THE sight of Joanna froze Paragot into momentary sobriety. He stood
rigid for a few seconds and then swayed into a chair by one of the
tables and sat with his head in his hands. I went up to Joanna.
"He can't come to-night, Madame."
"Why not?"
"He is not fit."
As she realised my meaning a look of great pain and repulsion passed
over her face.
"But he must come. Perhaps he will be better presently. You will
accompany us and help me, Mr. Asticot, won't you?"
As usual the frost melted from her eyes and her voice--the silvery
English voice--went to my heart. I bent over Paragot and whispered.
"Take her from this pigstye and the sight of the hog," muttered Paragot.
His hands were clenched in a mighty effort to concentrate his wits.
Joanna approached and touched him on the shoulder.
"Gaston."
Suddenly he relaxed his grip and broke into a stupid laugh.
"Very well. What does it matter? Sorry haven't got--velveteen suit."
"What does he say?" she asked turning to me.
"That he will come, Madame," said I.
Hercule aided me to frog-march him out of the café and across the
pavement to the waiting carriage. Joanna took her seat by his side and I
sat opposite. Hercule shut the carriage door and we drove off. Paragot
relapsed into stupor.
"I don't know how to ask you to forgive me, Mr. Asticot, for keeping you
out of your bed at this time of night," said Joanna. "But I am very
friendless here in Paris."
We went along the Boul' Mich' by the quais to the Pont de la Concorde,
crossed the vast and now silent expanse of the Place de la Concorde and,
going by the Rue Royale and the long dull Boulevard Malesherbes and the
Boulevard Haussmann, entered the Avenue de Messine. It is a long drive
under the most cheerful circumstances; but at one o'clock in the morning
in the company of the dearest thing in the world to me half drunk, and
the dear lady whom he worshipped horrified and disgusted at the thought
thereof, it seemed interminable. At last we arrived at No. 7. At my ring
the door swung open drawn by the concierge within. I helped Paragot out
of the carriage. He made a desperate effort to stand and walk steadily.
Heaven knows how he managed to clamber with not too great indecency up
the stairs to the Comte de Verneuil's flat on the first floor. Joanna
opened the door with her latch key and we entered a softly-lit drawing
room.
"Let me sit down," said Paragot. "I shall be better presently."
He sank an ashamed heap on a sofa by the wall, and with his fingers
through his long black hair fought for mastery over his intoxication.
The Comtesse de Verneuil left us and presently returned, having taken
off her hat and evening wrap. She brought a little silver tray with
Madeira wine and biscuits.
"We need something, Mr. Asticot," she said graciously.
We drank the wine and sat down to wait for Paragot's recovery. Although
it was late May, a wood fire glowed beneath the great chimney-piece.
This made of blue and white ware with corbels of cherubs caught my
attention. I had seen things like it in the stately museums of Italy.
"But this is Della Robbia," I exclaimed.
She smiled, somewhat surprised. "You are a connoisseur as well as a
philosopher, Mr. Asticot? Yes, it is Della Robbia. The Comte de Verneuil
is a great collector."
Then for the first time I looked about the room, and I caught my breath
as I realised its wealth and luxury. For a time I forgot Paragot, lost
in a dream of Florentine tapestries, priceless cabinets, porcelain,
silver, pictures, richly toned rugs, chairs with rhythmic lines, all
softened into harmonious mystery by the shaded light of the lamps. At
the end of a further room just visible through the looped curtains a
great piece of statuary gleamed white. I had never entered such a room
in my life before. My master had taken me through the show apartments of
great houses and palaces, but they were uninhabited, wanted the human
touch. It had not occurred to me that men and women could have such
wonder as their daily environment, or could invest it with the
indefinable charm of intimacy. I turned and looked at Joanna as she sat
by the Della Robbia chimney-piece, gracious and distinguished, and
Joanna became merged in the Countess de Verneuil, the great lady, as far
removed from me as my little bare attic from this treasure house of
luxury. She wore the room, so to speak, as I wore the attic. Overcome
by sudden timidity I could barely reply to her remarks.
