Complete Works of Joseph Conrad (Illustrated) (392 page)

“And perhaps not her nephew.  No relation at all” — Fyne emitted with a convulsive effort this, the most awful part of the suspicions Mrs. Fyne used to impart to him piecemeal when he came down to spend his week-ends gravely with her and the children.  The Fynes, in their good-natured concern for the unlucky child of the man busied in stirring casually so many millions, spent the moments of their weekly reunion in wondering earnestly what could be done to defeat the most wicked of conspiracies, trying to invent some tactful line of conduct in such extraordinary circumstances.  I could see them, simple, and scrupulous, worrying honestly about that unprotected big girl while looking at their own little girls playing on the sea-shore.  Fyne assured me that his wife’s rest was disturbed by the great problem of interference.

“It was very acute of Mrs. Fyne to spot such a deep game,” I said, wondering to myself where her acuteness had gone to now, to let her be taken unawares by a game so much simpler and played to the end under her very nose.  But then, at that time, when her nightly rest was disturbed by the dread of the fate preparing for de Barral’s unprotected child, she was not engaged in writing a compendious and ruthless hand-book on the theory and practice of life, for the use of women with a grievance.  She could as yet, before the task of evolving the philosophy of rebellious action had affected her intuitive sharpness, perceive things which were, I suspect, moderately plain.  For I am inclined to believe that the woman whom chance had put in command of Flora de Barral’s destiny took no very subtle pains to conceal her game.  She was conscious of being a complete master of the situation, having once for all established her ascendancy over de Barral.  She had taken all her measures against outside observation of her conduct; and I could not help smiling at the thought what a ghastly nuisance the serious, innocent Fynes must have been to her.  How exasperated she must have been by that couple falling into Brighton as completely unforeseen as a bolt from the blue — if not so prompt.  How she must have hated them!

But I conclude she would have carried out whatever plan she might have formed.  I can imagine de Barral accustomed for years to defer to her wishes and, either through arrogance, or shyness, or simply because of his unimaginative stupidity, remaining outside the social pale, knowing no one but some card-playing cronies; I can picture him to myself terrified at the prospect of having the care of a marriageable girl thrust on his hands, forcing on him a complete change of habits and the necessity of another kind of existence which he would not even have known how to begin.  It is evident to me that Mrs. What’s her name would have had her atrocious way with very little trouble even if the excellent Fynes had been able to do something.  She would simply have bullied de Barral in a lofty style.  There’s nothing more subservient than an arrogant man when his arrogance has once been broken in some particular instance.

However there was no time and no necessity for any one to do anything.  The situation itself vanished in the financial crash as a building vanishes in an earthquake — here one moment and gone the next with only an ill-omened, slight, preliminary rumble.  Well, to say ‘in a moment’ is an exaggeration perhaps; but that everything was over in just twenty-four hours is an exact statement.  Fyne was able to tell me all about it; and the phrase that would depict the nature of the change best is: an instant and complete destitution.  I don’t understand these matters very well, but from Fyne’s narrative it seemed as if the creditors or the depositors, or the competent authorities, had got hold in the twinkling of an eye of everything de Barral possessed in the world, down to his watch and chain, the money in his trousers’ pocket, his spare suits of clothes, and I suppose the cameo pin out of his black satin cravat.  Everything!  I believe he gave up the very wedding ring of his late wife.  The gloomy Priory with its damp park and a couple of farms had been made over to Mrs. de Barral; but when she died (without making a will) it reverted to him, I imagine.  They got that of course; but it was a mere crumb in a Sahara of starvation, a drop in the thirsty ocean.  I dare say that not a single soul in the world got the comfort of as much as a recovered threepenny bit out of the estate.  Then, less than crumbs, less than drops, there were to be grabbed, the lease of the big Brighton house, the furniture therein, the carriage and pair, the girl’s riding horse, her costly trinkets; down to the heavily gold-mounted collar of her pedigree St. Bernard.  The dog too went: the most noble-looking item in the beggarly assets.

What however went first of all or rather vanished was nothing in the nature of an asset.  It was that plotting governess with the trick of a “perfect lady” manner (severely conventional) and the soul of a remorseless brigand.  When a woman takes to any sort of unlawful man-trade, there’s nothing to beat her in the way of thoroughness.  It’s true that you will find people who’ll tell you that this terrific virulence in breaking through all established things, is altogether the fault of men.  Such people will ask you with a clever air why the servile wars were always the most fierce, desperate and atrocious of all wars.  And you may make such answer as you can — even the eminently feminine one, if you choose, so typical of the women’s literal mind “I don’t see what this has to do with it!”  How many arguments have been knocked over (I won’t say knocked down) by these few words!  For if we men try to put the spaciousness of all experiences into our reasoning and would fain put the Infinite itself into our love, it isn’t, as some writer has remarked, “It isn’t women’s doing.”  Oh no.  They don’t care for these things.  That sort of aspiration is not much in their way; and it shall be a funny world, the world of their arranging, where the Irrelevant would fantastically step in to take the place of the sober humdrum Imaginative . . . “

I raised my hand to stop my friend Marlow.

