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Title: The show girl
Author: Max Pemberton
Illustrator: Cyrus Cuneo
Release date: June 29, 2026 [eBook #78976]
Language: English
Original publication: Philadelphia: The John C. Winston Company, 1909
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78976
Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SHOW GIRL ***
[Illustration: “Her eye caught mine, and she ceased to dance.”]
THE
SHOW GIRL
BY
MAX PEMBERTON
Author of
“The Garden of Swords,”
“Sir Richard Escombe,” etc.
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA
[COPYRIGHT]
Copyright 1909
by Max Pemberton
Copyright 1908
by Max Pemberton
All Rights Reserved according to
the Copyright Laws of the
United States and Great Britain
[DEDICATION]
To
James Gordon Bennett
Hommage Reconnaissant
CONTENTS
1. Being a letter from Henry Gastonard, of the Maison du bon Tabac at
Paris, to his friend Paddy O’Connell, of Glendalough, County Wicklow
2. The response of Paddy O’Connell, of Glendalough, County Wicklow, to
his friend, Henry Gastonard, of the Maison du bon Tabac at Paris
3. A letter from the same brief author addressed to the Reverend
Arthur Warrington, of Beldon, Suffolk
4. Henry Gastonard continues the story in a letter to his friend Paddy
O’Connell
5. Henry Gastonard writes to Paddy O’Connell telling him the story of
a dinner and a challenge
6. Being a telegram from Paddy O’Connell to his friend, Henry
Gastonard
7. A letter from the Rev. Arthur Warrington, of Beldon, Suffolk, to
Mrs. Arthur Warrington at Porchester Terrace, Bayswater
8. In which Paddy O’Connell, of Glendalough, writes to his sister
Clara a full account of the duel between Henry Gastonard and the
Captain Bernard d’Alençon
9. Being a further instalment of the story from the pen of Paddy
O’Connell
10. Henry Gastonard writes to Paddy O’Connell a letter concerning his
search for Mimi the Simpleton
11. Henry Gastonard informs Paddy O’Connell of his probable return to
London
12. Henry Gastonard tells of a visit to his cousin, the Rev. Arthur
Warrington, at Lowestoft
13. The Reverend Arthur Warrington writes in all haste to his
Solicitor, Mr. James Frogg, of Serjeant’s Inn, Strand
14. Paddy O’Connell apologises for his silence
15. “The Chimes” at Yarmouth, and what Henry Gastonard learned of them
16. Henry Gastonard gives a further account of his meeting with Mimi
the Simpleton
17. Paddy O’Connell lays down the law
18. In which we hear something of the Pageant at Lowestoft
19. In which we translate a letter from Henry Gastonard, of the Maison
du bon Tabac, at Hampstead, to Mimi the Simpleton, at Felixstowe
20. In which Mimi replies to Monsieur Henry
21. Being a telegram from Henry Gastonard to his friend Paddy
O’Connell, of Glendalough
22. Being a reply from Paddy O’Connell to Henry Gastonard’s telegram
23. Paddy O’Connell shares the news with his sister Clara
24. In which Henry Gastonard keeps his promise to Martha Warrington
25. Containing certain instructions to M. Jules Farman, ex-agent of
police at 4 (bis), Rue de Quatre Septembre, Paris
26. Madame Mimi writes a letter to Paddy O’Connell
27. Paddy O’Connell replies to Mimi’s letter
28. The same author addresses Henry Gastonard at the Hotel Metropole,
Brighton
29. Henry Gastonard makes an urgent appeal to Jules Farman, of the Rue
de Quatre Septembre, Paris
30. Jules Farman sends to Henry Gastonard some account of his
stewardship
31. Henry Gastonard sends Paddy O’Connell some account of his labours
in Paris
32. In which Paddy O’Connell advised his friend Harry to pay a visit
33. The Reverend Arthur Warrington thanks Paddy O’Connell for services
rendered
34. Henry Gastonard tells Paddy O’Connell of his visit to Madame Lea
35. We meet the Marquis de Saint Faur and another old friend
36. Paddy O’Connell writes a brief letter from Jack Straw’s Castle at
Hampstead
37. In which we hear of Henry Gastonard at the Pavilion Henry Quatre,
in the town of St. Germain by Paris
38. The Reverend Arthur Warrington rebukes his wife, Martha
Warrington, upon a trivial account
39. We hear of Paddy O’Connell in a letter to Martha Warrington at
Cambridge
40. A brief note from Jules Farman, in Paris, to Henry Gastonard, at
St. Germain
41. In which Henry Gastonard receives a summons from the Marquis de
Saint Faur
42. Paddy O’Connell hears that he may leave London, and is invited to
take the first train to Paris
43. Martha Warrington, being returned to her home, receives there a
letter from the Château of Bougival
44. Mr. James Frogg, of Serjeant’s Inn, receives an unexpected answer
to an expectant letter
45. Mr. James Frogg, of Serjeant’s Inn, passes on the unpleasant news
to the Reverend Arthur Warrington, of Beldon, Suffolk
46. The Reverend Arthur Warrington receives the news and makes some
complaint of it
47. Paddy O’Connell informs his sister Clara that he is detained in
London upon business of some importance
48. In which Henry Gastonard hears of Jules Farman again, and of the
criminal known as Bedotte the valet
49. Madame Lea d’Alençon has really nothing to say; but she says it
charmingly as ever
50. Mimi the Simpleton writes a brief note to Madame the Princess
Hélène of Ilidze and we translate it
51. Mimi and Harry write to Paddy and advise him of their approaching
visit to Ireland
THE SHOW GIRL
CHAPTER I.
[Being a letter from Henry Gastonard of the Maison du bon Tabac at
Paris to his friend Paddy O’Connell of Glendalough, County Wicklow.]
Maison du bon Tabac,
May 15th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--You will have seen it in the papers, if papers still
cross the pass to those ancient halls which enshroud the immortal
glories of the clan O’Connell--but, my dear Paddy, you will have
little idea of its meaning or be as far from the truth of it as Paul
Delmet from a parson’s cassock or the Chevalier Honoré de Villefort
from the castles in Spain which the entirely disinterested Baroness
has lately bequeathed to him.
I can hear your comments, your wisdom, can imagine your displeasure.
What--a man who should be riding his hack in the Row, putting a yacht
into commission at Cowes--or at the worst buying a thousand guinea
motor-car to carry his friends from their creditors--this man living
in a hovel at Montmartre, spending his money upon chansonniers,
grisettes, cocottes and all that paste-board riff-raff which has made
the Quat-Z-Arts famous wherever the American language is not spoken.
This is what you say, my dear Paddy--this is what my beloved cousin
Arthur is saying when he tells himself that in twelve months’ time the
curtain falls upon the play, and he, the patron, walks off with the
proceeds.
Be sure that I forget this unpleasant truth whenever life will permit
me to do so. The thought for to-morrow is not often the spectre at the
feasts over which Marcelle presides, nor one which Mimi La
Godiche--which is to say Mimi the Simpleton--long permits to remain in
heads as empty as her own. I am to lose my fortune of seven thousand
pounds a year if, at the mature age of twenty-five, I am not earning
five hundred pounds a year by my own labour and talent. So be it,
Paddy. Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we will dine. This fortune
may carry some little sunshine even to the benighted halls of the
Agile Wolf. I make no complaint of destiny--nor of Mimi La Godiche,
whose friends robbed me of a trumpery cigarette-box which is again
upon my table while I write this letter.
I say that I make no complaint of destiny--why should I? Let me but
open this window, upon which Gabriel de Math has drawn in the best
French chalk an impassioned sketch of an empty champagne bottle--let
me but open it and the world is at my feet--Paris of the golden domes,
Paris of the dark eyes and the meaner streets--a great black Paris, a
Paris of woods and gardens and river, of the mills which grind the
grisettes’ corn, of the hives whence issue the noctambules and night
hawks, whose prey has gossamer wings of greenbacks, whose morrow is
never because of the eternal to-day. All this lies in the great bowl
before me. I pour my fortune into the abyss and they strive for it far
below, in a glitter of brass and spangles, in a flutter of white
petticoats and silken hose and shirt fronts which would be better at
the laundry. But none knows the truth--I am the mad Englishman who
neither paints nor plays. And I am as poor as the rest of them--and
God knows how poor that is.
So, you see, Paddy, I have my consolations, and among others, as the
papers have told you, the friendship of Mimi La Godiche. What a fine
old cardboard tragedy they have made of it all! Did I not sally forth
at midnight, armed with a blunderbuss and a scimitar to cut down the
apaches who lurk beneath the shadow of la Galette? Did I not enter a
café which the police are afraid to enter? and did not these strong
hands drag therefrom the brave _fille_ who had returned my stolen
diamonds to me and was in danger because of her honesty? News “fitting
to the night,” upon my word, “black, fearful, comfortless and
horrible.” Would for the sake of this Hector that it were the truth
and nothing but the truth--but, my dear Paddy, there’s little of the
truth in it at all, as these indentures shall bear witness. It’s as
false as Fifine of the Alcazar, and not half as pretty.
You will remember that I have known Mimi La Godiche for some three
months now. She is a pretty, round-limbed blonde, with a mop of
tousled hair, eyes full of “fair speechless messages,” the reticence
of Cleopatra, the youth of Cupid, the devilry of the whole Rue
Champollion in the shape of her bewitching neck.
I saw her first at the Fête de Neuilly. She stood upon a platform
with a strong man, a juggler and a clown; and when she sang I
determined that she should come to the Quat-Z-Arts and sing to the
Bohemians of the Butte. Montmartre gave her the cold shoulder. Can you
wonder that an audience which has heard Odette Dulac sing “Je suis
Bête” should decline to hear Mimi La Godiche warble “Toujours
l’amour,” in a dress that makes her look like a kitchen-maid and a
voice that would befit a Sunday-school? She came, she saw, she did not
conquer. I offered to send her back to the lion-tamer, who is to her
father, mother, uncle and brother--she declined the invitation,
preferring to sit to Desmond Barrymore, the American, and not a little
delighted to earn her bread at so light a task.
Now, my dear Paddy, you must tell me, for by all the kingdoms of the
grisettes, I swear that I do not know what my obligations to this waif
and stray may be. Must I pose as the philanthropist of the books, and
send her to a convent at Brussels or a finishing school at Brighton?
Should I plod patiently beneath a soiled genealogical tree to discover
if, in some remote slum of Paris, Lyons, or Marseilles, there may not
be living a venerable kinswoman, perhaps newly released from prison,
who will harbour her? Or shall I remember that the devil knows his own
and will not forget her?
I cannot tell you. She is earning an honest living with Desmond
Barrymore, and will come to no harm there. Life and laughter and the
light of cities are her whole existence. And imagine the talk of the
Rue Pigalle repeated in the cloister or the argot Montmartrois at
church parade in that “fayre town of Brighton!” It can’t be done,
Paddy. I am the victim of my own enthusiasm, and Mimi will return to
her lion-tamer no more.
Meanwhile, there are the thieves. The papers have told you that I, a
young English student, studying the sculptor’s art in the great
ateliers of Montmartre, was robbed at the Quat-Z-Arts Ball of a gold
and diamond cigarette-case worth a hundred pounds. At the best it is a
half truth--at the worst an ignorant lie.
None knows better than yourself, Paddy, the deserved fame of the
Quat-Z-Arts Ball. Here America does not come, nor Sir Lord Moneybags
enter. There is no ticket more prized in all Paris than a ticket for
the Quat-Z-Arts; there is not a festivity in any ballroom in Europe
more decently conducted for those who see eye to eye with these
Bohemians of the Butte, and understand them. True, Venus in many
shapes rides sky-high upon the gilded floats; you sup upon the floor
from the contents of paper bags thrown down to you from the galleries
above; but of the vulgar things to be done in London or New York by
those who are merely vulgarian, you do none at all. So, my dear Paddy,
I certainly did not lose my pretty cigarette-case (given to me, you
remember, by old Bardon, the banker, for dragging his beloved
“cheeild” from the Solent) at the Quat-Z-Arts Ball; nor would anyone
outside a lunatic asylum puzzle his head to say where I did lose it.
Perhaps it was in a cab on my way to the Abbaye de Thélème, that
sordid supper-house of the Butte, to which one resorts in sheer
despair of sleep and solitude; perhaps later on at the Capitol, to
which, I remember, Mistress Mimi would be conducted with Amé Decroix,
the poet; Honoré de Villefort, the Chevalier; and that bald-headed
old rogue of a perpetual mendicant, Georges Oleander, who writes the
revues. I neither know nor care; for my memories are of a night of
life, and colour, and music; of a scene glittering with dresses and
the pictures that great artists have given to their fellows--of music
which should have moved the feet of every dancing faun that ever trod
a pedestal--of wit and laughter, the veritable _elixir vitæ_.
This is no psalm-singing screed that I write to you, Paddy, nor are
you the man for the pæans of self-righteousness. I will confess
without shame to certain _bons moments_. Though I am not, and never
have been, the lover of Mimi La Godiche, there have been instants of
the madness in which I have played a madman’s part.
But Mimi neither misunderstands me nor is misled. Did I but drop the
shabbiest of handkerchiefs, she would become my mistress to-morrow;
but I have no intention of soiling fine linen in this way, nor do I
contemplate such a charming _ménage_ as she would certainly disgrace.
When I embraced her at the Quat-Z-Arts, the floats of my Lady Venus
were already sky-high and the parquet a sea of billowy chiffon--but I
did not do so to give her an opportunity of stealing my cigarette-case
(as that old blackguard Georges Oleander will have it), nor will all
the _avocats_ in Paris convince me that this was the moment of my
loss. No, my dear friend, it was at the Abbaye, I repeat, and if not
at the Abbaye, then at the Capitol.
I am asking you to keep this fact in mind that what follows after may
be better understood. You know me too well to suppose that I would
have cried to high Heaven for the loss of a twopenny-halfpenny diamond
box, or even be complaining of it to any man. But it was my misfortune
to be asked for a cigarette out of that same by the prince and father
of all beggars, Maître Georges Oleander aforesaid, and so, in a
moment of surprise, I discovered the loss.
What next is the tale, Paddy? You will guess it first time--that Mimi
La Godiche had thrown her fair arms about me, not in an ecstasy of
love or passion, but purely to pocket the case and enjoy the contents
at her leisure. This I had from the Chevalier Villefort not a week
ago. On Sunday I learned for the first time the true value of a
mendacious tongue and what it may mean even here on the “mountain”
whence you look down upon the domes of Paris.
The scandal was everywhere. Remember that there is in Montmartre a
great colony of artists, musicians and writers, not less honest, not
less clean-living than the inhabitants of many a sanctimonious town in
the country of your oppressor. These may esteem the marriage-tie
lightly; but they hold love to be a sacred thing, and they would no
more think of robbing their neighbour than of shooting the Pope.
These had been good friends to Mimi La Godiche because of my
patronage. But no sooner is the black word spoken than every door is
shut upon her, skirts drawn aside, tables shifted, slander uttered in
no mere whisper. They recalled her coming--the strong man of the Fête
de Neuilly, the clown, the tights, the van, the vagrant’s life. A
little more of it and they would have pushed her headlong over to the
great congregation of grisettes, maquereaux and night-hawks who throng
the cabarets of the Butte. In short, my dear Paddy, they would have
made a criminal and something worse of her--and you know what that
would mean among the savages of Montmartre. Let me tell you next how I
have come to save her from such a fate--if it be but for the
moment--for, as Richter has told us, woman is the most inconsistent
compound of obstinacy and self-sacrifice with which we are acquainted.
I have saved her. She is in this very room while I am writing this
letter; but, Paddy, if she were to walk a hundred yards down the alley
which has the honour to house me I would not answer for her life.
To make this clear, let me return to the Sunday after “the crime” and
to my own recreation upon that innocent day. A morning with Sabine
Monterey and old Villefort upon the Seine at Poissy; lunch in a frock
coat and glory with Lea d’Alençon at her apartment in the Avenue de
Malakoff; then to Longchamp; a little dinner at Armenonville, and
afterwards the long journey home, the steep climb to the Butte and the
card-box house which permits me to look down upon the sails of La
Galette.
Why I went so far that Sunday night I cannot tell you. There is still
my apartment in the Hôtel St. Paul open to me when I would return to
civilisation. But I think the amorous Lea had put thoughts of Mimi
into my head, and, wondering if all were well with her, I returned to
the Maison du bon Tabac and to my bed. Ten minutes after I had entered
the house, came Chocolat, the messenger from the old Café of the
Assassins, knocking as the devil knocked on old Luther’s door at
Weimar. Then I knew that all was not well with Mimi, and down I went,
the black man upon my heels, vainly endeavouring in three languages to
tell me what had happened.
What a jargon it was, what a medley of all the elusive argot of the
cabarets! This much alone was clear--that Mimi La Godiche had got
somehow into the Café of the Assassins (they call it the Lapin Agil
to-day), and that if I did not get her out she certainly would be
murdered.
True, there was a _cipi_, or municipal guard, to protect her from the
immediate fury of her friends; but these would force her presently to
the pavement, and then God help her! So much Chocolat, the messenger,
declared as we hurried down the alley, passed Cerberus at the gate
thereof, and plunged into the darkness of the labyrinth below. I could
save Mimi La Godiche--the _patron_ wished it; madame, his wife, was of
like opinion. The danger lay in the alleys--not in any house, and
certainly not at the famous cabaret of the Agile Wolf. Upon this point
Chocolat was emphatic. They could look after their own--the streets
were another affair.
Well, I reached the place at last, after as unpleasant a descent as
ever led to Avernus, and entered the café just upon the stroke of
midnight.
You know the place; the dirty courtyard before it; the rude benches in
the shed that serves for a concert-room; the horrid unshaven faces of
men who wear the mask of death; the savage ferocity in the women’s
eyes. Of course, there are lights enough; lights and a rousing piano,
and a chansonnier who lisps things we should be very sorry to repeat
to-morrow. The fellow was singing nothing more virile than “Monsieur
le Curé” when I came in, and, to be candid, not a soul there paid me
a sou’s worth of attention. Remember that I was unknown in these
places except as a poor devil of a sculptor trying to singe his wings
in the candle of ambition. This reputation has been my protection
hitherto, alike at the Maison du bon Tabac and in the alleys of the
Butte.
Here at the Lapin Agil I must lose it, finally and irreparably, as all
the omens seem to say--and losing it, have no longer a home upon the
Butte of Montmartre.
De Courcy was singing when I entered the cabaret, and a bald-headed
old man with a chalk-faced child, who should have been his daughter,
appeared the only claque which the performer commanded. Little Mimi La
Godiche I spied out at once, sitting at a table with a huge ruffian
they call the Mount upon the one side and Desmond Barrymore upon the
other. I was glad to see Desmond there, and pushed my way over to him.
Across the room there stood a company of as savage an appearance as
any defender of the Café des Assassins might desire--squat, burly,
black-eyed brigands, fearful women, girls who saw the sun rise every
day but rarely had seen it set. These were watching Mimi and the Mount
as though the whole drama moved about them. Desmond Barrymore,
however, did not appear to know what it was all about, and told me so
immediately.
“The man says he’s robbed,” he explained--pointing to the Mount with
the stump of a tattered cigarette. “I guess he’s dreaming. Come right
in, Henry, and help me to put the fear of God into him.”
He made way for me upon the bench, and I sat down and began to ask
Mimi about it. Her cheeks have not much colour in a common way, but
they were now a beautiful crimson and there was light enough in her
eyes to set the café on fire.
“What’s up, Mimi?” I asked her. “Why did you send Chocolat barking to
my door?”
She kicked a pair of fat legs against the bench, and, leaning back,
she laughed in the ruffian’s face as he bent down to catch her answer.
“_Ah, mes enfants_,” she cried, imitating the inimitable Georges
Tiercy in his famous song. “_Ah, mes enfants--ce cochon de
Jean-le-Mont a une écrevisse dans le vol-au-vent_”--and by that she
meant (for the line is already grown grey) that the fellow who
pestered her had a bee in his bonnet.
“How did you come here?” I asked her.
“In the automobile of Monsieur le Comte de Pigalle.”
They laughed at this, for I need not tell you, Paddy, that the Rue
Pigalle does not boast its Count, and that an automobile which could
climb the Butte might set out to-morrow to vanquish Mont Blanc.
“No, nonsense. Mimi… there has been a row. What is it all about?”
Barrymore intervened, jerking a fine fat thumb towards the ruffian.
“The fellow says she robbed him.”
“Of what, Barrymore?”
“Of a cigarette-case set in diamonds.”
Again the café roared with laughter. A cigarette-case set with
diamonds at the Lapin Agil! Oh, famous treasure! I, of course, knew
the truth in an instant. Mimi La Godiche had stolen my property from
the man who stole it from me.
“What do you say to that, Mimi?”
She looked at me as a child in wonder--never was there a cleverer
little actress or one with a cooler head.
“Do not be foolish, Monsieur Henry (_ne faites pas des bêtises_), I
only smoke a pipe.”
“And you, my friend?”--this to the ruffian they call the Mount.
But he flinched at the question, and drained a glass of filthy liquor
before he answered it.
“She stole the box. Do I steal with my own hands? No, monsieur, but
the she-cats of Paris could rob the Bourse. I was walking to my seat
when she pushed against me. Ask the ‘cipi’ if it is not true? I will
have her searched, I tell you… she shall give me back my property!”
“Your property, good man! Do you carry cigarette boxes set in
diamonds?”
“Monsieur, I am an honest man--this property was lost in Paris, and I
would restore it to its rightful owner.”
“Then you will restore it to me immediately, for it is mine and was
lost at the Quat-Z-Arts Ball, as you very well know.”
Well, Paddy, this took him by the heels, so to speak, and laid him
upon his back. I had been careful not to advertise the case, fearing a
reputation for riches among the apaches of the Butte; but the cat was
out of the bag this time and every ear intent. As for the ruffian, he
was floored for the moment; but he recovered a second wind of argument
presently, and, being both drunk and querulous, was by no means done
with.
“It is an affair for the police,” he exclaimed, lurching as he sat,
and bringing his fist down with a smashing blow upon the table. “Ask
the ‘cipi’--she must go with me to the police-station and take the
affair there. I am an honest man and I will not be robbed. You say
that this is your case, monsieur--well, prove so much to the police
and I shall have no more to say. But you shall prove it--I will make
you, I, Jean-le-Mont--hear that, monsieur--I will make you prove it!”
He stretched an arm across the table and pulled the lappet of my coat
with clumsy vigour. I saw that an uproar was at hand, but determined
to keep my temper as long as possible. Big as Desmond Barrymore and I
are, we were no match for the black company upon the opposite side of
the room--and there was a magazine which any foolish word might fire
in an instant. So it was necessary to temporise and, above all things,
to keep the mob quiet; in which endeavour I called for a bottle of
wine and some cigars, and affected to make light of the fellow’s
impudence.
“You are talking nonsense,” I said. “My case had my name inside it--we
can easily prove that. Drink a glass of wine with me and then come to
the station. What’s the hurry about? We sha’n’t run away, and I don’t
suppose you have any engagement. Now, isn’t that a fair offer,
monsieur?”
He muttered something, I know not what, and sank back to glower at the
waiter Juno, who snapped the cork from a bottle and set it before me.
Mimi, I observed, was still smiling; Desmond Barrymore playing with
his cigarette as a man over-anxious, but not afraid. As for the
_canaille_ opposite, I perceived its hesitation, and did not fail to
take its meaning. There could be no brawl permitted in the cabaret,
but there might very well be a pretty affair outside. In a word, they
waited for us to go, each believing that he or she would shortly
become the possessor of a gold cigarette-case set with diamonds. This
was the state of the game when the man they call Jean-le-Mont spoiled
everything by a premature declaration of hostilities, both unexpected
and maladroit. For what should he do but lurch to his feet, catch Mimi
by both her slim arms, and begin to hug her like a bear; while he did
not cease to shower upon her that unnameable abuse in common use upon
the Butte.
Now, this was very unexpected, Paddy, and left the “backs” rather
nonplussed. A table stood between the pair--bottle and glasses had
already gone crash to the floor. Had I struck at the man immediately,
I might have hit Mimi, and done her a mischief; it was impossible to
get at the fellow’s legs or to secure so firm a grip upon his arms as
would open them and release his prey. Luckily, Desmond is a man of
some wit, and did not fail me. I saw him watching the pair with a
droll expression upon his face; then he calmly put his cigarette under
the giant’s nose, and held it there until the fellow turned upon him
savagely and struck a Triton’s blow. Before he could repeat it I had
laid him on the floor with a counter that Molt of Cambridge taught me;
and you could count the minutes before he rose again.
Forgive me, Paddy, for thrusting upon you this plain tale of a tavern
brawl. The papers have a “piece” about it, and that is my excuse. It
will also permit you to understand the new _rôle_ in which I find
myself--that of brother, uncle, guardian, foster-father, tutor, friend
to a tousled-haired nymph of the slums, for whom now I am solely
responsible.
Admittedly, there has been some personal humiliation before this was
arrived at. Your ready mind will depict the scene in the cabaret after
that Jean-le-Mont lay upon the floor, and the “_cipi_” drew his sword
and bawled murder. Upon my life, I thought the three of us were done
for. The cries, the fierce oaths, the looks, the words of them! And
then upon it all, the enraged _patron_ forcing us all to the street,
swearing that he would have no murder in his house; which, my dear
Paddy, remembering that it used to be the Café of the Assassins, you
must admit to be both illogical and disloyal.
He said that we should go, and go it seemed we must. The place was in
an uproar now; the steep street very soon became a pandemonium. I knew
that the apaches were out, and I would tell you what I would tell no
other man alive, that I had the fear of God in me down to my very
toes.
And what of this waif and stray, Mimi La Godiche, who had my
cigarette-case upon her, and must, but for our protection, jostle with
the ravening wolves at the door? I had never understood the child, and
I understood her less in that moment--for there she was smiling still,
or, stooping, as her trick was, to smooth her short dress over her
knees; now bursting into laughter; now saying, “_Ah, mes enfants_,” in
that tone inimitable of the cabaret. And the ruffian at her feet had
drawn a knife long enough to cut up the beef at Smithfield. Oh, my
dear Paddy, what a harvest of the green years as Jehan Rictus would
paint them for us in those immortal verses which my countrymen so
rarely understand!
This babel of sounds endured five full and dreadful minutes, I
suppose, during which time the ladies of the company lost no time in
emptying the glasses of the gentlemen, and the gentlemen in picking
the pockets of the ladies. When it became clear that we must go or
face an enraged _patron_ and three of the prettiest bullies in
Montmartre, I whispered a word to Desmond to stand all close until we
reached the street, and then to go as calmly and with as little
concern as might be toward my box of a house upon the height.
Granted that this was the uninventive hope of a man who certainly
believed he would find a knife in him shortly; but, Paddy, what better
plan could you have named, or by what road did wisdom lie?
We had to go out into that darkness of the gutter, where the wolves
were waiting, and to go upon the instant. No excuse, no entreaty
seemed to modify the temper of the ruffian, who feared the police, and
would have none of us. For my part, I preferred the unknown dangers of
the pavement to the clubs of Chocolat and the _patron_; and, although
a scene in Thiers recurred to me, when the prisoners from the Abbey
were driven forth to slaughter in those fateful September massacres, I
chose to whistle one of Legay’s songs rather than to recite it. Then,
putting my arm about Mistress Mimi’s waist, I dragged her from the
place, and went pell-mell to the fray. Eheu, Paddy, what a moment to
live! what a pretty episode in the life of a young gentleman come to
Paris to study the sculptor’s art!
We were in the thick of it, then, and no mistake at all about the
matter. Fifty at least of the choicest blackguards of the Butte waited
in the alley and swarmed about us instantly. I felt their hands all
over me like mice upon a sack of corn. One rogue thrust his great
fingers into my waistcoat pocket, and had the satisfaction of taking
therefrom an American time-piece of the value of three shillings and
sixpence; another robbed me of a wooden pencil in a tin case; a third
of a couple of five-franc pieces and some small change. This plunder
was far from being what they wanted. Just as the vultures loom
mysteriously upon the horizon when a man sits down to die by the
wayside, so did they appear at this talk of gold and diamonds.
Had there been but two or three there gathered together, I don’t doubt
they would have dealt with us as men deal with chickens at Easter; but
their very numbers defeated a set purpose, and the lights of the
cabaret forbade a murder. For a little while we swayed about as a ship
caught in a vortex; the lamps shone down upon faces besotten with
drink or fired by greed; I could see the room behind us, the figure of
the _patron_, who still gesticulated, the gaunt form of Jean-le-Mont,
now risen to his feet; and it seemed to me to take the place of a
pleasant harbour one had quitted in despair. Then I think a ruffian
tried to pull me down from behind; but the press was too close, and I
caught his hand in mine and went near to breaking his wrist. This was
a mistake, for he also possessed a knife, and drew it, and it needed
an iron hand upon his throat to silence him.
I am going deeper than I meant into these police-court news, Paddy,
chiefly that you may understand my present difficulty with Mimi La
Godiche. Let me tell you that when the fun really began, when fists
were busy and hats were flying down the Butte, when the women shrieked
and fled and the men called upon their fellows to make an end of us, I
discovered that she had friends, even among such as these, that she
could call them by their gutter-names and that they would answer her.
It may be that many of them hung back just because it was Mimi of the
booths and the _fêtes foraines_, and by no chance could she be
credited with the possession of sixpence; but, the reflection apart,
my spirits sank when I heard them recognise her, and a sense of
degradation, impossible to define, afflicted me anew.
What a position for Henry Gastonard to be in--self-sought, inevitable,
the price of this gipsy’s game upon the Butte; the consequence of a
chosen masquerade and a self-imposed war upon civilisation!
Were there not a thousand devils of my Saxon self-respect crying at my
elbow to have done with it--to pitch them a handful of money--to say
to them, “There is your sister in the arts; take her by the hand and
lead her to her home?” A flash of thought it may have been, while I
dealt with the gentlemen of the pavement and calculated the chances
with a greater precision; but there it was, and while it ran strong in
my head, the girl herself lay almost in my very arms, smiling still, a
very _gamin_ enjoying a brawl as a common incident in her daily life.
Do you wonder, Paddy, that I clung to my wreckage and refused to part
with it to any other robber upon the shore? By heaven and earth, I
swear she is the best plucked ’un that ever wore a red silk stocking
or showed it on a booth to a gaping multitude. And that you shall come
to believe for yourself presently--when I take you fifty paces further
from the cabaret and show you in a line just why we were not murdered.
Do you remember the Rue St. Vincent, that narrow lane by the
Assassins, with the great black buttresses and the dingy oil-lamp we
used to deride together? Well, it was just by there that we seemed in
for the worst; just by the very corner that you would not have paid
the half of a brass farthing for our chances.
I had as good as given it up, and fallen to wondering what it feels
like to have six inches of steel in your vitals while twenty hands are
picking your pockets and twenty more are rifling your shoes. That this
was premature, the unexpected but quite gentlemanly appearance of some
fifteen agile _sergents de ville_ immediately assured me. They had
been fetched, it seemed, by the “cipi,” or municipal guard, at the
cabaret, who, while he would not have lifted a finger to save Mimi La
Godiche, was by no means willing that an Englishman should be papered
to-morrow, or found drowned upon the following morning. Thus the
company, armed to its very teeth, and thus the rats scuttling to their
holes, the women left to slither down the steep, the men crying that
Mimi La Godiche was _une guêpe_, and that they would settle with her
upon another occasion.
I thanked the guard, Paddy; thanked Desmond Barrymore for his kindness
to the girl; and bidding him “good night” (it should have been good
morning), I climbed the mountain to that verdant alley wherein my home
lies, and took Mimi to the parlour with me. Her first act was to
return me my diamonds. I need not particularise as to where she had
hidden them, or what was her inspiration. She is here as I write this,
like a dog upon my carpet. She has been for twenty hours almost in the
same position--but what am I going to do with her, what provision make
for her, or how am I going to smuggle her in safety from this mount of
thieves, I know, my dear Paddy, no more than your estimable self.
So let me have your consolations. All places are filled with fools,
says Cicero--but there are but two at the Maison du bon Tabac, and one
is Mimi La Godiche and the other--
Yours eternally,
Henry Gastonard.
CHAPTER II.
[The response of Paddy O’Connell, of Glendalough, County Wicklow, to
his friend, Henry Gastonard of the Maison du bon Tabac at Paris.]
Glendalough, County Wicklow,
May 18th, 1905.
Dear Henry,--Your letter is received. I gather therefrom two
facts:--1. That you are making a fool of yourself in Paris. 2. That
this occupation is congenial to you and the lady of the circus, upon
whom you appear to have bestowed your patronage.--Believe me to be, My
dear Henry,
Yours sincerely,
Paddy O’Connell.
CHAPTER III.
[A letter from the same brief author addressed to the Reverend Arthur
Warrington of Beldon, Suffolk.]
Glendalough, County Wicklow,
May 18th, 1905.
Reverend Sir,--Your request that I would favour you with such news as
I may from time to time receive from my friend Henry Gastonard permits
me to assure you that he is now established in Paris, and appears, by
his diligent habit and assured gifts, to be doing all that will
presently entitle him to the permanent possession of the fortune,
conditionally bequeathed to him by his late father, Henry Gastonard,
of London and Bordeaux.
My dear Sir,
Yours very faithfully,
The O’Connell of Glendalough.
CHAPTER IV.
[Henry Gastonard continues the story in a letter to his friend Paddy
O’Connell.]
The Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
May 24th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--Permit me to ignore the flattering document I had the
honour to receive from you three days ago.
Friendship, my dear Paddy, calls for something more than a pious
expression of opinion upon the reason or conduct of a friend. It
demands a sympathetic endeavour to understand, and an unshaken
determination to accept such facts as are confided to us and call for
our judgment. To tell a man he is a fool is often to tell him the
truth. But I am not aware of many who have become less foolish for the
knowledge, or have derived any consolation whatever from so bald an
utterance.
Now, Paddy, you know as well as I do that you are all agog for further
news of Mimi La Godiche; and were you in Paris this little chit of the
booths would have your warm friendship, and you would lay scalps upon
the green should any defame her. Cannot I see you with your feet upon
an historic mantel-shelf, and your eyes (so far as tobacco smoke will
permit) upon a regal ceiling, reading that same letter for a second
time, and willing to barter all Ireland and the people thereof for one
week of the Butte, one month of this rolling world of gilt and tinsel
and all its spangled joys. Admit the truth of it, and write me
something sensible. For, Paddy, I have need of you--there is the devil
to pay, and the game grows interesting.
You will remember that I left Mimi La Godiche upon my hearthrug.
Barrymore had left us; the time was the early morning of the day; the
_canaille_ of the Assassins had gone God knows where. Save for the old
soldier, who is at once my valet-de-chambre, butler, cook, housemaid,
and scullery wench, there was no one with me in the Maison du bon
Tabac.
Depict the scene, Paddy, and bear with a recital of my virtues. A room
as large as an opera box; about its walls the drawings of Caran
d’Ache, Henri Riviere, and Willette; a couple of armchairs, as ragged
as the beggars at the door of St. Eustache; a yacht’s piano bang
against the wall; a buffet with all the drinks that are not good for
us; the very worst novels littering all the tables; cigarettes and
cigars everywhere; pipes in all the niches--such is the mountain home
of Henry Gastonard, gentleman.
And upon the hearthrug of this charming apartment, style Louis de
Montmartre, the tousled-haired Mimi squatting like any lady of the
harem, her legs crossed, her feathered hat in her hand, her cheeks as
rosy as a picture from a Christmas-book.
Now, Paddy, I have told you something of Mimi the Simpleton; but, to
be as frank as the priest of Clanconnell, ’tis precious little that I
myself know of her, anyway. I can no more tell you whether she be
virtuous or otherwise than recite ten chapters of the Koran. This is a
difficulty, to be sure, which my friends of the Hill will never
understand. I can hear the roar of laughter which would attend its
expression either in the neighbourhood of Neuilly or in that of la
Galette. Mimi La Godiche virtuous! Then was Catherine of Russia a
latter-day saint, and Lucretia herself as misunderstood as all the
historians would now have us to believe. This would be the opinion of
the Butte and of Neuilly. It is not my opinion--I cannot tell you why;
nor do I trouble myself for reasons.
She sat upon my hearthrug, I say, her legs crossed and her great
feathered hat in her hand. When I questioned her, her answers were
often monosyllables; sometimes nods and smiles; long sentences but
rarely. Of her past she appeared to know nothing at all. Her
birthplace she named as Vendome, but was not sure of it. She could
tell me nothing of her childhood; the Fair she spoke of with dread;
the lion-tamer Cassadore stood to her for all terrors past, present,
and to come. She would have burned her hand in the fire rather than
return to him.
“Have you no remembrance of your father?” I asked her.
She shook her head many times, as one who wished to think but could
not.
“And your mother?”
“There was someone at Orleans, Monsieur Henry, and after that
Cassadore. Oh, Cassadore always, I assure you.”
“You must be able to tell me more than that, Mimi. Somewhere,
somewhere in your life, there was a woman who was kind to you. Now,
don’t you remember when?”
“I remember a very old lady, Monsieur Henry--that would have been at
Orleans. And then the road--the great, white, open road--so many days,
so many nights… and after that Cassadore always until you came,
Monsieur Henry.”
“Why did you not run away, Mimi?”
“To whom should I run?”
“Anywhere away from Cassadore. You are young… you can work; why did
you not leave him?”
“It was impossible, monsieur--as well ask the Abbé to run away from
his church.”
“You mean that the life had become necessary to you?”
“Yes, yes, I mean that--would you put me in the kitchen, Monsieur
Henry?”
“Certainly not, Mimi--but, you see, you can’t stop any longer in
Montmartre, and what then?”
Her face clouded, but only for an instant.
“I shall go away with you, Monsieur Henry.”
“Why should you go with me?”
“Because I do not wish to go with Cassadore.”
“There are plenty of others who would take you away, Mimi. Why do you
think of me?”
“I cannot tell you, Monsieur Henry--you must know yourself why it is.”
“And if I do, what then? Suppose I cannot take you away?”
“I shall ask Mr. Barrymore.”
“Oh, Barrymore would not be of any use to you.”
“Then I shall go back to Cassadore.”
“It wouldn’t be safe for you to stop in Montmartre now--I suppose you
understand that much, Mimi?”
She laughed a little at the suggestion.
“Jean-le-Mont is very angry,” she said, “I am afraid of Jean-le-Mont.”
“When did you steal my cigarette-case, Mimi; how did you know that
Jean-le-Mont had it?”
“He came to Mr. Barrymore’s atelier three days ago--the Italian who
makes the models told me that Jean had the box. At the Lapin Agil I
gave him a rose, Monsieur Henry, and then put my arms about his neck.
Ah, the droll--he discovered it at once, but he did not wish to tell
because the others would know and rob him afterwards. Then Mr.
Barrymore came in because he saw me there, and I told him, and we sent
for you----”
“And this was the first time you have stolen anything, Mimi?”
“Monsieur Henry, you know that it is.”
* * * * *
Observe, Paddy, the reiteration of this. I know that she is virtuous;
I know that she is honest. No reasons given or asked, as they say in
the thieves’ advertisements. Upon my word of honour, the good faith of
it is astonishing! For I do know, Paddy… and I would stake my fortune
(or what is left of it) upon the truth of my astonishing creed.
I shall not fatigue you with further particulars of this amazing
morning. For a couple of hours, perhaps, I slept upon my bed, and Mimi
upon the hearthrug; but at six o’clock I waked her, and stopping only
for coffee and a roll, I was out of the house by seven and upon my way
to the Paris of law and of civilisation. All my instinct told me that
the thieves of the Butte would make short work of Mimi La Godiche if
she remained in their neighbourhood. Let her go to the old haunt this
night, and a knife in the back or a collarette of rope would certainly
be her reward. You know Montmartre; you know the particular kind of
blackguard and of blackguardess it can vomit from its cavernous and
detestable mouth. From these I fled with Mimi at my side--whither, the
great Saint Christopher, patron of travellers, alone might tell me.
You are aware that I have an apartment at the Hôtel St. Paul, and
thither first I took the child in the hope that inspiration would come
and a swift solution of a pretty problem be found. Be sure the
excellent _patron_ stared not a little, and that Madame, his wife,
sniffed more of the morning air than had filled her ancient lungs for
many a day. But a better entertainment was that provided by Narisse of
the Faubourg St. Honoré, who came round with his hand-maidens to
dress her, and must take my directions three times before assuring
himself finally of the madness of this English traveller.
Oh, Paddy, cannot you hear this man as he exclaims to heaven upon the
feathers of Montmartre, and sees a national infamy in the fine, if
tattered stuffs of Belleville? No doubt I should have gone not “Chez
Narisse” but the Magazin du Louvre; there bought not silk and chiffon
but good, honest serges, a hat to fit a governess and lace suitable to
the deaconess of a Sunday-school. But, Paddy, I am a man, and I know
the name but of one costumier in all Paris, and he is Narisse, and he
made of Mimi La Godiche a veritable beauty in less time than you or I
could finish a rubber of bridge at the club. Ah, these mad
Englishmen--they still exist it appears, and blessed is Paris because
of them! And what shall be said for the girl herself, and what must
she do upon the instant but sing the man a song after the fashion of
Jehan Rictus, just because of the clothes he had put upon her back.
Believe me, when I tell you that the models themselves came near to
joining in the chorus, and that Narisse was speechless before the end
of the second verse.
Mimi, then, is dressed and in her right mind. Will you follow me as I
lead her forth about the hour of twelve o’clock, and ask myself, what
next? There are many in Paris who know me, and not a few who stared
with some astonishment. Whatever the costumier’s art, my dear Paddy,
it cannot disguise the walk, the airs, the manner of the Butte. I am a
person of some sensibility out of doors, and I object to that freedom
which grips you hysterically by the arm, at odd intervals, to drag you
to a shop window and exclaim upon a rope of pearls which would ruin a
Maharajah, or an emerald bracelet none but a Rothschild could buy. It
is not a joy to me when my companion has the wit and the language
which silences enterprising cabmen or calls for the retort
discourteous of the foot-passenger who has been obstructed. Publicity
has no charms for me; I prefer to give the wall to the humourists and
to go in obscurity.
We lunched at the Café of the Cascade in the Bois. There was a goodly
company present, and “her ladyship” fell in love with the Baroness
Séchard, who was with Pechala, of the Spanish Embassy. I think the
grand manners of many of these far from grand dames somewhat
astonished her; but the size of the asparagus tickled her sense of
humour, and the bill was ever in her mind.
“What will happen to us if you cannot pay the bill, Monsieur Henry?”
“We shall go to prison, Mimi.”
“Cassadore went to prison once--at Châlons-sur-Marne--I do not wish
to go to prison, Monsieur Henry.”
“Then we must try to find some money, Mimi. How much have you now?”
The question should not have been put, for Mimi carries her money
where she carried my cigarette-case, and made no secret of the matter.