She was in no mood for conversation, poor lady; so there dropped upon us
a dead silence, during which she stared frozenly into the fire while I,
afraid to move, occupied the time by storing in my memory every
bewitching detail of her dress and person. The oil sketch of her I made
a day or two afterwards hangs before me as I write these lines. I prided
myself on having caught the colour of her hair--black with the blue
reflections like the blue of cigarette smoke.
Suddenly the quietness was startled by loud groans of agony and
unintelligible speech coming from some room of the flat. Paragot
staggered noisily to his feet, a shaking, hairy, dishevelled spectre,
blinking glazed eyes.
Madame de Verneuil started and leaned forward, her hands on the arms of
her chair.
"My husband," she whispered, and for a few seconds we all listened to
the unearthly sounds. Then she rose and turned to me.
"You had better see it through."
She crossed to Paragot.
"Are you better now?"
"I can do what is required of me," said my master, humbly, though in his
ordinary voice. He was practically sober.
"Then come," said Joanna.
We followed her out of the room, through softly carpeted corridors full
of pictures and statues and beautiful vases, and entered a dimly lit
bedroom. A nurse rose from a chair by the bed, where lay a bald-headed,
beaky-nosed man groaning and raving in some terrible madness. Joanna
gripped my arm as Paragot went to the bedside.
"I am Gaston de Nérac," said he.
The Comte de Verneuil raised himself on his elbow and looked at him in a
wild way. I too should have liked to grip someone's arm, for the sight
of the man sent a shudder through me, but I braced myself up under the
consoling idea that I was protecting Joanna.
"You are not dead then? I did not kill you?" said the Comte de Verneuil.
"No, since I am here to tell you that I am alive."
The sweat poured off the man's face. He lay back exhausted.
"I do not know why," he gasped, "but I thought I had killed you." He
closed his eyes.
"That is enough," said the nurse.
Without a word, we all returned to the drawing-room. It was an
astounding comedy.
"I am grateful," said Joanna to my master. "I wish there were some means
of repaying you."
"I thought," said he, with a touch of irony which she did not notice,
"that it was I who was paying for a wrong I did you."
She drew herself up and surveyed him from head to foot, with a little
air of disdain.
"I forget," she said icily, "that you ever did me any wrong."
"And I can't," said he; "I wish to heaven I could. You beheld me
to-night in the process of trying--an unedifying sight for Madame la
Comtesse de Verneuil."
"An unedifying sight for anybody," said Joanna.
He bowed his head. Something pathetic in his attitude touched her. She
was a tender-hearted woman. Her hand caught his sleeve.
"Gaston, why have you come down to this? You of all men?"
"Because I am the one poor fool of all poor fools who takes life
seriously."
Joanna sighed. "I can't understand you."
"Is there any necessity?"
"You belong to a time when one wanted to understand everything. Now
nothing much matters. But curiously in your case the desire has
returned."
"You understood me well enough to be sure that when you wanted me I
would be at your service."
"I don't know," she said. "It was a desperate resort to save my
husband's reason. Oh, come," she cried, moving to the chairs by the
fire, "let us sit and talk for five minutes. The other times you came
and went and we scarcely spoke a word. Besides," with a forced laugh,
"it would not have been _convenable_. Now Mr. Asticot is here as
chaperon. It doesn't seem like real life, does it, that you and I should
be here? It is like some grotesque dream in which all sorts of
incoherences are mixed up together. Don't you at least find it
interesting?"
"As interesting as toothache," replied Paragot.
"If it is pain for you to talk to me, Gaston, I will not detain you,"
said Joanna, rising from her chair.
"Forgive me," said he; "I suppose my manners have gone with the rest.
You may help me to recover them if you allow me to talk to you."
He passed his hand wearily over his face, which during the last minute
or two had been overspread by a queer pallor. He looked ghastly.
"Tell me," said he, "why you come to that boozing-ken of a place? A
note would reach me and I would obey."
She explained that there was no time for letter-writing. The Comte's
attacks came on suddenly at night. To soothe him it was necessary to
find the chief actor in the absurd comedy at once, at any cost to her
reputation. Besides, what did it matter? The only person who knew of her
escapade was the coachman, an old family servant of the Comte, as
discreet as death.
"How long have these attacks been going on?" asked my master.
Joanna poured out her story with the pathetic eagerness of a woman who
has kept hateful secrets in her heart too long and at last finds a human
soul in whom she can confide. I think she almost forgot my presence, for
I sat modestly apart, separated from them by the wide cone of light cast
by the shaded lamp.
The first symptoms of mental derangement, she said, had manifested
themselves two years ago. They had gradually increased in frequency and
intensity. During the interval the Comte de Verneuil went about the
world a sane man. The attacks, as she had explained, came on suddenly,
always at night, and his fixed idea was that he had killed Gaston de
Nérac. Before Paragot had appeared they lasted two or three days, till
they spent themselves leaving the patient in great bodily prostration.
When she had met me taking the Spring outside the Hôtel Bristol, a wild
idea had entered her head that the confrontation of the Comte with the
living Gaston de Nérac might end his madness. On the occasion of the
next attack she had rushed in eager search for Paragot, had brought him
to the raving bedside, and the result had been magical. She had thought
the cure permanent; but a fortnight later the attack returned, as it had
returned again and again, and as it had returned to-night.
"It is charitable of you to have come, Gaston," she said, in her sweet
way, "and I must ask you to forgive me for anything unkind I may have
said."
He made some reply in a low voice which I did not hear, and for a little
time their talk was pitched in the same tone. I began to grow sleepy. I
aroused myself with a jerk to hear Joanna say,
"Why did you play that detestable tune from 'Orphée aux Enfers'?"
"To see if you would recognise it. Some mocking devil prompted me. It
was the last tune you and I heard together--the night of our engagement
party. The band played it in the garden."
"Don't--don't!" exclaimed Joanna, putting up her hands to her face.
This then was why each had cried out at Aix-les-Bains against the merry
little tune. It was interesting. I saw however that it must have jangled
horribly on tense nerves.
She dashed away her hands suddenly and strained her face towards him.
"Why, Gaston--why did you?"
He rose with a deprecating gesture and there was a hunted look in his
eyes. During all this strange scene he was no longer Paragot, my master,
but Gaston de Nérac whom I did not know. His wild, picturesque speech,
his dear vagabond manner had gone. The haggardness of some desperate
illness changed his features and I grew frightened. I came to his side.
"Master--we must take a cab. Have you any money?"
"Yes," he said faintly, "let us go home."
"But you are ill! You look as white as a ghost!" cried Joanna, in alarm.
"I had a dinner of herbs--in the liquid form of absinthe," said my
master with a clutch at Paragot. "How does it go? Better a dinner of
herbs where love is----"
"Ah! Monsieur has not yet gone," said the nurse, hurrying into the room.
"Monsieur le Comte begs me to give this to Monsieur."
She held out a letter.
"Monsieur le Comte made me open his despatch box, Madame," she added
apologetically.
She left the room. Paragot stood twirling the letter between his
fingers. Joanna bade him open it. It might be something important
Paragot drew from the envelope half a sheet of note-paper. He looked at
it, made a staggering step to the door and fell sprawling prone upon the
carpet.
Joanna uttered a little cry of fright, and, as I did, cast herself on
her knees beside him. He had fainted. Abstinence from food, drink, his
tremendous effort of will towards sobriety, the strain of the interview,
had brought him to the verge of the precipice, and it only required the
shock of the letter to send him toppling over. We propped his head on
cushions and loosened his collar.
"What can we do?" gasped my dear lady.
"I will call the nurse from Monsieur le Comte's room," said I.
"She will know," said Joanna hopefully.
I went to the Comte's room, opened the door and beckoned to the nurse.
She gave a glance at her sleeping patient and joined me in the corridor.
On my explanation she brought water and sal-volatile and returned with
me to the drawing-room. It was a night of stupefying surprises. The
_quartier_ would have called it _abracadabrant_ and they would not have
been far wrong. There was necromancy in the air. I felt it, as I
followed the nurse across the threshold. I anticipated something odd,
some grotesque development. In the atmosphere of those I loved in those
days I was as sensitive as a barometer.
Paragot lay still as death, his wild hairy head on the satin cushions,
but Joanna was crouching on her knees in the midst of the cone of light
cast by the shaded lamp, reading, with parted lips and blanched face,
the half sheet of note-paper. As we entered she turned and looked at me
and her eyes were frozen hard blue. The nurse bent over by my master's
side.
