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Title: The Trespasser, Volume 3.
Author: Gilbert Parker
Release Date: August, 2004 [EBook #6221]
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[This file was first posted on September 27, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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THE TRESPASSER
By Gilbert Parker
Volume 3.
XII. HE STANDS BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
XIII. HE JOURNEYS AFAR
XIV. IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED
XV. WHEREIN IS SEEN THE OLD ADAM AND THE GARDEN
XVI. WHEREIN LOVE SNOWS NO LAW SAVE THE MAN'S
XVII. THE MAN AND THE WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE
XVIII. "RETURN, O SHULAMITE!"
CHAPTER XII
HE STANDS BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
The next morning he went down to the family solicitor's office. He had
done so, off and on, for weeks. He spent the time in looking through old
family papers, fishing out ancient documents, partly out of curiosity,
partly from an unaccountable presentiment. He had been there about an
hour this morning when a clerk brought him a small box, which, he said,
had been found inside another box belonging to the Belward-Staplings, a
distant branch of the family. These had asked for certain ancient papers
lately, and a search had been made, with this result. The little box was
not locked, and the key was in it. How the accident occurred was not
difficult to imagine. Generations ago there had probably been a
conference of the two branches of the family, and the clerk had
inadvertently locked the one box within the other. This particular box
of the Belward-Staplings was not needed again. Gaston felt that here was
something. These hours spent among old papers had given him strange
sensations, had, on the one hand, shown him his heritage; but had also
filled him with the spirit of that by-gone time. He had grown further
away from the present. He had played his part as in a drama: his real
life was in the distant past and out in the land of the heathen.
Now he took out a bundle of papers with broken seals, and wound with a
faded tape. He turned the rich important parchments over in his hands.
He saw his own name on the outside of one: "Sir Gaston Robert Belward."
And there was added: "Bart." He laughed. Well, why not complete the
reproduction? He was an M. P.--why not a, Baronet? He knew how it was
done. There were a hundred ways. Throw himself into the arbitration
question between Canada and the United States: spend ten thousand pounds
of--his grandfather's--money on the Party? His reply to himself was
cynical: the game was not worth the candle. What had he got out of it
all? Money? Yes: and he enjoyed that--the power that it gave--
thoroughly. The rest? He knew that it did not strike as deep as it
ought: the family tradition, the social scheme--the girl.
"What a brute I am!" he said. "I'm never wholly of it. I either want
to do as they did when George Villiers had his innings, or play the gipsy
as I did so many years."
The gipsy! As he held the papers in his hand he thought as he had done
last night, of the gipsy-van on Ridley Common, and of--how well he
remembered her name!--of Andree.
He suddenly threw his head back, and laughed. "Well, well, but it is
droll! Last night, an English gentleman, an honourable member with the
Treasury Bench in view; this morning an adventurer, a Romany. I itch for
change. And why? Why? I have it all, yet I could pitch it away this
moment for a wild night on the slope, or a nigger hunt on the Rivas.
Chateau-Leoville, Goulet, and Havanas at a bob?--Jove, I thirst for a
swig of raw Bourbon and the bite of a penny Mexican! Games, Gaston,
games! Why the devil did little Joe worry at being made 'move on'? I've
got 'move on' in every pore: I'm the Wandering Jew. Oh, a gentleman born
am I! But the Romany sweats from every inch of you, Gaston Belward!
What was it that sailor on the Cyprian said of the other? 'For every
hair of him was rope-yarn, and every drop of blood Stockholm tar!'"
He opened a paper. Immediately he was interested. Another; then,
quickly, two more; and at last, getting to his feet with an exclamation,
he held a document to the light, and read it through carefully. He was
alone in the room. He calmly folded it up, put it in his pocket, placed
the rest of the papers back, locked the box, and passing into the next
room, gave it to the clerk. Then he went out, a curious smile on his
face. He stopped presently on the pavement.
"But it wouldn't hold good, I fancy, after all these years. Yet Law is
a queer business. Anyhow, I've got it."
An hour later he called on Mrs. Gasgoyne and Delia. Mrs. Gasgoyne was
not at home. After a little while, Gaston, having listened to some
extracts from the newspapers upon his "brilliant, powerful, caustic
speech, infinite in promise of an important career," quietly told her
that he was starting for Paris, and asked when they expected to go abroad
in their yacht. Delia turned pale, and could not answer for a moment.
Then she became very still, and as quietly answered that they expected to
get away by the middle of August. He would join them? Yes, certainly,
at Marseilles, or perhaps, Gibraltar. Her manner, so well-controlled,
though her features seemed to shrink all at once, if it did not deceive
him, gave him the wish to say an affectionate thing. He took her hand
and said it. She thanked him, then suddenly dropped her fingers on his
shoulder, and murmured with infinite gentleness and pride:
"You will miss me; you ought to!"
He drew the hand down.
"I could not forget you, Delia," he said.
Her eyes came up quickly, and she looked steadily, wonderingly at him.
"Was it necessary to say that?"
She was hurt--inexpressibly,--and she shrank. He saw that she
misunderstood him; but he also saw that, on the face of it, the phrase
was not complimentary. His reply was deeply kind, effective. There was
a pause--and the great moment for them both passed. Something ought to
have happened. It did not. If she had had that touch of abandon shown
when she sang "The Waking of the Fire," Gaston might, even at this
moment, have broken his promise to his uncle; but, somehow, he knew
himself slipping away from her. With the tenderness he felt, he still
knew that he was acting; imitating, reproducing other, better, moments
with her. He felt the disrespect to her, but it could not be helped--it
could not be helped.
He said that he would call and say good-bye to her and Mrs. Gasgoyne at
four o'clock. Then he left. He went to his chambers, gave Jacques
instructions, did some writing, and returned at four. Mrs. Gasgoyne had
not come back. She had telegraphed that she would not be in for lunch.
There was nothing remarkable in Gaston's and Delia's farewell. She
thought he looked worn, and ought to have change, showing in every word
that she trusted him, and was anxious that he should be, as she put it
gaily, "comfy." She was composed. The cleverest men are blind in the
matter of a woman's affections; and Gaston was only a mere man, after
all. He thought that she had gone about as far in the way of feeling as
she could go.
Nevertheless, in his hansom, he frowned, and said: "I oughtn't to go.
But I'm choking here. I can't play the game an hour longer without a
change. I'll come back all right. I'll meet her in the Mediterranean
after my kick-up, and it'll be all O. K. Jacques and I will ride down
through Spain to Gibraltar, and meet the Kismet there. I shall have got
rid of this restlessness then, and I'll be glad enough to settle down,
pose for throne and constitution, cultivate the olive branch, and have
family prayers."
At eight o'clock he appeared at Ridley Court, and bade his grandfather
and grandmother good-bye. They were full of pride, and showed their
affection in indirect ways--Sir William most by offering his opinion on
the Bill and quoting Gaston frequently; Lady Belward, by saying that next
year she would certainly go up to town--she had not done so for five
years! They both agreed that a scamper on the Continent would now be
good for him. At nine o'clock he passed the rectory, on his way, strange
to note, to the church. There was one light burning, but it was not in
the study nor in Alice's window. He supposed they had not returned.
He paused and thought. If anything happened, she should know. But what
should happen? He shook his head. He moved on to the church. The doors
were unlocked. He went in, drew out a little pocket-lantern, lit it, and
walked up the aisle.
"A sentimental business this: I don't know why I do it," he thought.
He stopped at the tomb of Sir Gaston Belward, put his hand on it, and
stood looking at it.
"I wonder if there is anything in it?" he said aloud: "if he does
influence me? if we've got anything to do with each other? What he did
I seem to know somehow, more or less. A little dwarf up in my brain
drops the nuts down now and then. Well, Sir Gaston Belward, what is
going to be the end of all this? If we can reach across the centuries,
why, good-night and goodbye to you. Good-bye."
He turned and went down the aisle. At the door a voice, a whispering
voice, floated to him: "Good-bye."
He stopped short and listened. All was still. He walked up the aisle,
and listened again.-Nothing! He stood before the tomb, looking at it
curiously. He was pale, but collected. He raised the light above his
head, and looked towards the altar.--Nothing! Then he went to the door
again, and paused.--Nothing!
Outside he said
"I'd stake my life I heard it!"
A few minutes afterwards, a girl rose up from behind the organ in the
chancel, and felt her way outside. It was Alice Wingfield, who had gone
to the church to pray. It was her good-bye which had floated down to
Gaston.
CHAPTER XIII
HE JOURNEYS AFAR
Politicians gossiped. Where was the new member? His friends could not
tell, further than that he had gone abroad. Lord Faramond did not know,
but fetched out his lower lip knowingly.
"The fellow has instinct for the game," he said. Sketches, portraits
were in the daily and weekly journals, and one hardy journalist even
gave an interview--which had never occurred. But Gaston remained a
picturesque nine-days' figure, and then Parliament rose for the year.
Meanwhile he was in Paris, and every morning early he could be seen with
Jacques riding up the Champs Elysee and out to the Bois de Boulogne.
Every afternoon at three he sat for "Monmouth" or the "King of Ys" with
his horse in his uncle's garden.
Ian Belward might have lived in a fashionable part; he preferred the
Latin Quarter, with incursions into the other at fancy. Gaston lived for
three days in the Boulevard Haussman, and then took apartments, neither
expensive nor fashionable, in a quiet street. He was surrounded by
students and artists, a few great men and a host of small men:
Collarossi's school here and Delacluse's there: models flitting in and
out of the studios in his court-yard, who stared at him as he rode, and
sought to gossip with Jacques--accomplished without great difficulty.
Jacques was transformed. A cheerful hue grew on his face. He had been
an exile, he was now at home. His French tongue ran, now with words in
the patois of Normandy, now of Brittany; and all with the accent of
French Canada, an accent undisturbed by the changes and growths of
France. He gossiped, but no word escaped him which threw any light on
his master's history.
Soon, in the Latin Quarter, they were as notable as they had been at
Ridley Court or in London. On the Champs Elysee side people stared at
the two: chiefly because of Gaston's splendid mount and Jacques's strange
broncho. But they felt that they were at home. Gaston's French was not
perfect, but it was enough for his needs. He got a taste of that freedom
which he had handed over to the dungeons of convention two years before.
He breathed. Everything interested him so much that the life he had led
in England seemed very distant.
He wrote to Delia, of course. His letters were brief, most interesting,
not tenderly intimate, and not daily. From the first they puzzled her a
little, and continued to do so; but because her mother said, "What an
impossible man!" she said, "Perfectly possible! Of course he is not
like other men; he is a genius."
And the days went on.
Gaston little loved the purlieus of the Place de l'Opera. One evening at
a club in the Boulevard Malesherbes bored him. It was merely Anglo-
American enjoyment, dashed with French drama. The Bois was more to his
taste, for he could stretch his horse's legs; but every day he could be
found before some simple cafe in Montparnasse, sipping vermouth, and
watching the gay, light life about him. He sat up with delight to see an
artist and his "Madame" returning from a journey in the country, seated
upon sheaves of corn, quite unregarded by the world; doing as they listed
with unabashed simplicity. He dined often at the little Hotel St. Malo
near the Gare Montparnasse, where the excellent landlord played the host,
father, critic, patron, comrade--often benefactor--to his bons enfants.
He drank vin ordinaire, smoked caporal cigarettes, made friends, and was
in all as a savage--or a much-travelled English gentleman.
His uncle Ian had introduced him here as at other places of the kind,
and, whatever his ulterior object was, had an artist's pleasure at seeing
a layman enjoy the doings of Paris art life. Himself lived more
luxuriously. In an avenue not far from the Luxembourg he had a small
hotel with a fine old-fashioned garden behind it, and here distinguished
artists, musicians, actors, and actresses came at times.
The evening of Gaston's arrival he took him to a cafe and dined him, and
afterwards to the Boullier--there, merely that he might see; but this
place had nothing more than a passing interest for him. His mind had the
poetry of a free, simple--even wild-life, but he had no instinct for vice
in the name of amusement. But the later hours spent in the garden under
the stars, the cheerful hum of the boulevards coming to them distantly,
stung his veins like good wine. They sat and talked, with no word of
England in it at all, Jacques near, listening.
Ian Belward was at his best: genial, entertaining, with the art of the
man of no principles, no convictions, and a keen sense of life's sublime
incongruities. Even Jacques, whose sense of humour had grown by long
association with Gaston, enjoyed the piquant conversation. The next
evening the same. About ten o'clock a few men dropped in: a sculptor,
artists, and Meyerbeer, an American newspaper correspondent--who,
however, was not known as such to Gaston.
This evening Ian determined to make Gaston talk. To deepen a man's love
for a thing, get him to talk of it to the eager listener--he passes from
the narrator to the advocate unconsciously. Gaston was not to talk of
England, but of the North, of Canada, of Mexico, the Lotos Isles. He did
so picturesquely, yet simply too, in imperfect but sufficient French.
But as he told of one striking incident in the Rockies, he heard Jacques
make a quick expression of dissent. He smiled. He had made some mistake
in detail. Now, Jacques had been in his young days in Quebec the village
story-teller; one who, by inheritance or competency, becomes semi-
officially a raconteur for the parish; filling in winter evenings,
nourishing summer afternoons, with tales, weird, childlike, daring.
Now Gaston turned and said to Jacques:
"Well, Brillon, I've forgotten, as you see; tell them how it was."
