"Amiable personality," I observed seeing Fyne on the point of falling
into a brown study. But I could not help adding with meaning: "He hadn't
the gift of prophecy though."
Fyne got up suddenly with a muttered "No, evidently not." He was gloomy,
hesitating. I supposed that he would not wish to play chess that
afternoon. This would dispense me from leaving my rooms on a day much
too fine to be wasted in walking exercise. And I was disappointed when
picking up his cap he intimated to me his hope of seeing me at the
cottage about four o'clock--as usual.
"It wouldn't be as usual." I put a particular stress on that remark. He
admitted, after a short reflection, that it would not be. No. Not as
usual. In fact it was his wife who hoped, rather, for my presence. She
had formed a very favourable opinion of my practical sagacity.
This was the first I ever heard of it. I had never suspected that Mrs.
Fyne had taken the trouble to distinguish in me the signs of sagacity or
folly. The few words we had exchanged last night in the excitement--or
the bother--of the girl's disappearance, were the first moderately
significant words which had ever passed between us. I had felt myself
always to be in Mrs. Fyne's view her husband's chess-player and nothing
else--a convenience--almost an implement.
"I am highly flattered," I said. "I have always heard that there are no
limits to feminine intuition; and now I am half inclined to believe it is
so. But still I fail to see in what way my sagacity, practical or
otherwise, can be of any service to Mrs. Fyne. One man's sagacity is
very much like any other man's sagacity. And with you at hand--"
Fyne, manifestly not attending to what I was saying, directed straight at
me his worried solemn eyes and struck in:
"Yes, yes. Very likely. But you will come--won't you?"
I had made up my mind that no Fyne of either sex would make me walk three
miles (there and back to their cottage) on this fine day. If the Fynes
had been an average sociable couple one knows only because leisure must
be got through somehow, I would have made short work of that special
invitation. But they were not that. Their undeniable humanity had to be
acknowledged. At the same time I wanted to have my own way. So I
proposed that I should be allowed the pleasure of offering them a cup of
tea at my rooms.
A short reflective pause--and Fyne accepted eagerly in his own and his
wife's name. A moment after I heard the click of the gate-latch and then
in an ecstasy of barking from his demonstrative dog his serious head went
past my window on the other side of the hedge, its troubled gaze fixed
forward, and the mind inside obviously employed in earnest speculation of
an intricate nature. One at least of his wife's girl-friends had become
more than a mere shadow for him. I surmised however that it was not of
the girl-friend but of his wife that Fyne was thinking. He was an
excellent husband.
I prepared myself for the afternoon's hospitalities, calling in the
farmer's wife and reviewing with her the resources of the house and the
village. She was a helpful woman. But the resources of my sagacity I
did not review. Except in the gross material sense of the afternoon tea
I made no preparations for Mrs. Fyne.
It was impossible for me to make any such preparations. I could not tell
what sort of sustenance she would look for from my sagacity. And as to
taking stock of the wares of my mind no one I imagine is anxious to do
that sort of thing if it can be avoided. A vaguely grandiose state of
mental self-confidence is much too agreeable to be disturbed recklessly
by such a delicate investigation. Perhaps if I had had a helpful woman
at my elbow, a dear, flattering acute, devoted woman . . . There are in
life moments when one positively regrets not being married. No! I don't
exaggerate. I have said--moments, not years or even days. Moments. The
farmer's wife obviously could not be asked to assist. She could not have
been expected to possess the necessary insight and I doubt whether she
would have known how to be flattering enough. She was being helpful in
her own way, with an extraordinary black bonnet on her head, a good mile
off by that time, trying to discover in the village shops a piece of
eatable cake. The pluck of women! The optimism of the dear creatures!
And she managed to find something which looked eatable. That's all I
know as I had no opportunity to observe the more intimate effects of that
comestible. I myself never eat cake, and Mrs. Fyne, when she arrived
punctually, brought with her no appetite for cake. She had no appetite
for anything. But she had a thirst--the sign of deep, of tormenting
emotion. Yes it was emotion, not the brilliant sunshine--more brilliant
than warm as is the way of our discreet self-repressed, distinguished,
insular sun, which would not turn a real lady scarlet--not on any
account. Mrs. Fyne looked even cool. She wore a white skirt and coat; a
white hat with a large brim reposed on her smoothly arranged hair. The
coat was cut something like an army mess-jacket and the style suited her.
I dare say there are many youthful subalterns, and not the worst-looking
too, who resemble Mrs. Fyne in the type of face, in the sunburnt
complexion, down to that something alert in bearing. But not many would
have had that aspect breathing a readiness to assume any responsibility
under Heaven. This is the sort of courage which ripens late in life and
of course Mrs. Fyne was of mature years for all her unwrinkled face.
She looked round the room, told me positively that I was very comfortable
there; to which I assented, humbly, acknowledging my undeserved good
fortune.
