Anonymous - "The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II"

Sewell Peaslee Wright - "The Infra Medians"

William A. Williams - "The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved"

Blake Savage - "Rip Foster Rides the Gray Planet"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

The Fighting Chance

R >> Robert W. Chambers >> The Fighting Chance




Miss Page glanced at her indifferently.

"What I need is practice like the chasseurs of Tarascon," admitted
Siward.

"I willingly offer my hat, monsieur," said Sylvia.

Marion Page, impatient to start, had turned her tailor-made back to the
company, and was instructing his crestfallen lordship very plainly: "You
fire too quickly, Blinky; two seconds is what you must count when a
grouse flushes. You must say 'Mark! Right!' or 'Mark! Left! Bang!'"

"I might as well say 'Bang!' for all I've done to-day," he muttered,
adjusting his shooting-goggles and snapping his eyes like fury. Then
exploding into raucous laughter he moved off southward with Marion Page,
who had exchanged a swift handshake with Siward; the twins followed,
convoying Eileen and Rena, neither maiden excitedly enthusiastic. And so
the luncheon party, lord and lady, twins and maidens, guides and dogs,
trailed away across the ridge, distant silhouettes presently against the
sky, then gone. And after a little while the far, dry, accentless report
of smokeless powder announced that the opening of the season had been
resumed and the Lesser Children were dying fast in the glory of a
perfect day.

"Are you ready, Mr. Siward?" She stood waiting for him at the edge of
the thicket; Miles resumed his game sack and her fowling-piece; the dog
came up, looking him anxiously in the eyes.

So he walked forward beside her into the dappled light of the thicket.

Within a few minutes the dog stood twice; and twice the whirring twitter
of woodcock startled her, echoed by the futile crack of his gun.

"Beg pardon, sir--"

"Yes, Miles," with a glint of humour.

"Overshot, sir,--excusin' the liberty, Mr. Siward. Both marked down forty
yard to the left if you wish to start 'em again."

"No," he said indifferently, "I had my chance at them. They're exempt."

Then Sagamore, tail wildly whipping, came smack on the trail of an old
stager of a cock-grouse--on, on over rock, log, wet gully, and dry ridge,
twisting, doubling, circling, every wile, every trick employed and met,
until the dog crawling noiselessly forward, trembled and froze, and
Siward, far to left, wheeled at the muffled and almost noiseless rise.
For an instant the slanting barrels wavered, grew motionless; but only a
stray sunbeam glinting struck a flash of cold fire from the muzzle, only
the feathery whirring whisper broke the silence of suspense. Then far
away over sunny tree tops a big grouse sailed up, rocketing into the sky
on slanted wings, breasting the height of green; dipped, glided downward
with bowed wings stiffened, and was engulfed in the misty barriers of
purpling woods.

"Vale!" said Siward aloud, "I salute you!"

He came strolling back across the crisp leaves, the dappled sunshine
playing over his face like the flicker of a smile.

"Miles," he said, "my nerve is gone. Such things happen. I'm all in.
Come over here, my friend, and look at the sun with me."

The discomfited keeper obeyed.

"Where ought that refulgent luminary to scintilate when I face Osprey
Ledge?"

"Sir?"

"The sun. How do I hold it?"

"On the p'int of your right shoulder, sir.--You ain't quittin', Mr.
Siward, sir!" anxiously; "that Shotover Cup is easy yours, sir!"
eagerly; "Wot's a miss on a old drummer, Mr. Siward? Wot's twice over-
shootin' cock, sir, when a blind dropper can see you are the cleanest,
fastest, hard-shootin' shot in the null county!"

But Siward shook his head with an absent glance at the dog, and motioned
the astonished keeper forward.

"Line the easiest trail for us," he said; "I think we are already a
trifle tired. Twigs will do in short cover; use a hatchet in the big
timber. . And go slow till we join you."

And when the unwilling and perplexed keeper had started, Siward,
unlocking his gun, drew out the smooth yellow cartridges and pocketed
them.

Sylvia looked up as the sharp metallic click of the locked breech rang
out in the silence.

"Why do you do this, Mr. Siward?"

"I don't know; really I am honest; I don't know."

"It could not he because I--"

"No, of course not," he said, too seriously to reassure her.

"Mr. Siward," in quick displeasure.

"Yes?"

"What you do for your amusements cannot concern me."

"Right as usual," he said so gaily that a reluctant smile trembled on
her lips.

"Then why have you done this? It is unreasonable--if you don't feel as I
do about killing things that are having a good time in the world."

He stood silent, absently looking at the fowling-piece cradled in his
left arm. "Shall we sit here a moment and talk it over?" he suggested
listlessly.

