Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories Part 12

he asked suddenly one day.

"Quite sure," she answered without conviction.

"Have you all that you want, mademoiselle?"

"Oh yes."

But he felt that there was some anxiety weighing upon her. He was always at or near the Hotel de la Plage now, so that she could call him from the window or the door. One day--a day of cloud and drizzle, which are common enough at Yport in the early summer--he went into the little front room, which the Mother Senneville fondly called her salon, to read the daily office from the cloth-bound book he ever carried in his pocket. He was engaged in this devout work when the Englishwoman came hastily into the room, closing the door and standing with her back against it.

"There is a gendarme in the street," she said, in little more than a whisper, her eyes glittering. She was breathless.

"What of it, mademoiselle? It is my old friend the Sergeant Grall. It is I who christen his children."

"Why is he here?"

"It is his duty, mademoiselle. The village is peaceful enough now that the men are away at the fisheries. You have nothing to fear."

She glanced round the room with a hunted look in her eyes.

"Oh," she said, "I cannot keep it up any longer. You must have guessed--you who are so quick--that my brother is a great criminal. He has ruined thousands of people. He was escaping with the money he had stolen when the steamer was wrecked."

The cure did not say whether this news surprised him or not, but walked to the window and looked thoughtfully out to sea. The windows were dull and spray-ridden.

"Ah!" the girl cried, "you must not judge hastily. You cannot know his temptation."

"I will not judge at all, mademoiselle. No man may judge of another's temptation. But--he can restore the money."

"No. It was all lost in the steamer."

She had approached the other window, and stood beside the little priest looking out over the grey sea.

"It was surely my duty to come here and help him, whatever he had done."

"a.s.suredly, mademoiselle."

"But he says you can give him up if you like."

She glanced at him and caught her breath. The priest shook his head.

"Why not? Because you are too charitable?" she whispered; and again he shook his head. "Then, why not?" she persisted with a strange pertinacity.

"Because he is your brother, mademoiselle."

And they stood for some moments looking out over the sea, through the rime-covered windows, in a breathless silence. The cure spoke at length.

"You must get him removed to Havre," he said, in his cheery way, "as soon as possible. There he can take a steamer to America. I will impress upon the doctor the necessity of an early departure."

It was not lately, but many years ago, that the Ocean Waif was wrecked in a summer storm. And any who penetrate to Yport to-day will probably see in the sunlight on the sea-wall a cheery little cure, who taps his snuff-box, while he exchanges jokes with the idlers there. Yport has slowly crept into the ken of the traveller, and every summer sees English tourists pa.s.s that way. They are not popular with the rough natives, who, after all, are of the same ancestry as ourselves; but the little cure is quick and kind with information or a.s.sistance to all who seek it. When the English tongue is spoken he draws near and listens--snuff-box in hand; when the travellers speak in French his eyes travel out to sea with a queer look, as if the accent aroused some memory.

And in an obscure English watering-place there lives a queer little old maid--churchy and prim--who does charitable work, gives her opinion very freely concerning the administration of matters parochial, thinks the vicar very self-indulgent and idle--and in her own heart has the abiding conviction that there are none on earth like the Roman clergy.

"GOLOSSA-A-L"

"Golossa-a-l!" I heard him say. "Golossa-a-l, these Englishmen! Are they not everywhere?"

A moment later I was introduced to him, and he rose to shake hands--a tall, fair, good-natured German student. Heavy if you will--but clean withal, and of a cleanly mind.

"Honour," he muttered politely. "It is not often we have an English student at Gottingen--but perhaps we can teach you something--eh?" And he broke into a boyish laugh. "You will take beer?" he added, drawing forward an iron chair--for we were in the Brauerei Garden.

"Thank you."

"A doctor of medicine--the Herr Professor tells me," he said pleasantly.

"Prosit," he added, as he raised his great mug to his lips.

"Prosit! Yes, a doctor of medicine--of the army."

"Ah, of the army, that is good. I also I hope, some day! And you come to pa.s.s our Gottingen examination. Yes, but it is hard--ach Gott!--devilish hard."

There was a restrained shyness about the man which I liked. Shy men are so rare. And, although he could have cleared the Brauerei Garden in five minutes, there was no bl.u.s.ter about this Teutonic Hercules. His loud, good-natured laugh was perhaps the most striking characteristic of Carl von Mendebach. Next to that, his readiness to be surprised at everything or anything, and to cla.s.s it at once as colossal. Hence the nickname by which he was known amongst us. The term was applied to me a thousand times--figuratively. For I am a small man, as I have had reason to deplore more than once while carrying the wounded out of action. It takes so much longer if one is small.

I cannot exactly say why Carl von Mendebach and I became close friends; but I do not think that Lisa von Mendebach had anything to do with it.

I was never in love with Lisa, although I admired her intensely, and I never see a blue-eyed, fair-haired girl to this day without thinking of Lischen. But I was not in love with her. I was never good-looking. I did not begin by expecting much from the other s.e.x, and I have never been in love with anybody. I wonder if Lisa remembers me.

The students were pleasant enough fellows. It must be recollected that I speak of a period dating back before the war of 1870--before there was a German Empire. I soon made a sort of place for myself at the University, and I was tolerated good-naturedly. But Carl did more than tolerate me. He gave me all the friendship of his simple heart. Without being expansive--for he was a Hanoverian--he told me all about himself, his thoughts and his aims, an open-hearted ambition and a very Germanic contentment with a world which contained beer and music. Then at last he told me all about his father, General von Mendebach, and Lisa. Finally he took me to his house one evening to supper.

"Father," he said in his loud, cheery way, "here is the Englishman--a good friend of mine--a great scholar--golossa-a-l."

The General held out his hand and Lisa bowed, prettily formal, with a quaint, prim smile which I can see still.

I went to the house often--as often, indeed, as I could. I met the Von Mendebachs at the usual haunts--the theatre, an occasional concert, the band on Sunday afternoon, and at the houses of some of the professors.

It was Lisa who told me that another young Briton was coming to live in Gottingen--not, however, as a student at the University. He turned out to be a Scotsman--one Andrew Smallie, the dissolute offspring of a prim Edinburgh family. He had been shipped off to Gottingen, in the hope that he might there drink himself quietly to death. The Scotch do not keep their skeletons at home in a cupboard. They ship them abroad and give them facilities.

Andrew Smallie soon heard that there was an English student in Gottingen, and, before long, procured an introduction. I disliked him at once. I took good care not to introduce him to any friends of mine.

"Seem to lead a quiet life here," he said to me one day when I had exhausted all conversation and every effort to get him out of my rooms.

"Very," I replied.

"Don't you know anybody? It's a deuced slow place. I don't know a soul to talk to except yourself. Can't take to these beer-drinking, sausage-eating Germans, you know. Met that friend of yours, Carl von Mendebach, yesterday, but he didn't seem to see me."

"Yes," I answered. "It is possible he did not know you. You have never been introduced."

"No," he answered dubiously. "Shouldn't think that would matter in an out-of-the-way place like this."