The Tower of Oblivion Part 36

Nor anywhere else, I thought; and I was glad to think so. I am an average, more or less straight-living man, with a bias towards virtue rather than the other way; but almost any relation, it seemed to me, was to be preferred to this unnatural inhibition that had so singularly little to do with virtue. Allow me, as a man who possibly has been nearer to these things than you have, to give you a little advice.

Avoid, by all means in your power, contact with a man who has put over the reversing-gear of his life as Derwent Rose had done. He will land you in his own net. Unless you are more magnificently steady than I, even when it comes to your relations with an admirable woman you will find yourself interfered with at every step you take. Even the evil that you would you do not, and the good that you would not, that you do.

But it was a question of her rather than of me. I was only at the fringe of the moral commotion Derwent Rose had made on this planet. She was deliberately advancing on its very storm-centre. And in the very nature of things she was doomed to frustration. It seemed to me that she had already frustrated herself. For suppose she should succeed in her aim, and should pull off--well, whatever Rose had hinted at when he had spoken of Andalusian dancers and tilted mirrors in Ma.r.s.eilles sailors'

kens. What then? That had not been Derwent Rose! "Je tache de me debrouiller de ces souvenirs-ci." Where was her success, seeing that it had been the greatest of his dreads that he must re-live that dingy phase before finding the lovelier Derwent Rose who dwelt away on the other side?

Therefore, do what she would, her lot was as predestined as his own. Her successive roles awaited her also--sister, aunt, elderly friend. But the way to Eden--ah, _that_ she would terribly contrive! He, sick with a twice-lived anxiety, might turn away from his fence; but she approached it from the other side. Dust and ashes to him were all enticement to her. Once already she had put herself in his way; but what was once?...

Ah, these inappeasable human hearts of ours! We cry "Give me but this, Lord, and I ask no more." But, having it, we must have more. "Nay, Lord, so quickly gone?" ... She recked not that presently his sins would be all un-sinned again, while her own would be upheaped an hundredfold. Her lot was his. Jointly they advanced on a common fate. When all was over she would put off those crafty garments again. But until then he was to be tripped--at his maddest, at his wildest.

"Julia," I said with a failing voice, "for his sake can't you let it rest?"

She turned quickly. "What do you mean--for his sake?"

"For pity of him--perhaps even for his life."

She broke out, softly, but with a concentration of energy that I can hardly express.

"For pity of him! And why of him? What about me? Why do you try to separate us? We never were separated really. All that ever separated us was my own ignorance and conceit and not having the right hair! I'll bob it--I'll peroxide it--I'll do anything--but I'm not going to stop now!"

I tried to quieten her, but she went pa.s.sionately on.

"Pity of _him_! Why, it's for pity of him that I'm doing it! Why should he for ever give, give, give, and get nothing in return? He never did get anything--nothing out of his books, nothing out of his life, only this one magnificent thing that's happened! He's flung pearls away, all the splendid pearls of himself, flung them to the grunters as they did in the Bible, and all they wanted was common greasy farthings! Farthings would have done, and he showered pearls on 'em! And not one single thing did he ever get back! Oh, it makes me boil!... But I've picked up a wrinkle or two since then, George! n.o.body ever told me anything about life, nothing that was true. They told me that if I opened my mouth and shut my eyes and never forgot that I'd been nicely brought up all sorts of lovely things would come of themselves. n.o.body ever told me I should have to get up and get and fight for my own hand. I was to speak when I was spoken to, and what did it matter how I did my hair or what sort of shoes I wore as long as men understood I was a nice girl and not to be taken liberties with? They took their liberties somewhere else we weren't supposed to know anything about. The un-nice girls got the insults--and the pearls. We just went on being respected, and sometimes, if we'd been very nice indeed, one of us would get a greasy farthing after all the pearls were gone. They called that marriage, and said it was the crown of a woman's life. That's what we were taught, George.

That's what every woman of my age was taught. And look at Peggy there getting away with it as fast as she can!"

I touched her sleeve, but she refused to be stopped.

