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The Floating Press - Clark Macfarlane Peter

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565 pages

English

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Description

This ingeniously plotted novel reveals the strange ways that men and women choose to act out their romantic feelings -- and the lengths some will go to avenge unrequited love. John Hampstead is a jack-of-all-trades who is bowled over by the dramatic presence of actress Marien Dourney -- but not quite in the way that she hopes. When John doesn't return her affections, Marien hatches a depraved plan to exact revenge. Will John be able to escape her clutches?

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juillet 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781776580606
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

HELD TO ANSWER

A NOVEL

* * *

PETER CLARK MACFARLANE

While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.

Visit www.thefloatingpress.com

Con

Chapter I - The Face that Did Not Fit Chapter II - One Man and Another Chapter III - When the Dark Went Away Chapter IV - Advent and Adventure Chapter V - The Rate Clerk Chapter VI - On Two Fronts Chapter VII - The High Bid Chapter VIII - John Makes Up Chapter IX - A Demonstration from the Gallery Chapter X - A Stage Kiss Chapter XI - Seed to the Wind Chapter XII - A Thing Incalculable Chapter XIII - The Scene Played Out Chapter XIV - The Method of a Dream Chapter XV - The Catastrophe Chapter XVI - The King Still Lives Chapter XVII - When Dreams Come True Chapter XVIII - The House Divided Chapter XIX - His Next Adventure Chapter XX - A Woman with a Want Chapter XXI - A Cry of Distress Chapter XXII - Pursuit Begins Chapter XXIII - Capricious Woman Chapter XXIV - The Day of All Days Chapter XXV - His Bright Idea Chapter XXVI - Unexpectedly Easy Chapter XXVII - The First Alarm

Chapter XXVIII - The Arrest Chapter XXIX - The Angel Advises Chapter XXX - The Scene in the Vault Chapter XXXI - A Misadventure Chapter XXXII - The Coward and His Conscience Chapter XXXIII - The Battle of the Headlines Chapter XXXIV - A Way that Women Have Chapter XXXV - On Preliminary Examination Chapter XXXVI - A Promise of Strength Chapter XXXVII - The Terms of Surrender Chapter XXXVIII - Sunday in All People's Chapter XXXIX - The Cup Too Full Chapter XL - The Elder in the Chair

Chapter I - The Face that Did Not Fit

Two well-dressed men waited outside the rail on what was facetiously denominated the mourners' bench. One was a packer of olives, the other the owner of oil wells. A third, an orange shipper, leaned against the rail, pulling at his red moustaches and yearning wistfully across at a wattle-throated person behind the roll-top desk who was talking impatiently on the telephone. Just as the receiver was hung up with an audible click, a buzzer on the wall croaked harshly,—one long and two short croaks.

Instantly there was a scuffling of feet upon the linoleum over in a corner, where mail was being opened by a huge young fellow with the profile of a mountain and a gale of tawny hair blown up from his brow. Undoubling suddenly, this rangy figure of a man shot upward with Jack-in-the-box abruptness and a violence which threatened the stability of both the desk before him and the absurdly small typewriter stand upon his left. Seizing a select portion of the correspondence, he lunged past the roll-top desk of Heitmuller, the chief clerk, and aimed toward the double doors of grained oak which loomed behind. But his progress was grotesque, for he careened like a camel when he walked. In the first stride or two these careenings only threatened to be dangerous, but in the third or fourth they made good their promise. One lurching hip joint banged the drawn-out leaf of the chief clerk's desk, sweeping a shower of papers to the floor.

"John—dammit!" snapped Heitmuller irritably. The other hip caracoled against the unopened half of the double doors as John yawed through. The door complained loudly, rattling upon its hinges and in its brazen sockets, so that for a moment there was clatter and disturbance from one end of the office to the other.

The orange shipper started nervously, and the chief clerk, cocking his head gander-wise, gazed in disgust at the confusion on the floor, while far within Robert Mitchell, the General Freight Agent of the California Consolidated Railway, lifted a massive face from his desk with a look of mild reproof in his small blue eyes.

Yet when the huge stenographer came back, and with another scuffling of clumsy feet stooped to retrieve the litter about Heitmuller's revolving chair, he seemed so regretful and his features lighted with such a helplessly apologetic smile that even his awkwardness appeared commendable, since it was so obviously seasoned with the grace of perfectly good intent.

Appreciation of this was advertised in the forgiving chuckle of the chief clerk who, standing now at the rail, remarkedsotto voceto the orange shipper: "John is as good as a vaudeville act!"

