Next morning Mr. Cardan was down early. The first thing he saw in the
desolate garden before the house was Miss Elver. She was dressed in a
frock cut on the same sack-like lines as her last night’s dress, but
made of a gaudy, large-patterned material that looked as though it had
been designed for the upholstery of chairs and sofas, not of the human
figure. Her beads were more numerous and more brilliant than before. She
carried a parasol of brightly flowered silk.
Emerging from the house, Mr. Cardan found her in the act of tying a
bunch of Michaelmas daisies to the tail of a large white maremman dog
that stood, its mouth open, its pink tongue lolling out and its large
brown eyes fixed, so it seemed, meditatively on the further horizon,
waiting for Miss Elver to have finished the operation. But Miss Elver
was very slow and clumsy. The fingers of her stubby little hands seemed
to find the process of tying a bow in a piece of ribbon extraordinarily
difficult. Once or twice the dog looked round with a mild curiosity to
see what was happening at the far end of its anatomy. It did not seem in
the least to resent the liberties Miss Elver was taking with its tail,
but stood quite still, resigned and waiting. Mr. Cardan was reminded of
that enormous tolerance displayed by dogs and cats of even the most
fiendish children. Perhaps, in a flash of Bergsonian intuition, the
beast had realised the childish essence of Miss Elver’s character, had
recognised the infant under the disguise of the full-grown woman. Dogs
are good Bergsonians, thought Mr. Cardan. Men, on the other hand, are
better Kantians. He approached softly.
Miss Elver had at last succeeded in tying the bow to her satisfaction;
the dog’s white tail was tipped with a rosette of purple flowers. She
straightened herself up and looked admiringly at her handiwork. “There!”
she said at last, addressing herself to the dog. “Now you can run away.
Now you look lovely.”
The dog took the hint and trotted off, waving his flower-tipped tail.
Mr. Cardan stepped forward. “‘Neat but not gaudy,’” he quoted, “‘genteel
but not expensive, like the gardener’s dog with a primrose tied to his
tail.’ Good-morning.” He took off his hat.
But Miss Elver did not return his salutation. Taken by surprise, she had
stood, as though petrified, staring at him with stretched eyes and open
mouth while he spoke. At Mr. Cardan’s “good-morning,” which was the
first word of his that she had understood, the enchantment of stillness
seemed to be lifted from her. She burst into a nervous laugh, covered
her blushing face with her hands—for a moment only—then turned and ran
down the path, ungainly as an animal moving in an element not its own,
to take refuge behind a clump of rank bushes at the end of the garden.
Seeing her run, the big dog came bounding after her, joyously barking.
One Michaelmas daisy dropped to the ground, then another. In a moment
they were all gone and the ribbon with them.
Slowly, cautiously, as though he were stalking a shy bird, and with a
reassuring air of being absorbed in anything rather than the pursuit of
a runaway, Mr. Cardan walked after Miss Elver down the path. Between the
leaves of the bushes he caught glimpses of her bright frock; sometimes,
with infinite circumspection, and certain, it was clear, that she was
escaping all notice, she peeped at Mr. Cardan round the edge of the
bush. Gambolling round her, the dog continued to bark.
Arrived within five or six yards of Miss Elver’s hiding-place, Mr.
Cardan halted. “Come now,” he said cajolingly, “what’s there so
frightening about me? Take a good look at me. I don’t bite. I’m quite
tame.”
The leaves of the bushes shook; from behind them came a peal of shrill
laughter.
“I don’t even bark, like your stupid dog,” Mr. Cardan went on. “And if
you tied a bunch of flowers on to my tail I should never have the bad
manners to get rid of them in the first two minutes like that rude
animal.”
There was more laughter.
“Won’t you come out?”
There was no answer.
“Oh, very well then,” said Mr. Cardan, in the tone of one who is deeply
offended, “I shall go away. Good-bye.” He retraced his steps for a few
yards, then turned off to the right along a little path that led to the
garden gate. When he was about three-quarters of the way along it, he
heard the sound of hurrying footsteps coming up behind him. He walked
on, pretending to notice nothing. There was a touch on his arm.
