"Yes, afraid!" said Mr. Spenlove, suddenly, after another long pause, as
though one of the silent and recumbent forms under the awning had
contradicted him. "We have got so that no man dare do anything off his
own bat, as we say. We hunt in packs. It makes no difference whether the
individual man is a saint or a sinner.
"We pull him down. Our whole scheme of life has been designed to put a
premium on the tame and well-behaved, on the careful and steady
householder and his hygienic _menage_. We read with regret of disorder
in various parts of the world, and we despatch our legions from our own
immaculate shores to 'restore order.' Punitive expeditions we call them.
We have assumed the role of policeman in an ebullient world. Faith,
Love, Courage, are well enough if they declare a dividend and fill up
the necessary forms. We are dominated by the domestic. Women like Mrs.
Evans wield enormous power. It is not so much that they have character
as characteristics. They are the priestesses of the Temples of Home. I
used to watch that woman on the voyage to England. I was inspired by a
new and rabid curiosity. I wanted to see her in that aspect of security
which had moved the girl with such bitterness. Because Mrs. Evans hadn't
struck me as very safe when I had last seen her, sending out wireless
calls to me in her extremity. She had been sure I would give dear Jack
the best advice. That, in her private mind, was my mission on earth--to
minister to the needs of her and her angel child. But she was safe now.
She would greet me in what for her was almost a melting mood. I was the
confidant of the angel child's imaginary maladies. I was permitted to be
by while this precious being, sitting among blankets after her bath, was
fed with a highly nitrogenous extract of something or other from a cup.
Once I made a remark to the effect that they would have to get a fresh
nurse when they got home. Mrs. Evans bridled. She drew down the corners
of her mouth and remarked that in future she would look after Babs
herself.
"'But,' I said, 'if you could get a girl like Miss Macedoine.' Mrs.
Evans kept her gaze on Babs, who was staring at me over the rim of the
cup with her bold, protuberant black eyes like those of some marine
animal.
"'No,' she said, 'girls like that are too much trouble.'
"'You mean--followers?' I suggested. Mrs. Evans turned red and moved
slightly.
"'She wasn't nice,' she replied, coldly, and pronounced it 'neyce.'
"'Oh,' I said, 'I wasn't aware you knew.' She got redder.
"'I don't know what you are talking about,' she muttered. 'As far as I
could see, she was very fortunate in getting her passage out free, very
fortunate. She was not neyce with Babs. Babs didn't take to her.
Children _know_!'
"'Still,' I said, looking at the omniscient Babs lying back in repletion
and trying to decide upon some fresh demand, 'Still, I felt sorry for
her, a pretty creature like that, at a dangerous age, you know...' I
had to stop, for Mrs. Evans' usually pale features were a dull brick
red. Her head was drawn back and she became rigid with disapproval. This
is what I mean when I say such women wield enormous power. They are
panoplied in prejudice and conventional purity. Mrs. Evans was like
that. She was safe. She was a pure woman. I looked at her thin, peaked
little features as she replaced the blanket about the kicking limbs of
the angel child and thought of that girl with her bright, defiant,
derisive smile challenging me to high adventure. Mrs. Evans' function in
life was not to challenge but to disapprove. She could endure no
discussion of the fundamentals. She could read tales of passion and
rape, and not a flicker of emotion would cross that pallid face. But
there must be no spoken word. Instinctively she drew back and became
rigid, protecting her immaculate soul and the angel child from the
faintest breath of reality. In that flat bosom raged a hatred, a horror,
of beauty and the desire of it--a conviction that it was neither good
nor evil, but simply strange, foreign, unknown, unsuitable; incompatible
with the semi-detached house on the Portsmouth Road whose photograph
hung on the bulkhead behind her. There was something shocking in the
contrast this woman presented to her environment out there. Gruenbaum,
living under the shadow of his mountain, claiming from the world
'confidence in his dispositions'; Macedoine and his lieutenant devising
fantastic skin-games to be played out among the haunts of the old
Cabirian gods; Artemisia fighting her own sad little battle with the
fates and steeling her soul with reckless resolutions; even old Jack, no
bad prototype of the ancient ship-masters who ran their battered biremes
up on yonder beach to mend their storm-strained gear--all were more or
less congruous with this old Isle of Ipsilon, where Perseus grew to
manhood and from whose shores he set out on his journey to find Medusa.
But not she. She transcended experience. To know her made one
incredulous of one's own spiritual adventures. One nursed indelicate and
never-to-be-satisfied curiosities about her emotional divagations. She
once confessed, in a tone of querulous austerity, that she 'lived only
for the child.' Possibly this was the key. Beauty and Love, and even
Life itself, as men understood them, were to her the shocking but
inevitable conditions of attaining to an existence consecrated to her
neat and toy-like ideal. I am only explaining how she impressed me. As
you say, she was, and is, simply a respectable married woman. But
respectable married women, when you live with them without being married
to them, are sometimes very remarkable manifestations of human nature.
