The Derelict (Bottome, Century Magazine, 1917)/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
Marcel Dupin sat and smoked in the flower garden of the hotel. In front of him were three round beds of forget-me-nots picked out with pink tulips, and three square beds of white stocks intercepted by scarlet tulips. Behind the flower garden the rooks cawed with the peculiar mixture of abandon and vulgarity common to rooks; otherwise it was a serene and perfect June day. Nevertheless, as Marcel smoked his morning cigarette he frowned.
To-night he was to return to Paris, and he wished to leave with his mind made up about the situation he was leaving behind him. His mind was very clear, and he put before it in order, as they came, certain salient facts.
Something was the matter with Geoffrey; nothing was the matter with his work. Emily was perfectly satisfied. Geoffrey did not know what was the matter with himself, and Emily had no idea that there was anything the matter with him.
And Fanny? Well, Fanny did not act according to her type. Marcel had been exceedingly discreet, but he had studied Fanny. Studying Fanny had indeed been part of his discretion. She had shown him nothing, she had put no obstacles to his study of her, but she made no response to his delicate, tentative advances. She might have been innocent or simply perfectly stupid,—great beauty has occasionally this preservative,—or else she was submerged, absorbed in some secret passion; but she had no time to expend upon a passion, for she sat patiently to Miss Loomis all the morning, and in Miss Loomis's studio she had allowed Marcel to model a small bust of her in the afternoons. At night the landlady at Carbis Bay would obviously account for her to Emily.
Emily was charmingly at her ease and extraordinarily conciliating to Marcel. Marcel perfectly understood Emily. She wanted Geoffrey's friends to find her admirable, and to conciliate Marcel was also to act as a screen for Fanny.
Marcel reviewed her processes with imperturbable clarity. He had not fallen a victim to Emily's charm; he resented a woman who manipulated virtue. Nevertheless, he was perfectly fair to her. She wanted to serve Geoffrey, and she would serve him at the cost of any personal sacrifice; the difficulty that remained was that the only personal sacrifice really required of her was one that it would never occur to her to make. She could only serve him by leaving him alone.
In all probability the matter with Geoffrey was that, owing to an appalling blunder on Emily's part, she had sent him away for five weeks with a woman who could leave him alone.
He was still in love with Emily, but he was suffering from the contrast, and what was Fanny doing? It seemed to Marcel that Fanny was letting Geoffrey go; she was letting him go to a tune that Emily never heard. Marcel heard it clearly enough, and he knew that you do not let a man go unless you have already held him.
All these delightful, blind English people sat round Fanny in a ring. Mrs. Dering, with her gift of irony and her habit of toleration, which evaded rather than overcame obstacles; Mr. Dering, daintily stepping over facts as if they were mud to be kept from shining boots; Emily, a watchful redeemer, invariably watching the wrong things; Geoffrey, priding himself on his shaken bliss—all of them under the impression that they were guarding and protecting this lost sheep among them. And Fanny sat there silent and intensely anxious, protecting them. She held danger like a lamp in her hand, but she would not let it shine upon them.
It was a charming picture, and God knew what would become of it if it continued beyond a certain point.
Marcel smoked in the bright summer sunshine and reconstructed the telling of it to his Paris friends.
"Whatever happens, it will make an extremely chic little conte," he pronounced to himself; then he shot suddenly to his feet. Fanny stood before him. She wore Emily's blue linen dress and a shady hat. Her eyes were very grave, and her voice sounded uneven as she said:
"May I talk to you a little?"
"With all the pleasure in the world, Mademoiselle," exclaimed Marcel, with the slightly exaggerated respect he always showed to Fanny. "Permit me to bring you a chair. Do you not find this little garden charming?"
Fanny's eyes considered the forget-me-nots and the pink tulips lingeringly, but she had not come to talk about gardens.
"I heard," she said, "that you were going back to Paris to-night. Miss Emily told me."
"Hèlas! yes," murmured Marcel. "I am too sadly dragged away before the wedding. It is what always happens to me when a wedding is in the air. Let us hope it will not become a habit and take place before my own."
"I want to go away, too," said Fanny. "Will you take me with you back to Paris?"
Marcel's figure strung itself into sudden alertness; his mind stiffened with attention; and when Marcel became visibly alert, he became also strangely sharp.
"Why, Mademoiselle?" he asked her, fixing her with a gaze that was like the drawing of a weapon.
"I want to go away," said Fanny, moistening her lips. "I must go away," She was not afraid of his eyes. He saw in a moment that she had come to that point of human endurance which goes beyond personal fear.
She expected anything of fate for herself except kindness.
"But, Mademoiselle," said Marcel, quickly, "I am not here to consider your wants. I am the friend of Geoffrey Amberley and in a sense of Miss Dering. I should be committing an infamy if I took you away from their protection."
"Ah!" she said, drawing in her breath, "it's for them, for them!"
Marcel regarded her curiously.
"You must forgive me," he said more gently, "if I annoy you by my questions; but you will understand that I must have very good, clear reasons to act against their wishes. You are not satisfied, then, with being a model?" he asked her. "It is fair to tell you that I think you could earn a living by it."
"I was satisfied with being his," said Fanny, fiercely. Then she said more quietly: "Miss Emily did n't understand. People who have got everything, and always have had everything, never understand—that you must have something, too—something of your own, I mean. I could get on all right as long as I cooked for them, either of them. I'm like that, and I enjoyed it. That's something for yourself—working for people. I loved getting his meals and one thing or another. I wanted to do it for Miss Emily, too; I'd have done anything. I did black his boots, but he did n't know it, of course. Down here the sea takes the polish off; so you have to know how, and take trouble to get a shine on them. I wanted to take a cottage and work for Miss Emily, but she would n't let me. She never saw how you want to do things back."
