The Unspeakable Gentleman/Chapter 11
XI
The sun had finally broken through the clouds, and already its rays were slanting into the room, falling softly on the dusty furniture, and making the shadows of the vines outside dance fitfully on the wall by the fire; and the shadows of the elms were growing long and straight over the rain soaked leaves, and the rank, damp grass of our lawn. It was the dull, gentle sunshine of an autumn afternoon, soft and kindly, and yet a little bleak.
"Yes," said my father, "it is nearly over. It turns into a simple matter, after all. I wonder, Mademoiselle, will you be sorry? Will you ever recall our weeks on the highroad? I shall, I think. And the Inn in Britanny, with Brutus up the road, and Ned Aiken swearing at the post boys. At least we were living life. And the Eclipse—I told you they would never beat us on a windward tack. I told you, Mademoiselle, the majority of mankind were very simple people."
"And you still feel so?" she asked him.
THE UNSPEAKABLE GENTLEMAN
"Now more than ever," said my father. "I had almost hoped there would be one sane man among the dozens outside, but they all have the brains of school boys. No wonder the world moves so slowly, and great men seem so great."
And he wound the handkerchief around his hand again.
"The captain has arranged to sell the paper?" asked Mademoiselle.
"Exactly," said my father. "The price has been fixed, and I shall deliver it myself as soon as the day grows a little darker. I am sorry, almost. It has not been uninteresting."
"No," said Mademoiselle, "it has not been uninteresting."
"You are pale, my son," said my father, turning to me. "I trust you are not hurt?"
I shook my head.
"It is only your pride? You will be better soon. Come, we have always been good losers. We have always known when the game was up. Let us see if we cannot end it gracefully, as gentlemen should. You cannot get the paper. Why not make the best of it? You have tried, and tried not unskilfully, but you see now that the right man cannot always win—a useful lesson, is it not? I do not ask you to like me for it. You have seen enough of me, I hope, to hate me. And yet—let us be philosophical. Be seated, my son. Brutus, it is three o'clock. Bring in the Madeira, and the noon meal."
I did not reply, and he stood for a moment watching me narrowly. Brutus threw another log on the fire, which gave off a brisk crackling from the bed of coals. He then stood waiting doubtfully, until my father nodded.
"Take the door out as you go," my father directed. "Mademoiselle, permit me."
He pointed out an armchair beside the fire. "And you, my son, opposite. So." From the side pocket of his coat he drew a silver mounted pistol, which he examined with studious attention.
"Come," he said, slipping it back, "let us be tranquil. Is there any reason to bear ill will simply because we each stand on an opposite side of a question of ethics? If you had only been to the wars, how differently you would see it. There hundreds of men stab each other with the best will in the world, none of the crudeness of personal animosity, only the best of good nature. In a little time now we shall part, never, if I can help it, to meet again. You have seen me as a dangerous, reckless man, without any principles worth mentioning. Indeed, I have so few that I shall have recourse to violence, my son, if you do not assume a more reposeful manner. The evening will be active enough to make any further excitement quite superfluous. Have patience. An hour or so means little ta anyone so young."
There fell a silence while he stood immovably watching us. A gust of wind blew. down the chimney, and scattered a cloud of dust over the hearth. The rafters creaked. Somewhere in the stillness a door slammed. The very lack of expression in his face was stamping it on my memory, and for the first time its phlegmatic calm aroused in me a new emotion. I had hated it and wondered at it before, and now in spite of myself it was giving me a twinge of pity. For nature had intended it to be an expressive face, sensitive and quick to mirror each perception and emotion. Was it pride that had turned it into a mask, and drawn a curtain before the light that burned within, or had the light burned out and left it merely cold and unresponsive?
"The captain is thinking?' said Mademoiselle.
He smiled, and fixed her with his level glance.
"Indeed yes," he answered briskly. "It is a rudeness for which I can only crave your pardon. Strange that I should have tasted your father's hospitality so often and should still be a taciturn host."
Mademoiselle bit her lip.
"There is only one thing stranger," she said coldly.
"And that is—?" said my father, bending toward her attentively.
"That you should betray the last request of the man who once sheltered you and trusted you, and showed you every kindness. Tell me, captain, is it another display of artistic temperament, or simply a lack of breeding?"
