"God doeth all things well, though by what strange, solemn, and
murderous contrivances."
I
John Coxeter was sitting with his back to the engine in a first-class
carriage in the Paris-Boulogne night train. Not only Englishman, but
Englishman of a peculiarly definite class, that of the London civil
servant, was written all over his spare, still active figure.
It was late September, and the rush homewards had begun; so Coxeter,
being a man of precise and careful habit, had reserved a corner seat.
Then, just before the train had started, a certain Mrs. Archdale, a
young widowed lady with whom he was acquainted, had come up to him on
the Paris platform, and to her he had given up his seat.
Coxeter had willingly made the little sacrifice of his personal comfort,
but he had felt annoyed when Mrs. Archdale in her turn had yielded the
corner place with foolish altruism to a French lad exchanging vociferous
farewells with his parents. When the train started the boy did not give
the seat back to the courteous Englishwoman to whom it belonged, and
Coxeter, more vexed by the matter than it was worth, would have liked to
punch the boy's head.
And yet, as he now looked straight before him, sitting upright in the
carriage which was rocking and jolting as only a French railway carriage
can rock and jolt, he realized that he himself had gained by the lad's
lack of honesty. By having thus given away something which did not
belong to her, Mrs. Archdale was now seated, if uncomfortably hemmed in
and encompassed on each side, just opposite to Coxeter himself.
Coxeter was well aware that to stare at a woman is the height of bad
breeding, but unconsciously he drew a great distinction between what is
good taste to do when one is being observed, and that which one does
when no one can catch one doing it. Without making the slightest effort,
in fact by looking straight before him, Nan Archdale fell into his
direct line of vision, and he allowed his eyes to rest on her with an
unwilling sense that there was nothing in the world he had rather they
rested on. Her appearance pleased his fastidious, rather old-fashioned
taste. Mrs. Archdale was wearing a long grey cloak. On her head was
poised a dark hat trimmed with Mercury wings; it rested lightly on the
pale golden hair which formed so agreeable a contrast to her deep blue
eyes.
Coxeter did not believe in luck; the word which means so much to many
men had no place in his vocabulary, or even in his imagination. But,
still, the sudden appearance of Mrs. Archdale in the great Paris station
had been an agreeable surprise, one of those incidents which, just
because of their unexpectedness, make a man feel not only pleased with
himself, but at one with the world.
Before Mrs. Archdale had come up to the carriage door at which he was
standing, several things had contributed to put Coxeter in an
ill-humour.
It had seemed to his critical British phlegm that he was surrounded,
immersed against his will, in floods of emotion. Among his fellow
travellers the French element predominated. Heavens! how they
talked--jabbered would be the better word--laughed and cried! How they
hugged and embraced one another! Coxeter thanked God he was an
Englishman.
His feeling of bored disgust was intensified by the conduct of a
long-nosed, sallow man, who had put his luggage into the same carriage
as that where Coxeter's seat had been reserved.
Strange how the peculiar characteristics common to the Jewish race
survive, whatever be the accident of nationality. This man also was
saying good-bye, his wife being a dark, thin, eager-looking woman of a
very common French type. Coxeter looked at them critically, he wondered
idly if the woman was Jewish too. On the whole he thought not. She was
half crying, half laughing, her hands now clasping her husband's arm,
now travelling, with a gesture of tenderness, up to his fleshy face,
while he seemed to tolerate rather than respond to her endearments and
extravagant terms of affection. "_Adieu, mon petit homme adoré!_" she
finally exclaimed, just as the tickets were being examined, and to
Coxeter's surprise the adored one answered in a very English voice,
albeit the utterance was slightly thick, "There, there! That'ull do, my
dear girl. It's only for a fortnight after all."
Coxeter felt a pang of sincere pity for the poor fellow; a cad, no
doubt--but an English cad, cursed with an emotional French wife!
Then his attention had been most happily diverted by the unexpected
appearance of Mrs. Archdale. She had come up behind him very quietly,
and he had heard her speak before actually seeing her. "Mr. Coxeter, are
you going back to England, or have you only come to see someone off?"
