The pretender: A story of the Latin Quarter

“Why did you do it?” I demanded angrily. “Why couldn’t we have gone through with it?”

Then for the first time the girl seemed to find her voice, and it was a very faint voice indeed.

“No, no, I could not. For myself it does not mattaire; but you, monsieur—that’s different.”

Again I was struck with her foreign intonation, her pretty precision with which Frenchwomen speak English, the deliberate utterance due to an effort, not wholly successful, to avoid zeeing and zizzing.

“Why is it so different?” I asked sulkily.

“Because—because me, I am nossing. If I die no persons will care; but you, monsieur, you are artist, you are poet. You have many beautiful sings to do in the life. Ah, monsieur! have courage, courage. Promise me you nevaire do it some more.”

“All right,” I said gloomily; “I promise.”

She seemed reassured. Her child’s face as she looked at me was full of pity and sympathy.

“And now,” I said, “what’s to be done?”

“I do not know.”

She shrugged her shoulders helplessly. All at once a look of terror came into her face. Fearfully she peered over my shoulder, then she cowered back in the shadow of the wall.

“Oh, I’m ’fraid, I’m ’fraid.”

Involuntarily I turned in the direction of her stare, but saw no one.

“What are you afraid of?” I asked. “What’s the trouble?”

“It’s Monsieur O’Flazzaire! Oh, I am bad, bad girls! Why you not let me die? I have keel, I have keel.”

“Good Heavens! you haven’t killed Professor O’Flather?”

“No, no, but I have keel ze troupe; Batsheba, all, all; dead, keel by my hand, keel in revenge. Oh I am so wicked! I hate myself.”

I stared at her. “In the name of Heaven, what have you done?”

For answer she pulled from the pocket of her mantle a tin canister of fair size and handed it to me. By the lamplight I could just make out the label:

SKEETER’S INSECT POWDER.

A light dawned on me. “You don’t mean to say you’ve fed ’em on this?”

“Yes, yes, all of eet. I have spare nossing. I was mad. Oh I ’ate heem so! And now I’m ’fraid. If he finds me he will keel me, certainly. He’s bad man. Oh don’t let heem find me!”

She clutched my arm in her terror.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “But first, let’s destroy the evidence of your crime.”

I flung the canister into the river, where we heard a faint splash.

“Now,” I went on, “you’re no doubt cold and hungry. Let me take you to the coffee-stall on the Embankment and give you some supper. Then, according to the custom of the situation, you may tell me the sad story of your life. In the meantime, as we walk there, let’s hear how you fixed O’Flather.”

“It is true, what I tell you, Monsieur; he’s very, very bad man. He ’ave said the things disgusting to me, and he try to make me have dinner wiz heem many hevenings, but I say: No! No! Because, truly, I have ’orror for such mans. Den last night he tell me if I don’ come wiz heem, he don’ want me some more. He refuse pay me my money, and the lady where I rest tell me: ‘You don’t come back some more wiz no money.’ So what I must do? I have no ’ome, and just one sheeling of money. Ah, no! It was not interesting for me, truly.”

She shook her head with all the painful resignation of the poor.

“Well, I am desperate. I sink it is all finish for me, I must drink of the gran’ cup at last. That make me sad, because I have fight so long. But there! it is the life, is it not? Then I sink I have one gran’ revenge. I buy wiz my sheeling dat powdaire, and I go to the exposition. There was only the Japonaise girl, and she leave me wiz the troupe. They lie on their backs and they wait for dejeuner. Well, I geeve them such as I don’ sink they want eat ever again. Oh, I ’ate them so, and I ’ate heem so, and so I keel them every one wiz that powdaire, till zere legs don’ wave some more. Even ze wild ones, they don’ jump some more now.”

“Poor Bathsheba!”

“Then when I finish keel the last one the Japonaise girl come and scream for the patron, and I run like wind. But I know he fetch everywhere for me, and when he find me he keel me too. Anyway, I was tire, and I dispair, so I sink I throw myself in the water. There!”

“Well, you must swear you won’t do it again.”

“Yes, I swear on the head of my fazzaire, I won’t do it again.”

“And now for that coffee, coffee and sandwiches—ham sandwiches.”

She ate and drank eagerly, yet always with that furtive, hunted look, as if she expected to see the huge bull-dog face of O’Flather with its mane of brindled hair come snarling out of the gloom. I saw, too, that she was regarding me with great interest and curiosity, indeed with a certain maternal and protecting air, odd in one so childish and clinging herself. Once, seeing that I shivered a little, she turned up the collar of my coat and buttoned it. In spite of the mothering gentleness of the act I might have thought it a little “forward,” had I not remembered that in her eyes we were comrades in misfortune.

Her eyes! How blue and bright they were now, as they regarded me over her coffee! And how long, I wondered, had that wistful mouth been a stranger to smiles?

“Let me see you smile,” I begged.

