Invincible Minnie/Book 2/Chapter 12
He was there, the next evening, and welcomed her as an old friend; in fact, he talked so much that she grew uneasy.
“We’d better work a little,” she said. “Wouldn’t it be awful if a teacher should come and scold us—at our age!”
“What I particularly want to ask,” he said, “is, if you’d come down to Brighton Beach to-morrow? I’ll run you down in Horace’s motor. We’ll have lunch and a swim and get back early. Will that be all right?”
“I’d love it,” she answered, “but I don’t know whether Miss E. could spare me. I’ll ask her.”
“Perhaps if I came home with you this evening, it would look better. So that she can see what sort of chap I am. I could stop in for a moment, couldn’t I?”
“Yes,” Frances answered, doubtfully, “but—I suppose so ... but I’ll have to explain a little in advance. There’s a young German who comes every evening to see her, and you’re sure to find him there.”
“Every evening, eh?”
“Yes; he’s her cousin.”
He frowned over this; asked a number of questions.
“Are you sure she’s all right?” he demanded. “You can’t be too careful, you know.”
“Oh, yes!” Frances asserted, positively, although she was far from sure that he would think so.
“I’ll certainly stop in this evening,” he said. “I want to see for myself.”
“I don’t think you’d better,” she said, reluctantly, “Miss E.’s awfully queer, eccentric, you know. She mightn’t like it.”
“But I want to see her,” he insisted. “She surely can’t object to my stopping in for half a minute. You’re not a servant.”
“It’s not that”
“I want to see for myself,” he repeated. “It may not be a suitable place for you at all. I’d know at once.”
His attitude, his air of protection, delighted Frankie while it annoyed her. She was so firmly convinced that she could take care of herself, so jealous of her freedom, that she didn’t want even advice. And still couldn’t help being very much pleased by this wholly masculine gesture.
In the end she agreed. And was at once sorry and wretched, going through her classes in a nightmare of worry. How would Miss Eppendorfer take it? What would she think of Frankie’s walking in, uninvited, unpermitted, with a strange man? And how to explain him? Now she was ready to confess herself imprudent. She would have given anything she owned if something would have prevented Mr. Naylor from coming.
He, of course, was perfectly unruffled, as anyone conscious of such superiority would be. He followed Frances into the little Mission sitting-room where Miss Eppendorfer and Mr. Hassler were smoking side by side on the sofa. Frances was bitterly embarrassed; for a minute she couldn’t speak at all. She saw them both staring at her in amazement.
“I’ve brought my friend, Mr. Naylor, in for a few minutes,” she said, in a strained, artificial sort of voice. “We”
Nothing more came; the girl who could always take care of herself couldn’t account for her visitor.
“We met at the business school,” said Naylor, “and as we were more or less the only human beings there, we naturally had to be friends.”
At the sound of his careless voice, Miss Eppendorfer’s look of amazement died away. She got up and shook hands with him, presented him to Kurt, and asked him to sit down. She was like a good servant; she knew class when she saw it.
Never before had Frances realised how distinguished her Mr. Naylor was until she saw him in Miss Eppendorfer’s sitting-room. She saw the authoress inspecting him in her detailed and unabashed way, staring at him, computing the cost of his clothes, comprehending the high degree he possessed of what she called “style,” and so greatly admired. She was deeply impressed.
He was very gallant to the poor thing, which delighted her beyond measure. No denying that she made a fool of herself. She was coy, imperious, more youthful than she had ever dared to be with Kurt, and, no matter how preposterous her behaviour, Mr. Naylor didn’t once attempt to catch Frankie’s eye, never encouraged her to be more preposterous.
