Читать книгу What Happened to Forester - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 3

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I first saw Ange Marie as a friend and I were in the act of quitting one of the eleven tavernes, a casual acquaintance with which entitles you to the freedom of the night life of Marseilles. I made some excuse to loiter.

“What a lovely child!” I exclaimed.

My companion smiled mysteriously. He was a connection of the Chef de Sûreté, and such a smile meant something.

“She is very beautiful,” he admitted, “but a word of advice to you, my friend: if ever you should have an hour to spare here, and seek a feminine companion for these rounds—do not choose Ange Marie.”

Nevertheless, I continued to loiter for the sole purpose of watching her. Her face was oval and almost perfect in shape; her complexion transparent; her eyes the clearest, sweetest brown imaginable. She was dressed with nunlike simplicity—a plain black gown, with what seemed to be a wide collar of gauzy white material round the neck, a simple hat, elegant shoes and bag—a noticeable figure apart from her beauty amongst the more flamboyant sisters of her craft. To her companion I took an immediate dislike. He was a thin, esthetic-looking Englishman, middle-aged, clean-shaven, with an unpleasant mouth and a curious glitter in his eyes, one of which seemed to be set farther back in his head than the other, giving the impression of a squint. He was badly dressed in ill-fitting dinner clothes, and every detail of his toilet was as annoying as his personality. They danced together—he very badly and she divinely—and as they passed, Ange Marie glanced up at me. Perhaps she understood my admiration; at any rate she smiled. My companion passed his arm through mine.

“Enough for to-night, my friend, I think,” he remarked significantly. “We go.”

At my hotel, where we parted, he laid his hand upon my shoulder. He had been liaison officer to my regiment during the War, there had been some question of my having rendered him a valuable service, and for two people who saw one another seldom we were certainly friends.

“Andrew,” he said, “I want you to promise me something.”

I knew perfectly well what that something would be. The matter had been in my mind.

“Don’t leave the hotel again to-night,” he begged.

I hesitated. The allure of Ange Marie was insidious. I was approaching middle age, a somewhat dull person at times, as a soldier retired from the Army before his time is inclined to be, but still with that unsatisfied craving for adventures which should remain, perhaps, the heritage of youth alone. I was entirely alone in the world, too, without ties or responsibilities, and the idea of an hour’s flirtation and a dance with her was extraordinarily attractive.

“I do not speak without reason,” my friend continued earnestly. “Ange Marie is watched by the police. She is strongly suspected already of two—irregularities. She is not a safe companion, and, although we do our best, Marseilles is Marseilles.”

“All right,” I promised regretfully. “It is late enough, anyway. All the same, I don’t believe that the child could do any one harm.”

Whereupon we parted.

I boarded the P. & O. boat for Tilbury late on the following afternoon. The major part of the passengers, in a hurry to reach their journey’s end, had already departed by train, and the ship was handed over to the tub-and-hose activities of the lascars. I occupied myself, therefore, for half an hour, in unpacking, but just as we started I made my way on deck to find a very distressed looking steward—an old friend of mine, as a matter of fact—watching the removal of the gangway.

“What’s wrong, Brown?” I inquired.

“Gent in the next cabin to yours gone and got left behind, sir,” he confided dolefully. “He landed last night—said he’d be back before midnight. Ain’t set eyes upon him since.”

“Did he take any clothes with him?”

“Not a stitch except what he stood up in. Left his things all lying about, too, and his drawers open. I’ve just locked up his cabin.”

I saw Brown again later in the evening. He was seated on a trunk in one of the side gangways, and there was a dejection in his manner scarcely to be accounted for by the mere loss of a tip.

“Heard anything of your missing passenger?” I asked.

Brown shook his head.

“He’s come to harm, sir—that’s what he’s come to,” was the lugubrious reply. “Stands to sense he don’t go out in his dinner clothes and not come back all night unless there’s trouble.”

