Despair's Last Journey

by David Christie Murray

There was no further sign of Annette that evening, and it was not until the Baroness had retired that Paul began again seriously to remember her. It would at any moment, since his discovery of the lure by which she had beguiled him into marriage, have seemed a mere ridiculous prudery of conscience to hide from himself that he had thrown the better part of his life away; but he had meant to do his duty as it seemed to lie plain and straight before him, and he meant it still, increasingly difficult as it appeared. But all the talk of the lonely soul, of the eternal isolation of the spirit, in which man was doomed to live, all the tinsel sentimentalisms of which the talk of the bilingual poetess had mainly consisted, afforded perhaps as poor a pabulum as he could anywhere have found. There was he, with that sore-stricken heart of his, so sore-stricken, indeed, that it was well-nigh numbed, and here for the first time in his life he had met a woman of more than common surface breeding, of high family—for the Baroness de Wyeth was guilty of no mere vulgar brag in claiming so much for herself—of more than ordinary attractiveness in person, and of far more than common faculty in the direction of a dangerous, sympathetic semi-humbug. Was it any wonder if, when he lay down that night, he contrasted the hours of the evening with those of the afternoon, or if he recalled the fact that at the very turning of the road which had led him to fortune and to fame he had thrown away all that could make them really worth the having?

Annette was sleeping off the fumes of brandy and the insane hysteria which went along with them. The dainty lady from whom he had just parted was going to her repose with her own beautiful, sad thoughts in a refinement of surrounding which he could only fancy. His thoughts followed her to her chamber until it seemed to him that he was in some sort guilty of a profanation, and with that touch of self-chiding the born sex-worshipper must needs flash into a mood of adoration. A more thoroughpaced small coquette than La Femme Incomprise never breathed, yet she must needs be a holy angel for the time being to Paul Armstrong, because she had fine eyes and teeth, and could talk with some eloquence about heart-sorrows she had never known. And he, he who lay there with his career like a stream which is poisoned at its source, might, had he guided his own destinies with anything but the judgment of a fool, have found himself just such a companion as he had but now parted from, and have known in her a life-long comrade, an undying solace and inspiration. Oh, fool! and fool! and fool! through all the wretched, lonely hours of night—fool! and fool! and again fool unutterable!

Annette, on the morrow, was repentant and pitiable. The contrabandist supplies had been of a very limited nature, and now they were over she suffered a more than common misery of reaction from excess. For a while she was sullen, and sulked in her own chamber; but when her headache had worn itself out, she began to creep listlessly about the hotel Paul and the Baroness had spent a second evening tête-à-tête and Paul’s first judgment of the sympathetic nature of her character had been admirably confirmed.

Husband and wife had had but one interview with each other since the latest outbreak, and this had not tended to improve their relations or to sweeten the temper of either one or die other. Paul had not mentioned the existence of his wife to the Baroness until he had learned of the lady’s intention to make a stay of some length in Montcourtois. Then he had said to himself dismally: She will think I have hidden something from her unless I mention Annette; and he had named her in a mere instinct of self-protection.

‘My wife,’ he had said simply, ‘would be very happy and honoured to meet you, but she is confined to her room by a slight indisposition which I hope will pass away in a little time.’

‘I shall hope, then, to make her acquaintance to-morrow,’ said the Baroness, and thereupon they got back to transcendentalisms and soul solitude, and made up their minds how sweet a thing it would be if only it were possible for any one human creature to know and thoroughly understand another. With this unfailing battle-horse ready to prance into the arena under the Baroness’s poetic spur, they were never in danger of being gravelled for lack of matter, but found each other’s society mutually and beautifully stimulative to the heart and mind. After Paul’s short and unhappy interview with Annette, the Baroness requested the pleasure of his society upon a drive she proposed to take. He acceding with great willingness, they rolled away together, and Madame confided to Paul the purpose of her visit to these solitudes at a so inclement season of the year. It was her intent to study the ancient Walloon tongue upon its own ground, and to put her studies to some literary effect by an elaborate comparison of the language spoken by the peasantry of the present day with that of the earliest of the French jongleurs and chroniclers.

‘So you see, Mr. Armstrong,’ she said sweetly, ‘that if you are resolved upon keeping your artistic quiet here throughout the greater part of the winter, you and I will have some opportunity of becoming known to each other.’

Paul did not dare to say how warm a welcome he accorded to this suggestion, but it was dangerously sweet to him, and he had self-understanding enough to recognise that fact. But he was in no mood to struggle against whatever Fate might bring. He was not coxcomb enough to conceive himself likely to be dangerous to a witty and experienced woman of the world, and as to what might happen to himself he did not care. He was desolate enough to be desperate, and if in two short days he had learned to believe that the final loss of the new interest he had found would be among the gravest of troubles, he had learned also as a part of that lesson that the society would be strangely sweet to him whilst it lasted. On Paul’s side there was no thought of a flirtation, and on the side of the Baroness there was not much thought of anything else, so that they got on most famously together, for it is always richer sport in a case of this kind to have one of the parties concerned in earnest Paul took all the soulful shop, on the strength of which the lady had patrolled Europe and the United States on a sort of sentimental journey, to be as serious as the Evangels, and the discussion of it made the drive an undiluted pleasure to him.

But when the carriage returned to the hotel and passed Paul’s study at a walking pace, he caught sight of Annette at the window, and her face seemed to him to offer some promise of a scene. She certainly bent a look of surprised anger upon her husband and the strange, richly-dressed lady with whom he was seated, but he waved his hand to her as he went by and made up a mind to trust to the chapter of chances. As it turned out, Annette was not inclined to be disagreeable, and hearing of the lady’s rank, and being casually informed that she was the wife of the great American-Belgian millionaire, she became resolved to be gracious, and made a careful toilet in preparation for dinner. She and the Baroness met at table, and Annette did not shine by contrast with the newcomer. The poor thing probably knew it, and when Paul and Madame talked together of books she had never seen or heard of, and of people whose names were strange to her, she could scarcely have been altogether happy. Her husband led her into the conversation now and then, but there was nothing for it but for her to dwindle out again, and when the meal was over she made a real or pretended excuse of headache to retire. Paul was disposed to be grateful to her for what he felt to be a genuine forbearance, and he would have given some sign to this effect had Annette afforded him an opportunity. But she kept herself sedulously apart from him, and it was only at the table that they met at all. Things pursued this course until the approach of Christmas, and then an incident happened which brought about, or at least very much helped to bring about, disaster.

When two people of opposite sexes are constantly in each other’s society and their main topic of conversation—however hashed, ragouted, rissoled and spiced—is the loneliness of the Ego, certain little familiarities are likely to ensue which, though they may be of the most platonic order in the world, are not likely to be made a subject of outspoken confidence between a husband and a wife, or a married lady and her husband. Thus, when Madame la Baronne and Paul were quite alone it was ‘Gertrude’ on the one side, and it was ‘Paul’ upon the other, and the lady, being the elder, and a little more the elder than she cared to say, would occasionally venture upon ‘Paul dear,’ with an air so matronly that the most censorious of observers could have found no cavil with the manner of it. It came about in due time, let Laurent’s watch-dogs do what they would, that the contrabandists once more succeeded in running their cargo into the Hotel of the Three Friends. It was a very small one, but it was large enough to serve its turn.