I was but just in time to prevent a display which might have brought
us the bill on the spot, and, as it was, Etienne, the waiter, grinned
from ear to ear as he floated to us with a sole à la Victorine.
“Did they not tell you in the Rue Pigalle that I am rich, Mimi?”
“You could never be rich, Monsieur Henry; you are not clever enough.”
“But, Mimi, am I not a sculptor?”
This appeared to her a droll saying. She laughed quite honestly and
again appealed to my candour.
“You know that you will never be a sculptor; you have no talent,
Monsieur Henry; even I have more talent than you. Besides, if you
were”--she added wisely--“how poor we should be.”
“It is not good to be poor in Paris, Mimi.”
“It is not good to be poor anywhere, Monsieur Henry.”
“But if one has no way to get a living--as I have not, what then,
Mimi?”
“Oh, then one sleeps at the Hôtel of the Belle Etoile. I have stayed
there often when I used to go to the Fêtes. It is a very large hotel,
and you can see the stars while you lie in bed.”
“Would you go back there, Mimi?”
“Jesu--no; why do you speak of it when one is no longer hungry,
Monsieur Henry?”
I did not pursue the subject further, but paid the bill and went out
with her to the Bois. A shabby cab made the usual grand tour with us
and helped us to pass a pleasant hour. Perhaps it astonished me to
discover that the Bois impressed her but little--but then she had been
accustomed to the spangles all her life and could make little of a
passable equipage with a fat Baroness in it, or a costly motor driven
by a man who looked like an Oneida Indian. Her exclamations were few
but her observation unfailing. She detected me at once when I nodded
to Lea d’Alençon, who drove a pair of cream-colored ponies near the
Cascade.
“Why did that lady look so angry, Monsieur Henry? Are you in love with
her?”
“Why should I be, Mimi? She is the wife of Captain d’Alençon of the
Engineers.”
“But she is in love with you--I am sure of it. And she is very angry
with you.”
“Then I cannot help it. Let us get out and walk, Mimi, and ask
ourselves where we are going to stay to-night. That will be more
interesting than Madame d’Alençon.”
“You wish to see her pass again--is not that the reason, Monsieur
Henry?”
Well, of course it was, and she had guessed wisely enough; but what
was I to say to her? Lea is one of my virtues, as I have told you
before, Paddy. When I wish to balance the books of all the moralities,
cash, day and ledger, Lea d’Alençon stands for the most valuable of
my assets. She is too clever to be anything else, and yet you might
call her the most amorous woman and one of the most dangerous in
Paris. Just a hundred times, perhaps, has she advised me to get out of
this delectable country and go back to England. I might have done so
but for her promise to visit me there upon an early occasion. Be sure,
Paddy, that I have no desire whatever to cut the Captain’s throat
merely to prove myself a good Parisian. Lea is charming as a friend.
She would be all the malignities impersonified otherwise.
I should tell you that I had recognised her when she passed me, and
that this astonished her considerably. It is considered less than
nothing at all in Paris to drive in the Bois with a cocotte--but to
recognise your lady friends when thus employed must be named little
less than an infamy. So here was a pretty problem for this majestic
Astarte with the raven locks and the liquid black eyes and all the
langour of the trained voluptuary. Either I wished to insult her or it
were possible that my companion might be introduced. This she must
have told herself, for the chariot reappeared presently and was drawn
up at the pavement not fifty yards from the place where we stood.
“Bon jour, Madame d’Alençon.”
“Bon jour, Monsieur Gastonard.”
“I have a story for you; when will a good comrade hear it?”
“Why not at five o’clock; my husband is at Valérien. Is it a story of
the theatre, Monsieur Gastonard?”
“It is a story of virtue, madame.”
We laughed together. This poor old Pantaloon Virtue still provokes a
smile--if his name be ever mentioned--in such saloons as Lea
d’Alençon and her kind have made famous. Some spirit of sheer devilry
must have prompted me to this confidence, Paddy; but behind it lay a
firm belief in the sagacity of this shrewd woman of the world and in
her honesty. She would place Mimi the Simpleton in some possible
situation--I had not a moment’s doubt of it.
How we laughed together over the whole story when I went to her rooms
an hour later. Mimi, meanwhile, had been dispatched to the Hôtel St.
Paul, and there entrusted to the safe custody of _la patronne_. I
myself sat in a wonderful cradle chair and watched Lea pour out really
excellent tea from a Chinese pot that should have been behind glass.
She had changed her gown for a delicate robe of lace and chiffon, and
thrust the prettiest pair of feet in all Paris from a petticoat over
which a costumier must have shed tears of joy.
“Who is this girl?” she asked me.
I told her that I did not know.
“Why has she become virtuous?”
“A natural condition, Lea; why is not marble chalk?”
Observe, Paddy, that Lea and I have been some months at the point when
“Monsieur” or “Madame” provokes ridicule, and no formality clouds our
brutal frankness. Had it been otherwise I could not have spoken to her
of Mimi La Godiche at all.
“Let me tell you the girl’s story,” I said, “or what I know of it. Six
months ago she was performing outside the walls of Paris with a
monster of a man named Cassadore, whose riches are three lions and
whose wardrobe a pair of spangled tights. I was in the tent when this
child was taken into the cages with this man, and I did not fail to
remark two facts; one, that she was absolutely lacking in a sense of
fear, and, secondly, that she might become eventually one of the most
beautiful women in Paris. Five francs judiciously expended obtained an
introduction to her--a hundred francs bought her of the lion-tamer.
Rejoice, my dear Lea, that in our society women are not sold for a
hundred nor for ten hundred francs, or who can tell what I might not
bid for you at an auction. In Mimi’s case the bargain was soon made.
After all, the tamer had a dozen girls of her station ready to be
driven into the cages at his nod--what was this girl to him? I bought
her and took her to the Butte. Febry, of La Galette, gave her a chance
to get hissed upon his stage, and she did not disappoint him. I tried
her again, paying a thousand francs for the privilege at the
Quat-Z-Arts and the Coq d’Or. Again, my dear lady, she was a hopeless
failure. No femme de chambre acting in the kitchen could have failed
so dismally. And yet I continue to believe in her; my faith is
unshaken. I am ready to declare that she will become a great actress,
astonish Paris, and end in an apartment not a third of a mile removed
from the Arc de Triomphe or the Avenue Marigny. It is this faith which
brings me now to the house of the charming Lea d’Alençon. I come,
_foi d’honneur_, simply to seek a salve to my vanity. How shall I get
this child taught? Where shall I place her while she is being taught?
You, of all my friends, can best advise me upon that point. Do so, and
you shall not find a more grateful man in Paris to-day.”
Well, I could see that I had impressed her, but I had not convinced
her, as the next question proved.
“Why do you say that the child is virtuous?” she asked me.
“Because I know her to be so,” was my retort. “Put your hand upon the
marbles at the Madeleine and will they burn you? It is true that a
fire might be conceived of such a nature as to melt your marble and
cause it to run as liquid steel--but, my dear Lea, we are not talking
of the forges, but of the facts. This child is virtuous because she is
utterly devoid of any desire to be anything else. The wisest up on the
Butte recognise the truth and are proud of it.”
“And now these very people drive her out. Did you not tell me that she
cannot return to Montmartre, Henry?”
“Certainly not--at least, to the only quarter of Montmartre where it
would be possible for her to live. The thieves have marked her
down--she would not be alive a week if she remained up there.”
“And you propose----?”
“My dear Lea, nothing of the kind. I have no matrimonial intentions,
believe me. It is you who will propose.”
She laughed a little wickedly. The talk had drifted apart from my
idea, and I could not but be amused by her sudden _volte face_.
“Louis does not return from Valérien until to-morrow,” she said
quickly. “I am supposed to dine with my sister Lucille. Where are you
going to take me, Henry?”
“Alone, Lea?”
She looked me straight in the face.
“Let us ask the Curé of the Madeleine.”
“By all means. And while we dine we will make plans for Mimi.”
“Let us dine on the island,” she cried, ignoring it; “there is the
safest place in Paris.”
“I will be at the Cascade at a quarter to seven. Of course, it may be
a tragedy.”
“The tragedies, my dear Henry, are always for to-morrow.”
And so, Paddy, amiable fool that I was, I consented. It will be no
surprise to you to hear that the Curé of the Madeleine had another
appointment, and could not turn up. But of this dinner and of all the
absurdities which followed upon it, I will write to-morrow.
Meanwhile, find me, my dear fellow, your friend,
Harry.
CHAPTER V.
[Henry Gastonard writes to Paddy O’Connell telling him the story of a
dinner and a challenge.]
Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
May 30th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--This is to tell you that I go out with Bernard d’Alençon
somewhere about daybreak to-morrow, and that when I write again, Paris
will be in possession of a pretty scandal.
I am not joking, my dear Paddy. A more serious human being than Henry
Gastonard does not exist in all this city to-night. I am to fight
Bernard d’Alençon, and I am to fight him somewhere in the
neighbourhood of the Bois at five o’clock to-morrow morning. The
affair is as irrevocable as the sunset I have just witnessed from the
Chalets du Cycle, where Mademoiselle Mimi has given me tea and
recited, to the great astonishment of waiters and cyclists alike, the
first lesson she received this morning from Pelletier, of the
Conservatoire.
So, if you please, has this great question of the hour been settled. A
woman’s shrewd opinion has backed up a mere man’s idea that something
may be made of Mimi the Simpleton, something at least ventured in her
interests. The suspicion that this chit of the _fêtes foraines_ may
yet startle Paris is so much an obsession where I am concerned that I
have willingly agreed to place her with Pelletier for twelve months
and to see what comes of it. He is too clever a man to try to make a
silk purse out of a sow’s ear. He will train her for the Vaudeville or
the Palais Royal, and if he cannot make a success of her, then is she
lost indeed. She lodges meanwhile in a little English pension near the
Louvre, and God help its inmates if she have the mind to misbehave
herself!
Be sure that for me this is a closed book, and that I am very
unlikely, when once this other folly is over, to see or hear of
Mistress Mimi again. The whim of a moment has given her a chance in
Paris; the whim of another will banish her from my recollection when,
as must be, if I am not killed to-morrow morning, I set out to save my
fortune from my cousin and to make those five hundred pounds per annum
which will enable me to hold it.
You will remember, Paddy, that when last I wrote to you, I was about
to dine in blessed seclusion with that amiable but charming woman Lea
d’Alençon. Providence and a far from belle Americaine saved me from
such an imprudence. The American lady, I understand, appeared just
when Lea was wrestling with a refractory hat and an equally obstinate
pyramid of her famous black hair. She carried a letter from Elise
d’Alençon, the Captain’s sister, who is now in New York, and could
not, in decency, be denied. What Lea said, or, better still, what she
thought, I leave you to guess; but she covered her retreat by asking
her cousin Emilie, who is madly in love with young Derogy of the
Chasseurs, and by sending post haste for the cavalryman to join us. So
we were five at the table instead of two, and we dined at Armenonville
and not at the Cascade.
I was glad of this--frankly glad. Lea is too good a friend of mine
that I should ever wish her to become anything else. And remember,
Paddy, that virtue is as much a matter of opportunity and of accident
as of the commandment, both written and unwritten. To you alone would
I confess my belief that it had been her intention to bring matters to
a crisis this night. Bernard was conveniently at Fort Valérien; her
mother had gone to Tours to let their chateau to a Yankee from
Vermont; I had come to her in a romantic mood and appealed to her upon
the score of my interest in another woman--a sure passport to
intimacy. And then upon the top of it all the lady from New York,
Jenny Middleton she called herself, with an accent to butter your
bread and the eye of the eagle as it soars. Oh, we were a merry party,
be sure; and even cousin Emilie (who is married to a man of sixty as
sour as vinegar and as yellow) made little of her cavalryman in such
a presence.
You know the dinner at the Armenonville, as good as it is dear, as
_chic_ as it is distant. We discussed London restaurants with our
soup; the Verney scandal with our fish; the character of the American
man with the entrée and Mimi the Simpleton with the ices. Mrs.
Middleton, I observed, was much interested in the character of my
_protégée_ and firm in her belief that I had made a fool of myself.
“She will go back to the lion-tamer in a month,” she said, “and leave
you with the bill for a keepsake.”
When Lea began her dissertation upon virtue, the lady from the West
joined in the merriment, and I perceived that here was an American
who, like others of her countrywomen, had no interest in Paris
virtuous but much in Paris of the vices. It was cheerful to be done
with it all at last, and to begin that momentous return which might
land me either in an infamy or, at the best, destroy my friendship
with the charming Lea.
I say the fun began at Armenonville, and you will readily understand
the nature of it. Lea did not disguise her intention to return in my
cab--Emilie was equally insistent upon riding with the guardsman. For
a little while we stood in the glitter of the lights, amid the most
wonderfully dressed women in the world, scheming and planning to our
different ends. First it would be Lea suggesting three cabs and a
hurried departure--then the cavalryman gallantly volunteering to
telephone for an automobile which would carry us all. Mrs. Middleton
herself providentially had special designs upon me, and watched her
prey with a feline patience beautiful to behold. When two cabs
appeared, I put the agitated daughter of Venus in the first of them,
and by a ruse got Lea and Emilie and the cavalryman into the second.
This was providential to be sure, if we may suppose Providence stoops
to the mild intrigues of pretty Frenchwomen; for I may tell you that
d’Alençon himself did not stop the night at Fort Valérien, but was
back in his own apartment at half-past nine, and detected there by Lea
just at the moment she was waiting for me to appear and take her to
supper as I had promised. Ah, the dear soul, what a terrible five
minutes she must have spent upon the pavement waiting for my cab! But
a blessed destiny had sent me on with the Stars, to say nothing of the
Stripes, to the gates of the Jardin de Paris, whence a messenger
carried a hasty note back to Lea telling her of the impossibility of
it.
Oh, these fair Americans! Do you know, Paddy, that if I were a man of
genius, I would make the five hundred a year which my father’s Will
demands just by catering for their naughtiness in Paris. Of course,
the whole affair would have to be a sham, as unlike the true Paris as
Bayswater is unlike London, and no more vicious than a magic-lantern
show in a Sunday-school. Then I should catch the class which now
visits that poor place the Jardin de Paris, net the fools who go to
the Moulin Rouge because they ought not to go, and send them back to
their native land as happy as a “week-ender” who has seen the Louvre.
Mrs. Middleton, I discovered, had come to Paris to write a book upon
French social customs. She assured me that it was imperative upon her
to visit the music-halls. “I want to see the people play,” she said.
“I guess they work pretty well the same everywhere; but it’s the
national games I’m set upon.” When I pointed out to her that the lady
who displayed hose to her fellow-countrymen at the Jardin de Paris was
a Spaniard, and not a Frenchwoman, she insisted immediately on going
to verify the fact. It was two in the morning before I got rid of her,
and then I had to tell her that if she were shut out of her hotel the
police would want to know the reason why.
So you see, Paddy, I neither dined nor supped with the charming Lea;
and, once more having escaped those fascinating toils, returned at
length to a welcome bed. When I awoke on the following morning the
valet at the hotel informed me that Captain Berton, of the Engineers,
desired particularly to see me, and upon the fellow being shown up, I
learned in ten words that he had come to arrange this pleasantry with
d’Alençon.
Perhaps, had I been clothed and in my right mind I should have
answered him as he deserved, offered to punch the Captain’s head, and
told his ambassador not to make a fool of himself. This,
unfortunately, did not happen. Berton caught me when I was both tired
and irritable, and I sent him headlong to Honoré de Villefort, that
old rascal of a Chevalier who will never cease to remind me of his
obligation. What is even worse, Paddy, I named pistols--and that is
just the maddest thing your friend Henry Gastonard has done since he
was born.
I am a fool--I know it. Often as I have desired to play in one of
those gigantic farces they call an “affair of honour in Paris,” never
did I contemplate standing up to a man with a pistol in my hand. Of
course, I had no real cause of quarrel with Bernard d’Alençon, nor he
with me. He is madly jealous of the charming Lea, and hates me like
poison; if he can shoot me to-morrrow morning, he will do so.
But, Paddy, I shall, in very truth, have finished my French education
when this is over, and be prepared to return to England and a sober
life. It is true that there might be an accident--you may say the same
every time you call a hansom cab--but, Paddy, if the fun should be
spoiled and this man hit me, then I call upon you, as the oldest
friend I have, to do what you can for my little friend of the Butte,
and to remember that there is no one else in all Christendom who would
give her sixpence if not--
Your friend,
Harry.
CHAPTER VI.
[Being a telegram from Paddy O’Connell to his friend, Henry
Gastonard.]
You must be mad. Have wired the Embassy. Am coming over.--Paddy.
CHAPTER VII.
[A letter from the Rev. Arthur Warrington of Beldon, Suffolk, to Mrs.
Arthur Warrington at Porchester Terrace, Bayswater.]
My Dear Martha,--I will not say thank God; but, are we responsible for
this unhappy young man’s folly? Should it have pleased the Almighty to
call him I will see Sands and Collier about the estate at Ingershall
immediately. Please let me have telegrams as the evening papers come
in. To think that this should be the end of Henry Gastonard’s fortune,
his son a debauché in Paris, shot down in a vulgar duel about a
married woman, and, I doubt not, precious gold lavished upon her. But
we, dear wife, shall know how to spend that fortune to God’s good
ends.
I shall, of course, buy a motor-car at once should the worst
follow.--Your devoted husband,
Arthur.
CHAPTER VIII.
[In which Paddy O’Connell of Glendalough, writes to his sister Clara a
full account of the duel between Henry Gastonard and the Captain
Bernard d’Alençon.]
Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
June 7th, 1905.
Dear Clara,--You will have learned from the newspapers some of the
news I have to tell you, but this will not make you less anxious to
hear it a second time from a family pen.
I arrived in Paris early on the Saturday morning, and drove to the
Hôtel St. Paul; for, where else would I be driving at all on such a
day? The newspapers gave me a fine account of poor Henry as we went
along, and small hope had I of cheering him alive or talking to
anything better than a corpse. When I arrived at his hotel, they would
have shut the door in my face but for a way I have with them, and for
sure the journalists are here all day and would tear the very bandages
from Harry’s body to photograph the wounds.
Well, I made my way up to the sick man’s room at last, and there found
the poor fellow stretched upon his bed and looking by no means so
cheerful as I should have wished to see him. By his side there was a
little French girl, the one whom he wrote about last week, and a more
beautiful creature the Lord never created.
This, I confess, was some surprise to me. I am very well acquainted
with the ladies of Paris, and had made a picture of this particular
lady for myself. Clara, I was as far from the truth as Dublin from
Cork. This is a face that the man Greuze should have painted. And oh,
the airs and graces of her, the little winning ways, and the dignity!
He tells me that she came from the circus; but if he were not on his
back I’d call him a liar. Mimi the Simpleton for sure--why, she has
the sense of twenty in her head, and ’tis your own Paddy who grows red
in the face every time he argues with her.
Well, the child sprang up upon my entrance, and stood there glaring at
me like a wild cat out of the shows. What French I remember leads me
to the belief that her observations were neither flattering to my
appearance nor my manner--but, God forgive me, I may have
mistranslated it. As for Harry, he just stirred in his sleep and told
me to go away, which so tickled me that I laughed like a boy at the
pantomime.
“Go away!” says I, “Then ’tis yourself that must be putting me out,
for no other man in Paris can do it.”
“Why,” says he, “if it isn’t old Paddy.”
“My boy,” cried I, “my friend--the only one that ever I shall love in
all this world--oh, God forgive you, Harry, for this,” says I.
“Paddy,” says he, “I thought you were a journalist. They’ve been here
all day, Paddy.”
“Show me the man that will come here when I am by, and I will tell you
where to bury him.”
“The old Paddy, every bit of him. Spoiling for a fight, as ever he
was.”
“There is no more peaceable man in Paris,” says I; “but lucky that
your Captain has gone to the wilds! I’d have shot him, Harry, though
the Parliament itself had been there to prevent me.”
He laughed again at this, but I saw that he was in pain, or, to be
honest, the little Greuze girl did that same for me, and spoke words
of which I was content to be hearing poorly. ’Tis plain she worships
the ground he treads upon, though there is not much of that same just
now--while as for the boy himself, if there’s any woman in Europe he
cares a button about, ask Paddy O’Connell to drink cold water, and see
that he gets it.
“Why do you come here? Why do you make this noise?” she asked me--oh,
the impudence of it!--with her pretty eyes blazing like coals and her
cheeks so crimson that a Bishop might have kissed them. “Are you his
friend to do this? Oh, be ashamed of yourself,” says she, “and go away
immediately.”
’Twas a just rebuke, Clara, and Paddy not the man to be minding it.
Presently, when I had done penance before her, she permitted me to sit
in a chair at the bedside; and, every time I opened my mouth to speak,
she looked so tremendous that I gulped down my words and ate them for
very shame. By and by the doctor came in and asked Harry if I had been
talking, and “never a word” says I, which was the truth to be sure.
I should tell you that Harry was shot on the collar-bone, and devil a
shirt will he be putting on for a long while to come. ’Tis precious
hard luck, for he was leaving for England next week to get his living
as the Will wants him to do. What’s to come of it all now, God only
knows. If he’s not making five hundred a year by his own exertions
this time next year, he’ll lose his fortune, and that weedy old hack
of a curate in Suffolk come in for the whole of it but a paltry
hundred pounds a year. This must be talked over between us hereafter.
To-day, when the doctor was gone, and the little witch with the pretty
face sent out to do some shopping for him, he told me the story of the
fight, and sorry I am that Paddy O’Connell missed that entertainment.
For it was a fine affair entirely.
“Why did you go out with the man?” I asked him.
He answered me as shortly:
“Curiosity, Paddy.”
“The cause of half the mischief in the world. Was the woman sorry
about it?”
“The beautiful Lea? Oh, my dear Paddy, she went to church to pray that
I might shoot him.”
“There was nothing between you--your solemn word, Harry?”
“Paddy, am I the man----”
“I’d like to meet the one who’d tell me that you were.”
“I have done everything that men do in Paris--why should I have missed
this, Paddy?”
“Ye were not the man to miss it. Show me the one who says so, and I’m
ready for him.”
“I wanted to understand why people laugh at what they call an affair
of honour. They all do laugh in England, and yet there are worse ways
of putting a bit upon men’s tongues. When I chose pistols I hardly
knew what I was doing. But I said it and had to stick to it, Paddy.”
“Of course, ye did. Ye weren’t afraid of him, Harry.”
“Not as you would understand it--upon my word, no. But a man who has
been up all night in a reeking café, and then sees the sun rise over
Belleville and remembers an appointment for six o’clock in a garden
near Auteuil, that man would be a liar to say he liked it. There was
one mortal hour, Paddy, when I would have given half my fortune to
know what was going to happen. I remember thinking that most
Englishmen would have pooh-poohed the whole affair and fallen back
upon the national cant about scruples. Blame old Villefort, who dosed
me with half the filth they keep at the Taverne Royale--and that old
beggar, Oleander, who drank enough brandy to poison a regiment on the
score of it.
“We came down from the Butte singing ‘Brunette aux Yeux Doux’ with all
our lungs. I sha’n’t tell you a lie and say that I thought Paris
looked beautiful, or anything of the kind, for it just isn’t, Paddy.
Everything seemed as cold as a November fog. The sun shone
sardonically--I remember seeing maids about the doors of the houses,
and envying them their occupation. A cabby who chaffed us was little
better than an irritating blackguard, who should have been whipped.
“When we arrived at Count Louvier’s house--you know we fought in his
garden--I remember hearing the bell ring about five hundred times
before they let us in. If anyone had spoken, if someone had made a
joke, I would have been grateful to him then, Paddy--but we just
entered the hall of the house in silence, walked straight through to
the garden, went on down toward the river, and took up our positions
on the borders of a little thicket of fir, without as much as a
monosyllable from any one of them. I didn’t like that--you wouldn’t
have liked it yourself, Paddy.”
“Ye should have whistled an air,” said I, “laughed and joked yourself.
That puts the iron into them. I remember that I was whistling
‘Finnigan’s Wake’ when I knocked down Peter Morley, that had me up at
the police-court afterwards. Ye should have whistled, Harry!”
He smiled at the idea of it, and for some while he would not talk
again. When he had rested himself and taken a drink of the stuff the
doctor man gave him--God send me good whisky in such a plight!--he
told me the rest of it.
“They put a pistol into my hand, Paddy, and it felt just like an iron
bar. When I saw d’Alençon I wasn’t angry with him, but the devil on
two sticks could not have cut an uglier figure than he did. The man
was shooting fire already from his eyes--he couldn’t stand still a
minute, was here and there and everywhere, but always turning back to
look at me, as though he would tear my heart out----”
“Ye weren’t behind in that, Harry?” asks I. “Ye didn’t wish him the
top of the morning, or anything of that kind?”
“No, Paddy--but I was sorry to see him so angry. I had done him no
injury--what he has suffered--for I know Lea’s story--is in a measure,
his own fault. Perhaps I had been wiser never to see her at all--I
used to swear I would cut it every time I left her. If Paris were not
the smallest city in the world when you want to avoid anybody, I would
have kept my word. But I think she used to wait for me--hide where she
knew I would come, and make a fool of herself all the time. That’s why
the Captain looked like a human devil when he stood opposite to me
that morning. If he hadn’t hit me with his bullet, I believe he would
have used the butt.”
“Ay, and a man’s game, too, Harry. ’Tis one I would have had a hand in
myself--but you shouldn’t have missed him, boy--you used to be handy
with a pistol, and you shouldn’t have missed him.”
He sighed a bit at this, and I saw that I had wounded his vanity.
Presently he said:--
“I could have shot him dead, Paddy, if I had wished--but, you see, I
had Lea in my mind all the while, and I couldn’t be angry about it. It
is difficult to make you understand it, but when the Chevalier placed
us on the ground and put the pistol into my hand, I was half afraid to
look at my man at all, his eyes were so queer. I could think of
nothing else, Paddy. I didn’t remember that he might hit me; I forgot
the man altogether; the fight was between me and the ugliest pair of
eyes I have ever seen. When the word came to fire, I turned very
slowly and raised my pistol with a child’s arm--I couldn’t look the
Captain in the face, Paddy.”
“And ye didn’t try to hit him at all, Harry? Will ye tell me that ye
let the blackguard go empty?”
“I fired when the Chevalier spoke, but I took no aim, Paddy. The
Captain hung back and looked at me for some minutes before he shot me.
I remember that there is a little wall running at an angle behind the
corner of the wood, and over this I could see the river and a barge. A
woman was steering a great lumber boat, and crying out something to a
man on the towing path--and I kept asking myself when she would
disappear from my sight; if it would be instantly in a sudden
darkness; or slowly, as a picture fades from a sheet. When the crash
came it was just as though a man had hit me with a hammer and then put
a branding iron upon my shoulder. I forgot all about d’Alençon’s
trouble then, and if I had held another pistol in my hand I would have
shot him, rule or no rule. That’s the truth, Paddy; the pain maddened
me--I could have crushed his head in my hands, stamped him under
foot--I no longer cared--I was sorry that there had been no reason for
his challenge.”
“Shame on you for that. Please God, I’ll shoot him before the week is
out.”
“No, no, Paddy--I absolutely forbid you to do anything at all.”
“I tell ye I’ll shoot him--right or wrong, I’ll have a bang at him.”
He laughed--just the same boyish Harry Gastonard that won my love
twelve years ago at Charterhouse.
“He’ll choose swords if you challenge him, Paddy.”
“Then let him choose ’em and be hanged to him.”
He was about to reply when the little witch that Greuze should have
painted came into the room again--and God forgive me, I told her that
he had not opened his lips since she went out. It was now almost time
for him to have his food--so I went up to my own room to write this
letter.
Be easy, Clara. The Captain is not in Paris, and there’ll be no
fighting--unless he should return--but of that you shall be the first
to have the news.
Would my sister have me stand by when my oldest friend is on his back
and the whole French nation dancing for joy of it?
I’ll do no such thing--shame upon any O’Connell who would. So God
bless you, Clara--and more will I write when next I have a letter for
you.--Your affectionate brother,
Paddy.
CHAPTER IX.
[Being a further instalment of the Story from the pen of Paddy
O’Connell.]
Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
June 30th, 1905.
Dear Clara,--I address this to you from the Hôtel St. Paul, but I
would have you to know that I am these two days at Poissy, which is a
riverside hamlet at the gates of Paris. Harry is here with me, looking
all his old self, and the little witch of a Greuze girl. We fish all
day and catch nothing, and at night we listen to the singing when
there is any. But, oh, my dear Clara, ’tis the oddest folk in the
world which comes to this place, and no people for the back
drawing-room at all. But that is between you and me, and need not be
told to our neighbours at Glendalough.
Ye should know that the Seine winds about Paris, and is here a pretty
river enough, with a bit of a feathery island and an inn, to which the
Bohemians come when they are not playing at the theatres. Such a
company they are! The prettiest women of Paris, dressed in collars and
straw hats (and not always so much as that upon them), and the
drollest figures of men that I ever clapped eyes upon. They spend the
mornings upon the river bank or in their barges, fishing for gudgeons
which they do not catch; but in the afternoons they go off to make
love in the woods, and come back as brazen as the colleens from a
fair. In the evenings we have dinner and music; and pretty enough it
is to sit out in the moonlight and listen to these merry nightingales
when they are in the mood to amuse us.
This is the outside of the platter, Clara; but the inside is not so
pleasing by a long way. For one thing, I have discovered that the
little simpleton Mimi is head over ears in love with my friend Harry,
and he is not far short of that with her. And if this was not the
worst of it, what should happen but that he had a visit last night
from the very last person in Paris who ought to be seen with him, and
she none other than the Captain’s wife, Lea d’Alençon.
Oh, ’tis a pretty business entirely, and enough to drive a sane man
silly. I had believed that he was done with Madame Lea for good (as he
ought to be, for her folly has got him into trouble enough). The weeks
that have passed since the duel have hardly brought her name up
betwixt us. I said that she was back with her husband, who would learn
to treat her better; when what should happen but that she turns up at
dusk last night, in a fine automobile with a nigger man driving, and
is closeted a full hour with Harry to my certain knowledge. To say
that I was angry is but to express my feelings poorly. You will be my
judge in that.
It would have been about eight when Lea came. Harry had gone up from
the boat to the hotel, and I was helping Mimi to carry up the tea
things, for we had been for a bit of a picnic, and a merry one,
forsooth. I saw the automobile and a veiled woman getting out of it;
but the child was the first to recognise Lea, and she had no pleasure
of the meeting, you may be sure.
“That is Madame d’Alençon,” says she, as pale as a little ghost when
she said it.
“Madame who?” asked I, not wishing to believe it.
“Madame Lea,” cried she. “How could it be anyone else?”
“Oh, come,” says I, “there’s more than one Madame whom he knows in
Paris.”
She stamped her foot, just like a wild beast scenting its prey.
“You know it is Madame d’Alençon, Mr. Paddy. Why do you not prevent
it?”
“What! Shall I bundle her into the car and send her back to Paris?
Pretty talk if I did that, my dear.”
“She has come here to beg money of him, Mr. Paddy. You know she would
not come for anything else.”
“What!” cried I. “Don’t you think she is in love with him?”
She laughed at this, long and drolly, the laugh of a woman who is
shaken by a passion she cannot express otherwise.
“Love--love--oh, what is all this talk of love? Go to her and offer
money, and then come back and speak to me of love.”
“My dear,” says I, “’tis plain you will never be the friend of Madame
Lea, in spite of what she’s done for you.”
“Done for me, Mr. Paddy! Oh, yes, yes, yes--she tried to prevent me
seeing Monsieur Henry again. I remember that, and the English pension
where I was to be locked up and treated like a school-girl, that she
might be with him--her lover--while I was away.”
“Her lover! I’ll not have Harry called that.”
“It is true, true,” she said, “and I--I am nothing when she is here.
Why did he call himself my friend at all? Why did he take me from the
Fête? I was happy then--yes, happy, Mr. Paddy. Why did he not leave
me where I was?”
She turned away from me and sobbed just for all the world like a grown
woman who has come upon the supreme sorrow of her life. To be sure,
Clara, I was much taken aback, and hardly knew what to say to her.
Never until this moment had I understood how deeply she loved my
friend, Henry Gastonard; but here was all her love written down in
glittering tears which a child would have understood. No longer did I
doubt the story of her virtue in a society where virtue is never much
more than a jest. All that had happened up at the Butte and afterwards
at the Hôtel St. Paul became as clear as the day. Mimi the Simpleton
was ready to die for the devil-may-care English boy. I had guessed it
before, but to-day I was sure of it.
“Oh, come,” says I, “’tis hearts that are soon mended when two have
the will to do it--and, see here,” says I, “will ye be leaving him to
the black woman who will ruin him, or take a hand in that affair
yourself? Come up with me to the house now and hear what the lady has
to say. I’ll engage that neither of us will be behindhand in the
civilities--and, Mimi,” says I “’tis your duty to go up.”
Well, she would not hear me, but went off in a tantrum down again
toward the river and the boat. When I entered the house I discovered
Harry to be closeted with Madame Lea in the little sitting-room upon
the first floor, and far from pleased she was to see me, as you will
imagine. A very beautiful, stately woman, as dark as the shadows upon
a crimson rose and as full of passion as a caged Spaniard. I observed
immediately that she had been telling the old story to my friend
Harry, and with no mean success; for he paced up and down like a wild
beast thinking of the country, and seemed to welcome my intrusion as
though a special providence had sent me to watch over him.
“You know Madame Lea,” says he, with a wave of his hand toward her.
“If I know her,” says I--and then, “I’ll take leave to ask a word
after Captain d’Alençon and his health.”
She laughed at this, saying something in French about “these droll
Irishmen;” but she did not inform me that the Captain was well, and,
be sure, I was over-anxious about him.
“Is he in Paris, Madame?” I asked her. “’Twould be good news that he
was in Paris.”
“Monsieur d’Alençon is at Chalons,” says she, blazing up suddenly;
“he has been transferred there at his own request.”
“Then ’tis to Chalons that you’ll be going presently, Madame?” says I.
She did not reply to this, while Harry looked as foolish as a man can
look when a woman has put a question to him and he has no mind to
answer it. For my part, I was never more at my ease, and I sat there
watching the fair-haired lad and the grown woman, and thinking that
but for my presence in that same hotel, she would carry him to Paris
with her for pity’s sake.
“Are you fond of the fishing at Poissy, Madame?” I went on. “’Tis
little that they seem to catch here and a long while in the catching
of it. I have taken one gudgeon this day, and my friend two more--but
you will not have come here for the fishing, perhaps?”--I put it to
her.
She answered me with a commonplace. Harry appeared to be greatly
troubled while I spoke, and presently he could stand it no longer.
“Madame d’Alençon is in trouble,” he said, “I am sure you do not
understand that, Paddy.”
“In trouble?” says I, “then that’s the worst news I’ve heard this day.
Would it be about the Captain’s going to Chalons?”
“Captain d’Alençon has behaved like a blackguard, Paddy.”
“I won’t doubt it. Let me meet him soon that I may tell him so.”
“He has gone to Chalons and left this poor lady almost penniless.”
“Then let her follow him immediately and see that someone else hears
of it.”
“She cannot follow him, Paddy. You are talking nonsense. We must put
ourselves in her position and try to help her. I’m sure that there is
not a man in Paris, who would be readier to do so than my friend Paddy
O’Connell.”
I answered this at once--
“If it’s to me that she’s come for advice, why here I am as ready with
it as the best of them. For all that, her coming was an imprudence,
Harry, and she’ll allow me to say that she’d have done better to have
stayed away.”
I said this in English, for I thought that she had no knowledge of a
Christian’s tongue--but here I must have been mistaken, for she blazed
up immediately, and said aloud that I had insulted her.
“Who is this man?” she asked him. “Why do you permit him to say these
things? Is he your friend? No; a friend would not insult your friends.
I wish to speak to you alone, Harry--have I not the right to ask
that?”
“Certainly you have, Lea--Paddy does not mean what he says. He will
understand everything better when I tell him about it afterwards.
Come, Paddy (this to me), now do be reasonable for once, and put your
philosophy in your pocket. I am sure you are very sorry for Madame
d’Alençon.”
“So sorry,” says I, “that if I could meet the Captain this night, I’d
put him in the river to show the good opinion I have of him.”
They laughed together at this, and then, to change a subject which was
not by way of being too delicate, Harry spoke of dinner, and the lady
was quick enough to say “yes.” No one in this country does much
without eating or drinking before and after they do it; and a better
ornament for a dinner-table than Lea d’Alençon you would not be
finding anywhere. She is a stately, vivacious lady, living chiefly for
the glory of showing herself to the gentlemen of Paris, and of making
love to such of them as captivate her fancy. Here, at this little inn
at Poissy, she cut a fine figure enough, and sat down to the table as
though she were a queen of a mountain kingdom come down from the
heights to dine with pigmies below. We sat and listened to her talk as
humble ministers to an acknowledged wit; all of us, that is, but
little Mimi the Simpleton, and she was silent enough but for one or
two words of repartee that by no means discredited her.
’Twas as good as the leaping at the Horse Show, Clara, to watch the
woman and the child upon opposite sides of that table, and to see the
love that went flying between them. First, it would be Madame Lea
talking to Harry with the grand air of the woman who finds herself in
the nursery; then my little Mimi making such a grimace behind the
lady’s back that I must hold to the table with both hands to prevent
the explosion that was within me. When Lea asks her quite affably what
she came to Poissy to catch, Mimi answers as readily, “I came to catch
myself”--and when Madame went on to say “That is a new kind of
amusement”--says Mimi, “You are not too old to learn it.” None the
less, I knew the child was all on fire because Harry talked so much to
the other one, and I was not a bit surprised when she ran away to her
own room directly dinner was done, and refused to come near us for the
rest of the evening.
This would have been about nine o’clock; Madame left us at a quarter
to eleven when Harry had told her for the twentieth time that he was
not returning to Paris, and that she must go back alone. I saw that
his refusal caused her much chagrin, but I will do him the credit to
say that it was just what I had expected of him. When she was gone,
and we sat together for a last pipe before turning in, he asked me
frankly what were his responsibilities toward this woman, and what he
ought to do for her.
“The man has left her, you see,” says he; “he has made my friendship
for her the excuse, and gone off with himself to Chalons. None but a
jealous Frenchman would have planned quite such a devilish revenge as
that. He doesn’t divorce her, doesn’t talk of a separation; but he
leaves her in Paris without a sixpence, and then practises the
moralities. Confess, my dear Paddy, that there is something
particularly French and subtle in all this. Lea has been accustomed to
all the luxuries. She is a woman who cannot live without them. Poverty
to her is something beyond the bounds of imagination--a shadow-land
too woeful to contemplate. And now d’Alençon thrusts poverty on her.
He leaves her in a house of glass, whence she can see the pleasures to
which she is accustomed, but is forbidden to take part in them. Two or
three chosen servants are there to spy upon her. What alternative has
such a woman if it be not an alternative of dishonour?”
“Ye speak truly,” says I, “and yet, if I were asked to name the
biggest fool in Paris to-night, ’twould be this same Captain
d’Alençon. The man cannot see further than the end of his nose, and
that, I am sure, is no famous spectacle. Of course, he has no love for
the woman left, and may be trying to drive her to those devices which
he suspects, but cannot prove. Your own course is clear, Harry--you
may help her if you can help her honourably. But you’ll not see her
again, and you’ll deny yourself because you are a man of honour to
begin with, and a lover in the second place.”
“A lover, Paddy? What do you mean by that?”
“Just as much as I say, and not a word more. You are in love with
little Mimi upstairs--I’d cry shame upon you if you were not.”
He was taken aback at this, and did not answer me for quite a long
while. When he spoke, I knew that I had touched his heart-strings, and
that he would deny it no more.
“If it’s true, Paddy, what then?” he put it to me.
“Why,” says I, “you’ll leave for London in three days’ time; get
honourable employment, which will save your fortune, and then come
back to Paris to marry her--she, meanwhile, having been at some good
school to soften the manners of her.”
“Do you think they want softening, Paddy?”
“I’m sure of it. Put all this talk of play-actresses and opera singers
out of your head and come down to the truth. Mimi will make you a good
wife… but you’ll have to teach her how.”
“She’d never stop at any school, Paddy.”
“Try her and see; and, directly it’s done, go back to London and work
for your living.”
“Ah,” says he, rising abruptly, “it’s a fine old philosopher come out
of Ireland after all. Well, my boy, I’ll ask Mimi in the morning, and
hear what she has to say about it.”
“And you’ll not see the other woman again?”
“Not of my own volition, Paddy… upon my honour, no.”
“Ah,” says I, “and a fine old friend is that same volition when ye
begin to weigh it up and a pretty woman’s in the balance. But I’ll
take what I can get,” says I, “and be thankful it’s no less.”
Upon which, Clara, we parted; but how the promise is to be carried
out, or what the future of such a man may be, God only knows. Now, at
the very minute of closing this letter, I learn that Mimi La Godiche
has left the hotel early this morning, and is nowhere to be found.
Such a thing was not wholly unexpected by me; but what it may mean to
my friend Harry Gastonard, I prefer not to think.
Never was a man in such a state of misery and despair. I can do
nothing for him, say nothing, think of nothing. The child has gone,
and there’s an end of it. But God keep her wherever she may be is the
prayer of, your affectionate brother,
Paddy.
CHAPTER X.
[Henry Gastonard writes to Paddy O’Connell a letter concerning his
search for Mimi the Simpleton.]
Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
July 15th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--The calamity of your sudden departure from Paris is in no
way mitigated by the sad news I have to tell you. Mimi is not found,
nor have I any clue to her whereabouts other than a pitiful little
letter from her, posted three days ago at Raincy, a suburb of Paris,
and evidently a sincere expression of her determination not to return
to me.
That Lea d’Alençon is at the bottom of it all I have not the smallest
doubt. But there are subsidiary reasons, and one of them your own
frankness before Mimi concerning my fortune and my future. The idea
has come to her that I am lost if I remain in Paris. She is madly
jealous of the other woman, and would have me leave France that I may
also be quit of the fascinating Lea. Such is the truth, Paddy; such is
the naïve confession of one whom few would credit with so sure an
instinct or so faithful an affection.
Meanwhile, as I need not tell you, who stood by me during the dark of
the day, that my efforts to find her and to bring her back are
unceasing, and pursued with all the advantage my fortune can bestow.
Recently I revisited the old haunts at Neuilly, which we re-discovered
together before your sister’s unfortunate illness recalled you from
Paris. The quest of the lion-tamer, this horrible monster of a
Cassadore, was rewarded with success some days ago, when I found him
in a booth at Conflans, and was immediately admitted to his august
presence. But he knows nothing of Mimi, nor is it reasonable to
suppose that even her resolution would carry her again to scenes so
reminiscent of the phantoms of her childhood.
