Pagan

by W. F. Morris

  There came a long silence. In the dance room the orchestra was throbbing another fox trot.

  She raised her eyes to his slowly. “Charles, dear,” she said gently, “you said you were content to wait—you said that time was on your side. Why are you different to-night?”

  He raised his head defiantly as though he were awaiting the attack of unseen foes, but his eyes were fixed abstractedly upon the curtained doorway past which the dancers were gliding. “Do you remember that atmosphere of the old war years when it seemed that a shadow stood always just behind one? That atmosphere of constant flux and uncertainty!”

  She nodded her head and murmured in a low voice, “I remember.”

  “I feel it to-night. I feel as I felt then—that the future must take care of itself. It is too uncertain. There may be no to-morrow, but there is to-day. Eat, drink and be merry; to-morrow we die, who knows! I’m greedy of life; I am greedy of the moment. This moment—the only moment we know for certain we shall ever have.” He turned his head and looked at her. His face seemed lean and drawn, but his eyes were very bright and alive. “Just say, ‘I love you.’ It shall not bind you beyond the moment. To-morrow you shall go your way if you wish. To-morrow shall take care of itself. But then whatever it brings, joy or sorrow, life or death, I shall have had this moment. Say it; oh say it—if you can with truth.”

  For a few moments she drew little patterns on her knee with her fingers. Then she raised her head and looked at him in silence. “Charles, dear,” she began at last, and stopped abruptly.

  A shadow moved across her light-coloured frock and Baron’s voice broke in cheerfully.

  “Hullo, here you are!” he cried. “I say, isn’t there an awful frowst in here to-night! Come out and get some fresh air. We might all go down to the little café by the station and have some coffee. What do you say?”

  Pagan stirred and looked up. “We have just had some,” he murmured at last.

  Baron threw a contemptuous glance at the two tiny cups on the glass-topped table beside them. “Oh yes, but that amount wouldn’t damp a thirsty canary,” he retorted. “Coffee in tall glasses, I mean, comme ça.”

  II

  They sauntered out into the night. It was dark beneath the trees of the avenue except where the electric road lights threw up the overhanging foliage in sharp cardboard relief like stage scenery. Ahead of them twinkled the little coloured lights of the outdoor café, and high up in the night sky, upon the invisible mountain side, lights twinkled here and there.

  They passed through the open gate in the white palings which separated the café from the road. A wizened old man in a greasy blue beret moved slowly among the tables fiddling Tosselli’s Serenade. The lights from the coloured lamps among the leaves above revealed the absorbed expression of his face with bizarre changing patches of colour, and glinted upon his swiftly gliding bow. At a larger table beneath the spreading branches of two huge old gnarled trunks some half dozen youths, lavishly decked in tricolour ribbons, were celebrating with wine and song their calling up to perform the customary military service.

  Baron led the way to some vacant seats under a tree. A child in a long pink pinafore removed an empty glass from the table, swabbed away a circular liquid stain and brought them coffee in tall glasses. Baron produced his cigarette case and offered it to Clare. It contained only two cigarettes, and she hesitated and looked at Pagan.

  “Charles always sucks a foul pipe,” said Baron. “And I am going to get some more presently.” He held a match to her cigarette and lighted his own. Then he took a drink from his glass and rose. “If you are going to get some cigarettes, will you buy me some too?” asked Clare.

  “Any particular brand?” he asked.

  “The yellow packets please.”

  “Those French things?”

  She nodded.

  “Depraved taste!” he remarked and strolled towards the species of coffee stall where the patron presided over the boxes of cigars, cigarettes, picture postcards and liqueurs.

  Pagan pulled out his pipe and filled it slowly. Clare sipped her coffee and looked at the old man who was now fiddling at the young conscripts’ table. “He plays awfully well,” she said.

  Pagan returned the pouch to his pocket. “He does; better than many a fellow who is drawing a huge salary in a dance band.”

  Silence dropped like a curtain between them. A car glided up by the white palings and stopped. Pagan recognized it as Cecil’s. Griffin got out, and, with his hands in flaps of his breeches like an ostler, swaggered into the café. He met Baron returning with the cigarettes, and clicking his heels, greeted him with a quivering military salute.

  “Friend Griffin, apparently, has sampled the local bock,” commented Pagan.

  “He is given that way in moderation,” murmured Clare.

  His voice, indeed, which carried clearly to where they sat, rather confirmed the impression. It seemed slightly more eager and hurried than the occasion demanded; and Baron’s voice in contrast sounded very quiet and unhurried.

  “I took that there accumulator up to the histameny, sir,” said Griffin eagerly.

  “Oh did you; thanks very much, Griffin,” answered Baron.

  “Yes, I give it to the old Fritz myself, sir; but I left Mr. Cecil’s flashlamp there on the table.”