"But Geoffrey—he saw that?" Marcel asked. He had let his cigarette go out, and was watching Fanny with an unhurried intensity.
"He did n't see anything," Fanny said softly. "He was just a friend. Miss Emily was good to me because I was bad, but Mr. Amberley is n't that sort; he just—well, he liked me. I'd never been liked by a man before. You know what I mean. There'd always been the other thing, and that puts you off."
"Pardon," Marcel interrupted her; "it puts you off what?"
"It puts you off liking them," said Fanny, simply.
"Ah, that is a pity!" said Marcel. "This life that you want to return to is evidently not your métier."
"I don't know what that means," said Fanny, "but there is n't anything else to go back to. I can't be a model and not have anything, like they think, and see it all going on—the things they 've got and their life together. I thought I could, but I can't. That's why I want to go to Paris. I could start afresh there. I know Paris, but I have n't any money; so I thought I'd just see if you would take me."
Marcel spread out his hands.
"And do you, may I ask," he demanded, "admire her, then, this Miss Emily?"
"Oh, I admire her all right," said Fanny, quickly; "don't make any mistake about that. She's good; she's so good she does n't see what things mean. There's lots of ways I know him better than she does. She should n't have sent him down here with me that way. She did n't know, though I tried to tell her; but I was afraid to say too much. You are with good people; they get such ideas in their heads; they think things worse than they are. Besides, I did n't know him then. I thought he was just an ordinary man."
"You interest me, Mademoiselle," said Marcel, "quite extraordinarily. But what makes you think Geoffrey is not an ordinary man?"
Fanny swallowed nervously.
"Well," she said, "as far as that goes, I suppose I may as well tell you. I tried him, and even after that he was good to me just the same, not because I was—what I was, but because I was me. I'd never let him down after that, never!" Fanny paused; then she said, with a quick glance at Marcel, "I could, though, quite easily."
"And that's why you want to go away?" Marcel asked.
"Yes," said Fanny.
"But you say always," Marcel objected, "that he only liked you. One gathers that he retained his love for his betrothed. Why, now then that his marriage is approaching, is he not safer still?"
Fanny frowned.
"I let him be safe then," she said, "because I was all right myself; I was doing things for him. It's funny how that makes you feel. I could have gone on always like that, but when that stopped, I got frightened; I could n't keep my mind off him."
"But, Mademoiselle,—forgive me,—" said Marcel, "do you realize at all that what you say implies that you care very much for my friend, and that this emotion will make a return to your former existence extremely difficult? Have you considered this point?"
Fanny gave a sudden laugh.
"That's why I went on those rocks," she said, "considering it. I could n't do it again; the water felt so cold. But you can't say I have n't tried to get out of it, can you?"
"No, Mademoiselle," said Marcel, gently; "you have been very faithful to your friends."
"Well, you see, I never had any before," Fanny explained. "If you think I 've behaved all right, will this make you take me to Paris?"
Marcel's softness disappeared.
"About that," he said, "we must be practical."
"All I want is for you to take me over there; then I 'll find my feet. I never have been helped much by people."
"Very well, then," said Marcel, slowly; "I will do this thing. It will be a very grave scandal, but to break a marriage, that, I take it, is worse. We will say farewell now, Mademoiselle. I take the five-thirty from St. Ives. You will be kind enough to go by an earlier train to the little junction beyond, at which my train arrives at six. There I shall find you."
Fanny rose. She looked relieved.
Marcel did not offer to shake hands; he did not even smile. He regarded her very gravely, and taking off his hat he bowed, holding it in his hand.
"Allow me to say, Mademoiselle," he said, "that I very much respect you for what you are about to do."
Fanny stared. It was the bold, unswerving, stupid stare of her class. Without a word she turned and left him.
"Mon Dieu!" said Marcel, going back to the tulips and opening his paper, "that is a derelict—one of those boats that sink, but never sink enough, on which the unwary strike! For the unwary I have always had pity, but this is the first time that I have found myself pitying the derelict! Personally, I am a little on edge with the affair. I do not like women who are not in love with me, but one must make sacrifices upon the altar of friendship. Also, when she arrives in Paris, she shall sit to me for the figure. That will repay me for a good deal. Le bon Dieu knew perfectly how to make her, though He seems to have overlooked the necessity for taking any precautions afterward. It seems a great pity."
Before Marcel caught the evening train he wrote a short letter to Geoffrey:
Mon cher, what I am about to do appears singularly base. I wonder if you will know that it is not. We have lived together, worked together, understood each other as far as in this imperfect world it is possible for two beings to understand each other. I know that you do not pick pockets or lie, it is possible that you also know the same of me. But women finish these things, in men's hearts, where they wish to find only room for themselves and their conveniences. I do not say all women, not even all good women, but many good women—they make what is called a clean sweep. Think what on the whole is easiest of me, then; Miss Emily will guide you. But remember this: I am a man who has never respected women, but I respect Mademoiselle Fanny; do not, therefore, respect her less than I. When you have been married five years come alone to Paris, and I will explain the reason for our action. In the meantime accept my strongest felicitations for your happiness and for that of the charming Mademoiselle Emily, who will never forgive me.
Emily never did.