Mr. Mahony, the uncle of Betty O’Brien, with whom Susan was staying,
lived in an apartment on the upper floor of a house in the shabby end of
the rue de la Pompe, out at Passy, by “Metro” from the Place de la
Concorde.
“_Quatrième à gauche_”—fourth floor on the left—was the direction
given to Bertram by the concierge, an enormous man who was wedged with
his almost equally fat wife in a little room on the ground floor with a
glass window through which he could observe those who came and went. He
added to his information by the surly remark that Bertram would find the
right door by the abominable noise that issued from it.
“What kind of noise?” asked Bertram.
“The noise of anarchists, monsieur. All talking treason to France and to
civilisation. I may consider it my duty to inform the police.”
“A prudent idea,” said Bertram.
He smiled at the lowering face of the Colossus through the glass window
with its dirty lace curtains, and then went up four flights of a
staircase which smelt abominably of drains and onions. The plaster on
the walls was crumbling off in scabby patches, and the doors to the
right and left on each landing needed new paint, badly. The door on the
fourth floor to the left had a broken bellrope tied up with a string,
and when Bertram tugged it, there was a sound inside like the jangle of
a Bulgarian cow-bell. Through a slit in the door came the murmur of
several voices, but nothing that could fairly be described as “an
abominable noise.”
The door was opened to him by Susan, a pale Susan, with no Irish roses
in her cheeks, as he noticed when he kissed her.
“So you’ve come!”
She spoke quietly, with no enthusiasm, but then, at the kiss of the
brother who once had been her close comrade, her coldness to him seemed
to melt, and putting both her hands on his shoulders and her face
against his coat, she began to cry a little, silently.
“What’s the matter, Sister Susie?” he whispered, while from the end of
the passage came the sound of vivacious conversation.
“Isn’t everything in the world the matter?” she asked, and then dried
her tears in a comical way with the back of her hand.
“Can’t you come out to some café and have a quiet talk? I don’t feel
like ‘company’ to-night.”
She told him she wanted him to meet Betty’s uncle and her good friend,
Mr. Mahony, and led him by the hand into a shabbily furnished room,
dimly lit by oil lamps, where Bertram saw Betty O’Brien, who rose and
gave him her hand, and an elderly man with white hair, a clean-shaven,
rather priestly face, and very blue eyes, in which there was a look of
humour and benevolence. He was sitting back in a low chair, with broken
leather, through which the stuffing protruded, talking in a
philosophical strain to three young men, obviously Irish, who were
sitting about the room smoking cigarettes. Bertram heard him say
something about the need of sacrifice for sacred principles.
“A man who won’t die for a principle sins against the light.”
“Uncle,” said Betty O’Brien, “be hanged to your principles for a minute.
This is Susan’s brother.”
Mr. Mahony rose, and grasped Bertram’s hand.
“Susan’s brother! Then a friend of Ireland.”
“Half an Irishman, and a good friend,” said Bertram.
Yet before the evening was at an end, his friendship for Ireland was put
to a heavy strain again. Mr. Mahony, with his white hair, and blue
benevolent eyes, and the three young Irishmen to whom he addressed most
of his monologues, made no disguise of their implacable hatred of
England. It was not that they denounced England with any violence of
language, but rather the deadly coldness, and the kind of loathing, with
which they spoke the very name of England.
Worse than that was their contempt. It was plain that they had the fixed
belief that the British Government in Ireland was “on the run.” The
Irish Republican army was succeeding with its policy of secret warfare.
In one week they had killed five British officers and twenty men. They
had raided the barracks, seized great quantities of arms, and organised
a number of successful ambushes. There were large districts in Ireland
into which the Black and Tans dared not penetrate. The British troops
were getting nerve-rattled and demoralised. It was obvious by the
Government answers to questions in the House of Commons that that was
very much the psychological state of “His Majesty’s Ministers.”
The three young Irishmen, smoking French cigarettes interminably, had
all been officers of the I. R. A., and had escaped to France when things
had become too “hot” for them. One of them, named O’Malley, a handsome,
dark-eyed fellow rather like Dennis O’Brien, but with brighter, more
humorous eyes, described his adventures as an escaped prisoner from
Mountjoy, where he had been under sentence of death after capture in an
ambush near Cork. The Black and Tans had searched the countryside for
him, and all the time he was selling eggs in the market-place disguised
as a “colleen,” and so seductive in appearance that an English officer
had given him the glad eye.