Not even then had Coxeter--to use a phrase which he himself would not
have used, for he avoided the use of slang--"given himself away." Over
his lantern-shaped face, across his thin, determined mouth, there had
still lingered a trace of the supercilious smile with which he had been
looking round him. And, as he had helped Mrs. Archdale into the
compartment, as he indicated to her the comfortable seat he had reserved
for himself, not even she--noted though she was for her powers of
sympathy and understanding--had divined the delicious tremor, the
curious state of mingled joy and discomfort into which her sudden
presence had thrown the man whom she had greeted a little doubtfully, by
no means sure that he would welcome her companionship on a long journey.
And, indeed, in spite of the effect she produced upon him, in spite of
the fact that she was the only human being who had ever had, or was ever
likely to have, the power of making him feel humble, not quite satisfied
with himself--Coxeter disapproved of Mrs. Archdale. At the present
moment he disapproved of her rather more than usual, for if she meant
to give up that corner seat, why had she not so arranged as to sit by
him? Instead, she was now talking to the French boy who occupied what
should have been her seat.
But Nan Archdale, as all her friends called her, was always like that.
Coxeter never saw her, never met her at the houses to which he went
simply in order that he might meet her, without wondering why she wasted
so much of the time she might have spent in talking to him, and above
all in listening to him, in talking and listening to other people.
Four years ago, not long after their first acquaintance, he had made her
an offer of marriage, impelled by something which had appeared at the
time quite outside himself and his usual wise, ponderate view of life.
He had been relieved, as well as keenly hurt, when she had refused him.
Everything that concerned himself appeared to John Coxeter of such
moment and importance that at the time it had seemed incredible that Nan
Archdale would be able to keep to herself the peculiar honour which had
befallen her,--one, by the way, which Coxeter had never seriously
thought of conferring on any other woman. But as time went on he became
aware that she had actually kept the secret which was not hers to
betray, and, emboldened by the knowledge that she alone knew of his
humiliating bondship, he had again, after a certain interval, written
and asked her if she would marry him. Again she had refused, in a kind,
impersonal little note, and this last time she had gone so far as to
declare that in this matter she really knew far better than he did
himself what was good for him, and once more something deep in his heart
had said "Amen."
When he thought about it, and he went on thinking about it more than was
quite agreeable for his own comfort or peace of mind, Coxeter would tell
himself, with what he believed to be a vicarious pang of regret, that
Mrs. Archdale had made a sad mistake as regarded her own interest. He
felt sure she was not fit to live alone; he knew she ought to be
surrounded by the kind of care and protection which only a husband can
properly bestow on a woman. He, Coxeter, would have known how to detach
her from the unsuitable people by whom she was always surrounded.
Nan Archdale, and Coxeter was much concerned that it was so, had an
instinctive attraction for those poor souls who lead forlorn hopes, and
of whom--they being unsuccessful in their fine endeavours--the world
never hears. She also had a strange patience and tenderness for those
ne'er-do-wells of whom even the kindest grow weary after a time. Nan had
a mass of queer friends, old protégés for whom she worked unceasingly in
a curious, detached fashion, which was quite her own, and utterly apart
from any of the myriad philanthropic societies with which the world she
lived in, and to which she belonged by birth, interests its prosperous
and intelligent leisure.
It was characteristic that Nan's liking for John Coxeter often took the
form of asking him to help these queer, unsatisfactory people. Why, even
in this last week, while he had been in Paris, he had come into close
relation with one of Mrs. Archdale's "odd-come-shorts." This time the
man was an inventor, and of all unpractical and useless things he had
patented an appliance for saving life at sea!
Nan Archdale had given the man a note to Coxeter, and it was
characteristic of the latter that, while resenting what Mrs. Archdale
had done, he had been at some pains when in Paris to see the man in
question. The invention--as Coxeter had of course known would be the
case--was a ridiculous affair, but for Nan's sake he had agreed to
submit it to the Admiralty expert whose business it is to consider and
pronounce on such futile things. The queer little model which its maker
believed would in time supersede the life-belts now carried on every
British ship, had but one merit, it was small and portable: at the
present moment it lay curled up, looking like a cross between a
serpent's cast skin and a child's spent balloon, in Coxeter's
portmanteau. Even while he had accepted the parcel with a coolly civil
word of thanks, he had mentally composed the letter with which he would
ultimately dash the poor inventor's hopes.
To-night, however, sitting opposite to her, he felt glad that he had
been to see the man, and he looked forward to telling her about it.