“What sort of a fellow was he?” I inquired. “Did he drink?”

“Drink? Lord love you, he was a missionary,” the man exclaimed—“and a miserable one at that! Always gloomy and muttering to himself, he was. When he told me that he was going to dine on shore when there was a free dinner on board, I couldn’t believe it. Name of McPherson—but there was nothing Scotch about him except his stinginess, and I don’t suppose that was his fault.”

“Had he money with him?”

“All he possessed, I believe. Anyway, there was one drawer in his cabin he always kept locked, and that was wide open and empty when I went down this morning.”

“A missionary,” I reflected. “Well, I suppose a missionary might get into trouble just the same as any ordinary human being.”

“Trouble costs money,” the steward observed succinctly. “And he hadn’t got any—a lean, swivelled-eyed sort of a card. I ain’t got much pity for him, but I ’ates Marseilles, and there’s something about his empty room gives me the shivers.”

“Lean, swivelled-eyed!” I started—perceptibly, I suppose, for Brown looked at me with curiosity.

“Describe him,” I insisted.

The steward settled down to his task with enthusiasm.

“He was long, tall, dark, and lean as a pikestaff. He’d got a kind of glitter in his eyes, and one of them turned inwards a bit. He’d fished out what he called his ‘dress suit’ last night. He’d never worn it but once all the voyage—coat down almost to his knees, baggy trousers, and a wisp of a tie. He looked a card, I can tell you!”

On the very steps of the wireless room, to which I presently made my way, I paused. Ange Marie, Ange Marie, what have you to do with missionaries? I knew perfectly well why I hesitated. I was afraid of bringing trouble on Ange Marie. Nevertheless, I did my duty, and sent a marconigram to the Chef de Sûreté at Marseilles.

It is not always that a good action brings its own reward, and in this case it certainly did not. At Tilbury, half an hour of my time was taken up by a very persistent gentleman from Scotland Yard who introduced himself by tapping my shoulder in the most official fashion, besieged me with questions about my doings in Marseilles, and was particularly curious as to why I imagined that the man whom I saw in the Taverne des Grenouilles was the missing passenger from the boat. It was not until he was perfectly sure that he had collected all the information I was able to impart that he condescended to answer my own questions. McPherson had been found drowned in Marseilles Harbour, and Ange Marie was in prison. Would I go back to Marseilles and give evidence? I would not. And more than ever I regretted having sent that marconigram.

My week-end host, Gordon Pensent, apologised for the cocktails which stood upon the tray side by side with the goblets of Amontillado.

“As a wine merchant, and one of the old school,” he said, “you must know how I detest these things, but my wife insists.”

“Your wife!” I exclaimed.

Pensent was a man of some fifty years of age, and I had looked upon him as a confirmed bachelor. He nodded.

“A little adventure which happened to me when I was making the tour of my vineyards a month or so ago,” he confided—“and here is the result.”

There was the sound of light footsteps outside, the opening of the door—and Ange Marie! Pensent was never a suspicious man, and he was quite willing to believe that my momentary stupefaction was due to surprise at finding him married at all, and to his wife’s unusual beauty. She had not abandoned her simplicity of style, but the Rue de la Paix had confirmed her exquisite taste and added its finishing touches. She was still without adornment, but a single string of pearls gleamed upon her neck. She herself, although she recognised me, was wonderful. She played the hostess perfectly. She chattered of her old home in the Dauphiné, where she and Pensent had apparently met, praised the beauty of England but deplored its climate. Pensent, whose French was far from fluent, enacted the rôle of elderly and adoring spouse to the point of fatuousness. It was all very muddling, and here was I face to face with another problem connected with Ange Marie. Whether it was her cleverness or her intense confidence in my discretion, I could not tell, but she showed no signs of wanting to speak to me privately. Nevertheless, when the opportunity came—as it did in the lounge after dinner—she was swift to take advantage of it.

“Until to-morrow, no word—I insist.”