“Don’t go. Please.” Miss Elver’s voice spoke imploringly. He looked
round, as though startled. “I won’t run away again. But you mustn’t look
at me like that.”
“Like what?” asked Mr. Cardan.
Miss Elver put up a screening hand and turned away. “Like I don’t know
what,” she said.
Mr. Cardan thought he perfectly understood; he pursued the subject no
further. “Well, if you promise not to run away,” he said, “I won’t go.”
Miss Elver’s face shone with pleasure and gratitude. “Thank you,” she
said. “Should we go and look at the chickens? They’re round at the
back.”
They went round to the back. Mr. Cardan admired the chickens. “You like
animals?” he asked.
“I should think so,” said Miss Elver rapturously, and nodded.
“Have you ever had a parrot of your own?”
“No.”
“Or a monkey?”
She shook her head.
“Not even a Shetland pony?” asked Mr. Cardan on a note of astonishment.
Miss Elver’s voice trembled as she again had to answer “No.” At the
thought of all these enchanting things she had never possessed, the
tears came into her eyes.
“In my house,” said Mr. Cardan, conjuring up fairy palaces as easily as
Aladdin, “there are hundreds of them. I’ll give you some when you come
to stay with me.”
Miss Elver’s face became bright again. “Will you?” she said. “Oh, that
would be nice, that would be nice. And do you keep bears?”
“One or two,” said Mr. Cardan modestly.
“Well....” Miss Elver looked up at him, her blank bright eyes opened to
their fullest extent. She paused, drew a deep breath and let it slowly
out again. “It must be a nice house,” she added at last, turning away
and nodding slowly at every word, “a nice house. That’s all I can say.”
“You’d like to come and stay?” asked Mr. Cardan.
“I should think I would,” Miss Elver replied decidedly, looking up at
him again. Then suddenly she blushed, she put up her hands. “No, no,
no,” she protested.
“Why not?” asked Mr. Cardan.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.” And she began to laugh.
“Remember the bears,” said Mr. Cardan.
“Yes. But....” She left the sentence unfinished. The old woman came to
the back door and rang the bell for breakfast. Ungainly as a diving-bird
on land, Miss Elver scuttled into the house. Her companion followed more
slowly. In the dining-room, less tomb-like in the bright morning light,
breakfast was waiting. Mr. Cardan found his hostess already eating with
passion, as though her life depended on it.
“I’m so hungry,” she explained with her mouth full. “Phil’s late,” she
added.
“Well, I’m not surprised,” said Mr. Cardan, as he sat down and unfolded
his napkin.
When he came down at last, it was in the guise of a cleric so obviously
unfrocked, so deplorably seedy and broken-down that Mr. Cardan felt
almost sorry for him.
“Nothing like good strong coffee,” he said cheerfully, as he filled his
host’s cup. Mr. Elver looked on, feeling too melancholy and too ill to
speak. For a long time he sat motionless in his chair, without moving,
lacking the strength to stretch out his hand to his cup.
“Why don’t you eat, Phil?” asked his sister, as she decapitated her
second egg. “You generally eat such a lot.”
Goaded, as though by a taunt, Philip Elver reached for his coffee and
swallowed down a gulp. He even took some toast and buttered it; but he
could not bring himself to eat.
At half-past ten Mr. Cardan left the house. He told his host that he was
going in search of his sculpture; and he comforted Miss Elver, who,
seeing him put on his hat and take his walking stick, had begun to
whimper, by assuring her that he would be back to luncheon. Following
the old woman’s directions, Mr. Cardan soon found himself on the shores
of the shallow lake of Massaciuccoli. A mile away, on the further shore,
he could see the clustering pink and whitewashed houses of the village
in which, he knew, the grocer’s brother lived and kept his treasure. But
instead of proceeding directly to the goal of his pilgrimage, Mr. Cardan
lighted a cigar and lay down on the grass at the side of the path. It
was a bright clear day. Over the mountains floated great clouds,
hard-edged against the sky, firm and massive as though carved from
marble and seeming more solid than the marble mountains beneath. A
breeze stirred the blue water of the lake into innumerable dazzling
ripples. It rustled among the leaves of the poplars and the sound was
like that of the sea heard from far off. In the midst of the landscape
lay Mr. Cardan, pensively smoking his cigar; the smoke of it drifted
away along the wind.
