A DINNER AT THE PANNIER D'OR
Helena stood with her hand raised to her eyes, close by the port
paddle-box, staring straight in front of her at a faint grey line upon
the horizon.
A stiff breeze was blowing in the Channel, though the sun was shining
brightly on the tossing waters, all yellow-green with pearl lights, like
a picture by Henry Moore.
By the tall, graceful figure of the girl, swaying with the motion of the
steamer and bending gracefully to the sudden onslaughts of the wind,
stood a thick-set man of middle height, dressed in a tweed suit. His
face was a strong one. Heavy reddish eyebrows hung over a pair of clear
grey eyes, intellectual and kindly. The nose was beak-like and the
large, rugged, red moustache hid the mouth.
This was Harold Spence, the journalist with whom Gortre was to live
after the holiday was over and he began his work in Bloomsbury. Spence
was snatching a few days from his work in Fleet Street, in order to
accompany Gortre and Mr. and Miss Byars to Dieppe. It had been his first
introduction to the vicar and his daughter.
"So that is really France, Mr. Spence!" said Helena; "the very first
view of a foreign country I've ever had. I don't suppose you've an idea
of what I'm feeling now? It seems so wonderful, something I've been
waiting for all my life."
Spence smiled kindly, irradiating his face with good humour as he did
so.
"Well, _my_ sensations or emotions at present, Miss Byars, are entirely
confined to wondering whether I am going to be seasick or not."
"Don't speak of it!" said a thin voice, a voice from which all the blood
seemed to be drained, and, turning, they saw the vicar at their elbow.
His face was livid, his beard hung in lank dejection, a sincere misery
poured from his pathetic eyes.
"Basil," he said, "Basil is down in the saloon eating greasy cold
chicken and ham and drinking pale ale! I told him it was an outrage--"
His feelings overcame him and he staggered away towards the stern.
"Poor father," said the girl. "He never could stand the sea, you know.
But he very soon gets all right when he is on dry land again. Oh, look!
that must be a church tower! I can see it quite distinctly, and the sun
on the roofs of the houses!"
"That is St. Jacques," said Spence, "and that dome some way to the
right, is St. Remy. Farthest of all to the right, on the cliffs, you can
just see the château where the garrison is."
Helena gazed eagerly and became silent in her excitement. Basil, who
came up from the saloon and joined them, the healthy colour beginning to
glow out on his cheeks once more, watched her tenderly. There was
something childishly sweet in her delight as the broad, tub-like boat
kicked its way rapidly towards the quaint old foreign town.
In smoky Walktown he had not often seen her thus. Life was a more sober
thing there, and her nature was graver than that of many girls, attuned
to her environment. But, at the beginning of this holiday time, under a
brilliant spring sun, which she was already beginning to imagine had a
foreign charm about it, she too was happy and in a holiday mood.
Basil pulled out his new and glorious gold watch, which had replaced the
battered old gun-metal one he usually wore. Though not a poor man, he
was simple in all his tastes, and the new toy gave him a recurring and
childish pleasure whenever he looked at it.
"We ought to be in in about twenty minutes," he said. "Have you noticed
that the tossing of the ship has almost stopped? The land protects us.
How clear the town is growing! I wonder if you will remember any of your
French, Helena? I almost wish I was like you, seeing a foreign country
for the first time. Spence is the real _voyageur_ though. He's been all
over the world for his paper."
The vicar came up to them again, just as there was a general movement of
the passengers towards the deck. A hooting cry from the steam whistle
wailed over the water and the boat began to move slowly.
In a few more minutes they had passed the breakwater and were gliding
slowly past the wharves towards the landing-stage.
Suddenly Helena clutched hold of Basil's arm.
"O Basil," she whispered, "how beautiful--look! Guarding the harbour!"
He turned and followed the direction of her glance.
An enormous crucifix, more than life size, planted in the ground, rose
from the low cliffs on the right for all entering the harbour to see.
They watched the symbol in silence as the passengers chattered on every
side and gathered up their rugs and hand-bags.
Gortre slipped his arm through Helena's.