“Do you really believe what you have said?” I asked, meaning no offence, because with Marlow one never could be sure.

“Only on certain days of the year,” said Marlow readily with a malicious smile.  “To-day I have been simply trying to be spacious and I perceive I’ve managed to hurt your susceptibilities which are consecrated to women.  When you sit alone and silent you are defending in your mind the poor women from attacks which cannot possibly touch them.  I wonder what can touch them?  But to soothe your uneasiness I will point out again that an Irrelevant world would be very amusing, if the women take care to make it as charming as they alone can, by preserving for us certain well-known, well-established, I’ll almost say hackneyed, illusions, without which the average male creature cannot get on.  And that condition is very important.  For there is nothing more provoking than the Irrelevant when it has ceased to amuse and charm; and then the danger would be of the subjugated masculinity in its exasperation, making some brusque, unguarded movement and accidentally putting its elbow through the fine tissue of the world of which I speak.  And that would be fatal to it.  For nothing looks more irretrievably deplorable than fine tissue which has been damaged.  The women themselves would be the first to become disgusted with their own creation.

There was something of women’s highly practical sanity and also of their irrelevancy in the conduct of Miss de Barral’s amazing governess.  It appeared from Fyne’s narrative that the day before the first rumble of the cataclysm the questionable young man arrived unexpectedly in Brighton to stay with his “Aunt.”  To all outward appearance everything was going on normally; the fellow went out riding with the girl in the afternoon as he often used to do — a sight which never failed to fill Mrs. Fyne with indignation.  Fyne himself was down there with his family for a whole week and was called to the window to behold the iniquity in its progress and to share in his wife’s feelings.  There was not even a groom with them.  And Mrs. Fyne’s distress was so strong at this glimpse of the unlucky girl all unconscious of her danger riding smilingly by, that Fyne began to consider seriously whether it wasn’t their plain duty to interfere at all risks — simply by writing a letter to de Barral.  He said to his wife with a solemnity I can easily imagine “You ought to undertake that task, my dear.  You have known his wife after all.  That’s something at any rate.”   On the other hand the fear of exposing Mrs. Fyne to some nasty rebuff worried him exceedingly.  Mrs. Fyne on her side gave way to despondency.  Success seemed impossible.  Here was a woman for more than five years in charge of the girl and apparently enjoying the complete confidence of the father.  What, that would be effective, could one say, without proofs, without . . .  This Mr. de Barral must be, Mrs. Fyne pronounced, either a very stupid or a downright bad man, to neglect his child so.

You will notice that perhaps because of Fyne’s solemn view of our transient life and Mrs. Fyne’s natural capacity for responsibility, it had never occurred to them that the simplest way out of the difficulty was to do nothing and dismiss the matter as no concern of theirs.  Which in a strict worldly sense it certainly was not.  But they spent, Fyne told me, a most disturbed afternoon, considering the ways and means of dealing with the danger hanging over the head of the girl out for a ride (and no doubt enjoying herself) with an abominable scamp.

CHAPTER FOUR — THE GOVERNESS

And the best of it was that the danger was all over already.  There was no danger any more.  The supposed nephew’s appearance had a purpose.  He had come, full, full to trembling — with the bigness of his news.  There must have been rumours already as to the shaky position of the de Barral’s concerns; but only amongst those in the very inmost know.  No rumour or echo of rumour had reached the profane in the West-End — let alone in the guileless marine suburb of Hove.  The Fynes had no suspicion; the governess, playing with cold, distinguished exclusiveness the part of mother to the fabulously wealthy Miss de Barral, had no suspicion; the masters of music, of drawing, of dancing to Miss de Barral, had no idea; the minds of her medical man, of her dentist, of the servants in the house, of the tradesmen proud of having the name of de Barral on their books, were in a state of absolute serenity.  Thus, that fellow, who had unexpectedly received a most alarming straight tip from somebody in the City arrived in Brighton, at about lunch-time, with something very much in the nature of a deadly bomb in his possession.  But he knew better than to throw it on the public pavement.  He ate his lunch impenetrably, sitting opposite Flora de Barral, and then, on some excuse, closeted himself with the woman whom little Fyne’s charity described (with a slight hesitation of speech however) as his “Aunt.”

