Simon the Jester

CHAPTER XIV

I am glad I devoted last night and the past hour this morning to bringing up to date this trivial record, for I have a premonition that the time is rapidly approaching when I shall no longer have the strength of will or body to continue it. The little pain has increased in intensity and frequency the last few days, and though I try to delude myself into the belief that otherwise I am as strong as ever, I know in my heart that I am daily growing weaker, daily losing vitality. I shall soon have to call in a doctor to give me some temporary relief, and doubtless he will put me to bed, feed me on slops, cut off alcohol, forbid noise and excitement, and keep me in a drugged, stupefied condition until I fall asleep, to wake up in the Garden of Prosperpine. Death is nothing; it is the dying that is such a nuisance. It is going through so much for so little. It is as bad as the campaign before a parliamentary election. It offends one's sense of proportion. In a well-regulated universe there would be no tedious process of decay, either before or after death. You would go about your daily avocation unconcerned and unwarned, and then at the moment appointed by an inscrutable Providence for your dissolution—phew!—and your clothes would remain standing for a surprised second, and then fall down in a heap without a particle of you inside them. If we have to die, why doesn't Providence employ this simple and sensible method? It would save such a lot of trouble. It would be so clean, so painless, so picturesque. It would add to the interest of our walks abroad. Fancy a stout, important policeman vanishing from his uniform—the helmet falling over the collar, the tunic doubling in at the belt, the knees giving way, and the unheard, merry laughter of the disenuniformed spirit winging its way truncheonless into the Empyrean.

But if you think you are going to get any fun out of dying in the present inconvenient manner, you are mistaken. Believe one who is trying.

I will remain on my feet, however, as long as my will holds out. In this way I may continue to be of service to my fellow creatures, and procure for myself a happy lot or portion. Even this morning I have been able to feel the throb of eumoiriety. A piteous letter came from Latimer, and a substantial cheque lies on my table ready to be posted. I wonder how much I have left? So long as it is enough to pay my doctor's bills and funeral expenses, what does it matter?

The last line of the above was written on December 21st. It is now January 30th, and I am still alive and able to write. I wish I weren't. But I will set down as plainly as I can what has happened in the interval.

I had just written the last word, seated at my hotel window in the sunshine, and enjoying, in spite of my uncheerful thoughts, the scents that rose from the garden, when I heard a knock at my door. At my invitation to enter, Anastasius Papadopoulos trotted into the room in a great state of excitement carrying the familiar bunch of papers. He put his hat on the floor, pitched the papers into the hat, and ran up to me.

“My dear sir, don't get up, I implore you. And I won't sit down. I have just seen the ever beautiful and beloved lady.”

I turned my chair away from the table, and faced him as he stood blowing kisses with one little hand, while the other lay on his heart. In a flash he struck a new gesture; he folded his arms and scowled.

“I was with her. She was opening her inmost heart to me. She knows I am her champion. A servant came up announcing Monsieur Vauvenarde. She dismissed me. I have come to my patron and friend, the English statesman. Her husband is with her now.”

I smiled. “Madame Brandt told me that she had asked for an interview.”

“And you allow it? You allow her to contaminate her beautiful presence with the sight of that traitor, that cheat at cards, that murderer, that devil? Ah, but I will not have it! I am her champion. I will save her. I will save you. I will take you both away to Egypt, and surround you with my beautiful cats, and fan you with peacock's feathers.”

This was sheer crackedness of brain. For the first time I feared for the little man. When people begin to talk that way they are not allowed to go about loose. He went on talking and the three languages he used in his jargon got clotted to the point of unintelligibility. He spoke very fast and, as far as I could understand, poured abuse on the head of Captain Vauvenarde, and continued to declare himself Lola's champion and my devoted friend. He stamped up and down the room in his tightly buttoned frock-coat from the breastpocket of which peeped the fingers of his yellow dogskin gloves. At last he stopped, and drawing a chair near the window perched on it with a little hop like a child. He held out his hand.

“Do you believe I am your friend?”

“I am sure of it, my dear Professor.”

“Then I'll betray a sacred confidence. The carissima signora loves you. You didn't know it. But she loves you.”

I stared for a moment at the dwarf as if he had been a reasonable being. Something seemed to click inside my head, like a clogged cog-wheel that had suddenly freed itself, and my mind went whirling away straight through the past few weeks. I tried to smile, and I said:

“You are quite mistaken.”

“Oh, no,” he replied, wagging his Napoleonic head. “Anastasius Papadopoulos is never mistaken. She told me so herself. She wept. She put her beautiful arms round my neck and sobbed on my shoulder.”

I found myself reproving him gently. “You should not have told me this, my dear Professor. Such confidences are locked up in the heart of un galant homme, and are not revealed even to his dearest friend.”

