SUB ROSA
From the interview, which Shelton
had the mixed delight of watching, between Ferrand
and the Honourable Mrs. Dennant, certain definite
results accrued, the chief of which was the permission
accorded the young wanderer to occupy the room which
had formerly been tenanted by the footman John.
Shelton was lost in admiration of Ferrand’s manner
in this scene.. Its subtle combination of deference
and dignity was almost paralysing; paralysing, too,
the subterranean smile upon his lips.
“Charmin’ young man, Dick,”
said Mrs. Dennant, when Shelton lingered to say once
more that he knew but very little of him; “I
shall send a note round to Mrs. Robinson at once.
They’re rather common, you know the
Robinsons. I think they’ll take anyone I
recommend.”
“I ’m sure they will,”
said Shelton; “that’s why I think you ought
to know ”
But Mrs. Dennant’s eyes, fervent,
hare-like, were fixed on something far away; turning,
he saw the rose in a tall vase on a tall and spindly
stool. It seemed to nod towards them in the sunshine.
Mrs. Dennant dived her nose towards her camera.
“The light’s perfect now,”
she said, in a voice muffled by the cloth. “I
feel sure that livin’ with decent people will
do wonders for him. Of course, he understands
that his meals will be served to him apart.”
Shelton, doubly anxious, now that
his efforts had lodged his client in a place of trust,
fell, back on hoping for the best; his instinct told
him that, vagabond as Ferrand was, he had a curious
self-respect, that would save him from a mean ingratitude.
In fact, as Mrs. Dennant, who was
by no means void of common-sense, foresaw, the arrangement
worked all right. Ferrand entered on his duties
as French tutor to the little Robinsons. In the
Dennants’ household he kept himself to his own
room, which, day and night, he perfumed with tobacco,
emerging at noon into the garden, or, if wet, into
the study, to teach young Toddles French. After
a time it became customary for him to lunch with the
house-party, partly through a mistake of Toddles, who
seemed to think that it was natural, and partly through
John Noble, one of Shelton’s friends, who had
come to stay, and discovered Ferrand to be a most
awfully interesting person he was always, indeed, discovering
the most awfully interesting persons. In his grave
and toneless voice, brushing his hair from off his
brow, he descanted upon Ferrand with enthusiasm, to
which was joined a kind of shocked amusement, as who
should say, “Of course, I know it’s very
odd, but really he ’s such an awfully interesting
person.” For John Noble was a politician,
belonging to one of those two Peculiar parties, which,
thoroughly in earnest, of an honesty above suspicion,
and always very busy, are constitutionally averse
to anything peculiar for fear of finding they have
overstepped the limit of what is practical in politics.
As such he inspired confidence, not caring for things
unless he saw some immediate benefit to be had from
them, having a perfect sense of decency, and a small
imagination. He discussed all sorts of things
with Ferrand; on one occasion Shelton overheard them
arguing on anarchism.
“No Englishman approves of murder,”
Noble was saying, in the gloomy voice that contrasted
with the optimistic cast of his fine head, “but
the main principle is right. Equalisation of property
is bound to come. I sympathise with then, not
with their methods.”
“Forgive me,” struck in
Ferrand; “do you know any anarchists?”
“No,” returned Noble; “I certainly
do not.”
“You say you sympathise with
them, but the first time it comes to action ”
“Well?”
“Oh, monsieur! one doesn’t make anarchism
with the head.”
Shelton perceived that he had meant
to add, “but with the heart, the lungs, the
liver.” He drew a deeper meaning from the
saying, and seemed to see, curling with the smoke
from Ferrand’s lips, the words: “What
do you, an English gentleman, of excellent position,
and all the prejudices of your class, know about us
outcasts? If you want to understand us you must
be an outcast too; we are not playing at the game.”
This talk took place upon the lawn,
at the end of one of Toddles’s French lessons,
and Shelton left John Noble maintaining to the youthful
foreigner, with stubborn logic, that he, John Noble,
and the anarchists had much, in common. He was
returning to the house, when someone called his name
from underneath the holm oak. There, sitting Turkish
fashion on the grass, a pipe between his teeth, he
found a man who had arrived the night before, and
impressed him by his friendly taciturnity. His
name was Whyddon, and he had just returned from Central
Africa; a brown-faced, large-jawed man, with small
but good and steady eyes, and strong, spare figure.
“Oh, Mr. Shelton!” he
said, “I wondered if you could tell me what tips
I ought to give the servants here; after ten years
away I ’ve forgotten all about that sort
of thing.”
Shelton sat down beside him; unconsciously
assuming, too, a cross-legged attitude, which caused
him much discomfort.
“I was listening,” said
his new acquaintance, “to the little chap learning
his French. I’ve forgotten mine. One
feels a hopeless duffer knowing no, languages.”
“I suppose you speak Arabic?” said Shelton.
“Oh, Arabic, and a dialect or
two; they don’t count. That tutor has a
curious face.”
“You think so?” said Shelton,
interested. “He’s had a curious life.”