Scarcely consciously to himself, it always made Coxeter glad to feel
that he had given Nan pleasure, even pleasure of which he disapproved.
And yet how widely apart were these two people's sympathies and
interests! Putting Nan aside, John Coxeter was only concerned with two
things in life--his work at the Treasury and himself--and people only
interested him in relation to these two major problems of existence. Nan
Archdale was a citizen of the world--a freewoman of that dear kingdom of
romance which still contains so many fragrant byways and sunny oases for
those who have the will to find them. But for her freedom of this
kingdom she would have been a very sad woman, oppressed by the griefs
and sorrows of that other world to which she also belonged, for Nan's
human circle was ever widening, and in her strange heart there seemed
always room for those whom others rejected and despised.
She had the power no human being had ever had--that of making John
Coxeter jealous. This was the harder to bear inasmuch as he was well
aware that jealousy is a very ridiculous human failing, and one with
which he had no sympathy or understanding when it affected--as it
sometimes did--his acquaintances and colleagues. Fortunately for
himself, he was not retrospectively jealous--jealous that is of the dead
man of whom certain people belonging to his and to Nan's circle
sometimes spoke of as "poor Jim Archdale." Coxeter knew vaguely that
Archdale had been a bad lot, though never actually unkind to his wife;
nay, more, during the short time their married life had lasted,
Archdale, it seemed, had to a certain extent reformed.
Although he was unconscious of it, John Coxeter was a very material
human being, and this no doubt was why this woman had so compelling an
attraction for him; for Nan Archdale appeared to be all spirit, and that
in spite of her eager, sympathetic concern in the lives which circled
about hers.
And yet? Yet there was certainly a strong, unspoken link between them,
this man and woman who had so little in common the one with the other.
They met often, if only because they both lived in Marylebone, that most
conventional quarter of old Georgian London, she in Wimpole Street, he
in a flat in Wigmore Street. She always was glad to see him, and seemed
a little sorry when he left her. Coxeter was one of the rare human
beings to whom Nan ever spoke of herself and of her own concerns. But,
in spite of that curious kindliness, she did not do what so many people
who knew John Coxeter instinctively did--ask his advice, and, what was,
of course, more seldom done--take it. In fact he had sometimes angrily
told himself that Nan attached no weight to his opinion, and as time had
gone on he had almost given up offering her unsought advice.
John Coxeter attached great importance to health. He realized that a
perfect physical condition is a great possession, and he took
considerable pains to keep himself what he called "fit." Now Mrs.
Archdale was recklessly imprudent concerning her health, the health,
that is, which was of so great a value to him, her friend. She took her
meals at such odd times; she did not seem to mind, hardly to know, what
she ate and drank!
Of the many strange things Coxeter had known her to do, by far the
strangest, and one which he could scarcely think of without an inward
tremor, had happened only a few months ago.
Nan had been with an ailing friend, and the ailing friend's only son, in
the Highlands, and this friend, a foolish woman,--when recalling the
matter Coxeter never omitted to call this lady a foolish woman--on
sending her boy back to school, had given him what she had thought to be
a dose of medicine out of the wrong bottle, a bottle marked "Poison."
Nothing could be done, for the boy had started on his long railway
journey south before the mistake had been discovered, and even Coxeter,
when hearing the story told, had realized that had he been there he
would have been sorry, really sorry, for the foolish mother.
But Nan's sympathy--and on this point Coxeter always dwelt with a
special sense of injury--had taken a practical shape. She had poured out
a similar dose from the bottle marked "Poison" and had calmly drunk it,
observing as she did so, "I don't believe it _is_ poison in the real
sense of the word, but at any rate we shall soon be able to find out
exactly what is happening to Dick."
Nothing, or at least nothing but a bad headache, had followed, and so
far had Nan been justified of her folly. But to Coxeter it was terrible
to think of what might have happened, and he had not shared in any
degree the mingled amusement and admiration which the story, as told
afterwards by the culpable mother, had drawn forth. In fact, so deeply
had he felt about it that he had not trusted himself to speak of the
matter to Mrs. Archdale.
But Mrs. Archdale was not only reckless of her health; she was also
reckless--perhaps uncaring would be the truer word--of something which
John Coxeter supposed every nice woman to value even more than her
health or appearance, that is the curiously intangible, and yet so
easily frayed, human vesture termed reputation.