Her blue gaze swept him; his vague smile was indifferently bland.

"If you are determined not to shoot, we might as well start for Osprey
Ledge," she suggested; "otherwise, what reason is there for our being
here together, Mr. Siward?"

Awaiting his comment--perhaps expecting a counter-proposition--she leaned
against the tree beside which he stood. And after a while, as his
absent-minded preoccupation continued:

"Do you think the leaves are dry enough to sit on?"

He slipped off his shooting-coat and placed it at the base of the tree.
She waited for a second, uncertain how to meet an attitude which seemed
to take for granted matters which might, if discussed, give her at least
the privilege of yielding. However, to discuss a triviality meant
forcing emphasis where none was necessary. She seated herself; and, as
he continued to remain standing, she stripped off her shooting-gloves
and glanced up at him inquiringly: "Well, Mr. Siward, I am literally at
your feet."

"Which redresses the balance a little," he said, finding a place near
her.

"That is very nice of you. Can I always count on you for civil
platitudes when I stir you out of your day-dreams?"

"You can always count on stirring me without effort."

"No, I can't. Nobody can. You are never to be counted on; you are too
absent-minded. Like a veil you wrap yourself in a brown study, leaving
everybody outside to consider the pointed flattery of your withdrawal.
What happens to you when you are inside that magic veil? Do you change
into anything interesting?"

He sat there, chin propped on his linked fingers, elbows on knees; and,
though there was always the hint of a smile in his pleasant eyes, always
the indefinable charm of breeding in voice and attitude, something now
was lacking. And after a moment she concluded that it was his attention.
Certainly his wits were wool-gathering again; his eyes, edged with the
shadow of a smile, saw far beyond her, far beyond the sunlit shadows
where they sat.

In his preoccupation she had found him negatively attractive. She
glanced at him now from time to time, her eyes returning always to the
beauty of the subdued light where all about them silver-stemmed birches
clustered like slim shining pillars, crowned with their autumn canopy of
crumpled gold.

"Enchantment!" she said under her breath. "Surely an enchanted sleeper
lies here somewhere."

"You," he observed, "unawakened."

"Asleep? I?" She looked around at him. "You are the dreamer here. Your
eyes are full of dreaming even now. What is your desire?"

He leaned on one arm, watching her; she had dropped her ungloved hand,
searching among the newly fallen gold of the birch leaves drifted into
heaps. On the third finger a jewel glittered; he saw it, conscious of
its meaning--but his eyes followed the hand idly heaping up autumn gold,
a white slim hand, smoothly fascinating. Then the little, restless hand
swept near to his, almost touching it; and then instinctively he took it
in his own, curiously, lifting it a little to consider its nearer
loveliness. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of it, perhaps it was
sheer amazement that left her hand lying idly relaxed like a white
petalled blossom in his. His bearing, too, was so blankly impersonal
that for a moment the whole thing appeared inconsequent. Then, as her
hand lay there, scarcely imprisoned, their eyes encountered,--and hers,
intensely blue now, considered him without emotion, studied him
impersonally without purpose, incuriously acquiescent, indifferently
expectant.

After a little while the consciousness of the contact disconcerted her;
she withdrew her fingers with an involuntary shiver.

"Is there no chance?" he asked.

Perplexed with her own emotion, the meaning of his low-voiced question
at first escaped her; then, like its own echo, came ringing back in her
ears, re-echoed again as he repeated it:

"Is there no chance for me, Miss Landis?"

The very revulsion of self-possession returning chilled her; then anger
came, quick and hot; then pride. She deliberated, choosing her words
coolly enough: "What chance do you mean, Mr. Siward?"

"A fighting chance. Can you give it to me?"

"A fighting chance? For what?"--very low, very dangerous.

"For you."

Then, in spite of her, her senses became unsteady; a sudden ringing
confusion seemed to deafen her, through which his voice, as if very far
away, sounded again:

"Men who are worth a fighting chance ask for it sometimes--but take it
always. I take it."

Her pallor faded under the flood of bright colour; the blue of her eyes
darkened ominously to velvet.

"Mr. Siward," she said, very distinctly and slowly, "I am
not--even--sorry--for you."

"Then my chance is desperate indeed," he retorted coolly.

"Chance! Do you imagine--" Her anger choked her.

"Are you not a little hard?" he said, paling under his tan. "I supposed
women dismissed men more gently--even such a man as I am."

For a full minute she strove to comprehend.

