Books: The Guest of Quesnay
B >>
Booth Tarkington >> The Guest of Quesnay
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 | 12 |
13 |
14
"It is true, indeed," said Keredec. "The poor boy was on the other side
of the world, and he thought it was granted. He had been bad before, but
from that time he cared nothing what became of him. That was the reason
this Spanish woman--"
I turned upon him sharply. "YOU knew it?"
"It is a year that I have known it; when his estate was--"
"Then why didn't you tell me last night?"
"My dear sir, I could not in HIS presence, because it is one thing I
dare not let him know. This Spanish woman is so hideous, her claim upon
him is so horrible to him I could not hope to control him--he would
shout it out to her that she cannot call him husband. God knows what he
would do!"
"Well, why shouldn't he shout it out to her?"
"You do not understand," George interposed again, "that what Professor
Keredec risked for his 'poor boy,' in returning to France, was a trial
on the charge of bigamy!"
The professor recoiled from the definite brutality. "My dear sir! It is
not possible that such a thing can happen."
"I conceive it very likely to happen," said George, "unless you get him
out of the country before the lady now installed here as his wife
discovers the truth."
"But she must not!" Keredec lifted both hands toward Ward appealingly;
they trembled, and his voice betrayed profound agitation. "She cannot!
She has never suspected such a thing; there is nothing that could MAKE
her suspect it!"
"One particular thing would be my telling her," said Ward quietly.
"Never!" cried the professor, stepping back from him. "You could not do
that!"
"I not only could, but I will, unless you get him out of the country--
and quickly!"
"George!" I exclaimed, coming forward between them. "This won't do at
all. You can't--"
"That's enough," he said, waving me back, and I saw that his hand was
shaking, too, like Keredec's. His face had grown very white; but he
controlled himself to speak with a coolness that made what he said
painfully convincing. "I know what you think," he went on, addressing
me, "but you're wrong. It isn't for myself. When I sailed for New York
in the spring I thought there was a chance that she would carry out the
action she begun four years ago and go through the form of ridding
herself of him definitely; that is, I thought there was some hope for
me; I believed there was until this morning. But I know better now. If
she's seen him again, and he's been anything except literally
unbearable, it's all over with ME. From the first, I never had a chance
against him; he was a hard rival, even when he'd become only a cruel
memory." His voice rose. "I've lived a sober, decent life, and I've
treated HER with gentleness and reverence since she was born, and HE'S
done nothing but make a stew-pan of his life and neglect and betray her
when he had her. Heaven knows why it is; it isn't because of anything
he's done or has, it's just because it's HIM, I suppose, but I know my
chance is gone for good! THAT leaves me free to act for her; no one can
accuse me of doing it for myself. And I swear she sha'n't go through
that slough of despond again while I have breath in my body!"
"Steady, George!" I said.
"Oh, I'm steady enough," he cried. "Professor Keredec shall be convinced
of it! My cousin is not going into the mire again; she shall be freed of
it for ever: I speak as her relative now, the representative of her
family and of those who care for her happiness and good. Now she SHALL
make the separation definite--and LEGAL! And let Professor Keredec get
his 'poor boy' out of the country. Let him do it quickly! I make it as a
condition of my not informing the woman yonder and her lawyer. And by my
hope of salvation I warn you--"
"George, for pity's sake!" I shouted, throwing my arm about his
shoulders, for his voice had risen to a pitch of excitement and fury
that I feared must bring the whole place upon us. He caught himself up
suddenly, stared at me blankly for a moment, then sank into a chair with
a groan. As he did so I became aware of a sound that had been worrying
my subconsciousness for an indefinite length of time, and realised what
it was. Some one was knocking for admission.
I crossed the room and opened the door. Miss Elizabeth stood there, red-
faced and flustered, and behind her stood Mr. Cresson Ingle, who looked
dubiously amused.
"Ah--come in," I said awkwardly. "George is here. Let me present
Professor Keredec--"
"'George is here!'" echoed Miss Elizabeth, interrupting, and paying no
attention whatever to an agitated bow on the part of the professor. "I
should say he WAS! They probably know THAT all the way to Trouville!"
"We were discussing--" I began.
"Ah, I know what you were discussing," she said impatiently. "Come in,
Cresson." She turned to Mr. Ingle, who was obviously reluctant. "It is a
family matter, and you'll have to go through with it now."