To John Coxeter the women of his own class, if worthy, that is, of
consideration and respect, went clad in a delicate robe of ermine, and
the thought that this ermine should have even a shade cast on its
fairness was most repugnant to him. Now Nan Archdale was not as careful
in this matter of keeping her ermine unspoiled and delicately white as
she ought to have been, and this was the stranger inasmuch as even
Coxeter realized that there was about his friend a Una-like quality
which made her unafraid, because unsuspecting, of evil.
Another of the cardinal points of Coxeter's carefully thought-out
philosophy of life was that in this world no woman can touch pitch
without being defiled. And yet on one occasion, at least, the woman who
now sat opposite to him had proved the falsity of this view. Nan
Archdale, apparently indifferent to the opinion of those who wished her
well, had allowed herself to be closely associated with one of those
unfortunate members of her own sex who, at certain intervals in the
history of the civilized world, become heroines of a drama of which each
act takes place in the Law Courts. Of these dramas every whispered word,
every piece of "business"--to pursue the analogy to its logical end--is
overheard and visualized not by thousands but by millions,--in fact by
all those of an age to read a newspaper.
Had the woman in the case been Mrs. Archdale's sister, Coxeter with a
groan would have admitted that she owed her a duty, though a duty which
he would fain have had her shirk or rather delegate to another. But this
woman was no sister, not even a friend, simply an old acquaintance
known to Nan, 'tis true, over many years. Nan had done what she had
done, had taken her in and sheltered her, going to the Court with her
every day, simply because there seemed absolutely no one else willing to
do it.
When he had first heard of what Mrs. Archdale was undertaking to do,
Coxeter had been so dismayed that he had felt called upon to expostulate
with her.
Very few words had passed between them. "Is it possible," he had asked,
"that you think her innocent? That you believe her own story?"
To this Mrs. Archdale had answered with some distress, "I don't know, I
haven't thought about it---- As she says she is--I hope she is. If she's
not, I'd rather not know it."
It had been a confused utterance, and somehow she had made him feel
sorry that he had said anything. Afterwards, to his surprise and
unwilling relief, he discovered that Mrs. Archdale had not suffered in
reputation as he had expected her to do. But it made him feel, more than
ever, that she needed a strong, wise man to take care of her, and to
keep her out of the mischief into which her unfortunate
good-nature--that was the way Coxeter phrased it to himself--was so apt
to lead her.
It was just after this incident that he had again asked her to marry
him, and that she had again refused him. But it was since then that he
had become really her friend.
* * * * *
At last Mrs. Archdale turned away, or else the French boy had come to an
end of his eloquence. Perhaps she would now lean a little forward and
speak to him--the friend whom she had not seen for some weeks and whom
she had seemed so sincerely glad to see half an hour ago? But no; she
remained silent, her face full of thought.
Coxeter leant back; as a rule he never read in a train, for he was aware
that it is injurious to the eyesight to do so. But to-night he suddenly
told himself that after all he might just as well look at the English
paper he had bought at the station. He might at least see what sort of
crossing they were going to have to-night. Not that he minded for
himself. He was a good sailor and always stayed on deck whatever the
weather, but he hoped it would be smooth for Mrs. Archdale's sake. It
was so unpleasant for a lady to have a rough passage.
Again, before opening the paper, he glanced across at her. She did not
look strong; that air of delicacy, combined as it was with perfect
health--for Mrs. Archdale was never ill--was one of the things that made
her attractive to John Coxeter. When he was with a woman, he liked to
feel that he was taking care of her, and that she was more or less
dependent on his good offices. Somehow or other he always felt this
concerning Nan Archdale, and that even when she was doing something of
which he disapproved and which he would fain have prevented her doing.
Coxeter turned round so that the light should fall on the page at which
he had opened his newspaper, which, it need hardly be said, was the
_Morning Post_. Presently there came to him the murmuring of two voices,
Mrs. Archdale's clear, low utterances, and another's, guttural and full.