"Such a man as you!" she repeated vaguely; "you mean--" a crimson wave
dyed her skin to the temples and she leaned toward him in horror-
stricken contrition; "I didn't mean that, Mr. Siward! I--I never thought
of that! It had no weight, it was not in my thoughts. I meant only that
you had assumed what is unwarranted--that you--your question humiliated
me, knowing that I am engaged--knowing me so little--so--"

"Yes, I knew everything. Ask yourself why I risk everything to say this
to you? There can be only one answer."

Then after a long silence: "Have I ever--" she began tremblingly--"ever by
word or look--"

"No."

"Have I even--"

"No. I've simply discovered how I feel. That's what I was dreaming about
when you asked me. I was afraid I might do this too soon; but I meant to
do it anyway before it became too late."

"It was too late from the very moment we met, Mr. Siward." And, as he
reddened painfully again, she added quickly: "I mean that I had already
decided. Why will you take what I say so dreadfully different from the
way I intend it? Listen to me. I--I believe I am not very experienced
yet; I was a--astonished--quite stunned for a moment. Then it hurt me--and
I said that I was not sorry for you . I am sorry, now."

And, as he said nothing: "You were a little rough, a little sudden with
me, Mr. Siward. Men have asked me that question--several times; but never
so soon, so unreasonably soon--never without some preliminary of some
sort, so that I could foresee, be more or less prepared. . But you gave
me no warning. I--if you had, I would have known how to be gentle. I--I
wish to be now. I like you--enough to say this to you, enough to be
seriously sorry; if I could bring myself to really believe
this--feeling--"

Still he said nothing; he sat there listlessly studying the sun spots
glowing, waxing, waning on the carpet of dead leaves at his feet.

"As for--what you have said," she added, a little smile curving the
sensitive mouth, "it is impulsive, unconsidered, a trifle boyish, Mr.
Siward. I pay myself the compliment of your sincerity; it is rather nice
to be a girl who can awaken the romance in a man within a day or two's
acquaintance. . And that is all it is--a romantic impulse with a pretty
girl. You see I am frank; I am really glad that you find me attractive.
Tell me so, if you wish. We shall not misunderstand each other again.
Shall we?"

He raised his head, considering her, forcing the smile to meet her own.

"We shall be better friends than ever," she asserted confidently.

"Yes, better than ever."

"Because what you have done means the nicest sort of friendship, you
see. You can't escape its duties and responsibilities now, Mr. Siward. I
shall expect you to spend the greater part of your life in devotedly
doing things for me. Besides, I am now privileged to worry you with
advice. Oh, you have invested me with all sorts of powers now!"

He nodded.

She sprang to her feet, flushed, smiling, a trifle excited.

"Is it all over, and are we the very ideals of friends?" she asked.

"The very ideals."

"You are nice!" she said impulsively, holding out both gloveless hands.
He held them, she looking at him very sweetly, very confidently.

"Allons! Without malice?" she asked.

"Without malice."

"Without afterthoughts?"

"Without afterthoughts."

"And--you are content?" persuasively.

"Of course not," he said.

"Oh, but you must be."

"I must be," he repeated obediently.

"And you are! Say it!"

"But it does not make me unhappy not to be contented--"

"Say it, please; or--do you desire me to be unhappy?"

Her small, smooth hands lying between his, they stood confronting one
another in the golden light. She might easily have brought the matter to
an end; and why she did not, she knew no more than a kitten waking to
consciousness under its first caress.

"Say it," she repeated, laughing uncertainly back into his smiling eyes
of a boy.

"Say what?"

"That you are contented."

"I can't."

"Mr. Siward, it is unkind, it is shameless--"

"I know it; I am that sort."

"Then I am sorry for you. Look at that!" turning her left hand in his so
that the jewel on the third finger caught the light.

"I see it."

"And yet--"

"And yet."

"That," she observed with composure, "is sheer obstinacy. . Isn't it?"

"It is what I said it was: a hopeful discontent."

"How can it be?" impatiently now, for the long, unaccustomed contact was
unnerving her--yet she made no motion to withdraw her hands. "How can you
really care for me? Do you actually believe that--devotion--comes like
that?"

"Exactly like that."

"So suddenly? It is impossible!" with a twist of her pretty shoulders.

"How did it come--to you?" he asked between his teeth.

Then her face grew scarlet and her eyes grew dark, and her hands
contracted in his--tightened, twisted fingers entangled, until, with a
little sob, she swayed toward him and he caught her. An instant, a
minute--more, perhaps, she did not know--she half lay in his arms, her
untaught lips cold against his. Lassitude, faint consciousness, then
tiny shock on shock came the burning revulsion; and her voice came back,
too, sounding strangely to her, a colourless, monotonous voice.