I say that he knows nothing of Mimi, but this is not to believe that
he would not hear of her gladly, and press her joyfully to his grimy
bosom if any opportunity occurred. A truly heroic figure, vast and
proud and formidable, I found him in a wooden shed behind a crazy
circus, taking a _plat du jour_ of black bread and ancient beef, and
making frequent applications to a green bottle which contained an
unknown but, I doubt not, potent liquor. Upon either side were lions,
which so delight the simple people of the fêtes and fairs about
Paris. They were shut off from the passage in which he sat by huge
beams of timber; but these stood so wide apart that a paw could pass
at half a dozen places--and you, Paddy, will understand how much I
enjoyed that interview. For there were lions at the front of me and
lions at the back of me, and, although some of them seemed half
asleep, there were others very wide awake indeed, and so playful that
I wonder I came away with any flesh upon my bones at all.
We spoke between the roaring--no pleasant sound at any time, and
doubly fearful when you have a lion within a foot of you. I found
Cassadore quite frank, both about Mimi and his business. The lions, he
admitted, were half-drugged when he put them through their paces. It
was true that the great African brute Salambo had eaten his keeper,
“Sammy,” when he, Cassadore, was away in Paris; but, after all, you
cannot make Christians of lions by burning them with red-hot irons,
nor was the “Sammy” aforesaid quite sober when he entered the cage. In
a voice resounding with dramatic tones, the man described how he had
returned to find his servant eaten to the very neck--“mais, monsieur,
the eyes were wide open and staring, and the head was untouched.”
Of Mimi the fellow told me much. He had bought her of an old woman at
Orleans. There was no other word for it. He saw the child capering
before a dirty home, and was struck by the readiness and the wit with
which she answered his questions. Assuming her to be a waif and stray
entrusted by callous parents to a mercenary hag, he made a bargain on
the spot, and took Mimi away with him. His further assurance that he
loved her as his own daughter, uttered between lengthy draughts from a
capacious bottle, carried less conviction than his story. He had, so
he said, spent large sums upon her education, and taught her himself
those charming accomplishments which she displayed at the many fêtes
her presence graced. Having in turn sold her to me (for it came to
that), he asked if I thought he had no sense of honour, no finer
feeling than to play the part of a mean kidnapper, taking young women
from respectable homes? This I answered immediately in the
negative--for who would contradict a showman with half a dozen lions
at his back!
Admit, my dear Paddy, that this quest is not a little pitiful, when
you remember the object of it. Consider what my acquaintances would
say of me if they heard that my latest occupation is to search the
booths about Paris for a child who was capering with a tambourine a
few months ago, and may now be returned to that employment. With these
I myself should not argue. There is a day in every man’s life when he
must stand outside the world’s conventions, break with all common
tradition, and write the page of action for himself. Such a day is
mine--I am indifferent to all else but its issue.
This spirit, my dear Paddy, is moving me to employ every agency money
can command for the recovery of little Mimi. I have just engaged the
services of Jules Farman, perhaps the cleverest officer in Paris
to-day, and he is with me in this quest. Our latest call was upon the
old woman Marie, who lives in a cottage upon the great high road
between Blois and Orleans. Here we gleaned but little. The child is
the natural daughter of persons unknown. She was left with a sum of
money, and a “mother’s care”--do not laugh, Paddy--was bestowed upon
her. Farman assured me that this hag would not help us, but on the day
following our return to Paris, he carried me suddenly to the suburb of
Raincy and declared that he had a clue. Mimi was travelling with a
rascally showman named Gondré. A hundred franc note would buy her
freedom--that freedom I would have paid not a hundred but ten thousand
francs to ensure.
We left for Raincy early in the afternoon and visited the show as any
bumpkins ready to gape at aged Pantaloon, or to lay our offerings at
the feet of a rouged and battered Columbine.
The tents were pitched in a clearing of the wood near the
village--half a dozen of them with sorry spavined hacks grazing round
about, and as fine a collection of rascality in charge as all France
could show you. I will not dwell upon the shame with which I
discovered myself seeking the child in these haunts. I am not easily
moved to excitements, Paddy, but when we approached this place and I
told myself that little Mimi had left me for such a life as this, that
I was about to re-discover her and take her to my house--be sure never
to leave it again--then, believe me, I lived one of the truest hours
of life that I have ever known.
I say that we walked about the grounds as ordinary bumpkins, but, be
sure, our eyes were seeking Mimi everywhere, and the first
disappointments came when we discovered nothing whatever that would
justify Farman’s optimism. The man Gondré proved to be a veritable
clown of the vulgarest kind--a fellow of small physique, mean eyes and
jaded energies. He stood upon the platform of a booth supposed to
contain an angry panther, who shared a dinner with a white-haired
Circassian, and generally displayed tenderness towards her--but when
we paid our money and went in, we discovered the panther to be nothing
more than a German wolf-hound, while the white-haired Circassian was a
lady from the neighbourhood of la Galette, who had resorted with some
success to the potentialities of common washing soda.
This did not surprise me, but I was disappointed to find that Farman
was well known to these people, and that I had done better to have
gone there alone. True, every door opened at his coming, but the
suspicion remained that these vulgar wits were being played against
his own, and that they understood perfectly well why he had come to
Raincy.
From this moment I, myself, despaired of finding Mimi at all. Useless
for Farman to tell me that she was hidden somewhere in the
neighbourhood of the fête and that he would not leave without her. I
began to believe that our coming had been anticipated and Mimi
removed. It is true that a gleam of hope came to me after dinner, when
my friend asked me to go with him to a cottage a little way from the
town and did not hesitate to say that Mimi was there. The place proved
to be a tumble-down shanty in the very heart of the wood, a mere cabin
reeking of filthy odours and indescribably damp. Here we found the
fellow Gondré, and with him a handsome girl, sleek and dark-eyed and
of the gipsy blood. They received us civilly, and said that they
believed that the young woman was discovered and would be handed over
to us. I perceived nothing in their demeanour to awaken suspicion, and
for the first time I really dared to believe that Mimi was found.
Farman, upon his part, took the affair a little cautiously. I think
that he feared something, both from the lonely situation of the house
and the known reputation of those who owned it.
When Farman and I were left alone in the room, no light but that of a
coal fire in a broken grate, the doors closed, the silence of the wood
all about us, I detected a certain uneasiness, a readiness to set his
chair closer to mine and to feel for his revolver, which were some
comment upon the gallant reputation he bears in Paris. Unable to hold
his tongue, he recited in low tones the story of the man Gondré, his
known share in a recent story of crime, the assassinations, robberies
and assaults of which the law had failed to convict him--and, as
though this were not enough, he began to blame me for seeking Mimi at
all.
“She has been bred to this life,” he said, “and nothing will wean her
from it. What can you hope--to make her your mistress? Believe me, she
would not live with you a month. Much better to leave her to these
people and return to London. If she goes with you to-night, she will
leave you again. I know her kind--there are ten thousand of them in
Paris, and not an honest one among them. You are risking your money,
perhaps your life, in this quest. Is the girl worth it, whatever her
looks?”
It was difficult to answer this--for be sure the man had the logic of
the argument. I could not enter upon the discussion of my reasons,
most certainly could not confess to him the whole truth, that I would
sooner have parted with every shilling of my fortune than have
returned to Paris without Mimi.
Happily the argument terminated before it had begun--I am quoting from
you, Paddy--by the sudden appearance in the room of the man Gondré,
the gipsy girl, and another young woman apparently of some twenty-five
years of age.
I have told you that there was little light to speak of in this mean
hovel. A reddening fire, a guttering candle, showed me immediately
that the newcomer was not Mistress Mimi, nor did she resemble her in
any way. To be candid, the girl wore an odd and ungainly appearance,
and I had scarcely blurted out an impatient exclamation when Farman
laughed aloud and asked, not altogether to my astonishment, “Why did
you bring that boy here?” Then I perceived the truth--the so-called
girl was a young actor from a neighbouring booth, and he still wore
the clothes in which he had delighted the bumpkins of the country
side.
“Why do you bring that boy here?”
“Mais, monsieur, you are insulting us.”
“Do you wish me to remember your history, Maître Gondré? Now, come,
no nonsense. Produce the child, and we will make it worth your while.”
The question was direct and demanded an answer. I realised now the
dangers of our situation. These people understood that we had money
upon us to ransom Mimi if she could be found. They were determined
that we should not leave the cabin with that money upon us if any wit
of theirs, or violence, could extort it from us. To this end the young
actor had been called from a neighbouring booth. I had no doubt that
others were being summoned from other booths, and that our position
must soon become desperate. Meanwhile, the fellow Gondré was
protesting by the honour of all his ancestors that we had insulted
him, doing what he could to detain us and showing his hand most
impudently.
“If this young woman is not the person you seek, I am sorry,” he
rejoined. “It is not my fault, monsieur. Admit that I have been ready
to oblige you. I am sure the young gentleman will wish to recompense
me for my trouble. Is it not so, monsieur--you will be ready to pay us
for what we have done and for any further information we can bring
you? Let that be understood, and I will undertake to find the girl
within a week. But naturally we are too poor to work for nothing.”
I was about to make an answer to this when Farman stood up and replied
for me. I could see that the situation alarmed him, and that he was
employing all his wits to extricate us from it. Agreeing apparently
with the man Gondré’s contention, he said that he would speak to me
apart and then make them an offer. This, I think, deceived the company
for an instant, and before they had time to debate it, we were
standing outside in the wood and the door behind us was closed.
“Run!” he said--“run--or, by God, they will murder us!”
I did not ask him a single question, did not even care to know why a
man armed with such authority as he possessed should be in danger of
his life in such a place as the woods by Raincy. It was very late by
this time, and the thicket about us black, dark, and still. We took a
path at hazard, and, forcing our way through the brushwood would have
reached the town of Raincy itself and the railway station there, but
we had not gone fifty paces before the men were on our track, many
men, as it appeared by their shouting, and quite open in their pursuit
of us. I had a revolver with me, and I need not tell you that Farman
had his, but it became clear to me that these would be of little
service in such a place. When my companion pulled me from the path and
dived into a thicket at the edge of a considerable copse, I would not
have wagered a sovereign upon our chances, nor admitted any but the
seemingly inevitable conclusion to so sorry an adventure.
We lay in the thicket for a couple of hours, I suppose. If the
ridiculous nature of the proceeding occurred to me, be sure I was not
willing to admit it. A man does many foolish things in the name of
woman, but is not often ready to write about them. And I do believe,
Paddy, that we came as near to being knocked on the head for a few
francs as any two men that ever set out upon a Quixotic errand and
forgot to count the cost of it.
More than once I perceived the slouching figure of the man Gondré, as
he thrashed the undergrowth and exhorted his brother ruffians to
diligence. The youth who had disguised himself as a girl came into the
very place where we lay, and almost stepped upon Jules Farman. This
was the finest moment of it all, for, had he discovered us, Farman
would have shot him dead and the rest of the gang swarmed into the
copse in a moment. I think he was himself afraid of the darkness and
not unwilling to escape it. When he had gone, a voice from afar called
him to another covert, and we were left alone.
I should tell you, Paddy, that all this happened at a distance,
perhaps, of a couple of miles from the town. Had we run for it in the
first instance, other showmen would have emerged from other booths and
reinforced the gang, who would have murdered us first and robbed us
afterwards as cheerfully as they would have gone to the tents to
exploit the “white panther” from the Indies. For this reason, and no
other, Jules Farman chose to go to ground, and I could not but admire
his prudence. When the immediate danger appeared to be abated, he led
me through the wood, not toward the town of Raincy itself, but to the
main eastern railway line, and there, by a stroke of good fortune, we
found a “marchandise” or goods train waiting at a signal cabin, and
instantly boarded it and were taken to Paris. It was five in the
morning when I made the Gare de l’Est--an hour later when I reached my
rooms in the Rue St. Paul and flung myself upon my bed as weary and
disappointed a man as any in Paris.
For now it is clear to me that the quest of this child is vain, and
that she has determined to separate her lot from mine, cost her or me
what it may.--Dear Paddy, yours as ever,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XI.
[Henry Gastonard informs Paddy O’Connell of his probable return to
London.]
July 21st, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--I have received your letter dated July 18th, but I cannot
say that I have hastened to reply to it. This is very fit and proper,
for who would dare to reply in haste to a document which contains so
formidable an indictment.
I am going to the devil, you say, and going, in motor parlance, upon
my fourth speed. The writing is upon the wall, but I have no eyes to
read it. A few brief months shall roll and then my inheritance pass to
the amiable parson at Beldon, and I become a beggar upon the
streets--or in the poorhouse, as the case may be. So be it, my dear
Paddy--for what is written is written, nor shall all the tears blot
out a single line.
Consider the irony of it. I am to earn five hundred pounds a year by
my own labours. The fortune bequeathed to me by my dear father is not
to help that undertaking. Useless for me to go into the city, to
choose a Hebrew at hazard and to say to him, pay me five hundred per
annum and I will lend you twenty thousand. The Will forbids the trick.
The money must be earned by me, by my own labour and industry, or my
cousin must have my fortune. Poor devil, he wants it badly. I have not
the heart to begrudge him a single penny of it.
But, Paddy, imagine your friend Henry Gastonard upon an office stool
or seeking half commissions in the purlieus of Throgmorton-street! Of
talents I have none. I could not earn a shilling by writing for the
newspapers, or persuade even an enthusiastic friend to set up a bust
of mine in any hall or cellar in Europe. The world has been to me a
pleasant place. I have drunk of the fountains of Bimini and quaffed
draughts of perpetual youth. To dress and drive, to dine, to dance, to
sing, to sleep--behold my curriculum! I can no more imagine life
without its music, its laughter, its love than I can depict the
Châtelet without its Zulema or the Athénée robbed of the art of
Mademoiselle Yalone. If I have lived in Paris among the Bohemians, it
is because they stand to me for the fullest impersonation of the _joie
de vivre_. I may sink to poverty, pass into the shadows of
obscurity--but to the degradation of the servile state, never, dear
Paddy, upon my honour.
So your letter leaves behind it but the gratitude of a man who bends
to the truth but is obstinate to the fact. I am answering it by a
confession--and one which will not be very welcome to you. Yesterday
I saw our old friend Lea d’Alençon again and spent many hours in her
company. She is to be divorced, I understand, and Paris amused by a
pretty scandal. You know how little this concerns me. You will be very
sure that my meeting with her was accidental and that I forbore to
seek her out of my own volition--even as I promised you.
Let me say that it began with a wild dinner given at Charine’s by that
mad voluptuary, Willy Martin, the American. I accepted his invitation
because Paris has bored me very much since Mimi went away, and there
are not enough decent people left in the whole city to keep a
reasonable man from suicide.
We dined in a room set out to represent a cabin in the mountains.
There were back cloths of perpetual snow and cooling glaciers, distant
views of mountain peaks and wonderful pictures of impossible valleys.
The table was supposed to be a bank of the driven snow, above which a
cascade suspended its frozen waters. For partners of the feast, there
were handmaidens in dominoes--beautiful of course, because Willy
Martin declared them to be so. When I drew a paper from the basin and
discovered that my particular lot was to be cast with a green domino
of some magnificence, then I thought of St. Patrick and of you and
declared myself in luck. Alas, Paddy, I had not been two minutes at
the table when, despite her domino and a most excellent disguise, I
discovered that I had the amorous Lea for a companion and that the
drawing was entirely to her satisfaction.
It is some weeks, as you know, since I have seen this adorable
creature. To judge by her conversation, she has been on the verge of a
decline because of my neglect. Almost her first words destroyed that
fond illusion of her poverty which helped her to win my sympathies
when she visited me at Poissy.
I no longer believe her story that d’Alençon left her without a
shilling, although it would appear to be true that his patience is
exhausted and that he is about to take a quite unusual step for a
Frenchman, and to divorce her. This, if the tongue of gossip has not
done her an injury (which is possible), he appears to have the right
to do; and yet it is delightful to hear her protesting her innocence
and declaring that all her fault is a love of the light and a positive
aversion from social darkness.
“I shall go and live in the East,” she said to me in a languorous
outburst, when the dinner was still young. “I must have sunshine and
music, Harry--all the sober things are hateful to me; I could never be
an obedient wife to any man. Of course, I am sorry for my husband. It
is the privilege of a woman to be sorry for the man she cannot love.
He married me--I did not marry him. What child in a convent ever
marries any man, or is to be held responsible for the womanhood which
comes to her afterwards. Marriage to me was a release from routine and
the lives of the Saints. I had learned to hate the Saints; I would
have kissed the feet of any man who closed that dreadful book to me.
And all the world was opening to my eyes, the great world, immense to
the childish imagination as the heavens, and as full of golden stars.
Do you wonder that I leaped for joy when they told me I was to be
married.”
I had never heard Lea serious before; but I do believe she was serious
upon this occasion. My promise that if she went to the East she would
hear little even of the “tom-tom” in a harem, and find the prophet’s
limitations trying did not move her a hair’s-breadth. Had she not seen
“The Belle of Teheran” as they staged it at the Bouffes, and did not
that glittering spectacle of sequins and seraphs stand to her for the
whole glory of the Asiatic world?
“You would be one of four, Lea,” I said to her, “an adorable quarter
of a gloomy _ménage_. It is true that you would be permitted to sleep
upon cushions, and to wash your hands in a fountain, but, my dear
lady, consider the _dernier cri_ in turbans, and reflect. There is no
glamour of the East except in the West. Go to the Bouffes when the
floats are dark, and see what the scenery looks like. Does it remind
you of anything on earth which is not the apotheosis of the mean and
the shabby. To me the East stands for a kind of opera comique, which
is to be suffered only by those who view it from afar. I like to read
of pashas and pagodas, of temple bells and little Burmese maidens; but
when I am among them I think of the fleas. You, Lea, would be calling
for sweet scents and a passage home before you had been in the place
twenty-four hours. As for the aged Vizier who owned you, I doubt if he
would have a whisker left in a week. My compassion would go out to
him.”
Well, Paddy, she refused to see it, and I perceived that for the
moment some wild scheme of romance is in her head, and may lead her to
new extravagances sufficiently wild and sufficiently foolish to
astonish this Paris which loves the bizarre and the daring. She is not
without rich relatives, and, as she told me to-night, there is an
uncle at Marseilles who is always ready to befriend her. Men are
sometimes very gentle toward a woman whose chief enemy is her own
beauty. Lea will find defenders, whatever may be charged against her;
and it would not astonish me in the least to hear that she had become
a queen of the colony at Cairo or a novice among the Benedictine nuns
at Subiacum. Nothing, indeed, would be too outrageous for the changing
dispositions of a woman who has drunk of the cup of satiety, and
already has found it bitter.
Willy Martin’s dinner came to an end, I should tell you, in a blaze of
glory, which nearly set the restaurant on fire. A nymph, supposed to
be imprisoned in the ice, but really shut up in a glass case, danced
a wild _pas seul_ upon the table, and overturned the candlesticks into
the lap of little Jane Merlot, from the Opera Comique. When her robe
caught fire--and she could ill spare it--the soda water was employed
to extinguish the flames--a bright idea, and one which set this
rollicking company to other notions not less brilliant. From this
moment, a battle of the corks took the place of that polite talk so
dear to our forefathers.
I found myself at five o’clock of the morning upon the road to
Versailles in a forty-horse car driven by Lecallo, of the Opera. Lea,
in a green domino, soaked to the hems in aerated waters, was at my
side, and heaven alone knew whither we were going! As for Lecallo, he
drove like the devil possessed; and before I had quite realised the
absurdity of the venture, we stood at the door of the Hôtel de
France, at Chartres, and a pretty crowd of early birds were cheering
us to the echo.
Such, my dear Paddy, was the first stage of an adventure as ludicrous
as it was lamentable. I give you my word that I would have paid a
hundred sovereigns at any moment of it to have been quit of the
predicament and safely back in my own room at the Hôtel St. Paul.
This sum I would have doubled when Lecallo, with intentions of the
loftiest kind, chose to drive his car on to Tours, and left me in the
Hôtel with one green domino and a crushed opera hat. Now, for a
truth, was my own position both perilous and impossible. It became
infinitely worse when Lea, disdaining all other arts, threw herself
upon her genius for romance and suggested an immediate journey to a
desert island where none should discover us.
“What has Paris done for us?” she asked me dramatically.
I answered that it had just given us an excellent dinner and a nymph
in a block of ice.
“Be serious, my dear Harry,” she said; “did you not tell me last night
that you never wished to see Paris again?”
“Not until the morning, Lea. At night I never wish to see Paris again
until the morning.”
“Ah, you jest when I am so much in earnest. Take me away, Harry, take
me from all temptation--to the sea, to the woods--anywhere, if I may
forget what has been, and learn to hope.”
“But, my dear Lea, does a pretty woman ever cease to hope?”
“She ceases to hope when the man who should be her friend ceases to
remember. I have been telling myself for the last ten days that the
luckiest day of my life was the one which determined my husband to
divorce me. The supreme injustice demands the supreme sacrifice. I am
now going to blot out ten years of my life and start again from my
girlhood. I shall leave Paris, perhaps leave France. As I do not
intend to deceive myself, there will be no part for religion in this
reformation of a soul. I shall live as all the other good women about
me. Reputation will be nothing to me, for I shall have nothing to win
by reputation. Even my name will not betray me, for I shall be Madame
d’Alençon no more. This is my settled resolution. I am waiting to
hear how far you, the oldest of my friends, approve it.”
This, my dear Paddy, was the astounding confession this romantic woman
now poured into my amazed ears. Whether to take it seriously, or to
believe it to be the natural sequel to a night of frivolity, I know no
more than the dead.
For the moment I appeared to be confronted by a sudden purpose, and to
become aware of an aftermath to the harvests of folly. Lea, I said,
had wearied at last of all that Paris had to give her. Love, light,
laughter, music--these revolted her, and she would turn from them. It
might be possible that the tongue of slander had wholly maligned her,
and that at heart she was a virtuous woman, seeking something as yet
lacking to her life. Upon this I felt able to pronounce no settled
opinion. Has not old Georges Oleander written that the one riddle man
may never solve is the riddle of a woman’s confidence?
“What do you want me to do, Lea?” I asked her baldly. “How can I help
this wonderful scheme of yours? Do you suggest that I buy a desert
island and a camping outfit for two? Or shall it be a caravan and a
month in the forests of Amboise? You have only to say the word.”
Well, this pleased her immensely. She clapped her hands at the novelty
of the idea, and I could see that the “reformation of the soul” had
gone to the wall for the time being, at any rate.
“I should like nothing so well,” she said. “A caravan in the
forest--how absolutely delightful. Did not the Chevalier Leblanc have
one last year? You remember--it was in all the papers. A motor
caravan--a little bedroom, a salon, and a kitchen behind it. My dear
Harry, you could not suggest anything I would like half so well. Let
us go back to Paris immediately, that I may order my dresses.”
“But, Lea, I don’t happen to own a caravan, and it would take some
months to build one. Besides, I made no promise to go with
you--certainly not alone.”
She looked at me amazed. Here was a thing that Lea d’Alençon could
not for a moment understand.
“My dear Harry, what do you mean? Shall we take a _sergent de ville_
with us, then?”
“But, Lea, consider our reputations. I grant you that this appearance
at Chartres is little to our credit, but, at the worst, we can blame
the car. I don’t think your friends would accept a similar excuse in
the case of a caravan. We could not say that we burst a tyre and were
detained for a whole month in the Forest of Amboise.”
She was much piqued. Of course, she did not take my words literally,
but they were understood in some way as an anticipation of all she had
been leading up to, and a ready repudiation of it. Her reply intimated
this in plain terms, and also was very far from that flippant response
I had expected.
“Are my friends’ opinions anything to me, Harry? Will they be anything
when I am a divorced woman? Is it really of no concern to you
whatever, what happens to me afterwards? I do not believe it. Honour
gives a woman claims which love may deny to her. Are you insensible to
them?”
“You know that I am not, Lea. My friendship for you would do much, but
it would not do it upon a false compulsion of honour. The story of
your life is your own. It would be no kindness to make it mine, nor
should I permit you to do so.”
“You have never loved me, Harry.”
“I have often said so, Lea.”
“Then why do you not go away from me?”
“Perhaps I shall take you at your word--in a caravan.”
She laughed a little angrily. I could see that she was greatly
chagrined by our brief talk, but by no means ready to accept it as
final.
“Would you leave me without a friend in Paris, Harry--must I think
that of you?”
“You know me better than to think it, Lea.”
“But you are telling me that you mean to go?”
“I am answering you as you asked to be answered.”
“And that is the man--always--always--when the flower is cut from the
tree, it is already a dead flower to him.”
“Not always, Lea. I have known him to keep it quite a long time--in a
book. But, of course, the particular man was very young. Now, here is
our breakfast coming. Is not that a subject more agreeable to you?”
She shook her head, and would not admit the fact. The repast was the
dullest I have ever shared with the stately Lea, and even the purchase
of a respectable frock--the best that the city of Chartres could
discover--did not allay her gloom. In truth, my dear Paddy, she has
determined to marry me when her husband divorces her, and is dismayed
to discover that I am not as determined to marry her. For my part, I
know not what to think, and I am wondering if honour may not have
something to say to me after all. Certain it is that her husband’s
jealousy chose me before others for its subject, and chose me without
a shred of justice or reason. They say in Paris that there would have
been a reconciliation but for that mad journey of hers to Poissy and
the inn. You know how little I was responsible for that--you do not
need to be reminded of its circumstances.
All that has happened to Lea d’Alençon has been of her own seeking.
For this reason my mood impels me to decline to respond to her
sentiment or to be deceived by it. Nor am I yet wholly convinced that
it is real. When we returned to Paris to-night, Lecallo having called
for us unexpectedly at five o’clock of the afternoon, the first decent
person we met, upon quitting the Bois de Boulogne, was the Count of
Marcy, just returned from Dieppe, and upon his way to the Engadine. He
greeted Lea rapturously, and immediately spoke of a little dinner at
the Ritz, and of another couple who were to dine there with him. She
accepted the invitation instantly, and quitted me to go and dress. It
is true that I promised to meet her to-morrow and to give her a “man’s
opinion” upon the whole situation; but that promise will not be
fulfilled. And it will not be fulfilled, Paddy, because Farman has
just brought me the precious news that Mimi has been traced to England
and is now engaged with a troupe of ragamuffins playing in the barns
and booths of my own country.
So I go to London immediately. The decision is irrevocable. And it may
be that I have seen Lea d’Alençon for the last time.
I will not say I wish it so, for I have called her my friend; but the
event might be better in the end for her and for--Yours in great good
hope,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XII.
[Henry Gastonard tells of a visit to his cousin, the Rev. Arthur
Warrington, at Lowestoft.]
Hotel Metropole, Lowestoft,
July 31st, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--The late Douglas Jerrold remarked that he doted upon the
sea--from the beach. It seemed yesterday that the sea doted upon me
when it rolled me like a barrel in my bunk and moved me to appeal to
high heaven for immediate annihilation. The passage across was about
as dirty as a Channel passage can be--and that, as you know, you who
are fond of singing the glories of the deep (when you are on shore) is
a shade which blackest night cannot surpass.
I made no stay in London save to dine and to sleep at the Carlton. The
hansom which drove me across Trafalgar Square showed me no amazing
novelty, nor was I long enough in the city to find the place much
changed. It is true that there is now a fine bit of life and colour
where once the dingy old Pavilion stood--for I visited the new
building after dinner--and Leicester Square seems less shabby than
formerly; but a man who comes over from Paris is rarely amazed by
anything that London can show him, and admits her later day claims
reluctantly. In one matter alone do I find a real advance, and that is
the newer hotels, which, I venture to think, are just about as good as
any in Europe.
You did not answer my last letter--possibly because of your
indignation; it may be because of your want of interest. A man who is
playing golf by the seashore (for I am convinced you are there) cares
little for the fact that his neighbour is in a bunker, and less for
the means by which he may extract himself therefrom. Nor do I expect
the Paddy of old time to be changed very much from that Hector who has
washed his hands of me upon more than one occasion, and is quite ready
to do so again when my letters have made him angry enough. You think
that I am playing a fool’s game, Paddy, and your silence bears witness
to the fact. So be it--until we gather scalps together at Portmarnock,
and I play you for your boots, which, most likely, are unpaid for.
You should know that Jules Farman’s information sent me to London, and
from London pell-mell to the East Coast of England, where I am to find
Mimi the Simpleton among a company of clowns, and to withdraw her
immediately from that humorous if unwashed society. If Farman is to be
believed, the girl left us deliberately at Poissy, met an old comrade
of the Fêtes upon the outskirts of Paris, joined his troupe
immediately; and having acquired the distinction of dancing a Spanish
dance which is not Spanish, and of playing upon a guitar which is no
guitar at all, set out with certain vagrants of the city to amuse the
desperadoes of the outskirts and their obliging families.
This company appears to have prospered for a little while, and then to
have been drowned, partly by drink and partly by the winds of
adversity. It broke up at Rheims, sent straggling members on to
Brussels, there fell in with an Englishman of enterprise, was
re-organised by him and wafted over to our native country where upon
the sandy shore or the less accommodating shingle it amuses the
prosperous of suburbia and bears witness once more to the smallness of
this terrestrial globe and the fertile resource of its inhabitants.
Admit with me, my dear Paddy, that there is something wonderfully fine
in this superb independence. Reflect upon the homes you know, the
motherhood there, the gregarious instincts of childhood, the bonds
binding even the most wretched--do this, and then put side by side
with it the life and actions of such a child as Mimi the Simpleton.
She has not known a home these many years. She cannot have the
remotest idea of the meaning of motherhood. The streets of a city have
taught her the great lessons of self-reliance and of self-help. She is
not afraid to be alone. All the terrors which inflict the man of
substance, bills payable and bills due, the rise or fall of values,
doubts concerning the future, the perils of ambition, the bitterness
of loss, these have no meaning for Mimi the Simpleton. Let the sun
shine and she will laugh. Give her bread and coffee and she has the
riches of Crœsus. Take her to a café, where the lights dance and the
fiddles are busy, and you are opening to her the floodgates of
Paradise. Fortune is powerless against armour such as this. What
matters it if the bread be lacking to-day--will not to-morrow be more
generous? Who shall complain that the sun sets in a cloud, when he
will rise in splendour at dawn?
You may ask me, Paddy, how it comes to be, if this be Mimi’s creed of
life, that I would intrude upon it with a more exacting philosophy or
a friendship that is critical? I shall not attempt to answer these
questions. I am drawn to this child, I know not by what spell. It is
not love, as men commonly employ that word. I do not seek, be sure of
it, to put shame upon her, or to ask her to be the instrument of
passion. But she has become necessary to my life. The vagrancy of the
years has brought me to this, that there is just one other vagrant
upon the road with whom I would share the wigwam, just one other
little comrade who must help me to light the camp fire and to watch by
it when the sun has set. To this end I am pursuing Mimi upon this
Eastern strand. To this selfish purpose I am about to command that she
shall cast off the Spaniards and remember the lessons of yesterday.
She may refuse or she may consent--but I shall pursue the issue if
necessary through the years.
Accompany me, then, to this “gay” resort; follow me to the sandy shore
of Lowestoft; but particularly, my dear Paddy, to the temporary home
of my cousin, Arthur Warrington, who is here as a _locum tenens_, and
has already fascinated a large number of females and a smaller (a much
smaller) number of pious males. Arthur, I must admit, was not as
pleased as he might have been to see me. The exclamation that he
uttered was not altogether ecclesiastical, nor do I choose to remember
it; but it did not imply welcome, not as you and I understand the
word. When he had recovered the shock, he confessed to me that he
believed me to be dying in Paris, and was naturally much relieved to
find that his alarms were groundless.
“I think you wrote me to that effect, Arthur,” said I. “If I did not
reply to your letter, pray forgive me.”
“Oh,” says he, blushing to the roots of his beautiful auburn hair, “I
do not think that I wrote, Henry--I had not your address--but we were
both distressed, greatly distressed, I will say.”
“Well,” said I, “you seem to have been worrying, Arthur--but say no
more about it; for here I am as sound as a smacksman and as hungry.
What’s more, I have come to stop with you for a week or two if you
will have me, which, if I remember your invitations correctly, is a
pleasure you have been looking forward to for a long time. Now, isn’t
it, Arthur? or am I mistaken?”
Well, he stammered and stuttered again, and was in the middle of a
parable about the green room and the pink room, when in comes cousin
Martha, who is one of the jolliest little women in Suffolk and as
clever a flirt as ever was yoked to a parson’s cassock. Be sure Martha
had her lord and master down in a minute and was trampling upon him in
two. What! to turn their own flesh and blood into the streets--who
ever heard of such a thing! Of course I must stay with them. And
wouldn’t I be useful, too! She thought of that in a minute.
“Don’t you know we’re to have a Pageant here,” says she, “of course
you paj, Henry?”
“Of course,” said I, “anything that you tell me to do is done
immediately, Martha. Shall we paj now or await a more solitary
occasion?”
She expressed some confusion at this, and hastened to explain that
they were about to have a Pageant at Lowestoft in which they would
celebrate the early arrival of the Danes in England and the glorious
victories of Queen Boadicea. There were to be real Norsemen and real
ships--to say nothing of bloody fights on the foreshore and the
gathering of the clans upon such heights as this land of marsh and
marigolds can command.
“Arthur is to be a monk,” says she. “Of course he will be a Protestant
monk, but he will wear sandals and shave his hair. I am to play a
British maiden, Harry. I shall wear a bearskin upon my shoulders and
dye my hair red--now don’t you think it will look beautiful?”
I assured her that nothing could be finer; and “as for the reputation
of the late Mrs. Astley of glorious memory, whose hair was to be
wrapped about her feet whenever she stooped to the earth to do it,
that,” said I, “is already perished.”
This flattery was by no means unwelcome to cousin Martha. She told me
that they were having great trouble with the townsfolk, who had
entered into the fray almost with too much spirit--especially a local
vendor of wines, who wanted to play a modern monk Roger and to roll
kegs of beer down the hills to the sea. There were many candidates, I
discovered, for the maidens’ parts, especially such maidens as were to
be carried in the arms of the barbarians. Not less popular was the
office of Druid, who would cut the mistletoe provided by the Army and
Navy Stores and generally conduct the sacred rites as tradition and
Christmas have sanctioned them.
“And what do you do, Arthur?” I asked the parson, “and what, if you
please, is a Protestant monk? Forgive the ignorance which remembers so
little history. Of course it is a showy part, or they would not have
asked you to play it. You were always a bit of an actor, weren’t you,
cousin? Don’t you remember when you came out to us at Bordeaux, that
little Mademoiselle Charcot who----”
He exclaimed, “Hush, hush!”--it is astonishing how rarely a cleric is
tolerant of reminiscences--and when my cousin little Martha implored
me to tell her the whole story, Arthur silenced her immediately by an
answer to my previous question.
“A Protestant monk is one who carried the evangels before the days of
the Papacy----”
“Then against what did he protest, Arthur?”
“Against the pagan intolerance of his day--just as we protest in our
own time against the pagan intolerance of the social world. I intend
to show the people that their vices are not changed from those of
fifteen hundred years ago----”
“What a lively business. Do you have a band?”
“It is not seemly to jest upon such a subject, Henry.”
“Oh, I know it--pray forgive me. Of course you are quite right. The
old gods are far from done with yet. Venus, I think, still gets an
engagement occasionally, and Janus is often looked in the face by the
morning papers. I admit that there is still something to be said for
bearskins, while caves should be a godsend to the man who has just
come down from Carey-street. Why don’t some of you parsons set us an
example? Sell that thou hast--especially your brewery shares,
Arthur--and live in a cave. I’ll bet you what you like that cousin
Martha in a bearskin would fill your church every Sunday though half
the bishops in England were at the shop opposite.”
“The shop, Henry! Has Paris taught you to call a church a shop?”
“In Paris, my dear Arthur, there are no monks. The Government has done
the protesting.”
“For the good of France, undoubtedly. The pure religion.”
“Your religion, Arthur--but look here, I’m not out for a theological
argument. Let us talk of the Pageant. What does Martha suggest that I
should play?”
“Would you like to be a knight in armour, Harry, and buy your own
armour?”
“That’s a generous proposal, Martha. Did knights in armour come over
with the Danes?”
“Oh, dear, no--I had forgotten that. Suppose you were a Norseman with
beautiful long hair----”
“To match yours, Martha? Arthur wouldn’t like that.”
“But a Norseman was such a splendid creature. You would have to speak
in a guttural voice, Harry, and carry a scimitar.”
“It sounds well, Martha; but I should prefer the cellarer’s part. I
could look after the wine vats very well. If that’s not it, how would
you like me to play Henry the Eighth on the Field of the Cloth of
Gold? I could get the costumes from Fox’s; and I tell you what, if you
want any humour, I’ll drive on to the course in my motor car.”
Arthur raised his eyes to heaven at this, while Martha seemed not a
little affronted. They were both very serious about this business,
poor dears, and not a little concerned for its success. To pacify
them, I fell in with the Norseman idea, and then sat down to tea.
You can have no idea, Paddy, of the meaning of these pageants to
country towns, or of the enthusiasm they excite. People are in and out
of this house every ten minutes to consult the “Master.” Young girls,
who would have blushed to show their ankles yesterday, are popping
themselves in skins and sandals with the glee of children. There is an
eloquent Free Church Minister staying here who preaches twice every
quarter against the theatre, and is now about to appear as a Druid
priest with a sickle. He rehearses his part like any actor at the
Haymarket. Frivolity is immediately resented. When I suggested that a
fleet of motor-boats should bring the Norseman to the shore, just to
contrast the old ideas with the new, shocked looks met me, and an open
protest. The most trivial mistake costs its maker a reproof. I have
just heard Arthur deliver a sound rating to a wretched tailor who
thought that a Dane might very well carry a musket, and produced one
left to him by his great-grandfather. The majesty of the Pageant
brooks no levity.
It will be apparent to you that I had little opportunity for any
really private talk with my beloved cousin during these first days of
my arrival, nor does there appear any possibility of my finding one
until this mummery is over. For that matter, I am very doubtful of the
utility of such a proceeding, nor do I think that I shall profit by
it. A sportsman would consent to my plan immediately; but Arthur is
not a sportsman. I shall propose to him that we divide the
inheritance, and have done with it; but I know from the outset he will
find some shifty plea upon which he may excuse himself. If he does, I
am what the world calls a ruined man--which is to say, Paddy, that I
must work for my bread like any other decent fellow, and not complain
if the loaf is yesterday’s.
Sometimes I admit that the change will be stupendous. I have wanted
for nothing, as you know, since I was a little child. My poor father
indulged me in every way, so that now, at the mature age of
twenty-four, I am as blasé as many a man of forty. All that any sane
bachelor can need is to be purchased by seven thousand pounds a year.
I can run a motor-car, keep a small sailing yacht, hire a shoot,
travel. I need no house, for the finest hotels are open to me, with
all their luxuries. From that to abject poverty is to be a swift
descent. Paddy, I shall have a subsistence, but nothing more. The rest
will go to dear cousin Arthur--to the glory of God and the purchase of
a manor-house he has his eye upon.
Meanwhile, there is always Mimi. Would she come to me, I wonder, if I
were poor? It might be so; in which case one of the Beatitudes would
again be justified, and Harry Gastonard awakened in an instant from
his lethargy. I shall ask her this question when I find her--to-night
or to-morrow, as the case may be, Paddy.
Meanwhile, waft me your blessing across the emerald seas, and find me,
as always, Your friend,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XIII.
[The Reverend Arthur Warrington writes in all haste to his Solicitor,
Mr. James Frogg, of Serjeant’s Inn, Strand.]
St. Philip’s, Lowestoft,
Feast of St. Alphonsus.
James Frogg, Esq.
Dear Mr. Frogg,--I am writing in much haste to inform you that my
cousin, Henry Gastonard, has returned from Paris, and has had the
effrontery to come here.
I trust I am not lacking in charity, nor harder than my fellows, but
the life this young man has led in Paris makes him no fit companion
for my wife, who, I regret to say, appears to have taken a fancy to
him, and insists upon his remaining with us.
I write, therefore, to ask you if this will imperil in any way my
hopes under the will of Martha’s uncle; are we doing right to have
Henry here, and is there any possibility of the judges construing this
as a consent upon my part to any division of the valuable property?
Please inform me at once that I may convince Mrs. Warrington of her
folly, and put an end to this foolish infatuation.--Dear Mr. Frogg,
yours very faithfully,
Arthur Warrington.
CHAPTER XIV.
[Paddy O’Connell apologises for his silence.]
The Dormy House, Portmarnock,
August 3d, 1905.
Dear Harry,--I should have told you before that you did wisely to
leave Paris, and, please God, to see that “iligant faymale” no more.
’Tis many a man that goes to the devil when he might have gone any
other road for the asking of a cheap ticket--and you, I am glad to
see, are now restored to your senses and safely back in the land of
the Sassenach, where I wish you much prosperity. You have wits of your
own, man, and a lively presence. Let me implore you to use them in
some honorable occupation, if it is only to spite that long-legged
beggar of a parson, who would drive the very saints out of heaven
should he by any chance arrive in the neighbourhood of that highly
praised locality.
Meanwhile, Harry, I am waiting for your news of Mimi. What a droll
little witch she was to be sure--and, man, ’tis lucky for ye that I am
your friend, or the Lord knows where she would have landed me. Seek
her out by all means and restore her to civilisation. Ye’ll never need
to be ashamed of her in any company. There are women who are born to
be the light of men’s lives; and if ever I saw one of the kind, the
little lady whom Greuze should have painted is one of the company.
Find her, I say, and play a gentleman’s part towards her. You’ll never
regret it, my boy.
I am writing you but a brief letter, for the golfers here have been
playing games upon this old bird and ruffling his plumage excessively.
Yesterday, young Willie Jackson made me a bet of a sovereign that he’d
drive a ball off the face of his watch, and I took him immediately.
Well, he goes out to the tee as cool as a martyr at the stake, pops
his watch down on the sand, sticks a ball on the top of it, and
smashes the whole lot to blazes. You could have heard me laughing two
holes off as I paid the money and chaffed him.
“’Tis to the watchmaker ye’ll be taking that same,” says I, “and
asking him what’s wrong with the works?”--for there wasn’t a ha’p’orth
of the watch left, not enough to put in a teaspoon. To which he
answered, as impudent as anything:
“I think not, Paddy; it was a penny watch I bought in Dublin three
days ago.”
Ye may think that I didn’t show my nose in the club-house any more
that day, Henry. And, as if this wasn’t enough, young Philpots
persuaded me to play him with one of those pneumatic balls to-day, and
a fine game he had with me. The harder I hit it--and you know that
driving is my pride, being able to outdrive any man in Ireland when I
hit one--the harder I hit it the shorter, so to speak, it went, until
some of my finest brassies weren’t travelling twenty yards, and my
cleeks not ten.
“Be hanged to the ball!” says I at last, “I believe it’s bewitched.”
“Oh, come,” says young Philpots, “nothing of the kind Paddy; ’tis your
precious bad driving. Now, what did you drink with your dinner last
night?”
“Not more than half a pint of whisky, and perhaps not so much.”