But my voice sounded hollow in my own ears, and what he said for the next few minutes I do not remember. The little man had told the truth to me, and Lola had told the truth to him. The realisation of it paralysed me. Why had I been such a fool as not to see it for myself? Memories of a hundred indications came tumbling one after another into my head—the forgotten glove, the glances, the changes of mood, the tears when she learned of my illness, the mysterious words, the abrupt little “You?” of yesterday. The woman was in love, deeply in love, in love with all the fervour of her big nature. And I had stood by and wondered what she meant by this and by that—things that would have been obvious to a coalheaver. I thought of Dale and I felt miserably guilty, horribly ashamed. How could I expect him to believe me when I told him that I had not wittingly stolen her affections from him. And her affections? Bon Dieu! What on earth could I do with them? What is the use of a woman's love to a dead man? And did I want it even for the tiny remainder of life?

Anastasius, perceiving that I paid but scant attention to his conversation, wriggled off his chair and stood before me with folded arms.

“You adore each other with a great passion,” he said. “She is my Madonna, and you are my friend and benefactor. I will be your protection and defence. I will never let her go away with that infamous, gambling and murdering scoundrel. My gigantic combinations have matured. I bless your union.”

He lifted his little arms in benediction. The situation was cruelly comical. For a moment I hated the mournful-visaged, posturing monkey, and had a wild desire to throw him out of the window and have done with him. I rose and, towering over him, was about to lecture him severely on his impertinent interference, when the sight of his scared face made me turn away with a laugh. What would be the use of reproaching him? He would only sit down on the floor and weep. So I paced the room, while he followed me with his eyes like an uncertain spaniel.

“Look here, Professor,” said I at last. “Now that you've found Captain Vauvenarde, brought Madame Brandt and him together, and told me that she is in love with me, don't you think you've done enough? Don't you think your cats need your attention? Something terrible may be happening to them. I dreamed last night,” I added with desperate mendacity, “that they were turned into woolly lambs.”

“Monsieur,” said the dwarf loftily, “my duty is here. And I care not whether my cats are turned into the angels of Paradise.”

I groaned. “You are wasting a great deal of money over this affair,” I urged.

“What is money to my gigantic combinations?”

“Tell me,” I cried with considerable impatience. “What are your confounded combinations?”

He began to tremble violently. “I would rather die,” said he, “than betray my secret.”

“It's all some silly nonsense about that wretched horse!” I exclaimed.

He covered his ears with his hands. “Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Don't utter it!”

In another moment he was cowering on his knees before me.

“You, of all men, mustn't blaspheme. You whom I love like my master. You whom the divine lady loves. I can't bear it!” He continued to gibber unintelligibly.

He was stark mad. There was no question of it. For a moment I stood irresolute. Then I lifted him to his feet and patted his head soothingly.

“Never mind,” said I. “I was wrong. It was a beautiful horse. There never was such a horse in the world. If I had a picture of him I would hang it up on the wall over my bed.”

“Would you?” he cried joyfully. “Then I will give you one.”

He trotted over to the bundle of papers that reposed in his hat on the floor, searched through them, and to my dismay handed me a faded, unmounted, and rather torn and crumpled photograph of the wonderful horse.

“There!” said he.

“I could not rob you of it,” I protested.

“It will be my joy to know that you have it—that it is hanging over your bed. See—have you a pin? I myself will fix it for you.”

While he was searching my table for pins the chasseur of the hotel came with a message from Madame Brandt. Would Monsieur come at once to Madame in her private room?

“I'll come now,” I said. “Professor, you must excuse me.”

“Don't mention it. I shall occupy myself in hanging the picture in the most artistic way possible.”

So I left him, his mind apparently concentrated on the childish task of pinning the photograph of the ridiculous horse on my bedroom wall, and went with the most complicated feelings downstairs and through the corridors to Lola's apartments.

She rose to meet me as I entered.

“It's very kind of you to come,” she said in her fluent but Britannic French. “May I present my husband, Monsieur Vauvenarde.”

Monsieur Vauvenarde and I exchanged bows. I noticed at once that he wore the Frenchman's costume when he pays a visite de ceremonie, frock-coat and gloves, and that a silk hat lay on the table. I was glad that he paid her this mark of respect.

“I have had the pleasure of meeting you before, Monsieur,” said he, “in circumstances somewhat different.”

“I remember perfectly,” said I.

“And your charming but inexperienced little friend—is he well?”

“He is at present decorating my room with photographs of Madame's late horse, Sultan,” said I.

He was startled, and gave me a quick, sharp look. I did not notice it at the time, but I remembered it later. Then he broke into an indulgent laugh.