Ah! then he had been right; the fellow sitting there, on Nan's other
side, was a Jew: probably something financial, connected with the Stock
Exchange. Coxeter of the Treasury looked at the man he took to be a
financier with considerable contempt. Coxeter prided himself on his
knowledge of human beings,--or rather of men, for even his
self-satisfaction did not go so far as to make him suppose that he
entirely understood women; there had been a time when he had thought
so, but that was a long while ago.
He began reading his newspaper. There was a most interesting article on
education. After having glanced at this, he studied more carefully
various little items of social news which reminded him that he had been
away from London for some weeks. Then, as he read on, the conversation
between Nan Archdale and the man next to her became more audible to him.
All the other people in the carriage were French, and so first one, and
then the other, window had been closed.
His ears had grown accustomed to the muffled, thundering sounds caused
by the train, and gradually he became aware that Nan Archdale was
receiving some singular confidences from the man with whom she was now
speaking. The fellow was actually unrolling before her the whole of his
not very interesting life, and by degrees Coxeter began rather to
overhear than to listen consciously to what was being said.
The Jew, though English by birth, now lived in France. As a young man he
had failed in business in London, and then he had made a fresh start
abroad, apparently impelled thereto by his great affection for his
mother. The Jewish race, so Coxeter reminded himself, are admirable in
every relation of private life, and it was apparently in order that his
mother might not have to alter her style of living that the person on
whom Mrs. Archdale was now fixing her attention had finally accepted a
post in a Paris house of business--no, not financial, something
connected with the sweetmeat trade.
Coxeter gathered that the speaker had at last saved enough money to make
a start for himself, and that now he was very prosperous. He spoke of
what he had done with legitimate pride, and when describing the struggle
he had gone through, the fellow used a very odd expression, "It wasn't
all jam!" he said. Now he was in a big way of business, going over to
London every three months, partly in connection with his work, partly to
see his old mother.
Behind his newspaper Coxeter told himself that it was amazing any human
being should tell so much of his private concerns to a stranger. Even
more amazing was it that a refined, rather peculiar, woman like Nan
Archdale should care to listen to such a commonplace story. But
listening she was, saying a word here and there, asking, too, very
quaint, practical questions concerning the sweetmeat trade. Why, even
Coxeter became interested in spite of himself, for the Jew was an
intelligent man, and as he talked on Coxeter learned with surprise that
there is a romantic and exciting side even to making sweets.
"What a pity it is," he heard Nan say at last in her low, even voice,
"that you can't now come back to England and settle down there. Surely
it would make your mother much happier, and you don't seem to like Paris
so very much?"
"That is true," said the man, "but--well, unluckily there's an obstacle
to my doing that----"
Coxeter looked up from his paper. The stranger's face had become
troubled, preoccupied, and his eyes were fixed, or so Coxeter fancied
them to be, on Nan Archdale's left hand, the slender bare hand on which
the only ring was her wedding ring.
Coxeter once more returned to his paper, but for some minutes he made no
attempt to follow the dancing lines of print.
"I trust you won't be offended if I ask whether you are, or are not, a
married lady?" The sweetmeat man's voice had a curious note of shamed
interrogation threading itself through the words.
Coxeter felt surprised and rather shocked. This was what came of
allowing oneself to become familiar with an underbred stranger! But Nan
had apparently not so taken the impertinent question, for, "I am a
widow," Coxeter heard her answer gently, in a voice that had no touch of
offence in it.
And then, after a few moments, staring with frowning eyes at the
spread-out sheet of newspaper before him, Coxeter, with increasing
distaste and revolt, became aware that Mrs. Archdale was now receiving
very untoward confidences--confidences which Coxeter had always imagined
were never made save under the unspoken seal of secrecy by one man to
another. This objectionable stranger was telling Nan Archdale the story
of the woman who had seen him off at the station, and whose absurd
phrase, "_Adieu, mon petit homme adoré_," had rung so unpleasantly in
his, Coxeter's, ears.
The eavesdropper was well aware that such stories are among the everyday
occurrences of life, but his knowledge was largely theoretical; John
Coxeter was not the sort of man to whom other men are willing to confide
their shames, sorrows, or even successes in a field of which the
aftermath is generally bitter.
In as far as such a tale can be told with decent ambiguity it was so
told by this man of whose refinement Coxeter had formed so poor an
opinion, but still the fact that he was telling it remained--and it was
a fact which to such a man as Coxeter constituted an outrage on the
decencies of life.
