The Derelict (Bottome, Century Magazine, 1917)/Chapter 3
CHAPTER III
If there was a side of Emily's nature which Geoffrey admired more than he appreciated, it was her wonderful instinct for assistance. Philanthropy with Geoffrey had never taken up much time; it had been an affair of furtive half-crowns. But Emily went into the question of lame dogs with the eye and hand of the reformer. She was at direct variance with the psalmist, who suggests with cynical emphasis that it costs too much to redeem a soul, and that one should leave this particular adventure alone forever.
Emily had an undoubted faculty for making people stand on their own feet, and it was Geoffrey's fault if he did n't care to meet them in this ameliorated attitude. He thought that Emily's protégées had had too many disasters. He could have stood one or two, though his hours with Emily had been curtailed on several occasions by the time it took to relate them; but Geoffrey felt as if people who insisted on so many troubles had made a habit of misfortune. He was therefore more annoyed than interested when Emily rang him up one afternoon to tell him of a fresh discovery.
"I 've found her," she said through the telephone. "O Geoff, I 've found her! It's too pitiful; I never dreamed there could be such lonely misery. It's very strange, too, for I was hoping that just now I might find some one we were specially meant to help together, and I am sure it is Fanny. She has simply been sent to us."
"What for?" asked Geoffrey, nervously. "I mean—who is Fanny?"
"She's just a girl," Emily said softly, "who has been cut to pieces by life. I found her in a hospital—the one I always visit. She's had a terrible operation, but when I came across her she was just going to be sent out, with no home or friends to be sent to, and no money. Is n't civilization awful? She's almost a lady. I feel as if that made it so much worse, don't you?"
Geoffrey said he did. Generally, when they were n't ladies, Emily saw them in the housekeeper's room, and he had only to hear about them afterward.
"Poor thing," Emily went on, "she's been literally at death's door. She wants to give up her old way of life now and start quite afresh. It's been so wonderful watching the new light dawn!"
"What was her way of life?" Geoffrey asked a little suspiciously. Emily's voice became vague.
"Oh, did n't I tell you?" she explained. "She's not been—respectable, you know. It's all been very dreadful, but I do wish you'd come and see her; we might think of something together. I can't quite make her out. She's strangely reticent."
Geoffrey gave a sigh of relief. Fanny's reticence seemed the one palliating fact in the situation.
"Could n't your mother take up Fanny, if she's got to be taken up?" he feebly suggested.
Emily's voice sounded as if something cold and wet had been suddenly dropped upon it.
"I think not, dear," she said patiently. "The modern mind can deal at such a different angle with stories like poor Fanny's. Besides, mother would n't like it at all. She's been a little difficult as it is. She won't let me have her to stay in the house because of the servants. Fanny is here now, but only in the dining-room till tea. You will come, won't you?"
Geoffrey agreed instantly to come, but he secretly approved of the dining-room.
Emily was very particular about Geoffrey's work in the mornings. She never interrupted him, but she thought his work would naturally be over by two o'clock in the afternoon. She always rang him up then to find out, and if Geoff could see Emily, his work always was over at two o'clock.
He hastened to the Derings', and was immediately shown up into the dining-room. Mrs. Dering was cutting out children's underclothes upon the dining-room table. It was an old oak table, charmingly narrow and gate-legged, which, though a little uncomfortable at meals, was obviously four hundred years old. It reminded Geoff of early Renaissance pictures of the last supper, and did very well for cutting out.
Emily was sitting near the open window smoking a cigarette, a thing she did only to put other people at their ease, for she rather disliked smoking. She gave Geoffrey a radiant, confident look—the look of a woman who has received nothing but happiness and security from the hand of the man she loves.
Fanny was not smoking, but when Geoffrey's condemnatory eyes rested upon her, he could not have supposed that she was otherwise than easy. Her attitude seemed to imply that it was a great thing to be sitting in a comfortable arm-chair for half an hour, and no use bothering much about what was going to happen afterward.
She did n't appeal to Geoffrey as a flower that had been caught in a storm,—this was the way Emily described her to him afterward,—she looked like a damaged poster.