The reminder was so vivid and sudden it affected them powerfully. They
were both people of the world, living in it and enjoying the pleasures
of life that came in their way. Gortre was not one of those narrow, and
even ill-bred, young priests with a text for ever on his lips, a sort of
inopportune concordance, with an unpleasant flavour of omniscience. His
religion and Helena's was too deep and fibrous a thing for commonplaces
about it. It did not continually effervesce within and break forth in
minute and constant bubbles, losing all its sincerity and beauty by the
vulgar wear and tear of a verbal trick.
But it was always and for ever with him a transmuting force which
changed his life each hour in a way of which the nominal believer has no
conception.
A letter he had once written to Helena during a holiday compressed all
his belief, and his joy in his belief, into a few short lines. Thus had
run the sincere and simple statement, unadorned by any effort of
literary grace to give it point and force:--
"Day by day as your letters come I go on saying my prayers for you,
and with you, in fresh faith and confidence. You know that I
absolutely trust the Lord Jesus Christ, who is, I believe, the God
who made the worlds, and that I pray to Him continually, relying on
His promises.
"I keep on reading all sides of the question, as your father does
also, and while admitting all that honest criticism and sincere
intellectual doubt can teach me, and freely conceding that there is
no infallible record in the New Testament, I grow more and more
convinced that the Gospels and Paul's letters relate _facts_ and
not imaginations or hallucinations. And the more strongly my
intellect is convinced, so much more does my heart delight in the
love of God, who has given Himself for me. How magnificent is that
finale of St. John's Gospel! 'Thomas saith unto Him, My Lord and my
God.' And, then, how exquisite is the supplement about the
manifestation at the lake side! Imagine the skill of the literary
man who INVENTED that! Fancy such a man existing in A.D. 150 or
thereabouts! I see Mrs. Humphry Ward says 'it was a dream which the
old man at Ephesus related, and his disciples thought it was fact.'
And _she_ is a literary person!"
So, as the lovers glided slowly past the high symbol of God's pain, the
worship in their hearts found but little utterance on their lips, though
they were deeply touched.
It seemed a good omen to welcome them to France!
Spence remained to look after the luggage and to see it through the
Customs, and the three others resolved to walk to the rooms which they
had taken in the Faubourg de la Barre on the steep hill behind the
château.
They passed over the railway line in the middle of the road, and past
the _cafés_ which cluster round the landing-stage, into the quaint
market-place, with the great Gothic Cathedral Church of St. Jacques upon
one side, and the colossal statue of Duquesne surrounded by baskets of
spring flowers in the centre.
To Helena Byars that simple progress was one of unalloyed excitement and
delight. The small and wiry soldiers in their unfamiliar uniforms; an
officer sipping vermouth in a _café_, with spurs, sword, and helmet
shining in the sun; two black priests, with huge furry hats--all the
moving colour of the scene gave her new and delightful sensations.
"It's all so different!" she said breathlessly. "So bright and gay. What
is that red thing over the tobacco shop, and that little brass dish over
the hair-dresser's? Think of Walktown or Salford, now!"
The house in the Faubourg de la Barre was kept by a Madame Varnier, who
spoke English well, and was in the habit of letting her rooms to
English people. A late _déjeuner_ was ready for them.
The omelette was a revelation to Helena, and the _rognons sautés_ filled
her with respect for such cooking, but she was impatient, nevertheless,
to be out and sight-seeing.
The vicar was tired, and proposed to stay indoors with the _Spectator_,
and Spence had some letters to write, so Basil and Helena went out
alone.
"The vicar and I will meet you at six," Spence said, "at the Café des
Tribuneaux, that big place with the gabled roof in the centre of the
town. At six the _l'heure verre_ begins, the time when everyone goes out
for an _apéritif_, the appetiser before dinner; afterwards I'll take you
to dine at the Pannier d'Or, a jolly little restaurant I know of, and in
the evening we'll go to the Casino."
Madame Varnier, the _patronne_, was in her kitchen sitting-room at the
bottom of the stairs, and they looked in through the hatchway as they
passed to tell her that they were not dining indoors.
On the floor a little girl, with pale yellow hair, an engaging button of
three, was playing with a live rabbit, plump and mouse-coloured.
"How sweet!" said Helena, who was in a mood which made her ready to
appreciate everything. "Look at the little darling with its pet. Has
baby had the rabbit long, Madame Varnier?"
