CHAPTER XVI

 THE interest which Félise manifested in Madame Chauvet’s conversation surprised that simple-minded lady. Madame Chauvet fully realised her responsibilities. She performed her dragonly duties with the conscientiousness of a French mother who had (and was likely to have to the end of the chapter) marriageable daughters. But commerce is commerce, and the young girl engaged in commercial management in her own house has, in France, owing to the scope required by her activities, far more freedom than her school contemporary who leads a purely domestic life: a fact recognised by the excellent Madame Chauvet as duly established in the social scheme. She was ready to allow Félise all the necessary latitude. Félise claimed scarcely any. She kept the good Madame Chauvet perpetually pinned to her skirts. She had not a confidential word to say to Martin. Now Madame Chauvet liked Martin, as did every one in Brant?me. He was courteous, he was modest, he was sympathetic. Whatever he did was marked by an air of good-breeding which the French are very quick to notice. Whether he handed her the stewed veal or listened to the latest phase of her chronic phlebitis, Madame Chauvet always felt herself in the presence of what she termed, une ame d’élite—a picked and chosen soul; he was also as gentle as a sheep. Why, therefore, Félise, in her daily intercourse with Martin, should insist on her waving the banner of the proprieties over their heads, was more than the good lady could understand. Félise was more royalist than the King, more timid than a nunnery, more white-wax and rose-leaves than her favourite author, Monsieur Réné Bazin, had ever dared to portray as human. If Martin had been six foot of thews and muscles, with conquering moustaches, and bold and alluring eyes, she would not have hesitated to protect Félise with her Frenchwoman’s little plump body and unshakable courage. But why all this precaution against the mild, grey-eyed, sallow-faced Martin, doux comme un mouton? And why this display of daughterly affection suddenly awakened after fifteen years’ tepid acquaintance? Even Martin, unconscious of offence, wondered at such prim behaviour. The fact remained, however, that she scarcely spoke to him during the greater part of Bigourdin’s absence. But when the news came that her mother was dead and laid to rest, and she had recovered from the first overwhelming shock, she dropped all outer trappings of manner and became once more the old Félise. Madame Chauvet, knowing nothing of the dream-mother, offered her unintelligent consolation. She turned instinctively to Martin, in whom she had confided. Martin was moved by her grief and did his best to sympathise; but he wished whole-heartedly that Bigourdin had not told him the embarrassing truth. Here was the poor girl weeping her eyes out over a dead angel whom he knew to be nothing of the kind. He upbraided himself for a sacrilegious hypocrite when he suggested that they would meet in Heaven. She withdrew, however, apparently consoled. A few hours later, she came to him again—in the vestibule. She had dried her eyes and she wore the air of one who has accepted sorrow and bravely faced an unalterable situation. She showed also a puzzled little knitting of the brows. “Tell me truly, Martin,” she said. “Did my uncle, before he left, give you the real reason of his going to Paris?” Challenged, Martin could not lie. “Yes. Your mother was very ill. But he commanded me not to tell you, in order to save you suffering. He didn’t know. She might recover, in which case all would have been well.” “So you, too, were dragged into this strange plot, to keep me away from my mother.” “I’ve never heard of one, Félise,” answered Martin, this time with conscience-smiting mendacity, “and my part has been quite innocent.” “There has been a plot of some kind,” said Félise, breaking into the more familiar French. “My uncle, my father, my Aunt Clothilde have been in it. And now you—under my uncle’s orders. There has been a mystery about my mother which I have never been able to understand—like the mystery of the Trinity or the Holy Sacraments. And to-day I understand still less. I have not seen my mother since I was five years old. She has not written to me for many years, although I have written regularly. Did she get my letters? These are questions I have been asking myself the last few hours. Why did my father not allow me to see her in the hospital in Paris? Why did my Aunt Clothilde always turn the mention of her name aside and would tell me nothing about her? And now, when she died, why did they not telegraph for me to