I thought so. A flash of teeth that made me think of an advertising poster for a popular dentifrice. Again I noted the darkness of her hair, setting off the porcelain whiteness of her skin. Again I approved of the full forehead, and the frank eyebrows. Again the girl stirred me strangely. And to think that she might have been at the bottom of that hideous river by now! I felt a sudden pity for her, and a wish to shield her from further ill.

“And now for the story,” I said, as she finished. “I have told you mine, you know.”

“Ah, mine! It is not so interesting. There is not much to tell. My fazzaire die when I was leetle girl, and I go to the convent. There I learn to do the hem-broderie, and when I leave the Sisters I work in atalier in Paris. It was so hard. We work from eight by the morning till seven at night. There was t’irty girl all in one leetle room, and some girls was poitrinaire.”

“What’s that?”

“Ah ... what you call it—yes, consumption. Well, I begin to become that no more can I stand it, so I come to Londres and try to get work. Every day I try so ’ard for one month, for I can speak English not much. Then just as I have no money left I get work in atalier at the hem-broderie. It was not so ’ard as in Paris, and I was very ’appy. But pretty soon I am seek, and it is necessaire I go to the hospital. It was the appendicite. When I get out I try to get back to the atalier, but my place have been fill. No work, no money—truly, I have no chance.”

“Well, what happened then?”

“Ah! then it was not interesting. I often go very hungry. I live for many days on bread, just bread. But by and by I get more work. Then again I am very ’appy. But I have no chance. I become seek once more. I have headache very much; my hair tumble out, and every night I cry. But I try very ’ard. I must keep my work, I must, I must. Then the doctor tell me I must have more air. I must respire. I tell him it is not for the poor to respire, and he say you must do something outside, or you will die. Well, I leave the atalier and for two months I fetch somesing outside. But I have no chance. Once more my money is finish, then one day I get work with Monsieur O’Flazzaire. I would not have taken it, but that I am starve, and I am ’fraid. It was so ’ard, and every day I get more weak. Then, yesterday, he tell me: ‘Go! I don’ pay you,’—and I don’ care for myself any more.”

“Why,” I said gravely, looking her in the face, “did you not do as others would have done?”

She stared at me in a startled way:

“You do not mean dishonour, monsieur. Ah no! You cannot mean that.”

“Is it not better to do that than starve?”

“It is better to die than to do that, I sink. I am good Catholic, Monsieur.”

“Do not call me Monsieur! Are we not fellow waifs? So you think it is less sin to take your own life than to sell your honour?”

“It is that that I think, Monsieur.”

As I looked into the steady, blue eyes I saw a look of faith that almost amounted to fanaticism, a sort of Joan of Arc look. “How curious!” I thought. “I was under the impression such sentiments were confined to books.” However, I determined to fall back on cynicism, and to seem the more cynical I lit a cigarette. She watched me with a curious intensity; and as she stood there quietly, a naphtha lamp lit up her pale, earnest face.

“Ah! young lady,” I remarked mockingly, “you speak like a penny novelette. In fact, you say the same thing as did my heroine Monica Klein in A Shirtmaker’s Romance. It only remains for you to die to slow music in the snow outside the door of a fashionable church. That’s what happened to Monica. I shed a bucket of tears as I wrote that scene. But I thought we had decided you were to be Fact not Fiction?”

“I do not understand, Monsieur.”

“Then let me explain. Idealism is a luxury we poor people can’t afford. If you should be forced into dishonour for bread, lives there a man that would dare blame you? To me you would be as good as the purest woman, even though you walk the streets. Nay! I’m not sure that you wouldn’t be better, because you would be a victim, a sacrifice, a martyr. No, you’re wrong, mademoiselle. I think you’re wrong.”

“It is easy to die; it must be ’ard to live like zat.”

“How lucky you find it so easy to die. Me, I’d rather be a live lackey than a dead demi-god. But let me tell you you won’t get much credit in this world for dying in the cause of virtue, and I have my doubts about the next. And it doesn’t seem to me to make much odds whether you die quickly, as you intended doing a little while ago, or whether you die slowly by hard work and poor living. Society’s going to do for you anyway. You’re Waste, that’s what you are. In every process there must be waste, even in the civilising one. You’re going to be swept into the rubbish heap pretty soon. Poor pitiful Waste! What do you mean to do now?”

Her face fell sullenly. She would not look at me any more, but she answered bravely enough.

“Me! Oh, I suppose I try again. Perhaps I starve. Perhaps I find work. Anyway, I fight.”

“What chance have you got—a poor physique, hard toil, bad air, cheap food. You’ll go on fighting till you fall, then no one will care. If it’s fighting you’re after, why don’t you fight Society, fight with your women’s weapons, your allure, your appeal to the worst in man. You can do it. Any woman can if she’s determined and forgets certain scruples. Do as I would in your case, as many men would if they had the cursed ill-luck to be women. Then, when you’re sixty you can turn round and have a pew in church, instead of rotting at thirty in Potter’s Field.”

“You advice me like zat?” I could feel that she shrank from me.

“Doesn’t it seem good, practical advice?”

“Suppose no one want me?”