He had freed her; she remembered that somebody had asked him to--perhaps
herself. That was well; she needed to breathe, to summon strength and
common-sense, find out what had been done, what reasonless madness she
had committed in the half-light of the silver-stemmed trees clustering
in shameful witness on every hand.

Suddenly the hot humiliation of it overwhelmed her, and she covered her
face with her hands, standing, almost swaying, as wave on wave of
incredulous shame seemed to sweep her from knee to brow. That phase
passed after a while; out of it she emerged, flushed, outwardly
composed, into another phase, in full self-possession once more, able to
understand what had happened without the disproportion of emotional
exaggeration. After all, she had only been kissed. Besides she was a
novice, which probably accounted, in a measure, for the unreasonable
emotion coincident with a caress to which she was unaccustomed. Without
looking up at him she found herself saying coolly enough to surprise
herself: "I never supposed I was capable of that. It appears that I am.
I haven't anything to say for myself . except that I feel fearfully
humiliated. . Don't say anything now . I do not blame you, truly I do
not. It was contemptible of me--to do it--wearing this--" she stretched out
her slender left hand, not looking at him; "it was contemptible!" . She
slowly raised her eyes, summoning all her courage to face him.

But he only saw in the pink confusion of her lovely face the dawning
challenge of a coquette saluting her adversary in gay acknowledgment of
his fleeting moment of success. And as his face fell, then hardened into
brightness, instantly she divined how he rated her, and in a flash
realized her weapons and her security, and that the control of the
situation was hers, not in the control of this irresolute young man who
stood so silently considering her. Strange that she should be ashamed of
her own innocence, willing that he believe her accomplished in such
arts, enchanted that he no longer perhaps suspected genuine emotion in
the swift, confused sweetness of her first kiss. If only all that were
truly hidden from him, if he dare not in his heart convict her of
anything save perfection in a gay, imprudent role, what a weight lifted,
what relief, what hot self-contempt cooled! What vengeance, too, she
would take on him for the agony of her awakening--the dazed chagrin, the
dread of his wise, amused eyes--eyes that she feared had often looked
upon such scenes; eyes no doubt familiar with such unimportant details
as the shamed demeanour of a novice.

"Why do you take it so seriously?" she said, laughing and studying him,
certain now of herself in this new disguise.

"Do you take it lightly?" he asked, striving to smile.

"I? Ah, I must, you know. You don't expect to marry me . do you, Mr.
Siward?"

"I--" He choked up at that, grimly for a while.

Walking slowly forward together she fell into step frankly beside him,
near him--too near. "Try to be sensible," she was saying gaily; "I like
you so much--and it would be horrid to have you mope, you know. And
besides, even if I cared for you, there are reasons, you know--reasons
for any girl to marry the man I am going to marry. Does my cynicism
shock you? What am I to do?" with a shrug. "Such marriages are
reasonable, and far likelier to be agreeable than when fancy is the sole
motive--certainly far more agreeable than an ill-considered yielding to
abstract emotion with nothing concrete in view. . So, you see, I could
not marry you even if I--" her voice was inclined to tremble, but she
controlled it. Would she never learn her role? "even if I loved you--"

Then her tongue stumbled and was silent; and they walked on, side by
side, through the fading splendour of the year, exchanging no further
speech.

Toward sunset their guide hailed them, standing high among the rocks, a
silhouette against the sky. And beyond him they saw the poles crowned
with the huge nests of the fish-hawks, marking the last rendezvous at
Osprey Ledge.

She turned to him as they started up the last incline, thanking him in a
sweet, natural voice for his care of her--quite innocently--until in the
questioning, unconvinced gaze that met hers she found her own eyes
softening and growing dim; and she looked away suddenly, lest he read
her ere she had dared turn the first page in the book of self--ere she
had studied, pried, probed among the pages of a new chapter whose
familiar title, so long meaningless to her, had taken on a sudden
troubling significance. And for the first time in her life she glanced
uneasily at the new page in the book of self, numbered according to her
years with the figures 23, and headed with the unconvincing chapter
title, "Love."



CHAPTER V A WINNING LOSER

The week passed swiftly, day after day echoing with the steady fusillade
from marsh to covert, from valley to ridge. Guns flashed at dawn and
dusk along the flat tidal reaches haunted of black mallard and teal; the
smokeless powder cracked through alder swamp and tangled windfall where
the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the
woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the
big northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy patches of fur, loped off
into swamps to the sad undoing of several of the younger setters.