"Yes, I used to watch that woman on the voyage home. I was full of
curiosity about her. I was loth to believe in a human being so
insensitive to what we usually call human emotions. There was difficulty
about getting her ashore in Algiers. It was only when Jack said she
would get smothered in coal-dust if she stayed that she consented to go
at all. She came back with a very poor opinion of Africa. It appears
that it was hot and they did not know at the cafe how to make tea. A
mosquito had had the effrontery to bite Babs. I was informed of this
momentous adventure after we had gone to sea again, though Mrs. Evans
had been cultivating a certain evasion where I was concerned since our
talk about Artemisia. She had sheered off from me and tried to pump Jack
about the girl. He came to me, his bright brown eyes globular with the
news. What did I know, eh? Missus was saying she'd heard there was
something fishy about the gel. Not that he'd be surprised. It only
showed, he went on, how particular a man had to be. Gel like that ought
to be _married_. Mrs. Evans was very particular whom she had about.
Always had been. I knew, of course, how carefully she'd been brought up.
A lady. There was something about that gel ... no, he never could give
it a name, but he didn't like it. Bad for the kid. Children _knew_. And
they were the devil for picking things up. Here was Angelina, only the
other night, getting him into a regular pickle because she'd heard him
say 'damn' and brought it out plump in front of Mrs. Evans. Couldn't be
too careful. Fancy a kid that age saying a thing like that--'Damn
by-bye, damn by-bye!' Jack's eyes grew larger and more prominent. Mrs.
Evans had been very upset when he had remarked irascibly that a ship was
no place for a child anyway. No more it was. 'Fred'--(I could see this
coming, mind you, a week before)--'Fred, my boy,' said he, 'I shall be
glad when we get home. I can see it now. It's a mistake. I always said
so when the commander brought his wife along.' It didn't do to take a
woman away from where she belonged. She saw too much, as well. What did
I think she said the other day? A fact. 'You and Mr. Spenlove don't seem
to me to _do_ much.' Think of that! And sometimes he wondered if she
didn't pay more attention to that infernal pier-head jumper, Bloom, than
to her own husband. I should hear him at the cabin table--'When _I_ was
commander, Mrs. Evans, I always insisted on the junior officers
overseeing the routine of the ship. When _I_ was commander, I made it a
rule that engineers should keep to their own part of the ship.' It was
enough to make a man sick, but women didn't know any better.... Glad to
get home. Was I going to Threxford?
"Well, no, I didn't go down to Threxford. I went to the station to see
them off from Glasgow, though. Mrs. Evans held up the angel child for me
to kiss. 'Kiss Mr. Spenlove, Babsy, darling.' The youngster favoured me
with one of her bold, predatory stares as she desisted from torturing
her immense teddy bear for a moment. I had a sudden and disconcerting
vision of Jack's daughter as she would be-well, as she is to-day, I
expect ... a robust, self-centred, expensively attired autocrat, ruling
her parents, her friends, and her adorers with the smooth efficiency of
a healthy tigress. Jack once muttered to me that she'd 'knock the men
over' and he seemed to take a certain grim relish in contemplating the
future overthrow of the love-sick swains. And I saw in the background of
this vision, as one sees a pale bluish shadow of a form in the
background of a bright, highly coloured portrait, I saw Mrs. Evans,
shrinking as the angel child developed, and cowering before that
nonchalant vampirism. A well-nourished young cannibal, I figure her, for
such characters need human beings for their sustenance, if you take the
trouble to observe their habits. I suppose she regarded me as
indigestible, for she kissed me without rapture, and I never saw her
again.
"And the next voyage we slipped back into our usual jog-trot round. Mr.
Bloom, that fine flower of professional culture, was replaced by one of
our skippers who had lost his license for a year for some highly
technical reason. Jack was rather perturbed by the prospect of having a
brother-captain under him, but the new chief-officer was temporarily
stunned by the blow fate had dealt him and was a good fellow anyhow.
Young Siddons, who was able to carry on by the time we sailed, said he
was a jolly decent old sort. Young Siddons and I had a good many talks
together that voyage. He was in sore need, you know, of somebody to
confide in. We all need that when we are in love. It has been my lot,
more than once, to be favoured with these confidences. Tactless? Oh, no.
As the Evanses said about children, these young hearts _know_. Yes, we
talked, and I received fresh light upon the mysteries of passion. As
Jack had said, young Siddons was the sort to take it hard. His face grew
thinner and there was a new and austere expression in his fine gray
eyes. We say easily, oh, the young don't die of love! But don't they?
Doesn't the youth we knew die? Don't we discover, presently, that a
firmer and more durable and perhaps slightly less lovable character has
appeared? So it seems to me. Not that Siddons was less lovable. But the
gay and somewhat care-free youth who had laughed so happily on the
voyage out when the girl had stopped for a while to chat with him was
dead. He had a memory to feed on now, a sombre-sweet reminiscence dashed
with the faint bitterness of an inevitable frustration. He took it out
of me, so to speak, using me as a confessor, not of sins, but of
illusions.
