The Unspeakable Gentleman/Chapter 6
VI.
He rubbed his fingernails on his sleeve and glanced about him with a pleasure he seemed quite unable to conceal. Mademoiselle's cold stare seemed to react upon him like a smile of gratitude. The contempt on my face he seemed to read in terms of adulation.
"Brutus, pick up the pistol. My son, you are more amusing than I had hoped. Indeed, Mademoiselle, perhaps the old saying is right, that the best is in our dooryard. I have had, perhaps, an exceptional opportunity to see the world. I have spent a longer time than I like to think collecting material for enlivening reminiscence, but I cannot recall having been present before at a scene with so many elements of interest. You harbor no ill feelings, my son?"
"None that are new," I said. "Only my first impressions."
"And they are—?" He paused modestly. He might have been awaiting a tribute.
"Father!" I remonstrated. "There is a lady present!"
"You had almost made me forget," he sighed regretfully. "You wished to have a word with me, Mademoiselle? I am listening. No, no, my son! You will be interested, I am sure. The door, Brutus!"
But it was not Brutus who stopped me. Mademoiselle had laid a hand on my arm. As I looked down at her, the bitterness and chagrin I had felt began slowly to ebb away. Her eyes met mine for a moment in thoughtful appraisal.
"You have been kind," she said softly, "Kind, and you know you have no reason."
She might have continued, but my father interrupted.
"No reason," he said, "No reason? It is only Mademoiselle's complete disregard of self that prevents her from seeing the reason. A reason," he added, bowing, "which seems to me as natural as it is obvious."
I turned toward him quickly. From the corner of my eye I could see Brutus move nearer, and then Mademoiselle stepped between us.
"We have had quite enough of this," said Mademoiselle, and she looked from one to the other of us with a condescension that was not wholly displeasing. Then, fixing her eyes on my father, she continued:
"Not that I am in the least afraid of you, Captain Shelton. We have had to employ too many men like you not to know your type. Your son, I think, must take after his mother. I fear he thinks I am a damsel in distress. I trust, captain, that you know better, though for the moment, you seem to have forgotten."
"Forgotten?" my father echoed, raising his eyebrows.
"Yes," she said, speaking more quickly, "forgotten that you are in the pay of my family. You had contracted to get certain papers from France, which were in danger of being seized by the authorities."
Seemingly undecided how to go on, she hesitated, glanced at me covertly, and then continued.
"I accompanied you because"
"Because you did not care to share the fate reserved for the papers?" my father suggested politely.
For a moment she was silent, staring at my father almost incredulously, while he inclined his head solicitously, as though ready to obey her smallest wish. Again I started to turn away.
"The door, Brutus," said my father.
"I am beginning to see I made a mistake in not remaining," Mademoiselle said finally. "Yet you"
"Contrived to rescue both the papers and Mademoiselle, if I remember rightly," said my father, bowing, "an interesting and original undertaking, but pray do not thank me."
"Be still!"" she commanded sharply. "You were not paid to be impertinent, captain. I have only one more request to make of you before I leave this house tomorrow morning."
He shrugged his shoulders, and glanced at me, as though definitely to assure himself that I was listening.
"I do not think that Mademoiselle will leave the house at that date," he said, with a second bow.
"And what does the captain mean by that?" she asked quickly.
"Simply that the house is already watched," said my father, "watched, Mademoiselle, by persons in the pay of the French government. Do not start, Mademoiselle, they will not trouble us tonight, I think."
For the first time her surprising self-confidence left her. She turned pale, even to her red lips, stretched out a hand blindly, and grasped the table.
"And the paper?" she whispered. "You have destroyed it?"
My father shook his head.
"Then," gasped Mademoiselle, "give it to me now! At once, captain, if you please!"
"Mademoiselle no longer trusts me?" asked my father, in tones of pained surprise. "Surely not that!"
"Exactly that!" she flung back at him angrily.
He bowed smilingly in acknowledgment.
"And Mademoiselle is right," he agreed. "I have read the paper. I have been tempted."
"You rogue!" she cried. "You mean"
"I mean," he interrupted calmly, "that I have been tempted and have fallen. The document I carry has too much value, Madamoiselle. The actual signatures of the gentlemen who had been so deluded as to believe they could restore a king to France! Figure for yourself, my lady, those names properly used are a veritable gold mine, more profitable than my Chinese trade can hope to be! Surely you realize that?"
So you have turned from cards to diplomacy," I observed. "How versatile you grow, father!"
"They are much the same thing," my father said.
