "There's a gentleman says he'd like to see you——" The girl turned, still dully confused; then, rigid, sat bolt upright. " Who? " "A gentleman—said you don't know his name. Shall I show him in?" She managed to nod; her heart was beating so violently that she pressed her hand over it. He saw her sitting that way when he entered. She did not rise; pain

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ENVOI

In all Romances And poet's fancies Where Cupid prances, Embowered in flowers, The tale advances 'Mid circumstances That check love's chances Through tragic hours. The reader's doleful now, The lover's soulful now, At least a bowlful now Of tears are poured. The villain makes a hit, The reader throws a fit, The author grins a bit And draws his sword! Strikes down Fate's lances, Avoids mischances, And deftly cans his Loquacious lore 'Mid ardent glances And lover's trances And wedding dances Foreve

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