Twenty-five thousand pounds, Mr. Cardan was thinking. If one were to
invest them in the seven per cent. Hungarian Loan, they would bring in
seventeen hundred and fifty a year. And if one lived in Italy that went
a long way; one could consider oneself rich on that. A nice house in
Siena, or Perugia, or Bologna—Bologna he decided would be the best;
there was nothing to compare with Bolognese cooking. A car—one could
afford to keep something handsome. Plenty of nice books, nice people to
stay with one all the time, jaunts in comfort through Europe. A secure
old age; the horrors of decrepitude in poverty for ever averted. The
only disadvantage—one’s wife happened to be a harmless idiot. Still,
she’d obviously be most devoted; she’d do her best. And one would make
her happy, one would even allow her a domesticated bear. In fact, Mr.
Cardan assured himself, it was the poor creature’s only chance of
happiness. If she stayed with her brother, he’d find some substitute for
the inefficient anopheles sooner or later. If she fell into the hands of
an adventurer in need of her money, the chances were that he’d be a
great deal more of a scoundrel than Tom Cardan. In fact, Mr. Cardan saw,
he could easily make out a case for its being his bounden duty, for the
poor girl’s sake, to marry her. That would do very nicely for romantic
spirits like Lilian Aldwinkle. For them, he’d be the gallant rescuer,
the Perseus, the chivalrous St. George. Less enthusiastic souls might
look at the twenty-five thousand and smile. But let them smile. After
all, Mr. Cardan asked himself, a grin more or less—what does it matter?
No, the real problem, the real difficulty was himself. Could he do it?
Wasn’t it, somehow, a bit thick—an idiot? Wasn’t it too—too Russian? Too
Stavroginesque?
True, his motive would be different from the Russian’s. He would marry
his idiot for comfort and a placid old age—not for the sake of
strengthening his moral fibres by hard exercise, not in the voluptuous
hope of calling new scruples and finer remorses into existence, or in
the religious hope of developing the higher consciousness by leading a
low life. But on the other hand, nothing could prevent the life from
being, in point of fact, thoroughly low; and he couldn’t guarantee his
conscience against the coming of strange qualms. Would seventeen hundred
and fifty per annum be a sufficient compensation?
For more than an hour Mr. Cardan lay there, smoking, looking at the
bright lake, at the ethereal fantastic mountains and the marbly clouds,
listening to the wind among the leaves and the occasional far-away
sounds of life, and pondering all the time. In the end he decided that
seventeen hundred and fifty, or even the smaller income that would
result from investment in something a little safer than seven per cent.
Hungarian Loan, was a sufficient compensation. He’d do it. Mr. Cardan
got up, threw away the stump of his second cigar and walked slowly back
towards the house. As he approached it through the little plantation of
poplar trees Miss Elver, who had been on the look-out for his return,
came running out of the gate to meet him. The gaudy upholstery material
blazed up as she passed out of the shade of the house into the sunlight,
her coloured beads flashed. Uttering shrill little cries and laughing,
she ran towards him. Mr. Cardan watched her as she came on. He had seen
frightened cormorants bobbing their heads in a ludicrous anxiety from
side to side. He had seen penguins waving their little flappers,
scuttling along, undignified, on their short legs. He had seen vultures
with trailing wings hobbling and hopping, ungainly, over the ground.
Memories of all these sights appeared before his mind’s eye as he
watched Miss Elver’s approach. He sighed profoundly.
“I’m so glad you’ve come back,” Miss Elver cried breathlessly, as she
approached, “I was really afraid you were going right away.” She shook
his hand earnestly and looked up into his face. “You’ve not forgotten
about the monkeys and the Shetland ponies, have you?” she added, rather
anxiously.
