Hoyting lighted another cigarette, folded his arms on the table, and
looked at me. “I knew everything there was to know about Paramore before
he died,” he affirmed. “I didn’t in the least want to know any of it,
but it was inevitable. He had no control over his mental
muscles--complete paralysis of the reticent nerve, you might say. I
know, I tell you. If you don’t choose to believe it--you’ll have doubted
my word, that’s all. I have all the evidence there is; and why should I
lie about it?”
“Oh, I believe it--but it’s extraordinary.”
“Should I be here if it weren’t extraordinary? It’s preposterous. But
there it is.”
“And the rest, you said, was drama?”
Hoyting looked out. “Let’s go to a café,” he said; “I want a rest.”
I assented. There is something in the transitoriness of a café crowd
that quiets Hoyting. No one can be expected to stay overnight in a café.
He likes the restlessness, the ridiculous suggestion that every one else
may be as foot-loose as he. Besides, Hoyting is always restive under the
strain of a story; he chafes at the bounds and limits of any rounded
episode. He needs to draw breath and come back to it, as it were, from
very far. So we ordered things; sitting on the very edge of the
boulevard, we sipped and watched for an hour. In the end I saw signs of
his return to the matter in hand.
“Beauty--” he began suddenly, pushing his glass aside, “it’s something I
never see. But now and then a man or a woman delights me curiously.
Madame Pothier was like that. She showed you what civilization of the
older sort can do when it likes. And Paramore saw it, too. He was clean
gone on her. He would have told her everything if he had had any right
to. I said it wasn’t a silly tale of woman’s ennobling influence, didn’t
I? No more it was. Yet he saw her as soon as he reached Africa, and I am
sure he carried her image into the interior with him--as he once did
Joan Whitaker’s, only with an immense difference, after all. This time
he brought back truth instead of lies. So at least it couldn’t have been
a bad image to live with.
“I got all this that I’ve been telling you, in bits and snatches, while
I sat with him. The fever didn’t seem so bad at first--the doctor
thought we could pull him through. You absolutely never know. I never
thought he would pull through. Those very first questions of his, when
he sat peering out at me through the mosquito-netting of his bed, didn’t
seem to come from a man who had life before him. And when I had got
those early details out of him, I somehow felt sure he’d go. I’m no
pessimist; but I didn’t see life giving him a second chance. It was too
much to hope that life would let him make good after all. And yet--he so
nearly did. Damn fever!...
“Madame Pothier did everything she could. She was a good sort. I’ve
always wondered, as much as it is permitted to wonder, whether she felt
anything for Paramore. If she did, I am sure that she never knew it.
There are women like that, you know. I don’t mean the women who gaze out
of cold, sexless depths at the fires burning above, and wonder
pruriently why the fires burn. She wasn’t that kind. I mean the women
who, when they become wives, remain women only for their husbands. I
don’t believe it would ever have occurred to her that any man save
Marcel Pothier could look upon her with romantic interest. I don’t
pretend to understand the phenomenon, but I know that it exists. A woman
like that simply assumes that she is no longer a wandering lure
constantly crossing the path of the male. She thinks all men’s eyes are
veiled because hers are. A very pretty, pathetic ostrich trick.
Sometimes it doesn’t work, but astonishingly often it does. With
Paramore it did. All I mean is that she hadn’t dreamed Paramore
worshipped her. She remembered him as a friend they had made two years
before, and of course he was to come to them out of that pitiful Mission
Hospital. No one in Dakar knew anything about Paramore’s fiasco. He
wasn’t precisely famous, you see. Dakar was perfectly provincial. And
Paramore was hoping, I dare say, that he could stave off the tale of his
lie until he could lay before her the news of his atonement as well. The
hardest thing he had to bear, probably, was dying and leaving his story
to the telling of chance tongues, not knowing in what form it would
eventually come to her. That, I am convinced, is why he told me so
much--let his parched lips articulate those memories for me. But not
once did he break down and ask me to tell her. Oh, I’ve good reason for
respecting Paramore--a second-rate respect it must always be, I dare
say, granted that extraordinary crumpling-up in Australia. But he never
crumpled up again.
“For a day or two he hung in the balance. Then, after one exceedingly
bad night, which left Madame Pothier blue under her fine eyes and white
round her carved lips, he had his last coherent hours on earth....
“I shall never forget that morning. Pothier was away on duty. There were
only the doctor, Madame Pothier, and I, and one or two frightened
servants who wouldn’t come near. They thought it was yellow fever. Old
Séraphine, Madame Pothier’s Auvergnat maid, hovered round in the
corridors with a rosary. You could hear the click and shake of it in the
still intervals. Once a ‘Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grâce,’ cut
across a delirious whispered oath. The pitiful part of it was that there
was nothing to do. We just had to lift him through the agony and
weakness as best we could until the coma should set in. There is nothing
romantic about coast fever. It attacks you in the most sordid
ways--deprives you first of dignity and then of life. Yet poor
Paramore’s death-bed had a kind of nobility; perhaps because Madame
Pothier was there. She was dressed in white and looked as wan and
distant and compassionate as a nun. The straight black masses of her
hair, arranged in an odd, angular way, looked like some kind of
conventual cap. Paramore’s eyes followed her about....