"Why undeserved?" she wanted to know.
"I engaged these rooms by letter without asking any questions. It might
have been an abominable hole," I explained to her. "I always do things
like that. I don't like to be bothered. This is no great proof of
sagacity--is it? Sagacious people I believe like to exercise that
faculty. I have heard that they can't even help showing it in the
veriest trifles. It must be very delightful. But I know nothing of it.
I think that I have no sagacity--no practical sagacity."
Fyne made an inarticulate bass murmur of protest. I asked after the
children whom I had not seen yet since my return from town. They had
been very well. They were always well. Both Fyne and Mrs. Fyne spoke of
the rude health of their children as if it were a result of moral
excellence; in a peculiar tone which seemed to imply some contempt for
people whose children were liable to be unwell at times. One almost felt
inclined to apologize for the inquiry. And this annoyed me;
unreasonably, I admit, because the assumption of superior merit is not a
very exceptional weakness. Anxious to make myself disagreeable by way of
retaliation I observed in accents of interested civility that the dear
girls must have been wondering at the sudden disappearance of their
mother's young friend. Had they been putting any awkward questions about
Miss Smith. Wasn't it as Miss Smith that Miss de Barral had been
introduced to me?
Mrs. Fyne, staring fixedly but also colouring deeper under her tan, told
me that the children had never liked Flora very much. She hadn't the
high spirits which endear grown-ups to healthy children, Mrs. Fyne
explained unflinchingly. Flora had been staying at the cottage several
times before. Mrs. Fyne assured me that she often found it very
difficult to have her in the house.
"But what else could we do?" she exclaimed.
That little cry of distress quite genuine in its inexpressiveness,
altered my feeling towards Mrs. Fyne. It would have been so easy to have
done nothing and to have thought no more about it. My liking for her
began while she was trying to tell me of the night she spent by the
girl's bedside, the night before her departure with her unprepossessing
relative. That Mrs. Fyne found means to comfort the child I doubt very
much. She had not the genius for the task of undoing that which the hate
of an infuriated woman had planned so well.
You will tell me perhaps that children's impressions are not durable.
That's true enough. But here, child is only a manner of speaking. The
girl was within a few days of her sixteenth birthday; she was old enough
to be matured by the shock. The very effort she had to make in conveying
the impression to Mrs. Fyne, in remembering the details, in finding
adequate words--or any words at all--was in itself a terribly
enlightening, an ageing process. She had talked a long time,
uninterrupted by Mrs. Fyne, childlike enough in her wonder and pain,
pausing now and then to interject the pitiful query: "It was cruel of
her. Wasn't it cruel, Mrs. Fyne?"
For Charley she found excuses. He at any rate had not said anything,
while he had looked very gloomy and miserable. He couldn't have taken
part against his aunt--could he? But after all he did, when she called
upon him, take "that cruel woman away." He had dragged her out by the
arm. She had seen that plainly. She remembered it. That was it! The
woman was mad. "Oh! Mrs. Fyne, don't tell me she wasn't mad. If you
had only seen her face . . . "
But Mrs. Fyne was unflinching in her idea that as much truth as could be
told was due in the way of kindness to the girl, whose fate she feared
would be to live exposed to the hardest realities of unprivileged
existences. She explained to her that there were in the world
evil-minded, selfish people. Unscrupulous people . . . These two persons
had been after her father's money. The best thing she could do was to
forget all about them.
"After papa's money? I don't understand," poor Flora de Barral had
murmured, and lay still as if trying to think it out in the silence and
shadows of the room where only a night-light was burning. Then she had a
long shivering fit while holding tight the hand of Mrs. Fyne whose
patient immobility by the bedside of that brutally murdered childhood did
infinite honour to her humanity. That vigil must have been the more
trying because I could see very well that at no time did she think the
victim particularly charming or sympathetic. It was a manifestation of
pure compassion, of compassion in itself, so to speak, not many women
would have been capable of displaying with that unflinching steadiness.
The shivering fit over, the girl's next words in an outburst of sobs
were, "Oh! Mrs. Fyne, am I really such a horrid thing as she has made me
out to be?"
"No, no!" protested Mrs. Fyne. "It is your former governess who is
horrid and odious. She is a vile woman. I cannot tell you that she was
mad but I think she must have been beside herself with rage and full of
evil thoughts. You must try not to think of these abominations, my dear
child."
They were not fit for anyone to think of much, Mrs. Fyne commented to me
in a curt positive tone. All that had been very trying. The girl was
like a creature struggling under a net.
"But how can I forget? she called my father a cheat and a swindler! Do
tell me Mrs. Fyne that it isn't true. It can't be true. How can it be
true?"
She sat up in bed with a sudden wild motion as if to jump out and flee
away from the sound of the words which had just passed her own lips. Mrs.