The traveller spread his hands, palms
downwards, on the grass and looked at Shelton with,
a smile.
“I should say he was a rolling
stone,” he said. “It ‘s odd,
I’ ve seen white men in Central Africa
with a good deal of his look about them.
“Your diagnosis is a good one,” answered
Shelton.
“I ’m always sorry for
those fellows. There’s generally some good
in them. They are their own enemies. A bad
business to be unable to take pride in anything one
does!” And there was a look of pity on his face.
“That’s exactly it,”
said Shelton. “I ’ve often tried
to put it into words. Is it incurable?”
“I think so.”
“Can you tell me why?”
Whyddon pondered.
“I rather think,” he said
at last, “it must be because they have too strong
a faculty of criticism. You can’t teach
a man to be proud of his own work; that lies in his
blood “; folding his arms across his breast,
he heaved a sigh. Under the dark foliage, his
eyes on the sunlight, he was the type of all those
Englishmen who keep their spirits bright and wear
their bodies out in the dark places of hard work.
“You can’t think,” he said, showing
his teeth in a smile, “how delightful it is to
be at home! You learn to love the old country
when you’re away from it.”
Shelton often thought, afterwards;
of this diagnosis of the vagabond, for he was always
stumbling on instances of that power of subtle criticism
which was the young foreigner’s prime claim to
be “a most awfully interesting” and perhaps
a rather shocking person.
An old school-fellow of Shelton’s
and his wife were staying in the house, who offered
to the eye the picture of a perfect domesticity.
Passionless and smiling, it was impossible to imagine
they could ever have a difference. Shelton, whose
bedroom was next to theirs, could hear them in the
mornings talking in exactly the tones they used at
lunch, and laughing the same laughs. Their life
seemed to accord them perfect satisfaction; they were
supplied with their convictions by Society just as,
when at home, they were supplied with all the other
necessaries of life by some co-operative stores.
Their fairly handsome faces, with the fairly kind
expressions, quickly and carefully regulated by a sense
of compromise, began to worry him so much that when
in the same room he would even read to avoid the need
of looking at them. And yet they were kind that
is, fairly kind and clean and quiet in the
house, except when they laughed, which was often,
and at things which made him want to howl as a dog
howls at music.
“Mr. Shelton,” Ferrand
said one day, “I ’m not an amateur of
marriage never had the chance, as you may
well suppose; but, in any case, you have some people
in the house who would make me mark time before I
went committing it. They seem the ideal young
married people don’t quarrel, have
perfect health, agree with everybody, go to church,
have children but I should like to hear
what is beautiful in their life,” and he grimaced.
“It seems to me so ugly that I can only gasp.
I would much rather they ill-treated each other, just
to show they had the corner of a soul between them.
If that is marriage, ’Dieu m’en garde!’”
But Shelton did not answer; he was thinking deeply.
The saying of John Noble’s,
“He’s really a most interesting person,”
grew more and more upon his nerves; it seemed to describe
the Dennant attitude towards this stranger within
their gates. They treated him with a sort of
wonder on the “don’t touch” system,
like an object in an exhibition. The restoration,
however, of, his self-respect proceeded with success.
For all the semblance of having grown too big for
Shelton’s clothes, for all his vividly burnt
face, and the quick but guarded play of cynicism on
his lips he did much credit to his patrons.
He had subdued his terror of a razor, and looked well
in a suit of Shelton’s flannels. For, after
all, he had only been eight years exiled from middle-class
gentility, and he had been a waiter half that time.
But Shelton wished him at the devil. Not for his
manners’ sake he was never tired
of watching how subtly the vagabond adapted his conduct
to the conduct of his hosts, while keeping up his
critical detachment but because that critical
detachment was a constant spur to his own vision,
compelling him to analyse the life into which, he had
been born and was about to marry. This process
was disturbing; and to find out when it had commenced,
he had to go back to his meeting with Ferrand on the
journey up from Dover.
There was kindness in a hospitality
which opened to so strange a bird; admitting the kindness,
Shelton fell to analysing it. To himself, to
people of his class, the use of kindness was a luxury,
not significant of sacrifice, but productive of a
pleasant feeling in the heart, such as massage will
setup in the legs. “Everybody’s kind,”
he thought; “the question is, What understanding
is there, what real sympathy?” This problem
gave him food for thought.
The progress, which Mrs. Dennant not
unfrequently remarked upon, in Ferrand’s conquest
of his strange position, seemed to Shelton but a sign
that he was getting what he could out of his sudden
visit to green pastures; under the same circumstances,
Shelton thought that he himself would do the same.
He felt that the young foreigner was making a convenient
bow to property, but he had more respect for the sarcastic
smile on the lips of Ferrand’s heart.
It was not long before the inevitable
change came in the spirit of the situation; more and
more was Shelton conscious of a quaint uneasiness in
the very breathing of the household.
“Curious fellow you’ve
got hold of there, Shelton,” Mr. Dennant said
to him during a game of croquet; “he ’ll
never do any good for himself, I’m afraid.”