"And it was all my own fault for believing them. I ought to have thought it out for myself, like Peggy. It was my job, and I didn't do it. I painted idiotic canvases instead. It wasn't Derry's job. It isn't any man's job. I'd been throwing sheep's-eyes at him all my life; why didn't I say to myself, 'Look here, Julia my girl, this doesn't appear to be working somehow. Cutting sandwiches and letting him pose for you and mooning about him afterwards isn't doing the trick. You know he's--obtainable--because you know other women do it. What's the matter with _you_?'--I ought to have asked myself that, and I didn't. I let myself drift into being a 'good sort' to him. Stupidest thing a woman can do. I expect he'd have thought it a sort of sacrilege to kiss me.

Sacrilege!----"

She checked contemptuously at the word, but went straight on.

"And now this has happened, just to him and me, and if it never happened before, all the more gorgeous luck! He _shall_ have something back for his life. He shall know what love is before he dies. You can go to anybody you like for your portrait, George; Peggy and I are out for blood. What's the good of having luck if you don't believe in it? If being nice didn't work let's have a shot at the other thing. (Ah, so _that's_ a c.o.c.ktail!) So that's that, George. Something's bound to happen. He'll be writing to me or something; I'm not worrying in the least.... But I mustn't let my neck get all pink like this just with thinking of him." She fetched out a little mirror and a puff. "Nice girls used to do that, and it was called maiden modesty, and I'm d.a.m.ned if it paid. I'm perfectly willing to learn, either from Peggy with her garters or anybody else.... Ah, she's getting up! I must see her close to----"

She was on her feet. I heard her murmur, "I'm taller than she is anyway----"

"Sit down till I've got the waiter," I said.

But she continued to stand. She was looking after the girl she had called Peggy--erect, ready, perilously instructed, a beautiful danger.

Her life had been one unvarying, starry lamp of love; now, for the beguiling of the Derry of those onrushing years of the heat of his blood, a hundred false fires were being prepared. And I could only remain silent at the wonder of it, that all was one, and that the false was no less true than the true.

III

It still wanted a week to the thirtieth, but I had various matters to set in order, and the time pa.s.sed quickly. I saw Julia once more before I left. She still nonchalantly left it to me, should I come across Derry, to let her know or not, as I thought best. She herself was not going very far--merely into Buckingham to stay with friends. She gave me dates and addresses, and then her manner seemed to me to show some hesitation.

"If he should write to me for money suddenly," she said. "You see, you won't be at hand."

"Oh, that's all arranged. He wouldn't wait till he was actually starving before he wrote, and Mrs Moxon is readdressing all letters immediately."

"But suppose he wrote to me. I've no money."

"Then you can wire me. I'll arrange for a sight-draft."

Her hands smoothed down the body of a frock I had not seen before--a sooty shower of black chiffon over I know not what intricately-simple and expensive-looking swathing below.

"I believe you're afraid to trust me with his money," she smiled, preening herself.

This conversation, I ought to say, took place in her studio. Suddenly I looked up.

"Julia," I demanded, "where's that tallboy gone?"

"The tallboy? Oh, it's somewhere about the place."

"On your back?"

"Not all of it. Some of it's on my feet. Don't you like them?"

She showed them. I turned away.

"Then," I said, "if _he's_ selling furniture to pay for a holiday, and _you're_ selling it to buy frocks, I certainly shan't trust you with a penny. If he writes to you you'd better wire me."

"Poor Julia!" she laughed. "When she was sensible she could do nothing right, and now that she's quite mad she's as wrong as ever. Well, a short life and a gay one. Good-bye, George, and a happy holiday----"

So the evening of the thirtieth found me on the St Malo boat, hoping it wasn't going to rain--for I had looked down below and preferred the deck. Smoothly we glided down Southampton Water. The boat was packed, and I was unable to dine till ten o'clock. Then I came up on deck again and set about making myself comfortable for the night.