Poor Miss Eppendorfer! Frankie, watching her, reflected on her ingratiating servility toward Mr. Hassler and her present conduct with Mr. Naylor, and found it impossible to reconcile all this with the Miss Eppendorfer she knew. Could it be the same woman who often talked to her with sense, with cynical shrewdness, with sharp knowledge of the world? The same woman who wrote books and sold them, knew how to make money and how to invest it? At the sound of a man’s voice she was horribly bewitched, even her face lost its look of worn good nature and took on a false and stupid simper. It hurt Frances, she was genuinely grateful to Mr. Naylor for not sneering.
But the baleful eye of the young German was fixed upon him. He was forced to sit in silence and listen to their badinage, and it infuriated him. He broke in suddenly, in a harsh, high voice:
“You are in business here?”
Mr. Naylor turned toward him, looked at him, and hated him.
“No,” he said.
“Perhaps you are looking for an opening?”
“No; there’s an ‘opening’ for me when I’m ready for it,” he answered haughtily.
“It should not be at all difficult to find an opening in this country. The requirements are so small,” Mr. Hassler announced, with tact. “Here they will willingly employ a man who knows nothing. Even hard work they don’t expect. With us in Germany all is very different. It is necessary to work very hard. We are all trained to work very hard. A young fellow starting in business with us would never ask, ‘What are the hours?’ Certainly not. We realise that you have got to work very hard, in order to get somewhere.”
“We don’t need to work so hard in England,” said Mr. Naylor. “We are somewhere.”
“Yes, where!” cried the other, raising his voice.
“Where you’d like to be,” Mr. Naylor replied with a smile.
“Bah! You’re getting left behind. We’re beating you everywhere, in every line. Your British trade—where will it be in ten years’ time?”
“Can’t say, I’m sure. I’m not in trade. But I’m not worried. I dare say we’ll still be on the map.”
Mr. Hassler’s excitement carried him away.
“Yes, you’ll be on the map!” he shouted, “as a German Provinz. We’ll stamp out a little of that damn arrogance.”
“I say, are you trying to be funny?”
“That damned British arrogance,” he went on, at the top of his voice. “You half-educated, half-trained, half-alive nation of money-greedy pigs”
“I say!” cried Mr. Naylor again, puzzled and angry, “You’re going a bit too far!”
“PIGS!” shouted the young German.
Naylor sprang to his feet, as white with anger as the other was red; he was on the point of speaking when Frances caught his arm.
“Oh, please!” she entreated, and suddenly and helplessly, began to laugh.
“Oh, why do Germans always call people pigs!” she cried.
They all looked at her, and under their surprised glance, she struggled for self-control and gained it. She looked down at the ground, her mouth still quivering, and kept very still.
“As for you” began Mr. Hassler, and then stopped.
“Now! Now!” begged Miss Eppendorfer, in terrible distress, “Now, gentlemen!... What about some nice cold beer?”
She was afraid, though, to fetch it and leave the men alone; she was afraid also to ask Frances, not knowing whether or not she considered herself insulted in the person of her guest. She stood nervously smiling, her eyes on her cousin, mutely beseeching him to be placated by beer. At last Frances took pity on her, and went herself to get the stuff. But Mr. Naylor declined.
“Thanks,” he said, stiff and outraged, “I’ll be going.”
“Pshaw!” muttered Mr. Hassler, who stood at the window with his back turned ostentatiously.
“What’s that?” demanded Mr. Naylor, crisply.
“Pshaw!” the other repeated, somewhat louder.
With a very obvious effort the young Englishman said nothing to this; he took his hat, and with a hasty hand-clasp for Frankie and a bow for Miss Eppendorfer, took himself off.
Frankie went into her own room and tried to compose herself by reading, but not for long. Almost immediately the front door slammed and Miss Eppendorfer came into her room like a whirlwind.
“There! You see!” she screamed. “You miserable creature! He’s gone! He’s gone!”
Frances looked at her severely.
“You’ve spoiled everything!” she went on. “How did you dare to laugh at him? What right have you to laugh at him! You’re nothing better than a servant. And he belongs to one of the finest families in Hamburg. His father’s worth nearly half a million. He’s been through Heidelberg. And you dare to laugh at him! Who are you, anyway? A big, gawky fool of a girl.... Picking up a man in the street and bringing him into my house.... He’s shocked at you.”
