CHAPTER II
I compile these notes, these memoirs of a past episode, from what motive? I do not know. From vain unhappiness, perhaps: perhaps from an ineradicable instinct to deliver myself, in some concrete form, of a haunting vision. I do not seek the world’s opinion on them; I should care nothing for it, whichever way pronounced. If anything, they are in the nature of an appeal to the one spirit that could appreciate them, a grave self-analysis, a considered defence, offered to the clear judgment of the disembodied. If there is any moral weakness in them, let me abide by that judgment. I plead nothing in extenuation but sentiment, which in heaven, I think, is still allowed more place than in this modern world of ours, where it has come to be regarded as a contemptible thing, to be rigorously eschewed in art, in education, and, save in its most hypocritically clap-trap form, in the gamble called politics. Yet by sentiment, I think, we humanise, and without it retrograde. When there is no more, we shall have returned to the primal anarchy.
Looks are a powerful influence in the shaping of one’s destiny. The really good-looking man, having the confidence of his parts, finds himself easily equipped for the conquests for which souls less naturally endowed must suffer a severe handicap. He is a laggard if he allows himself to be overtaken; and so I have often found it. My excuse lies—my salvation, perhaps—in my inborn faculty for creating things of beauty far beyond the material reach of the senses. To carve divinity out of stone is ever a higher joy to me than to beget its fleshly image. Wherefore I can assert truly that personal coxcombry is as remote from my nature as the pride of the craftsman is near and holy. That may be believed or not: it may concern others to dispute what it does not concern me to defend.
I put this to myself, and to one other, if not as a justification, as a plea. I have sinned, if I have sinned, not from vanity at all. A thousand times I would rather have suffered that longest handicap than have basely used a favour due to no merit, but merely to inheritance. I did not so use it. It was the traffic of souls, not of bodies, that made the real joy and misery. It would have been the same in the end, though I had possessed the features of a Caliban. And with that I will leave it.
It seems appropriate here to interpolate a note, descriptive of the writer in his late thirties, from the pen of Monsieur C., professor of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and himself a distinguished sculptor—who knew intimately, and was an ardent admirer of, the erratic genius self-portrayed in these pages. Monsieur C. writes:—
“Le Danois is very amusing, very clever, very suffisant. He will be here one moment and nowhere the next; and so with his work, his opinions, his enthusiasms. No one must doubt him, even when to-morrow he advocates the cause or the theory which to-day he denounces. And no one, I am sure, will think of doing so—for the moment: his personal magnetism, his unvexed effrontery see to it. His clothes—a hardy Englishman’s compromise with the French habit—are generally patched and mended: his manners show no bad places at all. He commonly wears what they call a Norfolk suit, but without lapels; knickerbockers, a white handkerchief round his neck in lieu of collar, and white canvas boots with string soles. And in these he will appear unembarrassed in drawing-rooms—to make ladies in love with vagabondism. I think I have never known in another the true gentleman and the true Bohemian so naturally blended. There is not a shadow of pose about him: his belief in himself is too simply unaffected for it. In person he is tall, somewhat lean, and muscular, with the thews of a mountaineer and the eyes of a jay. His hair, thick and brushed forward like a thatch, is coloured a warm brown, and his strong brows, moustache, and short beard au poinçon, are of the same satisfying tone. His face is very agreeably formed, with a look of power and self-confidence in it; and yet he is a disappointed man, one whose expectations have run well ahead of his achievements. He is interested in too many things, that is the fact. In his youth he was bred for the Bar, but soon abandoned its attractions for those of the free life and the pursuit of beauty. An artist, with an irresistible penchant for metaphysics, music, and mechanical science, and an insatiable curiosity about everything, he has never quite succeeded in realising himself or convincing others. Yet some magnificent fragments exist to his credit—a noble head or so, a torso worthy of Praxiteles. I suspect he is too impatient of practice to make perfect. It is a danger, after all, to be too deft with one’s fingers. Things picked up quickly quickly lose their interest; and there are so many fine things in the world to be picked up. Will our friend ever learn to concentrate? I fear. And, by the by, where is he just now? Nobody knows, of course. B. C.”