“In one sense I’m afraid not,” admitted
Shelton.
“Do you know his story?
I will bet you sixpence” and Mr. Dennant
paused to swing his mallet with a proper accuracy
“that he’s been in prison.”
“Prison!” ejaculated Shelton.
“I think,” said Mr. Dennant,
with bent knees carefully measuring his next shot,
“that you ought to make inquiries ah!
missed it! Awkward these hoops! One must
draw the line somewhere.”
“I never could draw,”
returned Shelton, nettled and uneasy; “but I
understand I ’ll give him a hint to
go.”
“Don’t,” said Mr.
Dennant, moving after his second ball, which Shelton
had smitten to the farther end, “be offended,
my dear Shelton, and by no means give him a hint;
he interests me very much a very clever,
quiet young fellow.”
That this was not his private view
Shelton inferred by studying Mr. Dennant’s manner
in the presence of the vagabond. Underlying the
well-bred banter of the tranquil voice, the guarded
quizzicality of his pale brown face, it could be seen
that Algernon Cuffe Dennant, Esq., J.P., accustomed
to laugh at other people, suspected that he was being
laughed at. What more natural than that he should
grope about to see how this could be? A vagrant
alien was making himself felt by an English Justice
of the Peace no small tribute, this, to
Ferrand’s personality. The latter would
sit silent through a meal, and yet make his effect.
He, the object of their kindness, education, patronage,
inspired their fear. There was no longer any
doubt; it was not of Ferrand that they were afraid,
but of what they did not understand in him; of horrid
subtleties meandering in the brain under that straight,
wet-looking hair; of something bizarre popping from
the curving lips below that thin, lopsided nose.
But to Shelton in this, as in all
else, Antonia was what mattered. At first, anxious
to show her lover that she trusted him, she seemed
never tired of doing things for his young protege,
as though she too had set her heart on his salvation;
but, watching her eyes when they rested on the vagabond,
Shelton was perpetually reminded of her saying on the
first day of his visit to Holm Oaks, “I suppose
he ’s really good I mean all these
things you told me about were only....”
Curiosity never left her glance, nor
did that story of his four days’ starving leave
her mind; a sentimental picturesqueness clung about
that incident more valuable by far than this mere
human being with whom she had so strangely come in
contact. She watched Ferrand, and Shelton watched
her. If he had been told that he was watching
her, he would have denied it in good faith; but he
was bound to watch her, to find out with what eyes
she viewed this visitor who embodied all the rebellious
under-side of life, all that was absent in herself.
“Dick,” she said to him
one day, “you never talk to me of Monsieur Ferrand.”
“Do you want to talk of him?”
“Don’t you think that he’s improved?”
“He’s fatter.”
Antonia looked grave.
“No, but really?”
“I don’t know,” said Shelton; “I
can’t judge him.”
Antonia turned her face away, and something in her
attitude alarmed him.
“He was once a sort of gentleman,”
she said; “why shouldn’t he become one
again?”
Sitting on the low wall of the kitchen-garden,
her head was framed by golden plums. The sun
lay barred behind the foliage of the holm oak, but
a little patch filtering through a gap had rested in
the plum-tree’s heart. It crowned the girl.
Her raiment, the dark leaves, the red wall, the golden
plums, were woven by the passing glow to a block of
pagan colour. And her face above it, chaste,
serene, was like the scentless summer evening.
A bird amongst the currant bushes kept a little chant
vibrating; and all the plum-tree’s shape and
colour seemed alive.
“Perhaps he does n’t want to be a gentleman,”
said Shelton.
Antonia swung her foot.
“How can he help wanting to?”
“He may have a different philosophy of life.”
Antonia was slow to answer.
“I know nothing about philosophies of life,”
she said at last.
Shelton answered coldly,
“No two people have the same.”
With the falling sun-glow the charm
passed off the tree. Chilled and harder, yet
less deep, it was no more a block of woven colour,
warm and impassive, like a southern goddess; it was
now a northern tree, with a grey light through its
leaves.
“I don’t understand you
in the least,” she said; “everyone wishes
to be good.”
“And safe?” asked Shelton gently.
Antonia stared.
“Suppose,” he said “I
don’t pretend to know, I only suppose what
Ferrand really cares for is doing things differently
from other people? If you were to load him with
a character and give him money on condition that he
acted as we all act, do you think he would accept it?”
“Why not?”
“Why are n’t cats dogs; or pagans Christians?”
Antonia slid down from the wall.
“You don’t seem to think
there ’s any use in trying,” she said,
and turned away.
Shelton made a movement as if he would
go after her, and then stood still, watching her figure
slowly pass, her head outlined above the wall, her
hands turned back across her narrow hips. She
halted at the bend, looked back, then, with an impatient
gesture, disappeared.
Antonia was slipping from him!
A moment’s vision from without
himself would have shown him that it was he who moved
and she who was standing still, like the figure of
one watching the passage of a stream with clear, direct,
and sullen eyes.