go to Paris, so as to look for one last time on her face? They knew all that was in my heart. What have they all been hiding from me?” “My poor Félise,” said Martin, “how can I tell?” And how could he, seeing that he was bound in honour to keep her in ignorance? “Sometimes I think she may have had some dreadful disease that ravaged her dear features, and they wished to spare me the knowledge. But my father has always drawn me the picture of her lying beautiful as she always was upon the bed she could not leave.” “Whatever it was,” said Martin, “you may be sure that those who love you acted for the best.” “That is all very well for a child; but not for a grown woman. And it is not as though I have not shown myself capable of serious responsibilities. It is heart-rending,” she added after a little pause, “to look into the eyes of those one loves and see in them something hidden.” Sitting there sideways on the couch by Martin’s side, her girlish figure bent forward and her hands nervously clasped on her knee, the oval of her pretty face lengthened despondently, her dark eyes fixed upon him in reproachful appeal, she looked at once so pathetic and so winning that for the moment he forgot the glory of Lucilla and longed to comfort her. He laid his hand on her white knuckles. “I would give anything,” said he—— She loosened her clasp, thus eluding his touch, and moved a little aside. Madame Chauvet appeared from the kitchen passage, bearing a steaming cup. “Ma pauvre petite,” she said, “I have brought you a cup of camomile tea. Drink it. It calms the nerves.” Martin rose and the good lady took his seat and discoursed picturesquely upon her mother’s last illness, death and funeral, until Félise, notwithstanding the calming properties of the camomile tea, burst into tears and fled to her room. “Poor little girl,” said Madame Chauvet, sympathetically. “I cried just like that. I remember it as if it were yesterday.” The next day Bigourdin returned. He walked about expanding his chest with great draughts of air like the good provincial who had suffocated in the capital. He railed at the atmosphere, the fever, the cold-heartedness of Paris. “One is much better here,” said he. “And we have made much further progress in civilisation. Even the H?tel de la Dordogne has not yet a bathroom.” He was closeted long with Félise, and afterwards came to Martin, great wrinkles of perturbation marking his forehead. “She has been asking me questions which it has taken all my tact and diplomacy to answer. Mon Dieu, que j’ai menti! But I have convinced her that all we have done with regard to her mother has been right. I will tell you what I have said.” “You had better not,” replied Martin, anxious to have no more embarrassing confidences; “the less I know, the simpler it is for me to plead ignorance when Félise questions me—not to say the more truthful.” “You are right,” said Bigourdin. “Magna est veritas et pr?valebit.” And as Martin, not catching the phrase as pronounced in continental fashion, looked puzzled, he repeated it. “It’s Latin,” he added. “Why should I not quote it? I have received a good education.” Now about this time a gracious imp of meddlesomeness alighted on Lucilla’s shoulder and whispered into her ear. She arose from a sea of delicate raiment and tissue paper whose transference by Céleste into ugly trunks she and Heliogabalus were idly superintending, and, sitting down at the writing-desk of her hotel bedroom, scribbled a short letter. If she had blown the imp away, as she might easily have done, for such imps are irresponsible dragon-fly kind of creatures, Martin might possibly have foregone his consultation with Fortinbras and remained at Brant?me. Félise having once restored him to the position he occupied in her confidence, allowed him to remain there. In his thoughts she assumed a new significance. He realised, in his blundering masculine way, that she was many-sided, complex, mysterious; at one turn, simple and caressive as a child, at another passionate in her affections, at yet another calm and self-reliant; altogether that she had a strangely sweet and strong personality. For the first time, the alliance so subtly planned by Bigourdin, entered his head. If Bigourdin thought him worthy to be his partner and carry on the historic traditions of the H?tel des Grottes, surely he would look with approval on his carrying them on in conjunction with the most beloved member of his family. And Félise? There his inexperience came to a stone wall. He was modest. He did not in the least assume as a possibility that she might have already given him her heart. But