A Study In Shadows

by William John Locke

Nothing but stillness, dreariness, and desolation. The house seemed empty, the street empty, the world empty.

Raine Chetwynd had come and gone. For a brief season his hearty voice and cheery face had gladdened the little pension. He had come with his robustness of moral fibre, his culture, his broad knowledge of the world, and his vigorous manhood, and the pulse of the community seemed to beat stronger for it. In spite of the old man's warning, they had all expected to see in the young “professor” a pale image of his father, minus the softening charm of age. But, instead, they had been presented with a type of blond, Anglo-Saxon comeliness—tall, deep-chested, fresh-coloured, with an open, attractive face, blue-eyed and fair-moustached, which, at first sight, seemed to belong to a thousand men who rowed and cricketed, and lived honest, unparticularized lives, but on closer examination showed itself to be that of a man who could combine thought and action, the scholar and the athlete, the man of intellectual breath and refinement, and the cheery, practical man of the world. He was a man, in the specific feminine sense. He had brought into the pension the influence that Mrs. Stapleton had insisted on, with such passionate bitterness, as being needful in a woman's life. Each of the women had brightened under it, exhibiting instinctively the softer side of her nature. Mme. Popea had kept hidden from view the shapeless wrapper, adorned with cheap soiled lace, in which, much to Frau Schultz's annoyance, she would now and then appear at déjeuner, and had tidied and curled her hair betimes, instead of leaving it till the late afternoon. In Frau Schultz a dignified urbanity had taken the place of peevish egotism. Little Miss Bunter had perked up like a frozen sparrow warmed into life, and had chirruped merrily to her canaries. The only friction that his presence had caused, had arisen between Mme. Boccard and Frâulein Klinkhardt, who had broadly hinted a request to be placed next to him at table. A pretty quarrel had resulted from Mme. Boccard's refusal; after which Frâulein Klinkhardt went to bed for a day, and Mme. Boccard called her softly, under her breath, a German crane, which appeared to afford her much relief.

It had been pleasant and comfortable to see a man again in the salon. It had broken the sense of isolation they carried with them, like lead in their hearts, all through the winter. Then, too, he had been a man whom one and all could honestly respect. He had been open-hearted, frank with them all, showing, in a younger, fresher way, the charm of courtesy that distinguished his father. But naturally he had brought himself nearer to them, had not seemed placed in such remote moral and intellectual spheres.

Besides, there had been a few festivities. Old Mr. Chetwynd had given, in honour of his son's visit, a Christmas dinner, which had won him the heart of Frau Schultz. Frâulein Klinkhardt and herself had lavished more than their usual futile enthusiasm on a Christmas tree, which, owing to Raine, had something better than its customary succès d'estime. He had taken them to the theatre, made up skating parties at Villeneuve, at the other side of the lake. Some friends of his at Lausanne had given a large dance, to which he had managed to escort Felicia and Katherine, under his father's protection. A couple of undergraduates of his own college were there; they came a few days afterwards to Geneva to see him; and that was another merry evening at the pension.

Katherine Stapleton had brightened, too, under the gaiety, and her eyes had lost for the time the touch of weariness that saddened her face in her gentler moods, and her laugh had rung true and fresh. There were many evident points of contact between herself and him, much that was complementary in each to the other.

One day he had said to her laughingly,—

“I have come round to the opinion—-which I had not at first—that you are the most incomprehensibly feminine thing I know.”

“And I,” she had replied, “to the after-opinion that you are the most comprehensibly masculine one.”

“Is that why we get on so well together?”

“That is what I had meant to convey,” she had answered with a light laugh.