The Frenchwoman smiled lavishly. "Est-elle gentille l'enfant! hein! I
bring the lapin chez moi from the magazin yesterday. There was very good
lapins yesterday. I buy when I can. Je trouverai ça plus prudent. He is
for the déjeuner of mademoiselle to-morrow. I take him so,"--she caught
up the animal and suited the action to the word,--"I press his throat
till his mouth open, and I pour a little cognac into him. Il se meurt,
and the flesh have a delicious flavour from the cognac!"
"How perfectly horrible!" said Helena as they came out into the street
and walked down the hill. "Fancy seeing one's lunch alive and playing
about like that, and then killing it with brandy, too! What pigs these
French people are!"
Soon after the cool gloom of St. Remy enveloped them. Under the big dome
they lingered for a time, walking from chapel to chapel, where nuns were
praying. But it dulled them rather, and they had more pleasure in the
grey and Gothic twilight of St. Jacques. Here the eye was uplifted by
more noble lines, there was a more mediæval and romantic feeling about
the place.
"We will come here to Mass on Sunday," said Basil. "I shall not go to
the English Church at all. I never do abroad, and the vicar agrees with
me. You see one belongs to the Catholic Church in England. In France one
belongs to it, too. The 'Protestant' Church, as they call it, with an
English clergyman, is, of course, a Dissenting church here."
"I see your point," said Helena, "though I don't know that I quite agree
with it. But I have never been to a Roman Catholic church in England,
and I want to see some of the services. 'Bowing down in the House of
Rimmon,' Mr. Philemon would call it at Walktown."
They turned down a narrow street of quiet houses, and came out on to the
Plage. There were a good many people walking up and down the great
promenade from the Casino to the harbour mouth. An air of fulness and
prosperity floated round the magnificent hotels which faced the sea.
It was a spring season, owing to the unusual mildness of the weather,
and Dieppe was full of people. The Casino was opened temporarily after
the long sleep of the winter, and a company was performing there,
having come on from the theatre at Rouen.
"What a curious change from the churches and market-place," said Helena.
"This is tremendously smart and fashionable. How well-dressed every one
is. Look at that red-haired woman with the furs. This is being quite in
the world again."
They began a steady walk towards the pier and lighthouse. The wind was
fresh, though not troublesome, and at five o'clock the sun, low in the
sky, was still bright, and could give his animation to the picture.
The two young people amused themselves by speculations about the varied
types of people who passed and repassed them. Gortre wore a suit of very
dark grey, with a short coat and an ordinary tweed cap--his holiday
suit, he called it--and, except for his clerical collar, there was
little to show his calling. He was pleased, with a humorous sense of
proprietorship, a kind of vicarious vanity, to notice the attention and
admiration excited by the beautiful English girl at his side.
Helena Byars held her own among the cosmopolitan crowd of women who
walked on the Plage. Her beauty was Saxon, very English, and not of a
type that is always appreciated to its full value on the Continent, but
it shone the more from Latin contrasts, and could not escape remark.
Every now and again they turned, at distances of a quarter of a mile or
so, and during the recurrence of their beat they began to notice a
person whom they met several times, coming and going.
He was an enormously big man, broad and tall, dressed expensively and
with care. His size alone was sufficient to mark him out of the usual,
but his personality seemed to them no less arresting and strange.
His large, smooth face was fat, the eyes small and brilliant, with
heavy pouches under them. His whole manner was a trifle florid and
Georgian. Basil said that he seemed to belong to the Prince Regent's
period in some subtle way. "I can imagine him on the lawns at Brighton
or dining in the Pavilion," he said. "What a sensual, evil face the man
has! Of course it may mean nothing, though. The Bishop of ----, one of
the saints of the time, whose work on the Gospels is the most wonderful
thing ever done in the way of Christian apologetics, has a face like one
of the grotesque devils carved on the roof of Notre Dame or Lincoln
Cathedral. But this man seems by his face to have no soul. One can't
feel it is there, as one does, thank God! with most people."
"But what an intellect such a man must have! Look at him now. Look at
the shape of his head. And besides, you can see it in his face, despite
its sensuality and materialism. He must be some distinguished person. I
seem to remember pictures of him, just lately, too, in the illustrated
papers, only I can't get a name to them. I'm certain he's English, and
some one of importance."