Her words seemed to fall lightly on my father. He took a pinch of snuff, and waved his hand in an airy gesture of denial.
"Bah," he said. "If the Marquis were alive, he would understand. He was always an opportunist, the Marquis. 'Drink your wine,' he would say, 'drink your wine and break your glass. We may not have heads to drink it with tomorrow.' I am merely drinking the wine, Mademoiselle. He would not blame me. Besides, the Marquis owes me nothing. If it were not for me, your brother would be drinking his wine in paradise, instead of cursing at the American climate. And you, Mademoiselle—would you have preferred to remain with the police?"
He looked thoughtfully into his snuff box.
"Dead men press no bills—surely you recall the Marquis said that also. No, Mademoiselle, we must be practical to live. The Marquis would understand. The Marquis was always practical."
She caught her breath sharply, but my father seemed not to have perceived the effect of his words.
"Ah," he said, "here is Brutus with the meal."
Brutus had carried in a small round table on which were arranged a loaf of bread and some salt meat.
"Mademoiselle will join me?" asked my father, rubbing his hands. I do not think he expected her reply any more than I did. Indeed, it seemed to give him a momentary uneasiness.
"One must eat," said Mademoiselle. "We will eat, captain, and then we will talk.S I am sorry you have made it necessary, but of course you have expected it."
"Mademoiselle has been unnaturally subdued," he replied. "It is pleasant she is coming to herself again. And you, my son, you should be hungry."
"As Mademoiselle says, one must eat," I answered.
"Good," he said. "The food is poor, but you will find the wine excellent," and he filled the glasses. It was a strange meal.
"Now we shall talk," said Mademoiselle, when it was finished.
My father raised his wine glass to the light.
"It is always a pleasure to listen to Mademoiselle."
"I fear," replied Mademoiselle, "that this will be the exception."
"Impossible," said my father, sipping his wine.
"All this morning I have tried to have a word with you," said Mademoiselle, "but your time has been well taken up. I hoped to speak to you instead of your son, but he failed to take my advice and remain quiet. As I said before, you are both stubborn. Not that it has made much difference. You still have the paper."
She paused, and surveyed him calmly.
"Is it not painful to continue the discussion?" my father inquired. "I assure you I have not changed my mind since last evening, nor shall I change it. Must I repeat that the affair of the paper is finished?"
"We shall see," said Mademoiselle.
"As Mademoiselle wishes," said my father.
"I has been six years since I first saw you in Paris," said Mademoiselle. Her voice was softly musical, and somehow she was no longer cold and forbidding. My father placed his wine glass on the table, and seemingly a little disturbed, gave her his full attention.
"Six years," said Mademoiselle. "I have often thought of you since then.
"You have done me too much honor," said my father. "You always have, my lady."
She only smiled and shook her head.
"You are the sort of man whom women think about, and the sort whom women admire. Surely you know that without my telling you. A man with a past is always more pleasant than one with a future. Do you know what I thought when I saw you that evening? You remember, they were in the room, whispering as usual, plotting and planning, and you were to have a boat off the coast of Normandy. You and the Marquis had ridden from Bordeaux. I thought, Captain, that you were the sort of man who could succeed in anything you tried—yes, anything. Perhaps you know the Marquis thought so too, and even today I believe we were nearly right. We saw you in Brussels later, and in Holland, and then at Blanzy this year. I have known of a dozen commissions you have performed without a single blunder. Indeed, I know of only one thing in which you have definitely failed."
"Only one? Impossible," said my father.
"Yes, only one, and it seemed simple enough."
A touch of color had mounted to her cheeks, and she looked down at the bare table.
"You have done your best, done your best in a hundred little ways to make me hate you. You have studied the matter carefully, as you study everything. You have missed few opportunities. Even a minute ago, about the Marquis—and yet you have not succeeded."
My father raised his hand hastily to his coat lapel.
"Is there never a woman who will not reduce matters to personalities," he murmured. "I should have known better. I see it now. I should have made love to you."
Though her voice was grave, there was laughter in her eyes.
"I have often wondered why you did not. It was the only method you seem to have overlooked."
"There is one mistake a man always makes about women." He smiled and glanced at us both, and then back at his wine again. "He forgets they are all alike. Sooner or later he sees one that in some strange way seems different. I thought you were different, Mademoiselle. Heaven forgive me, I thought you even rational. Surely you have every reason to dislike me. Let us be serious, Mademoiselle. You do not hate me?"