Joanna stretched out her arms full length towards me.
"Read," she cried, and her voice was harsh with no silvery tone in it at
all. I took the paper wonderingly from her fingers.
Why she should have shown it to me, the wretched little pasty-faced
gutter-bred art student, I could not conceive for many of the after
years during which I wrestled with the head- and heart-splitting
perplexities of women. But experience has taught me that human beings,
of whichever sex they may be, will do amazing things in times of
spiritual upheaval. I have known the primmest of vicar's churchwardens
curse like a coal-heaver when a new incumbent chose in his stead a less
prim man than he.
I was just a human entity, I suppose, who had strayed into the sacred
and intimate sphere of her life--the only one perhaps in the world who
had done so. She was stricken to the soul. Instinct compelled my sharing
of her pain.
She commanded me to read. I was only nineteen. Had she commanded me to
drink up eisel or eat a crocodile, I would have done it. I read.
The address of the letter was Eaton Square: the date, the 20th of June
thirteen years before. The wording as follows:--
"In consideration of the sum of Ten thousand pounds I the undersigned
Gaston de Nérac promise and undertake from this moment not to hold any
communication by word or writing with Miss Joanna Rushworth for the
space of two years--that is to say until midnight of the 20th June 18--.
Should however Miss Joanna Rushworth be married in the meantime, I
solemnly undertake on my honour as a gentleman not of my own free will
to hold any communication with her whatever as long as I live, or should
circumstances force us to meet, not to acquaint her in any way with the
terms of this agreement, whereof I hold myself bound by the spirit as
well as by the letter. GASTON DE NÉRAC."
* * * * *
My young and unpractised mind required some minutes to realise the
meaning of this precious agreement. When it had done so I stared blankly
at Joanna.
The nurse in her businesslike fashion drew the curtains and flung the
French windows wide open.
"He has only fainted. He will soon come round."
She returned to Paragot's side. Joanna and I remained staring at each
other. She rose, took me by the sleeve and dragged me to the fireplace.
"The writing is my husband's," she said in a whisper. "The signature is
his," pointing to Paragot. "He sold me to my husband for ten thousand
pounds on the evening of our engagement party. What am I to do? I
haven't a friend in this hateful country."
I longed to tell her she had at least one friend, but as I could neither
help nor advise her I said nothing.
"No wonder he has a banking account," she said with a bitter laugh. I
noticed then that a strained woman's humour is unpleasant. She sat down.
The corners of her kind lips quivered.
"The world is turned upside down," she said piteously. "There is no
love, honour or loyalty in it. I felt this evening as if I could forgive
him; but now--" She rose and wrung her hands and exclaimed sharply, "Oh,
it's hateful, it's hateful for men to be so base!"
That it was a base action to sell Joanna for any sum of money, however
bewildering in largeness, I could not deny. But that Paragot should have
been guilty of it I would not have believed had the accusation come from
Joanna's own lips. The confounded scrap of paper, however, was proof.
Therein he had pledged himself to give up Joanna for ten thousand
pounds, and the scaly-headed vulture had paid the money. I turned away
sadly and went to help the nurse minister to my master.
He opened his eyes and whispered that I must fetch a cab.
"Or a dung-cart," he added, characteristically.
Glad of action I went out into the long quiet avenue and after five
minutes' walk hailed a passing fiacre. The nurse admitted me when I rang
the bell. I found Paragot sitting on the sofa by the wall, and Joanna
where I had left her, by the Della Robbia chimney-piece. Apparently they
had not had a very companionable five minutes. He rose as I entered.
"I thought you were never coming," said he. "Let us go."
"I must say good-bye to Madame."
"Be quick about it," he whispered.
I crossed the room to Joanna's chair and made a French bow according to
my instruction in manners.
"Good night, Madame."
She held out her hand to me--such a delicate soft little hand, but quite
cold and nerveless.
"Good night, Mr. Asticot. I am sorry our friendship has been so short."
I joined Paragot. He said from where he stood by the door:--
"Good night, Madame la Comtesse."
She made no reply. Instinctively both of us lingered a second on the
threshold, filling our eyes with the beauty and luxury that were all
part and parcel of Joanna, and as the door closed behind us we felt like
two bad angels turned out of Paradise.