Two hours later when Jacques retired on some errand, amid ripe applause,
Ian said:
"You've got an artist there, Cadet: that description of the fight with
the loop garoo was as good as a thing from Victor Hugo. Hugo must have
heard just such yarns, and spun them on the pattern. Upon my soul, it's
excellent stuff. You've lived, you two."
Another night Ian Belward gave a dinner, at which were present an
actress, a singer of some repute, the American journalist, and others.
Something that was said sent Gaston's mind to the House of Commons.
Presently he saw himself in a ridiculous picture: a buffalo dragging the
Treasury Bench about the Chamber; as one conjures things in an absurd
dream. He laughed outright, at a moment when Mademoiselle Cerise was
telling of a remarkable effect she produced one night in "Fedora,"
unpremeditated, inspired; and Mademoiselle Cerise, with smiling lips and
eyes like daggers, called him a bear. This brought him to him self, and
he swam with the enjoyment. He did enjoy it, but not as his uncle wished
and hoped. Gaston did not respond eagerly to the charms of Mademoiselle
Cerise and Madame Juliette.
Was Delia, then, so strong in the barbarian's mind? He could not think
so, but Gaston had not shown yet, either for model, for daughter of joy,
or for the mademoiselles of the stage any disposition to an amour or a
misalliance; and either would be interesting and sufficient! Models went
in and out of Ian's studio and the studios of others, and Gaston chatted
with them at times; and once he felt the bare arm and bare breast of a
girl as she sat for a nymph, and said in an interested way that her flesh
was as firm and fine as a Tongan's. He even disputed with his uncle on
the tints of her skin, on seeing him paint it in, showing a fine eye for
colour. But there was nothing more; he was impressed, observant,
interested--that was all. His uncle began to wonder if the Englishman
was, after all, deeper in the grain than the savage. He contented
himself with the belief that the most vigorous natures are the most
difficult to rouse. Mademoiselle Cerise sang, with chic and abandon very
fascinating to his own sensuous nature, a song with a charming air and
sentiment. It was after a night at the opera when they had seen her in
"Lucia," and the contrast, as she sang in his garden, softly lighted,
showed her at the most attractive angles. She drifted from a sparkling
chanson to the delicate pathos of a song of De Musset's.
Gaston responded to the artist; but to the woman--no. He had seen a new
life, even in its abandon, polite, fresh. It amused him, but he could
still turn to the remembrance of Delia without blushing, for he had come
to this in the spirit of the idler, not the libertine. Mademoiselle
Cerise said to Ian at last:
"Enfin, is the man stone? As handsome as a leopard, too! But, it is no
matter."
She made another effort to interest him, however. It galled her that he
did not fall at her feet as others had done. Even Ian had come there in
his day, but she knew him too well. She had said to him at the time:
"You, monsieur? No, thank you. A week, a month, and then the brute in
you would out. You make a woman fond, and then--a mat for your feet, and
your wicked smile, and savage English words to drive her to the vitriol
or the Seine. Et puis, dear monsieur, accept my good friendship; nothing
more. I will sing to you, dance to you, even pray for you--we poor
sinners do that sometimes, and go on sinning; but, again, nothing more."
Ian admired her all the more for her refusal of him, and they had been
good friends. He had told her of his nephew's coming, had hinted at his
fortune, at his primitive soul, at the unconventional strain in him, even
at marriage. She could not read his purpose, but she knew there was
something, and answering him with a yes, had waited. Had Gaston have
come to her feet she would probably have got at the truth somehow, and
have worked in his favour--the joy vice takes to side with virtue, at
times--when it is at no personal sacrifice. But Gaston was superior in a
grand way. He was simple, courteous, interested only. This stung her,
and she would bring him to his knees, if she could. This night she had
rung all the changes, and had done no more than get his frank applause.
She became petulant in an airy, exacting way. She asked him about his
horse. This interested him. She wanted to see it. To-morrow? No, no,
now. Perhaps to-morrow she would not care to; there was no joy in
deliberate pleasure. Now--now--now! He laughed. Well then, now, as she
wished!
Jacques was called. She said to him:
"Come here, little comrade." Jacques came. "Look at me," she added.
She fixed her eyes on him, and smiled. She was in the soft flare of the
lights.
"Well," she said after a moment, "what do you think of me?"
Jacques was confused. "Madame is beautiful."
"The eyes?" she urged.
"I have been to Gaspe, and west to Esquimault, and in England, but I have
never seen such as those," he said. Race and primitive man spoke there.
She laughed. "Come closer, little man."
He did so. She suddenly rose, dropped her hands on his shoulders, and
kissed his cheek.
"Now bring the horse, and I will kiss him too."
Did she think she could rouse Gaston by kissing his servant? Yet it did
not disgust him. He knew it was a bit of acting, and it was well done.
Besides, Jacques Brillon was not a mere servant, and he, too, had done
well. She sat back and laughed lightly when Jacques was gone. Then she
said: "The honest fellow!" and hummed an air:
"'The pretty coquette
Well she needs to be wise,
Though she strike to the heart
By a glance of her eyes.
"'For the daintiest bird
Is the sport of the storm,
And the rose fadeth most
When the bosom is warm.'"
In twenty minutes the gate of the garden opened, and Jacques appeared
with Saracen. The horse's black skin glistened in the lights, and he
tossed his head and champed his bit. Gaston rose. Mademoiselle Cerise
sprang to her feet and ran forward. Jacques put out his hand to stop
her, and Gaston caught her shoulder. "He's wicked with strangers,"
Gaston said. "Chat!" she rejoined, stepped quickly to the horse's head
and, laughing, put out her hand to stroke him. Jacques caught the
beast's nose, and stopped a lunge of the great white teeth.
"Enough, madame, he will kill you!"
"Yet I am beautiful--is it not so?"
"The poor beast is ver' blind."
"A pretty compliment," she rejoined, yet angry at the beast.
Gaston came, took the animal's head in his hands, and whispered. Saracen
became tranquil. Gaston beckoned to Mademoiselle Cerise. She came. He
took her hand in his and put it at the horse's lips. The horse whinnied
angrily at first, but permitted a caress from the actress's fingers.
"He does not make friends easily," said Gaston. "Nor does his master."
Her eyes lifted to his, the lids drooping suggestively. "But when the
pact is made--!"
"Till death us do part?"
"Death or ruin."
"Death is better."
"That depends!"
"Ah! I understand," she said.
"On--the woman?"
"Yes."
Then he became silent. "Mount the horse," she urged.
Gaston sprang at one bound upon the horse's bare back. Saracen reared
and wheeled.
"Splendid!" she said; then, presently: "Take me up with you."
He looked doubting for a moment, then whispered to the horse.
"Come quickly," he said.
She came to the side of the horse. He stooped, caught her by the waist,
and lifted her up. Saracen reared, but Gaston had him down in a moment.
Ian Belward suddenly called out:
"For God's sake, keep that pose for five minutes--only five!" He caught
up some canvas. "Hold candles near them," he said to the others. They
did so. With great swiftness he sketched in the strange picture. It
looked weird, almost savage: Gaston's large form, his legs loose at the
horse's side, the woman in her white drapery clinging to him.
In a little time the artist said:
"There; that will do. Ten such sittings and my 'King of Ys' will have
its day with the world. I'd give two fortunes for the chance of it."
The woman's heart had beat fast with Gaston's arm around her. He felt
the thrill of the situation. Man, woman, and horse were as of a piece.
But Cerise knew, when Gaston let her to the ground again, that she had
not conquered.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH THE PAST IS REPEATED
Next morning Gaston was visited by Meyerbeer the American journalist, of
whose profession he was still ignorant. He saw him only as a man of raw
vigour of opinion, crude manners, and heavy temperament. He had not been
friendly to him at night, and he was surprised at the morning visit. The
hour was such that Gaston must ask him to breakfast. The two were soon
at the table of the Hotel St. Malo. Meyerbeer sniffed the air when he
saw the place. The linen was ordinary, the rooms small; but all--he did
not take this into account--irreproachably clean. The walls were covered
with pictures; some taken for unpaid debts, gifts from students since
risen to fame or gone into the outer darkness,--to young artists' eyes,
the sordid moneymaking world,--and had there been lost; from a great
artist or two who remembered the days of his youth and the good host who
had seen many little colonies of artists come and go.
They sat down to the table, which was soon filled with students and
artists. Then Meyerbeer began to see, not only an interesting thing, but
"copy." He was, in fact, preparing a certain article which, as he said
to himself, would "make 'em sit up" in London and New York. He had found
out Gaston's history, had read his speech in the Commons, had seen
paragraphs speculating as to where he was; and now he, Salem Meyerbeer,
would tell them what the wild fellow was doing. The Bullier, the cafes
in the Latin Quarter, apartments in a humble street, dining for one-
franc-fifty, supping with actresses, posing for the King of Ys with that
actress in his arms--all excellent in their way. But now there was
needed an entanglement, intrigue, amour, and then America should shriek
at his picture of one of the British aristocracy, and a gentleman of the
Commons, "on the loose," as he put it.
He would head it:
"ARISTOCRAT, POLITICIAN, LIBERTINE!"
Then, under that he would put:
"CAN THE ETHIOPIAN CHANGE HIS SKIN, OR THE
LEOPARD HIS SPOTS?" Jer. xi. 23.
The morality of such a thing? Morality only had to do with ruining a
girl's name, or robbery. How did it concern this?
So Mr. Meyerbeer kept his ears open. Presently one of the students said
to Bagshot, a young artist: "How does the dompteuse come on?"
"Well, I think it's chic enough. She's magnificent. The colour of her
skin against the lions was splendid to-day: a regular rich gold with a
sweet stain of red like a leaf of maize in September. There's never been
such a Una. I've got my chance; and if I don't pull it off,
'Wrap me up in my tarpaulin jacket,
And say a poor buffer lies low!'"
"Get the jacket ready," put in a young Frenchman, sneering.
The Englishman's jaw hardened, but he replied coolly
"What do you know about it?"
"I know enough. The Comte Ploare visits her."
"How the devil does that concern my painting her?" There was iron in
Bagshot's voice.
"Who says you are painting her?"
The insult was conspicuous. Gaston quickly interposed. His clear strong
voice rang down the table: "Will you let me come and see your canvas some
day soon, Mr. Bagshot? I remember your picture 'A Passion in the
Desert,' at the Academy this year. A fine thing: the leopard was free
and strong. As an Englishman, I am proud to meet you."
The young Frenchman stared. The quarrel had passed to a new and
unexpected quarter. Gaston's large, solid body, strong face, and
penetrating eyes were not to be sneered out of sight. The Frenchman,
an envious, disappointed artist, had had in his mind a bloodless duel,
to give a fillip to an unacquired fame. He had, however, been drinking.
He flung an insolent glance to meet Gaston's steady look, and said:
"The cock crows of his dunghill!"
Gaston looked at the landlord, then got up calmly and walked down the
table. The Frenchman, expecting he knew not what, sprang to his feet,
snatching up a knife; but Gaston was on him like a hawk, pinioning his
arms and lifting him off the ground, binding his legs too, all so tight
that the Frenchman squealed for breath.
"Monsieur," said Gaston to the landlord, "from the door or the window?"
The landlord was pale. It was in some respects a quarrel of races.
For, French and English at the tables had got up and were eyeing each
other. As to the immediate outcome of the quarrel, there could be no
doubt. The English and Americans could break the others to pieces;
but neither wished that. The landlord decided the matter:
"Drop him from this window."
He pushed a shutter back, and Gaston dropped the fellow on the hard
pavement--a matter of five feet. The Frenchman got up raging, and made
for the door; but this time he was met by the landlord, who gave him his
hat, and bade him come no more. There was applause from both English and
French. The journalist chuckled--another column!
Gaston had acted with coolness and common-sense; and when he sat down
and began talking of the Englishman's picture again as if nothing had
happened, the others followed, and the meal went on cheerfully.
Presently another young English painter entered, and listened to the
conversation, which Gaston brought back to Una and the lions. It was his
way to force things to his liking, if possible; and he wanted to hear
about the woman--why, he did not ask himself. The new arrival, Fancourt
by name, kept looking at him quizzically. Gaston presently said that he
would visit the menagerie and see this famous dompteuse that afternoon.
"She's a brick," said Bagshot. "I was in debt, a year behind with my
Pelletier here, and it took all I got for 'A Passion in the Desert' to
square up. I'd nothing to go on with. I spent my last sou in visiting
the menagerie. There I got an idea. I went to her, told her how I was
fixed, and begged her to give me a chance. By Jingo! she brought the
water to my eyes. Some think she's a bit of a devil; but she can be a
devil of a saint, that's all I've got to say."
"Zoug-Zoug's responsible for the devil," said Fancourt to Bagshot.
"Shut up, Fan," rejoined Bagshot, hurriedly, and then whispered to him
quickly.
Fancourt sent self-conscious glances down the table towards Gaston; and
then a young American, newly come to Paris, said:
"Who's Zoug-Zoug, and what's Zoug-Zoug?"
"It's milk for babes, youngster," answered Bagshot quickly, and changed
the conversation.
Gaston saw something strange in the little incident; but he presently
forgot it for many a day, and then remembered it for many a day, when the
wheel had spun through a wild arc.
When they rose from the table, Meyerbeer went to Bagshot, and said:
"Say, who's Zoug-Zoug, anyway?" Bagshot coolly replied:
"I'm acting for another paper. What price?"
"Fifty dollars," in a low voice, eagerly. Bagshot meditated.
"H'm, fifty dollars! Two hundred and fifty francs, or thereabouts.