  “Oh never mind,” said Baron. “I expect Mr. Cecil will forgive you. You can fetch it some other time.”

  “But I did fetch it, sir; I went back,” went on Griffin hurriedly and excitedly, “and as I came up to the door, someone at the side of the house sings out, ‘Good night, Kleber,’ and it was the Captain’s voice, sir—Captain Vigers.’ Don’t you see, sir, that this here …” His high pitched eager voice suddenly sank and became inaudible. Baron had half turned his head for a fraction of a second and his elbow was bent as though his hand were raised towards his mouth.

  Pagan stole a glance at Clare. Her face was very pale, and so still was she that she might have been mistaken for a wax figure were it not for the fluttering rise and fall of the lapels of her cloak. To Pagan, time seemed suddenly to have suspended its beat; but he was conscious that the sweet toned violin was still whispering the serenade. Five seconds had gone by, no more; yet they had seemed like hours. He must say something. He raised his head. “Yes, friend Griffin has done himself very well indeed,” he found himself saying. But his voice sounded to him foolish and trivial.

  She remained silent, and the gentle sound of the fiddle seemed a fitting background.

  Baron had parted from Griffin and was coming back to them. He sauntered up with studied nonchalance, but he must have noticed the extraordinary immobility of Clare, for he shot a swift glance from her to Pagan. He put the yellow packet of cigarettes on the table. “There are your pernicious gaspers,” he said cheerfully and sat down.

  She took them mechanically without speaking. Pagan made another effort. “We thought Griffin seemed a little elevated to-night,” he said.

  Baron took the hint. He nodded. “Yes; in the parlance of the vulgar, I think he had ‘had a couple’. ”

  Clare spoke at last. “Dicky.” Her low, unhurried voice had a peculiarly clear-cut quality. “Dicky, is it true—what Griffin said?”

  Baron avoided her eyes. “My dear Clare!” he laughed. “Griffin in his cups has a more wonderful imagination than he has when sober—which is saying a good deal.”

  She turned from him as one turns from a babbling child. She looked at Pagan and laid a hand upon his arm. “You will not lie to me. Is it true?”

  He raised his eyes and looked at her mutely. Her hand dropped from his sleeve.

  “I knew it—I felt it,” she murmured.

  The eyes of the two men met miserably. The wizened fiddler approached their table, stood fiddling for a moment and then passed on.

  Clare suddenly raised her head. Her eyes were wild, and her voice had an unfamiliar ring of harshness. “You knew all the time and you did not tell me,” she cried. She swung round on Pagan almos
t scornfully. “I suppose one could not expect him to tell me; but you, Dicky, you might have told me.”

  Baron did not flinch before her anger. He raised his head slowly and met her wild angry eyes. “Clare dear, we did not know till this afternoon,” he answered gently. “Charles’ first impulse was to tell you—to play the game, he said; but I persuaded him not to.”

  Her haggard eyes came back to Pagan. “I am glad you wanted to play the game,” she cried.

  “We talked it all over, Baron and I,” said Pagan miserably, “and we both agreed that it would—be kinder not to.”

  She turned the little packet of cigarettes over and over and over in her lap. Suddenly she shot out her hands impulsively and touched Pagan’s arm and Baron’s. Her voice had lost its strange harshness. “I am sorry,” she said gently. “I know you did what you thought was best for me. You are both very kind. You must forgive me; it has been a shock.” And then suddenly she covered her face with her hands.

  Baron stumbled quickly round the table. He put one hand gently on her shoulder and with the other grasped her wrists. “Clare, Clare,” he murmured soothingly.

  She felt and found the hand that held her wrist and pressed it against her face. “Oh, Dicky, Dicky,” she cried shudderingly. “Beautiful, handsome Roger, all horribly maimed.”

  Pagan looked on in silent misery.

  Presently she put down her hands and raised her head.

  Pagan stumbled to his feet. “Let me get you something,” he said. “A cognac.”

  She shook her head and looked at him with a wan smile. “Thank you—but I am all right, really.”

  “Sure?” asked Baron looking down at her.

  “Yes—really.”

  Baron picked up the packet of cigarettes which had fallen upon the ground. She thanked him with a tired little smile and put them in her bag. Then she pulled the high collar of her cloak about her throat. “Would you mind very much if we went back now,” she asked. “I—I would …”

  “Of course,” agreed Pagan.

  They walked slowly back up the long avenue to the hotel, Clare in the middle silent but with head erect, Pagan and Baron in embarrassed sympathetic silence on either side. Behind them the coloured lights of the café disappeared behind the intervening trees, and the quavering skirl of the violin sank to a distant murmur. Slowly they mounted the hotel steps and passed into the foyer. In the light of the warm-shaded lamps her face seemed less pale. She halted at the foot of the broad staircase and turned to them with a sad little smile.

