My sister, as it proved, was not sufficiently restored to leave Havre by
the afternoon train; so that, as the autumn dusk began to fall, I found
myself at liberty to call at the sign of the Fair Norman. I must confess
that I had spent much of the interval in wondering what the disagreeable
thing was that my charming friend’s disagreeable cousin had been telling
her. The “Belle Normande” was a modest inn in a shady bystreet, where it
gave me satisfaction to think Miss Spencer must have encountered local
color in abundance. There was a crooked little court, where much of the
hospitality of the house was carried on; there was a staircase climbing
to bedrooms on the outer side of the wall; there was a small trickling
fountain with a stucco statuette in the midst of it; there was a little
boy in a white cap and apron cleaning copper vessels at a conspicuous
kitchen door; there was a chattering landlady, neatly laced, arranging
apricots and grapes into an artistic pyramid upon a pink plate. I looked
about, and on a green bench outside of an open door labelled _Salle à
Manger_, I perceived Caroline Spencer. No sooner had I looked at her
than I saw that something had happened since the morning. She was
leaning back on her bench, her hands were clasped in her lap, and her
eyes were fixed upon the landlady, at the other side of the court,
manipulating her apricots.
But I saw she was not thinking of apricots. She was staring absently,
thoughtfully; as I came near her I perceived that she had been crying.
I sat down on the bench beside her before she saw me; then, when she had
done so, she simply turned round, without surprise, and rested her sad
eyes upon me. Something very bad indeed had happened; she was completely
changed.
I immediately charged her with it. “Your cousin has been giving you bad
news; you are in great distress.”
For a moment she said nothing, and I supposed that she was afraid to
speak, lest her tears should come back. But presently I perceived that
in the short time that had elapsed since my leaving her in the morning
she had shed them all, and that she was now softly stoical, intensely
composed.
“My poor cousin is in distress,” she said at last. “His news was bad.”
Then, after a brief hesitation, “He was in terrible want of money.”
“In want of yours, you mean?”
“Of any that he could get--honestly. Mine was the only money.”
“And he has taken yours?”
She hesitated again a moment, but her glance, meanwhile, was pleading.
“I gave him what I had.”
I have always remembered the accent of those words as the most angelic
bit of human utterance I had ever listened to; but then, almost with a
sense of personal outrage, I jumped up. “Good heavens!” I said, “do you
call that getting, it honestly?”
I had gone too far; she blushed deeply. “We will not speak of it,” she
said.
“We _must_ speak of it,” I answered, sitting down again. “I am your
friend; it seems to me you need one. What is the matter with your
cousin?”
“He is in debt.”
“No doubt! But what is the special fitness of your paying his debts?”
“He has told me all his story; I am very sorry for him.”
“So am I! But I hope he will give you back your money.”
“Certainly he will; as soon as he can.”
“When will that be?”
“When he has finished his great picture.”
“My dear young lady, confound his great picture! Where is this desperate
cousin?”
She certainly hesitated now. Then,--“At his dinner,” she answered.
I turned about and looked through the open door into the _salle à
manger_. There, alone at the end of a long table, I perceived the object
of Miss Spencer’s compassion, the bright young art-student. He was
dining too attentively to notice me at first; but in the act of setting
down a well-emptied wineglass he caught sight of my observant attitude.
He paused in his repast, and, with his head on one side and his meagre
jaws slowly moving, fixedly returned my gaze. Then the landlady came
lightly brushing by with her pyramid of apricots.
“And that nice little plate of fruit is for him?” I exclaimed.
Miss Spencer glanced at it tenderly. “They do that so prettily!” she
murmured.
I felt helpless and irritated. “Come now, really,” I said; “do you
approve of that long strong fellow accepting your funds?” She looked
away from me; I was evidently giving her pain. The case was hopeless;
the long strong fellow had “interested” her.
“Excuse me if I speak of him so unceremoniously,” I said. “But you are
really too generous, and he is not quite delicate enough. He made his
debts himself; he ought to pay them himself.”
“He has been foolish,” she answered; “I know that. He has told me
everything. We had a long talk this morning; the poor fellow threw
himself upon my charity. He has signed notes to a large amount.”
“The more fool he!”
“He is in extreme distress; and it is not only himself. It is his poor
wife.”
“Ah, he has a poor wife?”
“I didn’t know it; but he confessed everything. He married two years
since, secretly.”
“Why secretly?”
Caroline Spencer glanced about her, as if she feared listeners. Then
softly, in a little impressive tone,--“She was a countess!”
“Are you very sure of that?”
“She has written me a most beautiful letter.”
“Asking you for money, eh?”
“Asking me for confidence and sympathy,” said Miss Spencer. “She has
been disinherited by her father. My cousin told me the story, and she
tells it in her own way, in the letter. It is like an old romance.
Her father opposed the marriage, and when he discovered that she had
secretly disobeyed him he cruelly cast her off. It is really most
romantic. They are the oldest family in Provence.”
I looked and listened in wonder. It really seemed that the poor woman
was enjoying the “romance” of having a discarded countess-cousin, out of
Provence, so deeply as almost to lose the sense of what the forfeiture
of her money meant for her.
“My dear young lady,” I said, “you don’t want to be ruined for
picturesqueness’ sake?”
“I shall not be ruined. I shall come back before long to stay with them.
The Countess insists upon that.”
“Come back! You are going home, then?”
She sat for a moment with her eyes lowered, then with an heroic
suppression of a faint tremor of the voice,--“I have no money for
travelling!” she answered.
“You gave it _all_ up?”
“I have kept enough to take me home.”
I gave an angry groan; and at this juncture Miss Spencer’s cousin,
the fortunate possessor of her sacred savings and of the hand of the
Provençal countess, emerged from the little dining-room. He stood on the
threshold for an instant, removing the stone from a plump apricot which
he had brought away from the table; then he put the apricot into his
mouth, and while he let it sojourn there, gratefully, stood looking at
us, with his long legs apart and his hands dropped into the pockets of
his velvet jacket. My companion got up, giving him a thin glance which
I caught in its passage, and which expressed a strange commixture of
resignation and fascination,--a sort of perverted exaltation. Ugly,
vulgar, pretentious, dishonest, as I thought the creature, he had
appealed successfully to her eager and tender imagination. I was deeply
disgusted, but I had no warrant to interfere, and at any rate I felt
that it would be vain.
The young man waved his hand with a pictorial gesture. “Nice old court,”
he observed. “Nice mellow old place. Good tone in that brick. Nice
crooked old staircase.”
Decidedly, I could n’t stand it; without responding I gave my hand to
Caroline Spencer. She looked at me an instant with her little white
face and expanded eyes, and as she showed her pretty teeth I suppose she
meant to smile.
“Don’t be sorry for me,” she said, “I am very sure I shall see something
of this dear old Europe yet.”
I told her that I would not bid her goodby; I should find a moment
to come back the next morning. Her cousin, who had put on his sombrero
again, flourished it off at me by way of a bow, upon which I took my
departure.
The next morning I came back to the inn, where I met in the court the
landlady, more loosely laced than in the evening. On my asking for Miss
Spencer,--“_Partie_, monsieu,” said the hostess. “She went away last
night at ten o’clock, with her--her--not her husband, eh?--in fine,
her _monsieur_. They went down to the American ship.” I turned away; the
poor girl had been about thirteen hours in Europe.