Beggarly!"
"A hundred, then."
Bagshot got to his feet, lighting a cigarette.
"Want to have a pretty story against a woman, and to smutch a man, do
you? Well, I'm hard up; I don't mind gossip among ourselves; but sell
the stuff to you--I'll see you damned first!"
This was said sufficiently loud; and after that, Meyerbeer could not ask
Fancourt, so he departed with Gaston, who courteously dismissed him, to
his astonishment and regret, for he had determined to visit the menagerie
with his quarry.
Gaston went to his apartments, and cheerily summoned Jacques.
"Now, little man, for a holiday! The menagerie: lions, leopards, and a
grand dompteuse; and afterwards dinner with me at the Cafe Blanche. I
want a blow-out of lions and that sort. I'd like to be a lion-tamer
myself for a month, or as long as might be."
He caught Jacques by the shoulders--he had not done so since that
memorable day at Ridley Court. "See, Jacques, we'll do this every year.
Six months in England, and three months on the Continent,--in your
France, if you like,--and three months in the out-of-the-wayest place,
where there'll be big game. Hidalgos for six months, Goths for the
rest."
A half-hour later they were in the menagerie. They sat near the
doors where the performers entered. For a long time they watched the
performance with delight, clapping and calling bravo like boys.
Presently the famous dompteuse entered,--Mademoiselle Victorine,--passing
just below Gaston. He looked down, interested, at the supple, lithe
creature making for the cages of lions in the amphitheatre. The figure
struck him as familiar. Presently the girl turned, throwing a glance
round the theatre. He caught the dash of the dark, piercing eyes, the
luminous look, the face unpainted--in its own natural colour: neither hot
health nor paleness, but a thing to bear the light of day. "Andree the
gipsy!" he exclaimed in a low tone.
In less than two years this! Here was fame. A wanderer, an Ishmael
then, her handful of household goods and her father in the grasp of the
Law: to-day, Mademoiselle Victorine, queen of animal-tamers! And her
name associated with the Comte Ploare!
With the Comte Ploare? Had it come to that? He remembered the look in
her face when he bade her good-bye. Impossible! Then, immediately he
laughed.
Why impossible? And why should he bother his head about it? People of
this sort: Mademoiselle Cerise, Madame Juliette, Mademoiselle Victorine--
what were they to him, or to themselves?
There flashed through his brain three pictures: when he stood by the
bedside of the old dying Esquimaux in Labrador, and took a girl's hand in
his; when among the flowers at Peppingham he heard Delia say: "Oh,
Gaston! Gaston!" and Alice's face at midnight in the moonlit window at
Ridley Court.
How strange this figure--spangled, gaudy, standing among her lions--
seemed by these. To think of her, his veins thumping thus, was an insult
to all three: to Delia, one unpardonable. And yet he could not take his
eyes off her. Her performance was splendid. He was interested,
speculative. She certainly had flown high; for, again, why should not a
dompteuse be a decent woman? And here were money, fame of a kind, and an
occupation that sent his blood bounding. A dompteur! He had tamed
moose, and young mountain lions, and a catamount, and had had mad hours
with pumas and arctic bears; and he could understand how even he might
easily pass from M.P. to dompteur. It was not intellectual, but it was
power of a kind; and it was decent, and healthy, and infinitely better
than playing the Jew in business, or keeping a tavern, or "shaving"
notes, and all that. Truly, the woman was to be admired, for she was
earning an honest living; and no doubt they lied when they named her with
Count Ploare. He kept coming back to that--Count Ploare! Why could they
not leave these women alone? Did they think none of them virtuous? He
would stake his life that Andree--he would call her that--was as straight
as the sun.
"What do you think of her, Jacques?" he said suddenly.
"It is grand. Mon Dieu, she is wonderful--and a face all fire!"
Presently she came out of the cage, followed by two great lions. She
walked round the ring, a hand on the head of each: one growling, the
other purring against her, with a ponderous kind of affection. She
talked to them as they went, giving occasionally a deep purring sound
like their own. Her talk never ceased. She looked at the audience, but
only as in a dream. Her mind was all with the animals. There was
something splendid in it: she, herself, was a noble animal; and she
seemed entirely in place where she was. The lions were fond of her, and
she of them; but the first part of her performance had shown that they
could be capricious. A lion's love is but a lion's love after all--and
hers likewise, no doubt! The three seemed as one in their beauty, the
woman superbly superior. Meyerbeer, in a far corner, was still on the
trail of his sensation. He thought that he might get an article out of
it--with the help of Count Ploare and Zoug-Zoug. Who was Zoug-Zoug?
He exulted in her picturesqueness, and he determined to lie in wait. He
thought it a pity that Comte Ploare was not an Englishman or an American;
but it couldn't be helped. Yes, she was, as he said to himself, "a
stunner." Meanwhile he watched Gaston, noted his intense interest.
Presently the girl stopped beside the cage. A chariot was brought out,
and the two lions were harnessed to it. Then she called out another
larger lion, which came unwillingly at first. She spoke sharply, and
then struck him. He growled, but came on. Then she spoke softly to him,
and made that peculiar purr, soft and rich. Now he responded, walked
round her, coming closer, till his body made a half-circle about her, and
his head was at her knees. She dropped her hand on it. Great applause
rang through the building. This play had been quite accidental. But
there lay one secret of the girl's success. She was original; she
depended greatly on the power of the moment for her best effects, and
they came at unexpected times.
It was at this instant that, glancing round the theatre in acknowledgment
of the applause, her eyes rested mechanically on Gaston's box. There was
generally some one important in that box: from a foreign prince to a
young gentleman whose proudest moment was to take off his hat in the Bois
to the queen of a lawless court. She had tired of being introduced to
princes. What could it mean to her? And for the young bloods, whose
greatest regret was that they could not send forth a daughter of joy into
the Champs Elysee in her carriage, she had ever sent them about their
business. She had no corner of pardon for them. She kissed her lions,
she hugged the lion's cub that rode back and forth with her to the
menagerie day by day--her companion in her modest apartments; but sell
one of these kisses to a young gentleman of Paris, whose ambition was to
master all the vices, and then let the vices master him!--she had not
come to that, though, as she said in some bitter moments, she had come
far.
Count Ploare--there was nothing in that. A blase man of the world, who
had found it all not worth the bothering about, neither code nor people--
he saw in this rich impetuous nature a new range of emotions, a brief
return to the time when he tasted an open strong life in Algiers, in
Tahiti. And he would laugh at the world by marrying her--yes, actually
marrying her, the dompteuse! Accident had let him render her a service,
not unimportant, once at Versailles, and he had been so courteous and
considerate afterwards, that she had let him see her occasionally, but
never yet alone. He soon saw that an amour was impossible. At last he
spoke of marriage. She shook her head. She ought to have been grateful,
but she was not. Why should she be? She did not know why he wished to
marry her; but, whatever the reason, he was selfish. Well, she would be
selfish. She did not care for him. If she married him, it would be
because she was selfish: because of position, ease; for protection in
this shameless Paris; and for a home, she who had been a wanderer since
her birth.
It was mere bargaining. But at last her free, independent nature
revolted. No: she had had enough of the chain, and the loveless hand of
man, for three months that were burned into her brain--no more! If ever
she loved--all; but not the right for Count Ploare to demand the
affection she gave her lions freely.
The manager of the menagerie had tried for her affections, had offered a
price for her friendship; and failing, had become as good a friend as
such a man could be. She even visited his wife occasionally, and gave
gifts to his children; and the mother trusted her and told her her
trials. And so the thing went on, and the people talked.
As we said, she turned her eyes to Gaston's box. Instantly they became
riveted, and then a deep flush swept slowly up her face and burned into
her splendid hair. Meyerbeer was watching through his opera-glasses.
He gave an exclamation of delight:
"By the holy smoke, here's something!" he said aloud.
For an instant Gaston and the girl looked at each other intently. He
made a slight sign of recognition with his hand, and then she turned
away, gone a little pale now. She stood looking at her lions, as if
trying to recollect herself. The lion at her feet helped her. He had
a change of temper, and, possibly fretting under inaction, growled. At
once she summoned him to get into the chariot. He hesitated, but did so.
She put the reins in his paws and took her place behind. Then a robe of
purple and ermine was thrown over her shoulders by an attendant; she gave
a sharp command, and the lions came round the ring, to wild applause.
Even a Parisian audience had never seen anything like this. It was
amusing too; for the coachman-lion was evidently disgusted with his task,
and growled in a helpless kind of way.
As they passed Gaston's box, they were very near. The girl threw one
swift glance; but her face was well controlled now. She heard, however,
a whispered word come to her:
"Andree!"
A few moments afterwards she retired, and the performance was in other
and less remarkable hands. Presently the manager himself came, and said
that Mademoiselle Victorine would be glad to see Monsieur Belward if he
so wished. Gaston left Jacques, and went.
Meyerbeer noticed the move, and determined to see the meeting if
possible. There was something in it, he was sure. He would invent an
excuse, and make his way behind.
Gaston and the manager were in the latter's rooms waiting for Victorine.
Presently a messenger came, saying that Monsieur Belward would find
Mademoiselle in her dressing-room. Thither Gaston went, accompanied by
the manager, who, however, left him at the door, nodding good-naturedly
to Victorine, and inwardly praying that here was no danger to his
business, for Victorine was a source of great profit. Yet he had failed
himself, and all others had failed in winning her--why should this man
succeed, if that was his purpose?
There was present an elderly, dark-featured Frenchwoman, who was always
with Victorine, vigilant, protective, loving her as her own daughter.
"Monsieur!" said Andree, a warm colour in her cheek. Gaston shook her
hand cordially, and laughed. "Mademoiselle--Andree?"
He looked inquiringly. "Yes, to you," she said.
"You have it all your own way now--isn't it so?" "With the lions, yes.
Please sit down. This is my dear keeper," she said, touching the woman's
shoulder. Then, to the woman: "Annette, you have heard me speak of this
gentleman?"
The woman nodded, and modestly touched Gaston's outstretched hand.
"Monsieur was kind once to my dear Mademoiselle," she said.
Gaston cheerily smiled:
"Nothing, nothing, upon my word!" Presently he continued:
"Your father, what of him?" She sighed and shivered a little.
"He died in Auvergne three months after you saw him."
"And you?" He waved a hand towards the menagerie.
"It is a long story," she answered, not meeting his eyes. "I hated the
Romany life. I became an artist's model; sickened of that,"--her voice
went quickly here, "joined a travelling menagerie, and became what I am.
That in brief."
"You have done well," he said admiringly, his face glowing.
"I am a successful dompteuse," she replied.
She then asked him who was his companion in the box. He told her.
She insisted on sending for Jacques. Meanwhile they talked of her
profession, of the animals. She grew eloquent. Jacques arrived, and
suddenly remembered Andree--stammered, was put at his ease, and dropped
into talk with Annette. Gaston fell into reminiscences of wild game, and
talked intelligently, acutely of her work. He must wait, she said, until
the performance closed, and then she would show him the animals as a
happy family. Thus a half-hour went by.
Meanwhile, Meyerbeer had asked the manager to take him to Mademoiselle;
but was told that Victorine never gave information to journalists, and
would not be interviewed. Besides, she had a visitor. Yes, Meyerbeer
knew it--Mr. Gaston Belward; but that did not matter. The manager
thought it did matter. Then, with an idea of the future, Meyerbeer asked
to be shown the menagerie thoroughly--he would write it up for England
and America.
And so it happened that there were two sets of people inspecting the
menagerie after the performance. Andree let a dozen of the animals out--
lions, leopards, a tiger, and a bear,--and they gambolled round her
playfully, sometimes quarrelling with each other, but brought up smartly
by her voice and a little whip, which she always carried--the only sign
of professional life about her, though there was ever a dagger hid in her
dress. For the rest, she looked a splendid gipsy.
Gaston suddenly asked if he might visit her. At the moment she was
playing with the young tiger. She paused, was silent, preoccupied. The
tiger, feeling neglected, caught her hand with its paw, tearing the skin.
Gaston whipped out his handkerchief, and stanched the blood. She wrapped
the handkerchief quickly round her hand, and then, recovering herself,
ordered the animals back into their cages. They trotted away, and the
attendant locked them up. Meanwhile Jacques had picked up and handed to
Gaston a letter, dropped when he drew out his handkerchief. It was one
received two days before from Delia Gasgoyne. He had a pang of
confusion, and hastily put it into his pocket.
Up to this time there had been no confusion in his mind. He was going
back to do his duty; to marry the girl, union with whom would be an
honour; to take his place in his kingdom. He had had no minute's doubt
of that. It was necessary, and it should be done. The girl? Did he not
admire her, honour her, care for her? Why, then, this confusion?
Andree said to him that he might come the next morning for breakfast.
She said it just as the manager and Meyerbeer passed her. Meyerbeer
heard it, and saw the look in the faces of both: in hers, bewildered,
warm, penetrating; in Gaston's, eager, glowing, bold, with a distant kind
of trouble.
Here was a thickening plot for Paul Pry. He hugged himself. But who was
Zoug-Zoug? If he could but get at that! He asked the manager, who said
he did not know. He asked a dozen men that evening, but none knew. He
would ask Ian Belward. What a fool not to have thought of him at first.
He knew all the gossip of Paris, and was always communicative--but was
he, after all? He remembered now that the painter had a way of talking
at discretion: he had never got any really good material from him. But
he would try him in this.