“What happened?” I demanded.

She looked around. It was a very beautiful lounge, with an encircling gallery, now, however, empty. Pensent had always been a rich man, and the house was famous.

“That crazy Englishman with whom I spent the evening—he was found drowned. He sobbed like a child for his sins. What had I to do with him or his conscience? As to money—it was the pocket money of a child he had. Nevertheless, they were severe. They sent me to prison for a month, and banished me from Marseilles for a year.”

“And then?”

“Monsieur—my husband now—he came to the village where I lived. I told him that I was a governess taking a holiday. If you wish to speak, you must, but you will wait until to-morrow.”

“I will wait,” I promised.

So this was the second problem with which I was confronted concerning Ange Marie.

She managed well, for in the morning she was deputed to show me some improvements on the estate whilst Pensent went to church. She led me straight to a charming little cottage dower house which I remembered to have been occupied by Pensent’s sister, and here, upon the veranda, from which was a pleasant view of the gardens, house and lake, was set a small luncheon table, at which were seated two typical French peasants. The man was brown of skin with grey moustache and closely cropped beard and head. He wore his English clothes a little awkwardly, but his elastic-side brown shoes remained typically French. The woman was bent a little in figure. She wore a white, close-fitting cap and dress of stiff black silk. Her face was brown and wrinkled, and her hand, which Ange Marie was caressing affectionately, was hard and gnarled like a walnut shell.

Papa and Maman and Ange Marie!

I addressed them in French, and their faces lightened up. They spoke with pride of their wonderful home. Papa pointed to the garden—a man’s work, but such happiness—and the outils anglais! Marvellous! Yet, alas, no vines. Maman spoke of her linen, her stock of silver and sheets. Her voice, too, was husky with emotion. Then they spoke of Ange Marie, the best daughter God ever sent to old people—and here Ange Marie stopped them. Another Frenchwoman—a younger edition of Madame—appeared carrying the first dish of the déjeuner.

“Ma tante,” Ange Marie explained. “Elle fait la cuisine. Tu es contente, maman?”

“Tout est merveilleux, chérie.”

“Et tu, papa?”

He looked up from his glass.

“Le vin est bon, ma fille.”

Afterwards we walked back to the house. In the shrubbery path she took my hands.

“Look into my eyes,” she insisted.

I obeyed without visible emotion—which shows great proof of my loyalty to my friend. There was a momentary flicker in those brown depths.

“You promise?”

“One moment,” I begged. “Your husband knows nothing about Marseilles?”

“Nothing.”

“You intend to keep—as you are now?”

She became emphatic. She gripped my hand almost fiercely.

“Listen, my friend. What should tempt me to do otherwise? I am a little animal. Have you not realised that? I love soft things next to my body, warmth, good food and wine, comfort, a full purse. Maman calls me her little kitten. Why should I risk all that I have found?”

So of course I promised, but I arranged for a telephone call that afternoon, and returned to town.

Soon after that I went round the world, and the first man I met in Piccadilly on the day after my return was Pensent. I knew at once that something had happened. He had acquired a stoop, lost his fresh colour, and he walked wearily. He greeted me, however, with all his old cordiality. There was even, I fancied, a sort of eagerness in the way he clutched at and held my hand. We exchanged the usual amenities; afterwards there was a momentarily awkward pause. I asked my question point-blank. I thought that it was best.

“What’s wrong, Pensent?”

“She has left me,” he replied. “Here, come in and sit down for a moment, if you are not in a hurry.”

I was not in the least pressed for time, and if I had been I should have gone all the same. My curiosity, I am afraid, was greater even than my sympathy. We found a corner table at a famous café, and Pensent told me his story.