"And you mean," Mademoiselle cried, "you are dog enough to use those names? You mean you are going back on your word either to destroy that list or to place it in proper hands? You mean you are willing to see your friends go under the guillotine? Surely not, monsieur! Surely you are too brave a gentleman. Surely a man who has behaved as gallantly as you—No, captain, I cannot believe it!"
"Mademoiselle," he said blandly, "still has much to learn of the world. Take myself, for instance. I am a gentleman only by birth and breeding. Otherwise, pray believe I am quite unspeakable, quite. Do you not see that even my son finds me so?"
He nodded towards me in graceful courtesy.
"For me," he continued smoothly, "only one thing has ever remained evident, and well-defined for long, and that, my lady, is money. Nearly everything else seems to tarnish, but still money keeps its lustre. Ah! Now we begin to understand each other. Strange you should not realize it sooner. I cannot understand what actuated so many persons, supposedly rational, to sign such a ridiculous document. That they have done so is their fault, not mine. I believe, Mademoiselle, in profiting by the mistakes of others. I believe in profiting by this one. Someone should be glad to pay a pretty price for it."
He stopped and shrugged his shoulders, and she stood before him helpless, her hand raised toward him in entreaty. For a moment my father glanced away.
"You couldn't! Oh, you couldn't!" she began. "For God's sake, Monsieur, think what you are doing. I—we all trusted you, depended on your help. We thought you were with us. We"
Her voice choked in a sob, and she sank into a chair, her face buried in her hands. My father looked at her, and took a pinch of snuff.
"Indeed," he said, "I am almost sorry, but it is the game, Mademoiselle. We each have our little square on the chess board. I regret that mine is a black one. A while ago I was a pawn, paid by your family. Then it seemed to me expedient to do as you dictated—to take you out of France to safety, to deliver both you and a certain paper to your brother's care. But that was a while ago. I am approaching the king row now. Forgive me, if things seem different—and rest assured, Mademoiselle, that you, at least, are in safe hands as long as you obey my directions."
He made this last statement with a benign complacency, and once more busied himself with his nails. I took a step toward him, and he looked up, as though to receive my congratulations.
"So you leave us, my son," he said briskly. "I fear you will meet with trouble before you pass the lane. But you seem surprisingly able to look out tor yourself. Brutus will help you to saddle."
"You are mistaken," I said. "I am not leaving."
And I bowed to Mademoiselle, who had started at the sound of my voice, and was staring at me with a tear-stained face.
"I have decided to stay," I cried, "If Mademoiselle will permit me."
But she did not answer, and my father regarded us carefully, as though balancing possibilities.
"Not leaving!" Whether my statement was surprising or otherwise was impossible to discern, He raised his eyebrows in interrogation, and I smiled at him in a manner I hoped resembled his.
"I fear you may tire of my company," I went on, "because I am going to stay until you have disposed of this paper as Mademoiselle desires. Or if you are unwilling to do so, I shall take pleasure in doing it myself."
My father rubbed his hands, and then tapped me playfully on the shoulder.
"Somehow I thought this little scene would fetch you," he cried. "Excellent, my son! I hoped you might stay on."
"And now, sir," I said, "the paper, if you please."
"What!" exclaimed my father, with a gesture of astonishment. "You too want the paper! How popular it is becoming, to be sure!"
"At least I am going to try to get it," I began gravely, when a sudden change in his expression stopped me.
"Wait," he said coldly. "Look before you leap, my son. Allow me to make the situation perfectly clear before you attempt anything so foolish. In the first place, let us take myself. I am older than you, it is true, but years and excitement have not entirely weakened me. I have been present in many little unpleasantnesses. I have fought with Barbary pirates and Chinese junks, and with assorted Christians. The fact that I am here tonight proves I am usually successful. Even if I were alone, I doubt if you could take the paper from me. But you forget another matter"
He turned and pointed to Brutus in the doorway. Brutus grinned back and nodded violently, his eyes rolling in pleased anticipation.
"Eight years ago," my father continued, "I saved Brutus from the gallows at Jamaica. He has a strangely persistent sense of gratitude. I have seen Brutus only last month kill three stronger men than you, my son. I fancy the document is safe in my pocket, quite safe."
He half smiled, and took another pinch of snuff.
"But let us indulge in the impossible," he continued. "Suppose you did get the paper. Let us examine the paper itself."
And slowly he drew it from his pocket, and flicked it flat in the candle light.
"Come, Henry, draw up a chair, and let us be sensible, Another bottle of Madeira, Brutus. And now, tell me, what do you know of French politics?"
"Sir," I objected, "it seems to me you are forgetting the point. What have politics to do with you and me?"