he reflected that, after all, in the way of nature, maidens did marry unattractive and undeserving men; that except for an unaccountable phase of coldness, she had always bestowed on him a friendly regard which, if courteously fostered, might develop into an affection warranting on her part a marriage with so unattractive and undeserving a man as himself. And Bigourdin, great, splendid-hearted fellow, claimed him, and this warm Périgord, this land of plenty and fat things, claimed him. Here lay his destiny. Why not blot out, with the blackest curtain of will, the refulgent figure that was making his life a torture and a dream? And then came the imp-inspired letter. Dear Mr. Overshaw, I am starting for Egypt to-morrow. I hope you will redeem your promise. With kind regards, Yours sincerely, Lucilla Merriton. Paralysed then were the promptings towards sluggish plentitude and tepid matrimonial comfort. Love summoned him to fantastic adventure. For a while he lost mental balance. He decided to put himself in the hands of Fortinbras. He would abide loyally by his decision. Under his auspices he had already made one successful bid for happiness. By dismissing Margett’s Universal College to the limbo of irretrievable things, according to the Dealer’s instructions, had he not tasted during the past five months hundreds of the once forbidden delights of life? Was he the same man who in apologetic trepidation had written to Corinna in August? His blind faith in Fortinbras was intensified by knowledge of the suffering whereby the Dealer in Happiness had acquired wisdom. East or West, whichever way Fortinbras pointed, he would go. Thus in some measure he salved his conscience when he left Brant?me. Bigourdin expected him back at the end of his fortnight’s holiday. So did Félise. She packed him a little basket of food and wine, and with a smile bade him hasten back. She did not question the purport of his journey. He needed a change, a peep into the great world of Paris and London. “If you have a quarter the good time I had, I envy you,” she said. And Bigourdin, with a grip of the hand and a knowing smile, as they parted, whispered: “I will give that old dress suit to Anatole, the plongeur at the Café de l’Univers. He will be enchanted.” The train steamed out of the station carrying a traitorous, double-dyed villain. It arrived at Paris carrying a sleepless, anxious-eyed young man throbbing with suspense. He drove to the H?tel du Soleil et de l’Ecosse. “Ah! Monsieur has returned,” said the fat and greasy Bocardon as he entered. “Evidently,” replied Martin, who now had no timidities in the presence of hotel managers and was not impressed by the professional facial memory. Was he not himself on the verge of becoming a French innkeeper? He presented a business card of the H?tel des Grottes mysteriously inscribed by Bigourdin, and demanded a good room. The beady black eyes of the Proven?al regarded him shrewdly. “Some months ago you were a professor.” “It is always permissible for an honest man to change his vocation,” said Martin. “That is very true,” said Bocardon. “I myself made my studies as a veterinary surgeon, but as I am one of those unfortunates whom horses always kick and dogs always bite, I entered the service of my brother, Emile Bocardon, who keeps an hotel at N?mes.” “The H?tel de la Curatterie,” said Martin. “You know it?” cried Bocardon, joyously. “Not personally. But it is familiar to every commis-voyageur in France.” His professional knowledge at once gained him the esteem and confidence of Monsieur Bocardon and a magnificent chamber at a minimum tariff. After he had eaten and sent a message to Fortinbras at the new address given him by Bigourdin, he went out into the crisp, exhilarating air, with Paris and all the universe before him. In the queer profession into which he had drifted, Heaven knows how, of giving intimate counsel not only to the students, but (as his reputation spread) to the small shopkeepers and work-people of the rive gauche, at his invariable fee of five francs per consultation, Fortinbras had been able to take a detached view of human problems. In their solution he could forget the ever frightening problem of his own existence, and find a subdued delight. Only in the case of Corinna and Martin had he posed otherwise than as an impersonal intelligence. As an experiment he had brought them into touch with his own personal concerns. And now there was the devil to pay. For consider. Here he was prepared to deal out advice to Martin according to the conspiracy into which he had entered with Bigourdin. Martin was to purchase an