What they said to each other in private we can imagine.  She came out of her own sitting-room with red spots on her cheek-bones, which having provoked a question from her “beloved” charge, were accounted for by a curt “I have a headache coming on.”  But we may be certain that the talk being over she must have said to that young blackguard: “You had better take her out for a ride as usual.”  We have proof positive of this in Fyne and Mrs. Fyne observing them mount at the door and pass under the windows of their sitting-room, talking together, and the poor girl all smiles; because she enjoyed in all innocence the company of Charley.  She made no secret of it whatever to Mrs. Fyne; in fact, she had confided to her, long before, that she liked him very much: a confidence which had filled Mrs. Fyne with desolation and that sense of powerless anguish which is experienced in certain kinds of nightmare.  For how could she warn the girl?  She did venture to tell her once that she didn’t like Mr. Charley.  Miss de Barral heard her with astonishment.  How was it possible not to like Charley?  Afterwards with naïve loyalty she told Mrs. Fyne that, immensely as she was fond of her she could not hear a word against Charley — the wonderful Charley.

The daughter of de Barral probably enjoyed her jolly ride with the jolly Charley (infinitely more jolly than going out with a stupid old riding-master), very much indeed, because the Fynes saw them coming back at a later hour than usual.  In fact it was getting nearly dark.  On dismounting, helped off by the delightful Charley, she patted the neck of her horse and went up the steps.  Her last ride.  She was then within a few days of her sixteenth birthday, a slight figure in a riding habit, rather shorter than the average height for her age, in a black bowler hat from under which her fine rippling dark hair cut square at the ends was hanging well down her back.  The delightful Charley mounted again to take the two horses round to the mews.  Mrs. Fyne remaining at the window saw the house door close on Miss de Barral returning from her last ride.

And meantime what had the governess (out of a nobleman’s family) so judiciously selected (a lady, and connected with well-known county people as she said) to direct the studies, guard the health, form the mind, polish the manners, and generally play the perfect mother to that luckless child — what had she been doing?  Well, having got rid of her charge by the most natural device possible, which proved her practical sense, she started packing her belongings, an act which showed her clear view of the situation.  She had worked methodically, rapidly, and well, emptying the drawers, clearing the tables in her special apartment of that big house, with something silently passionate in her thoroughness; taking everything belonging to her and some things of less unquestionable ownership, a jewelled penholder, an ivory and gold paper knife (the house was full of common, costly objects), some chased silver boxes presented by de Barral and other trifles; but the photograph of Flora de Barral, with the loving inscription, which stood on her writing desk, of the most modern and expensive style, in a silver-gilt frame, she neglected to take.  Having accidentally, in the course of the operations, knocked it off on the floor she let it lie there after a downward glance.  Thus it, or the frame at least, became, I suppose, part of the assets in the de Barral bankruptcy.

At dinner that evening the child found her company dull and brusque.  It was uncommonly slow.  She could get nothing from her governess but monosyllables, and the jolly Charley actually snubbed the various cheery openings of his “little chum” — as he used to call her at times, — but not at that time.  No doubt the couple were nervous and preoccupied.  For all this we have evidence, and for the fact that Flora being offended with the delightful nephew of her profoundly respected governess sulked through the rest of the evening and was glad to retire early.  Mrs., Mrs. — I’ve really forgotten her name — the governess, invited her nephew to her sitting-room, mentioning aloud that it was to talk over some family matters.  This was meant for Flora to hear, and she heard it — without the slightest interest.  In fact there was nothing sufficiently unusual in such an invitation to arouse in her mind even a passing wonder.  She went bored to bed and being tired with her long ride slept soundly all night.  Her last sleep, I won’t say of innocence — that word would not render my exact meaning, because it has a special meaning of its own — but I will say: of that ignorance, or better still, of that unconsciousness of the world’s ways, the unconsciousness of danger, of pain, of humiliation, of bitterness, of falsehood.  An unconsciousness which in the case of other beings like herself is removed by a gradual process of experience and information, often only partial at that, with saving reserves, softening doubts, veiling theories.  Her unconsciousness of the evil which lives in the secret thoughts and therefore in the open acts of mankind, whenever it happens that evil thought meets evil courage; her unconsciousness was to be broken into with profane violence with desecrating circumstances, like a temple violated by a mad, vengeful impiety.  Yes, that very young girl, almost no more than a child — this was what was going to happen to her.  And if you ask me, how, wherefore, for what reason?  I will answer you: Why, by chance!  By the merest chance, as things do happen, lucky and unlucky, terrible or tender, important or unimportant; and even things which are neither, things so completely neutral in character that you would wonder why they do happen at all if you didn’t know that they, too, carry in their insignificance the seeds of further incalculable chances.