"That reminds me," I said. "May I offer--"
"Not now!" Miss Elizabeth cut short a rather embarrassed handshake which
her betrothed and I were exchanging. "I'm in a very nervous and
distressed state of mind, as I suppose we all are, for that matter. This
morning I learned the true situation over here; and I'm afraid Louise
has heard; at least she's not at Quesnay. I got into a panic for fear
she had come here, but thank heaven she does not seem to--Good gracious!
What's THAT?"
It was the discordant voice of Mariana la Mursiana, crackling in
strident protest. My door was still open; I turned to look and saw her,
hot-faced, tousle-haired, insufficiently wrapped, striving to ascend the
gallery steps, but valiantly opposed by Madame Brossard, who stood in
the way.
"But NO, madame," insisted Madame Brossard, excited but darkly
determined. "You cannot ascend. There is nothing on the upper floor of
this wing except the apartment of Professor Keredec."
"Name of a dog!" shrilled the other. "It is my husband's apartment, I
tell you. Il y a une femme avec lui!"
"It is Madame Harman who is there," said Keredec hoarsely in my ear. "I
came away and left them together."
"Come," I said, and, letting the others think what they would, sprang
across the veranda, the professor beside me, and ran toward the two
women who were beginning to struggle with more than their tongues. I
leaped by them and up the steps, but Keredec thrust himself between our
hostess and her opponent, planting his great bulk on the lowest step.
Glancing hurriedly over my shoulder, I saw the Spanish woman strike him
furiously upon the breast with both hands, but I knew she would never
pass him.
I entered the salon of the "Grande Suite," and closed the door quickly
behind me.
Louise Harman was standing at the other end of the room; she wore the
pretty dress of white and lilac and the white hat. She looked cool and
beautiful and good, and there were tears in her eyes. To come into this
quiet chamber and see her so, after the hot sunshine and tawdry scene
below, was like leaving the shouting market-place for a shadowy chapel.
Her husband was kneeling beside her; he held one of her hands in both
his, her other rested upon his head; and something in their attitudes
made me know I had come in upon their leave-taking. But from the face he
lifted toward her all trace of his tragedy had passed: the wonder and
worship written there left no room for anything else.
"Mrs. Harman--" I began.
"Yes?" she said. "I am coming."
"But I don't want you to. I've come for fear you would, and you--you
must not," I stammered. "You must wait."
"Why?"
"It's necessary," I floundered. "There is a scene--"
"I know," she said quietly. "THAT must be, of course."
Harman rose, and she took both his hands, holding them against her
breast.
"My dear," she said gently,--"my dearest, you must stay. Will you
promise not to pass that door, even, until you have word from me again?"
"Yes," he answered huskily, "if you'll promise it SHALL come--some day?"
"It shall, indeed. Be sure of it."
I had turned away, but I heard the ghost of his voice whispering "good-
bye." Then she was beside me and opening the door.
I tried to stay her.
"Mrs. Harman," I urged, "I earnestly beg you--"
"No," she answered, "this is better."
She stepped out upon the gallery; I followed, and she closed the door.
Upon the veranda of my pavilion were my visitors from Quesnay, staring
up at us apprehensively; Madame Brossard and Keredec still held the foot
of the steps, but la Mursiana had abandoned the siege, and, accompanied
by Mr. Percy and Rameau, the black-bearded notary, who had joined her,
was crossing the garden toward her own apartment.
At the sound of the closing door, she glanced over her shoulder, sent
forth a scream, and, whirling about, ran viciously for the steps, where
she was again blocked by the indomitable Keredec.
"Ah, you foolish woman, I know who you are," she cried, stepping back
from him to shake a menacing hand at the quiet lady by my side. "You
want to get yourself into trouble! That man in the room up there has
been my husband these two years and more."
"No, madame," said Louise Harman, "you are mistaken; he is my husband."
"But you divorced him," vociferated the other wildly. "You divorced him
in America!"
"No. You are mistaken," the quiet voice replied. "The suit was
withdrawn. He is still my husband."
I heard the professor's groan of despair, but it was drowned in the wild
shriek of Mariana. "WHAT? You tell ME that? Ah, the miserable! If what
you say is true, he shall pay bitterly! He shall wish that he had died
by fire! What! You think he can marry ME, break my leg so that I cannot
dance again, ruin my career, and then go away with a pretty woman like
you and be happy? Aha, there are prisons in France for people who marry
two like that; I do not know what they do in YOUR barbaric country, but
they are decent people over here and they punish. He shall pay for it in
suffering--" her voice rose to an incredible and unbearable shriek--"and
you, YOU shall pay, too! You can't come stealing honest women's husbands
like that. You shall PAY!"