“Then your eyesight must be going, Paddy. I’d see a doctor if I were
you when I got back to town.”
“There’s no better eyes in Ireland,” says I; and I picked the ball up
and put it in my pocket. After that I knocked young Philpots all to
blazes, so I knew it was the ball, and would have said so if the
Archangel Gabriel himself had come along and denied me. When I got
back to the club-house, I took young Martin, the pro., aside, and
asked him a few questions.
“Why did ye sell me such a thing of a ball as that, Martin?” I asked
him.
He professed great astonishment.
“There’s nay a better baa’ made,” says he.
“Will ye play a round with it yourself, Martin?”
“Ay, when there’s wind in it.”
“Wind!” cried I, beginning to understand.
“True,” says he, “when there’s wind in it; but no’ when a gentleman
has pricked her wi’ a needle before the other gentleman ganged oot.”
Henry--I saw it in a moment! That young devil of a Philpots had let
all the air out of the ball before I began to play with it. The
story’s all over the place--I’ll never show my face here for a month,
unless it be to pull the noses of the pair of them for the pleasure of
saying good-bye to such jovial companions. My dear Harry, yours as of
old,
Paddy O’Connell.
CHAPTER XV.
[“The Chimes” at Yarmouth, and what Henry Gastonard learned of them.]
The New Vicarage, Lowestoft,
August 6th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--Byron told us that:
“Christians have burned each other, quite persuaded;
That all the Apostles would have done as they did.”
I am not quite sure that my dear cousin, Arthur, would not put me
immediately to the stake were it not for this worldly little wife of
his, who leaps through the hoop of his philosophy like a clown at the
circus, and is never so pleased as when her antics move him to
paroxysms of jealousy.
Let me, none the less, postpone for the moment a narration of this
particular tragedy, and thank you for your letter. I am sorry to hear
that they let the wind out of your pneumatic golf ball, and so
provoked you to expressions not found in the catechism--but, my dear
Paddy, is not half the world flogging balls so treated, and are not
the fortunate few those who can command a superfluity of that
necessary gas by which mankind achieves success?
I give you this for consolation. Would to heaven you could console me
as effectually. For, to be candid, Paddy, I am as hard driven by my
doubts as ever a man was in this world. Yesterday I saw Mimi for the
second time. My first visit was paid to her almost immediately after I
had written to you; and a sorry enough pilgrimage it was, so full of
drab shades and mournful harmonies that I write of it with reluctance,
and do not speak of it at all.
Recollect that I had traced the child to the old town of Yarmouth, and
was determined to seek her there. Of course, my car is here, and
serves me well at these times. A fast journey in the famous “forty,”
which has carried us together upon many a merry venture, brought me to
that fishing village they call Gorleston; then to an even more crabbed
street--the main thoroughfare of Yarmouth to wit. I know nothing of
these places, but the approach to them depressed me greatly, and left
me but ill prepared for the really superb sea-front which a side
street of Yarmouth presently disclosed to me.
It is inconceivable, Paddy, that such a parade as this should be so
little known to the children of civilisation. Depict a wonderful
strand of the purest golden sand, a gentle sea with many ships in a
narrow street, a wide thoroughfare abutting upon the promenade, and a
mile of houses as a background to it all. Do this, I say, and you will
still have the poorest idea of Yarmouth--for its glory lies in the
booths they have erected upon the sand, and in its entertainments, its
wide piers, its floral halls, its orderly gardens, and superabundant
bandstands. Such a city upon a seashore I have never seen in all my
life. I drove my car to a decent hotel on the front, and I descended
presently, feeling as lost as an African set down suddenly at
Ludgate-circus.
This would have been about a quarter to eight o’clock of a splendid
summer evening. Thousands of lights were now blazing upon the
promenade, lights large and small, and of all the hues of the rainbow.
Turn your ears where you would, music pleased or offended them. And
what music, Paddy!--now that of a fine military band, again of a
hurdy-gurdy, and upon that the tinny notes of a worn piano,
laboriously thumped by some child of the academies. Nor was this
sufficient, for youths passed raving of Jenny or Sarah, and here and
there a woman screeched some incoherent lines which the music-hall or
the sea beach had taught her.
I crossed the street, and ventured upon the golden sands. The
barbarity of the scene impressed me strangely. That such an artist,
such a born child of all that is really the fruit of genius as Mimi
the Simpleton, should have sunk to this, inflicted me with an
intolerable melancholy which nothing could relieve.
Here, Paddy, here I must find Mimi the Simpleton. To this _ultima
thule_ some inspiration of the nomad’s life had wafted her. You can
have little idea of the emotions which followed me to the quest of her
as I threaded the human lanes, and would have closed my ears to their
voices, but could not.
But I will not weary you with a recital to so little purpose. Let it
be sufficient to say that when I discovered Mimi at last, it was not
upon the lower sands where the meaner booths are set, but in a
considerable wooden structure built almost against the promenade, and
promising at least a better atmosphere and a better company.
Here a bill at the door informed that “The Chimes” were performing,
and that for the inconsiderable sum of sixpence I might be privileged
to hear the famous singer Wat Urling in his famous song “Bonny Bill,”
and also to witness the gyrations of the Spanish dancer “Alphonsine.”
Other lines accorded notoriety to a certain Jack Bendall, and to a
person by the name of Bertie Idden, who, it appears, had played the
banjo before the crowned heads of Europe, and was still alive to tell
the tale. These promises I read swiftly, and, paying a shilling for
the front row, I passed into the place, and saw Mimi again.
It was a quaint scene, Paddy. Some fifty square yards were fenced in
by a wooden awning and provided with benches and garden-seats. The
platform at the further end had a torn Union Jack for its emblem, and
a Spanish flag to cross it. Here stood a piano, and two or three
chairs for the performers, of whom there appeared to be five,
including the lady accompanist. All were dressed in quasi-Pierrot
costumes of black and yellow; and Mimi, I observed, wore precisely
similar garments to the men.
As to the entertainment, it consisted of a part-song sung in three
keys and wofully discordant; but Mimi left the group at the end of it,
and returned shortly afterwards in a black spangled dress and a quiet,
respectable mantilla.
I took my seat in a garden-chair to the left of the stage, and watched
the child closely. She had not seen me, and I perceived that her whole
soul went out to this business of the dancing. Perhaps it stood to her
for a reflex of Paris in a dismal land. I can imagine her recalling
the balls of the Butte--all the familiar faces of the Quat-Z-Arts--and
believing for the time being that the music was made by Jean Delmas,
and that Chardibert was her partner in the dance. She had no talent
for such a class of entertainment--so much I confess at once. Her
dancing was spirited, but inelegant; she threw herself about with the
uncouth gestures of a child at play. When she sang, it was not in
Spanish, but in that argot of the atelier, which even a Frenchman in
the audience might not have understood. But I understood it, Paddy;
and, as though she were speaking to me alone of all the company, I
watched her intently until her eye caught mine, and she ceased to
dance as suddenly as though a strong man held her ankles to the floor.
This was for the merest fraction of a minute. A seedy individual in a
long grey overcoat--or rather, an overcoat which had once been
grey--strode forward from his nook behind the piano and addressed her
in rough tones. She answered him with a nod, and continued to dance
immediately, which provoked a whole torrent of bad language, and a
subsequent draught from a substantial flask when the back of the piano
somewhat hid the man from the audience. Mimi, upon her part, now
danced on as though she had never seen me at all. I did not catch her
eye again, not once, until the entertainment was done and the people
had quitted the enclosure.
Be sure, however, that I had no intention of leaving without seeing
her. That would have been a folly surpassing all. No sooner was the
crowd departed than I walked up to the platform and spoke to her in
the French she understood so well.
“Bon soir, Mimi. Shall we go and fish for gudgeons at the Châtelet?”
“_Ah, mes enfants_--it is Monsieur Henry who has come back.”
“What are you doing in this place, Mimi?”
“I am dancing, Monsieur Henry.”
“I see perfectly well; but you are tired of dancing, and are now going
to return to Paris with me.”
“That is impossible, Monsieur Henry. I have not got a boat.”
“But I shall buy one. Go and tell these gentlemen that you can dance
no more for them. I shall wait until you have done so.”
She shrugged her shoulders defiantly.
“Does Madame d’Alençon send you here, Monsieur Henry?”
“I will tell you when you have spoken to your friends.”
She was about to answer me when the greasy man stepped forward and
intervened. He spoke in the jargon of the music halls.
“’Ere,” he said, cocking a vile cigar in the corner of a huge mouth,
“and what’s all this?”
“I have come to take this young lady to her friends,” said I.
“Ho,” cried he, “and ’ave you? Well, a bloomin’ long journey that’s
going to be. ’Ere, you clear out of this--we don’t ’ave none of your
sort ’ere.”
I stepped up upon the platform and looked him squarely in the face.
“My man,” said I, “by whose authority did you take this girl from her
home, and when will you show it to the police?”
He turned a little pale, and took his cigar from his mouth hurriedly.
“What’s that to you?” he asked.
“It is everything to me,” said I, “as you will presently discover.”
“Is she ’ere against ’er will, then? Arst ’er yourself. Ain’t I givin’
’er advantages? Who says I took ’er from ’er friends--who says it?”
“I say it, and presently will prove it.”
“Oh, you do, do yer? Well, my name’s Jack Bendall, and my ’ome’s the
Pav. at Ealing. Now go and prove it--let me see you do it. Why, half
the profession will answer for my character. Who’s going to answer for
yours--and who the deuce are you, all said and done?”
He did not wait for me to answer, but called Mimi up to him.
“Do you know this man?” he asked her.
“Yes, Monsieur; that is Monsieur Henry.”
“Is ’e related to you?”
“He is one of my friends--I knew him in Paris.”
“A--student, I suppose. Just as I thought. Well, now ’e’s going out of
’ere, and right sharp, too.”
Imagine the fellow’s impudence, Paddy. He strode up to me in a
threatening attitude and laid his hand upon my collar; but not a
second time, for I tripped him before you could count two, and threw
him headlong down among his own stalls.
“Hands off,” I said when he had picked himself up, “and learn to
behave yourself. I am now going to the police station. You can follow
me there if you like.”
I did not wait a moment longer, but marched from the place--Mimi
watching me with wide-open eyes, another woman snivelling on the bosom
of her “poor Jack,” and that worthy himself close upon my heels. As it
turned out, my car stood within twenty yards of the place, and the
sight of it with the great flaming headlamps and the gaping crowd
about it sobered the clown immediately. He pushed up to me with a
sidling gesture and spoke his first civil word.
“No offence meant, guv’nor. Gawd witness I never ’armed the girl.
Don’t be ’asty like. So help me ’eaven, my own daughter ain’t been
treated better. Now, what’s it all about--you ain’t going to do
nothink imprudent, guv’nor?”
I turned upon him and took him at his word. After all, I had no case
for a police-court, and he might have beaten me hollow there. It was
prudent to temporise, and I did not lose the opportunity.
“I am the guardian of this child,” said I. “Your honesty is not at
stake if you listen to reason. I don’t hold you responsible for her
appearance here, but I must speak to her immediately. Show me where
that can be done, and we may settle the affair yet.”
“If that’s all, guv’nor, you can speak to ’er in the show and welcome.
I didn’t know I was talking to a gent like you--though. Gawd’s truth,
I’d pay a fiver to learn that fall.”
“Oh,” says I, showing him a five-pound note, “no need to try it a
second time. Take the company out and give them supper at my expense.
I suppose that’s your last show to-night?”
“The last’s at half-past nine. You can ’ave twenty minutes with her.
She said her name was Mimi Oliver and that she came from Bordeaux. Is
it the truth, guv’nor, or a lie?”
“It’s a lie,” said I. “She left my house in Paris to go to you. Now
leave us together, please; I have much to say to her.”
He nodded assent, and I went up to the platform again. The show was
quite deserted by this time, and the performers made a hasty supper in
the corner over by the piano. As for Mimi, she sat upon a bench a
little way from the others, dressed in her spangles and wearing that
pretty smile I have never yet been able to fathom as long as I have
known her. Whether she was pleased by my return, or still angry, I
cannot say. But I went up and sat beside her; and then I knew, Paddy,
that nothing but her courage kept her from weeping.
Of this interview, with its new issue, of all that she confessed to
me, and of my plans for her, a letter to-morrow must tell you. I am
but just in time to catch the post, and, to be plain with you, old
friend, my heart is full of a sadness I cannot define and would write
of to no other. The memory of this interview recalls it powerfully.
Let me then sleep upon it all--and bidding you a hearty good night,
remain--My dear Paddy, your friend,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XVI.
[Henry Gastonard gives a further account of his meeting with Mimi the
Simpleton.]
The New Vicarage, Lowestoft,
August 8th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--I was too seedy to write to you yesterday, nor did my
good cousin’s chatter concerning the things of this world help me to
get better. Arthur is the kind of man who buys in an earthly market
and would realise in a celestial. He began to talk of motor securities
this morning, and did not cease until he was called to the church for
Litany--but he went with thunder on his brow, for little Martha
insisted on shewing me the greenhouses meanwhile, and the man is as
jealous as Othello.
You will readily imagine that I linger in this house chiefly for the
comedy of it. I believe that Arthur would have told me to go this
morning if pretty Martha had not cut in before him. “Arthur is so
delighted to have you here,” says she, looking hard at him across the
table, “there are so few educated folk in these parts that it is a
real kindness for any friend to come and see him.” You should have
seen the black looks he cast back at her. I do believe the poor man
nearly choked himself with the toast he was eating.
I shall go over to the hotel at Yarmouth to-morrow, Paddy--later on,
perhaps, from there to Cromer, where Mimi goes with the troupe. So
much tells you in a word that I have not persuaded her to quit the
gentleman of the cockney accent, or to forsake the delights of posing
before an ignorant multitude as the Señorita Alphonsine. What is in
her mind I do not know for any certainty. She understands, she must
understand, that I have no interest in Lea d’Alençon, and never had.
But a jealous woman, more especially when the Butte has taught her to
be jealous, is one of the most incomprehensible of all mysteries, and
such, I begin to fear, will our little friend Mimi remain.
I talked to her very frankly the other evening, perhaps as frankly as
ever I spoke to her in all my life.
“You left me at Poissy because Madame Lea came there,” I said--and
then I asked her--“Was that just, Mimi? Could I prevent her coming?”
To which she answered:
“You could have prevented it, Monsieur Henry. No woman goes to a man
who does not wish to see her--she writes to him.”
I laughed at this. How like the Mimi of la Galette.
“Of course, old Georges Oleander taught you to say that. I remember it
was one of his great, also foolish, sayings. Those were famous days,
Mimi. I wonder what you would have said if I had forbidden you to see
Mr. Barrymore or Count Charles, or any of the friends you used to
know? Suppose I had been jealous, as I had the right to be----”
“But you, you, Monsieur Henry--you were not my lover; why should you
be jealous?”
“Mimi,” said I, “we are going to forget the past just as we would
forget a sad book that we have been reading. What is to prevent us? I
shall never see Madame Lea again. If I saw her a thousand times, it
would make no difference. You know that I love you, Mimi. How often
must I say it to make you believe?”
The words moved her to some emotion. There is no more intelligent face
in Europe than hers, none more beautiful; and I could see that the
child was wrestling with some great temptation, unknown to me, and
unconfessed.
“It would be folly to speak of it, Monsieur Henry,” she said
presently; “I am not fit to be your wife. You are rich, and we are no
longer at the Maison du bon Tabac. I tried to follow you out into the
world, Monsieur Henry, but I lost you there--and I shall never find
you again.”
“Mimi,” said I, “there has always been this between us. You call me
rich, but in a few months’ time I may be poorer even than these people
who employ you. Is not that enough for you? Shall I make myself poor
to-morrow because riches keep you from me? Is that your wish, Mimi?”
“I know the truth,” she said quietly; “your great Irlandais told it to
me. You are rich, and if you work you will remain rich. Do not believe
those who tell you that the poor are happy, Monsieur Henry. That is
what the rich say to defend themselves. Oh, do you think that I can be
happy so far away from France and among these strange people? Would I
not return to-morrow if I could do so?”
“You shall return, Mimi--we will go together.”
She laughed drolly, turning the pathos of it with the cleverness a
born actress alone could command.
“To the Butte,” she cried, “on the high road? We will sup at the Lapin
Agil and breakfast at the Capitol. That’s what I dream of when I dance
before the people--but you are not in my dreams, Monsieur Henry; I
think of a Paris which you have left--I do not see you any longer
among my friends.”
“Because you yourself have determined that it shall not be so.”
“No--because you were not born of us; because you are an Englishman
who has work to do in your own country. I am in my own world even in
this poor place. It is not your world--it must never be so.”
* * * * *
This was the sum of it, Paddy, often repeated. This child believes
that all my love for the Butte and its people is but a sham affection,
that it will pass, that I am born to riches and position. She is
clever enough to think that a marriage with me would be a false step,
leading neither to her happiness nor to mine. All this fine philosophy
of hers is no sounder than the bloom upon a flower. If I could conjure
up the old house in Paris, people it with the old figures, recall the
old precarious life, the days of poverty, the days of comparative
riches, the empty cupboards, the chiding corks--if I could do this,
and say, “Mimi, come back to me,” she would be in my arms in an
instant. But she is afraid of her new situation; London has chilled
her finest instincts--she can think of me but as the “great Monsieur
Henry, of the Hôtel St. Paul.” And between me and her a great barrier
is fixed.
How to combat this argument I know not. My threat to shed myself of my
money is both idle and impossible--it is the word one whispers to a
woman in an ecstasy of passion, and repeats with a shamed grin next
morning. I feel, Paddy, that I could not support poverty--and yet here
is poverty staring me already in the face, and promising, like the
Devil in “Faust,” that he will have me some day. To you I put the
problem, for God knows I can make little of it. Is there any way--any
sane way--by which I can win this child’s love and make her my wife?
Would it be a crime to do that? Am I a madman to be thinking of it at
all? Write to me, old friend, and speak in plain terms. The Paddy of
the old time was never ashamed to do that.
You may address your letter to the vicarage, for little Martha will
see that everything is forwarded. I am tired already of this
lantern-jawed cousin of mine, who nagged his wife for three hours last
night because she would not turn me out, and prayed before breakfast
this morning for charity. I heard them quarrelling; the wall was not
thick enough to keep those dread sounds out--but she silenced him in
the end, though how, I do not know. When next I saw her she was
wearing a bearskin on her shoulders, and her hair was the colour of a
terra-cotta house. They are to have the first dress rehearsal for the
Pageant to-morrow--and Arthur, who has just preached another sermon
against the theatre, is to be there with a megaphone.
God bless him! He is the poorest creature in Suffolk, though not in
the least aware of the fact.--Dear Paddy, yours dolefully,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XVII.
[Paddy O’Connell lays down the law.]
Glendalough,
August 12th, 1905.
Dear Harry,--What I would have you to do is to set about getting your
living. ’Tis honest advice and the best I can give you--though it’s
precious little I do in that line myself, and a poor hand I would be
at the employment if my father--God rest his soul--had not done the
business for me.
I am little acquainted with the art of money-making, and no wise
adviser in that matter. But I see plainly enough that if you do not
set about earning your living, this parson man will be banking your
fortune and thanking God for it, while you will be next door to a
beggar in the streets, and a mighty unsuccessful one at that.
Let me ask you what you could bring to the child if you lost your
fortune. This gipsy notion is well enough when a man follows it by
choice; but there is a time of life when you begin to sniff at the
cooking-pot and to ask how many thorns are in your bed before you--and
you will come to that before most of us, by reason of the habits you
have acquired. Indeed, Harry, I am not sure that you understand at all
what this loss of fortune may mean to you, nor do I believe your life
will be worth living when you have lost it.
You are young, you have a fine presence, people take a liking to the
looks of you, you are by no means wanting in brains. Should you get on
the Stock Exchange you would find clients enough--or, for that matter,
you might turn your Art knowledge to some advantage and see what you
can do in that line.
Shake your wits together, my boy, and make a start, to-morrow if you
can. I couldn’t do it myself--unless I were taken up by those who
would learn to ride, or golf, or play a decent hand at bridge; but you
can do it, Harry, for you have the brains; and if you love this little
girl out of France, and if your heart is full because of her, you will
lose no time in following my advice and preparing that home she will
be willing enough to occupy.
Meanwhile, see, for God’s sake, that no harm overtakes her. It’s worse
than wicked to hear of the company she is in. Pay for a change of
employment and do not let her know that you have done it. Your purse
may help to achieve this. Pull the strings of it wide open, Harry, and
put her in some decent way of life, in London for preference, and
where you can watch over her. I have said from the first that the
blood of the Bohemian runs strong in her veins. I doubt that you will
ever tie her to any house or country--but the effort is worth the
making, and you know that you have my good wishes in the matter.
As for your prudence, your right to marry her or the wisdom of it, you
know that I am a man who said be hanged to convention many years ago.
What a sorry peep-show, what a play of shams and meanness and false
pleasures is this social world we know, and into which we were born! I
tell you that the hut on the mountain side--if there be good whisky
therein and a decent golf course within riding distance--is all the
palace I will ever require; while, as for my friend Harry, if the
great high road and the café at the far end of it are not his goal,
then say that I know nothing of men and less of the sex that does us
all the mischief.
You will set about earning your living, Harry, and put Mimi to some
decent employment unbeknown to her that you have done it. This is the
wisdom and the wish of your old friend,
Paddy.
CHAPTER XVIII.
[In which we hear something of the Pageant at Lowestoft.]
The Grand Hotel, Cromer,
August 14th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--The Pageant at Lowestoft came and went on Saturday
last--the occasion of its first representation--and your faithful
epistler has departed with it under circumstances which should be made
known to you. These were as ridiculous as they were inevitable; but
they have left my good cousin in a sad state of mind, and his little
wife no less agitated.
I count it nothing less than a tragedy, Paddy, that your friend, Henry
Gastonard, who would no more make love to another man’s wife than he
would steal the spoons from his table, should twice carry a firebrand
into a peaceful house and there extinguish it not at all or but
doubtfully. This, none the less, has been my undeserved fate. I
quitted Lowestoft, leaving my cousin torn by jealousy concerning
Martha and myself. His anger is as absurd as his suspicions; but of
both you shall now hear.
To begin with, let me say that I had some fine fun with him on Friday
night upon my return from Yarmouth. The talk after dinner chanced to
turn upon the ease or difficulty of making money; and, wishful to
chaff Arthur, I began to speak of my own intentions. To have heard me
you would have said that I had but to lift a finger to make ten
thousand a year. I spoke of this scheme and of that, of the financiers
I knew and the financiers who wished to know me. I mentioned young
Gould casually, and threw in Harry Vanderbilt as though he were a
paper-weight; to all of which Arthur listened entranced. His colour
alternated between that of the departing rainbow and the
newly-imported orange. There were moments when he was at a loss how to
address me at all.
“Did you say that you were venturing your own capital in these
affairs?” he asked me. The simple fellow, a child would have seen
through the question.
“Not a penny of it,” said I, filling my glass with the Marsala, old in
bottle, which he buys from a neighbouring grocer for one-and-three;
“not a penny of it, Arthur. You must understand that I am bringing the
new French motor-cab companies to London, and when the Syndicate has
put down two hundred and fifty thousand, there should be some seven or
eight for me as negotiatory vendor to begin with; and if they don’t
pay me twelve or fifteen hundred a year afterwards to look after their
interests, I’m a Dutchman. What I wanted to ask you was just this: Do
you think I am wise to take up such a thing as a motor-cab, or would
you advise me to stick to the flotation of the new submarine company,
in which you know that I have interest? You have great sagacity and
perception, and so I put the question to you frankly.”
Upon my word, Paddy, the man’s face was a study when I said this, and
it was worth anything to hear him humming and hawing in the very best
pulpit manner before he answered me.
“A clergyman knows little of financial affairs,” he remarked, coughing
slightly to cover his difficulty. “Undoubtedly, a cab is not a very
dignified conveyance, and er--hem, the future of the motor-car
is--that is--may be--a dusty one. I should consider the whole question
very closely, Henry. There are two sides to it, as to every question.”
“And to every cab, Arthur. Well, I shall take your advice, for, of
course, if I don’t do something very soon, you will be having my
little lot and driving a four-in-hand to Hurlingham. I don’t mean to
let you do that, Arthur. I shall stick to the money; though, if ever
you want fifty for parochial uses, don’t forget to tell me.”
He was visibly upset--he is not a man who can hide his feelings. I
believe that if I had said the word, he would have consented to a
compromise on the spot. But I am an obstinate fool, Paddy, and I feel
that I would sooner sleep on the Embankment without a shirt to my back
than part with one shilling to this disciple of the Law and the
Profits who would spend it so ill.
This badinage was a pretty prelude to what was to come. We were up
early next morning, and the streets all a-blowing and a-growing before
the fishing boats had come in. You do not know Lowestoft, Paddy, but
you will please to understand that there is, beneath the northern
cliff, a very pretty stretch of grass land, whereon golfers and others
disport themselves. Toward this at eleven o’clock in the morning half
the inhabitants and all the visitors wended their way; and here the
great battle between the invading Danes and the inhospitable Britons
was to take place, directed by my cousin Arthur, who carried a
megaphone and took his station upon a watch-tower. As this is not a
horsey locality, the most part of us went afoot, and a fine,
straggling show of hire-purchase assassins we must have looked to any
sane man who had happened upon us at hazard.
Just imagine the narrow, fishy street of a fishy town packed from end
to end with twentieth-century monks, romping British maidens, Druid
priests, Danes, and Norsemen. Depict a fat grocer waddling along in a
tin-pot helmet and a tunic down to his knees. Create for yourself the
image of a substantial matron in a frock that looks like a--but you
have seen the catalogues of the linen houses and will spare my
blushes. Over all wave the flags and the banners. There are a few
horsemen--six-and-six the first hour, six shillings afterwards--a
great many battle-axes, pikes, and spiked maces. The fishermen, who
stare as we pass by, laugh vulgarly. Some of the youths, who are to do
the fighting, begin already and need the police to separate them. I
observe that the girls are all in a hurry to be carried screaming to
the hills and that they rehearse their parts upon any opportunity,
even the most trifling.
Such was the beginning of the Pageant at Lowestoft. Never, I suppose,
was Arthur Warrington in better form; it was better than any Criterion
farce to hear him shouting the stage directions from his watch-tower.
Of course, had he been a clever man, he would have engaged some genius
from the theatres to have helped him as to the stage management; but
he is not a clever man, and chaos followed him to the battle-field.
Oh, my dear Paddy, what a joy it was when that bellicose crowd heard
him bawling: “Harps to the mound; all the lyres this side; ancient
Britons, quick march; Danes ashore!” Could energy and a shrill voice
have achieved success, Arthur assuredly would have been crowned there
and then with a laurel; but, alas, what are energy and shrillness when
your Druid priest is invariably in the refreshment tent and your Danes
upset the boat which is bringing them ashore?
You will remember that little Martha had persuaded me to play the part
of one of these Scandinavian heroes, and a veritable sea-lion she said
I looked when the costumier had finished with me. Though she herself
stood for a British matron, I observed that her dress leaned toward
the soubrette ideal, and that she proposed an early and satisfying
adjournment to the tent wherein ices and other delicacies were vended.
In this she was generally imitated. A more desultory battle, a wilder,
more nonsensical puppet show, I have never seen upon any field of
Europe. Danes playing leap-frog on the sands; Druids chasing each
other, and the ladies--with sickle and artificial mistletoe--warriors
flirting already when they should have been fighting; trumpeters
passing their trumpets round for their neighbours to “have a blow;”
monks talking politics and passing each other the morning papers; fat
men asking “Where do we go?” stout ladies no less at a loss. My dear
Paddy, the hills would have rung with your laughter and the sea given
it back to you in roaring harmonies.
I will confess that we got something like order when the battle was
done, and that some of the Druidical rites were pretty and imposing. A
dance of “early British maidens,” in the afternoon, left footprints on
the sands of time; but the attempt of a monk to join in the business
came near to ruining it. From this moment onward toward sunset the
affair showed some signs of a degeneration which boded ill for the
later hours. I found myself without part or place in a disorderly
ensemble, and I suggested to Martha that she should be carried off
incontinently to the sea; and that we would go for a little row until
the multitude had recovered its senses. To this she consented very
gracefully, and, a boat being quickly found--for many watermen had
come to the place--I put off in it and soon left the madding crowd
behind us.
You must admit, Paddy, that there was little harm in this. We rowed in
full view of the shore; as a Norseman it was my business thus to act
in the presence of a British maiden. In a less romantic mood, I
desired to have a little talk with pretty Martha--for none was
possible at her house--and to hear exactly what she thought of my own
affairs and of my cousin’s interest in them. She is a candid little
body and responded immediately to my invitation. I found her no less
merry than eloquent, and, to be honest, she was not born for a
parson’s wife.
“Arthur thinks he’ll have your fortune,” she said; “he’s buying
motor-cars already with it.”
“And you encourage him, Martha?”
“Women always encourage men when they wish to be extravagant in a
proper way. But I don’t believe you’ll part with the money--and, to be
honest, I hope you won’t.”
“Those are not Arthur’s sentiments.”
“Would they be mine if they were? No man is the better for a woman
agreeing with him. Of course, I want Arthur to do well in the world,
but that’s no reason why he should do it with your fortune, Harry. As
it is, your father left him five thousand pounds, and he ought to be
satisfied.”
“Especially in view of the simple life, and all that. Is not Arthur a
bit of a Socialist, Martha?”
“Yes, he believes in having all his neighbours’ things in common. He
preached about it several times--they don’t like it in the country,
and someone wrote to the Bishop.”
“Did he suggest that his lordship should divide also?”
“Now you’re silly, Harry. What I wanted to tell you was that you
really must begin to do something in the world.”
“I have blown a trumpet this very morning, and nearly cut off a
Saxon’s head by accident. Is not that an achievement?”
“It is the kind of achievement which sends Arthur buying
motor-cars----”
“To the glory of God, and the delight of the local repairer. Tell me,
Martha, do you think I could earn any money, if I tried? Is it quite a
mad hope?”
“You could do so, Harry--you have brains enough. Arthur admits
that--he read your article about East Anglia in the magazine, and is
quite sure you have abilities.”
“Strange term. I wonder how many men have gone to the devil because
they had abilities?”
“But you really have them, Harry. That little bust you sent me over
from Paris a year ago was beautiful.”
“Offer it to an art dealer in Piccadilly and see if he will give you
five shillings for it. That kind of talent is the ruin of most of us.
We touch the hem of Art’s garment, but she doesn’t stop to bless us.
If I had been born a Portuguese Jew, and educated in the Ghetto, I
might begin to speak of abilities. There are few left in the ordinary
way.”
“But, at least, you might work, Harry.”
“What man who is in love works?”
“You! In love! Now, do tell me. Is it true--you aren’t joking, Harry?”
“I am not joking, Martha. Look at me and see. I am in love with a
little French lady who is dancing on Yarmouth beach. It was she who
kept me away from you last night.”
“Now, that’s nonsense, and I shall not listen to you.”
“I beg your pardon--you will listen as long as I go on talking. No
woman shuts her ears to a man’s love story--she couldn’t if she
tried.”
“But--it--it would be disgraceful, Harry!”
“Most of the pleasant things in life are disgraceful--from a narrow
point of view. I think you used to dance before you married Arthur.”
“Oh, I only waltzed--that’s not the kind of dancing I mean.”
“Let me suggest to you, Martha, that you have not seen the Señorita
Alphonsine. It would be fair to postpone a decision.”
“Harry, I shall not believe it any more than I believed the story of
the married woman for whom you fought a duel.”
“That’s kind of you, Martha. A woman who does not believe a story
about another woman is a treasure. She usually knows it is true
because she has seen it with her own ears----”
“Eyes, Harry----”
“No, I mean ears. She sees it because she hears it.”
“Are you going to marry this dancer?”
“Ah, that’s what I don’t know. She also objected to Madame Lea, and
her ideas about marriage are of the East, eastward. It is a subject
you do not hear much about in a French atelier.”
“Arthur says that he does not think any Frenchman can be saved--he
read somewhere that even the married men hardly remember the names of
their own wives--that is, in the society of which you speak.”
“An embarrassing circumstance. He was once in Paris for three days, I
think.”
“Yes, we had cheap tickets, and saw the Louvre and the Madeleine----”
“I wonder he did not bring an accent home--and pay duty on it at
Charing Cross.”
“But he is quite a French scholar, you know. He has read Lafontaine,
and he says that French people can never be as religious as we are,
because the Bible isn’t the same thing when it’s translated.”
“A fine thought. But tell me, Martha, will you be my best woman if I
marry Mimi?”
“Mimi--is that her name?”
“Yes, and a pretty name, too--don’t you think so?”
“What is the best woman at a wedding, Harry?”
“The woman who doesn’t run the bride down. Mimi hasn’t a friend in
England and hasn’t a rag to her back. If she will marry me--and God
alone knows whether she will or no--I want to see that she is all
right and wants for nothing.”
“I’ll do that with pleasure if Arthur will let me.”
“Oh, Arthur be hanged. If this boat continues to carry us out to sea,
as it is doing, we shall never see Arthur again.”
“But, Harry--oh, my dear cousin, where are we going?”
“That’s just what I want to know, Martha. Apparently we are on the way
to the Hook of Holland. Do you know the Dutchmen? A charming people
and some fine old cities.”
I spoke at random, but, to tell you the truth, Paddy, I never was in
such a stew in my life. There is a tremendous current running down
this narrow strait, and we had been talking so heedlessly that it had
carried us far out to sea before I had thought anything about a course
at all. When the danger became apparent, we must have been a good mile
from the shore, drifting apparently toward the southeast and carried
almost as swiftly as a stick upon a river. And, as if this were not
enough, what should happen but that my right scull, refusing to
respond to my herculean efforts, broke off short at the thowl and left
me with but a stump in my hand. Then, in truth, the lid was off the
casket--then, indeed, I foresaw what was to come, both the peril and
the folly of it.
Poor little Martha! What a face she wore, and what a devil of a mess
we seemed to be in! We had set off late in the afternoon, and it was
now about the hour of sunset. I looked about me and saw a great watery
plain glowing toward the west with a sheen of melting light; but, cold
and grey as unburnished silver elsewhere. By here and there, a herring
boat worked seaward beyond the banks; there were steamers upon the
horizon, and one which had just passed us making northward, as it
were, to Shields or the Humber. But, of help to be had for the crying,
I saw positively none. As for the town of Lowestoft, it was now but a
fringe of houses above a shimmering horizon. I could not even espy the
masqueraders upon the beach, though there came to us from time to time
a murmur of distant music, and, as it were, the ghost of a human
voice. At last we passed away even from these--the sun sank; the
waters began to beat about us a little ominously and the wind to utter
a warning.
Now, Paddy, you may imagine how little I liked this situation and how
careful I was that my real opinion concerning it should be kept from
the frightened little woman at the tiller. A sailor, I suppose, would
have made light of the whole affair, arguing that the set of the tide
would change anon and that the same boat which was now being carried
out to sea would presently be carried home again. So plain a fact did
not occur to me even while I had a pair of sculls in my hand; but with
one scull overboard and no particular use for the other I fear it
entered but little into my calculations. At the best I hoped that some
passing ship might pick us up--at the worst that we might drift right
across in safety and take an early boat to Harwich and our homes. But
the latter was a wild dream, as you may suppose--and I had all my work
to do to comfort little Martha and to applaud her bravery.
“To begin with,” I put it to her, “we cannot go far in these parts and
not spy out a herring-boat. The herring is a homely fish, Martha, and
will naturally suggest Arthur and the fireside.”
“He will never forgive me,” she said, “never--never--you don’t know
him, Harry. I shall hear of this to my dying day.”
“Of course you will. He will tell it proudly. An idiot of a man broke
an oar out at sea and was only saved from a watery grave by the pluck
and the resource of a brave woman--isn’t that what Arthur will say?”
“Think of the scandal in the parish, all the tongues that will be
wagging--think of that!”
“It will be finer talk than the Pageant. Please write it down Martha,
it may come in useful if I should perpetrate a book.”
“Don’t, don’t,” she cried, “don’t say it, Harry. I am afraid, horribly
afraid.”
“Now, that you are not, or you would not confess it, Martha. It is I
who am in a panic. I never was brave in the dark, and this particular
kind of darkness is my abhorrence. I wonder if I flared a box of
matches would it be any good, Martha. Do you think a fishing smack
would understand it?”
She made some evasive answer--the poor little body, I don’t wonder
that the situation scared her. There we were out in the gathering
darkness, not a light in sight save at distant Lowestoft, the wind
blowing cold as a blast from the hills, the sun gone down in a cloud,
and the sea rising with a mournful cry which would have shamed the
spirits of desolation. What to do, how to act even an old sailor might
have been puzzled to say. My primitive maritime knowledge, obtained
upon the yachts at Trouville, suggested an attempt to keep the head of
the boat towards the swelling breakers and her bows above the crests
of the increasing waves. I sat by Martha’s side, and, employing the
remaining scull as a paddle, tried to achieve so desirable an end. But
not without many a weird evolution which came near to costing us our
lives.
To be candid, I was within an ace of drowning my cousin’s pretty wife,
and that’s the whole truth of it. If you would give me ten thousand
pounds upon the table, I would not again encounter those grim hours of
helpless battling with monstrous waves and increasing winds blowing
upon us out of the void of the night.
Such a sense of loneliness and despair I have never experienced. We
seemed to have left the world of men far behind us. Great hollows
opened and threatened to engulf us. We mounted to crests and beheld a
grey horizon capped by mountainous clouds with the moon struggling to
break a golden way amid them. I knew then that long hours had passed;
I doubted that we should ever see the shore again.
And what does a woman do in moments like these. Well, if little Martha
may speak for her sex, she cries a little, laughs for contrast,
shivers when the cold can no longer be denied, and grows hot with hope
upon the slightest word of encouragement. When I told her that I
espied the light of a fishing-boat, she put both her arms about my
neck and kissed me--when I had to admit that it was sailing away to
the northward she just cried like a child who has met with
disappointment. Nor was that poor creature, her husband, often out of
her thoughts. A woman’s devotion to the man she has married may be
diverted by his own follies, but the right kind of woman goes back
upon it in the hour of danger. So with pretty Martha to-night. She
wept not for herself but for the man’s sorrow--and there I could not
comfort her at all.
It would have been nearly four o’clock of the morning and full light
when the boat they had sent out from Lowestoft found us at last. We
both got wet to the skin going aboard her, and were wrapped up in
blankets when we arrived at the Vicarage. Shall I say that Arthur
received us with a tragic air? Nothing of the kind; he just blubbered
like a schoolgirl and was down on his marrow-bones--for which I
honoured him--there and then. His demand for explanations came
afterwards. Those were tragic, indeed. “There must be a public account
of this,” he said. I told him not to be a fool, and he retorted by
asking me to leave his house.
“I do not say,” he was good enough to remark, “that you can command
the elements. Such was the power of the men of old. But at least you
should know better than to leave the beach in full view of the people,
with my wife as your companion, in so mad a folly. For that I shall
never forgive you.”
“Then you won’t continue to say the Lord’s prayer,” was my retort--and
I left him to think upon it.
But, naturally, I couldn’t stay here, Paddy--so where should I go but
to Cromer, where “The Chimes” are playing. Be sure that the palms of
these worthies were greased long ago, that the gentleman known as Jack
Bendall has bought a new overcoat, that the lady at the piano is
resplendent in a wonderful gown of satin, and that aromatic cigars of
a Belgian brand are freely smoked by the company.
Mimi is now a queen among them.
But I am daring to hope that her sovereignty will be transferred
elsewhere very soon--and that my daring plan will be rewarded by that
success which you, my dear Paddy, would be the first to wish me. So in
high hope find me,
Your friend,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XIX.
[In which we translate a letter from Henry Gastonard of the Maison du
bon Tabac, at Hampstead, to Mimi the Simpleton, at Felixstowe.]
Maison du bon Tabac, Hampstead,
August 29, 1905.
Chère Mimi,--Do you remember when Mademoiselle Marcelle taught us to
sing--
“J’ai du bon tabac dans ma tabatière,
J’ai du bon tabac, tu n’en aurais pas?”
There is a song _ma mie_, which others have been singing this
afternoon in the house which their old comrade Mimi will not enter.
_Ah, mes enfants!_ And what shall I say to them?
Behold the builder, and ask if he be not punished enough. So much is
admitted by those who have climbed upward to this height as you and I,
_ma mie_, climbed upward in the old days, by the Villa Polichinelle,
under the sails of La Galette, to the little house where Gabriel de
Math had written immortality upon the windows and your old friend
Desmond Barrymore used to sing you to sleep while he painted.
They came here, Mimi, out of the Paris they love, to bring a message
from the Butte to this savage land. But one is missing who should have
welcomed them--_ah, mes enfants_.
It is not Paris, this new house of the _bon Tabac_ at Hampstead, but
you might rub your eyes sometimes and believe another story. Here, as
upon our own beloved Butte, there stands the villa with the roses
twined about it; here is the same tangle of a garden that served the
Chevalier for his verses; here we sip the red wine and sing the songs
which Jean Bataille taught us. One voice alone is missing. One who
used to love us will not come to us--and the roses droop, and silence
falls, and we know that we have not forgotten.
Riches did not build this house, _ma mie_, nor will they support it.
We are all poor as in the splendid days. If we open a little window
and look down to the valley, we see the great city, and try to make
believe that it is the Paris we love. Ah, what a cheat is that, and
how willingly we consent to say, There is the dome of the Invalides,
and there St. Jacques, and there the frowsy houses of the Mich’.
Georges Oleander, the pitiful old mendicant, started the game and is
the busiest to play it--but your old friend Desmond Barrymore makes
one of the conspirators, and he has a little bust of you in clay upon
the table as I write.
Not Paris, but to those who will that it shall be so, a city of their
desires. For what land is not a home to us when old friends are about
us and there is good wine upon the table, and we may eat a
Chateaubriand aux pommes and hear the Chevalier singing to us, and
laugh at old Georges Oleander when he would beg the money for a new
debauch to-morrow. Fifty francs may be the sum total of our riches--I
doubt that it will be more. Each is poorer than his neighbour, and
proud of the fact. When you come to us, _ma mie_, let your hands be
full of gold, or we shall starve. Let Mimi be the Queen of our
Treasury.
You will find the house without difficulty, for your new friends will
be aware of its situation when you tell them that it is in the Walk at
Hampstead Heath, near London, and has the verses of Villon--though
they will not have heard of him--upon the façade. Should you remember
our loneliness, take an early train to London, enter a chariot, and
demand to be driven here. As I say, your friends will direct you--and
are you not rich, Mimi?
This is the message of the Chevalier Honoré de Villefort: Let Mimi
come to us.
And this the command of Georges Oleander: Let Mimi come to us.
And this the great hope upon the lips of Desmond Barrymore: Let Mimi
come to us.