"He enlightened me, moreover, concerning the mishap which had befallen
him and thrown him so definitely out of the race. He had met M. Nikitos
on his way up to keep his tryst. She was standing at the door above
them, silhouetted against the light, when they met on the path below. In
darkness, of course. The lieutenant of the Anglo-Hellenic Development
Company had adopted an extremely truculent attitude. He did not allow,
he said, people from the ship to seek interviews in that clandestine
manner. Ordered young Siddons to depart. Which, of course, an Englishman
couldn't tolerate from a beastly dago. Punched his head. M. Nikitos,
familiar with the terrain, had flung a piece of rock, and young Siddons,
stepping back quickly in the first agony of the blow, had fallen over
the edge, where I had found him. This was illuminating. It explained a
number of obscure points which had puzzled me. I wondered, as I heard
it, whether the recital of this feat to Captain Macedoine and his
daughter had made any difference in the latter's attitude toward the
victor. She had not regarded him with any enthusiasm when I had talked
with her on the cliff, I noticed. I wondered. For you must be prepared
to hear that I was tremendously preoccupied with thoughts of her at that
time. That is one of the inestimable privileges of being a mere super in
the play. You haven't much to do and you can let your mind dwell upon
the destiny of the leading lady. You can almost call it a hobby of mine,
to dwell upon the fortunes of the men and women who pass across the
great stage on which I have an obscure coign of vantage. Some prefer to
find their interest in novels. They brood in secret upon the erotic
exhalations which rise from the Temple of Art. But I am not much of a
reader, and I prefer the larger freedom of individual choice.
"And there was much in young Siddons which helped me to visualize the
personality which had suddenly irradiated his soul. Of course he was
English, with all the disabilities of his race to express emotion. But
the need for sympathy triumphed over these, and he would come along to
my room in the dog-watch when I learned something of the tremendous
experience which had befallen him. The Second Engineer, who had
apparently suffered very slightly indeed, for I saw him in Renfield
Street one night with two young ladies on his way to the theatre,
assumed an air of dry detachment when he noticed these visits. The
Chief, I heard him growling to the Third one day when he thought I was
out of earshot, was nursing the mates nowadays. I knew the Second
disapproved of friendship on principle. His ideal was to be more or less
at loggerheads with everybody. He would wait until you had made some
ordinary human remark, when he would retire into his formidable arsenal
of facts and figures, and returning with a large and hard chunk of
information, throw it at you and knock you down with it. His
unreasonableness lay in his failure to realize that a man cannot be your
friend and your enemy at the same time, that people are never grateful
for being set right. He had a dry and creaking efficiency which made him
silently detested. I for one rejoiced when I heard indirectly, at a
later period, that a widow of forty, with seven children, had sued him
for breach-of-promise.
"Young Siddons was unaware of the Second's disapproval, and would slip
down after supper, ready to go on at eight, and smoke cigarettes on my
settee. You men know how, in fine weather, when you walk to and fro on
the bridge, the empty, dragging hours induce the shades of the past to
come up and keep you company. We in the engine-room generally have
enough to do to keep away the crowds of ghosts. We had fine weather most
of the time and young Siddons would come down with a fresh set of
impressions which he would try to explain to me. He had been down to see
his people while we were at home and I imagine the impact of cheerful,
prosperous, well-bred folk had done a lot to modify his views. It was
difficult, he confided one evening, to reconcile one's feelings for a
girl with the grave problem of one's 'people.' Some chaps had such
thundering luck. There was his brother, articled to a solicitor, who had
been engaged for three years to a doctor's daughter. They were just
waiting until he was admitted. Now, what luck that was! Everything in
good taste. She lived in the same road. He saw her every day. Her people
were well off. When the time came the brother would have the usual
wedding, go to Cromer for a honeymoon, and--start life. Young Siddons
was puzzled by the fact that he himself had been bowled over by a girl
who, he couldn't help admitting, would not have been approved by the
'people' down in Herefordshire. He saw that! I could perceive in his air
a rather amusing amazement that love was apparently the antithesis
instead of the complement of happiness. Now how could that be? And yet
he admitted he had never seen his brother display any rapture over his
love affair with the doctor's daughter. Took it very much as a matter of
course. Oh, a very nice girl, very nice. But ... he would fall silent,
his chin on his hand, recalling the memory of Artemisia as she had
seemed to him, an alluring and unattainable desire.
"Yes, it was interesting, and it fed my interest in her. I was too
experienced, I suppose, to expect to see her again, but it amused me to
brood upon her destiny. And it was a wish to learn something about that
strange trio that took me up to Gruenbaum's one afternoon when we
arrived, and I had the privilege of an interview with the concessionaire
himself. Surrounded by attentive minions, who had full 'confidence in
his dispositions' he reposed, with the urbane placidity of a corpulent
idol, in the curve of his great horseshoe desk. The yellow blinds were
down over the tall windows against the westering sun, and the statue
with the arm broken short gleamed like old ivory. It was startling to
see a student's sword and long German pipe hanging crossed on the wall
beside that ancient piece of statuary. Gruenbaum confessed, when I spoke
of them, to being 'largely cosmopolitan,' though loyal of course to the
Hellenic Government and his consular obligations to Great Britain. When
I made mention of Macedoine, he frowned heavily and admitted that he had
'taken the necessary steps.' The concessions in the Saloniki hinterland
would be dealt with by the Paris House 'with a view to safe-guarding our
interests.' No doubt the railroad to Uskub would in time render such
concessions extremely valuable. M. Nikitos doubtless obtained this
information surreptitiously from the official archives. But it was
necessary that these financial dispositions should be in the hands of
Western Europeans, since western capital was inevitably attracted to
such enterprises. He himself was a man of western ideas. Educated in
Berlin and Paris, he had been trained in affairs in Lombard Street. Our
banking system was sound and our climate ferocious--so he summed us up
more or less adequately. As regards the future of M. Macedoine he could
tell me nothing. No doubt that gentleman would be fully occupied in
setting his new venture on its feet. Oh, of course, these things
occasionally prospered; but in the long run, stability of credit was
essential. This, M. Macedoine, as far as could be ascertained, did not
command.