I saw George Ward come running forward with his hand upraised in a
gesture of passionate warning, for Mrs. Harman, unnoticed by me--I was
watching the Spanish woman--had descended the steps and had passed
Keredec, walking straight to Mariana. I leaped down after her, my heart
in my throat, fearing a thousand things.
"You must not talk like that," she said, not lifting her voice--yet
every one in the courtyard heard her distinctly. "You can do neither of
us any harm in the world."
CHAPTER XX
It is impossible to say what Mariana would have done had there been no
interference, for she had worked herself into one of those furies which
women of her type can attain when they feel the occasion demands it, a
paroxysm none the less dangerous because its foundation is histrionic.
But Rameau threw his arms about her; Mr. Percy came hastily to his
assistance, and Ward and I sprang in between her and the too-fearless
lady she strove to reach. Even at that, the finger-nails of Mariana's
right hand touched the pretty white hat--but only touched it and no
more.
Rameau and the little spy managed to get their vociferating burden
across the courtyard and into her own door, where she suddenly subsided,
disappearing within the passage to her apartment in unexpected silence--
indubitably a disappointment to the interested Amedee, to Glouglou,
Francois, and the whole personnel of the inn, who hastened to group
themselves about the door in attentive attitudes.
"In heaven's name," gasped Miss Elizabeth, seizing her cousin by the
arm, "come into the pavilion. Here's the whole world looking at us!"
"Professor Keredec--" Mrs. Harman began, resisting, and turning to the
professor appealingly.
"Oh, let him come too!" said Miss Elizabeth desperately. "Nothing could
be worse than this!"
She led the way back to the pavilion, and, refusing to consider a
proposal on the part of Mr. Ingle and myself to remain outside, entered
the room last, herself, producing an effect of "shooing" the rest of us
in; closed the door with surprising force, relapsed in a chair, and
burst into tears.
"Not a soul at Quesnay," sobbed the mortified chatelaine--"not one but
will know this before dinner! They'll hear the whole thing within two
hours."
"Isn't there any way of stopping that, at least?" Ward said to me.
"None on earth, unless you go home at once and turn your visitors and
THEIR servants out of the house," I answered.
"There is nothing they shouldn't know," said Mrs. Harman.
George turned to her with a smile so bravely managed that I was proud of
him. "Oh, yes, there is," he said. "We're going to get you out of all
this."
"All this?" she repeated.
"All this MIRE!" he answered. "We're going to get you out of it and keep
you out of it, now, for good. I don't know whether your revelation to
the Spanish woman will make that easier or harder, but I do know that it
makes the mire deeper."
"For whom?"
"For Harman. But you sha'n't share it!"
Her anxious eyes grew wider. "How have I made it deeper for him? Wasn't
it necessary that the poor woman should be told the truth?"
"Professor Keredec seemed to think it important that she shouldn't."
She turned to Keredec with a frightened gesture and an unintelligible
word of appeal, as if entreating him to deny what George had said. The
professor's beard was trembling; he looked haggard; an almost pitiable
apprehension hung upon his eyelids; but he came forward manfully.
"Madame," he said, "you could never in your life do anything that would
make harm. You were right to speak, and I had short sight to fear, since
it was the truth."
"But why did you fear it?"
"It was because--" he began, and hesitated.
"I must know the reason," she urged. "I must know just what I've done."
"It was because," he repeated, running a nervous hand through his beard,
"because the knowledge would put us so utterly in this people's power.
Already they demand more than we could give them; now they can--"
"They can do what?" she asked tremulously.
His eyes rested gently on her blanched and stricken face. "Nothing, my
dear lady," he answered, swallowing painfully. "Nothing that will last.
I am an old man. I have seen and I have--I have thought. And I tell you
that only the real survives; evil actions are some phantoms that
disappear. They must not trouble us."
"That is a high plane," George intervened, and he spoke without sarcasm.
"To put it roughly, these people have been asking more than the Harman
estate is worth; that was on the strength of the woman's claim as a
wife; but now they know she is not one, her position is immensely
strengthened, for she has only to go before the nearest Commissaire de
Police--"
"Oh, no!" Mrs. Harman cried passionately. "I haven't done THAT! You
mustn't tell me I have. You MUSTN'T!"
"Never!" he answered. "There could not be a greater lie than to say you
have done it. The responsibility is with the wretched and vicious boy
who brought the catastrophe upon himself. But don't you see that you've
got to keep out of it, that we've got to take you out of it?"