So, as Gaston and Jacques travelled down the Boulevard Montparnasse,
Meyerbeer was not far behind. The journalist found Ian Belward at home,
in a cynical indolent mood.
"Wherefore Meyerbeer?" he said, as he motioned the other to a chair, and
pushed over vermouth and cigarettes.
"To ask a question."
"One question? Come, that's penance. Aren't you lying as usual?"
"No; one only. I've got the rest of it."
"Got the rest of it, eh? Nasty mess you've got, whatever it is, I'll be
bound. What a nice mob you press fellows are--wholesale scavengers!"
"That's all right. This vermouth is good enough. Well, will you answer
my question?"
"Possibly, if it's not personal. But Lord knows where your insolence may
run! You may ask if I'll introduce you to a decent London club!"
Meyerbeer flushed at last.
"You're rubbing it in," he said angrily.
He did wish to be introduced to a good London club. "The question isn't
personal, I guess. It's this: Who's Zoug-Zoug?"
Smoke had come trailing out of Belward's nose, his head thrown back, his
eyes on the ceiling. It stopped, and came out of his mouth on one long,
straight whiff. Then the painter brought his head to a natural position
slowly, and looking with a furtive nonchalance at Meyerbeer, said:
"Who is what?"
"Who's Zoug-Zoug?"
"That is your one solitary question, is it?"
"That's it."
"Very well. Now, I'll be scavenger. What is the story? Who is the
woman--for you've got a woman in it, that's certain?"
"Will you tell me, then, whether you know Zoug-Zoug?"
"Yes."
"The woman is Mademoiselle Victorine, the dompteuse."
"Ah, I've not seen her yet. She burst upon Paris while I was away. Now,
straight: no lies: who are the others?"
Meyerbeer hesitated; for, of course, he did not wish to speak of Gaston
at this stage in the game. But he said:
"Count Ploare--and Zoug-Zoug."
"Why don't you tell me the truth?"
"I do. Now, who is Zoug-Zoug?"
"Find out."
"You said you'd tell me."
"No. I said I'd tell you if I knew Zoug-Zoug. I do."
"That's all you'll tell me?"
"That's all. And see, scavenger, take my advice and let Zoug-Zoug alone.
He's a man of influence; and he's possessed of a devil. He'll make you
sorry, if you meddle with him!"
He rose, and Meyerbeer did the same, saying: "You'd better tell me."
"Now, don't bother me. Drink your vermouth, take that bundle of
cigarettes, and hunt Zoug-Zoug else where. If you find him, let me know.
Good-bye."
Meyerbeer went out furious. The treatment had been too heroic.
"I'll give a sweet savour to your family name," he said with an oath, as
he shook his fist at the closed door. Ian Belward sat back and looked at
the ceiling reflectively.
"H'm!" he said at last. "What the devil does this mean? Not Andree,
surely not Andree! Yet I wasn't called Zoug-Zoug before that. It was
Bagshot's insolent inspiration at Auvergne. Well, well!"
He got up, drew over a portfolio of sketches, took out two or three, put
them in a row against a divan, sat down, and looked at them half
quizzically.
"It was rough on you, Andree; but you were hard to please, and I am
constant to but one. Yet, begad, you had solid virtues; and I wish, for
your sake, I had been a different kind of fellow. Well, well, we'll meet
again some time, and then we'll be good friends, no doubt."
He turned away from the sketches and picked up some illustrated
newspapers. In one was a portrait. He looked at it, then at the
sketches again and again.
"There's a resemblance," he said. "But no, it's not possible. Andree-
Mademoiselle Victorine! That would be amusing. I'd go to-morrow and
see, if I weren't off to Fontainebleau. But there's no hurry: when I
come back will do."
CHAPTER XV
WHEREIN IS SEEN THE OLD ADAM AND THE GARDEN
At Ridley Court and Peppingham all was serene to the eye. Letters had
come to the Court at least once every two weeks from Gaston, and the
minds of the Baronet and his wife were at ease. They even went so far as
to hope that he would influence his uncle; for it was clear to them both
that whatever Gaston's faults were, they were agreeably different from
Ian's. His fame and promise were sweet to their nostrils. Indeed, the
young man had brought the wife and husband nearer than they had been
since Robert vanished over-sea. Each had blamed the other in an
indefinite, secret way; but here was Robert's son, on whom they could
lavish--as they did--their affection, long since forfeited by Ian.
Finally, one day, after a little burst of thanksgiving, on getting an
excellent letter from Gaston, telling of his simple, amusing life in
Paris, Sir William sent him one thousand pounds, begging him to buy a
small yacht, or to do what he pleased with it.
"A very remarkable man, my dear," Sir William said, as he enclosed the
cheque. "Excellent wisdom--excellent!"
"Who could have guessed that he knew so much about the poor and the East
End, and all those social facts and figures?" Lady Belward answered
complacently.
"An unusual mind, with a singular taste for history, and yet a deep
observation of the present. I don't know when and how he does it. I
really do not know."
"It is nice to think that Lord Faramond approves of him."
"Most noticeable. And we have not been a Parliamentary family since
the first Charles's time. And then it was a Gaston. Singular--quite
singular! Coincidences of looks and character. Nature plays strange
games. Reproduction--reproduction!"
"The Pall Mall Gazette says that he may soon reach the Treasury Bench."
Sir William was abstracted. He was thinking of that afternoon in
Gaston's bedroom, when his grandson had acted, before Lady Dargan and
Cluny Vosse, Sir Gaston's scene with Buckingham.
"Really, most mysterious, most unaccountable. But it's one of the
virtues of having a descent. When it is most needed, it counts, it
counts."
"Against the half-breed mother!" Lady Belward added.
"Quite so, against the--was it Cree or Blackfoot? I've heard him speak
of both, but which is in him I do not remember."
"It is very painful; but, poor fellow, it is not his fault, and we ought
to be content."
"Indeed, it gives him great originality. Our old families need
refreshing now and then."
"Ah, yes, I said so to Mrs. Gasgoyne the other day, and she replied that
the refreshment might prove intoxicating. Reine was always rude."
Truth is, Mrs. Gasgoyne was not quite satisfied. That very day she said
to her husband:
"You men always stand by each other; but I know you, and you know that I
know."
"'Thou knowest the secrets of our hearts'; well, then, you know how we
love you. So, be merciful."
"Nonsense, Warren! I tell you he oughtn't to have gone when he did. He
has the wild man in him, and I am not satisfied."
"What do you want--me to play the spy?"
"Warren, you're a fool! What do I want? I want the first of September
to come quickly, that we may have him with us. With Delia he must go
straight. She influences him, he admires her--which is better than mere
love. Away from her just now, who can tell what mad adventure--! You
see, he has had the curb so long!"
But in a day or two there came a letter-unusually long for Gaston--
to Mrs. Gasgoyne herself. It was simple, descriptive, with a dash of
epigram. It acknowledged that he had felt the curb, and wanted a touch
of the unconventional. It spoke of Ian Belward in a dry phrase, and it
asked for the date of the yacht's arrival at Gibraltar.
"Warren, the man is still sensible," she said. "This letter is honest.
He is much a heathen at heart, but I believe he hasn't given Delia cause
to blush--and that's a good deal! Dear me, I am fond of the fellow--
he is so clever. But clever men are trying."
As for Delia, like every sensible English girl, she enjoyed herself
in the time of youth, drinking in delightedly the interest attaching
to Gaston's betrothed. His letters had been regular, kind yet not
emotionally affectionate, interesting, uncommon. He had a knack of
saying as much in one page as most people did in five. Her imagination
was not great, but he stimulated it. If he wrote a pungent line on
Daudet or Whistler, on Montaigne or Fielding, she was stimulated to know
them. One day he sent her Whitman's Leaves of Grass, which he had picked
up in New York on his way to England. This startled her. She had
never heard of Whitman. To her he seemed coarse, incomprehensible,
ungentlemanly. She could not understand how Gaston could say beautiful
things about Montaigne and about Whitman too. She had no conception how
he had in him the strain of that first Sir Gaston Belward, and was also
the son of a half-heathen.
He interested her all the more. Her letters were hardly so fascinating
to him. She was beautifully correct, but she could not make a sentence
breathe. He was grateful, but nothing stirred in him. He could live
without her--that he knew regretfully. But he did his part with sincere
intention.
That was up to the day when he saw Andree as Mademoiselle Victorine.
Then came a swift change. Day after day he visited her, always in the
presence of Annette. Soon they dined often together, still in Annette's
presence, and the severity of that rule was never relaxed.
Count Ploare came no more; he had received his dismissal. Occasionally
Gaston visited the menagerie, but generally after the performance, when
Victorine had a half-hour's or an hour's romp with her animals. This was
a pleasant time to Gaston. The wild life in him responded.
These were hours when the girl was quite naive and natural, when she
spent herself in ripe enjoyment--almost child-like, healthy. At other
times there was an indefinable something which Gaston had not noticed in
England. But then he had only seen her once. She, too, saw something in
him unnoticed before. It was on his tongue a hundred times to tell her
that that something was Delia Gasgoyne. He did not. Perhaps because it
seemed so grotesque, perhaps because it was easier to drift. Besides, as
he said to himself, he would soon go to join the yacht at Gibraltar, and
all this would be over-over. All this? All what? A gipsy, a dompteuse
--what was she to him? She interested him, he liked her, and she liked
him, but there had been nothing more between them. Near as he was to her
now, he very often saw her in his mind's eye as she passed over Ridley
Common, looking towards him, her eyes shaded by her hand.
She, too, had continually said to herself that this man could be nothing
to her--nothing, never! Yet, why not? Count Ploare had offered her his
hand. But she knew what had been in Count Ploare's mind. Gaston Belward
was different--he had befriended her father. She had not singular
scruples regarding men, for she despised most of them. She was not a
Mademoiselle Cerise, nor a Madame Juliette, though they were higher on
the plane of art than she; or so the world put it. She had not known a
man who had not, one time or another, shown himself common or insulting.
But since the first moment she had seen Gaston, he had treated her as a
lady.
A lady? She had seen enough to smile at that. She knew that she hadn't
it in her veins, that she was very much an actress, except in this man's
company, when she was mostly natural--as natural as one can be who
has a painful secret. They had talked together--for how many hours?
She knew exactly. And he had never descended to that which--she felt
instinctively--he would not have shown to the ladies of his English
world. She knew what ladies were. In her first few weeks in Paris,
her fame mounting, she had lunched with some distinguished people, who
entertained her as they would have done one of her lions, if that were
possible. She understood. She had a proud, passionate nature; she
rebelled at this. Invitations were declined at first on pink note-paper
with gaudy flowers in a corner, afterwards on cream-laid vellum, when she
saw what the great folk did.
And so the days went on, he telling her of his life from his boyhood up
--all but the one thing! But that one thing she came to know, partly by
instinct, partly by something he accidentally dropped, partly from
something Jacques once said to him. Well, what did it matter to her?
He would go back; she would remain. It didn't matter.--Yet, why should
she lie to herself? It did matter. And why should she care about that
girl in England? She was not supposed to know. The other had everything
in her favour; what had Andree the gipsy girl, or Mademoiselle Victorine,
the dompteuse?
One Sunday evening, after dining together, she asked him to take her to
see Saracen. It was a long-standing promise. She had never seen him
riding; for their hours did not coincide until the late afternoon or
evening. Taking Annette, they went to his new apartments. He had
furnished a large studio as a sitting-room, not luxuriantly but
pleasantly. It opened into a pretty little garden, with a few plants
and trees. They sat there while Jacques went for the horse. Next door
a number of students were singing a song of the boulevards. It was
followed by one in a woman's voice, sweet and clear and passionate,
pitifully reckless. It was, as if in pure contradiction, the opposite
of the other--simple, pathetic. At first there were laughing
interruptions from the students; but the girl kept on, and soon silence
prevailed, save for the voice:
"And when the wine is dry upon the lip,
And when the flower is broken by the hand,
And when I see the white sails of thy ship
Fly on, and leave me there upon the sand:
Think you that I shall weep? Nay, I shall smile:
The wine is drunk, the flower it is gone,
One weeps not when the days no more beguile,
How shall the tear-drops gather in a stone?"
When it was ended, Andree, who had listened intently, drew herself up
with a little shudder. She sat long, looking into the garden, the cub
playing at her feet. Gaston did not disturb her. He got refreshments
and put them on the table, rolled a cigarette, and regarded the scene.
Her knee was drawn up slightly in her hands, her hat was off, her rich
brown hair fell loosely about her head, framing it, her dark eyes glowed
under her bent brows. The lion's cub crawled up on the divan, and thrust
its nose under an arm. Its head clung to her waist. Who was she?
thought Gaston. Delilah, Cleopatra--who? She was lost in thought. She
remained so until the garden door opened, and Jacques entered with
Saracen.
She looked. Suddenly she came to her feet with a cry of delight, and ran
out towards the horse. There was something essentially child-like in
her, something also painfully wild-an animal, and a philosopher, and
twenty-three.
Jacques put out his hand as he had done with Mademoiselle Cerise.
"No, no; he is savage."
"Nonsense!" she rejoined, and came closer.
Gaston watched, interested. He guessed what she would do.
"A horse!" she added. "Why, you have seen my lions! Leave him free:
stand away from him."
Her words were peremptory, and Jacques obeyed. The horse stood alone,
a hoof pawing the ground. Presently it sprang away, then half-turned
towards the girl, and stood still. She kept talking to him and calling
softly, making a coaxing, animal-like sound, as she always did with her
lions.
She stepped forward a little and paused. The horse suddenly turned
straight towards her, came over slowly, and, with arched neck, dropped
his head on her shoulder. She felt the folds of his neck and kissed him.
He followed her about the garden like a dog. She brought him to Gaston,
locked up, and said with a teasing look, "I have conquered him: he is
mine!"
Gaston looked her in her eyes. "He is yours."
"And you?"
"He is mine." His look burned into her soul-how deep, how joyful!
She turned away, her face going suddenly pale. She kept the horse for
some time, but at last gave him up again to Jacques. Gaston stepped from
the doorway into the garden and met her. It was now dusk. Annette was
inside. They walked together in silence for a time. Presently she drew
close to him. He felt his veins bounding. Her hand slid into his arm,
and, dark as it was, he could see her eyes lifting to his, shining,
profound. They had reached the end of the garden, and now turned to come
back again.
Suddenly he said, his eyes holding hers: "The horse is yours--and mine."
She stood still; but he could see her bosom heaving hard. She threw up
her head with a sound half sob, half laugh. . . .
"You are mad!" she said a moment afterwards, as she lifted her head from
his breast.
He laughed softly, catching her cheek to his. "Why be sane? It was to
be."
"The gipsy and the gentleman?"
"Gipsies all!"
"And the end of it?"
"Do you not love me, Andree?" She caught her hands over her eyes.
"I do not know what it is--only that it is madness! I see, oh, I see a
hundred things."
Her hot eyes were on space. "What do you see?" he urged. She gave a
sudden cry:
"I see you at my feet--dead."
"Better than you at mine, Andree."
"Let us go," she said hurriedly.
"Wait," he whispered.
They talked for a little time. Then they entered the studio. Annette
was asleep in her chair. Andree waked her, and they bade Gaston good-
night.
CHAPTER XVI
WHEREIN LOVE KNOWS NO LAW SAVE THE MAN'S WILL
In another week it was announced that Mademoiselle Victorine would take a
month's holiday; to the sorrow of her chief, and to the delight of Mr.
Meyerbeer, who had not yet discovered his man, though he had a pretty
scandal well-nigh brewed.
Count Ploare was no more, Gaston Belward was. Zoug-Zoug was in the
country at Fontainebleau, working at his picture. He had left on the
morning after Gaston discovered Andree. He had written, asking his
nephew to come for some final sittings. Possibly, he said, Mademoiselle
Cerise and others would be down for a Sunday. Gaston had not gone, had
briefly declined. His uncle shrugged his shoulders, and went on with
other work. It would end in his having to go to Paris and finish the
picture there, he said. Perhaps the youth was getting into mischief?
So much the better. He took no newspapers.--What did an artist need of
them? He did not even read the notices sent by a press-cutting agency.
He had a model with him. She amused him for the time, but it was
unsatisfactory working on "The King of Ys" from photographs. He loathed
it, and gave it up.
One evening Gaston and Andree met at the Gare Montparnasse. Jacques
was gone on, but Annette was there. Meyerbeer was there also, at a safe
distance. He saw Gaston purchase tickets, arrange his baggage, and enter
the train. He passed the compartment, looking in. Besides the three,
there was a priest and a young soldier.
Gaston saw him, and guessed what brought him there. He had an impulse to
get out and shake him as would Andree's cub a puppy. But the train moved
off. Meyerbeer found Gaston's porter. A franc did the business.
"Douarnenez, for Audierne, Brittany," was the legend written in
Meyerbeer's note-book. And after that: "Journey twenty hours--change at
Rennes, Redon, and Quimpere."
"Too far. I've enough for now," said Meyerbeer, chuckling, as he walked
away. "But I'd give five hundred dollars to know who Zoug-Zoug is. I'll
make another try."
So he held his sensation back for a while yet. Of the colony at the
Hotel St. Malo, not one of the three who knew would tell him. Bagshot
had sworn the others to secrecy.
Jacques had gone on with the horses. He was to rent a house, or get
rooms at a hotel. He did very well. The horses were stalled at the
Hotel de France. He had rented an old chateau perched upon a hill, with
steps approaching, steps flanking; near it strange narrow alleys, leading
where one cared not to search; a garden of pears and figs, and grapes,
and innumerable flowers and an arbour; a pavilion, all windows, over an
entranceway, with a shrine in it--a be-starred shrine below it; bare
floors, simple furniture, primitiveness at every turn.
Gaston and Andree came, of choice, with a courier in a racketing old
diligence from Douarnenez, and they laughed with delight, tired as they
were, at the new quarters. It must be a gipsy kind of existence at the
most.
There were rooms for Jacques and Annette, who at once set to work with
the help of a little Breton maid. Jacques had not ordered a dinner at
the hotel, but had got in fresh fish, lobsters, chickens, eggs, and other
necessaries; and all was ready for a meal which could be got in an hour.
Jacques had now his hour of happiness. He knew not of these morals--
they were beyond him; but after a cheerful dinner in the pavilion, with
an omelette made by Andree herself, Annette went to her room and cried
herself to sleep. She was civilised, poor soul, and here they were a
stone's throw from the cure and the church! Gaston and Andree,
refreshed, travelled down the long steps to the village, over the place,
along the quay, to the lighthouse and the beach, through crowds of
sardine fishers and simple hard-tongued Bretons. Cheerful, buoyant at
dinner, there now came upon the girl an intense quiet and fatigue. She
stood and looked long at the sea. Gaston tried to rouse her.
"This is your native Brittany, Andree," he said. She pointed far over
the sea:
"Near that light at Penmark I was born."
"Can you speak the Breton language?"
"Far worse than you speak Parisian French."
He laughed. "You are so little like these people!"
She had vanity. That had been part of her life. Her beauty had brought
trade when she was a gipsy; she had been the admired of Paris: she was
only twenty three. Presently she became restless, and shrank from him.
Her eyes had a flitting hunted look. Once they met his with a wild sort
of pleading or revolt, he could not tell which, and then were continually
turned away.
If either could have known how hard the little dwarf of sense and memory
was trying to tell her something.
This new phase stunned him. What did it mean? He touched her hand.
It was hot, and withdrew from his. He put his arm around her, and she
shivered, cringed. But then she was a woman, he thought. He had met
one unlike any he had ever known. He would wait. He would be patient.
Would she come--home? She turned passively and took his arm. He talked,
but he knew he was talking poorly, and at last he became silent also.
But when they came to the steep steps leading to the chateau, he lifted
her in his arms, carried her to the house, and left her at their chamber-
door.
Then he went to the pavilion to smoke. He had no wish to think--
at least of anything but the girl. It was not a time for retrospect,
but to accept a situation. The die had been cast. He had followed what
--his nature, his instincts? The consequence?
He heard Andree's voice. He went to her.
The next morning they were in the garden walking about. They had been
speaking, but now both were silent. At last he turned again to her.
"Andree, who was the other man?" he asked quietly, but with a strange
troubled look in his eyes.
She shrank away confused, a kind of sickness in her eyes.
"What does it matter?" she said.
"Of course, of course," he returned in a low, nerveless tone.
They were silent for a long time. Meanwhile, she seemed to beat up
a feverish cheerfulness. At last she said:
"Where do we go this afternoon, Gaston?"
"We will see," he replied.
The day passed, another, and another. The same: she shrank from him, was
impatient, agitated, unhappy, went out alone. Annette saw, and mourned,
entreated, prayed; Jacques was miserable. There was no joyous passion
to redeem the situation for which Gaston had risked so much.
They rode, they took excursions in fishing-boats and little sail-boats.
Andree entered into these with zest: talked to the sailors, to Jacques,
caressed children, and was not indifferent to the notice she attracted in
the village; but was obviously distrait. Gaston was patient--and
unhappy. So, this was the merchandise for which he had bartered all!
But he had a will, he was determined; he had sowed, he would reap his
harvest to the useless stubble.
"Do you wish to go back to your work?" he said quietly, once.
"I have no work," she answered apathetically. He said no more just then.
The days and weeks went by. The situation was impossible, not to be
understood. Gaston made his final move. He hoped that perhaps a forced
crisis might bring about a change. If it failed--he knew not what!
She was sitting in the garden below--he alone in the window, smoking.
A bundle of letters and papers, brought by the postman that evening, were
beside him. He would not open them yet. He felt that there was trouble
in them--he saw phrases, sentences flitting past him. But he would play
this other bitter game out first. He let them lie. He heard the bells
in the church ringing the village commerce done--it was nine o'clock.
The picture of that other garden in Paris came to him: that night when
he had first taken this girl into his arms. She sat below talking to
Annette and singing a little Breton chanson:
"Parvondt varbondt anan oun,
Et die don la lire!
Parvondt varbondt anan oun,
Et die don la, la!"
He called down to her presently. "Andree!"
"Yes."
"Will you come up for a moment, please?"
"Surely."
She came up, leaving the room door open, and bringing the cub with her.
He called Jacques.
"Take the cub to its quarters, Jacques," he said, quietly.
She seemed about to protest, but sat back and watched him. He shut the
door--locked it. Then he came and sat down before her.
"Andree," he said, "this is all impossible."
"What is impossible?"
"You know well. I am not a mere brute. The only thing that can redeem
this life is love."
"That is true," she said, coldly. "What then?"
"You do not redeem it. We must part."
She laughed fitfully. "We must--?"
She leaned towards him.
"To-morrow evening you will go back to Paris. To-night we part, however:
that is, our relations cease."
"I shall go from here when it pleases me, Gaston!"
His voice came low and stern, but courteous:
"You must go when I tell you. Do you think I am the weaker?"
He could see her colour flying, her fingers lacing and interlacing.
"Aren't you afraid to tell me that?" she asked.
"Afraid? Of my life--you mean that? That you will be as common as that?
No: you will do as I tell you."
He fixed his eyes on hers, and held them. She sat, looking. Presently
she tried to take her eyes away. She could not. She shuddered and
shrank.
He withdrew his eyes for a moment. "You will go?" he asked.
"It makes no difference," she answered; then added sharply: "Who are you,
to look at me like that, to--!"
She paused.
"I am your friend and your master!"
He rose. "Good-night," he said, at the door, and went out.
He heard the key turn in the lock. He had forgotten his papers and
letters. It did not matter. He would read them when she was gone--if
she did go. He was far from sure that he had succeeded. He went to bed
in another room, and was soon asleep.
He was waked in the very early morning by feeling a face against his,
wet, trembling.
"What is it, Andree?" he asked. Her arms ran round his neck.
"Oh, mon amour! Mon adore! Je t'aime! Je t'aime!"
In the evening of this day she said she knew not how it was, but on that
first evening in Audierne there suddenly came to her a strange terrible
feeling, which seemed to dry up all the springs of her desire for him.
She could not help it. She had fought against it, but it was no use; yet
she knew that she could not leave him. After he had told her to go, she
had had a bitter struggle: now tears, now anger, and a wish to hate. At
last she fell asleep. When she awoke she had changed, she was her old
self, as in Paris, when she had first confessed her love. She felt that
she must die if she did not go to him. All the first passion returned,
the passion that began on the common at Ridley Court. "And now--now,"
she said, "I know that I cannot live without you."
It seemed so. Her nature was emptying itself. Gaston had got the
merchandise for which he had given a price yet to be known.
"You asked me of the other man," she said. "I will tell you."
"Not now," he said. "You loved him?"
"No--ah God, no!" she answered.
An hour after, when she was in her room, he opened the little bundle of
correspondence.--A memorandum with money from his bankers. A letter from
Delia, and also one from Mrs. Gasgoyne, saying that they expected to meet
him at Gibraltar on a certain day, and asking why he had not written;
Delia with sorrowful reserve, Mrs. Gasgoyne with impatience. His letters
had missed them--he had written on leaving Paris, saying that his plans
were indefinite, but he would write them definitely soon. After he came
to Audierne it seemed impossible to write. How could he? No, let the
American journalist do it. Better so. Better himself in the worst
light, with the full penalty, than his own confession--in itself an
insult. So it had gone on. He slowly tore up the letters. The next
were from his grandfather and grandmother--they did not know yet. He
could not read them. A few loving sentences, and then he said:
"What's the good! Better not." He tore them up also. Another--from his
uncle. It was brief:
You've made a sweet mess of it, Cadet. It's in all the papers to-
day. Meyerbeer telegraphed it to New York and London. I'll
probably come down to see you. I want to finish my picture on the
site of the old City of Ys, there at Point du Raz. Your girl can
pose with you. I'll do all I can to clear the thing up. But a
British M.P.--that's a tough pill for Clapham!
Gaston's foot tapped the floor angrily. He scattered the pieces of the
letter at his feet. Now for the newspapers. He opened Le Petit Journal,
Coil Blas, Galignani, and the New York Tom-Tom, one by one. Yes, it was
there, with pictures of himself and Andree. A screaming sensation.
Extracts, too, from the English papers by telegram. He read them all
unflinchingly. There was one paragraph which he did not understand:
There was a previous friend of the lady, unknown to the public, called
Zoug-Zoug.
He remembered that day at the Hotel St. Malo! Well, the bolt was shot:
the worst was over. Quid refert? Justify himself?
Certainly, to all but Delia Gasgoyne.
Thousands of men did the same--did it in cold blood, without one honest
feeling. He did it, at least under a powerful influence. He could not
help but smile now at the thought of how he had filled both sides of the
equation. On his father's side, bringing down the mad record from
Naseby; on his mother's, true to the heathen, by following his impulses
--sacred to primitive man, justified by spear, arrow, and a strong arm.