“It was that morning he gave me the packet--told me where it was, made
me get it out and take formal possession of it before him. Once, when
the demon was leaving him a little quiet, he lifted his right hand. ‘I
swear by--by all I hold sacred’ (his eyes were fixed on her, though he
was speaking to me) ‘that I have told nothing there that is not true.
All secondhand reports are in a note-book by themselves. It is labelled.
Tell Beckwith especially about the Sabbath. Beckwith ought to follow it
up. I sat in the hut by the sorcerer in his trance and waited for his
spirit to come back. When he waked, he said he had delivered my message.
He had delivered it. Three days later, the man I had sent for came
running into the village. The sorcerer had told him, as he said he
would, on the way to the Sabbath. I depose solemnly that the man came.
His village was three days away. He had heard a voice at his door the
night of the Sabbath--a voice that gave my message, that said it was in
haste and could not stay. Very curious. Beckwith ought to know. It’s all
there; but tell him. Of course, I never could get anything out of the
sorcerer about the Sabbath. But Beckwith might put it in a foot-note, if
they won’t print _me_.’ Then the sordid agony again.... Madame Pothier
and the doctor didn’t understand English, by the way, and of course
didn’t, in any case, understand the situation. They hadn’t listened to
what I had listened to, all those earlier days. So when the doctor told
me fussily that Paramore oughtn’t to talk and that death was only a few
hours off, I paid no attention. Why shouldn’t he talk if death was so
near? The only thing I could do for Paramore was to let him talk when
he had strength. I sat tight and listened.”
Hoyting stopped. The lights winked out along the boulevard. Night had
fallen with capricious suddenness. I ordered more drinks quietly.
Hoyting was breathing hard; tired out, and, as I thought, very weary of
it all, longing to slip the leash and be off. The air was cool and soft,
and the crowd was thinning a little. People were dining and making ready
to “go on.” I couldn’t have stirred, but that worn packet suddenly felt
very heavy in my pocket.
Hoyting began sipping vermouth again. Finally he spoke. “He didn’t say a
great deal more. The end was too near. But he spoke very clearly when he
did speak; and whenever his eyes were open, they were fixed on Madame
Pothier. Towards the last he put out his hand to me. I was holding the
note-books--I shouldn’t have dared put them down so long as he was
conscious. ‘There is only one woman in the world,’ he said, ‘and she
belongs to Pothier. Look at her.’ I didn’t look at her, and he went on:
‘There may be other women alive, but I can’t believe it. Do you believe
it?’
“He wasn’t wandering, you know. His mind had merely stripped his
situation to its essentials; he was quite alone with the only facts that
counted. He had summed life up, and didn’t have to keep truce any longer
with mortal perspectives. He drew the real things round him like a
cloak.... Absurd to talk of inconsequence; there was no inconsequence.
“I bent over him. ‘I’m not blind, Paramore.’
“‘No, but I am--blessedly blind.... And some day she’ll hate me, you
think?’
“His lips were straining to ask me to see to it that she didn’t, but he
controlled them. That--as much as anything--is why I’m here with you
now. It was more than decent of him; it was fine. But, by the same token
that he couldn’t ask, I couldn’t promise--though I saw that another
_crise_ was near and the doctor was crossing over to the bed.
“‘I don’t believe she ever will,’ I said. ‘There’s so much she’ll never
know.’
“I was thinking of his forlorn and beautiful passion for her, which she
would have hated him for, because she would always have been afraid it
was somehow her fault. Not quite fair when you work it out, but those
women are like that. I saw in a flash, though--he took his eyes off her
and looked at me, just once--that he thought I meant his miserable,
discredited past. Then the doctor thrust me aside. The matter was never
explained between us.
“There were only one or two more speeches of Paramore’s to record. The
monosyllables wrung out of his weakness didn’t count--except, immensely,
for pity. Very likely you know what the fatal fever symptoms are--ugly
beyond compare. I won’t go into that. We were all pretty nearly done by
the time the blessed coma settled over him. He opened his eyes just once
more and fixed them on Madame Pothier, who stood at the foot of the bed.
All his strength was in his poor eyes: his body was a corpse already. It
was to me he spoke, but he looked at her until the lids fell. ‘Damn
Whitaker! He’s a worm; but not such a worm as I.’