And this the prayer of one whose house is empty when Mimi is not here.
_Ah, mes enfants._
Henry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XX.
[In which Mimi replies to Monsieur Henry.]
11, The Parade, Felixstowe,
Wednesday.
Ah, cher Monsieur Henry, if I knew how to answer you.
Why should I go to dream a little while if I must awake to remember.
_Ah, mille noms, faut-il être Parisienne._
There must be roses in the heart if we would wear them on the cheek;
but in my heart none, Monsieur Henry; for it has grown empty.
I hear the Chevalier--but why would he call me to that great city of
shadows? Does Monsieur Barrymore laugh at me when he would have me
believe that he is happy in this England? Shall I think well of
Monsieur Oleander because he also is deceived a little while? Here I
look all day across the sea where they tell me that France is. I am a
child, but they call me a woman. _Ah, mes enfants!_ What pages I have
turned in this great book of sorrow that none may see my tears fall
upon them.
A little while and the sun will shine, and then there is the great
cold road again and the sad-faced people, and we go away, oh, so far
away towards the dark and the night; and there is no light in the sky
behind us to tell us where the city is; we hear no laughter anywhere;
but the end of the world is beyond, and we voyage with shut lips
toward it.
I remember such a journey as this; it was long ago when I was so
little, that you, Monsieur Henry, could have put me in your great big
pocket. An old woman led me by the hand away from a great warm house
down to the water and the ships. I remember that it was twilight and
then night, and that I saw my home behind me as a star one sees low
down in the heavens. And then we came to a hut in the wood, and there
were ugly men, and I could not sleep, and when it was day all that I
had known went from my mind, and I remembered nothing but the lonely
road, and the strange faces, and the harsh words I heard. You know how
far I have journeyed since those days. Ah, what palaces we have
visited together, you and I, Monsieur Henry--and how often I have lost
you! Can you wonder that I would rest--even I?
I dance still with these English friends, and they are very kind to
me. The people here say that my dancing is wicked; but there are many
clergymen, and they love to say “shockink.” I live in a little room
where I can watch the sea, and I go out every morning, long before the
people are up, to float on the waves, and look for the ship which will
carry me back to France. But there is no mermaid here, no fairy swims
with me; I cannot find the silver shell, and I return to my little
house to say it will be never, that I shall see France no more, that
all the world has deserted me.
Shall I make you sad, Monsieur Henry, to tell you all these things? If
I do, the Chevalier will make you laugh, and that will be the
recompense. Oh, he is droll, the Chevalier. Do you remember when he
loved Madame la Comtesse de Brianville--and would have borrowed twenty
francs to marry her? _Ah, mes enfants_--but those were days!
And Monsieur Georges. Yes, I would like to see him again, and that
great Monsieur Barrymore who used to sit me on his knee before he
painted my picture.
And they are all in your Maison du bon Tabac, and there is Paris below
the windows, the Paris you love to dream of, and you sing the songs
that Jean de Bataille made. _Ah, mes enfants_--if I were there!--Your
friend,
Mimi.
CHAPTER XXI.
[Being a telegram from Henry Gastonard to his friend Paddy O’Connell
of Glendalough.]
Have news of the gravest importance. Please come to London at once to
the Maison du bon Tabac, at Hampstead. I count upon you.--Harry
Gastonard.
CHAPTER XXII.
[Being the reply from Paddy O’Connell to Henry Gastonard’s telegram.]
Impossible to leave before the next train--am catching it.--Paddy.
CHAPTER XXIII.
[Paddy O’Connell shares the news with his sister Clara.]
4, The Walk, Hampstead, London, N.W.,
September 5th, 1905.
My dear Clara,--’Twas a rough crossing I had, and it found me by no
means unwilling to step from the sea to the land. But I’d be no good
Irishman if I complained of a little rough water between me and the
Sassenach; and so here I am and, God be good to me, in the midst of as
wild a company of men as ever drank wine out of a flower vase or
cooked their beef on a spirit stove. And, faith, they do drink and eat
from the morning until the night, and, after that, from night to the
morning again--as the garden bears witness, for I swear ’tis full
already of the bottles, and beginning to be heaped up at that.
There was a man at Euston who clapped a false bag over my valise and
stepped into a cab with it; but I saw him just in time, and jumped
into the cab with him. He appeared by no means pleased at this; and
when the driver asked “Where to?” “Why,” says I, “to Scotland Yard.”
You should have seen the fellow alight, leaving me in possession of a
machine to steal bags which might well be a fortune to me.
But, Clara, I am to tell you of my visit to Hampstead, where Harry
is--and not of any bags at all--which I now proceed to do as well as
these hilarious folks will let me, and as coherently as the madness of
it makes possible. You should know that I found Harry in a little
house on the top of a hill by London, at a place they call Hampstead;
a great, big, bare heath of a wilderness where the folks go to be
happy on Sundays, and which is large enough for the drunken ones to
fall down and sleep convenient. This is the famous Hampstead Heath,
wherefrom, they tell me, you can see the dome of St. Paul’s and
Westminster Abbey, though little of one or the other did I see, but
only a great big hole full of smoke and the roofs of railway stations,
and the factory chimneys sticking up above it.
The house itself is a bit of a place not much bigger than a cabin on a
bog. Some man, who has a wonderful taste for the arts, painted it the
colour of the great Atlantic Ocean, and there are creepers all over
the face of it, and some poor little roses that are pining for the
country but will get no chance of air yet awhile. As for the interior
of the place, well, there we have Harry’s wit at work, for the rascal
has made it as like his little house in Paris as money and pains could
do; and, as if this were not enough, he has invited over a troop of
the rogues that he used to know, and filled them with good red wine
until there isn’t a man among them who could tell you whether he’s
himself or his neighbour. But here I get ahead of the story, and that,
my dear Clara, will never do.
I arrived at the house about six o’clock of the evening. No man could
have mistaken the place, for a great tri-colored flag was flying out
of the bedroom window, and a crowd stood before the windows to hear
the Chevalier Villefort singing the French song which has the fine
classic chorus--“Fifine, elle est doloreuse.” When I knocked at the
door, loud enough to shake the door off its hinges, such a shout went
up as should have brought the fire engines to the street. And what a
rushing to the door, what cries of “Entrez--herein--kum een”--what
hands thrust out to drag me along--what a tossing up of my bag--God
help the whisky--what a pandemonium! A rat fallen among terriers would
not have been so shaken to the very roots as your poor Paddy. Faith, I
think that about forty of them were sitting on my chest at a time,
though it proved afterwards that there were but five in the house,
including the little witch that Greuze should have painted, and she
was as wild as any of them, and as ready for the frolic.
Well, they pulled me into a room that was conveniently furnished with
a piano that had but two or three notes to it, and chairs that had no
proper backs to them; and, seeing that I was hungry and famished after
the journey, they set a bottle of curaçoa and a yard of bread before
me and bade me fall to.
The place itself was so thick with smoke that I was hard put to it to
say whether I was looking out of the front of my head or the back; and
I was in no way surprised to hear that they had made a night and a day
of it, and proposed to double the term. As for the men, their clothes
would have made the fortune of a circus. Harry himself wore a suit of
travelling checks loud enough to knock down a nigger minstrel. The
long-whiskered beggar-man, Georges Oleander, had an old golfer’s red
coat to his back and a sea-green waistcoat for its own brother; the
lady-killer Villefort, a real Frenchman as you see them in Paris and a
gentleman as well, he wore a frock-coat and a rose like a cabbage in
his buttonhole; while as for the little witch Mimi, she was dressed in
a frock down to her knees and a pair of crimson stockings bright
enough to light the candles. What it all meant--the house, the people,
the noise--your Paddy knew no more than the people in the street. What
was worse, no man among them seemed able to tell him.
“Finish your breakfast first,” says Harry--it was then about half-past
six o’clock of the afternoon--“and then we can lay the cloth for
dinner. I’ve ordered it from the confectioner’s, and we’re going to
have a real good time. Upon my word, Paddy, you were an old brick to
come--whatever should we have done without you?”
“Why?” says I, wondering still more, “and what do you propose to do
with me?”
“Why, to make you sing ‘Finnigan’s Wake’ to begin with, and then the
next best song you can remember. Come, Paddy, no heel-taps--you must
be thirsty, and I wish we had something else but curaçoa. They’ve
drunk all the wine and I’ve sent for some more.”
“From what I perceive,” says I, “they have already drunk what you’ve
sent for. Is it a wake or a wedding, Harry? You didn’t send for me all
the way from Ireland to join in a smoking-concert. I’ll not believe it
at all.”
He said “Hush,” and, presently, when the others were fallen to their
games again, he took me out into the bit of a garden, where there was
a fountain and a satyr--though the gentleman had a clay pipe in his
mouth instead of a flute, and someone had sketched the picture of a
broken bottle just where he should have worn his tail. Here we had a
moment’s privacy, and here I began to get at the truth of it.
“Harry,” asks I, “will ye answer me a plain question--what are all
these tipsy gentlemen doing here, and why have you brought that little
lady among them?”
Well, he took me by the arm and began to walk me up and down the
narrow path.
“They’re not tipsy,” says he, “they’re just glad, Paddy. It’s a long
story, my boy, and a good one. But I’ll have to tell it you in two
minutes.”
“Ay,” says I, “and it’s the story of the child, no doubt.”
He nodded his head. He’s a fine handsome lad, with a wicked wisp of
brown curls over his handsome forehead, and two clear blue eyes which
should go deep into any woman’s heart. And he never looked handsomer
than he did this night.
“Her story, of course, Paddy. I have won her by a trick, my boy. Don’t
say now that I was wrong to go to my cousin’s house, for it was little
Martha who put the first notion of it into my head.”
“Did the parson call you out?”
“No, he called me in lest the neighbours should see.”
“Did he complain of his ship coming home--the poor devil of a man?”
“It was a little awkward, certainly--but it saved me, Paddy. I just
ran over to Cromer to see Mimi, and then came on to London to fit up
this house. What will appeal to her, said I, will be a new Maison du
bon Tabac.”
“You’ve plenty of it here. ’Twould take a telescope to see across the
room.”
He was a little cross with me for interrupting him, and, in faith, I
was as curious to hear his story as he to tell it. So I just held my
tongue and let him run on freely.
“I determined if I could,” he said, “to find Mimi a little house in
London, which would speak to her of the old days in Paris and lead her
to forget that she is among strangers in a strange country. So I
fitted up this place. You see what kind of a place it is, Paddy--just
a replica of the old villa on the Butte, with the very furniture that
we used to laugh at there. Then I sent for my friends, and the good
fellows came at once. How could they keep away?”
“You paid their fares, Harry?”
“Yes, and old Georges had an accident with his at the Cabaret of the
Tête Noire--so I had to send it twice. But they came, Paddy, and we
began to live the old life just as we lived it at Montmartre--and then
we wrote to Mimi; we all wrote to her, and we sat down and waited for
her. My God! if you had known what those days of waiting meant to me.”
He was deeply moved, and my heart went out to him. I have spoken to
you before of his great love for this child--and, to be sure, it is an
honest man’s devotion, full of fine, chivalrous thoughts and so
utterly unselfish that it must bring him to abject poverty by and by.
This, however, was not the time to speak of it.
“But she came to you, Harry?” said I; “she came to you, man?”
“God be thanked, she did, Paddy. It was last night--these fellows had
all gone off to dine in Soho at a French café no Christian man has
ever heard of. I was alone in the house--all my spirit had gone, for
Mimi’s letter seemed to say that she would not come. All the prophets
of evil whispered in my ears and promised me misfortunes while I
waited. I lived half a lifetime of poverty, distress, and
disappointment--alone in the dark of the garden looking down upon the
lights of London, and asking if they hid Mimi from my sight. You know
what moods like these can be--how we seem robbed of every shred of
hope, how we say that good fortune will never visit us again--wish
almost that our lives were lived. That was my case for two long
hours--oh, my dear Paddy, may I never live such hours again.”
“And then,” says I, “then, my dear Harry, you were lifted up to heaven
in a jiffy. Elijah didn’t beat you at the flying.”
He laughed like a boy at this, while he squeezed my arm as though he
would press all the human kindness out of me and add it to his own
store. Trust a man in love to be a miser with his sympathies.
“As true as gold, Paddy,” says he, “she came at nine o’clock, just
when I had put pistols in the balance with laudanum, and was watching
the scale. I can hear the wheels rolling on the gravel now--ah, the
roll of the wheels that carry your mistress to you, is there any
sweeter music in life?”
“Did she come alone, Harry?”
“The man they call Jack Bendall brought her. I gave him a ten-pound
note for himself and a fiver each for the others of the company. Of
course, I didn’t guess at first that Mimi was in the cab, and my heart
started to beat like a fire-pump. She was ill, I said, gone back to
France perhaps--or even dead. Then, Paddy, I heard her voice! Think of
that, old boy, I heard her voice!”
“’Twas what was said in the Dublin Courts last week, when Mary
Wentworth went for a divorce from old Mike. She heard a voice in the
parlour--a female voice----”
“Oh, be serious, Paddy, be serious.”
“The very words the Judge used. Do you mean to marry her now you’ve
got her here, Harry?”
“Am I a rogue, Paddy? I’d have married her this morning if the priest
would have done it.”
“The priest--what priest?”
“Why, the one from the little French church. Old Georges went to fetch
him, but we’d had so much wine that Georges couldn’t explain himself,
and the priest thought there was someone sick, and came immediately.
When he got there, it was just about half-past five in the morning.
The room was full of bottles and tobacco-smoke, and Villefort was
playing ‘All the little sheep and lambs,’ and singing it as well. When
the good father came in and saw Mimi fast asleep in an armchair and
the rest of us looking as though we had been boiled in old Bordeaux,
he just bolted, Paddy.”
“Ah,” says I, “it’s astonishing how the ecclesiastical mind revolts at
originality. Ye couldn’t call him back, Harry?”
“No, I didn’t try. We’re to have a special license now and to be
married in the morning. Mimi’s sent for her clothes, and I’ve got a
frock-coat coming over.”
“Will you live in this place when it’s done?”
“Ah, that’s what I don’t know. You see, I had to catch her by a trick,
but I won’t keep her that way, for we have our livings to get. That’s
a task I must set about at once.”
“You were for setting about it two years ago. I remember you bought a
quire of paper and two nibs, and were for writing the History of the
Palais Royal. You got as far as a sketch of Cardinal Richelieu dining
at the Ritz Hotel, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Paddy, but it’s a great scheme, and I shall finish it some day.”
“Some day is the Bohemian’s yesterday. He’s always going to do great
things yesterday. Harry, my boy, you’re taking the devil’s own risk;
there are few men who would countenance you, I suppose.”
“But you, you, Paddy, you don’t forbid it?”
“I’ve wished it from the start. It may be the making of you--if it
isn’t the ruin. I’d sooner see you married to this little girl than
dangling at a married woman’s apron-strings as you were in Paris.
Riches don’t go for much if they can’t do better than that for you,
Harry.”
“Oh, but you’re talking of things that have been. I don’t want to hear
about them--heaven knows, there are sad moments enough.”
“Why sad moments?”
“I cannot tell you. It’s just obstinacy. Sometimes I tell myself that
even if I marry Mimi, I shall not keep her with me. I’m afraid of her
own past, afraid of my own future. Consider what gipsy lives we have
led. How are we to go on living them, how am I to hope that she will
settle down to the hum-drum things of a suburban existence? And, of
course, I dare not take her back to Paris; you know how foolish that
would be.”
“Put the thought out of your head. You would be a madman to play with
it. As for keeping her--well, a man who cannot keep a woman who loves
him isn’t worth his salt. I’ll not hear it. You have no right to be
talking like this--not to-night anyway. Begin to speak of dark things
when the sun is setting on your happiness. You can keep it above the
horizon as Joshua did if you set out to slaughter the heathen who are
the masters of your idleness. Work, Harry--that’s the best friend in a
man’s home.”
He did not answer me; in truth, he had no chance. The dinner made its
appearance, and we all sat down to it--such a merry company that must
have recalled all the days of the old Kit Kat Club, and of the wild
dogs that frequented the same. For you must know, Clara, that this
Hampstead place has seen the poets Keats and Leigh Hunt, who was
another writing man, and Charles Dickens, to say nothing of the
prize-fighters who had their training quarters in these parts, as
Harry told me over the dinner-table; and I’ll warrant there has been
many such a carouse as we held this night, and with reasons not half
so good. Meat and drink, song and dance--the men breaking up the
chairs and tables; all sorts of music, wine enough to float a man of
war, French ways and manners of it--ay, a night and a morning, too,
for the bride fell fast asleep in the arm-chair just when the sun came
up, and there were three of us on the benches in the garden when they
cried the milk in the streets. Nor will I write this to our shame. We
were children of the highway for the nonce. God knows, there is too
much of brick and mortar in the world.
You may ask me, Clara, how I, a decent man in my own country, and
respected in County Wicklow--as any clergyman who plays golf will bear
witness--how I can encourage this tipsy life or give moral support to
my old friend, Henry Gastonard, when he is the victim of it. I’ll tell
you in a word. He will go to the devil if he does not marry this
little witch, and the way he has set out to marry her is the only one
by which his journey’s end can be reached.
Think of the child’s life--she who danced in the booths about Paris,
she who has been a fortune hunter--God help her!--almost since she was
old enough to lisp any words at all. Would such a pretty waif and
stray go to a man who had red plush breeches about him and solid
silver on his table? Would she enter a house of double doors with a
marble staircase beyond? Never, I’ll swear, to her life’s end. He has
won her through her heart, and worthily won her too.
They were married this morning at ten o’clock at the French Consulate,
and afterwards by the man that keeps the Registry. The rest of us were
half asleep, but we kept it up to the end, and when we left them at
ten o’clock of the night and they were alone together in the house, we
stood by the window a moment to watch him kiss her very tenderly
before we went down the hill to the pit where London lies. She is now
his wife--God bless her pretty face!--though what their future is to
be, whether a fair way in a garden of roses or all the sorrow of the
children of Alsatia is more than any man may dare to say--let alone
your affectionate brother,
Paddy.
CHAPTER XXIV.
[In which Henry Gastonard keeps his promise to Martha Warrington.]
4, The Walk, Hampstead, N.W.,
September 21st, 1905.
Dear Martha,--I have owed you a letter for a long time, but really, my
dear cousin, a man whose honeymoon is but a fortnight old has little
time to think of the sun--and his days are brief enough.
I was sorry to hear that Arthur considers my marriage a “mere scramble
on to the banks after a wild plunge into the vortex of sin.” I hope he
was not eating new bread and butter when he uttered this masterpiece.
Marriage, I remember, was not made much of by St. Paul, and Arthur
used to be a Pauline until he met you. What he is now I have not yet
discovered. You, who have broken the box of sweet spices at his feet,
are right to complain of the holes in his socks--but as a married man
I have no sympathy with you.
This is dreadful news, too, about your hair. These new dyes are
troublesome tenants, and do not take our hair upon a repairing lease.
It really was very noble of you to dye it so bright a red for the sake
of the Pageant. And now, you say that the dye won’t come out, and that
you must return to Beldon still wearing the brand of Boadicea. Cheer
up, Martha. Have not some of the noblest women in history--chief
amongst them our Elizabeth of blessed memory--dressed auburn locks for
posterity and gloried in their possessions? For my part, had I known
of the fact when writing my skit, “The People of the Pageant,” I would
have mentioned it to your lasting honour. The little book appears to
be getting about--I had no idea that such a trifle could interest so
many.
But concerning more serious things. I am living, as you wished me to
live, in a box of a cottage upon Hampstead Heath. The place is pretty
enough, and now that we are married I am putting some comfort into it.
This is only to be done secretly and by stealth. Chairs, which were
not there yesternight, are discovered at breakfast time. A new piano
dropped from the heavens, so to speak, and has notes that play. I have
bought a splendid brass bed, and the men rigged it up while Mimi was
out shopping. She suspects me, but says little. I have not told her in
the very word that I am poor; but I have led her to that belief, and
her devotion is the consequence.
Would it be foolish to tell you, Martha, that I am not wholly happy in
spite of all this? The vaguest fears afflict me. I know not from day
to day what evil is to overtake me, and yet I am conscious of evil.
Perchance it is but the aftermath of golden days, lived in a sunshine
I had never hoped to see. Perhaps it is but a lover’s humour--I cannot
say, and yet it is as real as any thought that ever dwelt with me.
You must know that old Paddy O’Connell, the wild Irishman with the
thunderous voice and the jet black locks and the magnificent figure,
remains, good friend that he is, in London to “see me through it,”
whatever that may mean. He is lodged at the Jack Straw Castle Inn, on
the very summit of the Heath here, and he is with us the best part of
the day, and often the best part of the night. As Mimi refuses
(because of my poverty) to engage a servant, and is at once
housekeeper, cook and general servant to the establishment, I welcome
Paddy as valet in ordinary, and do not refuse him. At the brushing of
a coat or the carrying of a coal-hod he is immense; while his choice
of wines and cigars is not to be questioned. For the rest, he has a
new scheme of money-making ready for me every day. His last was as
wild as his first--it would do cousin Arthur good to hear of it.
Paddy thought he had discovered a new furnace and retort for the
making of gas. He wished to put a thousand into the thing and for me
to work it in his interest. The invention, it appears, was run by a
sharp American, who had the machine set up in a mews near
Baker-street, and invited us there to witness his experiments. I went
by appointment, and, of course, Paddy accompanied me. Apparently, the
inventor made gas out of anything you like. He had a small furnace and
a retort with a meter attached. I don’t know much about the business,
but I have a pair of eyes in my head, and I used them carefully while
we witnessed the first experiments. Certainly they were wonderful. The
inventor lighted a fire with a little bundle of sticks and then put
all sorts of things into the furnace--bits of paper, bits of cloth,
rubbish from dust-bins; and all the time the meter showed that gas was
being made. He declared to us on his word of honour that he could make
gas “out of dead cats” if he chose. I went away puzzled, but Paddy was
enchanted.
“See here,” says he, “is it a fortune to ye or is it not?”
“My dear Paddy,” said I, “fortunes do not come quite so kindly--I want
to think a bit.”
“Think be hanged!” says he, “’tis thinking ye have been for five years
or more. Will ye starve or make gas?”
“Gas,” said I, “does not generally starve, Paddy. There’s a lot of it
about in London.”
“To the devil with it, Harry. Will ye take the man’s offer or leave
it?”
“I’ll tell you to-morrow, Paddy, when we have seen him again.”
He was very angry at this, and would not come to lunch with me. Of
course, I told Mimi all about it, and asked her opinion. She knows
less about gas than I do; but she has a wonderful little head of her
own, and her wisdom often puts me to shame.
“People cannot make gas out of rubbish, Harry. I am sure of it. Did
you light the fire yourself, or did he?”
“Oh, he did, Mimi.”
“Very well; take some wood to-morrow and offer to light it for him.”
I told her that I would do so, and we changed the subject with a
laugh. She had made a wonderful omelet, but had put sugar instead of
salt into it, and I had to confess that a savoury omelet made with
sugar was a delicacy to captivate the heart of Brillat Savarin. The
afternoon we spent in the lanes on our bicycles, and at night a
mollified Paddy came to dine with us and made no reference to the gas,
though I observed that he took but a moderate quantity of that
commodity with his whisky.
Ten o’clock had been the hour fixed for our second visit to
Baker-street, and we were there, as the Americans say, on time. I
don’t know whether the inventor took the matter as already settled,
but he wore a fine frock-coat and had a pretty white rose in his
buttonhole. The usual preliminaries being over, he told me that he
proposed to make gas out of a box of child’s bricks, an old volume of
illustrated newspapers, and a woman’s discarded shawl. I listened
patiently, and did not interfere until the moment he was about to
light the fire; when I stepped forward and produced the bundle of
sticks with which Mimi had provided me.
“Look here,” said I, “if you expect me to put any money into this, I
must light the fire to-day.”
Well, Martha, if a thunderbolt had hit him the man could not have
looked more surprised. And yet his _sang-froid_ did not desert him; he
pretended to acquiesce with the best of good grace.
“It is immaterial to me,” he said; “you will find the furnace a little
damp--so many queer things get into it. By all means try, and I will
get a pair of bellows to help you.”
He was out of the room in a jiffy, and we heard him running down the
stairs. For my part I made no attempt whatever to light his fire.
“Paddy,” said I, “he will return with those bellows on the kalends of
March. I’ll give you fifty pounds if he comes back to-day.”
Paddy would not hear of it.
“What!” cried he, “d’ye mean to say we have met with a swindler?”
“Undoubtedly, and a very impudent one.”
“I’ll never believe it. Ye do the man an injustice; ’tis a lie, I
say!”
“Very well, Paddy; send out for some lunch and the morning newspapers.
We can soon prove it one way or the other.”
Poor man, he was in a fearful state, for there is no more trusting
soul in all Ireland to-day than Paddy O’Connell. I need not tell you,
Martha, that the man never came back. The secret of his furnace was
the secret of the bundle of sticks with which he lighted his fire.
These were chemically prepared, and generated the gas which caused the
meter to register.
And so, alas, poor Paddy! There was no more sorrowful man in Hampstead
than my good friend that night. If he made no actual reference to the
evanescent subject of gas, I observed that he took plain water with
his whisky and uttered certain pious aphorisms concerning the
wickedness of this world in general and of its merchants in
particular. Forty-eight hours afterwards he had another scheme
prepared. I am to set up in London as an art connoisseur--to advise
the dealers concerning old pictures and the public concerning new
ones. This, he says, will bring me a decent income, at any rate, and
assure me the friendship of millionaires.
“And who knows,” he asks me triumphantly, “that one of ’em won’t take
a fancy to you and make you a partner in his affairs? ’Tis a thing
that has happened, and not so wonderful. Ye have Mimi to keep, and ye
may have the children. Will ye be sitting idle while she starves,
Harry? Shame on ye for the thought.”
To which I can make no response, Martha. Idleness has caught me in its
iron grip, and I am spellbound. The sunny days pass so swiftly. There
is a crown of tousled hair upon my pillow when I wake; I see the one
face in all the world that should be there when I go to my sleep at
night. Mimi herself appears to live in a kind of wonderland. Sometimes
she dreams through long spells of silence; there are other hours when
the old life stirs in her blood and all the riot and merriment of the
Butte must claim her. Again and again I have spoken to her of her
childhood, but can awaken no new memories. A wood, and a lonely road,
and a woman’s terrible face--such are her impressions. To speak of
them is to recall those phantoms of fear which have haunted me from
the beginning and are not unknown to her. I repeat that they may be
the creations of happiness itself, for what is left for me to desire
but this possession of all that I have sought--this peace which
passeth understanding?
Convey, I beg of you, to cousin Arthur such impressions of my
affection as will suit his mood. His sermon on the “Damnable Errors of
Modernism” I should have thought a little advanced for the simple
fisherfolk at Lowestoft. As for the holiday-makers, they must be hard
put to it sometimes to discover something new--so I suppose they went
in. The main thing is, did you play to capacity; I mean, in ordinary
parlance, had you a good collection?
It would be cruel to hear that the damnable heresies aforesaid were
assessed by Lowestoft at a sum of seven-and-six sterling--the amount
in the plate upon the last occasion when it was put before--Your
affectionate Cousin,
Harry.
CHAPTER XXV.
[Containing certain instructions to M. Jules Farman, ex-agent of
police at 4 (bis), Rue du Quatre Septembre, Paris.]
4, The Walk, Hampstead, London, N.W.,
September 28th, 1905.
Dear Monsieur Farman,--The inquiries set up for me by the French
Consul, of which I spoke to you in a recent letter, appear to have
been without fruit. I am, therefore, craving your kind services once
more in my interest and begging your diligence.
It is known to you that I have married Mademoiselle Mimi, who cost us
so pretty an adventure at Raincy together; but the circumstance of my
marriage and my wife’s own solicitude make it more necessary than ever
that I should be put in possession of all the facts which inquiry and
patience may disclose concerning her birth and parentage. I know no
one in Paris to whom I would as soon commit my interests as to you,
and I hereby beg of you to accept the service and to spare no expense
to further it. From what the Consul has been so good as to tell me,
your inquiries will be best pursued in the neighbourhood of Orleans,
and especially at the house of the old woman Marie, if she be still
living and capable of answering any questions at all.
There is another circumstance--so shadowy that I mention it with
hesitation, but so full of remote possibility that I have no right to
withhold it. For some days now, I have had the idea that this little
house of mine in London is being watched. Possibly my fears are
altogether groundless. We have led an eccentric life in this place and
have carried here some of the habits and practices with which Paris
made us familiar. These may have provoked the curiosity of the
neighbours or of others who have heard of them by rumour. Be that as
it may, my wife has been much alarmed upon more than one occasion, and
I am not without my fears that we are upon the threshold of a greater
mystery than any which has yet attended her adventurous life.
I may add that there is just one man in Paris who, in my wife’s
judgment, should have been sought out by us before but has escaped our
observation and eluded our reckoning. He is a burly ruffian who
frequents the old Café of the Assassins, and he is often to be found
there nowadays. They know him by the name of Jean-le-Mont, a title by
which you will readily discover him.
I commend this man to your notice as one who might be able to help you.
Meanwhile, accept the assurance of my profound consideration.--And
permit me to remain,
Yours very faithfully,
Henry Gastonard.
I enclose a draft for a hundred pounds. You are to draw upon me
immediately for any further sums you may require.
CHAPTER XXVI.
[Madame Mimi writes a letter to Paddy O’Connell.]
The Hotel Metropole, Brighton,
Sunday.
Dear Great Big Monsieur Paddy,--I cannot very much write the English
as now, but I shall have to say to you what is not proper. Why do you
tell me the untrue things about my husband--that he is the poor man
and no more shall have any of the moneys? Is it, Monsieur Paddy,
because the men always think they are good when they tell the untruth
to the lady? But I know, and I am angry, very angry with you. You
shall never tell me untrue things again--_jamais de ma vie_.
I would tell you that we have gone away from the Hampstead to the
border of the sea. If Harry had not the moneys he could not have led
me here in the big motor-car--so big, Monsieur Paddy, that we could
have put you in it as well. And we have come to the hotel, and I am so
frightened of the people and I think I shall run away. But Harry says
no--and I remain, for I could not be, oh, not for a little single
hour, away from the place where _mon mari_ dwells. So I stay, but am
very sad--dear friend, if you would understand how sad I am!
Why do the men come to my house and watch me? I do not say to my
husband half the things I know, for that shall make him afraid also.
Is it, Monsieur Paddy, that someone hates me for being his wife? Shall
you think that Madame Lea sends the men? She is not the woman who may
forget him--how well I remember it, and how often I tell it by myself
when no one is in the apartment with me. She will not forget--that
clever, wicked Madame Lea who love all the men for moneys but not any
at all for the love.
It was because I have been afraid that my husband brought me to the
border of the sea. We have put on all our clothes and are very
beautiful. I must not sing as I walk to and fro, and if the music
makes me want to dance I must hold myself down upon my _banc_. All the
afternoons the _monde_ goes up and down in a carriage--such _gros
monsieurs_ with fur round their necks, and the English lady who is so
sad and makes her shoulders bare before she sits down to dinner.
I like the sun and I like the sea--the great big wild sea, where
across so far is my beloved France. I am very happy with my husband,
but, oh, so much afraid, that I wake in the night and lay my head upon
his breast and cry myself because he is there and I am his wife. Ah,
Monsieur Paddy, how unhappy to be no one--never to have known that you
were a little child and that you had a home. I am that, and I am
ashamed because it has been so--that I am not as the others, and that
my husband shall never be proud of me because of what I was when I
left my father’s house.
Will you not write to me, my dear Monsieur Paddy, and tell me how
wrong I am? Do not refuse Mimi the Simpleton. She is very simple
still, dear Monsieur Paddy, and she have no right to believe that her
happiness is not the dream which will pass away.
Why did you go from us to your desert country? Why did you leave us?
It was not kind, Monsieur--and you have been our friend. All the
others is gone away--the Chevalier, the wicked Monsieur Oleander, the
kind Monsieur Barrymore. They have taken my husband’s money and gone
away--ah, _quel drole du monde!_
_Mais vous_,--Well, I shall forgive you, for you will come back to me.
And you will write the letter to say that I am wicked and that I must
not be afraid. And please to tell me that it is not Madame Lea, and
that my husband will never see her--never as long as we both shall
live.
Your devoted,
Mimi Gastonard.
CHAPTER XXVII.
[Paddy O’Connell replies to Mimi’s letter.]
The Headland Hotel, Portrush, Ireland,
October 2nd, 1905.
Dear Mimi,--Your pretty letter came to me in confidence, my dear, or I
would have answered you with a telegram. Though, to be sure, what a
man puts in a telegram is private enough, neither he nor anyone else
being able to made head nor tail of it sometimes. What I wanted to say
to you was just this--that you are a foolish little girl to write to
me as you did, though there’s no one I’d sooner hear from, and no one
whose letters I’d be readier to answer.
What’s all this nonsense about the men that watch you, Mimi? Don’t the
men always watch a pretty woman anyway? I’ll not flatter you at all,
but if it’s the watching that you’re after, come over to this golfing
country, and you shall have five and fifty men on the first tee to see
you off, and as many of the women behind them to declare you’d be
pretty if it wasn’t for your “faytures.” So have done with your
nonsense! I’ll be writing Harry this very day and giving him a word of
my mind about all that you tell me. He’s made strange friends in his
days of seedtime, and they’re above the ground now at the harvest.
That’s the way we men have ’em, my dear. We sow friendships in our
youth and often enough reap thistles in our old age.
Harry was wise to take you away, and I hope he’ll keep you in the same
place. There’s nothing like change, though precious little of that
same comes the way of Paddy O’Connell. To me the world is all the
same, my dear--just a great grass field with a lot of sand-pits
therein, and your Paddy in one of them for a certainty.
What d’ye think the fellows here had the impudence to do this morning?
Why, to follow me and old Colonel Willis when we were playing a round
of the golf. He’s a very wicked habit of using bad language, which I
have no mind to be listening to, and when I saw a crowd about the
first tee, I asked them what they supposed they had come out to see.
And what do you think they answered me? “Why,” says one of them, “we
haven’t come here to see--we’ve come here to listen.” Be hanged to
their impudence.
There’s one point in your letter which I haven’t spoken of, Mimi, and
I speak of it now unwillingly. ’Twould be about the Lea woman. Be sure
that Harry will see no more of her. I say it, and Paddy O’Connell
makes no mistakes in a matter of this kind. He’s done with her--he
wished to be done with her a year ago, but she wouldn’t let him. And
ask yourself this, my dear--when a man has got the woman he wants, is
he likely to want the woman he hasn’t got? Think no more of it, I say.
Be off with him to all the places where there’s music to be heard and
bright people to be seen, and let me hear of the brave little girl I
used to know in Paris, and will never forget.
So here’s my love to you wrapped up in a bit of a letter and posted in
the great Irish country. ’Tis no great spirit I’m writing in, but
you’d never understand all the trouble that comes to a man who’s
taking three on the greens where he ought to take two, and can never
hold a hand at the cards without somebody insulting him. To the devil
with them all! They put two aces of hearts in the pack of cards I
played Bridge with last night, and me not discovering it until the
second rubber. Would ye wonder that I walked out of the window and
banged it after me.
I write to Harry by this post. If he shouldn’t show you the letter,
don’t pretend to know what’s in it.
But it’s wisdom, my dear, and that’s a rare commodity in these
days.--God bless you--and,
Paddy O’Connell.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
[The Same Author addresses Henry Gastonard at the Hotel Metropole,
Brighton.]
The Headland Hotel, Portrush, Ireland,
October 2nd, 1905.
Dear Harry,--What’s all this now about your trouble at home and the
men that are looking after you? Is it dreams, or are spirits about? I
hear from your angel of a wife that some nonsense has come into both
your heads. And I haven’t the patience to hear it--so there’s the
truth.
Now, you have got to be up and doing, and acting the man’s part.
Remember, you have made as odd a marriage--but as wise a one--as any
man that ever put a ring in his waistcoat pocket, and couldn’t find it
there when the parson asked him. Mimi is a little wild animal that you
took from the prairie--as soft as silk, as gentle to your hand; but,
man, with the blood of the prairie in her veins. Remember this every
day you get up from her side--she’s the daughter of savages, and her
birthright will cry out for a hearing sometimes.
What are all these fears of hers? Are they not the alarm of the
gazelle which sniffs a lion on the sky line, and would be moving? What
are the mad outbreaks you speak of--the frenzied desire for change and
movement? Are they not born of the same impulse which sends a wild
pony scampering through the forest and keeps him at it until he’s
exhausted? Be very patient with her. The man who would keep a wild
bird well should not begrudge the money he spends for a decent
cage--and a large one to boot.
To be plain with you, Harry, I’d be less troubled about your good
little wife if I had a better story to tell of her husband. You say
that you are planning a scheme which will surprise me presently. Did
you ever hear tell of the South Sea Bubble where a rogue made a
fortune by advertising a business “presently to be disclosed?” Paddy
O’Connell is not the one to be putting his hopes for you in any
company like that. Be up and doing; do you realise that in a few
months you’ll have no more than a bank clerk, and with a power of
spending which would shame the Jam of Rorypore?
Did I tell you that I had a letter from America which gave me some
concern for a few days? A fellow wrote me that he had discovered a
gold mine, and, being an old friend of my father’s, had put me down at
the beginning for fifty shares. “These,” says the man, “are now worth
about a thousand apiece, and there is gold banked against your name in
New York to that amount.” All that I had to do was to send him a
cheque for five hundred and forty pounds, the unpaid call on the
shares. Bedad, I’d have done it but for McCarthy, the solicitor, who’s
the finest nose in Ireland for scenting out a “do,” and was on the rat
before he’d got half way out of his hole.
“Why,” says he, “this is the gold brick over again.”
“What brick?” asks I, astonished.
“The gold brick,” says he; “if you go out there, he’ll show you a lump
of gold as big as a Kerry flint, and there’ll be lead inside of the
same.”
“You’ve no trust in humanity,” says I--and “Devil a bit,” says he--so
I’m keeping my money, though I’ve heard of a little scheme for
shipping Irish horses to the gold-fields of Alaska, which should be
worth something if worked by honest men. Ay, and that’s the rub.
Henry, my boy, where do the honest men hide themselves these days? I’d
sooner look for an old ball in a bunker full of stones than try to
find one of the same.
You must be coming to Ireland and bringing Mimi with you. We’ll show
her the wild man’s country together, and, perhaps, be teaching her the
golf. ’Tis true that neither of us can play, but, my dear boy, the
best teachers in the world are those who know nothing themselves, as
you’ll observe both in the realms of art and literature, to say
nothing of those of sport. Bring the child over and let’s cheer her up
awhile. I’ll warrant there’ll be men enough to watch her; but she
won’t be afraid of them, devil a bit.--Your friend, as ever,
Paddy.
CHAPTER XXIX.
[Henry Gastonard makes an urgent appeal to Jules Farman, of the Rue du
Quatre Septembre, Paris.]
4, The Walk, Hampstead,
October 11th, 1905.
Dear M. Farman,--Your response to my urgent telegram that you should
leave Paris and come to me immediately, brings the reply that you
cannot leave until to-morrow. I am therefore writing you this letter
with what composure I can in the face of this dreadful event, that you
may be in possession of all the facts before you leave Paris, and able
to deal with them there, if they are of service to you.
It was at nine o’clock last Sunday night that I first discovered the
crime which had been committed in my house. I had been absent, perhaps
the best part of an hour, making a call upon a friend who desired to
consult me upon a French picture he purchased recently. We returned
from Brighton upon the previous afternoon, my wife apparently having
overcome those hallucinations which have troubled her for some weeks
past, and being quite reconciled to the prospect of a continued
residence at Hampstead. She was in no way unhappy at the thought of
being alone, nor did I have any scruples about leaving her. My
suspicions were first awakened when I discovered that my friend had
not written to me at all, and that the letter which I received from
him was a clever but undoubted forgery.
You may imagine with what haste I went back to Hampstead. I had left
my wife at the piano in the sitting-room, where, the weather being
chilly, a bright fire burned; but I perceived immediately I approached
the house that it was in darkness, although a glimmer upon the blind
still spoke of the firelight. This alarmed me greatly. I tried to open
the front door with my latchkey, but found that the bolt had been
slipped. A loud knock and ring obtained no answer. I was now seriously
alarmed, as you may suppose, and being determined to obtain instant
admittance to the house, I smashed the large pane of glass in the
sitting-room, and entered without further delay.
I have told you that I left my wife in this room, seated at the piano
in the further corner near the French window by which you pass out to
the garden. That she had been called away without warning was proved
by the fact that one of the candles still guttered in its socket,
though too faintly to give any light, and that the sheet of music lay
upon the floor, indicating that she had been turning the very page
when the summons came to her. Save for the fact that the fire burned
low and that the electric light was switched off, there was nothing
else in this place to excite suspicion. I called my wife loudly by
name, going to the window and hoping to find her in the garden. She
did not answer me. I returned to the hall, and immediately discovered
the body of the man.
Some of the newspapers, I remember, say that he was a Spaniard. I
should pronounce him nothing of the kind, but one of your own
countrymen who had lived long in the South. When I found him he was
quite dead, and had fallen forward upon a wicker seat at the foot of
the stairs. To this, perhaps, he had staggered after the blow was
struck. I could not at the first detect any mark upon his body, nor
did I wish to believe that he was dead; but, running out into the
street to give the alarm, I sent one of my neighbours for the police,
another for a doctor. The latter told us the worst immediately. The
man had been struck down by a heavy implement; his skull had been
fractured, and he was dead.
It is not my intention, in such a letter as this, to dwell upon my own
state of mind at such a moment, or to relate to you the trivial
incidents of such a momentous hour. My wife’s disappearance, the
evidence of a conflict in the hall, the wild tales told by the
neighbours, were but the first fruits of a tragedy which paralysed my
faculties. To all their questions I could give only the vaguest
answers. I told them that I knew nothing of the wretched man who had
been struck down in my house; I could give them no clue as to the
purpose of his visit. I had never seen him before, did not know him,
could not imagine any business which should bring him to my house.
To the police I confessed Madame Mimi’s story of men who watched her
and of vague fears which had haunted her. They pressed me for
particulars more minute, and I could not answer them. Nor did I
perceive their drift then as I perceive it now. They believe,
incredible as the supposition is, that the murdered man had been one
of my wife’s lovers in Paris, that he visited her secretly, and that
for some reason at present undisclosed she has murdered him.
I must tell you the plain truth: I can keep nothing from you. London
speaks of little else than this appalling crime; nor am I sure that
the voice of popular opinion does not agree with the cruel assumptions
of those officially in charge of this case.
I have, my dear Farman, been associated with you in much that concerns
my private life, and always in the cause of one dear to me and to whom
my happiness is for ever linked. You will imagine my situation this
day in England. I am alone in my house, and there is a hue and cry in
the streets for the woman I love more than anything on earth. I can
say nothing to which the world will listen in her defence. My letter
to the newspapers is printed by some, by others withheld as
indiscreet. The police themselves but repeat a parrot’s tale--“The man
came to the house; he was my wife’s lover; he was killed by her,
aided, it may be, by some of the disreputable friends she knew in
Paris and who are now hiding her for their own ends.”