interest in the H?tel des Grottes and (although he knew it not) marry Félise. There could not have been a closer family arrangement. When Fortinbras rose from the frosty terrasse of the Café Cardinal, at the corner of the Rue Richelieu and the Boulevard des Italiens, their appointed rendezvous, and greeted Martin, there was something more than benevolence in his smile, something paternal in his handshake. They entered the Café-Restaurant and sat down at one of the tables not yet laid for déjeuner, for it was only eleven o’clock. Fortinbras, attired in his customary black, looked more trim, more prosperous. Collar, cuffs and tie were of an impeccable whiteness. The silk hat which he hung with scrupulous care on the peg against the wall, was startlingly new. He looked like a disguised cardinal in easy circumstances. He made bland enquiries as to the health of the good folks at Brant?me, and ordered an apéritif for Martin and black-currant syrup and water for himself. Then Martin said: “I have come from Brant?me to consult you on a matter of the utmost importance—to myself, of course. It’s a question of my whole future.” He laid a five-franc piece on the table. Fortinbras pushed the coin back. “My dear boy, this is a family affair. I know all about it. For you I’m no longer the Marchand de Bonheur.” “If you’re not,” said Martin, “I don’t know what the devil I shall do.” And, with his finger, he flicked the coin midway between them. “My dear fellow,” said Fortinbras, flicking the coin an inch towards Martin, “if you so desire it, I will deal with you in my professional capacity. But as in the case of the solicitor or the doctor it would be unprofessional to accept fees for the settlement of his own family affairs, so, in this matter, I am unable to accept a fee from you. Bigourdin, whose character you have had an intimate opportunity of judging, has offered you a share in his business. As a lawyer and a man of the world, I say unhesitatingly, ‘Accept it,’ As long as Brant?me lasts—and there are no signs of it perishing,—commercial travellers and tourists will visit it and go to the H?tel des Grottes. And as long as European civilisation lasts, it will demand the gastronomic delicacies of truffles, paté de foie gras, Périgord pie, stuffed quails and comp?te of currants which now find their way from the fabrique of the hotel to Calcutta, Moscow, San Francisco, Bayswater and Buenos Ayres. As a marchand de bonheur, as you are pleased to call me, I also unhesitatingly affirm that in your acceptance you will find true happiness.” He sipped his cassis and water, and leaned back on the plush-covered seat. Martin pushed the five-franc piece three or four inches towards Fortinbras. “It isn’t such a simple, straightforward matter as you seem to imagine,” said Martin. “Otherwise I should have closed with Bigourdin’s generous offer straight away. I’m not a fool. And I’m devotedly attached to Bigourdin, who, for no reason that I can see, save his own goodness of heart, has treated me like a brother. I haven’t come to consult you as a man of business at all. And as for conscientious scruples about Bigourdin being a relative of yours, please put them away.” He pushed the coin another inch. “It is solely as marchand de bonheur, in the greatest crisis of my life, when I’m torn to pieces by all sorts of conflicting emotions, that I want to consult you. There are complications you know nothing about.” “Complications?” Fortinbras stretched out a benign hand. “Is it possible that there is some little—what shall we say?—sentiment?” He smiled, seeing the young man’s love for Félise barring his candid way. “You can be frank with me.” “It’s a damned sight more than sentiment,” cried Martin with unprecedented explosiveness. “Read this.” He dragged from his pocket a dirty, creased and crumpled letter and threw it across the table. Fortinbras adjusted his glasses and read the imp-inspired message. He took off his glasses and handed back the letter. His face became impassive and he regarded Martin with expressionless, tired, blue eyes. “Your promise. What was that?” “To go to Egypt.” “Why should you go to Egypt to meet Lucille Merriton?” Martin threw up both hands in a wide gesture. “Can’t you see? I’m mad to go to Egypt, or Cape Horn, or Hell, to meet her. But I’ve enough sanity left to come here and consult you.” Fortinbras regarded him fixedly, and nodded his head reflectively many times; and without taking his eyes off him, reached out his hand for the five-franc piece which he slipped into his waistcoat pocket. “That puts,” said he, “an entirely different complexion on the matter.”