Why sheet home this as a scandal? How did they--the libellers--know but
that he had married the girl? Exactly. He would see to that. He would
play his game with open sincerity now. He could have wished secrecy for
Delia Gasgoyne, and for his grandfather and grandmother,--he was not
wilfully brutal,--but otherwise he had no shame at all; he would stand
openly for his right. Better one honest passion than a life of deception
and miserable compromise. A British M.P.?--He had thrown away his
reputation, said the papers. By this? The girl was no man's wife, he
was no woman's husband!
Marry her? Yes, he would marry her; she should be his wife. His people?
It was a pity. Poor old people--they would fret and worry. He had been
selfish, had not thought of them? Well, who could foresee this outrage
of journalism? The luck had been dead against him. Did he not know
plenty of men in London--he was going to say the Commons, but he was
fairer to the Commons than it, as a body, would be to him--who did much
worse? These had escaped: the hunters had been after him. What would he
do? Take the whip? He got to his feet with an oath. Take the whip?
Never--never! He would fight this thing tooth and nail. Had he come to
England to let them use him for a sensation only--a sequence of
surprises, to end in a tragedy, all for the furtive pleasure of the
British breakfast-table? No, by the Eternal! What had the first Gaston
done? He had fought--fought Villiers and others, and had held up his
head beside his King and Rupert till the hour of Naseby.
When the summer was over he would return to Paris, to London. The
journalist--punish him? No; too little--a product of his time. But
the British people he would fight, and he would not give up Ridley Court.
He could throw the game over when it was all his, but never when it was
going dead against him.
That speech in the Commons? He remembered gladly that he had contended
for conceptions of social miseries according to surrounding influences of
growth and situation. He had not played the hypocrite.
No, not even with Delia. He had acted honestly at the beginning,
and afterwards he had done what he could so long as he could. It was
inevitable that she must be hurt, even if he had married, not giving her
what he had given this dompteuse. After all, was it so terrible? It
could not affect her much in the eyes of the world. And her heart? He
did not flatter himself. Yet he knew that it would be the thing--the
fallen idol--that would grieve her more than thought of the man. He
wished that he could have spared her in the circumstances. But it had
all come too suddenly: it was impossible. He had spared, he could spare,
nobody. There was the whole situation. What now to do?--To remain here
while it pleased them, then Paris, then London for his fight.
Three days went round. There were idle hours by the sea, little
excursions in a sail-boat to Penmark, and at last to Point du Raz. It
was a beautiful day, with a gentle breeze, and the point was glorified.
The boat ran in lightly between the steep dark shore and the comb of reef
that looked like a host of stealthy pumas crumbling the water. They
anchored in the Bay des Trepasses. An hour on shore exploring the caves,
and lunching, and then they went back to the boat, accompanied by a
Breton sailor, who had acted as guide.
Gaston lay reading,--they were in the shade of the cliff,--while Andree
listened to the Breton tell the legends of the coast. At length Gaston's
attention was attracted. The old sailor was pointing to the shore, and
speaking in bad French.
"Voila, madame, where the City of Ys stood long before the Bretons came.
It was a foolish ride."
"I do not know the story. Tell me."
"There are two or three, but mine is the oldest. A flood came--sent by
the gods, for the woman was impious. The king must ride with her into
the sea and leave her there, himself to come back, and so save the city."
The sailor paused to scan the sea--something had struck him. He shook
his head. Gaston was watching Andree from behind his book.
"Well, well," she said, impatiently, "what then? What did he do?"
"The king took up the woman, and rode into the water as far as where you
see the great white stone--it has been there ever since. There he had a
fight--not with the woman, but in his heart. He turned to the people,
and cried: 'Dry be your streets, and as ashes your eyes for your king!'
And then he rode on with the woman till they saw him no more--never!"
Andree said instantly:
"That was long ago. Now the king would ride back alone."
She did not look at Gaston, but she knew that his eyes were on her.
He closed the book, got up, came forward to the sailor, who was again
looking out to sea, and said carelessly over his shoulder:
"Men who lived centuries ago would act the same now, if they were here."
Her response seemed quite as careless as his: "How do you know?"
"Perhaps I had an innings then," he answered, smiling whimsically.
She was about to speak again, but the guide suddenly said:
"You must get away. There'll be a change of wind and a bad cross-current
soon."
In a few minutes the two were bearing out--none too soon, for those pumas
crowded up once or twice within a fathom of their deck, devilish and
devouring. But they wore away with a capricious current, and down a
tossing sea made for Audierne.
CHAPTER XVII
THE MAN AND THE WOMAN FACE THE INTOLERABLE
In a couple of hours they rounded Point de Leroily, and ran for the
harbour. By hugging the quay in the channel to the left of the bar, they
were sure of getting in, though the tide was low. The boat was docile to
the lug-sail and the helm. As they were beating in they saw a large
yacht running straight across a corner of the bar for the channel. It
was Warren Gasgoyne's Kismet.
The Kismet had put into Audierne rather than try to pass Point du Raz
at night. At Gibraltar a telegram had come telling of the painful
sensation, and the yacht was instantly headed for England; Mrs. Gasgoyne
crossing the Continent, Delia preferring to go back with her father--his
sympathy was more tender. They had seen no newspapers, and they did not
know that Gaston was at Audierne. Gasgoyne knowing, as all the world
knew, that there was a bar at the mouth of the harbour, allowed himself,
as he thought, sufficient room, but the wind had suddenly drawn ahead,
and he was obliged to keep away. Presently the yacht took the ground
with great force.
Gasgoyne put the helm hard down, but she would not obey. He tried at
once to get in his sails, but the surf was running very strong, and
presently a heavy sea broke clean over her. Then came confusion and
dismay: the flapping of the wet, half-lowered sails, and the whipping of
the slack ropes, making all effort useless. There was no chance of her-
holding. Foot by foot she was being driven towards the rocks. Sailors
stood motionless on the shore. The lifeboat would be of little use:
besides, it could not arrive for some time.
Gaston had recognised the Kismet. He turned to Andree.
"There's danger, but perhaps we can do it. Will you go?"
She flushed.
"Have I ever been a coward, Gaston? Tell me what to do."
"Keep the helm firm, and act instantly on my orders."
Instead of coming round into the channel, he kept straight on past the
lighthouse towards the yacht, until he was something to seaward of her.
Then, luffing quickly, he dropped sail, let go the anchor, and unshipped
the mast, while Andree got the oars into the rowlocks. It was his idea
to dip under the yacht's stern, but he found himself drifting alongside,
and in danger of dashing broadside on her. He got an oar and backed with
all his strength towards the stern, the anchor holding well. Then he
called to those on board to be ready to jump. Once in line with the
Kismet's counter, he eased off the painter rapidly, and now dropped
towards the stern of the wreck.
Gaston was quite cool. He did not now think of the dramatic nature of
this meeting, apart from the physical danger. Delia also had recognised
him, and guessed who the girl was. Not to respond to Gaston's call was
her first instinct. But then, life was sweet. Besides, she had to think
of others. Her father, too, was chiefly concerned for her safety and for
his yacht. He had almost determined to get Delia on Gaston's boat, and
himself take the chances with the Kismet; but his sailors dissuaded him,
declaring that the chances were against succour.
The only greetings were words of warning and direction from Gaston.
Presently there was an opportunity. Gaston called sharply to Delia,
and she, standing ready, jumped. He caught her in his arms as she
came. The boat swayed as the others leaped, and he held her close
meanwhile. Her eyes closed, she shuddered and went white. When he put
her down, she covered her face with her hands, trembling. Then, suddenly
she came huddling in a heap, and burst into tears.
They slipped the painter, a sailor took Andree's place at the helm, the
oars were got out, and they made over to the channel, grazing the bar
once or twice, by reason of the now heavy load.
Warren Gasgoyne and Gaston had not yet spoken in the way of greeting.
The former went to Delia now and said a few cheery words, but, from
behind her handkerchief, she begged him to leave her alone for a moment.
"Nerves, all nerves, Mr. Belward," he said, turning towards Gaston.
"But, then, it was ticklish-ticklish."
They did not shake hands. Gaston was looking at Delia, and he did not
reply.
Mr. Gasgoyne continued:
"Nasty sea coming on--afraid to try Point du Raz. Of course we didn't
know you were here."
He looked at Andree curiously. He was struck by the girl's beauty and
force. But how different from Delia!
He suddenly turned, and said bluntly, in a low voice: "Belward, what a
fool--what a fool! You had it all at your feet: the best--the very
best."
Gaston answered quietly:
"It's an awkward time for talking. The rocks will have your yacht in
half an hour."
Gasgoyne turned towards it.
"Yes, she'll get a raking fore and aft." Then, he added, suddenly: "Of
course you know how we feel about our rescue. It was plucky of you."
"Pluckier in the girl," was the reply. "Brave enough," the honest
rejoinder.
Gaston had an impulse to say, "Shall I thank her for you?" but he was
conscious how little right he had to be ironical with Warren Gasgoyne,
and he held his peace.
While the two were now turned away towards the Kismet, Andree came to
Delia. She did not quite know how to comfort her, but she was a woman,
and perhaps a supporting arm would do something.
"There, there," she said, passing a hand round her shoulder, "you are all
right now. Don't cry!"
With a gasp of horror, Delia got to her feet, but swayed, and fell
fainting--into Andree's arms.
She awoke near the landing-place, her father beside her. Meanwhile
Andree had read the riddle. As Mr. Gasgoyne bathed Delia's face, and
Gaston her wrists, and gave her brandy, she sat still and intent,
watching. Tears and fainting! Would she--Andree-have given way like
that in the same circumstances? No. But this girl--Delia--was of a
different order: was that it? All nerves and sentiment! At one of those
lunches in the grand world she had seen a lady burst into tears suddenly
at some one's reference to Senegal. She herself had only cried four
times, that she remembered; when her mother died; when her father was
called a thief; when, one day, she suffered the first great shame of her
life in the mountains of Auvergne; and the night when she waked a second
time to her love for Gaston. She dared to call it love, though good
Annette had called it a mortal sin.
What was to be done? The other woman must suffer.
The man was hers--hers for ever. He had said it: for ever. Yet her
heart had a wild hunger for that something which this girl had and she
had not. But the man was hers; she had won him away from this other.
Delia came upon the quay bravely, passing through the crowd of staring
fishermen, who presently gave Gaston a guttural cheer. Three of them,
indeed, had been drinking his health. They embraced him and kissed him,
begging him to come with them for absinthe. He arranged the matter with
a couple of francs.
Then he wondered what now was to be done. He could not insult the
Gasgoynes by asking them to come to the chateau. He proposed the Hotel
de France to Mr. Gasgoyne, who assented. It was difficult to separate
here on the quay: they must all walk together to the hotel. Gaston
turned to speak to Andree, but she was gone. She had saved the
situation.
The three spoke little, and then but formally, as they walked to the
hotel. Mr. Gasgoyne said that they would leave by train for Paris the
next day, going to Douarnenez that evening. They had saved nothing from
the yacht.
Delia did not speak. She was pale, composed now. In the hotel Mr.
Gasgoyne arranged for rooms, while Gaston got some sailors together, and,
in Mr. Gasgoyne's name, offered a price for the recovery of the yacht or
of certain things in her. Then he went into the hotel to see if he could
do anything further. The door of the sitting-room was open, and no
answer coming to his knock, he entered.
Delia was standing in the window. Against her will her father had gone
to find a doctor. Gaston would have drawn back if she had not turned
round wearily to him.
Perhaps it were well to get it over now. He came forward. She made no
motion.
"I hope you feel better?" he said. "It was a bad accident."
"I am tired and shaken, of course," she responded. "It was very brave of
you."
He hesitated, then said:
"We were more fortunate than brave."
He was determined to have Andree included. She deserved that; the wrong
to Delia was not hers.
But she answered after the manner of a woman: "The girl--ah, yes, please
thank her for us. What is her name?"
"She is known in Audierne as Madame Belward." The girl started. Her
face had a cold, scornful pride. "The Bretons, then, have a taste for
fiction?"
"No, they speak as they are taught."
"They understand, then, as little as I."
How proud, how ineffaceably superior she was!
"Be ignorant for ever," he answered quietly.
"I do not need the counsel, believe me."
Her hand trembled, though it rested against the window-trembled with
indignation: the insult of his elopement kept beating up her throat in
spite of her.
At that moment a servant knocked, entered, and said that a parcel had
been brought for mademoiselle. It was laid upon the table. Delia,
wondering, ordered it to be opened. A bundle of clothes was disclosed--
Andree's! Gaston recognised them, and caught his breath with wonder and
confusion.
"Who has sent them?" Delia said to the servant. "They come from the
Chateau Ronan, mademoiselle."
Delia dismissed the servant.
"The Chateau Ronan?" she asked of Gaston. "Where I am living."
"It is not necessary to speak of this?" She flushed.
"Not at all. I will have them sent back. There is a little shop near by
where you can get what you may need."
Andree had acted according to her lights. It was not an olive-branch,
but a touch of primitive hospitality. She was Delia's enemy at sight,
but a woman must have linen.
Mr. Gasgoyne entered. Gaston prepared to go. "Is there anything more
that I can do?" he said, as it were, to both.
The girl replied. "Nothing at all, thank you." They did not shake
hands.