"The harsh, guttural, cultured voice rolled on--the voice of established
authority, of resistless financial power. To the simple and insular
intelligences of the islanders his potency must have seemed god-like
indeed. In this forgotten island of the sea he had assumed the role of
arbiter of their humble destinies, the source of their happiness, and
the omnipotent guardian of their fortunes. He was the head of what is
deprecatingly called in these days a Servile State. We are warned that
democracy is advancing to sweep up all such anachronisms and cast them
into the fire. I am not so sure. None of us, who have seen the new
liberty stalking through the old lands like a pestilence, are altogether
sure. After all, there is something to be said for the theory of a
Golden Age....
"The guttural voice rolled on. The business of the day was nearly over,
and he spoke in general terms of the tendencies of the day. It was a
mistake, he thought, to assume that all men were equal. He had not found
it so. The Anglo-Saxon race had a genius for misgovernment on the
democratic principle. He was not convinced that this could be applied to
Southeastern Europe. Democracy was an illusion founded on a
misconception. The power must be in one hand. Otherwise, chaos. Observe
these works of supreme art about me--these exquisite examples of ancient
craftsmanship--the products of a simple monarchic age. A man might be a
slave, unlettered and unenfranchised, yet fashion works of imperishable
beauty. Of course, the exponents of democracy denied this, but he
himself was in a position to know. He had studied the past glories of
the Cyclades. And he had failed to observe any striking improvement in
human life when the fanatics of liberty assumed command. Liberty! It was
a phantom, a _Lorelei_, singing to foolish idle men, luring them to
destruction. All things, all men, are bound. This was a restless age. He
regarded the future with some misgiving. We lacked men of strong
character, animated by sound ideals, an aristocracy of intellect, with
financial control.... These, of course, were large questions....
"That is the memory I have of him, the reactionary whom the romantic
votaries of liberty set up against a wall and shot full of holes the
other day. I don't offer any opinion. I am only puzzled. I recall the
man as I saw him that afternoon, in the midst of his prosperity and his
life's work, the embodiment of a cultured despotism.
"But of the girl he could tell me nothing, and it was of the girl I
wished to hear. Gruenbaum would not have noticed her. His own
divagations, his emotional odyssies, his mistresses, would be dim
memories now, and he would not have noticed her. And as young Siddons
gradually developed an air of gentle and resigned melancholy, one of
those moods which are the aromatic cerements of a dead love, I
discovered in myself an increasingly active desire to know what had
happened to her. Because I didn't even know for certain whether she had
married M. Nikitos. And when we got home once more and young Siddons
bade us farewell to go up to sit for his examination, I was disappointed
that, as far as I could see, the longing I had to follow the Macedoines
in their strange career was not to be gratified. But this so often
happens in my life that I am grown resigned. We sailed again, for
Venice this time, and I admit that among the canals and palaces, with
the extraordinary moods which that fair city evokes, I found my thoughts
retiring from Ipsilon. We went to Spain to load that voyage, moreover,
and that brought its own sheaf of alien impressions. Loaded in
Cartagena, and in due course arrived at our old berth in the Queens
Dock. All that is of no moment just now. What I was going to say was
that I found among my few letters on arrival an envelope, addressed in
an unfamiliar hand and with the crest of a great London hotel on the
back. I opened it with only mild curiosity, saw it was addressed to
'Dear Mr. Chief,' and turning the page, saw it was signed 'A. M.'
"Yes, it was from her. It was a short, hurried scrawl in a rambling yet
firm style, the down strokes heavy and black, half a dozen lines to the
sheet. She wanted to see me. I turned it over and saw the date on the
envelope was a week old. She wanted to see me if I was able to come to
London. I was to ask for Madame Kinaitsky. She would be in London for
two or three weeks. She did hope I could come. She had found out from
the Company that the _Manola_ was due soon. And she was 'mine very
sincerely.'
"I admit I was, as they say, intrigued. I had given up all hope of
hearing any more of her. And I was astonished. She was in London! I was
to ask for Madame Kinaitsky. Was she married then, after all? I told
Jack I had to go to London on family business, and took train that
night, wiring to her that I would see her next day. I needed a spell
from the ship, anyhow.
"I did not, of course, put up at the immense and famous caravanserai
from which she wrote. It was in the Strand, however, and the ancient and
supposedly very inconvenient hotel which I usually patronize when in the
metropolis was, as we say, just off the Strand. I took a room at Mason's
Hotel, climbed up the dusky old staircase, and had a bath and a sleep
after my night journey from the north. When I woke it was a sunny
afternoon, in late September, the sort of day London sometimes gets
after a summer of continuous cold rain and wind. I lunched and then I
stepped across the Strand to call on Madame Kinaitsky. They say
adventures are to the adventurous. Yet here was I, the least adventurous
of mortals, travelling several hundred miles to meet an adventuress! I
passed under the great arch into the courtyard where commissionaires of
imperial magnificence were receiving and despatching motor cars that
were like kings' palaces. One of these august beings deigned to direct
me within. I sent up my name--Mr. Spenlove to see Madame Kinaitsky by
appointment. I sat down, watching the staircase, wondering if she was
in, if she would descend to see me, wondering what it was all about,
anyhow. A page in blue and silver approached me and commanded me to
follow him into the elevator. We flew to the third floor and we stepped
out into a corridor with thick carpets on the floor and dim masterpieces
on the walls. The page led me along and knocked at one of the many
doors. I remember his small, piping voice saying 'Mr. Spenlove to see
you,' and the door closing. She was before me, still holding the
door-knob with both hands and looking at me over her shoulder with that
bright, derisive, critical smile. An exquisite pose, girlish,
fascinating, yet carrying with it an adumbration of power.