It did rain, but I was well tucked away in the shelter of a deck-house, and was little the worse for it. A fresh south-west wind blew, and I watched the phantom-grey water that hissed and rustled hoa.r.s.ely past our sides. The throbbing of the engines began to beat softly and incessantly in my head, and half dozing, I found myself wondering what Derry had done about his pa.s.sport. "Throb-throb," churned the engines ... perhaps he had forged himself a seaman's and fireman's ticket, signed on as a deckhand or stoker, and had given the L.S.W. Railway Company the slip the moment he had got across. Dreamily, m.u.f.fled up in my wrappings, I tried to picture it. He would be careful. He would be careful about his beard, for example. He would let it grow a day or so before; perhaps he would now continue to wear a beard. Unless.... And he would sleep the day before and stoke through the night. A stoker for a night, dressed in a boiler-suit or stripped to the waist, as he had stripped when he had held Julia Oliphant's sewing-machine aloft. And grime in his golden beard. Or else the author of _The Vicarage of Bray_ bending the warp on to the drum of the steam-winch or putting the luggage in the slings in the hold. Oh, as she had said, he would get across somehow if he wanted to.....

And once across he would have very little trouble. He would mingle with the porters and camionneurs, carrying his gear in his hand. Probably he would pretend it was somebody else's. Then--the small luggage through first--_rien a declarer_--his perfect French--he would be along the quay and in the vedette before they had begun to get the big stuff out of the hold. As for his pa.s.sport--oh, he would manage....

An employe picked his way through the dark huddles on the deck, took the reading of the log, and retired again. The masthead lights made loops and circles in the rain. I took a nip from my flask and dropped back into my doze. Alderney Light winked, and up the Race it blew stiffly....

Yes, he would get across if he had made up his mind to. As for his _permis de sejour_--oh, things like that were for ordinary people. What would he do with a _permis de sejour_ who had no _permis de sejour_ in life itself, but must doubly dodge through it, from this place to that and from one date to the date before?... But I rather fancied he had gone by Dover. Certain notes almost at the end of his diary seemed an indication of that. These notes had no coherence--just odd words like "Lord Warden," "boat," "tide," and a little time-table of figures.

Apparently he had worked it out just before that week-end he had spent with me.... "Lord Warden"--that meant Dover--tide--time.... Again the Company's man came to take the reading of the log. Again the throbbing of the engines evoked the image of Derry, stripped, moving in the red glare of the furnaces, sweating, coal-dust in his beard. But perhaps he no longer had a beard. Perhaps Julia had made sure of that. Julia, desperate creature, wild, disturbing creature.... Peggy in her garters ... selling furniture to buy frocks, shoes, stockings, scent....

"Pour Troubler," "Myster_ieuse_" ... "Myster_ieuse_, Myster_ieuse_, Myster_ieuse_," sighed the water rushing past.... And in the Piccadilly, that long white throat, the fine angle of her jaw, among little double chins, little b.u.t.tons of chins, short necks, thrust-forward necks, square shoulders instead of that long mantle-like line down over her shoulders like swift water before it breaks, to the fingers that moved softly in time to the "_Relicario_" ... the "Relicario" ... De Groot ...

De Groot, De Groot, De Groot.... Myster_ieuse_, Myster_ieuse_.... Again the reading of the log, again the sailor's return through the dozing huddles on the deck; the phantom-grey water rustling hoa.r.s.ely past, the masthead lights swinging aloft. I hate these short and crowded crossings when it is hardly worth while to take off your clothes and you arrive cramped, crumpled, unshaven, unrefreshed. I wondered how early it would be possible to get a cup of tea. A cup of tea--a c.o.c.ktail--c.o.c.ktails for tea--"So _that's_ a c.o.c.ktail!"--Manhattan, Manhattan, De Groot, De Groot, De Groot....

Another pull at my flask, and then I really did sleep.

The day was grey when I awoke. The huddles on the deck had begun to stir. The east kindled, as I had last seen it kindle over the Devil's Punch Bowl and Gibbet Hill. The sun flashed on the waves, on people bestirring themselves, opening dressing-cases, making such toilets as they could. Then I heard the welcome click of teacups and flung off my rugs. I went below, secured a seat for breakfast, and made myself less unpresentable. Hot breakfast, after all, goes a long way towards obliterating the discomforts of a night on deck. As I rose from the table I glanced through the open port. Pale on the starboard bow was the long line of Cap Frehel, ahead was St Malo's spire.

FRANCE

PART I