Mr. Gasgoyne could not think that all had necessarily ended. The thing
might be patched up one day yet. This affair with the dompteuse was mad
sailing, but the man might round-to suddenly and be no worse for the
escapade.
"We are going early in the morning," he said. "We can get along all
right. Good-bye. When do you come to England?"
The reply was prompt. "In a few weeks."
He looked at both. The girl, seeing that he was going to speak further,
bowed and left the room.
His eyes followed her. After a moment, he said firmly
"Mr. Gasgoyne, I am going to face all."
"To live it down, Belward?"
"I am going to fight it down."
"Well, there's a difference. You have made a mess of things, and shocked
us all. I needn't say what more. It's done, and now you know what such
things mean to a good woman--and, I hope also, to the father of a good
woman."
The man's voice broke a little. He added:
"They used to come to swords or pistols on such points. We can't settle
it in that way. Anyhow, you have handicapped us to-day." Then, with a
burst of reproach, indignation, and trouble: "Great God, as if you hadn't
been the luckiest man on earth! Delia, the estate, the Commons--all for
a dompteuse!"
"Let us say nothing more," said Gaston, choking down wrath at the
reference to Andree, but sorrowful, and pitying Mr. Gasgoyne. Besides,
the man had a right to rail.
Soon after they parted courteously.
Gaston went to the chateau. As he came up the stone steps he met a
procession--it was the feast-day of the Virgin--of priests and people
and little children, filing up from the village and the sea, singing as
they came. He drew up to the wall, stood upon the stone seat, and took
off his hat while the procession passed. He had met the cure, first
accidentally on the shore, and afterwards in the cure's house, finding
much in common--he had known many priests in the North, known much good
of them. The cure glanced up at him now as they passed, and a half-sad
smile crossed his face. Gaston caught it as it passed. The cure read
his case truly enough and gently enough too. In some wise hour he would
plead with Gaston for the woman's soul and his own.
Gaston did not find Andree at the chateau. She had gone out alone
towards the sea, Annette said, by a route at the rear of the village.
He went also, but did not find her. As he came again to the quay he saw
the Kismet beating upon the rocks--the sailors had given up any idea of
saving her. He stood and watched the sea breaking over her, and the
whole scene flashed back on him. He thought how easily he could be
sentimental over the thing. But that was not his nature. He had made
his bed, but he would not lie in it--he would carry it on his back.
They all said that he had gone on the rocks. He laughed.
"I can turn that tide: I can make things come my way," he said. "All
they want is sensation, it isn't morals that concerns them. Well, IT
give them sensation. They expect me to hide, and drop out of the game.
Never--so help me Heaven! I'll play it so they'll forget this!"
He rolled and lighted a cigarette, and went again to the chateau. Dinner
was ready--had been ready for some time. He sat down, and presently
Andree came. There was a look in her face that he could not understand.
They ate their dinner quietly, not mentioning the events of the
afternoon.
Presently a telegram was brought to him. It read: "Come. My office,
Downing Street, Friday. Expect you." It was signed "Faramond." At the
same time came letters: from his grandfather, from Captain Maudsley. The
first was stern, imperious, reproachful.--Shame for those that took him
in and made him, a ruined reputation, a spoiled tradition: he had been
but a heathen after all! There was only left to bid him farewell,
and to enclose a cheque for two thousand pounds.
Captain Maudsley called him a fool, and asked him what he meant to do
--hoped he would give up the woman at once, and come back. He owed
something to his position as Master of the Hounds--a tradition that
oughtn't to be messed about.
There it all was: not a word about radical morality or immorality; but
the tradition of Family, the Commons, Master of the Hounds!
But there was another letter. He did not recognise the handwriting, and
the envelope had a black edge. He turned it over and over, forgetting
that Andree was watching him. Looking up, he caught her eyes, with their
strange, sad look. She guessed what was in these letters. She knew
English well enough to under stand them. He interpreted her look, and
pushed them over.
"You may read them, if you wish; but I wouldn't, if I were you."
She read the telegram first, and asked who "Faramond" was. Then she read
Sir William Belward's letter, and afterwards Captain Maudsley's.
"It has all come at once," she said: "the girl and these! What will you
do? Give 'the woman' up for the honour of the Master of the Hounds?"
The tone was bitter, exasperating. Gaston was patient.
"What do you think, Andree?"
"It has only begun," she said. "Wait, King of Ys. Read that other
letter."
Her eyes were fascinated by the black border. He opened it with a
strange slowness. It began without any form of address, it had the
superscription of a street in Manchester Square:
If you were not in deep trouble I would not write. But because I
know that more hard things than kind will be said by others, I want
to say what is in my heart, which is quick to feel for you. I know
that you have sinned, but I pray for you every day, and I cannot
believe that God will not answer. Oh! think of the wrong that you
have done: of the wrong to the girl, to her soul's good. Think of
that, and right the wrong in so far as you can. Oh, Gaston, my
brother, I need not explain why I write thus. My grandfather,
before he died, three weeks ago, told me that you know!--and I also
have known ever since the day you saved the boy. Ah, think of one
who would give years of her life to see you good and noble and
happy. . . .
Then followed a deep, sincere appeal to his manhood, and afterwards a
wish that their real relations should be made known to the world if he
needed her, or if disaster came; that she might share and comfort his
life, whatever it might be. Then again:
If you love her, and she loves you, and is sorry for what she has
done, marry her and save her from everlasting shame. I am staying
with my grandfather's cousin, the Dean of Dighbury, the father of
the boy you saved. He is very kind, and he knows all. May God
guide you aright, and may you believe that no one speaks more
truthfully to you than your sorrowful and affectionate sister,
ALICE WINGFIELD.
He put the letter down beside him, made a cigarette, and poured out some
coffee for them both. He was holding himself with a tight hand. This
letter had touched him as nothing in his life had done since his father's
death. It had nothing of noblesse oblige, but straight statement of
wrong, as she saw it. And a sister without an open right to the title:
the mere fidelity of blood! His father had brought this sorrowful life
into the world and he had made it more sorrowful--poor little thing--poor
girl!
"What are you going to do?" asked Andree. "Do you go back--with Delia?"
He winced. Yet why should he expect of her too great refinement? She
had not had a chance, she had not the stuff for it in her veins; she had
never been taught. But behind it all was her passion--her love--for him.
"You know that's altogether impossible!" he answered.
"She would not take you back."
"Probably not. She has pride."
"Pride-chat! She'd jump at the chance!"
"That sounds rude, Andree; and it is contradictory."
"Rude! Well, I'm only a gipsy and a dompteuse!"
"Is that all, my girl?"
"That's all, now." Then, with a sudden change and a quick sob: "But I
may be-- Oh, I can't say it, Gaston!" She hid her face for a moment on
his shoulder. "My God!"
He got to his feet. He had not thought of that--of another besides
themselves. He had drifted. A hundred ideas ran back and forth. He
went to the window and stood looking out. Alice's letter was still in
his fingers.
She came and touched his shoulder.
"Are you going to leave me, Gaston? What does that letter say?"
He looked at her kindly, with a protective tenderness.
"Read the letter, Andree," he said.
She did so, at first slowly, then quickly, then over and over again.
He stood motionless in the window. She pushed the letter between his
fingers. He did not turn. "I cannot understand everything, but what she
says she means. Oh, Gaston, what a fool, what a fool you've been!"
After a moment, however, she threw her arms about him with animal-like
fierceness.
"But I can't give you up--I can't." Then, with another of those sudden
changes, she added, with a wild little laugh: "I can't, I can't, O Master
of the Hounds!"
There came a knock at the door. Annette entered with a letter. The
postman had not delivered it on his rounds, because the address was not
correct. It was for madame. Andree took it, started at the handwriting,
tore open the envelope, and read:
Zoug-Zoug congratulates you on the conquest of his nephew. Zoug-
Zoug's name is not George Maur, as you knew him. Allah's blessing,
with Zoug-Zoug's!
What fame you've got now--dompteuse, and the sweet scandal!
The journalist had found out Zoug-Zoug at last, and Ian Belward had
talked with the manager of the menagerie.
Andree shuddered and put the letter in her pocket. Now she understood
why she had shrunk from Gaston that first night and those first days in
Audierne: that strange sixth sense, divination--vague, helpless
prescience. And here, suddenly, she shrank again, but with a different
thought. She hurriedly left the room and went to her chamber.
In a few moments he came to her. She was sitting upright in a chair,
looking straight before her. Her lips were bloodless, her eyes were
burning. He came and took her hands.
"What is it, Andree?" he said. "That letter, what is it?"
She looked at him steadily. "You'll be sorry if you read it." But she
gave it to him. He lighted a candle, put it on a little table, sat down,
and read. The shock went deep; so deep that it made no violent sign on
the surface. He spread the letter out before him. The candle showed his
face gone grey and knotted with misery. He could bear all the rest:
fight, do all that was right to the coming mother of his child; but this
made him sick and dizzy. He felt as he did when he waked up in Labrador,
with his wife's dead lips pressed to his neck. It was strange too that
Andree was as quiet as he: no storm-misery had gone deep with her also.
"Do you care to tell me about it?" he asked.
She sat back in her chair, her hands over her eyes. Presently, still
sitting so, she spoke.
Ian Belward had painted them and their van in the hills of Auvergne, and
had persuaded her to sit for a picture. He had treated her courteously
at first. Her father was taken ill suddenly, and died. She was alone
for a few days afterwards. Ian Belward came to her. Of that miserable,
heart-rending, cruel time,--the life-sorrow of a defenceless girl,--
Gaston heard with a hard sort of coldness. The promised marriage was
a matter for the man's mirth a week later. They came across three young
artists from Paris--Bagshot, Fancourt, and another--who camped one night
beside them. It was then she fully realised the deep shame of her
position. The next night she ran away and joined a travelling menagerie.
The rest he knew. When she had ended there was silence for a time,
broken only by one quick gasping sob from Gaston. The girl sat still
as death, her eyes on him intently.
"Poor Andree! Poor girl!" he said at last. She sighed pitifully.
"What shall we do?" she asked. He scarcely spoke above a whisper:
"There must be time to think. I will go to London."
"You will come back?"
"Yes--in five days, if I live."
"I believe you," she said quietly. "You never lied to me. When you
return we will know what to do." Her manner was strangely quiet.
"A little trading schooner goes from Douarnenez to England to-morrow
morning," she went on. "There is a notice of it in the market-place.
That would save the journey to Paris.'"
"Yes, that will do very well. I will start for Douarnenez at once."
"Will Jacques go too?"
"No."
An hour later he passed Delia and her father on the road to Douarnenez.
He did not recognise them, but Delia, seeing him, shrank away in a corner
of the carriage, trembling.
Jacques had wished to go to London with Gaston, but had been denied. He
was to care for the horses. When he saw his master ride down over the
place, waving a hand back towards him, he came in and said to Andree:
"Madame, there is trouble--I do not know what. But I once said I would
never leave him, wherever he go or whatever he did. Well, I never will
leave him--or you, madame--no."
"That is right, that is right," she said earnestly; "you must never leave
him, Jacques. He is a good man."
When Jacques had gone she shut herself up in her room. She was gathering
all her life into the compass of an hour. She felt but one thing: the
ruin of her happiness and Gaston's.
"He is a good man," she said over and over to herself. And the other--
Ian Belward? All the barbarian in her was alive.
The next morning she started for Paris, saying to Jacques and Annette
that she would return in four days.
CHAPTER XVIII
"RETURN, O SHULAMITE!"
Almost the first person that Gaston recognised in London was Cluny Vosse.
He had been to Victoria Station to see a friend off by the train, and as
he was leaving, Gaston and he recognised each other. The lad's greeting
was a little shy until he saw that Gaston was cool and composed as usual
--in effect, nothing had happened. Cluny was delighted, and opened his
mind:
"They'd kicked up a deuce of a row in the papers, and there'd been no end
of talk; but he didn't see what all the babble was about, and he'd said
so again and again to Lady Dargan."
"And Lady Dargan, Cluny?" asked Gaston quietly. Cluny could not be
dishonest, though he would try hard not to say painful things.
"Well, she was a bit fierce at first--she's a woman, you know; but
afterwards she went like a baby; cried, and wouldn't stay at Cannes any
longer: so we're back in town. We're going down to the country, though,
to-morrow or next day."
"Do you think I had better call, Cluny?" Gaston ventured suggestively.
"Yes, yes, of course," Cluny replied, with great eagerness, as if to
justify the matter to himself. Gaston smiled, said that he might,--
he was only in town for a few days, and dropped Cluny in Pall Mall.
Cluny came running back.
"I say, Belward, things'll come around just as they were before, won't
they? You're going to cut in, and not let 'em walk on you?"
"Yes, I'm 'going to cut in,' Cluny boy." Cluny brightened.
"And of course it isn't all over with Delia, is it?" He blushed.
Gaston reached out and dropped a hand on Cluny's shoulder.
"I'm afraid it is all over, Cluny." Cluny spoke without thinking.
"I say, it's rough on her, isn't it?"
Then he was confused, hurriedly offered Gaston a cigarette, a hasty good-
bye was said, and they parted. Gaston went first to Lord Faramond. He
encountered inquisition, cynical humour, flashes of sympathy, with a
general flavour of reproach. The tradition of the Commons! Ah, one way
only: he must come back alone--alone--and live it down. Fortunately, it
wasn't an intrigue--no matter of divorce--a dompteuse, he believed. It
must end, of course, and he would see what could be done. Such a chance
--such a chance as he had had! Make it up with his grandfather, and
reverse the record--reverse the record: that was the only way. This
meeting must, of course, be strictly between themselves. But he was
really interested for him, for his people, and for the tradition of the
Commons.