It seemed to me I saw another opportunity. With a sense of elation I did my best to conceal, I watched him quickly drain his glass, and I thought his eyes were brighter, and his gestures less careful and alert.
"Politics," he said, "and politics alone, Henry, are responsible for this evening's entertainment. Surely you have perceived that much. The glasses, Brutus, watch the glasses! These are parlous times, my son." He raised his glass again
"Mademoiselle will tell you as much. We made an interesting journey through the provinces, did we not, my lady? It is a pity your father, the Marquis, could not have enjoyed it with us. He had a penchant for interesting situations, and in France today anything may happen. In a few scant months dukes have turned into pastry cooks, and barbers' boys into generals. Tomorrow it may be a republic, or a monarchy that governs, or some bizarre contrivance that is neither one nor the other. Just now it is Napoleon Bonaparte, a very determined little man. Ah, you have heard of him, my son? I sometimes wonder if he will not go further than many of us think."
Yes, we had already begun to hear his name in America. We had already begun to wonder how soon his influence would be overthrown, for it was in the days before he had consolidated his power. He was still existing in a maze of plots, still facing royalists and revolutionists, all conspiring to seize the reins.
"I sometimes wonder, Mademoiselle," he continued thoughtfully, "if your friends realized the task before them when they attempted to kill Napoleon. Ah, now you grow interested, my son? Yes, that is what this paper signifies. Written on this paper are the signatures of fifty men—signatures to an oath to kill Napoleon Bonaparte and to restore a king to France. You will agree with me it is a most original and intriguing document."
"So they didn't kill him," I said.
"Indeed not," he replied; "quite the contrary. They gave him a new lease of life."
"Then why," I demanded, "didn't they burn the paper. Why"
"Ah!" said my father, with an indulgent smile. "There you have it, to be sure. You have hit the root of the whole matter."
"It was the old Marquis's idea. He told me of it at the time. If everyone in the plot signed the oath, it would be a dangerous thing indeed for anyone to inform on the rest, because they would immediately produce the paper which showed him as guilty as they. There are commendable points in the Marquis's idea, my son. Now that the plot has failed, the existence of this paper is all that keeps many a man from telling a valuable and dangerous little story. In these signatures I read names of men above suspicion, men high in the present government. Somehow Napoleon's police have learned of the existence of this paper. It has become almost vital for Napoleon to obtain it. He has tried to get it already. Since it reposed in the strong box at the Chateau of Blanzy, it has cost him five men. It has cost me new halliards and rigging for the Eclipse, and Brutus a disfigured countenance—not that I am complaining. Someone shall pay me for it. And the game is just beginning, my son. Mr. Lawton—have you wondered who he is? He is a very reckless man in the pay of France. He will get that paper if he can, if not by force, by money. Even now his men are watching the house. Suppose you held the paper in your hands, my son, you still have Mr. Lawton."
He folded the paper, and replaced it in his pocket.
"It is safer here at present," said my father. "There will be others who will want it presently, and then, perhaps, we will dispose of it."
"In other words, you intend to sell the people who entrusted you with the paper to the highest bidder?" I inquired.
He glanced towards Mademoiselle, and back to me again, and smiled brightly.
"That," he admitted pleasantly, "is one way of looking at it, though it might be viewed from more congenial angles."
I started to speak, but he raised his voice, and for the second time that evening became entirely serious.
"The paper," he said, "has nothing to do with your being in this house tonight. You are becoming more of a hindrance than I expected, but you are here, and here you will stay for another reason, I have heard much of the good examples parents set their children. For me to set one is a patent impossibility. I have never been a good example. But perhaps I can offer you something which is even better, and that, my son, is why I asked you to this house. Can you guess what it is?"
"There is no need to guess," I said, "you have been perfectly clear."
Gossip had it that my father always loved the theatre, though perhaps the Green Room better than the footlights. The marked passages in his library still attest his propensity. He now looked about him with a keen appreciation, as though my words were all that he required to round out his evening. Like a man whose work is finished, and who is pleasantly fatigued by his exertions, he leaned back in his chair.
"My son," he said, "you have a keenness of wit, and a certain decision, which I confess I overlooked in you at first"
The moment must have pleased him, for he paused, as though on purpose to prolong it.
"You are right," he continued finally. "I am here to set you a bad example, Henry, and, believe me, it will be no fault of mine if it is not more effective than a good one. Listen, my son, and you too, Mademoiselle, I have been many things, tried many things in this life, most of them discreditable. i have wasted my days and my prospects in a thousand futilities. I have lost my friends. I have lost my position. Sneer at me, my son, laugh at me, curse me if you wish. I shall be the first to commend you for it. I am broad-minded enough to recognize your position.