"'Well,' she said, 'are you surprised?'
"She took me into another room, a room with wide windows and a great
balcony overlooking the river. It was a suite. Beyond I saw a bedroom,
bathroom, dressing rooms. All around were boxes with the lids lying
askew, and bearing the names of the famous modistes of London and Paris.
There were hats, and coats, and lines of shoes, piles of silken stuffs,
parasols in long pasteboard boxes; heaps of dresses breaking into a foam
of white tissue paper. And on the tables were cases of perfume,
satin-lined caskets of brushes and toilet articles, silver
picture-frames, gold-chain bags, gloves, cigarette boxes. As I stood
there taking this all in she came up and laughed, holding her lower lip
between her teeth, as though challenging my criticism, and waiting with
a certain amount of gallant trepidation for my verdict. She was enjoying
my astonishment I dare say.
"'I'm surprised,' I said, 'that you wanted to see me.'
"She beckoned me to pass out on the balcony where were wicker chairs and
tables. We sat down, and she told me, briefly, what had happened to her.
"No, there was no regret that I could perceive. 'I had to get something
to do,' she remarked, naively. Her father and the lieutenant, M.
Nikitos, found themselves up against mysterious and unsuspected
difficulties. The boiler of the _Osmanli_ collapsed and needed extended
repair. The proposal that she should marry M. Nikitos was never
seriously raised again. 'No, she had never had any intention ... that
little shrimp!' They took a house and lived a while on credit. She had
to do something. Her father lived in a sort of trance, dealing with the
difficulties which beset his schemes like a child playing with bricks
continually falling down. She had to do something, she reiterated,
moving her gold bracelets to and fro on her wrist. And yet she was
unable to do anything--at first. She was in the _Jardin de la Tour
Blanche_ when Kinaitsky spoke to her. He, a man of wealth, of the world,
a vigorous connoisseur of life, was at that time emotionally at large.
He had had a furious row with a Syrian dancer ... so on and so forth.
And he understood in a flash. It was plain that Artemisia would develop
into one of those women who waste no time over dunderheads. When I said,
reasonably enough, for she wore a wedding ring, 'Then you are not really
married?' she clicked her tongue against her teeth and shrugged her
shoulders. Oh, she was practising on me! I could see that. She thought,
I suppose, that I was proof against her; but how she would have tortured
young Siddons, for example, in love with her, young, sensitive,
chivalrous, full of faith in the nobility of womanhood. Yes, Kinaitsky
understood. He knew women. Fortunate man! He sent her a large sum of
money, and told her to write to him when she was free. He had a big
house fronting the Gulf. She turned Nikitos out to shift for himself,
took charge of the house he had taken for them in the _Rue Paleologue_,
and 'got through somehow,' as she put it. She was vague about this
episode, which was not surprising. There was a certain art in the way
she broke off with 'Mr. Chief, you can understand I was glad....' and
rose to ring for tea. 'Yes,' she said, when she came back, 'and then I
found myself free to--to do something.'
"'Something, as you told me, I would not approve of?' I suggested. She
broke into a smile and put her hand caressingly on my arm.
"'Don't be cross,' she whispered, sweetly. 'I've had a rotten time, Mr.
Chief. You know everything's been against me from the first.'
"And while I sat there looking out over the golden mist of the river and
succumbing to the magic of her voice, her presence, and the romantic
glamour of her destiny, she began to hum an old air, watching me with a
faint, derisive smile. 'Do you know that song?' she asked, and began to
sing the words.
"'_Ah! Toncouton!
Mo connin toi;
To semble Morico:
Y 'a pas savon
Qui assez blanc
Pour laver to la peau._'"
"'Where did you hear that?' I asked, for I knew it, a Creole song.
"'My mother,' she said, quietly and sadly. 'Now do you understand? I
could never be like other girls, Mr. Chief.' And she began again:
"'_Quand blancs la yo donne yo bal
To pas capable aller
Comment t 'a vaillant giabal
Toi qui l'aime briller!_'"
"'That's me, now,' she said. 'I'm Toucouton after all. Well, I must make
the best of it.' And she sat there, musing, with her hand on my arm.
"'And your father--how is he?' I asked, to change the subject, for I was
moved. An expression came into her face which reminded me of him, an
expression of grave exaltation and secular raptness.
"'Oh,' she said, 'he is developing his properties. There are many
difficulties he did not expect. M. Kinaitsky has promised his
assistance. They are having trouble with another company. And the
_Osmanli_ needs overhauling. They are talking of building a dry-dock.'