Admit, my friend, the preposterous nature of this assumption. You have
known the child that the Butte called Mimi La Godiche. Is not her
whole story a refutation of this calumny most base? Did she not guard
her virtue in a circle where the very name of virtue has long been
forgotten? Were not her gentleness, her charity, her forbearance the
wonder even of the outcasts among whom she was thrown? And this child
is now charged with a lover and with his murder! Oh, monstrous, I say!
most monstrous and damnable, as I will presently prove to them.
In a common way, I have now no right to speak of fortune; but I have
been saving of my resources, and still possess a few thousand pounds
of my own, every penny of which goes to the purpose of my wife’s
vindication. If others fail, I will find her. If these vigilant police
cannot track her down, I will do so, going by night and day to my task
until the truth is known and justice accomplished. Be you my friend in
this, I beg of you. By all that is of old association and friendship,
stand by me now and bring your magnificent resources to my aid.
I should tell you that the murdered man was apparently forty years of
age, small of stature, with a trimmed black beard and a wealth of
black hair slightly speckled with grey. He was very well dressed,
apparently a man of the world--but there is nothing on the body to
tell us who he was nor any clue as yet to his identity. Cross to
London, I beg of you, and help us to identify him. Our work will begin
when that is done; it cannot begin before.
So I repeat, come without delay to a man whose friends stand apart
from him but whose faith is unshaken.
Henry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XXX.
[Jules Farman sends to Henry Gastonard some account of his
stewardship.]
The----Inn, Hampstead,
October 16th, 1905.
Dear Sir,--I am sending this by a trusty hand to the New Travellers’
Club in Piccadilly as your esteemed instructions command me.
I have to-day viewed the body of the murdered man and am glad to tell
you that I was immediately able to identify him. He is the Count
d’Antoine, who had an apartment in the Rue Boissiers at Paris, and is
far from being unknown to our best society.
I had the honour to be employed by the Count some three years ago upon
a mission whose particulars do not concern us. He was of an old family
of the Antoines, of Picardy, a well-known shot and horseman, and by no
means an idle member of the Jockey Club. During recent years his
fortunes have been at a low ebb, but he made friendships which served
him well, particularly that of the Marquis de Saint Faur, who will be
desolated to hear this grievous news.
I will say at once that I am utterly unable to imagine any cause of
association between Madame Gastonard and this poor gentleman. He was
not a frequenter of the artistic world; had, to my knowledge, no
interest in books and pictures; had set foot in Montmartre perhaps
twice in the whole course of his life. This I am able to tell you
because I found it necessary to go into the details of his career
somewhat closely when I had the honour to act for him.
I am compelled, Monsieur, to address you very plainly, and to speak at
this moment as I would hesitate to do at any other. The assumption
upon the part of the police in London that Count Antoine had been at
one time the lover of Madame Gastonard is not supported by any
evidence, and is to me entirely incredible. I shall refuse to give
serious consideration to such a supposition until I am compelled to do
so by testimony I cannot refuse. And I would beg you not to bestow
upon it a second thought.
We are therefore confronted by this perplexing fact: That a man,
distinguished in French society, but knowing nothing of London, goes
over to England to see a lady of whom he had no previous knowledge;
that he visits her in a remote quarter of the city when she is alone;
that he is followed there by others and murdered in her very presence.
To this there can be but one explanation. The Count d’Antoine was the
instrument of some secret embassy; he desired to see Madame alone; but
his purpose was known to others, who followed him, and defeated it at
the last moment. Let us analyse the more material evidence for this.
And first, the desire to see Madame alone. Is it possible to believe
that the Count’s arrival at the moment of your absence could have been
coincidence--especially when your own habits are remembered, and the
rare occasions when you quit your house after nightfall? More probable
in every way is the assumption that he had watched the house for some
days, waited patiently for his opportunity, and availed himself
immediately of your absence.
None the less, the fact is significant--for this is done, observe, not
by a low fellow, possibly a blackmailer or a beggar, but by a French
gentleman of position, one justly esteemed for his honourable actions,
and quite incapable of any dishonour in this purpose. Here our
difficulties begin; but here also I think that we begin to see the
light.
Of this it will be time enough to speak when that light shines a
little brighter, and is strong enough to lead us to some surer ground.
My duty at the moment is to place the evidence before you in its
simplest form, and to deduce therefrom such an hypothesis as may be
both reasonably possible and no less serviceable to us. And here I ask
you to observe that the Count d’Antoine would not have approached
Madame as he did unless the disclosure which he had to make must be
embarrassing to her or to others. The alternative is the assumption
that he was her lover--an alternative so grotesque that I do not
permit it so much as to appear in my reckoning.
No, Monsieur; the case is not one of those elementary studies of human
folly or of human passion, with which the police of France are so
often called upon to deal. It is the story of a man who carried a
secret from France to London, who was followed thither by others who
shared that secret with him, and determined either to prevent its
disclosure or themselves to profit by it. Such unknown men shadowed
the Count--it is possible that they watched the house as he watched
it, and were themselves about to do what he would have done but for
this tragic interruption. The question remains: Was their object that
of blackmail, or did they act for some unknown persons who had
determined to guard at any cost this imagined secret?
It is true, Monsieur, that the crime itself gives no clue to such a
study of intention. At the first blush I might argue that the
disappearance of Madame, who, I do not doubt, has been forcibly
abducted from your house, points to the fact that blackmail is the
issue; but we are not to forget that an alternative presents itself,
and that these men having committed this crime, must for very safety’s
sake also silence the solitary witness of it. So they abduct Madame,
and hold her as a hostage either until they gain a place of safety or
have purchased her silence in another way.
Of these alternatives, it is my sincere hope that the former
approximates to the truth rather than to the latter. Men whose one
desire is gain will resort to extreme measures reluctantly. I should
fear less from the avowed criminals of Paris, who have a precious
secret to sell, than from others whose projects may be more daring.
Such evidence as I can collect helps me to the belief that it is with
the criminals of Paris that I have to deal.
Permit me to recapitulate this evidence as briefly as may be.
And firstly, that of your neighbour, Captain Esmond, the officer of
Marine who witnessed the Count’s arrival at your house. This he
declares to have been within ten minutes of your departure--so proving
that the Count was aware of your absence and desired immediately to
avail himself of an unexpected opportunity.
Secondly, the evidence of the cabman Williams, who testifies that a
small covered motor-car waited the third part of an hour or more at
the corner of the street near by the great house, Bell Moor, and
passed him later on near Swiss Cottage station, going at a great pace
in the direction of Regent’s Park.
Thirdly, the evidence of the boy, Harry Carter, who spoke to the
driver of the car and obtained an answer--he believes in the French
tongue, but is unable to say; so ignorant of any other tongue is he.
Fourthly, the evidence of the servant girl, Cecily Rayner, who
declares that she saw a man climbing over the garden wall of No. 4
about the hour of this crime, and that she mentioned the matter to her
mistress, who immediately went out to the garden but discovered the
house to be in darkness and heard no sound of any kind.
This, Monsieur, is our evidence. To me the conclusions are very
natural:
1--That the Count was murdered almost immediately he entered your
house.
2--That the assassin entered by the way of the garden, passed through
your sitting-room, and struck the unhappy man while he was actually in
conversation with Madame.
3--That this crime was so swift, so brutal, and so remorseless that
your wife fell in a faint--and so lying was carried immediately to the
carriage without being able to offer any resistance whatever.
4--That the assassin was either in the service of the Count, or so
situated as to be in possession of his plans and intentions, and thus
able to forestall them.
Such, Monsieur, is the result of the work I have had the honour to do
for you. I confess with regret that we have dug but a poor foundation,
and that the corner-stone of our house is yet to be laid. This task
must be accomplished not in London but in Paris. I leave to-night by
the boat train from Charing Cross and beg you to accompany me.
For in Paris alone, Monsieur, shall we discover why the Count
d’Antoine visited Madame Gastonard, and what was the secret, so
precious to him and to others, which he could disclose to her alone.
I have the honour to be, Monsieur,
Your obedient servant,
Jules Henry Farman.
CHAPTER XXXI.
[Henry Gastonard sends Paddy O’Connell some account of his labours in
Paris.]
Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
October 19th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--Your letter speaks of a good heart and a true friendship.
In your own words, God bless you for it.
I cannot tell you what I have suffered during these terrible days.
There are few to whom I would speak of it. Sometimes I wish to God
that I could wake no more. The world moves about me as a rushing sea
of which I am afraid. I fear for my very reason.
Consider it all and bear with me. I was the happiest man in Europe
before this trouble came. Nothing in life but Mimi mattered then. Oh,
Paddy, if I could tell you what it was to have her always with me--to
wake each day and find her head upon my pillow, to sleep with her
white arms about my neck. None of us knew her a little bit in the old
days. But, Paddy, I learned to know her; I learned the truth which few
men learn--the secret was mine--the sweetness of it past belief.
And to say she is gone from me! If she were dead, the bitterness of
the truth could not be more poignant. I think of every city as her
prison; I pass no house in Paris that I do not say, If Mimi were
there! A thousand suppositions of life and death torment me every day.
Does she know what I suffer? Is it not possible that she will send a
message to me? Day answers nothing--the nights are silent. I can but
wait and pray.
You say that you arrived in London upon the morning after my
departure. I do not ask you to come to me in Paris, because I know not
whether Paris will be my home to-morrow, or some other city to which
destiny may lead me. Be sure that I am prepared for anything. I work
with Jules Farman literally from the rising of the sun until midnight.
We have visited more dens in Paris than I would have numbered for all
the slums of France. And we know no more than the meanest servant of
the police, who writes his theories in five folios, where my wife is
hidden, or what this stupendous mystery may be.
You will have read my letter in the English papers, and I have little
to add to it to-day. It was my purpose to remove the cowardly
suspicions which hover about the name of one of the purest of women,
and this I believe that I have done. Is it not monstrous to see how
ready the world is to doubt a woman’s honour, how willing to
anticipate her guilt. No reason governs the tongue of scandal, nor
does justice curb it. Here was a pretty French girl--she is immoral,
says slander. A man visits her--a man she has never seen before--he is
her lover, says the multitude. He is foully murdered in her house--she
must be the murderess. An English police, never clever when any gift
of subtlety is demanded, will accept no story but the one which
ministers to its love of the commonplace. A French police, readier to
look further afield, still believes that the Count was Mimi’s lover.
And I am alone against these. My love can but speak in a voice which
the clamour of conviction would drown. Ah, Paddy, if I could but call
these slanderers one by one before me; could compel them to answer me;
could wring a cry of justice from their throats. For I alone knew what
Mimi was, and alone I must defend her.
I have told you that we visited many of the dens upon the further side
of the Butte. Our reward is some story of the disappearance of the
notorious ruffian, Jean-le-Mont, and of his aforetime accomplice
Bar-le-Duc the apache. This was learned at the old Café des Assassins
when we visited it the second time. If we risked much, you will
believe how little any thought of personal danger deterred us. Indeed,
I do truly believe that a ruffian there was within an ace of drawing a
pistol upon us both--but Farman is the master of such men as these,
and I am never afraid in his company.
I should tell you that it was mid-day when we visited the Café and
found no one in charge but a very pretty and very ragged little French
girl sitting before a charcoal stove in the outer room. She knew Jules
Farman well, and asked him pointedly why he came there a second time
in as many days. When he answered her evasively she ran away to tell
someone else, who proved to be a dirty and unwashed ruffian, by name
Rogers--for he was an Englishman long known to the English police and
well watched by the French. This fellow was already drunk--a bottle of
spirits stood by the side of his filthy bed; a revolver lay close to
his hand. Had he been sober, there would have been civility enough;
but in his mad state he flourished his pistol wildly upon our entrance
and would have shot us for a word. In the end Farman frightened him
thoroughly, and he told us somewhat abjectly to follow the giant
Jean-le-Mont and to put our questions to him.
It is possible that this is a clue; it may be mere coincidence. You
will not have forgotten my letter to you in which I told you of the
robbery at the Quat-Z-Arts ball, of Mimi’s recovery of my gold
cigarette-case from this very ruffian, and of his subsequent threats
against her. But I find it hard to believe that a monster, whose one
ambition of the day is to steal money for his drink to-morrow should
remember so pitiful an incident, much less the name of one of the
thousand friendless girls who haunt the Butte and its vicinity.
In this Jules Farman agrees with me--but he asks the pertinent
question, Is it not possible that this fellow may be the agent of
others unknown, and that all he has done has been done for money which
comes to him from this undiscovered source? I hope that it may be so.
The police of London are searching Soho and other haunts of Frenchmen
for any news of him--the police here are not less diligent.
You will not be angry with me, Paddy, for speaking of another matter,
and one of which you will hear with little pleasure. Yesterday I had a
letter from Lea d’Alençon inviting me to her house, and assuring me
that Monsieur le Capitaine was heartily ashamed of his treatment of
me. There has been, I understand, something resembling a
reconciliation between the pair, though God knows how long a woman
will be content to be the amiable companion of a man who prefers to go
to bed at eleven o’clock at night and considers a dinner at
Armenonville as the first instalment of his purgatory. I shall not go
to her house, be sure--nor could I contemplate such an infamy as any
renewal of this acquaintanceship would imply. None the less, I am
troubled--for she speaks in a postscript of her ability to help me,
and declares that my happiness may depend upon a prompt response to
her invitation.
You say that you are in London awaiting my return. I can give you no
definite news of this, but I could wish it rather sooner than later.
Everything here reminds me of Mimi and the happy days. I visited the
old Maison du bon Tabac the other day and spent an hour in its empty
rooms. Not a scrawl upon its shabby walls, not a broken pane in its
windows but spoke to me of my little wife and the golden days which
are no more. And just as it is tumbling into decay, so, Paddy, is the
house of my own life falling. I see the great city of Paris below
me--it speaks of eternal things and of the darkness which is eternal.
The green woods rise beyond, and I remember that they gave me Mimi in
the days of the springtime, even as their falling leaves may hide her
to-day from my sight.
All that is here, the voice once musical of Paris, the glare of her
lights, the rolling traffic in the streets, the unceasing business of
pleasure--all this has no meaning for me. I pass by as a man who has
no place in such a pageant, who must walk apart until the end. Even
the memory of the golden days has become an evil thing. I shut the old
pictures from my eyes, but they rise up to mock me. Ah, Paddy, the day
is dark indeed, when a man’s youth stands to him for an evil memory,
and he would blot the yesterday of life from the book he has written.
Write to me often, old friend. Remember how very much I am alone. If
circumstances seem to promise a continued stay here, I will beg you to
come to me. Meanwhile, find me, as always, dear Paddy,
Your friend,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XXXII.
[In which Paddy O’Connell advised his friend Harry to pay a visit.]
Jack Straw’s Castle, Hampstead,
October 21st, 1905.
Dear Harry,--I have no telegram from you this morning, and am
remaining here. Be good enough to wire upon receipt of this to say if
you would sooner have me in Paris or London--for ’tis little I care
where, so long as I may be of service to you.
Your letter to the daily papers has done a power of good. I had no
idea that any friend of mine could write with so much feeling and good
sense, and I congratulate you upon it. The town, I am told, continues
to talk of little else--but you have given the affair a new turn, and
the newspaper editors have more than they can do with the letters that
come to them.
Now, my boy, I am going to speak very plainly to you. Had you asked me
a month ago whether you should go to Madame Lea’s house, I would have
turned my back upon you for the question, and put it out of your power
to ask me another for many a long day.
But this is not my advice this morning. There is something lying at
the back of my head which may be common sense or may be a fool’s
burden; but it is crying to me all the time that a woman may be the
heart of this mystery, and to a woman you may well go for that news
which no man is able to give you.
I say, go to this Lea d’Alençon and hear what she has to tell you.
When your dear wife is found, ’twill be Paddy O’Connell who will make
his advice good and relieve you of the burden of it. Go to her, and
ask her plainly what is the meaning of the postscript to her letter.
She’ll tell you in five minutes. There never yet was a woman born who
could keep good or bad news from the man who meant to have it from
her.
I shall say no more, lest I should put thoughts into your mind and
inspire you with a hope that has no justification in the facts. One
thing I do ask you to believe, and it is this: that if your wife is
alive and well, and I believe her to be both, we shall have a message
from her before many days have run. ’Tis a poor sort of a house which
can keep a clever woman from speaking out of its windows when she has
the mind to be eloquent--and Mimi is no singing bird to be content
with a spoonful of canary seed. We shall hear from her, I say, and the
news will be good news. So go to visit Madame with a light heart--and
be sure you carry yourself well before her--for a woman tells little
to a coward, and this lady may have much to tell.
I would have you to know that your cousin Martha stands with me in
this opinion, and is all for your going to Madame Lea. “’Tis a woman’s
story,” says she, “and a woman must tell it.” I find the little body
mightily concerned about the whole business, and as full of ideas as a
pod of peas. She has been to Hampstead almost every day since I was
here, and we have ransacked your home together for the clues we did
not discover. A livelier companion I would never wish to find, and,
being Arthur’s wife, I forgive her much--even her calling me a fool
for wanting to put an advertisement in the papers advising Mimi that
you are in Paris.
As for Cousin Arthur, there’s a man that has found some heart at last.
I’ll do him the justice to believe that his sympathy is gratis, and
not a return for the seven thousand a year of your money which he
hopes to get in the springtime, and thereafter to preach the Sermon on
the Mount from the neighbourhood of Park-lane. I have here by me, as I
write, a copy of Taylor’s “Holy Living” and a new edition of Smiles’
“Self Help,” which he has just sent down to you. There is also a slip
of texts underlined, with which I take leave not to trouble you. It is
well meant, and it would be sinful for us to mock him because he wears
a Roman collar and is a little less human than the rest of us.
Don’t fail to let me have the news. The best part of my own is told by
the newspapers before I can breathe a word of it. They have made a
profitable business of this mystery, and there is not a drawing-room,
a club, or a kitchen which does not discuss it every day and all the
days. For you, yourself, I find the warmest sympathy--and it is
possible that you have already done something to earn the same for
your dear wife. God bless her, wherever she is, and send her back to
us before our hearts are broken.--Your friend,
Paddy O’Connell.
P.S.--I have just sent a telegram to an editor man asking him what the
devil he means by an article in his paper this morning suggesting that
Mimi is shielding somebody, and that’s why the police cannot trace
her. It is necessary to be discreet and patient, but if he doesn’t
contradict it to-morrow, I’ll go down and break every bone in his
body, just to show my good opinion of him.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
[The Reverend Arthur Warrington thanks Paddy O’Connell for services
rendered.]
The Red Farm, Beldon, Suffolk,
Eve of the Feast of St. Raphael.
Dear Mr. O’Connell,--I am much obliged by your letter and packages
containing the little books you were unfortunately unable to deliver
to my poor cousin. I thank you also for your friendliness towards Mrs.
Warrington during her mission or charity to the great Metropolis.
That there is no further news concerning this unhappy affair
distresses me greatly. The wages of sin are dreadful indeed; leading,
it would appear, beyond the promises of Holy Writ to these awful
mysteries this twentieth century brings before us. I have no doubt
that poor Harry meant well when he married this girl; but I cannot
forget that he was not blessed by Holy Church, and that he is now
reaping the fruit of his indifference.
A home broken up, this dreadful suspicion hovering about his poor
wife’s name--oh, my dear sir, what moral lessons do not these things
convey. Let us offer him what consolation we can, remembering with the
poet Shakespeare that--murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
with most miraculous organ.
I pray God that these assassins will be brought to justice
speedily.--And am, with renewed thanks, my dear sir,
Yours faithfully,
Arthur Warrington.
P.S.--Would you be good enough to remind Mrs. Warrington, who in her
distress may have overlooked so trifling a detail of the domestic
curriculum, that the patterns of the chintz did not reach me from
Smallgroves, and that she would do well to see the people about it
while she is in London?
CHAPTER XXXIV.
[Henry Gastonard tells Paddy O’Connell of his visit to Madame Lea.]
Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
October 24th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--I had called upon Madame Lea before your letter reached
me. This was done at Jules Farman’s request, for, be sure, that which
you were thinking was not forgotten by a man so able.
I found Madame alone in a handsome apartment in the Avenue Kleber. She
is not changed a wit, is the same beautiful languorous creature that
we knew of old time.
I told you in my last letter that there is some talk of a
reconciliation between her and her husband. This I do not believe,
preferring the view that the Captain’s affections are temporarily
engaged elsewhere. A man who is kind toward his own failings generally
has some charity to spare for those of his wife. Possibly, the man is
merely a philosopher--I do not make myself his judge.
It is sufficient to say that Madame received me with great cordiality,
impressed upon me the fact that we were alone and bade me open my
heart to her. If I did not do this, be sure that my attitude was by no
means irresponsive. I had come to her house to learn if Madame Lea had
a secret, and, learning that, to obtain it from her if that were
possible. A false word would have ruined all. I realised that Mimi’s
very life might depend upon success or failure; nor was I unaware that
my own happiness might be won or lost in that very room.
We begin with a talk that was commonplace enough--her health and mine,
my departure from Paris, the absurdities of our last meeting--and so
to Mimi and my marriage by a natural sequence which diplomacy
demanded. I found her eloquent immediately when Mimi’s name was
mentioned. A woman will discuss a man’s love affair readily enough;
there is no surer passport to his confidence, perhaps to his heart.
And Lea d’Alençon, you will remember, speaks with little fluency upon
any other subject.
Imagine, Paddy, a considerable apartment furnished with all the
precarious grace of the Louis XV. period--but flauntingly modern and
garish in its tone. Say that the walls are panelled in silk of a deep
golden hue; put long mirrors wherever there are niches for them; place
clocks of many kinds upon the tables and in the angles--Cupids marking
the hour of the day; the Hesperides shouldering the golden apple;
“Father Time treading Gaea beneath his giant feet”--all the baubles
which are sold in the Rue de la Paix, and others which came God knows
whence.
The furniture itself was bought, I believe, at the last Exhibition. It
is fine but new, oh, so new!--and Lea’s gown of white and gold brocade
is caught up by it as a flower of bizarre magnificence suitable to so
bright a bed. As for Madame, her eyes are as black as ever, her hair
as splendid--but I think the sun has pencilled that pallid face and
that the years have not forgotten her. Not until I spoke of my
marriage did she betray her wonted energy--not until that moment did
the natural woman reveal itself.
“Why did you not tell me that you were in love with the girl when
first I saw you?” she asked. “I would have helped you, Henry--is not a
woman always willing to help a man in love?”
“That, my dear lady,” said I, “is an abstruse speculation. And I am in
no mood for argument. Do you not know what the papers are saying of my
wife?”
She posed languidly and watched me with some cunning.
“I am forgetting how to read English,” she said, “and, Henry, you have
forgotten how to teach me.”
This I passed by. Were Lea d’Alençon upon the scaffold, she would
open a flirtation with the executioner.
“The news is in your own journals,” I said, “and why not? Does Paris
wish to forget one whose picture had no second in last year’s Salon?
But I see that she does--and, Lea, you know the story as well as I do.
Let us abandon the preliminaries, God knows I have little heart to
begin at all.”
She shivered slightly, I knew not why; and for some while her thoughts
appeared to be voyaging afar. Presently she recollected herself and
addressed me seriously.
“Did you know the Count d’Antoine?”
“Absolutely, no.”
“Never met him while you were in Paris?”
“Never once--but remember my life. The Butte knows little of
society--if there is any democracy in this world, it is that of the
atelier and the conservatoire. At the Hôtel St. Paul I was merely an
English gentleman seeing Paris. Why should I meet the Count
d’Antoine----”
“But your wife----”
“Would you say that she knew him?”
She paused and bit her lip. I could imagine that her thoughts were
travelling again. From this moment, I cannot tell you why, I began to
suspect her. And, Paddy, remember what suspicion meant to me, the
hopes and fears of it, the straw upon the stream of a woman’s caprice,
the light upon the crest, to lose which were a torture.
“Would you say that Mimi knew the Count, Lea?”
She smiled now--a wan smile, not of jest, but of her own endeavour to
deceive.
“There were few pretty women whom the Count did not know----”
“Then you were among the number?”
“I met him twice at the house of the American, Madame Martin, and
again at the Austrian Embassy. A very handsome man, one of those who
bewitch women with the notion that they have a thousand stories, but
would never tell them. Oh, yes, I knew the Count.”
“And you believe it possible that Mimi knew him?”
“Everything is possible in Paris--did she not frequent the gardens?”
“It is a lie--she knows the West as a tourist from my own country. Her
home was on the mountain.”
“You say so, Henry--oh, forgive me, I am trying to help you. If she
did not know the Count, why did he go to her house?”
“The question I am here to ask you, Lea.”
“To ask me--am I a sorceress, Henry?”
“In so far as a sorceress is usually cleverer than her kind, yes.”
“Then you think--oh, but it is impossible, it is ridiculous.”
She laughed aloud, forcing herself to the mood as an instrument may be
forced by cleverness to a note of discord foreign to it. I perceived
now that she had brought me to her house for curiosity’s sake--not to
tell me what she knew, but to ascertain the extent of my own
suspicions. The discovery maddened me. I could have caught her arms,
and thrust her down, and compelled her to confess. The torture she put
upon me was as deliberate as the insult--and yet I suffered both for
Mimi’s sake.
“It is ridiculous,” she repeated, “the same folly which sends a man to
a woman when his trouble is a woman. I knew the Count; knew him as I
have told you. Would he speak of every chit the atelier or the cabaret
discovered for him? It is madness, Monsieur Henry. You know that I
cannot help you.”
“And yet you invite me to your house?”
“To offer you my sympathy, my friendship--to hear you tell me why you
did this thing; you, who could have a thousand friends among your own
people, to seek one out of the great caravanserai of irresponsibles,
to prate of her virtue, to fight for her, to marry her--is not a
woman’s curiosity justly provoked?”
“And for curiosity’s sake you sent for me to-day--pardon me. I shall
answer that question for you. There was something beyond curiosity,
Madame d’Alençon, there was fear.”
She opened her eyes in wild alarm at this. I had seen her angry
before, but never as she was angry now. There is something of the
tigress in every passionate woman--a good deal of it in Lea
d’Alençon. For a moment I could almost contemplate a second
tragedy--and I do believe, Paddy, had there been a weapon to her hand,
she would have struck me.
“Fear!” she cried, raising herself upon a frail arm, and making no
attempt to modulate the shrill echo of her alarm. “Of what, then, am I
afraid, Monsieur Gastonard?”
“You are afraid of discovery, Madame d’Alençon.”
She laid her head back upon the cushions, and laughed defiantly. I can
give you no better account of her speech and actions than to say that
they were those of an enraged woman whose breeding has no reserves of
self control. A washerwoman complaining at the tub, a virago at the
doors of a tavern had not been a spectacle less repulsive.
“Discovery, Monsieur Gastonard; a precious word, discovery! Are you
mad? Must I say that you have lost your reason? Discovery of whom, of
what--of the fact that all the world knows, that you married a
_noctambule_, and have been whining ever since for sympathy; that your
Jezebel is as old in her vices as she is young in years; that you were
the dupe, the victim of the _canaille_ of the Butte--must I say
this?--or shall I order you from my house; call my servants to protect
me? Shall I do that, Monsieur Gastonard?”
I kept my temper; the stake was, beyond all belief, momentous to me. A
false step would have put me outside her door; and remember how
premature I had been, how much the unwise agent of my own unwarranted
impulses.
“You are very angry with me,” I said; and added, “perhaps with reason.
Of course, I should not have put it in that way, though it is a method
which others will not hesitate to adopt----”
She turned at this--quickly, as one alarmed, and called to reason by
something which hitherto had escaped her reasoning.
“Others, Monsieur Gastonard?”
“Certainly--others. There is my friend, Jules Farman, of the Secret
Police. He knows much that neither of us might wish him to know. And
please do not forget that there are circumstances of this crime which
have set the whole world by the ears. There is not a policeman in
Paris or in London who will not move heaven and earth to get at the
truth. So we are all concerned in the matter--and if anyone of us has
been foolish, said or done something which might implicate us, now is
the time to set it right. I put this to you as a friend. Tell me why
you sent for me to-day, and if the confession is to your disadvantage,
I will accept your confidence as an atonement.”
There never was, Paddy, such a wild arrow shot in all this world
before, and never will be again, I do believe. Nothing but a dogged
faith in my own convictions could have bent such a bow. This woman had
sent for me; her manner sufficiently declared her embarrassment.
Unless she had something to offer me, my visit must end in her
discomfiture. Lea d’Alençon is not the woman to bring such an affront
upon herself. This I perceived, and in my mad desire for the truth
could have knelt at her very feet, and implored her to aid me. She
knew--the key was locked in the safe of her intrigues. My God! What a
torture to say as much, and to realise my own impotence!
Well, the shot was fired, and the target touched. She had listened to
me with her eyes wide open, and her mouth pursed up, as though anger
were held at bay a little while by reflection. When she spoke, her
voice had lost its shrill timbre of protest, and all its pleasing
qualities been regained.
“We are all foolish sometimes, Monsieur Gastonard. I was foolish when
I counted you among the number of my friends. Let us not speak of it.
You say that I brought you to my house because I know something. Very
well; I do know something, and you shall know it--the dead Count was
your wife’s lover; that is what I know, Monsieur Gastonard.”
“It is a lie,” said I. And I leaned back in my chair, and watched her
critically. “So poor a lie that so clever a woman as Madame Lea should
not have told it.”
She turned her eyes away from me, and continued her infamous story,
unabashed and unashamed.
“It is a lie,” I repeated--but her words held me to my chair as though
an unknown hand caught me by the throat. “Why do you tell me so
foolish a lie, Madame Lea?”
She rose and came across to me. The spell of her mendacity was broken.
“I tell it because I loved you,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes, it is the
truth, and no lie. I loved you, and you left me for this creature,
this _canaille_, this girl of the fêtes and the circus. Shall I keep
the truth from you now? She murdered the Count when he had no more
money, and his presence was an embarrassment. Do not his friends know
it--did not the Marquis de Saint Faur shut his door upon him for that
very reason?”
“I will ask the Marquis,” said I. But I could hardly speak the word
for trembling.
“Yes, yes,” she said, “ask him--but you will have far to go, for he is
at Corfu, upon his yacht.”
“I beg your pardon; he returned to Paris last night.”
It was as though I had struck her in the face. She stood there as some
marble figure of distress, motionless, with a fixed and unchanging
smile upon her lips.
“The Marquis has returned?”
“As I say--last night. I am going now to his house.”
I turned upon my heel, and left her. She had not moved from the place
when I passed out. I could see that a word would have unsealed her
lips and cast her, a mendicant for pity, at my feet. But I went
straight on to the hall and the street, and calling the first cab
which came to my view, I ordered the man to drive me to the house of
Monsieur le Marquis de Saint Faur.
He was not within--he is to see me to-night.
Ah, Paddy, If I could but know what he will say--if I could but be
sure that this foul lie will pass no human lips again!
The heart has gone out of me--I must watch and wait through the long
night--
Your friend,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XXXV.
[We meet the Marquis de Saint Faur and another old friend.]
Hôtel St. Paul, Paris,
October 25th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--I am keeping my promise, and, at much inconvenience,
hastening to let you know, both what was done last night, and what is
proposed to be done to-day. That you have no news I gather from your
silence. Had there been but a single ray of light, I know with what
speed your kindness would have winged it on to Paris. An empty
letter-bag chills my hope with its intimation of despair and
hopelessness.
Oh, I cannot get away from it, Paddy--asleep or awake, the question
rolls in my ears with a sound of drums. She is alive--she is dead. A
thousand arguments push reason and patience aside, now bidding me
accuse, now reproach her--anon chanting an office of black conspiracy,
again deluding me with fair promises. For would not Mimi, of all
people in the world, have found a way, if any door were open to her
cleverness? What trick, I ask, what mendacity keeps her silent? Has an
unknown assassin dared a second crime, that the first may be covered?
And why, and why--why did this come to me in the springtime of my
happiness? What mockery of my destiny sent it to my door at such a
time?
I have seen the Marquis de Saint Faur, and he has told me that Lea’s
story is a black lie. The arrows of a base calumny rarely stick,
Paddy, but they prick and bruise, and often leave a scar. I am ashamed
of having gone to his house, and yet not ashamed. His manner perplexed
me utterly--we make nothing of him, and yet we may not dismiss him. Is
it not becoming a mystery beyond all hope, all thought?
I am convinced of one thing, and it is this, that Lea d’Alençon never
intended me to hear the Marquis’s name. It escaped her lips by
accident, at a moment of stress, when the lie meant all to her, and
the man who would deny it was, as she believed, beyond the confines of
appeal. An accident of speech, a chance word uttered by Jules Farman,
informed me of St. Faur’s unexpected return to Paris, and last night I
called upon him at his hotel.
This was at nine o’clock. Despite the season, the famous corridor of
the Ritz Hôtel showed me many familiar faces. I heard the American
tongue, with its shrill suggestion of dominance; passed by notorious
“affairs” and discovered the Marquis at last, one of four at a little
table, and two of them as well dressed and elegant women as I have
ever seen in this famous place.
The Marquis himself is all that his ancestors might have been before
the “grand manner” perished in France. Tall and stately, with a
bearing dignified beyond words, his bow is not to be matched off the
boards of the Theatre Français; while his reception of me was that of
a great nobleman who has been unwelcomely disturbed but would utter no
complaint. In his hand he held the card upon which I had scribbled the
words--“concerning Monsieur le Comte d’Antoine.” But I had looked to
see him in a private room, and my apologies were expressed with all
the earnestness I could command.
“Mr. Gastonard,” he asked me, “must this be urgent?”
“It shall be when Monsieur le Marquis may please--but no words will
express my gratitude if it may be soon.”
“I have an apartment here,” he went on, “will you do me the honour to
come at eleven o’clock to-night?”
I said that I would do so, and turned away. He had named me aloud,
however, and one of the women--of singular beauty and much sweetness
of manner--uttered an audible exclamation, and stared, I thought, more
directly than good manners permitted. At the door the porter, who
knows me well, told me that the Marquis was staying in the house.
“And the ladies with him?” I asked.
“They are the Princess Hélène of Ilidze and her cousin, Monsieur.”
There was nothing to call for remark here, and I went out and paced
the boulevards until the appointed hour arrived. In the old days,
Paddy, nothing gave me more delight than to walk alone in Paris when
the lights were blazing and the cafés black with people and all
the boulevards alive with the hum of leisure and frivolity. What a
scene unmatched, I used to think it; what drolleries one witnessed;
comedies fed upon sugar and water; tragedies brooding upon black
coffee and a twopenny cigar--everywhere the fiddlers thrashing
unoffending catgut; women talking against time--men against their
sweet persuasiveness--waiters playing the acrobat--fat proprietors of
restaurants perspiring and beaming at their doors--what a scene and
what a people!
And the Jehu on his box and the turbulent sea of crashing traffic
coming whence God alone knew--the ferocious cries of peaceable
men--the glittering pavements--the spreading aureoles of monstrous
lights--theatre flares as triumphal arches of shimmering fire--great
wide windows to bewitch you with their merry revelations--the throat
of Paris grown hoarse but weary--ah, I say, what scenes and what a
people! And yet I could pass them by to-night without a thought,
believe that they mocked me, cry upon the happiness and the laughter
of others, say that the music was discordant, the women so many
Jezebels, the men a company of chattering fools, the whole city a
pandemonium whence I would willingly escape. So does trouble war upon
us, so is this land fair or a wilderness, as fortune shall dictate.
The Marquis was in his room when I returned at eleven o’clock. He wore
a black smoking-cap and had lighted a cigar. You know the rooms upon
the first floor of the Ritz, little arbours, as it were, cut out of
those vast walls, but arbours furnished as the old châteaux were, and
often borrowing the treasures of châteaux for their ornaments. The
apartment was lighted by a single reading-lamp, placed upon a table at
the Marquis’s side. Whisky and soda and tumblers stood to hand. He was
alone and I perceived at once that he received me not unwillingly and
with some curiosity.
“You are here to speak of my poor friend the Count d’Antoine,” he
said. “I know your name, Mr. Gastonard, and the story of these recent
days. Be good enough to sit down. I regret that I should have been
compelled to defer the hour of our meeting, but the reasons were
self-evident. There are the cigarettes, if you will smoke.”
He lighted one himself, standing with his back towards me, but
scanning my face, as I could see, in the mirror above the
chimney-piece. Fear of my own quick tongue bade me imitate him and
smoke--for there is no weapon of discreet speech so sure as a
cigarette in the mouth. When he had seated himself, I stated my
purpose very frankly.
“Yes,” I said, “it would be about the Count d’Antoine. He was very
well known to you, Marquis--I may say that he was your friend.”
“Most willingly--one of the oldest of my friends and one of the most
esteemed.”
“Then my second question needs no apology. I have been told that my
wife was his mistress. Is that story true or is it false?”
He did not answer me immediately. Perhaps my own pitiful state alarmed
him, for I could not master my distress. It was there for all the
world to spy upon--a man’s heart stripped for others to revile.
“Is the story true or false, Monsieur le Marquis? Pardon my
insistence--your answer means more to me than I can tell you.”
Again a little spell of silence, and that impenetrable mask upon an
immobile face to defy me. Oh, my God, why did he not speak? Did honour
forbid, or the truth?
“I understand you very well, Mr. Gastonard,” he said at last, “and I
think that I may reply as you would wish--”
“You think, Monsieur?”
He waved the objection aside a little masterfully.
“Who can answer for a man’s secrets--much less for a woman’s? I
believe that my friend the Count had never seen Madame Gastonard until
he visited her in London.”
“Thank God for that--thank God!”
“He had never mentioned her name to me--so much I remember perfectly.
And I think he would have done so if the facts were as you suppose.”
“I suppose nothing, Marquis. A woman sent me here--Madame Lea
d’Alençon.”
“Madame d’Alençon--ha!”
He smiled quietly, but a phase of anger succeeded the smile, and upon
that a glance of mistrust.
“Madame d’Alençon--what does she know of my poor friend?”
“She met him at the house of Madame Martin, the American. This story
of an intrigue reached me first from her lips--she sent me to you
believing that you were at Corfu upon your yacht. I had learned by
accident of your altered plans--and so I came to you.”
He nodded his head, staring down into the blazing fire of logs which
had been kindled upon my entry.
“You did very well,” he exclaimed, “very well to come to me. The Count
was more than my friend--he was almost a brother to me.”
“Then you know why he went to England?”
He did not look up, but his very attitude revealed something to me.
This was a question he would willingly have been spared.
“I--what should I know of it?”
“Pardon me--you were intimate friends, and the supposition is not
illogical. Then you knew nothing, Monsieur?”
“Of what happened, nothing. Had it been otherwise, the police would
have heard from me the same day.”
“And you hazard nothing, Monsieur le Marquis?”
He smoked quietly for a little while--but answered me eventually by an
evasion.
“You are asking me many questions--may I put one or two to you?”
“I shall answer everything, Marquis.”
“They will be embarrassing questions, but they are not put without a
purpose.”
“That is understood.”
“You first met Madame Gastonard at one of the Fêtes about Paris, I
think?”
“At the Fête de Neuilly.”
“And were attracted by something in her appearance or manner? Would it
be very difficult to tell me a little intimately of that, Mr.
Gastonard?”
“By no means. I was attracted firstly by her originality, and then by
my belief that she was not born amongst these people. A Louis Quinze
clock is beautiful at Fontainebleau, but you pass it quickly where
there are hundreds like it. In the Rue de Pigalle one would remark it
immediately. I saw that she had not been born to such an environment.
Her voice had the timbre of birth. There were gestures, phrases, a
manner which cried loudly for a truer story. I stayed to talk to her,
as one might rest to pick a rose in a swamp. That was the oddest
thing, Marquis--the advantage remained with her. No one to my
knowledge has ever patronised Mimi the Simpleton.”
“Why did they give her that name?”
“I can but surmise. She lived in her dreams apart from them. Their
world was not her world. She walked through it with skirts lifted,
upon the tiptoe of her birthright. To me it always seemed that her
mind strove ceaselessly to recall something which illness or terror
had blotted from its recollection. She was a born leader of the
people--she ruled by right of blood--the most ignorant were conscious
of it.”
“And she could give you no account of her past?”
“So meagre an account that its pursuit were hopeless. She remembered
an old woman named Marie, the great white road from Blois to Orleans,
voices in a wood--and then the Showman’s booth. The ‘beforetime’ lay
in the golden mists of childhood. She believes that it was a happy
time--this memory of a burden as of happiness has come through the
mists and has never been laid down. Oh, yes, Mimi was happy in her
childhood, I have no doubt of it.”
“You pursued your inquiries none the less, Mr. Gastonard?”
“I have spent thousands of pounds in the quest----”
“And nothing further has been learned?”
“Nothing has been learned.”
He nodded his head, and for quite a long while said no word. He was
standing up when next he spoke and he looked me fairly in the face.
“Mr. Gastonard,” he exclaimed, “I sent the Comte d’Antoine to
England.”
“You, Monsieur!”
“As I say, I sent him to England, to see Madame Gastonard, and, if
possible, to persuade her to pay a brief visit to Paris.”
“Monsieur--Monsieur!”
“For a purpose of an honourable, I will say, in fact, of a noble
character; but one I cannot reveal even to you.”
“Then you know her story, Marquis?”
“I believe that I know it--but as belief which is not certainty might
work an inconceivable mischief, my lips are sealed.”
“But--but----”
My astonishment did not move him. He continued in an inflexible tone.
“I sent the Comte d’Antoine to England to verify certain facts which
had come to my knowledge. He was murdered in your house; but how or
why he was murdered you have my word that I do not know.”
“You can imagine no reason--think of no possible agent?”
“Of none, or his name would have been known to the police these many
days.”
“Then I am not to say that the Count’s errand concerned others?”
“By no means could it possibly have concerned any human being other
than the person who prompted it.”
“Not an errand where money was the issue?”
“Absolutely not--I can tell you no more; I am not permitted to tell
you more.”
“Having told me sufficient to make me the most miserable man in Paris!
Are we not now become conspirators in this, Marquis? Are not our
interests common interests?”
“In a measure, yes--I see that you suffer much.”
“Marquis,” I said quietly, “I would give half the years of my life to
see my wife to-night.”
“A sentiment most honourable. Should it be possible for me to further
it, count upon my warm endeavour.”
“Meanwhile, you are unable to help me?”
“I am quite unable, Mr. Gastonard.”
I did not press the point. Here was a man of honour of the old type;
my knowledge of such men told me that I might question him for a
century and learn nothing if honour sealed his lips. Perhaps some
shadow of a wonderful truth already crossed my path, but made it the
blacker because of these events. Of one fact I had no doubt. He was as
ignorant as I of the story of the Count’s death and of Mimi’s
abduction from my house.