"But above all things watch me. Watch me, and remember the things I do. Recall. my ethics and my logic. They are to be your legacy, my son. What money I may leave you is doubtless tainted. But the things I do—of course you perceive their value?"
"Only in a negative sense," I replied pushing the bottle toward him.
"You are right again," he said, refilling his glass. "Their value, as you say, is purely negative. Yet, believe me, it does not impair them. You have only to place them before you and do exactly opposite. It is the best way I can think of for you to become a decent and self-respecting man. And now you have the only reason why I permit you in my society. The lesson has already started—an original lesson, is it not?"
As though to close the interview, he sprang up lightly, and bowed to Mademoiselle. It seemed tome he was combating a slight embarrassment, for he paused, seemingly uncertain how to begin, but only for a moment. Mademoiselle had regained her self-possession, and was regarding him with attention, and a little of the contempt which became her so well.
"Mademoiselle," he said, "even the pain of distressing you is lessened by the unexpected pleasure of your company tonight. I hope you have found the hour not entirely unprofitable. It has sometimes seemed to me, my lady—pardon the rudeness of suggesting it—that you may have seen something romantic, something heroic in me from time to time. I trust you have been disillusioned tonight. The fight on the stairs, the open boat—you see them all as they should be, do you not, the necessary parts of a piece of villainy? Pray forget them—and good night, Mademoiselle."
Suddenly both he and I started, and involuntarily his hand went up to cover his torn lapel. Mademoiselle was laughing.
"Captain," she cried, "you are absurd!"
"Absurd!" exclaimed my father uncertainly.
"You of all people! You cannot sell the paper!"
He sighed with apparent relief.
And why not?" he asked.
"Because," said Mademoiselle, "you are one of those who signed it."
"Mademoiselle forgets," said my father, bowing, "that her name and mine were written at the bottom of the list. It is a precaution I always take with such little matters. The first thing I did, Mademoiselle, was to cut both off with my razor. Brutus, light the stairs for the lady."
Without another glance at either of us, she walked slowly away, her chin tilted, her slender fingers clenched. I knew that anger, fear, and disappointment were walking there beside her, and yet she left the room as proudly as she had entered it.
I stood listening to her step on the stairs.
"Ah," said my father, "there is a woman for you."
The last few minutes seemed to have wearied him, for he sank back heavily in his chair. For a minute we were silent, and suddenly a speech of his ran through my memory.
"May I ask you a question?" I inquired.
"It is my regret if I have not been clear," he said.
"It is not that," I assured him, "but you have appeared to allow yourself a single virtue."
He raised his eyebrows.
"You have admitted," I persisted, "that circumstances force you to keep your word."
"That," my father said, "is merely a necessity—not a virtue."
"Possibly," I agreed. "Yet, in your conversation with Mr. Lawton you stated that you had given your word not to surrender this paper. My question is—how can you reconcile this with your present intentions?"
For almost the only time I can remember, my father seemed puzzled for an answer. He started to speak, and shook his head—drew out his handkerchief and passed it over his lips.
"Circumstances alter even principles," he answered finally, "and this, my son, is one of the circumstances. Brutus, the boy has been trying to get me drunk long enough. Show him to his bedroom, and bring me my cloak and pistols."
Brutus lifted one of the candlesticks, grinned at me, and nodded.
"A very good night to you, Henry," said my father tranquilly.
I bowed to him with courtesy which perhaps was intuitive.
"Be sure," I told him, "to keep your door locked, father."
"Pray do not worry," he replied. "I have thought out each phase of my visit here too long for ode untoward to happen. Until morning, Henry."
"I am not worrying," I rejoined. "Merely" warning you—pardon my incivility, father—but I might grow tired watching you be a bad example. Did you consider that in your plans?"
My father yawned, and placed his feet nearer the coals.
"That is better," he said, "much better, my son. Now you are speaking like a gentleman. I had begun to fear for you. It has seemed to me you were almost narrow-minded. Never be that. Nothing is more annoying."
I drew myself up to my full height.
"Sir" I began.
He slapped his hand on the table with an exclamation of disgust.
"And now you spoil it! Now you begin to rant and become heroic. I know what you're going to say. You cannot see a woman bullied—what? Well, by heaven, you can, and you will see it. You cannot stand an act of treachery? Come, come, my son, you have better blood in you than to pose as a low actor. All around us, every day, these things are happening. Meet them like a man, and do not tell me what is obvious."
I felt my nails bite into my palms.
"Your pardon, father," I said. "I shall behave better in the future."
He glanced at me narrowly for a moment.