Mr. Mahony turned to Bertram and whispered a few words about O’Malley,
with a smile of admiration and pride.
“England will never defeat Ireland with that spirit against her!
O’Malley is like all the boys—just laughs at death. It was he who
executed the British officer who gave the order to fire on the people in
the Celtic Football ground—the bloody villain!”
Bertram felt a little cold chill creep down his spine. These people here
were the enemies of England. Some of them, like O’Malley, had killed
British officers, not in open fighting, but by cold murder, under the
name of “execution.” And they were proud of their exploits, with bright,
humorous eyes, not conscience-stricken, as men with red crimes on their
hands, but as men who had done well in the cause of some divine ideal.
They used even the name of God with a sense of alliance.
“God is working for Ireland,” said Mr. Mahony. “The sacrifice of our
boys is not ignored by Him who died on the Cross to save mankind.”
Bertram felt the blood surge to his brain at these words. He wanted to
stand up and denounce them as blasphemy. To him it was inconceivable
that a man like Mahony, a gentleman, a mild-eyed man, a good Catholic,
could defend the Sicilian methods of the Irish Republicans in the very
name of Christ—who spoke words of peace and pity, who said “Thou shalt
not kill,” whose Gospel was Love. He half rose from his chair to make a
violent and passionate protest, when the words were taken from him by a
newcomer, brought into the room by Betty O’Brien.
“Uncle—here is Mr. Lajeunesse.”
The man who bore the name of “Youth” was an old gentleman of seventy or
more, with a shock of grey hair and a pointed beard, and a delicate,
life-worn face. His eyes, surrounded by a thousand wrinkles, twinkled
with the light of irony, and it was with irony that he greeted Mr.
Mahony.
“I hear you mention the name of Christ, my dear friend! Doubtless you
are quoting the Master’s words to defend militarism and the right of
assassination in special cases? During the Great War, when we murdered
each other wholesale, Christianity was of great value to Army
Commanders, on both sides of the line. I think the Germans were most
successful in using Christ as a propagandist among the troops. But we
did pretty well with the same idea. . . . Good evening, Miss Susy! My
little Irish rose still blooms in Paris?”
The old man kissed the girl on both cheeks with the privilege of his
years, but also with the gallantry of a Frenchman who pays homage to
beauty. And Susan’s roses deepened.
The three young Irishmen had left their chairs when he entered. They
bowed low over his hand and Mr. Mahony addressed him as _cher maître_,
and did not resent his irony. It was Eugène Lajeunesse, and Bertram felt
a thrill at being in the presence of a man whose books, so wise, so
witty, so wicked, so full of tenderness to humanity, and yet so cruel in
tearing down the faith of simple folk, had made him famous throughout
the world. Alone in France during the War, he had maintained his faith
as an international pacifist, and not all the outrages of _Les Boches_,
nor all the agony of France had made him swerve from the belief that the
war was only one more proof of human stupidity.
He brought with him a young Frenchman, blind in one eye and partly
paralysed, it seemed, on one side, so that he walked with difficulty,
using a stick, but wonderfully vivacious and good-humoured.
Eugène Lajeunesse introduced him to the company.
“Aristide de Méricourt. You know his name and work? If there is any hope
for our poor old Europe, which is _in extremis mortuis_, it lies in the
success of this young man and his band of brothers. They are working for
international peace and universal brotherhood. What audacity! What
sublime hope in a world that is digging new entrenchments of hate!”
“We make a little progress,” said the young man with the blind eye.
“From all parts of France youth which saw life in the trenches is
joining our League against Militarism. The Old Men are becoming afraid
of us.”
“As one of the Old Men, I am not afraid of you,” said Lajeunesse,
smiling at his young friend. “I recognise your right to declare a
spiritual warfare against all old imbeciles who are preparing for
another massacre—the last before cilivisation dies—in the fields of
Europe. Gladly would I die to-night to see youth gain its victory over
old age, old ideas, old villainies, old hatreds.”
“You are not among the Old Men, _cher maître_,” said Aristide de
Méricourt; “You are Lajeunesse—Youth itself.”
The old man laughed, and shook his head.
“I pose as the champion of youth. It is my vanity—to keep young in mind
and soul. Alas, I am convicted of senility because of my cynical doubts
of youth’s adventure. Civilisation is too sick to be saved, and
Poincaré, and all the Poincarés and reactionaries of Europe, are
determined on its doom. How many men and boys have you in your League
against Militarism?”
“Three thousand,” said Aristide de Méricourt, with an air of pride. “Our
membership is spreading in England, Germany, Italy, even in Austria. We
are truly international.”
“Three thousand young men pledged to international peace! That is a
beginning. It is excellent. But you have three hundred million souls to
convert. The odds are heavy, dear child.”
“We shall win,” said the young man with the blind eye. “Democracy is
solid against the spirit of war.”
Eugène Lajeunesse laughed quietly, as at a child who talks of killing
dragons.
“Let us put it a little to the test. Here in this company of
intellectuals are several young Irishmen. Are they for or against
militarism—after the war to end war? I have heard something of a little
bloodshed in Ireland—or is it only a rumour? They are Catholics and
Christians. Beautiful is the simplicity of Irish faith! Have they
abandoned the use of Force as a way of argument? Do they believe in
Universal brotherhood, among nations and peoples? Or are they using the
bomb and the revolver to break away from brotherhood with a nation to
whom they are bound in blood, to entrench themselves more narrowly in
national isolation? Tell me, little ones. I am an ignorant old man!”
They told him at some length, and with passionate argument. Mr. Mahoney
said that the international ideal must be based first of all on national
liberty, that universal brotherhood presupposed justice between one
people and another.
It was Aristide de Méricourt, who interested Bertram most, for he was
the immediate opposite in ideals and convictions of Armand de Vaux who
loved the adventure of war and believed that it developed the noblest
qualities of man. But there was something strange and sinister in the
quiet way in which this cripple denounced the existing institutions of
his own country and of western civilisation, the national heroes of
France, all the old loyalties of tradition and faith.
Marshal Foch, he said, had “the soul of a grocer.” He counted men,
battalions, divisions, as so many packets. The sacrifice of human life
left him untouched, unperturbed. Poincaré was a stuffed puppet with a
squeak. French politicians were corrupt and bought. There must be a
clean sweep of superstition—the superstition of the Flag, of the
Church, of Patriotism, of national egotism. The democracies of the world
must unite against the powers of capitalism. France must link up with
Russia for the overthrow of all the forces of _bourgeois_ stupidity and
tyranny. There must be a revolution in England and the United States, so
that Anglo-Saxon democracy might join hands with Latin and Slav. It was
the only hope of the world.
“The audacity of youth!” said Lajeunesse. “Once, too, I had those
dreams! A thousand years ago!”
“As a Catholic Irishman I disagree with such revolutionary gospel,” said
Mr. Mahony, but there was benevolent tolerance in his blue eyes for the
heresy of the younger man.
Bertram pleaded with his sister for a little private talk.
“All this discussion is very interesting, no doubt, but no good to me. I
want to know what you’re doing and going to do. I want to tell you Of my
own troubles.”
“Joyce?” she asked, and he wondered how much she knew of that trouble,
his greatest.
They went out to a café close by, and took a seat in a far corner away
from a group of men drinking with painted women.
Susan shivered a little, and drew her cloak close about her though it
was warm in the café, and oppressive with the smell of cheap wine, black
coffee, and stale tobacco.
“You don’t look well,” said Bertram. “Is anything wrong with you?”
“The price of womanhood,” she said. “I’m going to have a baby. The child
of a man hanged by the English because he loved Ireland. Funny, isn’t
it?”
He put his hand on hers, and groaned a little.
“My poor kid! My dear little sister!”
He was stricken by this news of hers, by the awful memory it revived.
Susan spoke calmly, but with a coldness that was worse than tears or
passion.
“I’ll call him Dennis, if it’s a boy. I’ll make him Irish in soul and
faith, as his father was. And I’ll teach him to hate England as I hate
it.”
Bertram tried to take her hand again, but she pulled it nervously away.
“What’s the good of teaching hate?” he asked. “It gets nowhere. It leads
only to more tragedy, more blood, more death. I believe in peace, and
love.”
“Pap for babes!” said Susan scornfully. “Life is war. Peace doesn’t
exist. We’re all savages, and must obey the law of the savage. Strike
first and quickest, before your enemy gets his chance. No pity, no
forgiveness, no forgetfulness. That’s my creed.”
“It was not the Master’s creed,” said Bertram. He told his sister of the
words spoken by their mother as she lay dying. “Work for Peace!”
“I’m pledged by the promise I made then,” he said. “I’m dedicated to
work for Peace.”
Susan’s eyes filled with tears, but she shook her head and said it was
all useless. How could there be peace when the world was stuffed with
cruelty? Could there ever be peace between France and Germany? Never in
a thousand or a million years. Or ever between Ireland and England,
after what had happened, and was happening? Not as long as an Irish boy
lived to remember the history of his race.
“I’m dedicated too,” she said. “By the blood of the man I married. In
private or in public, by spoken word and written word, I’ve pledged
myself to work against England, so that the British Empire will be
dragged down from its place, and fall in ruin. I’m only one of England’s
enemies, and a poor, weak creature, but I can put in a word here and a
word there. It all helps, and England already has the whole world
against her. France hates her worse than Germany.”
“It’s madness and wickedness,” said Bertram. “You’re hysterical, my
dear, or I couldn’t forgive you for the words you speak.”
She flared up at him, and called him a crawling sentimentalist, who
tried to make the best of both worlds and stand on both sides of the
hedge at the same time.
“You’re tricked by soppy sentiment. Just as Joyce has tricked you. Are
you still loyal to her, may I ask?”
“I want to be,” said Bertram.
She laughed, with a sound of mockery.
“It’s a one-sided loyalty, old boy. Joyce has betrayed you with Kenneth
Murless. If she’s not his mistress, she’s a much slandered woman. Every
one thinks so in Paris.”
Bertram went cold, and stared at Susan with a kind of horror in his
eyes.
“Susan! In God’s name, what do you mean by that?”
She told him it was none of her business. But friends of hers in Paris
who knew that Joyce was her sister-in-law, had taken it for granted that
she had “run off” with Kenneth. They were always about together, in the
Bois, at the opera, at Longchamps, in Henri’s restaurant night after
night.
“What else can people think when a woman leaves her husband and comes to
Paris with a man like Kenneth?”
“She came with Lady Ottery,” said Bertram, “and what your friends say is
a damned lie. If they say so to me, I’ll beat them into pulp.”
Susan laughed again, in her mocking way. “That’s the primitive man. Not
peace and love this time, when it touches you so closely! You’ll beat
any man to pulp who slanders Joyce—or tells the truth, maybe. But you
can’t forgive an Irishman who hates England, not for slandering his
country, but for outraging her, trampling on her face, murdering her
children! Nor a Frenchman who wants to beat Germany to pulp! Where’s
your logic, Bertram?”
He sat silent, staring at a puddle of coffee on the marble-topped table.
What Susan said was true enough. She had found the weak spot in his
armour. His “dedication to peace” only held good as long as it was in
the abstract, and impersonal. This accusation against Joyce, that word
“mistress” coupled with Kenneth’s name, put the instinct of murder in
his mind. If he believed the story he would go to Kenneth and shoot him
like a dog. Fortunately it was absurd. He could afford to laugh at it.
He laughed now, harshly.
“Extraordinary how some women, and most Irish, have the spirit of
vendetta. Why do you hate Joyce so much that you want to kill her
reputation?”
Susan rose, and left the café table.
“Let’s go before we make a public brawl. It’s true I hate Joyce. I
remember a scene over a telephone one night when she threatened to
betray my man. But I hate her now because she’s betraying you, in heart
if not in body.”
Bertram took his sister back without a word, to the apartment house in
the rue de la Pompe. There he left her with a gruff “Good night!” She
had wounded him horribly with a poisoned shaft. Her words tortured him.
He thought of her as a female Iago who had slandered another Desdemona.
And he was Othello, refusing to believe, yet with foul suspicion gnawing
at him, and making a madness in his brain.
Joyce and Kenneth! No, a million times no. And yet, deep down in his
subconsciousness had been that very toad of evil thought. Ever since
Joyce had written to him, telling him she saw a good deal of Kenneth in
Paris, he had tried to kill this base and frightful thought which now
Susan had stated as a well known belief. “Every one thinks so in Paris.”
At nine o’clock next morning he took the train to Amiens and, at the
Hotel du Rhin, hired a motor-car and drove to the Château de Plumoison
where Joyce was staying.