“The poor animal!” He turned to Lola. “How jealous I used to be of him! And how quickly the time flies. But give yourself the trouble of seating yourself, Monsieur.”

He motioned me to a chair and sat down. He was a man of polished manner and had a pleasant voice. I guessed that in the days when he paid court to Lola, he had been handsome in his dark Norman way, and possessed considerable fascination. Evil living and sordid passions had coarsened his features, produced bagginess under the eyes and a shiftiness of glance. Idleness and an inverted habit of life were responsible for the nascent paunch and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck. He suggested the revivified corpse of a fine gentleman that had been unnaturally swollen. I had disliked him at the Cercle Africain; now I detested him heartily. The idea of Lola entering the vitiated atmosphere of his life was inexpressibly repugnant to me.

Contrary to her habit, Lola sat bolt upright on the stamped-velvet suite, the palms of her hands pressing the seat on either side of her. She caught the shade of disgust that swept over my face, and gave me a quick glance that pleaded for toleration. Her eyes, though bright, were sunken, like those of a woman who has not slept.

“Monsieur,” said Vauvenarde, “my wife informs me that to your disinterested friendship is due this most charming reconciliation.”

“Reconciliation?” I echoed. “It was quickly effected.”

“Mon Dieu,” he said. “I have always longed for the comforts of a home. My wife has grown tired of a migratory existence. She comes to find me. I hasten to meet her. There is nothing to keep us apart. The reconciliation was a matter of a few seconds. I wish to express my gratitude to you, and, therefore, I ask you to accept my most cordial thanks.”

“It has always been a pleasure to me,” said I very frigidly, “to place my services at the disposal of Madame Brandt.”

“Vauvenarde, Monsieur,” he corrected with a smile.

“And is Madame Vauvenarde equally satisfied with the—reconciliation?” I asked.

“I think Monsieur Vauvenarde is somewhat premature,” said Lola, with a trembling lip. “There were conditions—”

“A mere question of protocol.” He waved an airy hand.

“I don't know what that is,” said Lola. “There are conditions I must fix, and I thought the advice of my friend, Monsieur de Gex—”

“Precisely, my dear Lola,” he interrupted. “The principle is affirmed. We are reconciled. I proceed logically. The first thing I do is to thank Monsieur de Gex—you have a French name, Monsieur, and you pronounce it English fashion, which is somewhat embarrassing—But no matter. The next thing is the protocol. We have no possibility of calling a family council, and therefore, I acceded with pleasure to the intervention of Monsieur. It is kind of him to burden himself with our unimportant affairs.”

The irony of his tone belied the suave correctitude of his words. I detested him more and more. More and more did I realise that the dying eumoirist is capable of petty human passions. My vanity was being sacrified. Here was a woman passionately in love with me proposing to throw herself into another man's arms—it made not a scrap of difference, in the circumstances, that the man was her husband—and into the arms of such a man! Having known me to decline—etcetera, etcetera! How could she face it? And why was she doing it? To save herself from me, or me from herself? She knew perfectly well that the little pain inside would precious soon settle that question. Why was she doing it? I should have thought that the first glance at the puffy reprobate would have been enough to show her the folly of her idea. However, it was comforting to learn that she had not surrendered at once.

“If I am to have the privilege, Monsieur,” said I, “of acting as a family council, perhaps you may forgive my hinting at some of the conditions that doubtless are in Madame's mind.”

“Proceed, Monsieur,” said he.

“I want to know where I am,” said Lola in English. “He took everything for granted from the first.”

“Are you willing to go back to him?” I asked also in English.

She met my gaze steadily, and I saw a woman's needless pain at the back of her eyes. She moistened her lips with her tongue, and said:

“Under conditions.”

“Monsieur,” said I in French, turning to Vauvenarde, “forgive us for speaking our language.”

“Perfectly,” said he, and he smiled meaningly and banteringly at us both.

“In the first place, Monsieur, you are aware that Madame has a little fortune, which does not detract from the charm you have always found in her. It was left her by her father, who, as you know, tamed lions and directed a menagerie. I would propose that Madame appointed trustees to administer this little fortune.”

“There is no necessity, Monsieur,” he said. “By the law of France it is hers to do what she likes with.”

“Precisely,” I rejoined. “Trustees would prevent her from doing what she liked with it. Madame has indeed a head for affairs, but she also has a woman's heart, which sometimes interferes with a woman's head in the most disastrous manner.”

“Article No. 1 of the protocol. Allez toujours, Monsieur.”

I went on, feeling happier. “The next article treats of a little matter which I understand has been the cause of differences in the past between Madame and yourself. Madame, although she has not entered the arena for some time, has not finally abandoned it.” I smiled at the look of surprise on Lola's face. “An artist is always an artist, Monsieur. She is willing, however, to renounce it for ever, if you, on your side, will make quite a small sacrifice.”