"I believe," he said, "we begin to understand, A very good night to you, Henry. And Henry"
A change in his tone made me spin about on my heel.
"I am going to pay you a compliment. Pray do not be overcome. I have decided to consider you in my plans, my son, as a possible disturbing factor. Brutus, you will take his pistols from his saddle bags."
In silence Brutus conducted me into the cold hall and up the winding staircase, where his candle made the shadows of the newel posts dance against the wainscot. I paused a moment at the landing to look back, but I could see nothing in the dark pit of the hall below us. Was it possible I could remember it alight with candles, whose flames made soft halos on the polished floor? Brutus touched my shoulder, and the brusque grasp of his hand turned me a trifle cold.
"Move on, I ordered sharply, "and light me to my room."
My speech appeared to amuse him.
"No, no—you first," said Brutus. "I go—perhaps you be angry. See?"
And he became so involved in throes of merriment that I hoped he might extinguish the candle.
I thought better of an angry command, which I knew he would not obey, and turned through the arched moulding that marked the entrance to the upper hall, and at his direction opened a door. As I paused involuntarily on the threshold, Brutus deftly slipped past, set the candle on a stand, and bent over my saddle bags. Still chuckling to himself, he dropped my pistols into his shirt bosom. Then his grin died away. His low forehead became creased and puckered. He shifted his weight from one foot THE UNSPEAKABLE GENTLEMAN
to the other irresolutely, and drew a deep breath.
"Mister Henry—" he began.
"Well," I said.
"Something happen. Very bad here. You go home."
His sudden change of manner, and the shadowy, musty silence around me threatened to shake the coolness I had attempted to assume. Unconsciously my hand dropped to the hilt of my travelling sword. I looked across at him through the shadows.
"You go home," said Brutus.
"Something will happen, or something has happened?" I asked.
But Brutus only shook his head stupidly.
"Very bad. You go home," he persisted.
"You go to the devil," I said, "and leave that candle. I won't burn down the house."
He moved reluctantly towards the door.
"Monsieur very angry," said Brutus.
"Shut the door," I said, "the draft is blowing the candle."
He pulled it to without another word, and I could hear him fumbling with the lock.
For the last ten years I doubt if anything had been changed in that room, except for the addition of three blankets which Brutus had evidently laid some hours before on the mildewed mattress of the carved four post bed. My mother must have ordered up the curtains that hung over it in yellowed faded tatters. The charred wood of a fire that had been lighted when the room was new, still lay over the green clotted andirons. The dampness of a seaside town had cracked and warped the furniture, and had turned the mirrors into sad mockeries. The strange musty odor of unused houses hung heavy in the air.
I sat quiet tor a while, on the edge of my bed, alert for some sound outside, but in the. hall it was very still. Then my hand fell again on the hilt of my travelling sword. That my father had overlooked it increased the resentment I bore him.
Slowly I drew the blade and tested its perfect balance, and limbered my wrist in a few idle passes at the fringe of the bed curtain. Then I knotted it over my hand, tossed a blanket over me, and blew out the light. From where I lay I could see the running lights of the Shelton ships swaying in a freshening breeze, three together in port for the first time in ten years. The sky had become so overcast that every shape outside had merged into an inky monotone. I could hear the low murmur of the wind twisting through the branches of our elms, and the whistle of it as it passed our gables. Once below I heard my father's step, quick and decisive, his voice raised to give an order, and the closing of a door.
Gradually the thoughts which were racing through my mind, as thoughts sometimes do, when the candle is out, and the room you lie in grows intangible and vast, assumed a well-balanced relativity. I smiled to myself in the darkness. There was one thing that evening which my father had overlooked. We both were proud.
He still seemed to be near me, still seemed to be watching me with his cool half smile. If his voice, pleasant, level and passionless, had broken the silence about me, I should not have been surprised. Strange how little he had changed, and how much I had expected to see him altered. I could still remember the last time. The years between seemed only a little while. We had been very gay. The card tables had been out, and he had been playing, politely detached, seemingly half-absorbed in his own thoughts and yet alertly courteous. I could see him now, pushing a handful of gold towards his right hand neighbor, and the clink of the metal and its color seemed to please him, for he ran his fingers lightly through the coins. And then, yes, Brutus had lighted me to my room. Could it have been ten years ago?
As I lay staring at the blackness ahead of me, my thoughts returned to the room I had quitted. Had she been about to thank me? I heard his slow, cynical voice interrupting me, and felt her hand drop from my arm. Then, in a strange, even cadence a sentence of his began running through my memory.
"It might be interesting, hilarious, in fact, if it were not for the lady in the case . . . . "