"You can't! I'm part of it; better or worse, it's as much mine as his."
"No, no!" cried Miss Elizabeth. "YOU mustn't tell us THAT!" Still
weeping, she sprang up and threw her arms about her brother. "It's too
horrible of you--"
"It is what I must tell you," Mrs. Harman said. "My separation from my
husband is over. I shall be with him now for--"
"I won't listen to you!" Miss Elizabeth lifted her wet face from
George's shoulder, and there was a note of deep anger in her voice. "You
don't know what you're talking about; you haven't the faintest idea of
what a hideous situation that creature has made for himself. Don't you
know that that awful woman was right, and there are laws in France? When
she finds she can't get out of him all she wants, do you think she's
going to let him off? I suppose she struck you as being quite the sort
who'd prove nobly magnanimous! Are you so blind you don't see exactly
what's going to happen? She'll ask twice as much now as she did before;
and the moment it's clear that she isn't going to get it, she'll call in
an agent of police. She'll get her money in a separate suit and send him
to prison to do it. The case against him is positive; there isn't a
shadow of hope for him. You talk of being with him; don't you see how
preposterous that is? Do you imagine they encourage family housekeeping
in French prisons?"
"Oh, come, this won't do!" The speaker was Cresson Ingle, who stepped
forward, to my surprise; for he had been hovering in the background
wearing an expression of thorough discomfort.
"You're going much too far," he said, touching his betrothed upon the
arm. "My dear Elizabeth, there is no use exaggerating; the case is
unpleasant enough just as it is."
"In what have I exaggerated?" she demanded.
"Why, I KNEW Larrabee Harman," he returned. "I knew him fairly well. I
went as far as Honolulu with him, when he and some of his heelers
started round the world; and I remember that papers were served on him
in San Francisco. Mrs. Harman had made her application; it was just
before he sailed. About a year and a half or two years later I met him
again, in Paris. He was in pretty bad shape; seemed hypnotised by this
Mariana and afraid as death of her; she could go into a tantrum that
would frighten him into anything. It was a joke--down along the line of
the all-night dancers and cafes--that she was going to marry him; and
some one told me afterward that she claimed to have brought it about. I
suppose it's true; but there is no question of his having married her in
good faith. He believed that the divorce had been granted; he'd offered
no opposition to it whatever. He was travelling continually, and I don't
think he knew much of what was going on, even right around him, most of
the time. He began with cognac and absinthe in the morning, you know.
For myself, I always supposed the suit had been carried through; so did
people generally, I think. He'll probably have to stand trial, and of
course he's technically guilty, but I don't believe he'd be convicted--
though I must say it would have been a most devilish good thing for him
if he could have been got out of France before la Mursiana heard the
truth. Then he could have made terms with her safely at a distance--
she'd have been powerless to injure him and would have precious soon
come to time and been glad to take whatever he'd give her. NOW, I
suppose, that's impossible, and they'll arrest him if he tries to budge.
But this talk of prison and all that is nonsense, my dear Elizabeth!"
"You admit there is a chance of it!" she retorted.
"I've said all I had to say," returned Mr. Ingle with a dubious laugh.
"And if you don't mind, I believe I'll wait for you outside, in the
machine. I want to look at the gear-box."
He paused, as if in deference to possible opposition, and, none being
manifested, went hastily from the room with a sigh of relief, giving me,
as he carefully closed the door, a glance of profound commiseration over
his shoulder.
Miss Elizabeth had taken her brother's hand, not with the effect of
clinging for sympathy; nor had her throwing her arms about him produced
that effect; one could as easily have imagined Brunhilda hiding her face
in a man's coat-lapels. George's sister wept, not weakly: she was on the
defensive, but not for herself.
"Does the fact that he may possibly escape going to prison"--she
addressed her cousin--"make his position less scandalous, or can it make
the man himself less detestable?"
Mrs. Harman looked at her steadily. There was a long and sorrowful
pause.
"Nothing is changed," she said finally; her eyes still fixed gravely on
Miss Elizabeth's.
At that, the other's face flamed up, and she uttered a half-choked
exclamation. "Oh," she cried--"you've fallen in love with playing the
martyr; it's SELF-love! You SEE yourself in the role! No one on earth
could make me believe you're in LOVE with this degraded imbecile--all
that's left of the wreck of a vicious life! It isn't that! It's because
you want to make a shining example of yourself; you want to get down on
your knees and wash off the vileness from this befouled creature; you
want--"
"Madame!" Keredec interrupted tremendously, "you speak out of no
knowledge!" He leaned toward her across the table, which shook under the
weight of his arms. "There is no vileness; no one who is clean remains
befouled because of the things that are gone."