The big man passed them again with a quiet and swift glance of
appreciation for Helena. He seemed lonely. Basil and Helena realised
that he would have welcomed a chance word of greeting, some overture of
friendship, which is not so impossible between English people
abroad--even in adjacent Dieppe--as in our own country.
But neither of them responded to the unspoken wish they felt in the
stranger. They were quite happy with each other, and presently they saw
him light a cigar and turn into one of the great hotels.
They discussed the man for a few minutes--he had made an odd impression
on them by his personality--and then found that it was time for the
rendezvous at the Café des Tribuneaux.
By this time dusk was falling, and the sea moaned with a certain
melancholy. But the town began to be brilliant with electric lights, and
the florid Moorish building of the Casino was jewelled everywhere.
They turned away to the left, leaving the sea behind them, and, passing
through a narrow street by the Government tobacco factory, came into the
town again, and, after a short walk, to the _café_.
The place was bright and animated--lights, mirrors, and gilding, the
stir and movement of the pavement, combined to make a novel and
attractive picture for the English girl. The night was not cold, and
they sat under the awning at a little round table watching the merry
groups with interest. In a few minutes after their arrival they saw
Spence and the vicar, now quite restored and well, coming towards them.
They had forborne to order anything before the arrival of their
companions.
The journalist took them under his wing at once. It amused him to be a
cicerone to help them to a feeling of being at home. Gortre and Mr.
Byars had been in Switzerland, and the latter at Rome on one occasion,
but under the wing of a bishop's son who made his livelihood out of
personally conducting parties to Continental towns of interest for a
fixed fee. There was little freedom in these cut-and-dried tours, with
their lectures _en route_ and the very dinners in the hotel ordered for
the tourists, and everything so arranged that they need not speak a word
of any foreign language.
For the vicar, Spence prescribed a _vermouth sec_; Gortre, a courtesy
invalid, was given a minute glass of an amber-coloured liquid with
quinine in it--"_Dubonnet_" Spence called it; and Helena had a _sirop_
of _menthe_.
They were all very happy together in the simple-minded, almost childish,
way of quiet, intellectual people. Their enjoyment of the novel
liqueurs, in a small _café_ at tourist-haunted Dieppe, was as great as
that of any sybarite at the Hotel Ritz in Paris, or at a rare dinner at
Ciro's in Monte Carlo.
Spence ordered an absinthe for himself.
The vicar seemed slightly perturbed. "Isn't that stuff rather dangerous,
Spence?" he said, shrinking a little from the glass when the waiter
brought it. "I've heard terrible things of it."
"Oh, I know," said the journalist, laughing, "people call it the French
national vice and write tirades against it. Of course if it becomes a
regular habit it is dangerous, and excess in absinthe is worse than most
things. But one glass taken now and again is a wonderful stomachic and
positively beneficial. I take one, perhaps, five times in a year and
like it. But, like all good things, it is terribly abused both by the
people who use it and those who don't."
Suddenly Helena turned to Gortre.
"Oh, look, Basil!" she said. "There is our friend of the Plage--Quinbus
Flestrin, the mountain of flesh, you remember your Swift?"
The big stranger, now in evening dress and a heavy fur coat, had just
come into the _café_ and was sitting there with a cigarette and a Paris
paper. He seemed lost in some sort of anxious speculation--at least so
it seemed by the drooping of the journal in his massive fingers and the
set expression of abstraction which lingered in his eyes and spread a
veil over his countenance.
They had all turned at Helena's exclamation and looked towards the other
side of the _café_, where the man was sitting.
"Why, that's Sir Robert Llwellyn," said Spence.
The vicar looked up eagerly. "The great authority on the antiquities of
the Holy Land?" he said.
"Yes, that's the man. They knighted him the other day. He's supposed to
be the greatest living authority, you know."
"Do you know him, then?" asked the vicar.
"Oh, yes," said Spence, carelessly. "One knows every one in my trade. I
have to. I've often gone to him for information when anything very
special has been discovered. And I've met him in clubs and at lectures
or at first nights at the theatre. He is a great play-goer."
"A decent sort of man?" said Gortre in a tone which certainly implied a
doubt.
Spence hesitated a moment. "Oh, well, I suppose so," he said carelessly.