Mr. Cardan smiled. “Of course not,” he answered; and he added gallantly:
“How could I forget anything that gives you pleasure?” He squeezed her
hand and, bending down, kissed it.
Miss Elver’s face flushed very red, then, the moment after, became
exceedingly pale. Her breath came quickly and unsteadily. She shut her
eyes. A shuddering ran through her; she wavered on her feet, she seemed
on the point of falling. Mr. Cardan caught her by the arm and held her
up. This was going to be worse, he thought, than he had imagined; more
Stavroginesque. To faint when he kissed her hand—kissed it almost
ironically—that was too much. But probably, he reflected, nothing of the
kind had ever happened to her before. How many men had ever so much as
spoken to her? It was understandable.
“My good child—really now.” He slightly shook her arm. “Pull yourself
together. If you’re going to faint like this I shall never be able to
trust you with a bear. Come, come.”
Still, the understanding of a thing does not alter it. It remains what
it was when it was still uncomprehended. Seventeen hundred and fifty per
annum—but at this rate it looked as though that would hardly be enough.
Miss Elver opened her eyes and looked at him. Into their blankness had
come that look of anxious, unhappy love with which a child looks at his
mother when he thinks that she is going to leave him. Mr. Cardan could
not have felt more remorseful if he had committed a murder.
What every weakness, every vice?
Tom Cardan, all were thine.
All the same, there were certain things the doing of which one felt to
be an outrage. Still, one had to think of those seventeen hundred and
fifty pounds; one had to think of old age in solitude and poverty.
Leaving Miss Elver to play by herself in the garden, Mr. Cardan went
indoors. He found his host sitting behind closed jalousies in a greenish
twilight, his head on his hand.
“Feeling better?” asked Mr. Cardan cheerfully; and getting no answer, he
went on to tell a long, bright story of how he had searched for the
grocer’s brother, only to find, at last, that he was away from home and
would be away till to-morrow. “So I hope you won’t mind,” he concluded,
“if I trespass on your charming hospitality for another night. Your
sister has most kindly told me that I might.”
Mr. Elver turned on him a glance of concentrated loathing and averted
his eyes. He said nothing.
Mr. Cardan drew up a chair and sat down. “There’s a most interesting
little book,” he said, looking at his host with a genial twinkling
expression, “by a certain Mr. W. H. S. Jones called ‘Malaria: a factor
in the history of Greece and Rome,’ or some such title. He shows how the
disease may quite suddenly obtain a footing in countries hitherto immune
and in the course of a few generations bring a whole culture, a powerful
empire to the ground. Conversely he shows how it is got rid of.
Drainage, quinine, wire-netting....” The other stirred uneasily in his
chair; but Mr. Cardan went on ruthlessly. When the bell rang for
luncheon he was talking to Mr. Elver about the only way in which the
Yellow Peril might be permanently averted.
“First,” he said, laying the forefinger of his right hand against the
thumb of his left, “first you must introduce malaria into Japan. Japan’s
immune, so far; it’s a crying scandal. You must start by remedying that.
And secondly,” he moved on to the index, “you must see that the Chinese
never have a chance to stamp out the disease in their country. Four
hundred million malarial Chinamen may be viewed with equanimity. But
four hundred million healthy ones—that’s a very different matter. The
spread of malaria among the yellow races—there’s a cause,” said Mr.
Cardan, rising from his chair, “a cause to which some good European
might profitably devote himself. You, who take so much interest in the
subject, Mr. Elver, you might find a much worse vocation. Shall we go
into lunch?” Mr. Elver rose, totteringly. “I have a tremendous
appetite,” his guest went on, patting him on his bent back. “I hope you
have too.”
Mr. Elver at last broke silence. “You’re a damned bully,” he whispered
in a passion of misery and futile rage, “a damned stinking bully.”
“Come, come,” said Mr. Cardan. “I protest against ‘stinking.’”
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