Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (142 page)

“You have come,” she said, “and …”

I became singularly afraid of her; and wanted to stop her mouth. She might be going to say anything. She overpowered me so that I actually dwindled — into the gawkiness of extreme youth. I became a goggle-eyed, splay-footed boy again and made a boy’s desperate effort after a recovery at one stroke of an ideal standard of dignity.

“I must have a word with you,” I said, remembering. She made a little gesture with her hands, signifying “I am here.” “But in private,” I added.

“Oh, everything’s in private here,” she said. I was silent.

“I must,” I added after a time.

“I can’t retire with you,” she said; “‘it would look odd,’ you’d say, wouldn’t you?” I shrugged my shoulders in intense irritation. I didn’t want to be burlesqued. A flood of fresh people came into the room. I heard a throaty “ahem” behind me. The Duc de Mersch was introducing himself to notice. It was as I had thought — the man was an habitue, with his well-cut clothes, his air of protestation, and his tremendous golden poll. He was the only sunlight that the gloomy place rejoiced in. He bowed low over my oppressor’s hand, smiled upon me, and began to utter platitudes in English.

“Oh, you may speak French,” she said carelessly.

“But your brother….” he answered.

“I understand French very well,” I said. I was in no mood to spare him embarrassments; wanted to show him that I had a hold over him, and knew he wasn’t the proper person to talk to a young lady. He glared at me haughtily.

“But yesterday …” he began in a tone that burlesqued august displeasure. I was wondering what he had looked like on the other side of the door — whilst that lady had been explaining his nature to me.

“Yesterday I wished to avoid embarrassments,” I said; “I was to represent your views about Greenland. I might have misunderstood you in some important matter.”

“I see, I see,” he said conciliatorily. “Yesterday we spoke English for the benefit of the British public. When we speak French we are not in public, I hope.” He had a semi-supplicating manner.

“Everything’s rather too much in public here,” I answered. My part as I imagined it was that of a British brother defending his sister from questionable attentions — the person who “tries to show the man he isn’t wanted.” But de Mersch didn’t see the matter in that light at all. He could not, of course. He was as much used to being purred to as my aunt to looking down on non-county persons. He seemed to think I was making an incomprehensible insular joke, and laughed non-committally. It wouldn’t have been possible to let him know he wasn’t wanted.

“Oh, you needn’t be afraid of my brother,” she said suddenly. “He is quite harmless. He is even going to give up writing for the papers except when we want him.”

The Duc turned from me to her, smiled and bowed. His smile was inane, but he bowed very well; he had been groomed into that sort of thing or had it in the blood.

“We work together still?” he asked.

“Why not?” she answered.

A hubbub of angry voices raised itself behind my back. It was one of the contretemps that made the Salon Grangeur famous throughout the city.

“You forced yourself upon me. Did I say anywhere that you were responsible? If it resembles your particular hell upon earth, what is that to me? You do worse things; you, yourself, monsieur. Haven’t I seen … haven’t I seen it?”

The Duc de Mersch looked swiftly over his shoulder toward the window.

“They seem to be angry there,” he said nervously. “Had not something better be done, Miss Granger?”

Miss Granger followed the direction of his eyes.

“Why,” she said, “we’re used to these differences of opinion. Besides, it’s only Monsieur Radet; he’s forever at war with someone or other.”

“He ought to be shown the door,” the Duc grumbled.

“Oh, as for that,” she answered, “we couldn’t. My aunt would be desolated by such a necessity. He is very influential in certain quarters. My aunt wants to catch him for the — He’s going to write an article.”

“He writes too many articles,” the Duc said, with heavy displeasure.

“Oh, he has written one too many,” she answered, “but that can be traversed….”

“But no one believes,” the Duc objected … Radet’s voice intermittently broke in upon his sotto-voce, coming to our ears in gusts.

“Haven’t I seen you … and then … and you offer me the cross … to bribe me to silence … me….”