"There are tales about his private life, but probably quite untrue. He's
a man of the world as well as a great scholar, and I suppose the rather
unusual combination makes people talk. But he is right up at the top of
the tree,--goes everywhere; and he's just been knighted for his work.
I'll go over and speak to him."
"If he'll come over," said the vicar, his eyes alight with anticipation
and the hope of a talk with this famous expert on the subjects nearest
his own heart, "bring him, _please_. There is nothing I should like
better than a chat with him. I know his _Modern Discoveries and Holy
Writ_ almost by heart."
They watched Spence go across to Sir Robert's table. The big man started
as he was spoken to, looked up in surprise, then smiled with pleasure,
and extended a welcoming hand. Spence sat down beside him and they were
soon in the middle of a brisk conversation.
"The poor man looked very bored until Mr. Spence spoke to him," said
Helena. "Father, I'm sure you'll have your wish. He seems glad to have
some one to talk to."
She was right. After a minute or two the journalist returned with
Llwellyn, and the five of them were soon in a full flood of talk.
"I was going to dine alone at my hotel," said the Professor, at length;
"but Spence says that he knows of a decent restaurant here. I wonder if
you would let me be one of your party? I'm quite alone in Dieppe for a
couple of days. I'm waiting for a friend with whom I am going to
travel."
"Oh, do come, Sir Robert," said the vicar, with manifest pleasure. "Are
you going to be away from England for long?"
"I have leave from the British Museum for a year," said the Professor.
"My doctor says that I require absolute rest. I am _en route_ for
Marseilles and from there to Alexandria."
The Pannier d'Or proved a pleasant little place, and the dinner was
excellent. The Professor surprised and then amused the others by his
criticism of the viands. He made the dinner his especial business, sent
for the cook and had a serious conversation with him, chose the wines
with extreme care.
His knowledge of the culinary art was enormous, and he treated it with a
kind of reverence, addressing himself more particularly to Helena.
"Yes, Miss Byars, you must be _most_ careful in the preparation of
really good crayfish soup. This is excellent. The great secret is to
flavour with a little lobster spawn and to mix the crumb of a French
roll with the stock--white stock of course--before you add the powdered
shells and anchovies."
Many times, despite his impatience to get to deeper and more congenial
subjects, the vicar smiled at the purring of this gourmet, who seemed to
prefer a sauce to an inscription and rissoles to research.
But with the special coffee--covered with fine yellow foam and
sweetened with crystals of amber sugar--the vicar's hour came. Sir
Robert realised that it was inevitable and with a half sigh gave the
required opening.
Once started, his manner changed utterly. The mask of materialism peeled
away from his face, which became younger, brighter, as thought animated
it, and new, finer lines cames out upon it as knowledge poured from him.
The conversation threatened to be a long one. Spence saw that and
proposed to go on to the Casino with Helena, leaving the two clergymen
with Llwellyn. It was when they had gone that the trio settled down
completely.
It resolved itself at first into a duologue between the two elder men.
Gortre's knowledge was too general and superficial on these purely
antiquarian matters to allow him to take much part in it. He sat sipping
his coffee and listening with keen attention and great enjoyment to this
talk of experts. He had not liked Llwellyn from the first and could not
do so even now, but he was forced to recognise the enormous intellectual
activity and power of the big, purring creature before him.
Step by step the two archæologists went over the new discoveries being
made in the ground between the City Wall of Jerusalem and the Hill of
"Jeremiah's Grotto." They talked of the blue and purple mosaics found on
the Mount of Olives, of all that had been done by the English and German
excavators during the past years.
Gradually the discussion became more intimate and began to touch on
great issues.
Mr. Byars was in a state of extraordinary interest. His knowledge was
wide, and Llwellyn early realised this, speaking to him as an equal,
but beside the Professor's all-embracing achievements it was as nothing.
The clergyman learnt something fresh, some sudden illuminating point of
view, some irradiating fact, at every moment.
"I suppose," Mr. Byars said at length, "that the true situation of the
Holy Sepulchre is still a matter of considerable doubt, Professor. Your
view would interest me extremely."
"My view," said Llwellyn, with remarkable earnestness and with an
emphasis which left no doubt about his convictions, "is that the
Sepulchre has not yet been located."