“I am quite unable to help you at present,” he repeated, “and it is
very probable that I shall be leaving Paris to-morrow upon the voyage
of which you have heard. Before I go, let me say that you have my good
wishes, my warmest wishes for your success. Good night, Mr. Gastonard;
do not hesitate to write to me--or to come to me, if that be
advisable. And be sure of my interest whatever happens.”
I thanked him, plainly perceiving that he wished to terminate the
interview and that any further question would be unwelcome to him. It
was after midnight when I went out to meet a chill night, with a
drizzle of hostile rain which drove the people from the boulevards and
sent the loafers to the baser cafés. For my part, although there were
cabs at the doors of the Ritz, I determined to walk to my hotel. So
many strange thoughts came to me, so many hopes, so many fears have
been my portion, that I have learned to dread the constraint of rooms
and turn to the liberty of streets and the darkness. Here, under God’s
sky, be there a heaven of stars or a veil of cloud, I may still
believe that my little wife is looking upward, that her eyes are
cleaving the night as mine, and that the same prayer which I breathe
is also upon her lips.
Ah, Paddy, will it ever be that I shall wake again to find her
pillowed head upon my arm, to know that I have won her love and will
keep it to the end? If Paris would but answer me that--the mocking
crowds, the darkened canopy of night, the unknown voices which torment
me! Shall to-morrow be as yesterday and all the morrows after? Oh, God
forbid!--I cannot lose her; I will not cease to hope that even as she
came to me in this city of my youth, so shall Paris surrender her now
in the hour of my need.--Your friend,
Harry Gastonard.
I had closed this letter, but must open it again. Jules Farman brings
me a strange piece of news. It may mean much or little. He followed
me, it seems, to the Ritz last night believing that I also had been
followed now for some days in Paris. He had waited some twenty minutes
in the Place Vendome, when a man passed whom he recognised. It was our
old friend the famous ruffian Jean-le-Mont, from the old Café of the
Assassins. The man lingered a little while outside the Ritz, and then
went on toward the Boulevards.
Now, what does this mean--what does your wisdom make of it? Jules
Farman will say nothing. He has been very silent these last few days.
Is it possible that our first ideas are to be justified? I begin to
believe so, even if the light be dim and the path uncertain. Tell me
what you think and do not fail to write to me. I am very lonely,
Paddy. There is not a man in all the world so wistful of sympathy as
your friend Harry to-night.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
[Paddy O’Connell writes a brief letter from Jack Straw’s Castle at
Hampstead.]
Jack Straw’s Castle, Hampstead,
October 27, 1905.
Dear Harry,--I’ve no mind to be writing letters on a Friday, but as we
can’t blot that same day out of the week, anyway, and there’s good
luck to come in this world as well as bad, here goes for a trial of
it.
I am still fixed upon this wild heath, though God knows why. You tell
me neither to come nor to go, so here I am for the middle course, as
the car-driver said when he put me into the canal for fear of spoiling
the banks with his wheels. Little Martha I see every day, and we’ve
had more than one lunch and dinner at the foreign cafés down West, on
the off-chance that we might do some good to you--though this is not a
matter that should be named to her preaching man of a husband. What a
poor thing he is, to be sure--preaching on a text of St. Paul about
marriage directly her back is turned, and giving it out to the flock
that celibacy is the blessed state! She’ll give him celibacy when she
gets home! Faith, I’d like to be there when his ears are boxed.
Your letter speaks of no good spirit, my boy, and I’m not wondering at
it. But you’ll be good enough to believe this--that if any harm had
happened to Mimi, your wife, the news of it would have come home to
you before this time. She’s well, and she’s kept away from you by some
villain or the other who would profit by her story later on. That’s my
certain belief, and nothing will shake it. A girl as clever as Mimi
the Simpleton is not going to stay in any cage while her wit can
squeeze through the bars thereof; and we’ll be hearing from her, with
any luck, before the year is very much older.
So I say to you, cheer up. Hope’s a good friend, even if he does treat
us uncivilly sometimes. Many the time, after taking ten in a bunker,
have I forsworn the pastime of golf, and resolved, by my father’s
name, to take to hoeing turnips. But here I am, at a sixteen handicap
still, and willing to back my luck against the company should occasion
offer.
I would tell you that we put the advertisement offering your thousand
pounds for news of Mimi in all the papers, and have had perhaps a
thousand answers. This London is a funny place, and as many rogues as
fools in it. Sometimes I think that half the world’s gone mad. Is our
dear little girl a wild animal that people should be writing to you as
they are writing? Every crank with a bee in his bonnet, every
wide-eyed lunatic who thinks his sister passed somebody like Mimi in
the streets is spoiling good paper and pestering us. And then the
newspapers themselves, still at it with their theories, and the great
doctors of learning, and the scholars from the colleges, and the
lunatics that have escaped out of Bedlam, all large in print with
their stories of what happened, and their advice gratis to the rest of
the company. ’Tis a very pandemonium of suggestion, and not one idea
worth a silver threepenny among the whole of them.
Meanwhile, Harry, my boy, will you be letting Paddy O’Connell know
what he can do for you? ’Tis no pleasant holiday-time--ten days for
eleven guineas--that I’m spending in these parts.
Picture your friend walking on the lonely heath, and hunted about by
vulgar men in buttons if he so much as drives a golf ball into a
perambulator. This is my occupation--and when I’m tired of it, there
are the horse-riders to be seen on the tan, and the motor-cars, which
the police are fining.
As for the horsemen, we’ve no such riding in Ireland, and wonderful it
is to see, especially the elderly gentlemen on the six-and-sixpenny
nags, who take a little horse exercise for the liver’s sake. One of
them fell off by the pond yesterday, and I caught his steeplechaser
for him. Such a sorry nag never came out of a knacker’s yard in
Ireland; but the man himself was shivering like a half-drowned dog
when he came up, and sovereigns would not have persuaded him to mount
again.
“Did ye see that?” he asks me; “did ye see him buck?”
“Why,” says I, “not exactly. But if you’ll get up and make him do it
again, I’ll tell you what it is.”
He was very angry at this, and wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’m not a jockey,” says he. “Do you suppose I’m going to ride a
buck-jumper? Wait till I get back--I’ll tell Boulder what I think of
him!”
“Just clap your hands,” says I to this, “and the old horse will run
home by himself. ’Tis a fine afternoon for walking, and good for the
spirits. I would be taking the second hour first next time you go out.
’Tis cheaper in the long run.”
You can see any amount of these fellows on this “blasted heath,”
Harry, but not much else that I know of. And I am staying here because
my old friend asked that same of me; and, if he wishes it, I’ll remain
until they wake me and afterwards. As for the little house, the
curious folk still come to stare at the place, and Sunday finds them
loafing about half the day, just as though there were to be another
bad business for their amusement, and a wrong done to them should it
not happen. Yesterday one of them pushed his nose so far into the
garden that for a halfpenny I would have punched it.
He turned out to be a French waiter from a little hotel in Soho, and
had much intelligence of his own; so I fell to some agreeable talk
with him, and was much struck with his remark that the real way to get
at the truth would be by offering money to one of the gang to turn
King’s evidence. To be sure, we’d have to learn the name of the fellow
first--but that’s to be done, I am persuaded--and if you would hear
the Frenchmen for yourself write to Monsieur Jean Rabasseur at the
Café Bousson, Soho. A man of some intellect who might be useful to
us.
Meanwhile, for the sake of all that’s charitable, either summon me to
Paris or send me back to Ireland. Your letters speak of a poor spirit;
and if there is one man in this land of Sassenachs who could cheer you
up, ’tis that same rogue Paddy O’Connell. So send for me and have done
with it. Martha leaves London to-morrow, and then I’ll be lonely
indeed. “I must go back to my dear husband,” says she; and when I
offered to send for him to London, ’twas just “Heaven forbid, Mr.
O’Connell! would you spoil my holiday?”
So you see, women are much the same all the world over; and, if ever I
would marry a wife, I’ll look her up and down first, and ask myself
some questions. Is she the kind to go in double harness, and how will
she run without blinkers? Is it my money she’s after, or the beautiful
face I see in the glass? Be sure, I’ll be hard to convince. ’Tis
rarely a husband’s face the women see in that same mirror; and lucky
for the husbands that they have no gift of second sight--all of which
goes to the making of that incurable old bachelor--Your friend,
Paddy.
P.S.--There was a letter came to-day from the office of the “Daily
Bulletin.” I’m sending it on. You’ll see it’s marked “urgent,” so
don’t answer it until you get it. Meanwhile, the others are going to
the waste-paper basket, especially the bills, which have an ugly look,
and should not be left lying about any house to annoy a man.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
[In which we hear of Henry Gastonard at the Pavilion Henry Quatre in
the town of St. Germain by Paris.]
Pavilion Henry Quatre, St Germain, By Paris,
November 5th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--I have very great news for you, and I hardly know how to
tell it. This must be the excuse for my silence these many days. Oh,
my dear old chap, if you knew what it all meant to me! But I will try
to tell you soberly, though God knows how much my impatience tempts me
to heroics.
You have been to St. Germain in my motor, and will not have forgotten
it. Don’t you remember that great forest plateau above the river; how
the old car groaned to climb the height, and what a lovely view we had
from the very terrace before the windows?
That was in the “witching month of summer.” I remember that we set out
after a dinner at Bernotti’s, which you thought execrable, and a
supper, _chez Maxim_, which won upon your fancy. We were a _partie
carrée_ in the car, and you were not a little alarmed lest news of
the escapade, and of two young and amiable ladies from the Chatelet
should ever reach the secluded shades of Glendalough.
Those, my dear Paddy, were the roses of yesteryear. We gathered them
upon the velvet sward of youth, the vine leaves in our hair, and the
garlands of eternal hope about our brows. You, I remember, were all
for a fortune your uncle was about to leave you, and a chateau at
Bougival--I for a gold medal at the salon and a niche in the eternal
temple. Let us draw the veil upon such a treacherous jade. Did not old
John O’Connell leave every shilling to the priests--bad cess to him,
and is not the very bust I then worked upon become a corner-stone in
the house of my abasement?
I am once again at St. Germain, Paddy, and the changed season of the
year speaks eloquently for me. What a rare day of autumn, what a
chill, bleak night, with a voice to whisper of winter! Here is the
very same terrace, magnificent as of yore--that terrace upon a
glorious height wherefrom you look down to the valley of the shining
river, away across the desolate plain of poplars, whereupon humanity
plays its Lilliputian _rôle_ upon a mighty field, and beyond which
Paris herself is but a blur upon a far horizon. But it is a silent
terrace, Paddy, and the “monde” has deserted it. No gay music of
fiddles now; no majesty of womanhood; no rustling silks and floating
chiffon, and “Monsieur” to glance to the right of him and to the left
of him ere sitting at the table of his guilt. Even the “teuf teuf” is
silent, and the very stables cry desolation to you. The sun gave and
the sun has taken away; and for want of that little sunbeam the
chiffoned elves are hidden, and the world of laughter has fled the
woods.
But I hear you resenting this philosophy and asking for the news. Let
an excuse of prolixity be that of the day and of the hour. It is
Sunday, and but two parties at this famous house. I linger here
because the events of these latter days forbid me to tear myself away.
Would you have it otherwise as the circumstances go? Was it not on
Friday that Jules Farman came to me, whispered a word in my ear that
quickened my pulse as wine, and even hinted that the end was near? A
more reticent man does not exist--there is no greater pessimist in all
the service. And _he_ came to me and told me--_he_ permitted me to
hope--_he_ encouraged me to believe the best. Do you wonder that I
behaved like a fool for three good hours, and did not cease so to
behave until he threatened to leave me behind and to do the work--if
work were to be done--himself?
There are some private affairs, Paddy, which are better for the wisdom
of an old friend’s tongue--and this is one of them. I was in a poor
way when Farman came to me and had begun to say that the Marquis de
Saint Faur would never reveal what he knew of the Count d’Antoine’s
visit to London. More than that, I imagined that the purpose of the
visit could throw no light upon its dreadful sequel. Here was a French
gentleman, of the older fashion, who told me plainly that he kept a
secret from me, but begged me to believe that his reticence was both
wise and honourable. And I must believe him; I must carry the
assurance that he knew, and that his knowledge must be hidden from me.
A torture truly--for what burden is so heavy to a man in doubt as the
silence of another who could speak? I perceived that the Marquis would
never speak; and, driven to the belief that my little wife had not
left England at all, was upon the point of keeping my promise to you
when Farman came with his amazing story, and all the castles of
despair were demolished in an instant.
This was at five o’clock of the afternoon of Friday. There had been a
day of wonderful sunshine for the month of November, and many people
in the streets. I lunched with that pleasant fellow, the Chevalier
Honoré de Villefort, at the Madrid, and went with him afterwards to
the house of the famous painter, Delmormet, who has a studio for
portraits in the Avenue de Malakoff. A promise to Villefort that we
would go up to the Butte together to dine, and then make a tour of the
old cafés, was not fulfilled, for I had no sooner come in sight of
the Hôtel St. Paul than I remarked a large motor-car standing at the
door, and leaped to the conclusion that it had come for me. In this I
was not mistaken. Jules Farman himself waited in my room, and
instantly informed me of the truth.
“Madame Gastonard is at Bougival--in an old house near the river,” he
said.
I looked at him, but did not answer. The room and all things in it
were spinning before me as a gyroscope. The temptation to laugh was
almost uncontrollable.
“What do you say, Farman?”
“That Madame Gastonard is at Bougival, and that we must go there
immediately.”
I walked across to the buffet and filled a wineglass with brandy. It
was odd to hear my own heart beating, odd to be lifted in an instant,
as it were, upon the wings of light to a very heaven of gratitude and
thanksgiving--and yet my prudence saved me. Doubt whispered loudly in
my ear. I could laugh for excitement and yet curse the fate which made
me doubt. Even Jules Farman was powerless against that native caution
which has saved me so many days.
“Why do you believe this, Farman?”
“Monsieur,” he said very simply, “the man Jean-le-Mont has told us
something.”
“He has told you something--yes--but what? Speak, man, for God’s sake!
Is your heart of marble that you play with me like this?”
He seemed astonished. He is officialdom personified. What are men and
women to him but names to be docketed, identities to be established,
the persons of the drama which can move him to no excitements.
“It is a long story,” he said next, “and we have little time. If you
are ready, we will go to Bougival.”
I did not answer him immediately. The voice of prudence cried to me to
make haste. Good God, that I should delay, I who would have gone
through fire and water for Mimi’s sake! And he reproached me, this
smooth-faced servant of bureaucracy who had done his work so well.
“I am ready, Farman--let us go,” I said--for he delayed now.
He pointed to my thin overcoat.
“Not without our furs, monsieur; the night will be cold.”
The rebuke was just, and I perceived that he was heavily clad, though
in other respects the same reticent, unobtrusive creature we have
always known. When all was ready, he gave a direction to the driver to
go to Asnières--a suburb to the northwest of Paris--and taking his
seat beside me in the tonneau, we made the journey without a single
word spoken between us.
And what could I say to him? What treasure of my inmost thoughts
should I lay bare at such an hour? My love? Impossible to speak of
that. My gratitude? He was well aware of it. The doubts lingering, the
spectres of incredulity? They sat by his side too, for his very
reservations betrayed him. Enough for me to say, Mimi is at Bougival;
I am going to her; I shall find her to-night; to-morrow she will awake
upon my heart. Were we not flying towards her?--streets and boulevards
devoured us with an appetite of distance insatiable; houses and shops,
cafés and restaurants--so many stars of light to guide us; intervals
of blackness; bridges above and rivers below; trains crashing upon
iron girders; trams humming toward the city--all the panorama of the
flight as though shown upon a cloth. And afterwards the open country.
Streets emaciated; factories at intervals; red blasts of light against
a black sky; the fresher air of fields and parks; and beyond all, one
clear star upon an imagined horizon--the star of our faith and
purpose.
I have never been more grateful to a motor-car in my life, and may
never be as grateful again. Here was a machine of steel whose soul
sent out a sympathetic message to my own. “I know, know, know,” the
voice of it seemed to say. A horse bending to the whip could not have
answered more readily to the fevered cries of a despairing master. We
covered the ground as upon some magic carpet stretched out at my
desire. When the flight ended, when the voice from the heart of steel
was no longer heard, I noticed that we stood before a little café in
the narrow street of an inconsiderable town. And I was as one awakened
from a nightmare of sleep. Was she here; was this the house? The omens
said, no. I glanced at the café and perceived two old friends
standing at its doorway. They were the mendicant Georges Oleander and
the merry Chevalier Honoré de Villefort--whom I had but just left in
Paris.
“We are here to dine with the Chevalier,” Farman whispered to me as we
descended; “please to remember that. We are returning at eleven
o’clock. I wish no other suggestion to be made. It is very important.”
I nodded my head to him, and we entered the house together. A zeal,
burning to a point almost beyond endurance, bade me welcome this
respite, as a man may welcome an inn upon a journey to the house of
his pleasures. The café, I observed, was one frequented by the
students; a shabby little place, with a damp, stained frieze of faded
gilt to speak of ancient glories. The occupants of it were a dozen
students, poets, painters, and the riff-raff of the schools. Dinner
had been set for us in a mock _cabinet particulier_--but a sorry
imitation of the genuine article. Here, anon, we were joined by
Desmond Barrymore, and immediately he had entered, the _patron_
himself served up the first course of a dinner whose menu might have
been in Chinese, for all I remember of it.
Imagine my feelings, Paddy, as I sat at this rude table with the old
friends who have fought so many battles--and cracked so many
bottles--of Bohemia in my company. Not many months ago, Barrymore and
I were fighting for little Mimi’s very life in the Lapin Agil on the
Butte. I left Paris, and he came across the sea to witness my
marriage. Again a few weeks roll on, and he is here as a silent
witness of my despair. The others, good fellows that they were, could
but act a mean part on such a night. Ah, for the old times when no man
cared a sou for the morrow, and sufficient for the day was the evening
thereof. This thought tempted me sometimes. We may well dread a gift
of happiness, for shall there not be an aftermath of sorrow, whatever
our fortune?
It was not hidden from me that Jules Farman had called upon these good
comrades of mine to share his confidence. They were excited, but not
eloquent. Recalling old days of the games, I found them in that mood
which overtakes a man when he is about to run or row a race, and
believes that he will win it. They talked at rare intervals, drank
much wine, evaded my questions, and rarely looked me in the face.
When dinner was over, we went into the outer room and joined the
Bohemians there. This I understood to be part of the stratagem, and I
made no comment upon it; and, for that matter, the scene was droll
enough. The artist--especially the French artist--in Suburbia is a
wild creature, as you know well; nor were these men exceptions. We
discovered them in all attitudes, some sprawling at the tables, some
billing and cooing in far secluded corners. The man at the piano had a
girl upon his knees, and cuddled her while he played. The shadowgraph
which they acted presently would have brought the police into any
establishment in London. But here it seemed innocent enough. After
all, the spirit of the play goes for much.
Depict a far from clean sheet drawn across one end of this mean room,
and a shadow-play cast upon it. There is a sick man shown, and he is
_in extremis_. Appear a doctor, who pulls out the fellow’s tongue with
a pair of pliers, and rams it in again with a motor tyre lever.
Medicine is administered to the moribund creature as a horse is
drenched with drugs. The relatives gather round the bed, and begin to
divide up the man’s property between them. But they are reckoning
without their host. The wonderful drug acts upon the sick man with
amazing and miraculous results. He sits up in bed, waves the throng
off, spurns his wife aside, leaps from his couch, and embraces the
pretty nurse ecstatically. This is the whole cure; and those who were
the spectators have now become the imitators, inspired by the _mens
sana_. The artists embrace all the pretty girls near them. Somebody
puts out the electric light, and in the darkness we hear squeals and
giggles. Thus genius amuses itself--thus, the story of the youth of
to-day, whom Fame will acclaim at maturity to-morrow.
Just as a man upon his way to a _rendezvous_, where the opportunity of
a lifetime awaits him, may be amused by the _gamins_ of the pavement,
so did this absurdity of the café engross me. It was something to
lean back in my chair and to tell myself that I was a prisoner there
for Mimi’s sake. Later on, when the appointed hour came, I would go to
her and tell her how I had waited. And prudence said that Jules Farman
delayed because our very success depended on his cleverness.
Strangers at the café--would not that rumour be bruited abroad
quickly enough. I imagined also that he waited for some man to come or
go, was watching patiently as we sat, and numbering the very minutes
as the old wooden clock above the doorway numbered them. Nor in this
was I mistaken. At eleven o’clock precisely he rose, and we followed
him from the place without a word. The great car stood already at the
door; we entered it, and were whirled away as it might seem toward
Paris, but in reality toward St. Germain and the chateau of Bougival
below the heights.
Now, this was not a long journey, but to my impatience nigh
intolerable. I knew nothing of the road we followed; the night was so
black that the sharpest eyes could make little either of the route or
its environment. I can only tell you that we perceived the lights of
St. Germain at last, and had no sooner set our course toward them than
we turned from the high road and entered upon a narrow track which was
little better than a waggon-way. This we followed, perhaps for the
half of a mile, then the River Seine came to our view, and at the same
moment the car stopped, and I knew that this was our destination.
There is no moon before midnight this month, and we had fallen upon a
black, dark night. My busy eyes could follow the silver shimmer upon
the still water of the river, but little else of the scene about. It
is true that a glint of light at the far side of a meadow seemed to
tell of a house there, though of what nature I could not hazard.
Farman himself carried many anxieties, and he entered the wood at the
roadside, and remained there some minutes alone before we had his
confidence. When he returned, he gathered us about him, and began to
speak in a low voice.
“Madame Gastonard,” he said, “has been in that house for three days.
She was taken there by a man named Bedotte and the old woman Marie
from Orleans. I have reason to believe that both of them are in the
house to-night. The others were the man Jean-le-Mont and the showman
Gondré. The former is now in our pay, and the latter has been
arrested at Asnières to-night. We shall find the man Bedotte
dangerous, but I do not think he will trouble us very much. If there
should be others with him, whose names I do not know, I may have to
ask you gentlemen to give me some help. Be pleased to take these--and
to use them if I bid you.”
He went to the car, and produced three revolvers from it. Old Georges
Oleander’s protest that he was more likely to shoot one of us than any
other caused a smile even at such a time. But we gave him a heavy
knobbed stick in place of the pistol, and so set out in single file
across a marshy meadow toward the house. My own place was upon
Farman’s heels, and I would have given much for another word with him.
But he walked fast and resolutely, and did not stop until a hound
began to bay and another to answer from a house upon the further side
of the river. Then he stopped and listened.
“I had not thought of a dog,” he said quietly; “we must remember him,
gentlemen.”
The Chevalier assented with a jest, Georges Oleander, I thought, a
little dolefully. As for me, I did not lift my eyes from the lamp
which shone across the fields as an omen of salvation. Mimi was there,
harboured in that mean house. Men so vile that no man could name them
truly were her jailors, and she stood alone among them. Incredible!
and this was Farman’s story--the word of a man who had never lied to
me. Oh, think of it all, Paddy, and try to follow my footsteps toward
the house. Be patient if the record is not to be set down without
emotion.
I had supposed that we should approach the place covertly and a
tip-toe. Such, however, was not to the mind of this amazing Jules
Farman. He crossed the meadow as bold as any pedestrian out for the
air on the Champs Elysées, and with less concern. As the villa took
shape against the curtain of the sky, I made it out to be little more
than a modern cottage set in a narrow garden which sloped toward the
river. There was no other house in sight, nor any outstanding object
to relieve the sense of isolation and security. But the river at the
back was plainly in our favour, and I judged that the common at the
front could conceal no sentinel. So perhaps I began to understand why
Farman went so resolutely, and did not halt until we were but fifty
paces from the door.
“Monsieur Gastonard,” he said quietly, “you will please to use force
should the occasion arise. I am hoping that it will not arise, and
that our visit to the café will have been useful to us. If you
please, gentlemen.”
He waited for them to go on, smiling, I thought, for a brief instant
at old Oleander’s hesitation. When they had opened the garden
gate--whereby they paused a little while--the hound ceased to bay, and
as hounds will, at a resolute approach, began to fawn upon them. They
were lost to our view, and with no further delay, Farman walked toward
the villa and knocked three times upon its door.
It would be impossible, Paddy, to tell you of my own sensations during
these instants of waiting. Depict me standing in the miserable patch
of formal garden, at the door of a paltry red brick villa, listening,
as I have never listened in all my life, trembling, I do believe, in
the very excitement of my hope. More than once the temptation to cry
out almost overpowered me. I must tell her that I had come--must let
Mimi know that I waited for her. I could have beaten down twenty doors
in my rage against delay, smashed the glass of the window to atoms,
and razed the very building to the ground. Upon the other side was
this imperturbable Farman, as quiet, as cat-like as ever, listening
with bent ear, betraying no emotion; seemingly convinced already of
his success. And I must obey him faithfully, wait as he waited, crush
my impatience in hands of iron. Oh, I say, it was intolerable, and yet
it was the truth!
No one answered to our bold knock; the silence became almost
insupportable. A minute we waited, two minutes, and still there was no
sound but that of our own quick breathing. As for the lamp which
burned so brightly, we could see it plainly, standing upon the table
of the front room and the single ornament of that bare apartment. For
the rest, there was no carpet on the floor, no ornament, no
picture--but just the room itself and the bare wooden table and the
lamp standing upon it. This we might have looked for, but not for the
mystery of the silence, the absolute stillness which met us--so that
one could have heard a watch ticking in the hand. Were the men warned,
then? Had they fled the place? My heart sank low at the thought--and
yet it was a thought that crept upon me.
I had spoken no word to Farman since we entered the garden of the
house, but this new turn was not to be borne, and I could suffer it no
longer. A hurried whisper asked him what he made of it--and, a little
to my surprise, he answered me aloud.
“They are asleep,” he said quietly; “we must wake them”--and he
knocked so loudly that the hound began to bay again, and I could hear
the voice of Oleander cursing him. Plainly, we had no further need of
concealment.
“Who is asleep?” I asked a little brutally. “Did you not tell me that
Madame Gastonard was here?”
“I believed so,” he answered as quietly.
“You believed so--well?”
“I shall tell you presently.”
His answer told me that he, with all his discernment, could make
little of the situation. My own advice had been to force the window of
the room, and this he now proceeded to do--but first he lighted a
little lantern and laid his pistol on the sill. A disingenuous catch
gave way at the first attempt, and we climbed through immediately, and
went straight toward the inner door. Here for an instant Farman stood
irresolute.
“There may be some danger,” he said--and then he asked me--“are you
quite prepared?”
I whispered that I was, and he flung the door wide open, searching the
hall beyond with the faint rays from a policeman’s lantern. There were
signs of habitation here such as we might have expected--a felt hat
upon a cane-seated chair, a basket such as women take to market, a
stick so heavy that it was almost a bludgeon, an old mackintosh
hanging upon a nail driven into the wall. The floor was uncarpeted and
showed mud from clumsy boots--at the far end the door of the kitchen
stood open, and a flicker of firelight from the grate still flashed
upon its plastered walls. Thither now we went cautiously. But the
place was tenantless--though a kettle still sang upon the hob and some
dishes stood unwashed upon the table.
I often think, Paddy, that nothing is so sure a test of a man’s nerves
as a house of unknown perils, which we must search room by room. I am
afraid of little in this world. It is no mere boast--for these things
are purely physical--but I possess some presence of mind beyond
ordinary, and a contempt for many of the situations of danger which
tradition has glorified. And yet I swear to you, the sweat ran down my
face like rain while I stood by Farman’s side in that shabby kitchen
and asked him, what next?
No longer did I believe that Mimi was here--and yet I was forbidden to
say that she was not here. The evidence of recent occupation, the
shreds of coarse food, the empty bottles lying pell-mell in the
scullery, a woman’s tattered bonnet flung to a corner, a little jug of
milk set apart with a few dry biscuits--these were the witnesses to
Farman’s good faith and witnesses no logic could shake.
As he had spoken, so the truth--that my dear wife had been the captive
of these ruffians in this very house, that she might even be a captive
still or worse than a captive. For now I shall tell you that an
overmastering fear of the worst took possession of me and would not be
quieted. I cared nothing for the men or the danger of their presence.
Every step, long dragged out and heavy, was as a step toward a
dreadful secret. The upper stories of the house became in an instant
the chambers of the terrible truth. And above all was the torture of
the thought that we had come too late, and but for those useless hours
at St. Germain might have saved her. This latter brought me to the
nadir of despair. Even Farman took pity upon me.
“I begin to think that Madame is not here,” he said quietly. “Let us
go upstairs--we shall not be long in doubt.”
I looked him full in the face, and did not spare him the question.
“Is she alive, Farman?”
“Why should they kill her? The blackmailer never kills--he has not the
courage.”
I could but shrug my shoulders.
“Then their object has been blackmail?”
“It could be nothing else, Monsieur.”
I admitted his reasoning, but it did little to console me. If there
were peril of our proceeding this must be the moment of it. For we had
to climb the narrow stairway, ignorant of those who were above, and
powerless to shield ourselves from their attack.
How it came that I was up on the first floor before Jules Farman I am
not able to tell you. I remember only that I stood on a dark landing
listening to my own heavy breathing, and unable to distinguish other
sounds. What light there was came astreak through a narrow window high
above us. I could make out the shapes of doors, but they were shut and
meaningless. The floor was but a black patch until a warm ray of light
shone down upon it from my companion’s lantern and instantly declared
its secret.
An old woman lay there--a shrivelled, white-faced hag of a woman,
whose clothes were little more than a bundle of rags, whose hand still
clutched the heavy stick with which, perchance, she had been struck
down. And this Jezebel had gone to her account. The mask of death is
sometimes unmistakable. It was unmistakable on Friday night when I
came face to face with the old woman, Marie of Orleans, upon the
landing of the house at Bougival.
I say that it was a dreadful discovery, and yet, God knows, my
thoughts in the instant of it were less of this stricken huddled body
upon the floor than of the events which had preceded the murder. There
is always awe of death, Paddy, however humble the subject, however
callous the discoverer. And at the dark of the night in a lonely house
with mystery whispering all about, the awe is manifold. Here we were,
stooping to put our hands upon the dead woman’s heart, listening as we
did so for any sounds from the secret rooms, and yet, perchance
thinking of our own safety all the while. Who had been the instruments
of our vengeance upon this mumbling hag? Must we unearth them
presently, strike them down as they had struck her, spend the precious
hours in such a butcher’s task?
For my part, I thought that any instant might bring the ruffians upon
us. It was a trial intolerable to watch the closed doors and wait for
them to open. Why did the men delay? And Mimi--my God, why was she
silent? Then a better instinct began to say that she was not here, and
this gave me courage. Let me know the fact for a truth, and I cared
not how many villains were harboured here.
We opened the doors one by one, Farman carrying his lantern. I had a
revolver at the cock. But I shall tell you at once that we discovered
nothing. There were beds in two of the rooms, and a third had a paltry
_ameublement_ which spoke of a gentler occupation. But in the main the
house remained the same hard and chilling villa that we had imagined
it to be--and I vow that there was something beyond all words
melancholy in that secret which lay at the heart of it. An empty,
barren house and a dead woman’s body upon the stairs. So much for
Bougival--so much for all our plotting and our planning and our bold
emprise.
The men who had done this thing had been warned. They had fled the
neighbourhood, cheated us, and perchance the police. Even Farman
admitted as much when he called us together and deigned, for the first
time, to share a confidence.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I cannot blame myself. The man Bedotte was here
an hour ago--I knew that Madame Gastonard was here at sunset. You see
what has happened--there has been a quarrel, and this woman has been
killed. I would have come to Bougival sooner if it had been safe to
come--but I was afraid for Madame Gastonard while the showman Gondré
was here. We set a trap for him and he has been taken at Asnières
to-night. The other man, Bedotte, has not been sober for many days.
That is why I came to the house as I did; but, believe me, if what I
surmise be true, nothing has been lost by delay, and we shall have
good news of Madame to-morrow. I am now to leave the police to do
their own business here and to advise Monsieur Lepine of ours. We may
return immediately to Paris, for our work is done.”
And so, Paddy, we left this melancholy house and returned to the car.
I can still see the villa, the lamp shining from the lonely room, and
the river bathed in moonlight--for the moon was up by this time and
all the scene made glorious. It was something, at least, to know that
my beloved wife had escaped that mean temple of death, perchance had
known nothing of its secrets. None the less, I clung to the
neighbourhood as to some place which should minister to my sentiment,
and, determining to stay the night at St. Germain, returned thither
with my companions. They, be sure, were not the men to decline such
hospitality, and they sat up with me until dawn, offering a thousand
explanations of Farman’s conduct, and justifying it in no way.
What was this man keeping back from us? Why did he, who had served me
so faithfully many a day, serve me so ill to-night? Recollect that I
had but the shabbiest of facts from him. He had told me merely that my
wife had been abducted from her house by those who had known her as
Mimi La Godiche at Montmartre, and who believed that they could profit
by the knowledge. And upon this a talk of blackmail--yet not a word
that would enlighten me, no names, no histories--nothing but the
intimation. This we said again and again as we sat in my room at the
Pavilion Hotel and waited for the day. Circumstance had deluded us. We
could make nothing of it.
* * * * *
I had nothing from Farman yesterday, but to-day there came a little
note in which, evading other issues, he tells me that the man Bedotte
has been traced to Rheims, and is evidently making for Brussels; but
that the police are close upon his track, and an immediate arrest is
expected. “As for Madame,” he says, “the opinion is growing that she
escaped from the house and need no longer be sought among these
people.” But of this he will write me further at a later hour.
And so you see, Paddy, that I am tied to this hotel in as great a
state of doubt and perplexity, of hope and longing, as ever mortal
suffered. I know not what to decide, what to believe. Inconceivable,
indeed, that Mimi should not have gone straight to Paris, if this tale
of escape were true. A telegram assures me that nothing is known of
her, either at the Hôtel St. Paul or at Montmartre; and had you in
England any news, I doubt not it would have come to me before this.
What, then, am I to say? That she has not wished to return to me? God
forbid any such thought.
I will send you another letter in the morning, as soon as the event
permits. Should anything happen in London, let nothing delay a
telegram. Of the trivial affairs, there is a request here from the
editor of the “Daily Bulletin” that I will write a second letter for
him. It would serve no purpose, and I have said so. His desire to see
me privately dictates the wish that you shall be my ambassador. Quit
the game of golf and the perambulators and spend a quiet hour in
Fleet-street. The power of the press is a wonderful thing, I assure
you, but the journalist at lunch by no means terrifying. Ask the good
fellow to meet you at the Savoy, and I do not think the state of
parties will forbid.
How odd it seems to be writing like this. I feel it not at all. The
shadows crowd upon me. If I could but say, Let there be light!
Yours, dear Paddy,
Henry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
[The Reverend Arthur Warrington rebukes his wife, Martha Warrington,
upon a trivial account.]
The Red Farm, Baldon, Suffolk,
Sunday within the Octave of All Saints.
Dear Martha,--Your continued stay with my cousins at Cambridge does
not seem a great compliment to your husband. John is a very estimable
man, it is true; but I ask you if it is discreet or prudent that a
clergyman’s wife should associate with one who is not ashamed to
attend the horse races at Newmarket, and has declared from a public
platform that the Anti-Field Sports’ League is a society of
charlatans.
I had expected you to return and tell me more of this dreadful affair
in which our cousin Henry is implicated. Is it kind to protract my
anxieties? If it indeed be true that his unhappy wife has fled, then I
think that the future need give us little anxiety. I say, God forbid
that any harm should have overtaken the poor creature; but the human
destinies are not in our hands, and we must humbly bow to them. To-day
I wrote to Mr. Frogg, suggesting that we had some right to an
inventory of the property. The great house at Fawlands, now let to
Lord Lesborough, contains priceless furniture bought by Henry’s
father, my uncle, and of this a valuation should be made. It is
possible that by judicious economy and some practice of
self-denial--in which I shall invite your cordial help--we might be
able to live there ourselves when the present tenancy is terminated.
But I shall permit no worldly ambitions to hamper my sacred calling,
and in this course I must be guided by the Bishop. There is a See to
be founded presently at Bury St. Edmunds, and there should be four
residentiary canonries as a minimum. Here your brother’s influence
with the Lord Chancellor may help us, and I should not hesitate to
give a series of dinners in London to promote so worthy an aim. After
all, rich men owe something to society, to do their duty in that state
into which they were born; and we should be strangely forgetful of our
privileges if we were merely to husband this money which the Lord has
put into our keeping.
Would you not like to be a canon’s wife, Martha? Remember that a
Deanery may lie beyond, or even a Bishopric. I will not permit myself
to think of these things. To-morrow I should have an answer from Mr.
Frogg, and also, I hope, a letter announcing your return. These
sporting people, surely, are no fit companions for a clergyman’s wife!
Your devoted husband,
Arthur.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
[We hear of Paddy O’Connell in a letter to Martha Warrington at
Cambridge.]
Dear Mrs. Warrington,--I am careful, you see, not to say “Martha,”
lest this letter should fall into your husband’s hands--bad cess to
him! and he be making a fool of himself, as you say that he would. So
it shall just be “Mrs. Warrington,” though laughing up my sleeve I am
all the time, and you the same, I do not doubt.
Well, my dear, I am having the blazes of a time in this wilderness of
a place, and all for my friend’s sake; though, God knows what use I am
to him any more than the policeman at the corner, who has had many a
good glass of my whisky, and would like many another. Harry says ’tis
to Paris I am to go presently, though what for the old gentleman
himself would be hard put to it to guess. The last news I have from
him speaks of the dreadful things we read in the papers this morning.
It would be clear that the little witch is gone from the people that
have had charge of her, and that this wicked story of wrong and
mystery is no clearer to us than ever it was. But so far as it goes,
we must be content with it; for I would no more doubt her than I would
doubt my sister Clara, and whatever she has done has been done for the
best--of that I am sure.
Did it never occur to you that this pretty child may have a history
out of the ordinary? It has been in my mind since the first day of our
meeting, and as more in my mind than ever to-day. Who was her father?
but, more important to ask, what was her mother’s name? Did you never
hear tell of the airs and graces of her, the pretty ways that were
strange in a showman’s tent, and the dignity which no man ever
humbled? We may have lost good manners in this twentieth century, Mrs.
Warrington, but we haven’t lost the good sense which tells us whether
our fathers were gentlemen or villains, and this is an instinct we’ll
keep yet awhile.
I say that Mimi Gastonard is the daughter neither of a showman nor a
peasant, and if my surmise is not correct, put Paddy O’Connell down
with the fools.
To speak of things better understood, I don’t wonder to hear that you
were annoyed about the horse-racing. ’Tis no consolation to have
missed those same great races, the Cæsarewitch and Cambridgeshire,
and you so near to the course. Your cousin John evidently knows a good
thing, and his win upon the double event must have gladdened your
heart. But I’m sorry to hear that he put but a sovereign apiece on for
you, and he might well have made it a tenner. Man is a curious animal,
and always niggardly about his own kills. I shall tell Mr. John that
same if ever I meet him.
Well, Martha, I miss the piquet we used to play on quiet afternoons,
and that’s a certainty. This god-forsaken Hampstead puts pistols in my
hands every evening, and takes them out again when the sun shines in
the morning. Just to think that the riding has begun in Ireland, and
me, Paddy O’Connell, doomed to a six-shilling hack and a gallop as far
as your arms can reach. Yesterday, in Harry’s interest, I lunched with
a newspaper man at the Savoy Hotel, and was much disappointed to find
that he drank water. “’Tis a little gas one needs in politics,” says
I, “and champagne’s the stuff;” but he would have none of it. I should
tell you that he has big notions of Harry’s literary gifts, and wants
some more letters out of him. I told him a story or two about the
parish priest of Glendalough, who, when the Bishop told him that golf
was sending men to the devil fast, replied that he wondered at it, for
they did it mostly on sloe gin. After this, he asked me to write a
series of papers on “a humorist in the mountains of Ireland.” But I
declined immediately. “’Twould be over the heads of your people,” says
I, “and that’s where all good Catholics should be in this life or the
next.”
I expect to go to Paris to-morrow or the day after, and will write you
when I get there. There is a parcel of books at the house, sent to you
by your husband; but you don’t seem to have opened them. Will I
forward them on or give them to the heathen? Advise me by return.
And with kind regards, please find me, yours, as per last,
Paddy O’Connell.
There was a curate man got hold of me in Hampstead, and took me to a
Christian Endeavour meeting. He persuaded me to put on the boxing
gloves, and one of his flock gave me a precious black eye. ’Twas a
Christian endeavour surely, and cost me a bandage. So I’m only seeing
half of this letter, which you can tell your husband if it should fall
into his hands.
CHAPTER XL.
[A Brief Note from Jules Farman in Paris to Henry Gastonard at St.
Germain.]
4 (bis), Rue du Quatre Septembre,
November 8th, 1905.
Monsieur,--I am very well able to understand your displeasure, and
regret that it should have been incurred. Permit me to assure you that
I have not deserved it. The circumstances of this unhappy case concern
so many others, there are so many threads to this tangled skein that I
crave your indulgence if all does not march as you would wish it.
You heard from me yesterday the welcome tidings both of Madame’s
safety and of her content. When the moment comes--and it is hourly
expected--I feel that you will be the first to acquit me of the
deception which has been practised. Madame believes that you are on
your way from England, and will arrive in Paris, it may be to-day, it
may be to-morrow. When you are with her, I doubt not that you will
readily understand both our desire for delay and her continued
residence. This story, believe me, is put forward for the best of
reasons--reasons, I repeat, which you cannot fail to approve.
But something, Monsieur, may be told by me in the meanwhile, and that
I do not hesitate to write. It is now clear that Madame Gastonard was
placed as a child at the Convent of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart at
Feonville, near Orleans. A childish frolic carried her from the
gardens of the old house to the woods upon the road to Blois, where
she fell into the evil hands of the murdered woman, Marie Bordon, and
was by her sold to the travelling showman, Gondré. So, passed from
hand to hand, she becomes the servant of these rogues, and is lucky to
find a home at last with that honest man Cassadore. Her story until
the moment of her entry into the Convent School will be told to you by
others, I trust, before many days are passed.
I have directed, Monsieur, that this message shall reach you at St.
Germain, believing that your continued stay in that town is both wise
and convenient. In the meantime, dear sir, be assured of the loyal
service of,
Your devoted,
Jules Henry Farman.
CHAPTER XLI.
[In which Henry Gastonard receives a summons from the Marquis de Saint
Faur.]
Château of Bougival,
November 8th, 1905.
Dear Mr. Gastonard,--The obligation of silence which recent events
have imposed upon me is the more deserving of apology as it is the
less possible of explanation.
May I beg of you to believe that all which has been done, or
contemplated, is such as would appeal to any man of honour, and
particularly to one who has shown such gifts of prudence and
self-restraint as you have done these latter days?