"The tea was brought out on the balcony by a menial in blue and silver
livery with white silk stockings, his beautifully manicured hands
arranging the service in front of her. Artemisia did not reply for a
moment as she busied herself with pouring out the tea. She had put on a
_peignoir_ of raw yellow silk covered with heavy gold thread embroidery,
a barbaric thing that must have cost a hundred pounds at least. Round
her neck was a fine chain of platinum holding a large sapphire. Her soft
dark hair was fastened with a massive comb of silver. On her arm were a
dozen bracelets of heavy gold. There was no need to ask about Kinaitsky.
Infatuated! She nodded as much. Very rich. Tobacco estates. Selling his
crop in London now. She rose and came back with a photograph in a large
silver frame.
"Well, he was an improvement upon M. Nikitos. Not old either, as I had
for some reason imagined. Forty-five, I suppose; a solid, hook-nosed
individual with the expensive, well-groomed air we associate with
art-dealers. Fine eyes. I put down the picture and sipped my tea. This
was all very well, but she had not asked me to come and see her simply
to show off, surely.
"'And you've called me all the way from Glasgow to see some pretty
clothes?' I asked. She looked hard at me for a moment and then dropped
her eyes and smiled. She spoke, and in her voice there was the peculiar
bell-like resonance I remarked the first time I heard her pronounce her
name.
"'No, Mr. Chief,' she said, 'I have a favour to ask. A great favour.
Will you do something for me? You did like me a little, you know.'
"'Oh, are you sure of that?' I enquired, coldly, and she nodded with a
sudden rapturous vivacity. I dare say she was. Very little of that
nature escapes a woman who exists chiefly by her temperament. I had
been sentimental on the cliff and begged her to use me. Well, I was
still young enough to feel a thrill because a pretty woman appealed to
me, because I had been singled out for that delicate honour. I did what
any of you would have done. I consented. And then she told me hurriedly
what she wanted me to do. I was ... yes, this was the man. I understood,
eh? She had written him from Saloniki. No answer. He did not know she
was in London. She could not go, did not want to go for that matter. It
was all over for ever. But it was his child. If I went to him, told him
I had come from out there and had seen her ... eh? She wanted him to
take the child, later, and bring him up. As an Englishman. And I was to
come back and tell her what he said.
"And there I was, a respectable, sea-faring person, flying through
London in a taxi-cab on a wild-goose chase at the behest of a girl who
was rapturously sure I had liked her a little! It was an adventure which
disproves the old proverb again. I found myself being carried northward,
along streets of an intolerable meanness, past huge vulgar stores, among
clanging street-cars and plunging motor-buses. I looked at the
address--'Mr. Florian Kelly, 6 Kentish Studios, Kentish Town N. E.' This
was Kentish Town. We swung round a corner by a huge terra-cotta subway
station, shot up a drab street, turned into a narrow lane, and stopped
opposite a tall green wooden wall. I got out, rather dazed, and telling
the man to wait, looked about for an entrance. There was a door in the
wall with the words 'Kentish Studios' over a bell handle. But the bell
handle hung slack and I ventured to open the door. Evidently the
taxi-driver had been there before, for he said: 'You'll find Number Six
on the right, Sir.' I went in.
"It was a long garden surrounded by high black buildings and very quiet.
The wet summer had encouraged everything to grow, and the whole place
was a rank green jungle. In the centre stood a statue, a nymph stained
green and brown with the rain pouring through the foliage overhead. The
rank grasses hung over the path and there was a damp smell. I walked
along until I came to Number Six. It was one of a number of apartments
in a long, low building with large skylights in the roof, a large window
and a transom over each door. A fly-blown card over the bell-push
announced Mr. Florian Kelly. As I pressed the button I heard a shrill
laugh from one of the other studios. I was not surprised to find that
the bell did not ring. I rapped with my stick, a fine manly voice
remarked 'Oh, damn!' and there was a sound of footsteps. And then the
door opened about six inches and a young man with a keen dark face and
wearing a calico overall put his head out.
"'Is it very important?' he asked, impatiently. 'I've got a model, you
know.'
"'Yes, very important,' I said. 'I have a cab waiting.'
"He opened the door and I went in. It was one large room with a little
scullery behind, a studio with a four-post bed in one corner, an easel
in another, and a young woman in extreme deshabille, hastily covered
with a travelling rug, seated on a dais near the window. On the walls
were the usual studies, of street scenes mostly, and trees reflected in
still water. On the easel was a half-finished poster for some theatrical
announcement, a woman in a tragic attitude holding a knife and clutching
her throat. Mr. Florian Kelly looked hard at me. I said:
"'You used to know a Miss Macedoine, I believe.'
"'Yes, to my cost,' he retorted, sharply. 'Miss Bailey, will you go and
have your tea? Come back in an hour, say five sharp.' She stepped down
and went to the back of the studio, and Mr. Kelly pulled a green curtain
across behind her. 'It's very inconvenient you know,' he said, 'the
first decent day I've had for weeks. I don't suppose you realize what
light means to an artist.'
"'I was sent by Miss Macedoine,' I began and he interrupted me: 'Oh,
she's got you, too, has she? Well, look here my friend, I don't know who
you are or what particular hold she's obtained over you, but if you take
my advice you'll get out while the getting's good. And I can tell you
this before you go any further, she's had all the money she's going to
get from me.'