"I am afraid," said Mademoiselle, "that you have had quite an opposite effect."
In spite of myself I started. Could it be that I was jealous? Her eyes were lowered to the arm of her chair, and she was intent on the delicate carving of the mahogany. It was true then. I might have suspected it before, but was it possible that I cared?
"Good God!" exclaimed my father, and pushed back his chair.
Mademoiselle rested her chin on the palm of her hand.
"I told you the interview would not be pleasant," she said. "But you are pessimistic, captain. I have not said I loved you. Do not be alarmed. I was going to say I pitied you. That was all."
"Mon Dieu," my father murmured. "It is worse." And yet I thought I detected a note of relief in his voice. "Surely I am not as old as that."
Mademoiselle, whose eyes had never left his face, smiled and shook her head.
"I know what you are thinking," she said. "No, no, captain. It is not the beginning of a melodramatic speech. I am not offering pity to the villain in the story. Even the first night I met you, I was sorry for you, captain. I was sorry as soon as I saw your eyes. I knew then that something had happened, and when I heard you speak, I told myself you were not to blame for it. I still believe you were not to blame. You see, I know your story now."
"Indeed?" said my father. "And you still are sorry. Mademoiselle, you disappoint me."
"Yes," said Mademoiselle, "I heard the story, and I believe she was to blame, not you. After all, she took you for better or worse."
And then a strange thing happened. In spite of himself he started. His face flushed, and his lips pressed tight together. It seemed almost as though a spasm of pain had seized him, which he could not conceal in spite of his best efforts. With an unconscious motion, he grasped his wine glass and the color ebbed from his cheeks.
"Mademoiselle is mistaken," said my father. "Another wine glass, Brutus." The stem of the one he was holding had snapped in his hand.
"Nonsense," said Mademoiselle shortly.
My father cleared his throat, and glanced restlessly away, his face still set and still lined with the trace of suffering.
"Mademoiselle," he said finally, "you deal with a subject which is still painful. Pray excuse me if I do not discuss it. Anything which you may have heard of my affairs is entirely a fault of mine. You understand?"
"Yes," said Mademoiselle, "I understand, and we shall continue to discuss it, no matter how painful it is to you. Who knows, captain; perhaps I can bring you to your senses, or are you going to continue to ruin your life on account of a woman?"
"Be silent, Mademoiselle," said my father sharply.
But she disregarded his interruption.
"So she believed that you had filled your ship with fifty bales of shavings. She believed it, and called you a thief. She believed you were as gauche as that. I can guess the rest of the story."
But my father had regained his equanimity.
"Five hundred bales of shavings," he corrected. "You are misinformed even about the merest details."
"And for fifteen years, you have been roving about the world, trying to convince her she was right. Ah, you are touched? I have guessed your secret. Can anything be more ridiculous!"
He half started from his chair, and again his face grew drawn and haggard.
"She was right," he said, a little hoarsely. "Believe me, she was always right, Mademoiselle."
, "Nonsense," said Mademoiselle, "I do not believe it."
My father turned to me with a shrug of his shoulders.
"It is pleasant to remember, is it not, my son, that your mother had a keener discernment, and did not give way to the dictates of a romantic imagination?"
"Sir," I said, "there is only one reason why I ever came here, and that was because my mother requested it. She wanted you to know, sir, that she regretted what she said almost the moment you left the house. If you had ever written her, if you had ever sent a single word, you could have changed it all. In spite of all the evidence, she never came fully to believe it."
"Ah, but you believe it," said my father quickly.
I do not think he ever heard my answer. He had turned unsteadily in his chair, and was facing the dying embers of the fire, his left hand limp on the table before him. Again the spasm of pain crossed his face. Mademoiselle still watched him, but without a trace of triumph. Indeed, she seemed more kindly and more gentle than I had ever known her.
"Five hundred bales of shavings," she said softly. "Ah, captain, there are not many men who would do it. Not any that I know, save you and the Marquis."
"Brutus," said my father, "a glass of rum."
With his eyes still on the fire, he drank the spirits, and sighed. "And now, Brutus," he continued, "my volume of Rabelais."
But when it was placed beside him, he left it unopened, and still continued to study the shifting scenes in the coals.