Fyne restrained her, soothed her, induced her at last to lay her head on
her pillow again, assuring her all the time that nothing this woman had
had the cruelty to say deserved to be taken to heart. The girl,
exhausted, cried quietly for a time. It may be she had noticed something
evasive in Mrs. Fyne's assurances. After a while, without stirring, she
whispered brokenly:
"That awful woman told me that all the world would call papa these awful
names. Is it possible? Is it possible?"
Mrs. Fyne kept silent.
"Do say something to me, Mrs. Fyne," the daughter of de Barral insisted
in the same feeble whisper.
Again Mrs. Fyne assured me that it had been very trying. Terribly
trying. "Yes, thanks, I will." She leaned back in the chair with folded
arms while I poured another cup of tea for her, and Fyne went out to
pacify the dog which, tied up under the porch, had become suddenly very
indignant at somebody having the audacity to walk along the lane. Mrs.
Fyne stirred her tea for a long time, drank a little, put the cup down
and said with that air of accepting all the consequences:
"Silence would have been unfair. I don't think it would have been kind
either. I told her that she must be prepared for the world passing a
very severe judgment on her father . . . "
* * * * *
"Wasn't it admirable," cried Marlow interrupting his narrative.
"Admirable!" And as I looked dubiously at this unexpected enthusiasm he
started justifying it after his own manner.
"I say admirable because it was so characteristic. It was perfect.
Nothing short of genius could have found better. And this was nature! As
they say of an artist's work: this was a perfect Fyne.
Compassion--judiciousness--something correctly measured. None of your
dishevelled sentiment. And right! You must confess that nothing could
have been more right. I had a mind to shout "Brava! Brava!" but I did
not do that. I took a piece of cake and went out to bribe the Fyne dog
into some sort of self-control. His sharp comical yapping was
unbearable, like stabs through one's brain, and Fyne's deeply modulated
remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal no more than the deep, patient
murmur of the sea abashes a nigger minstrel on a popular beach. Fyne was
beginning to swear at him in low, sepulchral tones when I appeared. The
dog became at once wildly demonstrative, half strangling himself in his
collar, his eyes and tongue hanging out in the excess of his
incomprehensible affection for me. This was before he caught sight of
the cake in my hand. A series of vertical springs high up in the air
followed, and then, when he got the cake, he instantly lost his interest
in everything else.
Fyne was slightly vexed with me. As kind a master as any dog could wish
to have, he yet did not approve of cake being given to dogs. The Fyne
dog was supposed to lead a Spartan existence on a diet of repulsive
biscuits with an occasional dry, hygienic, bone thrown in. Fyne looked
down gloomily at the appeased animal, I too looked at that fool-dog; and
(you know how one's memory gets suddenly stimulated) I was reminded
visually, with an almost painful distinctness, of the ghostly white face
of the girl I saw last accompanied by that dog--deserted by that dog. I
almost heard her distressed voice as if on the verge of resentful tears
calling to the dog, the unsympathetic dog. Perhaps she had not the power
of evoking sympathy, that personal gift of direct appeal to the feelings.
I said to Fyne, mistrusting the supine attitude of the dog:
"Why don't you let him come inside?"
Oh dear no! He couldn't think of it! I might indeed have saved my
breath, I knew it was one of the Fynes' rules of life, part of their
solemnity and responsibility, one of those things that were part of their
unassertive but ever present superiority, that their dog must not be
allowed in. It was most improper to intrude the dog into the houses of
the people they were calling on--if it were only a careless bachelor in
farmhouse lodgings and a personal friend of the dog. It was out of the
question. But they would let him bark one's sanity away outside one's
window. They were strangely consistent in their lack of imaginative
sympathy. I didn't insist but simply led the way back to the parlour,
hoping that no wayfarer would happen along the lane for the next hour or
so to disturb the dog's composure.
Mrs. Fyne seated immovable before the table charged with plates, cups,
jugs, a cold teapot, crumbs, and the general litter of the entertainment
turned her head towards us.
"You see, Mr. Marlow," she said in an unexpectedly confidential tone:
"they are so utterly unsuited for each other."
At the moment I did not know how to apply this remark. I thought at
first of Fyne and the dog. Then I adjusted it to the matter in hand
which was neither more nor less than an elopement. Yes, by Jove! It was
something very much like an elopement--with certain unusual
characteristics of its own which made it in a sense equivocal. With
amused wonder I remembered that my sagacity was requisitioned in such a
connection. How unexpected! But we never know what tests our gifts may
be put to. Sagacity dictated caution first of all. I believe caution to
be the first duty of sagacity. Fyne sat down as if preparing himself to
witness a joust, I thought.
"Do you think so, Mrs. Fyne?" I said sagaciously. "Of course you are in
a position . . . " I was continuing with caution when she struck out
vivaciously for immediate assent.