In the general turning of faces toward the window in which stood Radet and the other, mine turned too. Radet was a cadaverous, weatherworn, passion-worn individual, badger-grey, and worked up into a grotesquely attitudinised fury of injured self-esteem. The other was a denationalised, shifty-eyed, sallow, grey-bearded governor of one of the provinces of the Système Groënlandais; had a closely barbered head, a bull neck, and a great belly. He cast furtive glances round him, uncertain whether to escape or to wait for his say. He looked at the ring that encircled the window at a little distance, and his face, which had betrayed a half-apparent shame, hardened at sight of the cynical masks of the cosmopolitan conspirators. They were amused by the scene. The Holsteiner gained confidence, shrugged his shoulders.

“You have had the fever very badly since you came back,” he said, showing a level row of white teeth. “You did not talk like that out there.”

“No — pas si bête — you would have hanged me, perhaps, as you did that poor devil of a Swiss. What was his name? Now you offer me the cross. Because I had the fever, hein?”

I had been watching the Duc’s face; a first red flush had come creeping from under the roots of his beard, and had spread over the low forehead and the sides of the neck. The eye-glass fell from the eye, a signal for the colour to retreat. The full lips grew pallid, and began to mutter unspoken words. His eyes wandered appealingly from the woman beside him to me. I didn’t want to look him in the face. The man was a trafficker in human blood, an evil liver, and I hated him. He had to pay his price; would have to pay — but I didn’t want to see him pay it. There was a limit.

I began to excuse myself, and slid out between the groups of excellent plotters. As I was going, she said to me:

“You may come to me to-morrow in the morning.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

I was at the Hôtel de Luynes — or Granger — early on the following morning. The mists were still hanging about the dismal upper windows of the inscrutable Faubourg; the toilet of the city was being completed; the little hoses on wheels were clattering about the quiet larger streets. I had not much courage thus early in the day. I had started impulsively; stepping with the impulse of immediate action from the doorstep of the dairy where I had breakfasted. But I made detours; it was too early, and my pace slackened into a saunter as I passed the row of porters’ lodges in that dead, inscrutable street. I wanted to fly; had that impulse very strongly; but I burnt my boats with my inquiry of the incredibly ancient, one-eyed porteress. I made my way across the damp court-yard, under the enormous portico, and into the chilly stone hall that no amount of human coming and going sufficed to bring back to a semblance of life. Mademoiselle was expecting me. One went up a great flight of stone steps into one of the immensely high, narrow, impossibly rectangular ante-rooms that one sees in the frontispieces of old plays. The furniture looked no more than knee-high until one discovered that one’s self had no appreciable stature. The sad light slanted in ruled lines from the great height of the windows; an army of motes moved slowly in and out of the shadows. I went after awhile and looked disconsolately out into the court-yard. The porteress was making her way across the gravelled space, her arms, her hands, the pockets of her black apron full of letters of all sizes. I remembered that the facteur had followed me down the street. A noise of voices came confusedly to my ears from between half-opened folding-doors; the thing reminded me of my waiting in de Mersch’s rooms. It did not last so long. The voices gathered tone, as they do at the end of a colloquy, succeeded each other at longer intervals, and at last came to a sustained halt. The tall doors moved ajar and she entered, followed by a man whom I recognized as the governor of a province of the day before. In that hostile light he looked old and weazened and worried; seemed to have lost much of his rotundity. As for her, she shone with a light of her own.

He greeted me dejectedly, and did not brighten when she let him know that we had a mutual friend in Callan. The Governor, it seemed, in his capacity of Supervisor of the Système, was to conduct that distinguished person through the wilds of Greenland; was to smooth his way and to point out to him excellences of administration.

I wished him a good journey; he sighed and began to fumble with his hat.

“Alors, c’est entendu,” she said; giving him leave to depart. He looked at her in an odd sort of way, took her hand and applied it to his lips.

“C’est entendu,” he said with a heavy sigh, drops of moisture spattering from beneath his white moustache, “mais …”

He ogled again with infinitesimal eyes and went out of the room. He had the air of wishing to wipe the perspiration from his brows and to exclaim, “Quelle femme!” But if he had any such wish he mastered it until the door hid him from sight.

“Why the …” I began before it had well closed, “do you allow that thing to make love to you?” I wanted to take up my position before she could have a chance to make me ridiculous. I wanted to make a long speech — about duty to the name of Granger. But the next word hung, and, before it came, she had answered:

“He? — Oh, I’m making use of him.”