At this the red moustaches undulated appreciatively, while the two "mourners" laughed so audibly that the awkward man, once more in his chair, darted an embarrassed glance at them, and the red flush came again to his face. He suspected they were laughing at him, and as if to comfort himself, a finger and thumb went into his right vest pocket and drew out a clipping from the advertising columns of the morning paper. Holding it deep in his hand, he read furtively:

ACTING TAUGHT. Charles Kenton, character actor, temporarily disengaged, will receive a few select pupils

in dramatic expression at his studio in The Albemarle. Terms reasonable.

Then John looked across aggressively at the men who had laughed. They were not laughing now, but nodding in his direction, and whispering busily.

What were they saying? That he was a joke, a failure? That he had been in this chair seven years? That he was a big, snubbed, defeated, over-worked handy-man about this big, loosely organized office? That in seven years he had neither been able to get himself promoted nor discharged? No doubt!

As if to get away from the thought, John turned from his typewriter to the open window and looked out. There was the spire of the grand old First Church down there below him. Yonder were the sky-notching business blocks of the pushing city of Los Angeles, as it was in the early nineteen hundreds. There, too, were the villa-crowned heights to the north, shut in at last by the barren ridges of the Sierra Madre Mountains, some of which, in this month of January, were snow-capped.

But here were Good fellows, really?

these foolish men still nodding and whispering. too, but blind. What did they know about him

They knew that he was a stenographer, but they did not know that he was a stenographer to the glory of God!—one who cleaned his typewriter, dusted his desk, opened the mail, wrote his letters, ate, walked, slept, all to the honor of his creator—that the whole of life to him was a sort of sacrament.

They thought he was beaten and discouraged, an industrial slave, drawn helplessly into the cogs. They, poor, purblind materialists,

were without vision. They did not know that there were finer things than pickles and crude oil. They did not know that he was to soar; that already his wings were budding, nor that he lived in an inner state of spiritual exaltation as delicious as it was unsuspected. They pitied him; they laughed commiseratingly. He did not want their commiseration; he spurned their laughter and their pity. He was full of youth and the exuberance of hope. He was full of an expanding strength that made him stronger as his dream grew brighter. Only his eyes were tired. The cross lights were bad. For a moment he shaded his brow tenderly with his hand, reflecting that he must hereafter use an eye-shade by day as methodically he used one in his nightly study.

The morning moved along. The yearning orange shipper went away. One mourner rose and passed inside. The other waited impatiently for his turn to do the same. Luncheon time came for John, and he ate it in the file room—ravenously; and while he ate he read—the Congressional Record; and reading, made notations on the margin, for John was preparing for what he was preparing, although he did not quite know what. The train of destiny was rumbling along, and when it stopped at his station, he proposed to swing on board.

His luncheon down swiftly, as much through hunger as through haste, he swung out of the door, bound for Charles Kenton, "actor—temporarily disengaged—Hotel Albemarle—terms reasonable," moving with such headlong speed that he was soon within that self-important presence.

"Hampstead is my name," he blurted, with clumsy directness, "John Hampstead," and the interview with Destiny was on.

"The first trouble with you," declared the white-haired actor critically, "is that your face doesn't fit."

John wet a lip and hitched a nervous leg, but sat awkwardly silent, his eyes boring hungrily, as if waiting for more. The actor, however, was slow to add more. Faces were his enthusiasm, as well as the raw material of his profession, but this face puzzled him, so that before committing himself further he paused to survey it again: the strong nose with its hump of energy, the well buttressed chin, and then the broad forehead with its unusually thick, bony ridge encircling the base of the brows like a bilge keel, proclaiming loudly that here was a man with racial dynamite in his system, one who, whatever else he might become, was now and always a first-class animal.

The eyebrows heightened this suggestion by being thick and yellow, and sweeping off to the temples in a scroll-like flare. The forehead itself was broad, but gathered a high look from that welter of tawny hair which was roached straight up and back, giving the effect of one who plunges headlong.

But the eyes completely modified the countenance. They did not plunge. They halted and beamed softly. Gray and deep-seated, they made all that face's force the force of tenderness, by burning with a light that was obviously inner and spiritual. The mouth, again, while as cleanly chiseled as if cut from marble,—sensitive, impressionistic, fine, was, alas! weak; or if not weak, advertising weakness by an habitual expression of lax amiability; although along with this the actor noted that the two lips, buttoning so loosely at the corners, could none the less collaborate in a most engaging smile.

Kenton concluded his second appraisal with a little gesture of impatience. The man's features gave each other the lie direct, and that was all there was to it. They said: This man is a beast, a great, roaring lion of a man; and then they said: No, this lion is a lamb, a mild, dreamy, sucking dove sort of person.