"Obviously! Clearly! You yourself must admit . . . "
"But, Mrs. Fyne," I remonstrated, "you forget that I don't know your
brother."
This argument which was not only sagacious but true, overwhelmingly true,
unanswerably true, seemed to surprise her.
I wondered why. I did not know enough of her brother for the remotest
guess at what he might be like. I had never set eyes on the man. I
didn't know him so completely that by contrast I seemed to have known
Miss de Barral--whom I had seen twice (altogether about sixty minutes)
and with whom I had exchanged about sixty words--from the cradle so to
speak. And perhaps, I thought, looking down at Mrs. Fyne (I had remained
standing) perhaps she thinks that this ought to be enough for a sagacious
assent.
She kept silent; and I looking at her with polite expectation, went on
addressing her mentally in a mood of familiar approval which would have
astonished her had it been audible: You my dear at any rate are a sincere
woman . . . "
"I call a woman sincere," Marlow began again after giving me a cigar and
lighting one himself, "I call a woman sincere when she volunteers a
statement resembling remotely in form what she really would like to say,
what she really thinks ought to be said if it were not for the necessity
to spare the stupid sensitiveness of men. The women's rougher, simpler,
more upright judgment, embraces the whole truth, which their tact, their
mistrust of masculine idealism, ever prevents them from speaking in its
entirety. And their tact is unerring. We could not stand women speaking
the truth. We could not bear it. It would cause infinite misery and
bring about most awful disturbances in this rather mediocre, but still
idealistic fool's paradise in which each of us lives his own little
life--the unit in the great sum of existence. And they know it. They
are merciful. This generalization does not apply exactly to Mrs. Fyne's
outburst of sincerity in a matter in which neither my affections nor my
vanity were engaged. That's why, may be, she ventured so far. For a
woman she chose to be as open as the day with me. There was not only the
form but almost the whole substance of her thought in what she said. She
believed she could risk it. She had reasoned somewhat in this way;
there's a man, possessing a certain amount of sagacity . . . "
Marlow paused with a whimsical look at me. The last few words he had
spoken with the cigar in his teeth. He took it out now by an ample
movement of his arm and blew a thin cloud.
"You smile? It would have been more kind to spare my blushes. But as a
matter of fact I need not blush. This is not vanity; it is analysis.
We'll let sagacity stand. But we must also note what sagacity in this
connection stands for. When you see this you shall see also that there
was nothing in it to alarm my modesty. I don't think Mrs. Fyne credited
me with the possession of wisdom tempered by common sense. And had I had
the wisdom of the Seven Sages of Antiquity, she would not have been moved
to confidence or admiration. The secret scorn of women for the capacity
to consider judiciously and to express profoundly a meditated conclusion
is unbounded. They have no use for these lofty exercises which they look
upon as a sort of purely masculine game--game meaning a respectable
occupation devised to kill time in this man-arranged life which must be
got through somehow. What women's acuteness really respects are the
inept "ideas" and the sheeplike impulses by which our actions and
opinions are determined in matters of real importance. For if women are
not rational they are indeed acute. Even Mrs. Fyne was acute. The good
woman was making up to her husband's chess-player simply because she had
scented in him that small portion of 'femininity,' that drop of superior
essence of which I am myself aware; which, I gratefully acknowledge, has
saved me from one or two misadventures in my life either ridiculous or
lamentable, I am not very certain which. It matters very little. Anyhow
misadventures. Observe that I say 'femininity,' a privilege--not
'feminism,' an attitude. I am not a feminist. It was Fyne who on
certain solemn grounds had adopted that mental attitude; but it was
enough to glance at him sitting on one side, to see that he was purely
masculine to his finger-tips, masculine solidly, densely,
amusingly,--hopelessly.
I did glance at him. You don't get your sagacity recognized by a man's
wife without feeling the propriety and even the need to glance at the man
now and again. So I glanced at him. Very masculine. So much so that
"hopelessly" was not the last word of it. He was helpless. He was bound
and delivered by it. And if by the obscure promptings of my composite
temperament I beheld him with malicious amusement, yet being in fact, by
definition and especially from profound conviction, a man, I could not
help sympathizing with him largely. Seeing him thus disarmed, so
completely captive by the very nature of things I was moved to speak to
him kindly.
"Well. And what do you think of it?"
"I don't know. How's one to tell? But I say that the thing is done now
and there's an end of it," said the masculine creature as bluntly as his
innate solemnity permitted.
Mrs. Fyne moved a little in her chair. I turned to her and remarked
gently that this was a charge, a criticism, which was often made. Some
people always ask: What could he see in her? Others wonder what she
could have seen in him? Expressions of unsuitability.
She said with all the emphasis of her quietly folded arms:
"I know perfectly well what Flora has seen in my brother."