There was a pheasant drive at Black Fells to which the Ferralls' guests
were bidden by Beverly Plank--a curious scene, where ladies and gentlemen
stood on a lawn, backed by an army of loaders and gun-bearers, while
another improvised army of beaters drove some thousands of frightened,
bewildered, homeless foreign pheasants at the guns. And the miserable
aliens that escaped the guns were left to perish in the desolation of a
coming winter which they were unfitted to withstand.

So the first week of the season sped gaily, ending on Saturday with a
heavy flight of northern woodcock and an uproarious fusillade among the
silver birches.

Once Ferrall loaded two motor cars with pioneers for a day beyond his
own boundaries; and one day was spent ingloriously with the beagles; but
otherwise the Shotover estate proved more than sufficient for good bags
or target practice, as the skill of the sportsmen developed.

Lord Alderdene, good enough on snipe and cock, was driven almost frantic
by the ruffed grouse; Voucher did better for a day or two, and then lost
the knack; Marion Page attended to business in her cool and thorough
style, and her average on the gun-room books was excellent, and was also
adorned with clever pen-and-ink sketches by Siward.

Leroy Mortimer had given up shooting and established himself as a
haunter of cushions in sunny corners. Tom O'Hara had gone back to Lenox;
Mrs. Vendenning to Hot Springs. Beverly Plank, master of Black Fells,
began to pervade the house after a tentative appearance; and he and
Major Belwether pottered about the coverts, usually after luncheon--the
latter doing little damage with his fowling-piece, and nobody knew how
much with his gossiping tongue. Quarrier appeared in the field
methodically, shot with judgment, taking no chances for a brilliant
performance which might endanger his respectable average. As for the
Page boys, they kept the river ducks stirring whenever Eileen Shannon
and Rena Bonnesdel could be persuaded to share the canoes with them.
Otherwise they haunted the vicinity of those bored maidens, suffering
snubs sorrowfully, but persistently faithful. They were a great nuisance
in the evening, especially as their sister did not permit them to lose
more than ten dollars a day at cards.

Cards--that is Bridge and Preference--ruled as usual; and the latter game
being faster suited Mortimer and Ferrall, but did not aid Siward toward
recouping his Bridge losses.

Noticing this, late in the week, Major Belwether kindly suggested
Klondyke for Siward's benefit, which proved more quickly disastrous to
him than anything yet proposed; and he went back to Bridge, preferring
rather to "carry" Agatha Caithness at intervals than crumble into
bankruptcy under the sheer deadly hazard of Klondyke.

Two matters occupied him; since "cup day" he had never had another
opportunity to see Sylvia Landis alone; that was the first matter. He
had touched neither wine nor spirits nor malt since the night Ferrall
had found him prone, sprawling in a stupor on his disordered bed. That
was the second matter, and it occupied him, at times required all his
attention, particularly when the physical desire for it set in,
steadily, mercilessly, mounting inexorably like a tide. . But, like the
tide, it ebbed at last, particularly when a sleepless night had
exhausted him.

He had gone back to his shooting again after a cool review of the ethics
involved. It even amused him to think that the whimsical sermon
delivered him by a girl who had cleverness enough to marry many
millions, with Quarrier thrown in, could have so moved him to
sentimentality. He had ceded the big cup of antique silver to Quarrier,
too--a matter which troubled him little, however, as in the irritation of
the reaction he had been shooting with the brilliancy of a demon; and
the gun-room books were open to any doubting guests' inspection.

Time, therefore, was never heavy on his hands, save when the tide
threatened--when at night he stirred and awoke, conscious of its crawling
advance, aware of its steady mounting menace. Moments at table, when the
aroma of wine made him catch his breath, moments in the gun-room
redolent of spicy spirits; a maddening volatile fragrance clinging to
the card-room, too! Yes, the long days were filled with such moments for
him.

But afield the desire faded; and even during the day, indoors, he
shrugged desire aside. It was night that he dreaded--the long hours,
lying there tense, stark-eyed, sickened with desire.

As for Sylvia, she and Grace Ferrall had taken to motoring, driving away
into the interior or taking long flights north and south along the
coast. Sometimes they took Quarrier, sometimes, when Mrs. Ferrall drove,
they took in ballast in the shape of a superfluous Page boy and a girl
for him. Once Grace Ferrall asked Siward to join them; but no definite
time being set, he was scarcely surprised to find them gone when he
returned from a morning on the snipe meadows. And Sylvia, leagues away
by that time, curled up in the tonneau beside Grace Ferrall, watched the
dark pines flying past, cheeks pink, eyes like stars, while the rushing
wind drove health into her and care out of her--cleansing, purifying,
overwhelming winds flowing through and through her, till her very soul
within her seemed shining through the beauty of her eyes. Besides, she
had just confessed.

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