With a smile for Madame Crussol [continues the narrator], I went up the stairs leisurely. I found my “cousin” standing outside my door, and she turned to look at me as I arrived. I saw question but no embarrassment in her eyes. She held wrapped about her, more for concealment than warmth, I supposed, one of those heavy military capotes of stone blue which have become fashionable with ladies of late; and a black velvet hat, of Tudor shape and with a small white feather, surmounted her head coquettishly.
“You have been a long time coming, Monsieur,” she said; and her voice was soft to sleepiness.
“Ah, true!” I answered. “I have cause for deliberation.”
The door was ajar; I motioned her in and closed it behind us. It shut with a snap, delivering us to complete privacy. Preceding her, I went through the little passage into the salle-à-manger, whence on one side opened the tiny kitchen, on the other my large sitting-room, leading into the single bed-chamber beyond, which together comprised my whole domain. She had followed me, and stopped, as I did, in the main apartment.
“So far so good,” I said. “And now, if you please, what next?”
Her eyes, I could see, were busy with her surroundings, and I took the word from them:—
“Yes, it is all very plain and ungarnished, the quarters of an unstable vagabond quite unused to entertaining countesses. But for what they are worth, they are entirely at your disposition.”
Her eyes came round to me, impassive but wondering.
“You are not to call me that,” she said.
“To call you what? O, yes! I understand. But there is still the question of the moral inference. Am I to defer to what I may not specify—your rank—or to disregard it altogether?”
The eyes seemed to expand momentarily.
“Would there not be danger in the first?” she asked.
“No,” I answered gravely; “I believe not, if we are careful.”
“Then I think I should like it,” she said, with the tiniest sigh as of relief.
I bowed. “The only difficulty lies in my ignorance of the forms, the ceremonial. But I am adaptable, and learn quickly. It occurs to me that, having placed all that I own at your disposal, it is meet for me to retire to the kitchen, while you take stock of the premises. An inventory will not fatigue you. I ask your permission to withdraw.”
I left her standing mute—appraising me, it seemed, with those solemn enigmatic eyes.
“This is petrifying,” I said, apostrophising the saucepan on my little electric stove. There were the cold remains of a curry in it, an excellent curry concocted by myself; but it was not to that I alluded. “I am to be kept in my place, it seems; to esteem at its worth the honour of this condescension, and not to think of presuming upon it. I look for some sign of the stress and tragedy which brought a fugitive to my door. I might as well look for blood in a statue. But it is all very amusing, and I am going thoroughly to enjoy myself.”
It occurred to me that, what with the hour and the exercise, my cousin might be hungry. Anyhow, to prepare and produce a meal would serve to give her time for her exploration, and perhaps to thaw the ice. Wherefore I set to work and cut some sandwiches, knocked up an omelette aux confitures, brewed some chocolate, and, when all was ready, carried in the whole on a tray.
She was standing where, but not as, I had left her. The cloak was doffed and the hat. I saw her clearly for the first time, a placid self-possessed young figure, and with nothing but her rank to signal her out from the majority. Comely if you like: if you like, a thought more Southern in suggestion than Parisian. There was the complexion of warm ivory, deepening to a glow under the eyes, which were of a hot velvet brown; there was the short straight nose, the smooth rather round cheek and ripe babyish mouth. But all was impassive, unperturbed, and seemingly imperturbable. She was dressed in black, very plain and showing the full of the neck, which was certainly a shapely feature. I had seen many girls of her pattern south of Valence, “où le midi commence,” and she was neither better nor worse than the pick of them—just a proud-fleshed young animal.
“Will you?” I said. “After this stress and fatigue you must need refreshment.”
I fancied her eyes glistened a little at the sight. I pulled a small table towards a chair, set out my feast, and asked her to be seated. She glanced at me a little doubtfully before complying.
“I understood that Monsieur’s ménage——”
“Was summed up in Monsieur himself? That is quite right. I am my own portier, my own garçon-de-chambre, my own cook—all of the best character. I do not believe in doing things by halves. What I take up I master. ‘Well meant’ is not enough for me: it must be ‘well done.’”