Mrs. Archdale, by her foolish good-nature, had placed herself in such a
position as to be consulted in a case of conscience concerning a Jewish
tradesman and his light o' love, and now the man was debating with her
as with himself, as to whether he should marry this woman, as to whether
he should force on his respectable English mother a French
daughter-in-law of unmentionable antecedents! Coxeter gathered that the
liaison had lasted ten years--that it had begun, in fact, very soon
after the man had first come to Paris.
In addition to his feeling of wrath that Nan Archdale should become
cognisant of so sordid a tale, there was associated a feeling of shame
that he, Coxeter, had overheard what it had not been meant that he
should hear.
Perforce the story went on to its melancholy and inconclusive end, and
then, suddenly, Coxeter became possessed with a desire to see Nan
Archdale's face. He glanced across at her. To his surprise her face was
expressionless; but her left hand was no longer lying on her knee, it
was supporting her chin, and she was looking straight before her.
"I suppose," she said at last, "that you have made a proper provision
for your--your friend? I mean in case of your death. I hope you have so
arranged matters that if anything should happen to you, this poor woman
who loves you would not have to go back to the kind of life from which
you took her." Even Coxeter divined that Nan had not found it easy to
say this thing.
"Why, no, I haven't done anything of that sort. I never thought of doing
it; she's always been the delicate party. I am as strong as a horse!"
"Still--still, life's very uncertain." Mrs. Archdale was now looking
straight into the face of the stranger on whom she was thrusting
unsought advice.
"She has no claim on me, none at all----" the man spoke defensively. "I
don't think she'd expect anything of that sort. She's had a very good
time with me. After all, I haven't treated her badly."
"I'm sure you haven't," Nan spoke very gently. "I am sure you have been
always kind to her. But, if I may use the simile you used just now,
life, even to the happiest, the most sheltered, of women, isn't all
jam!"
The man looked at her with a doubting, shame-faced glance. "I expect
you're right," he said abruptly. "I ought to have thought of it. I'll
make my will when I'm in England this time--I ought to have done so
before."
Suddenly Coxeter leant forward. He felt the time had come when he really
must put an end to this most unseemly conversation.
"Mrs. Archdale?" he spoke loudly, insistently. She looked up, startled
at the sharpness of the tone, and the man next her, whose eyes had been
fixed on her face with so moved and doubting a look, sat back. "I want
to tell you that I've seen your inventor, and that I've promised to put
his invention before the right quarter at the Admiralty."
In a moment Nan was all eagerness. "It really is a very wonderful
thing," she said; "I'm so grateful, Mr. Coxeter. Did you go and see it
tried? _I_ did, last time I was in Paris; the man took me to a
swimming-bath on the Seine--such an odd place--and there he tested it
before me. I was really very much impressed. I do hope you will say a
word for it. I am sure they would value your opinion."
Coxeter looked at her rather grimly. "No, I didn't see it tested." To
think that she should have wasted even an hour of her time in such a
foolish manner, and in such a queer place, too! "I didn't see the use of
doing so, though of course the man was very anxious I should. I'm
afraid the thing's no good. How could it be?" He smiled superciliously,
and he saw her redden.
"How unfair that is!" she exclaimed. "How can you possibly tell whether
it's no good if you haven't seen it tried? Now I _have_ seen the thing
tried."
There was such a tone of protest in her voice that Coxeter felt called
upon to defend himself. "I daresay the thing's all right in theory," he
said quickly, "and I believe what he says about the ordinary life-belts;
it's quite true, I mean, that they drown more people than they save: but
that's only because people don't know how to put them on. This thing's a
toy--not practical at all." He spoke more irritably than he generally
allowed himself to speak, for he could see that the Jew was listening to
all that they were saying.
All at once, Mrs. Archdale actually included the sweetmeat stranger in
their conversation, and Coxeter at last found himself at her request
most unwillingly taking the absurd model out of his bag. "Of course
you've got to imagine this in a rough sea," he said sulkily, playing the
devil's advocate, "and not in a fresh water river bath."
"Well, _I_ wouldn't mind trying it in a rough sea, Mr. Coxeter." Nan
smiled as she spoke.
Coxeter wondered if she was really serious. Sometimes he suspected that
Mrs. Archdale was making fun of him--but that surely was impossible.