The story of Madame Gastonard’s infancy is not one which may be
written circumstantially even for you, Monsieur. But the pages which
are missing will be supplied by your knowledge and experience of the
world and of men, and will not be regretted because of that knowledge.
Great names are implicated, and particularly the name of a noble
woman, who has suffered much, and yet must suffer. I beg you, in the
name of womanhood, to bear this fact in mind from the beginning.
For the rest, I am content that your judgment shall decide what is to
be told to the world and what concealed. The rest is your own--an
inheritance of a destiny once decreed and irrevocable.
Do me the honour, I beg of you, to come to the Château de Bougival
without delay, there to hear from Madame Gastonard’s own lips both the
story of these recent days as she alone may tell it, and that other
story, which will be told for the first time to any man by, Yours,
with cordial esteem,
Gaspard de Saint Faur.
CHAPTER XLII.
[Paddy O’Connell hears that he may leave London, and is invited to
take the first train to Paris.]
Château de Bougival, near Paris,
November 15th, 1905.
Dear Paddy,--Please to pack that monstrous bag of yours, and to come
to us immediately. You will get a train from Paris to St. Germain, and
I will send a motor there to meet you. But be sure to wire, for Mimi
says you are more likely to send your telegram from this house than
from London.
Oh, Paddy, Paddy--what a day, what news, what happiness! I am here in
this old château, and Mimi is at my feet while I write to you. We
have before us the great park of Bougival; there is warm sunshine
though the month is November; the trees are bare and leafless, but
they show us the shining river, and it shall wing our message to the
friends who love us. For thirty-six hours I have hardly let Mimi
escape from my arms, but to-day she bids me write to you; and I obey,
even as she who watches me with such a story of love and gratitude in
her childish eyes.
I have found her--the dreadful days will come no more; already we have
learned to believe that yesterday was not, and that to-day is eternal.
So much is to be told immediately; but of the rest your own perception
shall tell you, and you alone, when you come to Bougival. And you will
come without delay. Trains shall be too slow for you; the sea shall
provoke you; the inventions of man imprison those kindly thoughts you
would speed to us. As you stood beside us in the hour of darkness, so
now will you stand with us in the light--the first and best and
biggest-hearted of our friends. So I repeat, let nothing prevent you,
but come, for we weary for you.
It was on Wednesday afternoon that I received a letter from the
Marquis de Saint Faur inviting me to this place. There was little in
it that would interest you beyond the invitation which it contained,
and you may imagine with what haste I set out at its commands. Oh, be
sure, I had some dim perception of the truth, or I would not have been
content to rest in that lonely hotel, as I did, and to suffer
patiently the mysteries which crowded upon me. Mimi was well, I said,
and had the best of reasons for her silence.
To-day I know it was the truth. If you ever come to understand,
Paddy--in which case you will be the one man in all Europe who will
share the great truth with me--then your own shrewd common-sense will
have written the story for you. My lips are sealed; I am content that
they should be sealed. For is not Mimi at my feet while I write, and
may not I stoop to kiss her rosy cheeks when I will?
I set out for Bougival on Wednesday night, then, and in 20 minutes was
at its gates. To my inquiry whether the Marquis owned the Château,
the people about gave an evasive answer. Some seemed to think that he
did; others spoke of a foreign tenancy, chiefly by that beautiful but
notorious woman the Princess Hélène of Ilidze, and her cousin the
Duchess de Bourg. Both these ladies had been with Saint Faur when I
met him at the Ritz Hotel in Paris; and from all that gossip says, it
was no surprise to me that one of them, at any rate, should be found
at Bougival. But of this I had little time to speculate, for I set out
for the Château within half an hour of receiving the Marquis’s
letter, and was at the gates exactly at seven o’clock on Wednesday
evening.
I knew that it was seven o’clock, for bells chimed as my car raced up
the long avenue from the lodge, and the great clock above the stables
was still telling the hour when a butler opened the door to me and
invited me within. That the servants expected me it was not possible
to doubt. Neither my name nor my business was asked, but being
conducted directly into the great hall of the château, footmen
relieved me of my wraps and assured me that Monsieur le Marquis should
at once be informed of my arrival. And so they left me in that stately
place; and for the first time since the letter came to me, I could ask
myself the meaning both of it and of this bewildering sequel.
Imagine a vast apartment, Paddy, domed above and built almost entirely
of marble. There were mosaics in gold for the frieze and paintings
above, such paintings as Vernet made for the ceilings of the Louvre,
but skilfully adapted to a vast and ornate concavity. A wide staircase
glowing with a crimson carpet boasts five caryatides to bear its
burdens. The chimney is a masterpiece by an unknown artist--a colossal
structure protruding centaurs far into the room and pillared with
jasper and chalcedony. Above there is a great picture of Turenne, the
Turenne of the fables and the wars, mounted and riding as a
Marshal-General of France. Other portraits also of soldiers adorn the
place, but there is one of the Empress Josephine, painted, I imagine,
during the stormy days of St. Cloud, and cleverly reflective of that
turbulent time, which is a masterpiece beyond all question. As to the
furniture, it is sparse but very beautiful. I note a clock with the
Graces which could not be bettered at Fontainebleau. A massive bureau
is in the finest style of that magnificent Boulle whom posterity has
imitated and derided. A brief glance says that this apartment stands
as an atrium to a house of princes. The manner of it, the size of it,
that indefinable atmosphere which the ages create could never mislead.
I am in the house of an aristocrat, and he has summoned me to find
Mimi there.
So much is plain from the beginning, but the event which carried my
beloved wife to such a place, which sealed her lips while she resided
there, and brings me to her as a very suppliant, is dwelt upon almost
with reluctance, stands, it may be, almost as a shadow beyond. I seem
to know, and yet I do not know. You, Paddy, with your powers of swift
perception, will not fail to understand me. You will read already in
this book of an amazing destiny.
I say that they left me in this splendid hall, and that for many
minutes I had no companion there. The house itself spoke both of
occupation and of ceremony. I perceived footmen about the table in the
dining-room, whose door opened to the right of the great fireplace
where the logs blazed brightly. The landing above echoed the voices of
maids, and, upon that, another voice which caused my heart to leap as
though one had spoken to me from the grave. When a chime of bells
echoed musically in the heights of the dome, I understood that they
were ringing the dressing-bell, and remembered with some consternation
that I had come to the château “as I was.” But the thought passed
away as swiftly as car and train could carry me.
If anything disturbed my serenity, it was the absence of the Marquis.
He knew of my arrival, and should, I thought, have welcomed me the
sooner. But the minutes passed, and still he did not come; and one by
one the old phantoms swarmed up to torment me. If she were not here,
after all! If a trick had been played me! Inconceivable, and yet how
real to a man who had suffered so much.
It was odd, Paddy, but all memory of the tragic days we have lived
through passed utterly from my recollection in that house. No longer
did I care what the world had said of Mimi or what it would say
to-morrow. That awful night, when I stood upon the threshold of my
little house to gape upon a dead man’s body and to know that my wife
had left me; that had been wiped out of my calendar as though a hand
of mercy reviewed the page. The house in which I stood, the great
names I had heard, Mimi’s presence at the château--with what woeful
reiteration did I not repeat the harassing questions to which I had no
answer. She knew that I was here and yet she did not come to me! How
my heart sank at that! What an abasement of love and faith--and how
swift a repentance!
She comes at last--I hear the patter of feet on the stairs above--so
gentle that it might be the south wind brushing the cheeks of a rose.
What a moment to live as I turn about to spy a sweet apparition on the
stairs, to watch a girlish figure descend them one by one, to say that
she is my Mimi, and yet to remain almost unbelieving. Stand so far
with me, Paddy, but then shall you turn your eyes away. There are
things said and done between two who love which are holy in their
sanctity and God-given in their secrecy. Were it otherwise I could no
more tell you what befell us in that instant of greeting than I could
speak the dreams which the lightest hours of sleep have given me. Was
it not enough that I caught her in my arms and that kisses forbade her
to speak at all? Are there not hours of living so precious that they
would remain heaven though it were hell afterwards to all eternity?
And such an hour was that at the Château of Bougival--when Mimi ran
down the great staircase to my embrace, and my lips sealed her sweet
confession.
You will remember that she wore a trim black dress when she was with
us at Hampstead, made cleverly as the French make all these things;
but a little overmuch in the fashion of the nunneries. I recollect
that we chaffed her about it, and that the Chevalier would have gone
out to get a Franciscan robe to match it; while old Georges Oleander
was all for singing the office, especially that part of it which
counsels the giving of alms to the needy.
This dress and the pretty picture it enshrined have stood during all
these weary days for my image of Mimi as I should find her at last and
take her again to my house. But it was not to be. The Château of
Bougival has dealt too well by its prisoner. No little girl of the
atelier and the mountain descended that proud staircase to my embrace.
In her place I found a stately figure of Paris, gowned and dining; a
Mimi robed in silk and chiffon, with a gift of jewels about her white
neck and a sparkle of diamonds upon her arms. Oh, and the grace and
shyness of her, as though she were half afraid, but wholly sure of her
reception! And here is the wonder. She spoke not at all of the things
I had expected to hear from her lips. She told me nothing of the night
of crime and flight; nothing of the days intervening; no story of her
coming to this house--but happy in my arms she laughed at my
perplexities and asked me if I would have her otherwise. And, Paddy, I
knew not what to say to her. She is changed as it were in a twinkling.
My quick perception could not put the fact aside. She has come into
her inheritance--she is Mimi of the Butte no longer and never will be
again.
Let me try to tell you of the talk which passed between us as we stood
together in the hall and cared less than nothing though all France had
been listening. It will not be to write down the sighs and sounds of a
lover’s meeting--you, Paddy, of all men care nothing for those since
you met the widow at Ostend; but I would wish to tell you how cleverly
this mere child kept, even from me, the things she had been charged to
hold sacred, and how even my persistency could not shake her. And
first, of our meeting in the house at all.
“The Marquis sent for me, Mimi,” said I; “I looked to find him here.”
“And you found me, Monsieur Henry----”
“Monsieur Henry! Am I that to you, Mimi? Is it the Mimi of the Lapin
Agil again? Let me look into your eyes--let me see why you are
changed.”
“I am not changed,” she rejoined very sweetly, “but I am very happy,
_mon mari_.”
“How long have you been in this house, Mimi?”
She tried to think. An impaired memory is among the first fruits of
all that has befallen her.
“_Ah, mes enfants_, how long have I been here? There would be nights
and days--long nights and days. Then Madame came and I was happy. She
will tell you, Harry--she can remember how long I have been here.”
“Did the Marquis bring you, then? Did he discover you at the villa?”
She shuddered; a spasm of pain crossed her face. I regretted that I
had spoken of such a place at all.
“Bedotte went down to the river,” she said presently, her mind
gathering the threads one by one, “I was alone and afraid. _Alors_,
the woman Marie is there and I think of her. _Ah, mes enfants!_ She
comes to my bedroom and begins to tell me the things I heard long ago,
when I was a little child and ran away to the woods. I think she was
_ivre, mon mari_--and I laughed at her. Then I saw that she was no
longer the Madame Marie who had frightened me. She prayed and mumbled
and wept. Oh, it was droll, for she seemed to think I was a baby again
and would have sung me to the sleep. But I crept away, and then she
told me to go. It was _mechante_ to hear that. ‘Go,’ she said, and she
tumbled to the door and held it wide open--and the black house was
there and the men to kill me. I was afraid to go, and I told her so,
and then she wept again and sat by the fire rocking herself as a baby.
I was frightened, _affreusement_, but I went to the top of the stairs
and then a little way down them. Monsieur Bedotte had not returned, so
I opened the door. And then I ran away from them--Jésu, how I ran!
The woman called to me from the window, but still I ran, until I heard
her scream, and then I could run no more. A long while afterwards I
came to the river and the boat; and when I asked the boatman to take
me to Paris he laughed. I should have been afraid of him also, _mon
mari_, if there had not been someone else in the ship, a great big
monsieur, big as Monsieur Paddy and as kind. He asked me why I wished
to go to Paris, and I told him. He said he would take me there but
that I must rest first. Then he brought me to this house and Monsieur
the Marquis came to speak to me. He promised that he would write to
you--and now you have come--_ah, mes enfants_, you have come and I am
happy.”
She spoke slowly, Paddy, and with less than a Frenchwoman’s
volubility. Perceive that she had told me nothing of the house itself,
of its master or its mistress. The dramatic story of her flight from
the villa may have been her apology.
Cannot you depict the scene--the rogue’s house standing apart in the
meadow by the river--one blackguard summoned to Asnières by a trick
and arrested there--another betraying the gang; a third leaving the
old witch in charge and going, perchance to a cabaret to drink?
He returns and finds the captive fled; in a savage outburst he strikes
the old woman dead and leaves her body in the house. We arrive when
all this has happened, but our knowledge of human nature is not deep
enough to read the riddle aright. We do not say that even this hag may
have known an instant’s humanity, though it were the humanity of the
bottle. She moans and babbles and weeps--the motherhood of the dead
past stirs again in her veins, warmed by absinthe or bad brandy--and
she bids the child to go. Thus in a frenzy she invites the death which
must await her. The man returns and attacks her brutally. He knows
that the game is up, while we are but guessing at the nature of his
pastime.
This much was plain to me; but the sequel to the story I found as
perplexing as ever. Nor had I any further opportunity at that moment
to question the little girl who shrank in my embrace as though afraid
of her own narration. For that matter the Marquis himself appeared
now, and hastened to excuse himself. He was a fine figure of a man in
his dinner dress, and so natural in his grand manner that none but a
clown would have mocked it. Almost his first words informed me that he
had sent a motor to St. Germain for my baggage and commanded me to
sleep at the Chateau.
“There will be much to speak of to-morrow,” he said, addressing both
my little wife and myself; “for the moment it is sufficient to dine.
Let Joseph show you to your room, Mr. Gastonard. I am sure you are
very tired.”
I did not demur, and finding my clothes already laid out for me, I
dressed with what haste I could and descended to a little salon upon
the first floor where they told me I should find the ladies. Mimi was
here, and with her that remarkable woman the Princess Helene of Ilidze
and her constant companion the Duchesse de Bourg. Even you know
something of the adventurous life of the former. All the world
followed her flight from the Austrian Court with the singer Monterez;
her amazing escapades at Geneva have never been concealed; her
subsequent appearance in Paris and friendship with the Marquis de
Saint Faur have long ceased to amuse as gossip.
An old story now, but unforgotten, Paddy. She preserves an ancient
beauty with little art, I perceive. There is no finer intellect in all
Europe, no woman possessing so many accomplishments with so little of
mediocrity in their display. Her volume on the “Story of Hungary” is a
classic. She has had an operetta done in Milan with sufficient
critical abuse to ensure its success. Kindly tongues would give her
forty-five years, I suppose. She might be anything from thirty-five to
fifty; for she is one of those women who go arm in arm with Time and
are careful not to quarrel with him.
This was the lady who presided on Wednesday night at the dinner-table
in the Château of Bougival. The little dark Duchesse, her companion,
is but the setting to the jewel. I noticed that she ate and drank with
much dispatch, as subservient people will--wreaking her silent
vengeance upon the viands. The Princess herself talked incessantly,
and chiefly to me. Her range of subjects was amazing. I laughed at the
sketch of the typical Englishman, whose foot is on his native heath
but whose heart is in the Jardin de Paris. The Emperor Franz Joseph is
the greatest man in the world, she thinks, and Anatole France the next
to him. Paris, she declares, is being spoiled by the Socialists. The
new Frenchman is well represented by the ugly steam trams which
disfigure his streets. Religion is fashionable only among monarchists,
and will profit eventually by their conservative traditions. Sentiment
is departing from France; it would be a good thing if a king were
chosen and murdered--for that would revive sentiment. As for art, the
moderns are getting as good as they deserve, and if they desire
better, they should hang the picture-dealers. She herself has recently
discovered Corfu and means to build a villa there. She declares it to
be the finest climate in the world--and you can only play roulette
when the sun is shining. All this, mind you, in a mood most frivolous;
by no means embarrassed, casting sweet smiles about her, and stroking
little Mimi’s hands from time to time as though a new pet had come
into her house and must be made much of.
Now, Paddy, I am but a narrator of facts as far as this letter
goes--the thinking must be done by you. Why has this extraordinary
woman kept Mimi in this house? And what is the meaning of such amity?
I could but make a hazard at the dinner-table and less than a hazard
afterwards. In truth we settled down to a formal evening, just as
though Mimi and I had driven over from a neighbouring château and
were to return presently. A game of billiards with the Marquis, a
little gallantry played by the obliging Duchesse--and then to bed. And
through it all my dear wife acting a part to perfection.
I swear she was wonderful, Paddy--this flower of the fêtes, this
child of the atelier playing the grand dame at the Château of
Bougival as though born to it. If she tripped once or twice the
stumbles were humorous enough, just a catchword from the Butte, a
sudden jest--it may be an inelegant attitude. But in the main as
little to be criticised as Madame the Princess herself--a woman who
also has lived in the ateliers and is not entirely a stranger to the
student’s quarters.
I say that I watched the play amazed alike at Mimi’s part therein and
understanding little until we were alone in our bedroom together. Then
almost with dramatic suddenness the child’s courage left her. She fell
into my arms in a passion of weeping--she whispered in my ear a truth
that I had expected from the beginning. Pride in it, love, shame,--all
were there. And I hushed her to sleep upon it, my beloved, who has
come to me from the unknown but can speak to-day with other children
of immortal memories and the golden days. Let this be her message to
you, Paddy--and let this be my Good Night. Mimi is happy and knows the
secrets of the years. Do you in your turn come to us as swiftly as may
be. Have we not as much need of our friends in our joy as in our
sorrow?
And so I shall look for you by any--or as you would say, by every
train. _Bis dat qui cito dat_--which is to say “Hasten.”
Yours ever,
Harry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XLIII.
[Martha Warrington, being returned to her home, receives there a
letter from the Château of Bougival.]
Château de Bougival,
November 19th, 1905.
Dear Mrs. Warrington,--I have to tell you that I have left the
horse-riders of Hampstead and am come to this house, which is a palace
not far from Paris, and as comfortable quarters as Paddy O’Connell has
’lighted upon these many days. Should you wish to write to me, address
the letter as above, though you might put “care of the Marquis de
Saint Faur,” who is one of my friends, and a very noble gentleman.
Well, I arrived here after the blazes of a journey, and not knowing at
all why Henry had sent for me. At first I thought it would be some
news which he could not well put on paper, and after that I thought it
wouldn’t. Bougival, I would tell you, is a stretch of park-land on the
river near Paris, lying under the height of St. Germain, which you
will have heard of in the French books your husband forbids you to
read. The train took me to the station of the place, and a fine
motor-car from there to the house; so, you see, I was made much of,
and mighty pleased with myself when I set foot in what the French call
“the vestibule.”
’Tis true that the footmen--and the Marquis must have half a hundred
of them in this place--speak the French tongue poorly, and that I had
to fall back on my Sassenach; but we must allow something to
ignorance, and that is as cheap an article in France as in England.
Any way, I couldn’t be angry in so fine a house; and, being fortunate
enough to arrive about half-past seven o’clock of the evening, they
conducted me to a bedroom as big as a church, and sent as many men to
wait upon me as though I had been an Emperor. This put Paddy in a
dilemma, for, notwithstanding that his forefathers were kings in their
own countries, he can’t suffer another man to put a shirt on his back,
nor is he happy when a couple of flunkeys would see his head in the
washtub.
You must know that Harry wrote me a long letter inviting me to this
house, and telling me nothing at all, except that his wife was here.
I’d suspected it all along, though hearing the name of the place for
the first time; and now, says I, the truth is coming out at last. ’Tis
some great man or woman in Paris who has been after hunting the child,
and that poor Count d’Antoine who was murdered at Hampstead was but
his or her ambassador. I’d have been worse than a fool not to have
guessed as much after receiving Harry’s letter and reading the
papers--though God forbid I should come to believe any newspaper at my
time of life. For all that, I know a fox when I see one; and what I
say is this, that Mimi has aristocratic friends in Paris, and there
were rogues who got news of those friends, and set out to blackmail
them. I’ll swear as much against all the justices. ’Tis a vulgar
crime, after all, and the truth will make it no better.
This I must tell you to begin with, for ’tis a different kind of story
which must come after. The last paragraph of this letter left me in
the dressing-room at the château--and that’s no place for a lady. I’d
been there about five minutes, I suppose, when Harry came roaring in,
and hailed me with a hunting cry you could have heard away in Paris.
Faith, the man had lost his head entirely, and when he had kissed me
on both cheeks as the Frenchmen do, he rolled me over and over on the
bed--though I had a clean shirt on my back--and treated me worse than
any terrier. ’Twas “Paddy, you brick!” and “Paddy, such news!” and
“She’s here, in the house, Paddy!” until my ears were bursting with
it. Not a word would he let me speak, though I had a king’s message to
bear him, and when I got down to the drawing-room at last my collar
was up to my ears and my white choker on top of it. A fine figure of a
man I must have looked among such company--and the Marquis bowing to
me until his nose almost touched his boots, and Madame the Princess
flashing a pair of eyes nearly as black and as wicked as your own. But
there I was, and I had to make the best of it, and not a man or a
woman would I notice until I had caught the little Greuze girl in my
arms and squeezed her until she hollered.
Well, they were all amused at this, and Madame, the Princess Hélène,
who is one of my friends, and a great lady in Paris, she took my arm
and led me off to the dinner-table. I had the Duchesse upon one side
of me and the Princess upon the other; and faith, says I, what a tale
to tell at Glendalough. Such gold and silver plate, Martha; such
glass, such paintings! My neck aches this very day for staring up to
the ceilings to look at the gods and goddesses dancing in the
hayfields, and caring no more for the liquor down below than the
archbishop at a teetotalers’ meeting. What with these bare-legged
beauties and the great ladies and the witty talk, bedad, I could have
been content to stop at the table a month, and to have thought twice
about leaving it then.
But this is to speak of Paddy O’Connell, and you, woman-like, will be
all for hearing of Madame Mimi. How did she bear herself, you ask? The
little colleen out of the cafés and the circus--how did she carry
herself in such a place? Why, no grand dame born to it could have done
better. Even my friend the Marquis told me so afterwards; while, as
for the Princess, she couldn’t like the child better if she were her
own daughter. Not one of them that does not spoil and pet her, believe
me. I listen to their talk, and a thousand wild thoughts run in my
head. What is Mimi to them? Why did they send to London for her? How
comes it that ruffians would have blackmailed them?
You are a discreet little body, and you will not speak of this to any
human being; but you’ll think about it very much, Martha, as I am
thinking about it this minute, and saying I’d be a fool not to guess
the truth of it. And if my suppositions are true, is the child’s
behaviour a wonder to be gaped at? You will be the first to say “no”
to that. She has the blood of nobles in her veins, and what matter a
jot if the bend sinister is written across her story? Let the story go
where it will. I would be proud of it if I were Harry--and so much I
have told him to-day.
Write to me as soon as you can--when your husband is at his sermons
should be a good opportunity--and tell me how far I am right. My own
programme is uncertain. This lovely November weather makes life well
enough in the glorious park about this château, and a sweet time we
are having of it. The Marquis plays golf very well, and I am winning
money of him. Mimi and Harry are nearly always on horseback, for he is
teaching her to ride, and a willing pupil he has found. What is
troubling them is the approaching trial of the man Bedotte, who, it
seems, was Count d’Antoine’s valet, and is to be tried at St. Germain
for the murder of the old woman Marie. I fear the public, which laps
up a scandalous story as a dog takes water, will insist upon much
being told which otherwise should be concealed. But we shall have the
judge with us, for where is the lawyer born who could write unkind
things about that beautiful woman the Princess Hélène?
Rely upon me, in any case, to send you all the news. Harry is fretting
still for his fortune, though Mimi, I hear, is to have two thousand a
year from the Marquis. He says he means to accept an offer from the
editor of the “Daily Bulletin” to become Paris correspondent at a
stiffish sum, and I do believe he’ll carry out the threat. In which
case they will have an apartment in Paris and a villa at Fontainebleau
which he discovered the other day when in his motor-car.
I’ll be a lonely man then, Martha, and glad to see you sometimes.
Should the “Society for the Suppression of Human Emotions” determine
to hold its meetings in London, you’ll be going there and may manage
to let me know. In which case, an accident might find me in the great
Metropolis also.
Meanwhile, with my kind regards, believe me, dear Mrs. Warrington,
Yours faithfully,
Paddy O’Connell.
CHAPTER XLIV.
[Mr. James Frogg, of Serjeant’s Inn, receives an unexpected answer to
an expectant letter.]
Château de Bougival, near Paris,
December 2nd, 1905.
James Frogg, Esq.
Sir,--In answer to your esteemed letter demanding to know how far the
conditions of my revered father’s will have been observed by me, I beg
to state:
1. That they have been wholly fulfilled.
2. That an agreement was signed yesterday between the editor of the
“Daily Bulletin” and myself, in which I am engaged by him as his Paris
correspondent for the term of one year, at a salary of seven hundred
pounds.
A copy of this agreement I beg to enclose for your inspection, and
remain, Sir,
Yours faithfully,
Henry Gastonard.
CHAPTER XLV.
[Mr. James Frogg, of Serjeant’s Inn, passes on the unpleasant news to
the Reverend Arthur Warrington, of Beldon, Suffolk.]
3, Serjeant’s Inn, London, E.C.,
December 4th, 1905.
The Reverend Arthur Warrington, M.A.
Reverend and dear Sir,--I have this day received the enclosed letter
from Mr. Gastonard. Its claims, I fear, are incontestable.
The Will of the late Henry Gastonard, of Bordeaux and London, provided
that the bulk of his considerable fortune should pass from the
possession of his only son in the case that the young man was not
earning five hundred pounds a year by his own efforts at the age of
twenty-five years.
Such a condition, I regret to say, has now been fulfilled. The
Agreement between Henry Gastonard and the editor of the “Daily
Bulletin” is not a document I should advise you to contest. No court
would question its _bona fides_; nor would any Chancery judge be
willing to interpret the Will in any strict sense.
Such are the facts. Believe me, dear Sir, that I deplore them, and am,
Your faithful servant,
James Frogg.
My charges in the matter of this business, £74 6s. 8d., are detailed
in the schedule I have the honour to enclose.
CHAPTER XLVI.
[The Reverend Arthur Warrington receives the news and makes some
complaint of it.]
The Red Farm, Beldon, Suffolk,
December 5th, 1905.
James Frogg, Esq.
Dear Mr. Frogg,--God’s will be done--though this, indeed, is dreadful
news. That the cup should be dashed from my lips at the last moment! I
can hardly believe my eyes while I read.
Of course, this alleged contract is nothing but a trick. Would anyone
pay seven hundred pounds a year to a youth who has lived a worthless
life? Why, even I cannot earn a hundred pounds a year by my writings,
and you know how voluminous they have been.
I must tell you plainly that if I cannot derive some benefit under
this Will, my affairs will be in a very bad way. The debts incurred by
my wife at the time of that miserable and insensate pageant at
Lowestoft still press heavily upon me and interfere with my work among
the poor. I owe some two hundred pounds beside, chiefly to my
publishers, who brought out my last volumes upon Athanasius and St.
John Chrysostom. They have the indelicacy to say that there is no
money in the Apostles. I must pay their account immediately, and also
your own charges.
Would it be possible, do you think, to find some wealthy person who
would lend me money upon note of hand alone? I should not object to a
reasonable rate of interest--though perhaps they would lend it to the
Lord at a lower figure? How can a clergyman do his duty when harassed
by debt?
This is a dreadful misfortune, and I cannot contemplate it with
equanimity. What will Henry do with his vast fortune? Oh, it is
deplorable to think that it may be spent chiefly upon this dancing
girl, who, I have reason to believe, is the natural daughter of a
dissolute French nobleman. My own position is rendered more difficult
by the fact that I have already entered into considerable engagements
upon the supposition that nothing could deprive me of the money. And
now Henry so far forgets his birth and tradition as to write for a
common newspaper.
Will you please to let me know what I shall have to pay by way of
interest for a loan, say of five hundred pounds? Would fifteen per
cent. satisfy the lender? I have some hopes of being chosen for one of
the new canonries at Bury St. Edmunds, which is about to become a
cathedral city. This would mean eight hundred pounds a year and a
house, I suppose. I could pay off the money in three years.
Kindly write to me without delay.
Yours truly,
Arthur Warrington.
P.S.--Should you see Mrs. Warrington, I beg you will not mention to
her the fact that I am trying to borrow money. My loss, I regret to
say, causes her some amusement. She is going to London this week to
support the meeting of the Society for the Suppression of the Human
Emotions--but I have not the heart to accompany her. She would have
gone to the Charing Cross Hotel, but she hears by accident that a very
objectionable Irishman, who is her particular aversion, happens to be
staying there; so she will be at the Grand. She may call upon you. Be
discreet, I pray.
CHAPTER XLVII.
[Paddy O’Connell informs his sister Clara that he is detained in
London upon business of some importance.]
The Grand Hotel, Charing Cross,
December 13th, 1905.
Dear Clara,--I arrived here on Saturday night from Paris, but I didn’t
come on to you for reasons which the great Deep can speak of, and
especially that part of it which lies between Dover and Calais. Faith,
every soul on board but me was sick; and nothing but the natural
delicacy of my feelings prevented that same calamity overtaking me.
I propose now to rest a few days in London. There are my stockbrokers
to see, and some of Harry’s business to be attended to. You have heard
by my letters and the newspapers all that has been going on in France,
so I do no more than to tell you that Harry is hard at work already as
a newspaper correspondent, and a mighty pretty one at that. If he
doesn’t succeed as a newspaper man, it will be because he tells the
truth, which is not what some of ’em in Fleet-street want at all, as I
found out when I called John Ferguson, of the “Daily Herald,” a
black-hearted liar. But Harry will do well, I hope; and he’s saved his
fortune for certain.
_Apropos_ of this, ’tis the oddest thing in the world, but I met Mrs.
Warrington in this very hotel, and had some talk with her. She is a
sensible little body, and doesn’t grudge Harry his fortune at all.
“After all,” says she, “’twas his father’s money and not ours.” But I
fear the parson man, her husband, is in a bad way about it and
swearing like the devil. It appears that he’s been counting his
chickens before they were hatched, and a pretty brood of blue
envelopes have come out of the nest. I shall have to be writing to
Harry to do something for him. ’Tis not cricket at all to be expecting
a fool to pay the whole price of his folly, for God knows, we are no
wiser than we were born, and that’s not very wise at all where some of
us are concerned.
I shall stay a few days in London, though I expect to be very busy all
the time. To-night I may go to the theatre by way of relaxation; you
wouldn’t have me kill myself with hard work, though anxious I am to
get home to Ireland and the riding.
I will just say that Harry writes to me almost every day, and is full
of his happiness. My friend, the Princess Hélène, has gone to Corfu
on the Marquis’s yacht, and the Duchesse de Bourg with her. Harry and
Mimi could have the great château to themselves if they chose; but,
will you believe it, they have gone up to the little house on the
Butte, just to pass a day or two, they say, and to see what the old
life was like. ’Twould be odd to hear that the little Greuze girl
cared anything about that now, but I suppose Harry knows what he is
doing, and he’ll have plenty of murders to send to the newspapers.
Do not be at the pains to write to me, Clara. I shall be coming home
as soon as all these lawyer men have finished with me.
Meanwhile, I am, as ever, your affectionate brother,
Paddy.
There was a man stopped me by Charing Cross Station yesterday, and
asked me if I could direct him to the house of the Archdeacon of
Middlesex. I had a little talk with him, and took him afterwards to my
hotel. ’Twas a most wonderful story he had to tell me. His cousin, it
appears, is a prisoner, in Spain, and knows of a buried treasure near
Cadiz. About fifty pounds will buy the man’s liberty, and he’s willing
to share the treasure, which dates back from Columbus’ day, and is
mostly in moidores, though all sound gold, with any man that will find
him the money. I’m of the mind to join them. ’Twould be something to
come home to you, Clara, with a ship full of guineas. And all for a
paltry fifty pounds.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
[In which Henry Gastonard hears of Jules Farman again, and of the
criminal known as Bedotte the valet.]
4 (bis), Rue du Quatre Septembre, Paris,
February 21st, 1906.
Monsieur,--I have the honour to report as follows:--
The criminal Henry Bedotte Sanvalier was executed this morning on the
public ground between the prisons of La Roquette and Les Jeunes
Detenues.
I was privileged to visit the prisoner at five o’clock and spent some
minutes alone with him. He was entirely unrepentent, and heard with
much satisfaction that his comrade, Gondré, the showman, had received
a sentence of ten years’ forced labour. I have, monsieur, seen many
men die before the gates of La Roquette, but no man more contemptuous
of death or its sequel. Of this, however, you will read in the
newspapers.
My questions to Bedotte were few but important. I had to discover (a)
if Madame d’Alençon had played any conspicuous part in this affair,
and (b) under what circumstances the abduction of Madame Gastonard
from the Convent of Orleans was safely accomplished. To both of these
I had satisfactory answers.
There was another actor in this drama, monsieur, but he is dead. I
refer to the husband of the woman Marie, a man who had been in the
service of the Marquis de Saint Faur, who planned the abduction of the
child, and who hid her successfully from the police during the active
weeks of the pursuit.
Madame, your wife, is speaking but in general terms when she tells us
that she has no clear memory of this criminal--nor might we expect it.
But it is clear that no convent would be so conducted that children
could pass its gates when they chose; and that if any such event had
occurred, the police of Orleans would not have failed in their duty.
No, monsieur, Madame Gastonard was cleverly kidnapped from the house
during the hour of the children’s recreation. She was carried to the
poorer quarter of Orleans, and there hidden for many weeks. In the
interval an unforeseen event occurred: the husband--the man who knew
the truth--was arrested. The old woman had but a vague notion of it;
she carried the child away with her upon a gipsy’s journey, fell in
with the showman Gondré, and finally sold her prize to that honest
fellow Cassadore. And now, monsieur, the sequel becomes clearer.
When you sent me to make enquiries at Orleans as to the truth of
certain stories you had heard concerning the infancy of Madame
Gastonard, it chanced that another was similarly occupied for a
purpose which will be self-evident. She was Madame Lea d’Alençon,
then posing in Paris as your friend. Her acquaintance with Count
d’Antoine was slight, but she used it as a clever woman could to
extort from him some confession of the truth. Possibly, although this
could not be proved in a court of law, she herself set counter
agencies to work. She may have betrayed the secret to the man Gondré;
if not to him, then to the old woman Marie. The criminals themselves
appear, upon this, to have joined forces and arrived at a
determination to work together. They did not know where Madame
Gastonard was to be found in London; but they followed the Count to
her house, and there murdered him--as Bedotte declares--because he
threatened them with the police. Their object was to blackmail the
Marquis de Saint Faur and the Princess Hélène. But most fortunately
this was prevented. The public may have guessed the truth; but many
truths are guessed by the public, monsieur, and remain guesses to the
end.
Monsieur, the world forgets these things very quickly, and it will not
be less willing to blot out this page. If it should be turned once
more, you will have Madame d’Alençon to thank. But I shall not fail
to frighten her, and fear is the only weapon which will silence a
woman’s tongue. In this you may count upon me, not only in your own
interests but in those of my esteemed patron, the Marquis de Saint
Faur.
I will add, monsieur, that a vast crowd assembled to see Sanvalier
die, and that his death was accompanied by that brutal circumstance
which unhappily is still favoured by our French law: the man would not
receive the priest Abbé Falier nor permit any consolations but those
of a glass of brandy and of a cigarette. He smoked when they had bound
him, and the cigarette was still between his lips when the head fell.
Such was the end of a very evil scoundrel who murdered a noble
gentleman and deserved a fate less kind.
I will add that at the moment when the knife descended and struck the
head from the body, I heard a shout from the crowd, and perceived
there the notorious Jean-le-Mont. This man’s release was necessary,
but I regret it. He has returned to the old Lapin Agil on the Butte,
where I doubt not that I shall soon have the pleasure of arresting him
upon another account.
Be assured, monsieur, of my esteem, and permit me to remain,
Your faithful servant,
Jules Henry Farman.
CHAPTER XLIX.
[Madame Lea d’Alençon has really nothing to say; but she says it
charmingly as ever.]
The Hôtel Metropole, Monte Carlo,
February 25th, 1906.
Dear Mr. Gastonard,--I compliment you upon your self-denial. To refuse
an invitation to dinner with your old friend! And to forbid me the
opportunity of complimenting Madame!
Surely it is not true, cher Monsieur Henry, that Madame Gastonard is
about to return to the circus? I positively refuse to believe it. But
the world has such a _méchante_ tongue. Tell me that it is not so.
Indeed, the report--and your unkindness--move me to some envy. Must I
tame the lions--at my age? Helas, the spangles do not suit me!
It was good of you to come here, for now we may talk. How proud you
must be of Madame’s success. I have even heard it said that she is
learning to speak grammatically. How clever of her when one remembers
the lions and the hoop! I am sure you are very, very proud!
My dear husband has returned from Tunis. We were laughing together
yesterday at your misfortune--but very kindly of course. How very
foolish of you to amuse Paris as you did. And all for a mere woman.
Ah well, as the proverb goes--_il n’y a que le matin en toutes
choses_.
Your friend,
Lea d’Alençon.
CHAPTER L.
[Mimi the Simpleton writes a brief note to Madame the Princess Hélène
of Ilidze and we translate it.]
The Riviera Palace Hotel, Monte Carlo,
March 3d, 1906.
Dearest Mother,--We return to Paris to-day, and Harry says that I may
write to you. I have wished to write so many times, but he has
forbidden me. We are to go to Paris and then to London to see that
great big Monsieur Paddy, who loves me.
Dearest mother, there has never been anyone in my life to whom I could
speak as I have spoken to you. All the secrets have been locked in my
own heart, but you have shared them. When I was in Paris at the cafés
and the circus, I knew that someone would come some day and open the
secret place of my love. You only in all the world can do so. Many,
many years I carried my hope with me and never dared to speak of it.
How much, dearest mother, is a woman alone among men. We bear our
burdens and none knows of them.
Will you write to me, dearest, to the château; and I will have the
letters sent to London, if we go there. I know that I may not see you
often, but I will count the days until I see you again. Our jewels do
not shine less brightly because we do not look at them, and I know
that you think of me as your child. So often have I said she is my
mother, and that is the sweetest word. The years were long, dearest,
until I learned it; but I would live them all again if the end might
be like this.
Harry writes so well that they wish him to go to England. He has
promised to go there to see his cousin, Madame Martha, who is in
trouble. She has lost all her money and Harry is going to give her
some, for her husband the clergyman cannot preach without money, and
that would make the people unhappy, she says. Afterwards we wish to
buy the Château of Marcey-le-Rideau and to go there for all our
holidays. Harry says that he does not wish to write any more for the
newspapers. It makes him so angry when they leave his work out and put
someone else’s in. And it is never so good as Harry’s.
Dearest mother, will you come to Marcey-le-Rideau and let me call you
mother there? It will not be my home if you do not.
All the lonely, lonely years forgotten! Dearest, will you say that
they must never return?
Your loving daughter,
Mimi.
CHAPTER LI.
[Mimi and Harry write to Paddy and advise him of their approaching
visit to Ireland.]
On board the Lapin Agil, Lisbon,
April 2d, 1906.
Dear Paddy,--You have been too long without a letter, so now we are
both writing to you.
I am holding the pen and Harry is spelling the English words. That is
why there are so many blots.
Dear Mr. Paddy, we cannot go back to Paris. We went there once and
lived for three days at the old Maison du bon Tabac. It was so
beastly. Harry says you (meaning me) must be very young to live where
the people have nothing to do but to say what they will do some day.
So we have grown up and do not do it.
We are now in Lisbon, where, Harry says, they used to have an
earthquake. It has not swallowed up all the people, but there are a
great many left. Harry says the girls are very pretty, but I do not
think so.
It is better to be on a yacht when she is standing still than when she
is walking. I do not like the sea, but Harry says it is good for me.
Please, Mr. Paddy, may we come to Ireland to see you? It was very
naughty of you to quarrel with cousin Martha because she said you
could not play golf. And to go back to Ireland in a huff. Of course,
we shall say you play golf very well when we are at your castle.
Harry has bought the Château of Marcey-le-Rideau, and we are to
descend there in the summer. One room is to be called Mr. Paddy’s
room. Harry says it shall be very big, so that you can beat the floor
with the golf clubs. He is building a little house in the grounds
which we have named the Maison du bon Tabac. You may smoke there, Mr.
Paddy, when you are angry and cannot get out of the bunker.
We met Madame Lea at Monte Carlo, and I did not bow to her. She has
grown so ugly and has fallen in love with her husband. _Ah, mes
enfants!_ What would happen to people if they were to fall in love
with their husbands!
At Cintra, which is a very beautiful mountain near here, we met an
American lady, who, Harry says, is an heiress. You should come out and
marry her. Perhaps she would fall in love with you afterwards.
But I will not have anybody falling in love with Mr. Paddy. He is my
friend. I wish him to die as a bachelor. Harry says he will do it, so
I am happy.
Please say if we may come to your castle. The yacht will take us, but
I shall go upon the railway line.
Your affectionate,
Mimi.
P.S.--Say if it’s convenient, old chap? Don’t for heaven’s sake turn
your good sister out to grass, or anything of that sort. Just a bed
and a crust, with a pipe and a whisky afterwards. It will be enough to
see you, old Brian Boru. And God bless you, anyway.
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
The Bernhard Tauchnitz edition (Leipzig, 1910) was consulted for many
of the changes listed below.
Cyrus Cuneo provided the frontispiece.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g. Chatelet/Châtelet, music
halls/music-halls, tiptoe/tip-toe, etc.) have been preserved.
Alterations to the text:
Punctuation fixes: some quotation mark pairings, and some missing
periods and commas. Also, adjust some of the letterheads’ location
lines to end with a comma.
Change four instances of Mr. _Fogg_ to _Frogg_.
[Chapter I]
Change “lunch in a frock coat and glory with Lea _d’ Alençon_” to
_d’Alençon_.
[Chapter V]
“The suspicion that this chit of the _fétes_ foraines may yet startle”
to _fêtes_.
[Chapter IX]
“but you will not have come here for the _fish ing_, perhaps?” to
_fishing_.
[Chapter XII]
“bears witness once more to the smallness of this _terrestial_ globe”
to _terrestrial_.
[Chapter XVI]
“for _litttle_ Martha insisted on shewing me the greenhouses” to
_little_.
[Chapter XIX]
“the house which their old comrade Mimi _wil_ not enter” to _will_.
[Chapter XXVIII]
“Is it dreams, or _is_ spirits about?” to _are_.
[Chapter XXXIV]
“She posed _lanquidly_ and watched me with some cunning” to
_languidly_.
[Chapter XLIX]
(letter signature) Change Lea _d’Alencon_ to _d’Alençon_.
[End of text]
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