“I will tell you that,” she said, “when I have eaten.”
The calm insolence of it! I banged the chair down on my own foot, as I set it in place for her. She hesitated a moment before seating herself. There was a perplexed look in her eyes, between condescension and reluctance.
“No, thank you,” I said: “I couldn’t dream of it. I shall have my supper presently among the cinders.”
She ate with evident enjoyment, and in complete self-possession. Indeed I have never known a Frenchwoman, though the cynosure of a score of eyes surrounding her, show embarrassment over a solitary meal. At the end she wiped her lips and her fingers, and, putting down her napkin, leaned back.
“It was very nice,” she said. “I liked it all.”
I came from the background, to which I had considerately withdrawn, pretending to read a book.
“I am reassured,” I answered, preparing to remove the tray. “I hope the rest of my establishment is as much to your taste?”
She glanced up at me, with an indolent question:—
“Where will you sleep yourself?”
Of course: it was a reasonable query, yet it took my breath away.
“O! don’t trouble about me,” I said, “I am a seasoned vagrant. A rug, and the kitchen table, will serve my needs. When we have disposed your baggage——”
“I have no baggage.”
The shock of the retort! And yet I might have foreseen.
“It was all decided in such a hurry,” she said—“and at the last moment. There was no time to prepare anything.”
“Then——” I stood fairly petrified. “It all turns upon the resources of my wardrobe—mine.”
“If you please,” she said. “To-morrow we can arrange things better.”
“You must excuse me,” I answered. “You will understand that you find me as ill-prepared as yourself. If you will take a book—or a cigarette—I will go and see what can be done.”
She took a cigarette, impassively content, and I disappeared into the bedroom. There were her hat and cloak placed on a chair, and it gave me an odd turn to encounter those signs of feminine usurpation.
I could find sheets and linen; I could dispose my other effects, appropriately and with resignation. And then I paused, before producing from a drawer my smartest pair of clean pyjamas. I looked at the length, and shook my head; I turned up the cuffs and the end of each leg, folded and lay the things gently on the pillow, and returned to my visitor.
“I have done my best,” I said. “When it pleases you to retire——”
She rose at once, yawning slightly.
“I am ready, Monsieur. I can hardly, as it is, keep my eyes open”—and she went, and the door was shut between us.
I stood gazing a moment; then switched off the light, turned into the salle-à-manger, closed the door, took a chair, filled and lit my pipe, and sat drawing at it and grinning to myself, like a blissful sucking infant half-hypnotised by the enormous novelty of things. Was it constitutional or “serenical,” in the exalted Highness sense, this impassibility in the face of shocks, this unquestioning acceptance of services as a favour not so much received as bestowed? This girl, this serene infant, had just, if I were to credit my step-sister, passed through a crisis, the consummation of a long ordeal of hate and tyranny, enough to try the stoutest nerves; yet she had shown no more agitation, no more embarrassment over the turn of events than if she had gone out for a drive and been belated in a country inn. The flight by night, the pursuit, the sudden immurement and isolation in strange quarters, appeared to have left her wholly unperturbed. What traditions of command and self-will lay at the back of such assurance, what arrogance of blood and class insolence! and she no more than a grown child, whose contact hitherto with the world must have been of the slightest. It was a new experience for me, this calm overriding of a man’s intelligence and independence by sheer virtue of aristocracy—a new, and I will own, a rather piquant one. I foresaw plentiful amusement for myself in the situation—if I could only accept it on its merits.
I could not, nevertheless, quite do that at once. The thing appeared too wildly fantastical for sober belief. There must be some mystification somewhere, whether unconscious or deliberate, in the story—enough, at least, in my suspicions, to make a farce of my tragic undertaking. Still I had given my word and must play out the farce—conceal what nobody, perhaps, wanted to discover, watch and ward what nobody, perhaps, wanted to injure. Only I hoped devoutly it would not last for long. I was no sybarite, but—
I slept out the night in my chair.