And so on, in the strain that so sickened and dismayed Frances.
“He laughs at you. He says you’re a clumsy, ignorant” ... All manner of dirty insolence.
The heart of the trouble was there, that Frances had laughed at him. He could forget his anger against the Englishman, but he could not stomach being laughed at by a pretty girl. He had said horrible things about her, which Miss Eppendorfer had treasured up and now repeated, with greater malice because she dimly perceived that in his hatred for Frances there was more than a little lust.
Against this attack Frances was defenceless. There was nothing in her nature, nothing in her training, to arm her. She stood up very straight, very proud, but tears were running down her cheeks. She waited until every one of the dreadful words had been said, and the speaker had flung out of the room, then she set to work to pack her little trunk with furious energy, cramming everything in, wishing only to be gone forever from that place. In hat and jacket, she went out into the hall and telephoned for a taxi.
The driver came up after her trunk; he was just dragging it along the hall to put it into the lift, when Miss Eppendorfer came rushing out, in a kimono, her face raddled and tear-blistered, her wisps of hair in a wild tangle.
“No! No!” she screamed. “Stop! Frances!”
Her voice reverberated shockingly in the stone corridor. The lift boy and the chauffeur stared at her. Frances felt ready to faint.
“Frances! Come back and let me explain!”
“I can’t!” said Frances in a low voice. “Please don’t make such a noise!”
“Come back! I can’t let you go like this! I didn’t mean what I said! You know I didn’t!”
Already the doors of two apartments had stealthily opened.
“Oh, please hush!” entreated Frances. “I can’t come back. I’ll write.”
Suddenly Miss Eppendorfer turned to the two men.
“Can’t you beg this hard-hearted girl not to leave me like this, without a chance to explain?” she sobbed, in a torrent of tears. “Can’t you say a word for me? I’m alone in the world. I haven’t”
“Hush!” commanded Frances. “I’ll come! Please take the trunk in again.”
When the front door was closed Miss Eppendorfer flung her arms about Frances.
“I know you can’t forgive me,” she moaned. “But, oh Frances!... You don’t know what love is! You don’t know how I love that man! I know I’m a fool, but I can’t help it. Oh, Frances, just stand by me till it’s over.”
“I don’t understand you. I thought you were going to marry him”
“No! No! Never!... Only stand by me till I get over it. It won’t last. He’ll go away soon. It’s madness; I know it. But you don’t know how I suffer. I can’t help myself. Oh, Frances, you’re so cool and reasonable, you don’t know!”
The flood of her confession was not to be dammed. Frances had to hear it all and to learn its lesson, as well as her unready mind permitted. And all the time she listened, in shame, pity and disgust, her adventuring spirit was eagerly and thirstily drinking this new knowledge, this experience, precious even if vicarious.
She really understood very little of it. Miss Eppendorfer, although protesting constantly how she “loved” Kurt, seemed actually to display more hate than affection. She bore him a bitter grudge for this “love.” She was full of stories of his sneers, his taunts; how he had pulled the pins out of her hair and then laughed himself sick at the bleached and scanty locks. How he compared her to other women whom he had seen in the course of the day; how he had asked her to sing, and then mocked her. How he wasted her money and forever demanded more. She knew that he ridiculed her to his friends. He encouraged her to drink and then got her to sign cheques....
The end of her recital left her stripped of all decency, all honour, showed her a weak fool destroyed by a vice, something to shudder at: yet her honesty, her lack of self-justification, the eternal and naked humanness in it all, touched even the fastidious young girl.
“This awful thing is I!” the woman seemed to say. “This is my soul. May God help me, and Man pity me!”
Frances sat beside her till she fell asleep, wiser, kinder, better than she had ever been before.