“True. There’s many a woman guarding ever so jealously a jewel no man wants to steal. That’s almost more bitter than having it stolen. However, don’t you worry about that, there’s no need to.”

She raised her head which had been down-hung. Intently, oddly she looked at me.

“Will you take me?” she said suddenly.

“Me!” I laughed. “Why no! I’m speaking as one wastrel to another. How could I?”

“Would you if you could?”

“Well, er—I don’t think so. You see—I’m not that sort.”

“No, I knew you were not,” she said slowly; “you’re good man.”

“I’m not,” I protested indignantly. How one hates to be called “good”—especially if one is a woman.

“Yes, you are,” she insisted. Then she threw back her head with a certain fine pride, and the dark sea-blue eyes were unfathomable.

“You have saved my life. It is yours now. Will you not take me? I am good girl. I have always been serious, I have always been virtuous. I will work hard for you. I will help you while you are so poor; zen if one day you are become rich, famous, and you are tire of me, I will go away.”

I was taken aback. If there’s one thing worse than to be convicted of vice it’s to be convicted of virtue. I squirmed, stammered, shuffled.

“Well, you see I— Hang it all! somewhere in my make-up there’s that uncomfortable possession, a Puritan conscience. I’m sorry—let me consider.... Perhaps there’s another way.”

How terrible to a woman to have the best she has to offer refused; but the girl bore up bravely.

“What is it?” she asked, without any particular interest.

I was doing some rapid thinking. An idea had come into my head which startled me. It was an inspiration, a solution of a pressing problem. Swiftly I decided.

“To do as you suggest,” I said, “would be very wrong, and what’s worse, it would be crudely conventional. It is commonplace now in some society to live with a person without marrying them; the original thing’s to marry them. Well, will you marry me?”

She looked at me incredulously. I went on calmly.

“But for me, as you say, your troubles would by now have been over. In a way I’m responsible for your life. What’s to be done? I’m not old enough to adopt you, and to constitute myself your guardian would lay me open to uncharitable suspicion. From now on I know I shall be infernally worried about you. Well, the easiest way out of the difficulty seems to be to marry you, doesn’t it?”

“But you don’t know me,” she gasped.

“You’ve got ‘nothing on me’ there,” I said airily; “you don’t know me. That’s precisely what makes it so interesting. Any man can marry a woman he knows; it takes an original to marry one he doesn’t. But after all, has not the method some merit? We start with no illusions. There will be no eye-opening process, no finding our swans geese. The beauty of such a marriage is that we don’t entirely ring down the curtain on romance.”

“But—I have no money.”

“Neither have I. What does that matter? Any fool can marry if he’s got money; it takes a brave man to do it if he’s broke.”

“But—”

“Not another word. It’s all settled. I think it’s a splendid idea. We’ll be married to-morrow if possible. I’ll get a licence at once. By the way, what’s your name? It’s of no consequence, you know, but I fancy it’s necessary for the licence.”

“Anastasia Guinoval.”

“Thank you. Now I’ll take you to where you live, and you must accept a little money to satisfy your landlady. To-morrow I’ll call for you. Hold on a minute—as we’re affianced, seems to me we ought to kiss?”

“I—don’t know.”

“Yes, I believe it’s customary.” I pecked at her lightly in the dark. “Now, you understand we’re making a real sensible marriage, without any sentimental nonsense about it. You understand I’m not a sentimental man. I hate sentiment.”

“I understand,” she said doubtfully.

As we moved away, up there in the dark that great sonorous bell boomed the stroke of one. Only an hour, yet how busy had the fates been on my particular account! In what ludicrous ways had they worked out their design! On what trivial things does destiny seem to hinge! Ah! who shall say what is trivial?

On reaching my room my first act was to take up my half-finished letter to Mrs. Fitz. I read the words: “If ever we should find ourselves free to marry, you promised you would send for me.”

“Good!” I cried exultantly. “She will find herself free to marry all right, but I won’t; that is, I hope I won’t after to-morrow. Whoever could have guessed the motive behind my apparently rash proposal. To avoid one marriage I stake my chances on another. Well, that settles things as far as Mrs. Fitz is concerned. Ronnie and Lonnie, I defy you.”

So I tore my letter into small pieces with a vast satisfaction, and I was proceeding to tear also the luckless copy of the Gotham Gazette when I paused. I had not noticed that the fateful paragraph, begun near the bottom of a page, was continued on the next. Again I read:

Quickly I turned over the page; then I gave a gasp, for this was the continuation:

“Of all the—”

Words failed me at this point. I plumped down on my chair and sat as if paralysed. And after all the captain was not dead—only dead drunk, and my brilliant effort to avoid marrying his widow had been entirely unnecessary. Then after all I was a fool.

Well, it was too late to find it out. At least I never went back on my word. I must go through with the other business.

“Anastasia Guinoval! Hum! maybe it’ll turn out all right. Time will show. Anyway—it will be a good chance to learn French.”

And with this comforting reflection I went to bed.

END OF BOOK I