“To inherit the earth?” I asked ironically, and she answered gravely:

“To inherit the earth.”

She was leaning against the window, playing with the strings of the blinds, and silhouetted against the leaden light. She seemed to be, physically, a little tired; and the lines of her figure to interlace almost tenderly — to “compose” well, after the ideas of a certain school. I knew so little of her — only just enough to be in love with her — that this struck me as the herald of a new phase, not so much in her attitude to me as in mine to her; she had even then a sort of gravity, the gravity of a person on whom things were beginning to weigh.

“But,” I said, irresolutely. I could not speak to her; to this new conception of her, in the way I had planned; in the way one would talk to a brilliant, limpid — oh, to a woman of sorts. But I had to take something of my old line. “How would flirting with that man help you?”

“It’s quite simple,” she answered, “he’s to show Callan all Greenland, and Callan is to write … Callan has immense influence over a great class, and he will have some of the prestige of — of a Commissioner.”

“Oh, I know about Callan,” I said.

“And,” she went on, “this man had orders to hide things from Callan; you know what it is they have to hide. But he won’t now; that is what I was arranging. It’s partly by bribery and partly because he has a belief in his beaux yeux — so Callan will be upset and will write an … exposure; the sort of thing Callan would write if he were well upset. And he will be, by what this man will let him see. You know what a little man like Callan will feel … he will be made ill. He would faint at the sight of a drop of blood, you know, and he will see — oh, the very worst, worse than what Radet saw. And he will write a frightful article, and it will be a thunderclap for de Mersch…. And de Mersch will be getting very shaky by then. And your friend Churchill will try to carry de Mersch’s railway bill through in the face of the scandal. Churchill’s motives will be excellent, but everyone will say … You know what people say … That is what I and Gurnard want. We want people to talk; we want them to believe….”

I don’t know whether there really was a hesitation in her voice, or whether I read that into it. She stood there, playing with the knots of the window-cords and speaking in a low monotone. The whole thing, the sad twilight of the place, her tone of voice, seemed tinged with unavailing regret. I had almost forgotten the Dimensionist story, and I had never believed in it. But now, for the first time I began to have my doubts. I was certain that she had been plotting something with one of the Duc de Mersch’s lieutenants. The man’s manner vouched for that; he had not been able to look me in the face. But, more than anything, his voice and manner made me feel that we had passed out of a realm of farcical allegory. I knew enough to see that she might be speaking the truth. And, if she were, her calm avowal of such treachery proved that she was what she had said the Dimensionists were; cold, with no scruples, clear-sighted and admirably courageous, and indubitably enemies of society.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “But de Mersch then?”

She made a little gesture; one of those movements that I best remember of her; the smallest, the least noticeable. It reduced de Mersch to nothing; he no longer even counted.

“Oh, as for him,” she said, “he is only a detail.” I had still the idea that she spoke with a pitying intonation — as if she were speaking to a dog in pain. “He doesn’t really count; not really. He will crumble up and disappear, very soon. You won’t even remember him.”

“But,” I said, “you go about with him, as if you…. You are getting yourself talked about…. Everyone thinks — ” … The accusation that I had come to make seemed impossible, now I was facing her. “I believe,” I added, with the suddenness of inspiration. “I’m certain even, that he thinks that you …”

“Well, they think that sort of thing. But it is only part of the game.

Oh, I assure you it is no more than that.”

I was silent. I felt that, for one reason or another, she wished me to believe.

“Yes,” she said, “I want you to believe. It will save you a good deal of pain.”

“If you wanted to save me pain,” I maintained, “you would have done with de Mersch … for good.” I had an idea that the solution was beyond me. It was as if the controlling powers were flitting, invisible, just above my head, just beyond my grasp. There was obviously something vibrating; some cord, somewhere, stretched very taut and quivering. But I could think of no better solution than: “You must have done with him.” It seemed obvious, too, that that was impossible, was outside the range of things that could be done — but I had to do my best. “It’s a — it’s vile,” I added, “vile.”