“Name it, Monsieur.”

“You have a little passion for baccarat——”

“Surely, Monsieur,” said he blandly, “my wife would not expect me to give up what is the mere recreation of every clubman.”

“As a recreation pure and simple—she would not insist too much, but——” I shrugged my shoulders. I flatter myself on being able to do it with perfect French expressiveness. I caught, to my satisfaction, an angry gleam in his eye.

“Do you mean to say, Monsieur, that I play for more than recreation?”

“How dare I say anything, Monsieur. But Madame is prejudiced against the Cercle Africain. For a bachelor there is little to be said against it—but for a married man—you seize the point?” said I.

“Bien, Monsieur,” he said, swallowing his wrath. “And Article 3?”

“Since you have left the army—would it not be better to engage in some profession—unless your private fortune dispenses you from the necessity.”

He said nothing but: “Article 4?”

“It would give Madame comfort to live out of Algiers.”

“Moi aussi,” he replied rather unexpectedly. “We have the whole of France to choose from.”

“Would not Madame be happier if she lived out of France, also? She has always longed for a social position.”

“Eh, bien? I can give her one in France.”

“Are you quite sure?” I asked, looking him in the eyes.

“Monsieur,” said he, rising and giving his moustache a swashbuckler twist upward, “what are you daring to insinuate?”

I leaned back in my chair and fingered the waxed ends of mine.

“Nothing, Monsieur; I ask a simple question, which you surely can have no difficulty in answering.”

“Your questions are the height of indiscretion,” he cried angrily.

“In that case, before we carry this interview further, the Family Council and Madame would do well to have a private consultation.”

“Monsieur,” he cried, completely losing his temper. “I forbid you to use that tone to me. You are making a mock of me. You are insulting me. I bore with you long enough to see how much further your insolence would dare to go. I'm not to have a hand in the administration of my wife's money? I'm to forsake a plentiful means of livelihood? I'm to become a commercial traveller? I'm to expatriate myself? I'm to explain, too, the reasons why I left the army? I would not condescend. Least of all to you.”

“May I ask why, Monsieur?”

“Tonnerre de Dieu!” He stamped his foot. “Do you take me for a fool? Here I am—I came at my wife's request, ready to take her back as my wife, ready to condone everything—yes, Monsieur, as a man of the world—you think I have no eyes, no understanding—ready to take her off your hands—”

I leaped to my feet.

“Monsieur!” I thundered.

Lola gave a cry and rushed forward. I pushed her aside, and glared at him. I was in a furious rage. We glared at each other eye to eye. I pointed to the door.

“Monsieur, sortez!”

I went to it and flung it wide. Anastasius Papadopoulos trotted into the room.

His entrance was so queer, so unexpected, so anti-climatic, that for the moment the three of us were thrown off our emotional balance.

“I have heard all, I have heard all,” shrieked the little man. “I know you for what you are. I am the champion of the carissima signora and the protector of the English statesman. You are a traitor and murderer—”

Vauvenarde lifted his hand in a threatening gesture.

“Hold your tongue, you little abortion!” he shouted.

But Anastasius went on screaming and flourishing his bundle of papers.

“Ask him if he remembers the horse Sultan; ask him if he remembers the horse Sultan!”

Lola took him by the shoulders.

“Anastasius, you must go away from here—to please me. It's my orders.”

But he shook himself free, and the silk hat which he had not removed fell off in the quick struggle.

“Ask him if he remembers Saupiquet,” he screamed, and then banged the door.

A malevolent devil put a sudden idea into my head and prompted speech.

“Do you remember Saupiquet?” I asked ironically.

“Monsieur, meddle with your own affairs and let me pass. You shall hear from me.”

The dwarf planted himself before the door.

“You shall not pass till you have answered me. Do you remember Saupiquet? Do you remember the five francs you gave to Saupiquet to let you into Sultan's stable? Ah! Ha! Ha! You wince. You grow pale. Do you remember the ball of poison you put down Sultan's throat?”

Lola started forward with flaming eyes and anguished face.

“You—you?” she gasped. “You were so ignoble as to do that?”

“The accursed brute!” shouted Vauvenarde. “Yes, I did it. I wish I had burned out his entrails.”

Anastasius sprang at him like a tiger cat. I had a quick vision of the dwarf clinging in the air against the other's bulky form, one hand at his throat, and then of an incredibly swift flash of steel. The dwarf dropped off and rolled backwards, revealing something black sticking out of Vauvenarde's frock-coat—for the second I could not realise what it was. Then Vauvenarde, with a ghastly face, reeled sideways and collapsed in a heap on the ground.