“We had two wonderful years,” he said. “Marie seemed perfectly contented, and I did everything I could to please her. Of course her affection for those two old people—her father and mother—seemed to me ridiculous, but their presence made her happy, so I did what I could for them. She spent half her time fussing around them, and, as you saw for yourself, we made them pretty comfortable. Yet, after the first year, they began to pine. The old man wanted his café, his game of boule, and his old cronies, and Marie’s mother used to sit with her hands folded in front of her, cowering over a fire. She wanted to feel the sun, she said, to wash at the public lavoir with the other old women, and to hear how Jeanne’s daughter would have to stay at home next month, and how old mother Lacouste had brought no things to the wash for two weeks, and the widower Jacques, from the hills, had been seen coming out of her cottage late at night, and an empty brandy bottle had been thrown into the street. Then she got the shivers, made up her mind that the climate was killing her, and died. Obstinate old she-cat!”

I nodded sympathetically. The whole thing was so human, and so inevitable.

“Then the old man broke up,” Pensent continued. “He died through sheer perversity. To give you an example. On one of the first days of his illness he asked for some champagne. I sent him some Cliquot ’11—I couldn’t have sent the King anything better. The old boy turned it down. Said he hoped the next time I was in France I’d taste the vin mousseux of his neighbour, Gustave Bérard, and I’d never want to drink my own sour stuff again. Then he died, too. I tried everything I could to comfort Marie. I ordered a tombstone as big as a mausoleum, and I had a supply of those wire wreaths they love so much sent over from France. I offered to take her to Paris, round the world—anywhere. She scarcely answered me, never once smiled. She was like a hurt animal crouching in a corner. I brought home a new Rolls-Royce, and she rode in it without noticing that it wasn’t our ordinary old Daimler. I offered to change her string of pearls for larger stones. She would not take the trouble to come as far as Bond Street to see them. She wanted Papa and Maman, and nobody nor anything else. Then, one evening, about a month ago, when I came home from the City, she was gone—gone with the old woman—her mother’s youngest sister, who had waited upon them.”

“Surely she didn’t go without leaving a word of farewell or explanation, or something?” I asked.

He opened his pocketbook and produced a worn slip of note paper. He must have read it many times. It was rather pitiful. Her handwriting was bad, her few words ill-expressed. Yet to me it meant so much:

Henri—you are generous, but I am unhappy. I go to France. It is only there I can live. Do not follow me. It might make you very, very miserable. Thank you so much for everything. Marie.

I passed him back the letter. It was clear to me where Marie had gone to forget her sorrows, and there was little that I could do or say. My expressions of sympathy were banal. I hurried them over, and we ordered another drink.

“The worst of it all is,” he confided before we started, “I was preparing a great and final surprise for Marie. I have sold out of my business—fixed it all up last month—and I was quite ready to go and live in France or anywhere else for as long as she liked.”

“Damned hard luck!” I muttered.

He sat looking moodily at his glass, and I began seriously to consider whether the time had not arrived when it was better for me to tell him the truth. In the end I decided not to. Perhaps it was as well.

In a month’s time I met him again. He had lost more weight and had all the appearance of a broken man. I was shocked to see him.

“Any news?” I ventured.

“None,” he answered. “Not a word. I have written to her old home. No reply.”

“Had she much money with her?”

“Very little. She wouldn’t have a banking account. I begged her to, but she said she didn’t understand cheques. There may have been a hundred pounds or so housekeeping money—no more.”

“Jewellery?”

“She had jewellery, of course,” he admitted, “but not nearly so much as she might have had. She didn’t take all of that, either.”

“She’ll write you presently,” I prophesied. “Why do you hang about London? Why not come down to the Riviera with me? I am going to Cairo first, then a week in Rome on my way back, and Monte Carlo afterwards.”

The idea intrigued him; still more the manner of my going. I booked his passage that afternoon, and I left him a little more cheerful. I, on the other hand, was angry with myself and perplexed. Once more I was confronted with the problem which persistently obtruded itself upon me. I had listened to all he had to say and I had made no reply. Yet, was it likely after all, that Ange Marie had gone back to her old home in the Dauphiné? Even as I asked myself the question, I seemed to hear the inviting lilt of that Nice carnival song, and see Ange Marie standing upon the threshold of the Taverne des Grenouilles, her eyes surveying the place with a child’s wonder, her exquisitely formed, unbecarmined lips parted in that gentle yet faintly quizzical smile—a Mona Lisa smile without its conscious wickedness. Here was my problem. In a few days’ time we should be in Marseilles—perhaps spending the night there. Should I let Pensent know of the chance of finding once more his Ange Marie, or was he better left in ignorance? I asked myself that question often during the first few days of the voyage, but it was Pensent himself who answered it. He was developing a new habit. Side by side with his gloom, he was beginning to drink. I am with any man who takes his cocktail before lunch or dinner, his glass of wine with meals, and perhaps a couple of whiskies and sodas during the day, but Pensent kept slipping away to the smoke room at all manner of hours, and after the first few days I had hard work to keep him from sitting in the bar altogether. There was no doubt but that physically and mentally the man was in a bad way. One night they sent for me to fetch him from the smoke room, and although he talked coherently enough, to all effects and purposes, he was drunk. That night I made up my mind.

We reached Marseilles at six o’clock the following evening, and owing to a strike or some local disturbance, we were not to sail until eight o’clock the next morning. It was Pensent himself who proposed a dinner and evening on shore, so very likely without my intervention the inevitable would have happened. It was towards the end of November—too late for the Réserve—so, taking care not to begin the evening until towards nine o’clock—I permitted an extra cocktail at the “Bodega”—I piloted Pensent to a place of local fame to dine, and, whilst he ordered the dinner, I went to the telephone and called up my friend. He was closeted at the moment with the Chef de Sûreté, but he came at once to the instrument. I asked for news of Ange Marie, which he gave me grudgingly. She had disappeared from Marseilles for some time after her trouble, he told me. The rumour was that she had married an Englishman and gone to that country to live. Only a week ago, however, she had returned to Marseilles; had come once more under their notice. She had brought an old housekeeper with her, and so far had kept aloof from the night life of the place. I could have her address on the morrow, if I wished—after which my friend hurried away with a word of reproach as to my not having let him know of my coming.

We dined quite well, but neither the excellent food—the bouillabaisse of Marseilles, though a little heavy at night, is a dish famed all the world over—nor the champagne, seemed to awaken any of the spirit of enterprise in my companion. He even suggested returning to the steamer when he had paid the bill, and it was with complete indifference that he yielded to my persuasions to do a round of the tavernes. I decided not to try him too high, and, as it was already late—I had lingered over dinner as long as possible—we went straight to the Taverne des Grenouilles. I chose a table opposite the door, ordered a bottle of champagne for the good of the house, and some old brandy for ourselves, and left the future on the knees of the gods. If Ange Marie should not appear, then Pensent must keep his memories. If she came, he would know the truth, would see it with his own eyes, not learn it from hearsay, and he must work out his own salvation. I danced twice with ladies whom I was careful to keep away from the table, but Pensent refused to enter into the spirit of the place. He sat back in his chair, abstracted and gloomy, toying with his glass sometimes for minutes together, and then almost savagely draining its contents. When at last the swing doors were pushed open, and she came, I shall never forget the thrill of the moment. That she was popular, or had been in the old days, was certain, for from all corners of the crowded room there arose shouts of invitation and cries of incredulous welcome. She came a step or two forward, and I swear that even to her simple toilet she was the living replica of herself as she had stepped demurely across the threshold the first evening I had seen her. Then she recognised us. She stood quite still and faltered for a moment. I heard a gasp from Pensent as, springing to my feet, I hurried across the floor, pushed on one side a young Frenchman who was bending over her hand, and passed my arm through hers.

“Ange Marie,” I whispered, “you must come to us.”

She shivered, but with what emotion I could not tell.

“Not that name,” she begged. “He wishes?”

There was no doubt about Pensent. He had risen to his feet, drawn himself to his full height. His eyes were ablaze. He seemed suddenly a fine figure of a man as he stood there and called to her across the dancing floor. I installed her gently in my place, watched him gripping one of her hands while he poured her out some wine, saw their heads almost touching—and then I slipped away.

In the morning I was awakened by my friend Brown standing by my bedside with a cup of tea in his hand. The engines were pounding, and we were clear of the harbour.

“ ’Ere’s a nice to-do,” he exclaimed with gloomy relish, “and me off duty and not knowing a thing about it until we was clear of the docks.”

“What’s wrong, Brown?” I demanded.

“It’s your friend,” the man replied reproachfully—“him you’re travelling with, and took out last night. You seem to have got home all right. He didn’t.”

“You mean that he missed the boat?” I asked, sitting up.

“I do indeed, sir. The bed in his stateroom has never been slept in. We know what happened to the last gentleman as missed the boat when you and me was together.”

It was a gloomy reflection, but I remained unmoved.

“When did you last see Mr. Pensent, sir, if I might inquire?” the man persisted.

“Somewhere after midnight, in a taverne drinking champagne with a lady,” I replied. “I left them. No place for me. Get my bath ready, Brown.”

“God bless my soul!” the man muttered.

His look of reproach unnerved me.

“The lady was his wife,” I confided.

I moved on to Egypt, spent a week at Rome on my way back, called at Alassio, and arrived at Monte Carlo towards the end of December. I settled down for a few weeks’ unalloyed pleasure. The place was bathed in sunshine, day by day the Blue Train was bringing a fresh crowd of my friends and acquaintances, and every morning I read with that evil satisfaction which denotes a malicious kink in our characters, of the snowstorms in the north of England, and the fogs in London. On the second morning after my arrival I was seated at my favourite table in the garden of the Royalty Bar enjoying the sunshine, the perfume of the flowers, and the flavour of my first cocktail, when a very magnificent Rolls-Royce drew up at the top of the steps. A footman opened the door, but Monsieur himself, descending with the briskness of a young man, handed out Madame. I can see the little tableau now—Pensent, rejuvenated, smartly dressed, erect of bearing, sunburnt and smiling, and Ange Marie, the last word in Parisian elegance, laughing up into his face at some casual word as she leaned upon his hand. Francis and Guido were bowing in the background to welcome honoured patrons, as I rose from my table, half incredulous, half in a spirit of greeting. A moment later Pensent’s handshake had nearly broken the little bones of my fingers, and I remember that Ange Marie frankly snatched her hand from my lips and, placing her fingers upon my shoulders, drew me down and kissed my cheeks. We all sat at my table and talked together, and somehow or other, amidst a babel of conversation, I learned that Pensent had bought a beautiful villa near the sea at Beaulieu, to which, if you please, my things were to be moved on the morrow, that he was the happiest man on earth, and that Ange Marie had found paradise. The best champagne in the bar was made into the most nectarlike cocktails, and we toasted one another for every imaginable reason—for one, that our Fête de Noël was to be spent in the warmth and sunshine. But it was only after Pensent had left us for a few moments to speak to a friend inside, that I found absolute contentment.

“There will be no more wanderings, Ange Marie?” I asked her.

She passed her arm through mine. Her eyes shone with earnestness, her tone rang true.

“Ecoutez, mon ami,” she said earnestly. “What did I tell you of myself? The truth! I am a little animal. I love the warmth, I love luxury, the sun on my cheeks, good food, the fine wines. I am lazy, too. I love others to work for me. I love to play the Bijou Sultana. And that has arrived! Why should I worry more? I love Henri for his goodness. I wish for no other sort of love. I shall never leave him. I shall be faithful to him and I shall make him happy. No other sort of love shall I ever know—that was murdered when I was so very young—but there is happiness without it. That I have discovered!”

Decidedly a type!