“A strange little blur came over his eyes. I turned my head for one
instant. Madame Pothier, weeping, was holding up a crucifix. ‘I don’t
believe God knows,’ he said. The words came very slowly from far down in
his throat. We heard the voice just once more. ‘Madame!’ Then the eyes
shut, and the scheduled number of hours followed, during which he was
completely unconscious, until he died officially.”
Hoyting smoked quietly for a moment. Then he spoke hurriedly, as if he
had to complete a report. “We buried him out there. The Pothiers were
perfect. She was worn out by the strain of the illness and the nursing,
but not more than any one would have been after such an experience. To
the last I searched her face to see if she knew. It interested me
curiously. I gave her a dozen chances to question me about Paramore. She
behaved throughout as one who had no suspicion. She was polite about the
note-books, and asked if they were to be edited, but she evidently
didn’t in the least understand what he’d been up to. He was a ‘grand
savant,’ she was sure, though Père Bernard thought, perhaps, his powers
could have been more fortunately employed. Of course, _ce pauvre
monsieur_ was not religious, which must be a great regret to his
Catholic friends. She believed firmly, however, that the Divine Mercy
was infinite and that there were more ways than one of making a good
death. They were taking the liberty of having some masses said for his
soul. Everything was said with the most perfect feeling, the utmost
sincerity and gravity. What more _could_ a blind woman have said? I
haven’t a shadow of doubt that, if ever the whole story were forced upon
Thérèse Pothier, she would summon her intelligence gallantly and
understand it all. Only, what on the face of it was there for her to
understand?... I rather wish she were dead.”
“You wish--” I didn’t follow him.
“I’d like to be sure that, since she’ll never know the whole truth,
she’ll never know more than she knew in Dakar. I was sorry for Paramore.
He was tempted, and he fell, and he struggled up again and damned
temptation to its face. Not a hero, oh, no. But there is something
exhilarating in seeing the elements of heroism assemble in a man who is
supposed to be a putty of cowardice.”
It was late, and, though Hoyting had not yet informed me of what he
intended me to do with the packet, I suggested dining. We made our way
to a very secluded and unfashionable restaurant, and ate, surrounded by
French commercial types. Over our liqueurs, I asked him why he had
given me the note-books.
“Why did you give me this stuff?”
Hoyting looked surprised. “I can’t do anything with it. I don’t know
that sort of person. Can’t you look up the man Beckwith? I never heard
of him, but he ought to be easy to find. I could tell all this to you,
but I couldn’t go over to London and tell it to a court of inquiry. I
don’t hold you responsible in any way, of course, but something ought to
be done. I’m taking the night express to Genoa.”
“If you imagine I’m going to drop down from the blue on Sir James
Beckwith--” I began.
Hoyting shrugged his shoulders. “You at least know who he is,
apparently. That in itself is a sign.”
“But no one will read the tragic stuff,” I cried. “And yet you place
Paramore’s reputation in my hands. You _do_ make me responsible.”
Hoyting looked at me across the table, smiling faintly and shaking his
head.
“Didn’t I tell you that I don’t believe we can rehabilitate him? But we
owe it to him to put his papers in the right hands. Beckwith couldn’t
refuse to take them, at least; and then our duty would be done.”
I took the “our” without flinching. The tale of Paramore had weighed on
me. “I’ll do it,” I said at last--“but never again, Hoyting.”
“Have I ever made such a request before?” he interrupted sharply.
“No, never.”
“Then, in God’s name, take it!” With his strong hand he made a gesture
as if to sweep it all away from him. The liqueur glasses fell with a
broken tinkle to the floor. Hoyting bit his lip. “I wouldn’t have the
things back in my fingers again for anything under heaven. Good-bye.”
I started to my feet, but he had reached the door. He had the luck to
step into a taxi the next instant with an indescribable farewell
gesture.
It was part of Paramore’s persistent bad luck--the devil that pursued
him was not put off by change of scene--that Sir James Beckwith died
before I could make an appointment with him. From all I have heard of
him, he certainly was the man to go to. Paramore’s note-books were
coldly accepted in the quarters to which I finally took them; and I
have always suspected that if my mien had been less desperate, they
would have been politely handed back to me. No faintest echo of their
reception has ever come to me, though I have, entirely on their account,
subscribed to a dozen learned journals. I do not expect anything to
happen, at this late date, in Paramore’s favor.
There is little reason to believe that the packet Hoyting cherished will
be piously guarded by the hands to which I committed it. And, even if it
were, no minor corroborations drifting in after many years could ever
reconstitute for Paramore such a fame as he once lost. When I think of
the matter at all, it is, curiously enough, to echo Hoyting’s wish that
Madame Pothier would die. The best thing Paramore’s restless ghost can
hope for, it seems to me, is that she may never know the very little the
public knows about him. Sometimes that silence seems to me more
desirable for him than rehabilitation itself. But then, I have never
been interested in anthropology.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: