MY PEARL OF TOO GREAT PRICE
Kitchener and I were very philosophic as we crossed the Channel that
fine day in April. We had got thoroughly fitted to each other, now,
the rough edges smoothed down, all idiosyncrasies allowed for; we knew
when to press hard, so to speak, and when to go light, and the result
was a good, seasoned intimacy that lasted twelve long years.
I have always been a good sailor, a slight headache in an unusually
nasty roll being my only concession to Neptune, and Kitch and I viewed
with cynical tolerance the depressing antics of our less fortunate
fellow-travellers. As we neared the French coast I realised gradually
how good it would be to see Roger again, and found time to regret a
little of my solitary lingering through the damp English winter, which
seemed more oppressive in retrospect than it had been in reality.
For Margarita I had only the kindest feelings and the friendliest
hopes that she would develop into a good wife for Roger. To marry such
a bewitching knot of possibilities was of course more or less a risk,
but on the other hand, if any man could succeed in such an
undertaking, surely that man was our placid, patient Roger! I had
learned patience myself during the winter, by dint of chess and
philosophy, and somehow, as the little Channel boat pitched under me
and the shifty April clouds rolled along the sky over me, life, as it
stretched out for me and Kitchener, was not too gloomy: was even
flavoured with a certain easy freedom that rather tickled my
middle-aged epicurean palate--for the middle thirties were, even
twenty years ago, reasonably middle-aged.
Nevertheless it was impossible not to remember that my feelings had
not always been thus ordered, and when, a few hours later, the guard
let me out of the carriage, and I saw only Roger on the platform, I
realised that I had braced myself a little for a meeting that did not
take place.
"It's good to see you again, Jerry," he said heartily, "mighty good!"
And with his hand gripping mine, I had a moment of whimsical wonder
that any woman born should have been able to threaten such a
friendship for (or by!) the twinkling of an eye.
We talked of our plans, mine, such as they were, being only too ready
to merge into his, which included a stiff climb through the Swiss
Alps; of my Oxford sojourn; of Margarita's music and his readiness to
get back to America as soon as she should feel equal to it. It amused
me a little to discover how simply Roger accepted his role of
indulgent American husband: those men are born to it, I believe--there
seems no crisis, no period of instruction, even. I never pretended to
half his real strength of character, but I could not have imagined
myself stopping in circumstances more or less distasteful to me until
my wife's whim should release us! I had spoken to no woman for many
months, you must remember, but my landlady and the Professor's trained
nurse, and unflattering though it may sound to the much-desired sex, I
had not been conscious of any special lack, after the first few weeks.
To this day I have never known the name of the street nor the number
of that Paris _appartement_. We were deep in our plans for
mountaineering, and except that I noted the wheezy little lift of Mrs.
Upgrove's letter, I remember literally nothing about that excursion
but the familiar odour of the Paris asphalt, the snapping and cracking
of the Gallic horsewhip, and the smoke of my own cigarette which blew
into my eyes as I threw it away on entering the house.
The late afternoon sun poured into the gay little drawing-room, all
buff and dull rose, in the charming French style, and full of sweet
spring flowers in bowls and square jars of Majolica ware. The height
of the _appartement_ made it delightfully airy and bright, and through
the western windows I glimpsed the feathery tips of the delicate new
green of the trees. A small grand piano stood near an open window and
a gorgeous length of Chinese embroidery on the opposite wall was
reflected in a tall, narrow mirror that doubled the apparent size of
the room and gave a pleasant depth and richness to all the airy
clearness of the spring that seemed to fairly incarnate itself in the
spot and the hour. I have never liked Oriental embroideries since that
day, and the clogging scent of hyacinth is a thing I would take some
trouble to avoid; those sad little spires of violet, pink and white
spell only sorrow to one man, at least: sorrow and memories of pitiful
and unmanly weakness.
For standing by the piano, one hand with its cloudy, flashing sapphire
white among the pale stiff spikes, her deer-like head dark against the
fantastic rose and orange of the embroidered dragons, was Margarita, a
lovely smile curving her lips and the warm light in her deep
slate-coloured eyes burning down, down into my very vitals. In that
one rich, welcome smile all my calm English months melted like wax in
a furnace, and Oxford was a drab dream and Surrey a stupid sick-bay!
As I faced her, the old wound burst and widened, with that torturing
sweet shock that I had relegated sagely to poets and youthful heats,
and I knew that I loved her hopelessly, with a love that put out my
love for Roger and my mother as the sun puts out the small and steady
stars.
I had left a bewitching, unlikely elf; I found a magnificent woman.
She seemed to my gloating eyes to have grown tall, though that might
have been the effect of her loosely flowing, long-trained gown, which
was as if she had put on a garment of shot green and blue silk and
then another over it of rich, yellowish lace. The neck was cut in a
sort of square, such as one sees in the pictures of Venetian ladies
in the _cinque cento_, and at the base of her full throat lay an
antique necklace of aqua marines. Heavens! How perfect she was! As she
moved over in her grand free stride and took my hands in both of hers,
vitality and glowing strength seemed to pour along her veins into
mine; she seemed almost extravagantly alive, and I a pallid, stupid
dabbler on the shore of things. Her figure was much fuller; her arm,
where the loose lace sleeve fell back from it, was plump and round,
and this and the increased softness of her throat and chin added a
year or two--yes, three or four--to what I had hitherto believed to be
her age. She was a fit mate for Roger now; no longer a captured
child-witch.
I bent over her hands, to cover my emotion, and ceremoniously kissed
the backs of them; there was a creamy dimple below each finger now. As
I lifted my head and heard Roger's chuckle of delight at my amazement
at her, I saw for the first time that we three were not alone in the
room, and found myself bowing to a neat, chill British spinster, big
and white of tooth, big and flat of waist, big and bony of knuckle.
She wore sensible, square-toed boots and the fashion of her clothing
suggested a conscientious tailor who had momentarily lost sight of her
sex. She bore a _pince-nez_ upon her flat chest, the necessity for
which was obvious, but her short-sighted blue eyes were kind and the
grasp of her knuckly hand was human. She was a thorough-going lady if
she was a trifle grotesque, and my respectful friendship for Barbara
Jencks, late of the household of the Governor-General of Canada, has
never waned.
"You find Mrs. Bradley somewhat changed, I dare say," she remarked, by
way of breaking a rather strained silence, for Roger, never talkative,
was hunting among a pile of guide-books and Margarita was staring
dreamily into the sunset, now a miracle of golden rose.
"Somewhat, indeed," I responded politely, my mind darting back to that
girl in the red jersey who had sat cross-legged like a Turk on the
sand, and told me that I loved her. What would the Governor-General
have thought of that girl?
Again a pause, and now Miss Jencks addressed Margarita,
affectionately, but firmly--oh, very firmly!
"What do you find so absorbing out of the window, my dear?"
Margarita started like a forgetful child, blushed a little, murmured
impatiently in French and then smiled delightfully at me.
"But this is Jerry, Miss Jencks, Roger's and my Jerry," she said
beseechingly. "You do not mean that I must be polite to Jerry?"
"Most assuredly," returned Miss Jencks. "When a gentleman, even though
he be an old friend, makes a journey to see one after a long absence,
he expects and deserves to be entertained!"
Roger caught my eye, made his old whimsical grimace, and rooted deeper
into the guide-books. Margarita sighed gently, seated herself in a
high carved chair and inquired, with her lips, adorably, after my
health and my journey, but laughed naughtily with her eyes, an
accomplishment so foreign to my knowledge of her as to reduce me to
utter banality; which suited Miss Jencks perfectly, however, so that
she resigned the conversational rudder to her pupil and concerned
herself with knitting a hideous grey comforter (for the Seaman's Home,
I learned later), giving the occupation a character worthy the most
_comme-il-faut_ clubman.
A neat, black uniformed _bonne_ brought in tea, in the English
fashion, and Margarita served us most charmingly under the eagle eye
of Miss Jencks, eating, herself, like a hungry school-girl, and
stealing Roger's cakes impudently when the sometime directress of the
Governor-General's household affected a well-bred deafness to her
request for more. After tea Miss Jencks departed with her knitting
and we three were comfortably silent; Margarita dreamy, I all in a
maze at her, Roger relishing my wonder. The hyacinths smelled strong
in the growing dusk, the Chinese dragons burned against the wall:
colour and odour were alike a frame for her beauty and her richness. I
can never wholly separate that hour in my memory from the visions of a
fever and the burning heat of worse than the African Desert.
Later we sat about the candle-shaded dinner table, a meal where
English service faded in the greater glory of French cooking, and I
rebelled with Roger at Miss Jencks's curtailment of her charge's
appetite.
"Surely, Miss Jencks, this _escarole_ is harmless," Roger protested,
with a smile at Margarita's empty plate, but when that lady repeated,
nodding wisely:
"I assure you, Mr. Bradley, she is better without it," he succumbed
meekly, even slavishly, I thought, and shook his head at Margarita's
pleading eyes.
In the centre of the table was a graceful silver dish, filled with
fruit, and as the attendant _bonne_ left the room, Margarita, with a
little cooing throaty cry, reached over to it, seized with incredible
swiftness two great handfuls of the fruit, and leaping from her seat
retreated with her booty to the _salon_. For a second she stood in the
doorway, two yellow bananas hugged to her breast among the rich lace,
an orange in her elbow, her teeth plunged into a great black Hamburg
grape, her eyes two dark blue mutinies.
Roger burst into a Homeric laugh and even Miss Jencks smiled
apologetically.
"I suppose we must let her have the fruit," she conceded, "an old
friend like Mr. Jerrolds will make allowance--"
"We expect the child in June," said Roger simply, and then something
seemed literally to give way in my brain and I clutched the
table-cloth as a sharp hard pain darted through my temples. Strange,
unbelievable though it may seem, I had never thought of such a thing
as this!
[Illustration: FOR HOURS AND HOURS I WALKED, MUTTERING AND CURSING]
My face must have excused my brusque departure, my utter inability to
eat or drink another mouthful. I muttered something about a rough
voyage and my land-legs (I, who never knew the meaning of
_mal-de-mer_!) and I know my forehead must have been drawn, for Miss
Jencks pressed _sal volatile_ upon me solicitously. Roger, manlike,
let me get off immediately and alone, as I begged, and once at the
bottom of the interminable stairs, I flung myself into a wandering
_fiacre_, and drove through the merry, lighted Paris boulevards, a
helpless prey to passions black and bitter--to a wicked, seething
jealousy such as I had never dreamed possible to a decent man.
_That_ was the deep throat, the large and lovely arm! _That_ was the
dreamy, full-fed calm, the woman ruminant! God! how the thought
tortured and tore at me! I, who had thought myself cured and a
philosopher--a kindly philosopher! My first fit of love for her had
carried its exaltation with it, but in this grinding, physical rage
there was only shame and madness.
I caught, somehow, a train for Calais, I stumbled onto a boat there in
a driving rain, and walked the deck in it all night. I travelled
blindly to Oxford and tramped through soggy, steaming lanes, through
sheets of drizzle, through icy runnels and marshy grass. For hours and
hours I walked, muttering and cursing, my teeth chattering in my head,
my brain on fire, my feet slushing in my soaking boots. I did not know
clearly where I was, I did not know why I was walking nor where, but
walk I must, like the convicts on the treadmill. Something laughed
horribly in the air just behind me and said like a parrot, over and
over again:
"We expect the child in June! We expect the child in June! We expect
the child--"
I hit out with my blackthorn stick. "Damn you and your child!" I cried
wildly, and fell face forward in a marshy puddle.