"I am Master of the Hounds too," said Gaston dryly. Lord Faramond caught
the meaning, and smiled grimly.
Then came Gaston's decision--he would come back--not to live the thing
down, but to hold his place as long as he could: to fight.
Lord Faramond shrugged a shoulder. "Without her?"
"I cannot say that."
"With her, I can promise nothing--nothing. You cannot fight it so.
No one man is stronger than massed opinion. It is merely a matter of
pressure. No, no; I can promise nothing in that case."
The Premier's face had gone cold and disdainful. Why should a clever
man like Belward be so infatuated? He rose, Gaston thanked him for the
meeting, and was about to go, when the Prime Minister, tapping his
shoulder kindly, said:
"Mr. Belward, you are not playing to the rules of the game." He waved
his hand towards the Chamber of the House. "It is the greatest game in
the world. She must go! Do not reply. You will come back without her
--good-bye!"
Then came Ridley Court. He entered on Sir William and Lady Belward
without announcement. Sir William came to his feet, austere and pale.
Lady Belward's fingers trembled on the lace she held. They looked many
years older. Neither spoke his name, nor did they offer their hands.
Gaston did not wince, he had expected it. He owed these old people
something. They lived according to their lights, they had acted
righteously as by their code, they had used him well--well always.
"Will you hear the whole story?" he said. He felt that it would be best
to tell them all. "Can it do any good?" asked Sir William. He looked
towards his wife.
"Perhaps it is better to hear it," she murmured. She was clinging to a
vague hope.
Gaston told the story plainly, briefly, as he had told his earlier
history. Its concision and simplicity were poignant. From the day he
first saw Andree in the justice's room till the hour when she opened Ian
Belward's letter, his tale went. Then he paused.
"I remember very well," Sir William said, with painful meditation: "a
strange girl, with a remarkable face. You pleaded for her father then.
Ah, yes, an unhappy case!"
"There is more?" asked Lady Belward, leaning on her cane. She seemed
very frail.
Then with a terrible brevity Gaston told them of his uncle, of the letter
to Andree: all, except that Andree was his wife. He had no idea of
sparing Ian Belward now. A groan escaped Lady Belward.
"And now--now, what will you do?" asked the baronet.
"I do not know. I am going back first to Andree." Sir William's face
was ashy.
"Impossible!"
"I promised, and I will go back." Lady Belward's voice quivered:
"Stay, ah, stay, and redeem the past! You can, you can outlive it."
Always the same: live it down!
"It is no use," he answered; "I must return."
Then in a few words he thanked them for all, and bade them good-bye. He
did not offer his hand, nor did they. But at the door he heard Lady
Belward say in a pleading voice:
"Gaston!"
He returned. She held out her hand.
"You must not do as your father did," she said. "Give the woman up,
and come back to us. Am I nothing to you--nothing?"
"Is there no other way?" he asked, gravely, sorrowfully.
She did not reply. He turned to his grandfather. "There is no other
way," said the old man, sternly. Then in a voice almost shrill with pain
and indignation, he cried out as he had never done in his life: "Nothing,
nothing, nothing but disgrace! My God in heaven! a lion-tamer--a gipsy!
An honourable name dragged through the mire! Go back," he said grandly;
"go back to the woman and her lions--savages, savages, savages!"
"Savages after the manner of our forefathers," Gaston answered quietly.
"The first Gaston showed us the way. His wife was a strolling player's
daughter. Good-bye, sir."
Lady Belward's face was in her hands. "Good-bye-grandmother," he said at
the door, and then he was gone.
At the outer door the old housekeeper stepped forward, her gloomy face
most agitated.
"Oh, sir, oh, sir, you will come back again? Oh, don't go like your
father!"
He suddenly threw an arm about her shoulder, and kissed her on the cheek.
"I'll come back--yes I'll come back here--if I can. Good-bye, Hovey."
In the library Sir William and Lady Belward sat silent for a time.
Presently Sir William rose, and walked up and down. He paused at last,
and said, in a strange, hesitating voice, his hands chafing each other:
"I forgot myself, my dear. I fear I was violent. I would like to ask
his pardon. Ah, yes, yes!"
Then he sat down and took her hand, and held it long in the silence.
"It all feels so empty--so empty," she said at last, as the tower-clock
struck hollow on the air.
The old man could not reply, but he drew her close to him, and Hovey,
from the door, saw his tears dropping on her white hair.
Gaston went to Manchester Square. He half dreaded a meeting with Alice,
and yet he wished it. He did not find her. She had gone to Paris with
her uncle, the servant said. He got their address. There was little
left to do but to avoid reporters, two of whom almost forced themselves
in upon him. He was to go back to Douarnenez by the little boat that
brought him, and at seven o'clock in the morning he watched the mists of
England recede.
He chanced to put his hand into a light overcoat which he had got at his
chambers before he started. He drew out a paper, the one discovered in
the solicitor's office in London. It was an ancient deed of entail of
the property, drawn by Sir Gaston Belward, which, through being lost,
was never put into force. He was not sure that it had value. If it had,
all chance of the estate was gone for him; it would be his uncle's.
Well, what did it matter? Yes, it did matter: Andree! For her? No, not
for her. He would play straight. He would take his future as it came:
he would not drop this paper into the water.
He smiled bitterly, got an envelope at a publichouse on the quay, wrote a
few words in pencil on the document, and in a few moments it was on its
way to Sir William Belward, who when he received it said:
"Worthless, quite worthless, but he has an honest mind--an honest mind!"
Meanwhile, Andree was in Paris. Leaving her bag at the Gare
Montparnasse, she had gone straight to Ian Belward's house. She had
lived years in the last few hours. She had had no sleep on the journey,
and her mind had been strained unbearably. It had, however, a fixed
idea, which shuttled in and out in a hundred shapes, but ever pointing to
one end. She had determined on a painful thing--the only way.
She reached the house, and was admitted. In answer to questions, she had
an appointment with monsieur. He was not within. Well, she would wait.
She was motioned into the studio. She was outwardly calm. The servant
presently recognised her. He had been to the menagerie, and he had seen
her with Gaston. His manner changed instantly. Could he do anything?
No, nothing. She was left alone. For a long time she sat motionless,
then a sudden restlessness seized her. Her brain seemed a burning
atmosphere, in which every thought, every thing showed with an unbearable
intensity. The terrible clearness of it all--how it made her eyes, her
heart ache! Her blood was beating hard against every pore. She felt
that she would go mad if he did not come. Once she took out the stiletto
she had concealed in the bosom of her cloak, and looked at it. She had
always carried it when among the beasts at the menagerie, but had never
yet used it.
Time passed. She felt ill; she became blind with pain. Presently the
servant entered with a telegram. His master would not be back until the
next morning.
Very well, she would return in the morning. She gave him money. He was
not to say that she had called. In the Boulevard Montparnasse she took a
cab. To the menagerie, she said to the driver. How strange it all
looked: the Invalides, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la
Concorde! The innumerable lights were so near and yet so far: it was a
kink of the brain, but she seemed withdrawn from them, not they from her.
A woman passed with a baby in her arms. The light from a kiosk fell on
it as she passed. What a pretty, sweet face it had. Why did it not have
a pretty, delicate Breton cap? As she went on, that kept beating in her
brain--why did not the child wear a dainty Breton cap--a white Breton
cap? The face kept peeping from behind the lights--without the dainty
Breton cap.
The menagerie at last. She dismissed the cab, went to a little door at
the back of the building, and knocked. She was admitted. The care-taker
exclaimed with pleasure. She wished to visit the animals? He would go
with her; and he picked up a light. No, she would go alone. How were
Hector and Balzac, and Antoinette? She took the keys. How cool and
pleasant they were to the touch! The steel of the lantern too--how
exquisitely soothing! He must lie down again: she would wake him as she
came out. No, no, she would go alone.
She went to cage after cage. At last to that of the largest lions.
There was a deep answering purr to her soft call. As she entered, she
saw a heap moving in one corner--a lion lately bought. She spoke, and
there was an angry growl. She wheeled to leave the cage, but her cloak
caught the door, and it snapped shut.
Too late. A blow brought her to the ground. She had made no cry, and
now she lay so still!
The watchman had fallen asleep again. In the early morning he
remembered. The greyish golden dawn was creeping in, when he found her
with two lions protecting, keeping guard over her, while another crouched
snarling in a corner. There was no mark on her face.
The point of the stiletto which she had carried in her cloak had pierced
her when she fell.
In a hotel near the Arc de Triomphe Alice Wingfield read the news.
It was she who tenderly prepared the body for burial, who telegraphed to
Gaston at Audierne, getting a reply from Jacques that he was not yet back
from London. The next day Andree was found a quiet place in the cemetery
at Montmartre.
In the evening Alice and her relative started for Audierne.
.........................
On board the Fleur d'Orange Gaston struggled with the problem. There was
one thought ever coming. He shut it out at this point, and it crept in
at that. He remembered when two men, old friends, discovered that one,
unknowingly, had been living with the wife of the other. There was one
too many--the situation was impossible. The men played a game of cards
to see which should die. But they did not reckon with the other factor.
It was the woman who died.
Was not his own situation far worse? With his uncle living--but no,
no, it was out of the question! Yet Ian Belward had been shameless,
a sensualist, who had wrecked the girl's happiness and his. He himself
had done a mad thing in the eyes of the world, but it was more mad than
wicked. Had this happened in the North with another man, how easily
would the problem have been solved!
Go to his uncle and tell him that he must remove himself for ever from
the situation? Demand it, force it? Impossible--this was Europe.
They arrived at Douarnenez. The diligence had gone. A fishing-boat was
starting for Audierne. He decided to go by it. Breton fishermen are
usually shy of storm to foolishness, and one or two of the crew urged the
drunken skipper not to start, for there were signs of a south-west wind,
too friendly to the Bay des Trepasses. The skipper was, however,
cheerfully reckless, and growled down objection.
The boat came on with a sweet wind off the land for a time. Suddenly,
when in the neighbourhood of Point du Raz, the wind drew ahead very
squally, with rain in gusts out of the south-west. The skipper put the
boat on the starboard tack, close-hauled and close-reefed the sails,
keeping as near the wind as possible, with the hope of weathering the
rocky point at the western extremity of the Bay des Trepasses. By that
time there was a heavy sea running; night came on, and the weather grew
very thick. They heard the breakers presently, but they could not make
out the Point. Old sailor as he was, and knowing as well as any man the
perilous ground, the skipper lost his drunken head this time, and
presently lost his way also in the dark and murk of the storm.
At eight o'clock she struck. She was thrown on her side, a heavy sea
broke over her, and they were all washed off. No one raised a cry. They
were busy fighting Death.
Gaston was a strong swimmer. It did not occur to him that perhaps this
was the easiest way out of the maze. He had ever been a fighter. The
seas tossed him here and there. He saw faces about him for an instant--
shaggy wild Breton faces--but they dropped away, he knew not where. The
current kept driving him inshore. As in a dream, he could hear the
breakers--the pumas on their tread-mill of death. How long would it
last? How long before he would be beaten upon that tread-mill--fondled
to death by those mad paws? Presently dreams came-kind, vague, distant
dreams. His brain flew like a drunken dove to far points of the world
and back again. A moment it rested. Andree! He had made no provision
for her, none at all. He must live, he must fight on for her, the
homeless girl, his wife.
He fought on and on. No longer in the water, as it seemed to him. He
had travelled very far. He heard the clash of sabres, the distant roar
of cannon, the beating of horses' hoofs--the thud-thud, tread-tread of an
army. How reckless and wild it was! He stretched up his arm to strike-
what was it? Something hard that bruised: then his whole body was dashed
against the thing. He was back again, awake. With a last effort he drew
himself up on a huge rock that stands lonely in the wash of the bay.
Then he cried out, "Andree!" and fell senseless--safe.
The storm went down. The cold, fast-travelling moon came out, saw the
one living thing in that wild bay, and hurried on into the dark again;
but came and went so till morning, playing hide-and-seek with the man and
his Ararat.
Daylight saw him, wet, haggard, broken, looking out over the waste of
shaken water. Upon the shore glared the stone of the vanished City of Ys
in the warm sun, and the fierce pumas trod their grumbling way. Sea-
gulls flew about the quiet set figure, in whose brooding eyes there were
at once despair and salvation.
He was standing between two worlds. He had had his great crisis, and his
wounded soul rested for a moment ere he ventured out upon the highways
again. He knew not how it was, but there had passed into him the dignity
of sorrow and the joy of deliverance at the same time. He saw life's
responsibilities clearer, duties swam grandly before him. It was a large
dream, in which, for the time, he was not conscious of those troubles
which, yesterday, had clenched his hands and knotted his forehead. He
had come a step higher in the way of life, and into his spirit had flowed
a new and sobered power. His heart was sore, but his mind was lifted up.
The fatal wrangle of the pumas there below, the sound of it, would be in
his ears for ever, but he had come above it; the searching vigour of the
sun entered into his bones.
He knew that he was going back to England--to ample work and strong days,
but he did not know that he was going alone. He did not know that Andree
was gone forever; that she had found her true place: in his undying
memory.
So intent was he, that at first he did not see a boat making into the bay
towards him.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
Clever men are trying
He had no instinct for vice in the name of amusement
What a nice mob you press fellows are--wholesale scavengers
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