"They do not?" She laughed hysterically, and for my part, I sighed in
despair--for there was no stopping him.
"They do not, indeed! Do you know the relation of TIME to this little
life of ours? We have only the present moment; your consciousness of
that is your existence. Your knowledge of each present moment as it
passes--and it passes so swiftly that each word I speak now overlaps it--
yet it is all we have. For all the rest, for what has gone by and what
is yet coming--THAT has no real existence; it is all a dream. It is not
ALIVE. It IS not! It IS--nothing! So the soul that stands clean and pure
to-day IS clean and pure--and that is all there is to say about that
soul!"
"But a soul with evil tendencies," Ward began impatiently, "if one must
meet you on your own ground--"
"Ha! my dear sir, those evil tendencies would be in the soiling
memories, and my boy is free from them."
"He went toward all that was soiling before. Surely you can't pretend he
may not take that direction again?"
"That," returned the professor quickly, "is his to choose. If this lady
can be with him now, he will choose right."
"So!" cried Miss Elizabeth, "you offer her the role of a guide, do you?
First she is to be his companion through a trial for bigamy in a French
court, and, if he is acquitted, his nurse, teacher, and moral
preceptor?" She turned swiftly to her cousin. "That's YOUR conception of
a woman's mission?"
"I haven't any mission," Mrs. Harman answered quietly. "I've never
thought about missions; I only know I belong to him; that's all I EVER
thought about it. I don't pretend to explain it, or make it seem
reasonable. And when I met him again, here, it was--it was--it was
proved to me."
"Proved?" echoed Miss Elizabeth incredulously.
"Yes; proved as certainly as the sun shining proves that it's day."
"Will you tell us?"
It was I who asked the question: I spoke involuntarily, but she did not
seem to think it strange that I should ask.
"Oh, when I first met him," she said tremulously, "I was frightened; but
it was not he who frightened me--it was the rush of my own feeling. I
did not know what I felt, but I thought I might die, and he was so like
himself as I had first known him--but so changed, too; there was
something so wonderful about him, something that must make any stranger
feel sorry for him, and yet it is beautiful--" She stopped for a moment
and wiped her eyes, then went on bravely: "And the next day he came, and
waited for me--I should have come here for him if he hadn't--and I fell
in with the mistake he had made about my name. You see, he'd heard I was
called 'Madame d'Armand,' and I wanted him to keep on thinking that, for
I thought if he knew I was Mrs. Harman he might find out--" She paused,
her lip beginning to tremble. "Oh, don't you see why I didn't want him
to know? I didn't want him to suffer as he would--as he does now, poor
child!--but most of all I wanted--I wanted to see if he would fall in
love with me again! I kept him from knowing, because, if he thought I
was a stranger, and the same thing happened again--his caring for me, I
mean--" She had begun to weep now, freely and openly, but not from
grief. "Oh!" she cried, "don't you SEE how it's all proven to me?"
"I see how it has deluded you!" said Miss Elizabeth vehemently. "I see
what a rose-light it has thrown about this creature; but it won't last,
thank God! any more than it did the other time. The thing is for you to
come to your senses before--"
"Ah, my dear, I have come to them at last and for ever!" The words rang
full and strong, though she was white and shaking, and heavy tears
filled her eyes. "I know what I am doing now, if I never knew before!"
"You never did know--" Miss Ward began, but George stopped her.
"Elizabeth!" he said quickly. "We mustn't go on like this; it's more
than any of us can bear. Come, let's get out into the air; let's get
back to Quesnay. We'll have Ingle drive us around the longer way, by the
sea." He turned to his cousin. "Louise, you'll come now? If not, we'll
have to stay here with you."
"I'll come," she answered, trying bravely to stop the tears that kept
rising in spite of her; "if you'll wait till"--and suddenly she flashed
through them a smile so charming that my heart ached the harder for
George--"till I can stop crying!"
CHAPTER XXI
Mr. Earl Percy and I sat opposite each other at dinner that evening.
Perhaps, for charity's sake, I should add that though we faced each
other, and, indeed, eyed each other solemnly at intervals, we partook
not of the same repast, having each his own table; his being set in the
garden at his constant station near the gallery steps, and mine, some
fifty feet distant, upon my own veranda, but moved out from behind the
honeysuckle screen, for I sat alone and the night was warm.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 | 12 |
13 |
14