"And your view is authoritative of course," said Mr. Byars.
The Professor bowed.
"That is as it may be," he said, "but I have no doubt upon the subject.
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre is quite out of the question. There is
really no historical evidence for it beyond a foolish dream of the
Empress Helena, in A.D. 326. The people who _know_ dismiss the
traditional site at once. Of course it is _generally_ believed, but one
cannot expect the world at large to be cognisant of the doings of the
authorities. Canon MacColl has said that the traditional site is the
real one, and as his name has never been out of the public eye since
what were called 'The Bulgarian Atrocities,' they are content to follow
his lead. Then there is the question of the second site, in which a
great many people believe they have found the true Golgotha and
Sepulchre. 'The Gordon Tomb,' as it has been called, excited a great
deal of attention at the time of its discovery. You may remember that I
went to Jerusalem on behalf of the _Times_ to investigate the matter.
You may recollect that I proved beyond dispute that the tomb was not
Jewish at all, but indubitably Christian and long subsequent to the time
of Christ. As a matter of fact, when the tomb was excavated in 1873 it
was full of human bones and the mould of decomposed bodies, and there
were two red-painted crosses on the walls. The tomb was close to a large
Crusading hospice, and I have no doubt that it was used for the burial
of pilgrims. Besides, my excavations proved that the second "city wall"
must have _included_ the new site, so that the Gospel narrative at once
demolishes the new theory. I embodied twenty-seven other minor proofs in
my letters to the _Times_ also. No, Mr. Byars, my conviction is that we
are not yet able to locate in any way the position of Golgotha and the
Holy Tomb."
"You think that is to come?" asked Gortre.
"_I feel certain_," answered the Professor, with great deliberation and
meaning--"_I feel certain that we are on the eve of stupendous
discoveries in this direction_."
His tones were so impressive and so charged with import that the two
clergymen looked quickly at each other. It seemed obvious that Llwellyn
was aware of some impending discoveries. He must, they knew, be in
constant touch with all that was being done in Palestine. Curiously
enough, his words gave each of them a certain sense of chill, of
uneasiness. There seemed to be something behind them, something of
sinister suggestion, which they could not divine or formulate, but
merely felt as an action upon the nerves.
It was a rare experience to sit with the greatest living authority upon
a subject, and hear his views--views which it would be folly not to
accept. His knowledge was so sure and so profound, a sense of power
flowed from him.
But though both men felt a dim premonition of what his words might
possibly convey, neither could bring himself to a deliberate question.
Nor did Llwellyn appear to invite it. During the whole of their talk he
had sedulously avoided any religious questions. He had dealt solely with
historical aspects.
His position in the religious world was singular. His knowledge of
Biblical history was one of its assets, but he was not known definitely
as a believer.
His attitude had always been absolutely non-committal. He did the work
he had to do without taking sides.
It had become generally understood that no definite statement of his own
personal convictions was to be asked or expected from him.
The general consensus of opinion was that Sir Robert Llwellyn was _not_
a believer in the divinity of Christ; but it was merely an opinion, and
had never been confirmed by him.
There was rather a tense silence for a short time.
The Professor broke it.
"Let me show you," he said, taking a gold pencil-case from his pocket,
"a little map which I published at the time of the agitation about
Gordon's Tomb. I can trace the course of the city walls for you."
He felt in his pocket for some paper on which to make the drawing, and
took out a letter.
Gortre and the vicar drew their chairs closer.
Suddenly a curious pain shot through Basil's head and all his pulses
throbbed violently. He experienced a terribly familiar sensation--the
sick fear and repulsion of the night before his illness in the great
library. The aroma of some utterly evil and abominable personality
seemed to come into his brain.
For, as he had looked down at the paper on which the great white fingers
were now tracing thin lines, he had seen, before Llwellyn turned it
over, a firm, plain signature, thus:
Constantine Schuabe
With some excuse about the heat of the room, he left it and went out
into the night.
His brain was busy with terrible intuitive forebodings, he seemed to be
caught up in the fringe of some great net, the phantoms of his illness
came round him once more, the dark air was thick with their
wings--vague, and because of that more hideous.
He passed the lighted _kiosk_ at the Casino entrance with a white, set
face.
He was going home to pray.