Fanny had a peculiar and rather sinister resemblance to the Sistine Madonna. Her eyes and the long curved lashes which swept her cheeks were like a fawn's, except that they looked incapable of being startled. Her features were singularly beautiful; her mouth, a little spoiled by its slash of carmine, was curved with the tilt of wings under a very short upper lip. She had dark lines beneath her eyes, and her cheeks were hollow and colorless, except for the usual patches of not very misleading rouge. Her hair rose over her forehead in thick, purple-black waves. It was altogether too glorious a covering to sustain a battered scarlet straw hat trailing an inevitable feather.
From her neck to her feet she was covered by an olive-green opera-cloak. It must once have been a handsome garment, but it had now the peculiar unattractiveness of stained and crumpled velvet. She wore no gloves, and her shoes, which had very high heels, were shabby.
She looked at Geoffrey as women look who have had men as the material of their daily bread. It was a swift, apprising look, and it enraged Geoffrey. He was not a cruel man, but he wanted to take Fanny by the shoulders and turn her out into the street, where she belonged. In a world dedicated to Emilys there was no place for Fanny.
What had put her out of her place could be blamed, if necessary, afterward. Geoffrey had taken no part in any such destruction. He was in a position to cast a stone, and in so far as his mind went he cast it. Emily's happiness was safe in his hands, and Fanny's had nothing whatever to do with him.
Perhaps Fanny herself came to this conclusion, for her eyes rapidly left him and returned to the tip of her shabby brown shoes, which she was pushing into the deep carpet just to see how far they would go.
"This is the friend I told you about, Fanny," said Emily in her charming, encouraging voice. "I thought perhaps he could help us to think of a profession. Men know so much about work, don't they?"
Fanny's eyes lifted themselves again to Geoffrey.
"Some do," she admitted; but she did not look as if she thought Geoffrey was one of them.
"Poor Fanny," Emily went on gently, "has been so very ill! We don't want to rush her into anything, Geoffrey; we only want to talk things over. Before we really settle anything, I want her to have a fortnight at the seaside. We ought to be able to manage it."
Fanny looked at Emily this time.
"How?" she asked laconically. She was so monosyllabic that it was difficult to discover how much education she had had. Her voice was low, and she did not speak with any accent; but it might be worse when she was stronger.
Mrs. Dering took no part in the conversation; she looked as if the only important things in the room were the scissors and an expanse of thick, white calico. Still, Geoffrey was glad that she was there.
"Oh, a nice convalescent home," said Emily. "I had rather thought you might like Folkestone."
"The usual kind won't do for me," said Fanny; "they told me so at the hospital. They would n't take me."
There was a moment's pause. Emily smoked harder; Geoffrey looked at his boots.
"I am sure we could manage something," Emily said gently. "There are religious sisterhoods—"
Fanny interrupted her.
"I had better tell you first as last," she said resolutely, "that I can't stick religion. I don't want to be nasty about it, but I can't stick it at any price; that's the way I'm made. Besides, I 've had it. Lots."
Emily flushed.
"Oh," she said, "I would n't dream of thrusting religion upon you. It's one of my strongest theories that it must come of itself, along the line of each person's nature—"
"That's all right, then," said Fanny, cheerfully. "I thought I'd better just mention it in case you had it up your sleeve. Most people who want to help you have. I don't suppose you 'll find any religion along the lines of my nature, but you 're welcome to look for it, provided you don't want me to go to church half a dozen times a day and bark out prayers."
Mrs. Dering paused in her cutting out.
"I think she'd better go into lodgings," she said—"nice, comfortable, quiet lodgings. Perhaps she has some girl friend she knows who'd go with her."
"That," said Fanny, alert with eagerness, "would be nice." Then she sank into her former listlessness. "No," she said regretfully, "I don't think it would do, after all. She would n't be quiet. It's different for me. You see, I 've been ill."
"I know, I know," said Emily, soothingly. "It's a new life you want. I have a little cottage in the country, not by the sea; but you might go there for a fortnight. I have a nice caretaker in it who would look after you, and there is plenty to read, and a cat and a dog to play with. I'd come down for the week-ends and see you myself."
Fanny said:
"You 're very kind, Miss Dering. I like animals; they leave you alone. I dare say I could stand the country for a fortnight."
A faint frown showed between Emily's arched eyebrows; her cottage was the final privilege of the redeemed. She was using it up rather early on Fanny. She turned a little less eagerly than usual to the question of a profession. Geoffrey, helped by the sound of rending calico, suggested dressmaking.