"'Well,' I said, 'you needn't get excited about it. I haven't come to
ask you for money.'
"'Oh, I'm not excited,' he responded, grimly. 'I'm in full possession of
all my faculties. One needs them when she's round. Where is she now? In
the cab waiting to hear the result of the interview?'
"'No,' I said; 'she's residing in Saloniki now.'
"'Saloniki! Snakes! She's a wonder! Why, I understood the money she had
from me and some others was to start her father in an oil business in
Egypt. Are _you_ in the oil business? Or are you her father?'
"'No, only a friend,' I said.
"'Oh, only a friend. Poor chap! Well, that's all I was when she--wait a
bit, will you? Have a peg?' And he brought out a bottle and some
glasses. While we were drinking, Miss Bailey came out in her walking
costume, and looking pleasantly at each of us in turn, went out to get
her tea. When the door closed, Mr. Kelly flung back the curtain and sat
down on the bed, indicating an easy chair.
"'Look here,' said he, lighting a cigarette and throwing the package
toward me. 'I'm not grousing you know. I tell you frankly, I was
infatuated with her. I neglected my work. I spent my money. I wanted to
marry her. She's that sort. Drives you mad. But she wouldn't. Nothing
doing. She's like that. She makes you feel like one of these old
knights. You want to protect her from the cruel world. You want to fling
everything you've got at her feet, lie down and let her walk over you.
Well, take my advice and don't do it!'
"I thought it as well to interrupt him here and give him a more correct
estimate of my part in the affair. He smoked his cigarette out and flung
it in the fireplace.
"'Oh,' he said. 'I see. Well, all I can say is you are very lucky. But
you're mistaken about me, my friend. I'm not to be bled. I'm not
grousing. I don't even regret the money she cost me, though it would be
very useful to me now, when I'm driven to do posters instead of my real
work. I believe it does a man good to go off his head sometimes about a
woman. What I feel so disgusted about is the lies she told me. That's
one of her characteristics, you know. She really believes them herself
at the time. She's imaginative, if you like. Spins the most
circumstantial terradiddles. For instance, how do you know her story is
true? Have you seen ... eh?'
"'No,' I admitted. 'I haven't.' He laughed and nursed his knee, rocking
to and fro.
"'She's clever!' he said, smiling. 'Mind, you're not to be blamed at
all. As far as I can gather, you have nothing to regret. But if you get
to Saloniki again, give her my love, and tell her I'm too poor, too
busy, and too wise to be led into a mess like that again. I can't be
angry with her because I'm so grateful to her for not taking me at my
word, and hanging like a mill-stone on my neck for ever. Phew! The
thought of it makes me cold all over! And yet....' And he held out his
hand for the cigarettes. 'Isn't she beautiful? Eh? Isn't she wonderful?
Man, I tell you I used to feel like crying sometimes, she was so lovely!
Saloniki, eh? Well, she'll go far. She has the temperament and the
talent. I wish her luck.'
"'I am convinced,' I said, 'that you are taking a mistaken view of her.
For instance, I certainly gathered that she was in love with you and
believes you to be....' He stood up suddenly.
"'In love with me? She may have been. I daresay she can convince herself
she's in love with all of us. I told you she's imaginative. In love
with me? Golly, I don't blame her. I nearly went out of my mind about
her. There isn't a folly I didn't commit for--how long was it?--say six
weeks. I shall never forget it. But a man in my position can't afford
many of these episodes. They're too strenuous. I've got to work. If
you'll excuse me, your cab is waiting and Miss Bailey will be back in a
few minutes. She costs me three shillings an hour. You see,' he added,
smiling, 'she's not in love with me! Love! My friend, the love those
sort of women inspire never got a man anywhere. You can't escape it if
it comes your way, it's true. You can only trust to the good Lord to let
you off lightly. But flight is the bravest course. You have to be very
rich and very strong in character if you are going in for that sort of
thing. And this girl especially, because she does it by instinct. She
works on you and gradually builds up in your mind an ideal woman who
does duty for her. Oh, I know! She's a wonder. For instance,' and Mr.
Kelly turned to me and held his index finger against my breast, 'why
does she send you to me? Is she in want of money? Is she in danger? No.
If she was, she knows I couldn't do anything for her if I would. She's
doing it to impress you, to play up to the imaginary woman you've in
your mind. As for this idea of sending a kid over here to be brought up
an Englishman--phew! She's read something like that in a book, I'll bet.
Well, here's Miss Bailey. You must excuse me. If you're in London next
month, come and see my show at the New Gallery. And Sunday nights at
supper. How I envy you going to the Mediterranean. My dream ...
Good-bye.'
"Well," said Mr. Spenlove, after a moment of silent reflection, "I came
out of the Kentish Studios and climbed into my cab feeling very much as
though I had been skinned. That terrible young man seemed to have left
me without a single illusion about myself. I have discovered since that
he is recognized now as a painter of unusual power. He is making a name.
But to me he will always be the merciless analyst of human emotion. He
had the bitterness of those who escape love. He spared neither himself,
nor me, nor the girl. He almost frightened me with the accuracy of his
diagnosis. As the cab sped along the Tottenham Court Road on its way
back to the Strand I wondered what he would have thought of Captain
Macedoine himself, that master of illusion who was always playing up to
the imaginary being one had in one's mind. I suppose creative artists
see through each other's tricks. An artist is one who imposes upon our
legitimate aspirations.
"I paid off the cab in the Strand and walked into the hotel. Men and
women in evening dress were alighting for early theatre-dinners. I sent
up my name as before. I had no very clear idea what I wanted to do. Oh,
of course I wanted to see her again. I had no scruples. She was more
interesting, more her father's daughter, than ever, to me now. As
Florian Kelly had said, she was a wonder, but she could do me no harm.
She was an artist, let us say, and as such I wished to see her at work.
Beyond that there was another feeling, a sort of fatherly affection--a
silly notion of protecting her from herself. But that young devil of a
painter had divined that, too, and I sat down to wait, ashamed, amused,
astonished. I recalled the conversations we had had on the ship and on
the cliff, the subtle implication in her voice, the pity she had
inspired in me by the contemplation of her disastrous fate. I had put my
arm round her, given her my address, behaved like a sentimental old
fool. And all the time her brain had been working, weighing, comparing,
judging chances, and leading me on. But had she done so? Oh, women are
wonderful! Their emotional imperturbability defies analysis. They weep,
confess, cajole, attack, reproach, renounce, and at the end of it all
you are as baffled as ever. Their souls are like those extraordinary
bronze mirrors one sees nowadays. You look and see a picture. You go
off in amused annoyance, your head over your shoulder, and see another
picture. And when you come back again determined to be fair and candid,
you see yet another picture, or perhaps a mere shining blank, a dazzling
and expensive enigma. I knew all this. I saw all this; and yet I
lingered. I was unable to resist the piquant pleasure of watching the
girl, of occupying the position of confidant. I understood how the
obscure husband of a celebrated theatrical star must feel without
experiencing his grim regret. And when the page, in his blue and silver,
with his miraculously brushed hair, and his expression of almost
unearthly cleanliness, carried me upward once more, I had attained the
right mood again for meeting these adventures in vicarious emotion.
After all, for those of us to whom the avenues of fame, of wealth, of
the domestic virtues are closed, there remains an occasional ramble in
the romantic bye-ways of life. One may still meet young knights in
shining armour, haughty kings and queens, and women with unfathomable
eyes engaged upon mysterious quests. We can always run back to our old
mother, the sea, and restore our souls upon her comfortable bosom.
"And I found myself again in that palatial apartment. There was no one
there apparently. The page had closed the door and left me. I turned at
the sound of a voice and saw her standing in the doorway of the next
room, a figure in pale, shimmering gold, holding back a _portiere_ of
heavy dark blue velvet. Holding it back for me to enter, and watching me
with the old, derisive, questioning smile.
"'You have come back very quickly,' she said, going over to a lounge and
patting a chair beside it.
"'Why did you send me to him?' I demanded, good-humouredly. She lay down
on the lounge and turned toward me, her head on her palm.
"'What did he say?' she asked, and in her voice was that peculiar timbre
of which I have already spoken, a delicate quality of tone that made one
think of bells at a distance, a hint of fairy lands forlorn. I could
understand how, to a young man in love with her, that exquisite
modulation of tone would drive him mad.
"'He was not sympathetic,' I replied. 'He seemed to jump to the
conclusion you didn't really need any assistance from him. Disclaims any
responsibility, in fact.'
"'And you believed him?' she murmured.
"'He was very frank,' I answered. 'He spared neither you nor himself. He
was good enough to warn me against your tricks.'
"'And you believed him?' she repeated with passionate intensity, her
eyes burning bright, her teeth closing over the full red lip. 'Men
always believe another man about a woman.'
"'No, not altogether,' I protested. 'But he said you told him lies.'
"She lay there looking at me for a while without speaking and then she
got up slowly, yawned with a deliberate gesture of extreme gracefulness,
and shrugged her shoulders.
"'And _that's_ all it amounted to!' she remarked with a smile of
disdain. 'He adored me, he said. Never, never would he forget. I was the
only girl he ever really loved! He wanted me to marry him and live in
that--that place you saw. And when I told him what my mother was, he
nearly went mad, and wanted to kill me and commit suicide. Did he tell
you that?'
"'No,' I admitted. 'He didn't become quite so confidential as that. But
he accused you of faithlessness.'
"'Me! How could I be faithful to a lunatic? I had to run away from him.
He wasn't safe....'
"'And what do you want me to do now?' I enquired. 'You must know, my
dear, that I can't stay away from the ship. We sail in a week.'
"'Oh,' she said, coming up to me and putting her hands on my shoulders
so that the warm perfume of her body assailed me. 'To be my friend. A
girl in my position, Mr. Chief, she needs to have a friend. I
thought--well, I was mistaken. I thought he would have been different, a
clever man like him. But they are all the same, all the same.' And her
hands dropped.
"'I said I'd be your friend,' I protested, 'but you didn't seem to think
me worth while.'
"'Always,' she whispered, regarding me, 'never mind what happens?'
"'Yes!' I said, putting my arm round her. 'Tell me whatever you like.
I'll always believe you,' She came close to me, and looking down she
whispered in that sweet, resonant voice that made one think of distant
chimes, 'For that I shall always love you.'"