"I could n't do that," said Fanny, "for two reasons. One is, I never could sew; another is, there'd surely be trouble."
"What kind of trouble?" Emily asked a little impatiently.
"Oh, just trouble," said Fanny, vaguely.
Mrs. Dering intervened again.
"She could n't earn her living as a dressmaker," she objected, "unless she knows how, and it would take two or three years before she could be properly taught."
"Fancy!" said Fanny, conversationally. "And by that time we might all be dead. You never know your luck, do you?"
Emily had one of her swift and tender inspirations.
"My dear," she exclaimed, "how stupid of me! I know the very thing. My mother and I are interested in a little orphanage for crippled children; you might help us with them."
Fanny drew back as if Emily had struck her.
"Oh, I could n't do that!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "It's bad enough for them to be orphans; they don't want a girl like me to look after them. You don't understand. Miss Dering; except for ladies who want servants cheap and laundries there is n't much work I could do. I'm not strong enough for factories."
"Oh, no, no!" said Emily. "But, my dear Fanny, you must be wrong. You are educated; surely we can find something more suitable."
Fanny shook her head.
"No, I'm not," she said, "not properly. We were too poor for that. I 've got just about as much education as a London sparrow; about the same kind, too, I should think! If I could get somewhere and rest for a fortnight I'd be awfully grateful; heaps of people can't. I 'll be all right afterward. I can look out for myself then. When I was ill and you came to see me it was jolly talking about a different life. It helped me awfully then; it made me think I wanted to get better. But, you see, it's the same life when you do get well again, is n't it? Don't you bother about it. Your friend he thinks the same as I do; he thinks it's just about what I'm good for. What's the use of thinking you can get out of things? And if you did, how do you know you'd like it? What you 've had you 're used to, and what you have n't had you might n't like. So there you are."
"You shall never go back to that life," said Emily, with intensity. "You quite misunderstand Mr. Amberley. Does n't she, Geoffrey?"
Geoffrey cleared his throat. He was n't going to admit how unmistakably Fanny had understood him.
"Have n't you any ideas yourself?" he suggested, addressing Fanny for the first time. "Is n't there anything you'd like to do,—lighter work than you mention,—bookbinding or leather work, which you could do more or less independently?"
Fanny considered this question.
"Well," she said at length, "there is something I have thought of. There's a girl I used to know once; she was a model,—for the figure, you know,—and she said it was n't bad; tiring, of course, but a good deal of variety and fun in between. It would be easier for me to stick to a job if there was a little fun in between."
"Oh!" said Emily and Geoffrey, simultaneously; but Geoffrey said it because he could n't say "Damn!"
Mrs. Dering ripped some more calico; it made a sound like the sudden breaking of a squall at sea.
Then Emily said slowly:
"I do believe you could be a model, Fanny, if Mr. Amberley can tell us of any nice artists, and the right kind of pictures for you to sit for."
"If I'm to earn my living," said Fanny, inexorably, "I shall have to sit to all kinds of artists and for whatever pictures they have in their heads. When you can start picking and choosing it's because you don't need money."
Emily evaded this iron truth.
"There must," she said, appealing to Geoffrey, "be a great many women artists now, are n't there, Geoffrey?"
"Oh, heaps," said Geoffrey, eagerly. "I can make a list of them, and send you a few introductions."
"And, then," said Emily, with another inspiration, "you can paint her yourself."
"I thought," said Mrs. Dering, "that you told me, Emily, artists had always to choose their own subjects?"
"I have a feeling," said Emily, earnestly, "that Geoffrey could paint Fanny. Could n't you, Geoffrey?"
Quite apart from hating to resist Emily's feelings, Geoffrey knew that he could.
He had seen it, solidly seen it, from the moment he came into the room. It was n't her beauty,—he would almost rather she had been plain,—it was simply that she could be almost anything you liked, and always with that look of life in her, so indelibly stained and marred.
All her lines were histories; in the depths of her mysterious, hardened eyes were crushed and drowned a hundred secrets. She had not been easily bad; there was in her none of the dullness of the path of least resistance. She had resisted; perhaps she was still capable of resistance. Life had made her what she was, and in return had left in her firm, perfect lips, in the chiseling of her delicate, strong chin, some hint of her power to mold others. She had a terrible power.
"Is he an artist?" Fanny asked indifferently. "Well, you never can tell, of course. I should have thought he was just an ordinary man."