  “I think I will go to bed now,” she said. “You have been very sweet to me, both of you.” She smiled at them a little unsteadily. “Thank you.” She placed her hand upon the broad polished balustrade. “Good night.”

  “Good night,” murmured Baron. Pagan looked at her in mute misery.

  She mounted a step and paused. She turned her head and smiled at them bravely, and then she went slowly up the stairs.

  When she had disappeared from view round the broad sweep of the staircase, the eyes of the two men met in an eloquent look. Baron pursed up his lips and nodded his head gloomily. Pagan stared abstractedly at the tall palm in its tub of hammered brass.

  “And what is going to happen now!” he murmured at last.

  “God only knows,” answered Baron, “but I would like to wring that damned fool Griffin’s neck,” he added with sudden vehemence.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I

  BRIGHT sunlight streamed through the long open windows of the dining-room as Baron and Pagan sat at breakfast the next morning, and on the green mountain side across the valley the dark red roofs of the scattered homesteads glowed brightly in the cheerful light. The coffee and rolls and cool fresh butter were excellent, but it was not a cheerful meal. Baron ate in gloom silence, and Pagan’s customary cheery word to the waiter was absent.

  “What do you think is going to happen?” asked Pagan after a long silence.

  Baron put down his cup and scowled at his plate. “You mean, what will Clare do?”

  Pagan nodded.

  Baron shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “Lord only knows, I don’t. What can she do? She will be miserable whatever she does. There isn’t anything to do except forget all about it, which of course she can’t do.” He dabbed some butter viciously on to a piece of roll. “I’d like to wring that fool Griffin’s flaming neck.”

  Pagan stared out at the sunlit garden. “Can’t we do anything?” he asked doubtfully.

  Baron shook his head. “No, we can’t do anything; it is out of our hands now. We can only sit back and look on. Nice cheery little holiday for all of us, isn’t it!”

  Pagan stared at his cup in silence. “What do you think she will do?” he said again.

  Baron made a movement of impatience. “My dear Charles,” he said irritably, “there is only one sensible thing to do; we know that. And if she does it she will be miserable because she has done it. And who knows what a woman will ever do, anyway?”

  Clare, when she appeared, was pale, and looked as though she had slept but little, but about her there was an air of quiet dignity and determination that had been lacking the previous evening.

  “Dicky,” she said, “will you do something for me?”

  “Of course,” agreed Baron readily.

  “I want you to go and tell Roger that I am here.”

  Baron’s eyes met Pagan’s gloomily. “Is that necessary?” he asked gruffly, after a pause.

  “Please, Dicky!”

  He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  “And I want you to make arrangements for me to meet him.”

  Baron gave way to a gesture of impatience. “But really, Clare, don’t you think …” he began.

  “Please, Dicky, will you do what I ask?”

  Baron relapsed into gloomy silence. She went on in a calm and almost toneless voice. “At first I had thought of going to his dug-out, but I think it would be better not to. The best plan, I think, would be to meet at Kleber’s inn. The sooner the better—to-day if possible.”

  Baron scowled at his plate. “That’s all very well,” he cried at last with obvious restraint, “but you ought not to rush into this on the spur of the moment. You ought to think the whole thing out from every point of view.”

  She turned to him wearily. “What do you imagine I have been doing all night?” she asked with a mirthless little laugh. Then her voice softened again. “But you will do this for me, Dicky?”

  He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and nodded gloomily.

  “Thank you,” she said simply. “I know it is horrid for you, Dicky, but—I cannot ask Charles.”

  “Oh no, no,” protested Baron. “Certainly I will go.”

  “Thank you. Griffin will take you up.”

  Baron rose to his feet. “I think I will go and see about it now.”

  Pagan followed him from the room. “Would you like me to come with you?” he asked.

  “Oh no, old Charles. I am going now. She is all keyed up and wants to get it over. I am going at once. Though heaven only knows how it’s all going to end. But she has made up her mind, and you and I might just as well try to stop Niagara.” He took a couple of paces forward and then turned back. “But I am damned sorry for you, old Charles … and Clare … and poor old Roger.”

  II

  Baron returned soon after midday and flung himself wearily into a chair in Pagan’s room. “I have fixed it up, Charles,” he said. “He will be at the inn at five o’clock. It was pretty ghastly. He didn’t want to do it at first, but I persuaded him—much against my better judgment. Poor devil, he asked if I thought he had better put something over his face, and I had to say yes.” Baron turned his head and looked at Pagan with strained eyes. “I say, Charles, he is a ghastly sight!” He turned his head again and stared at the carpet. “And if only you had seen him as he used to be when I knew him.”

  Pagan rang the bell. “You had better have a drink,” he said.

  Bar
on roused himself from his brown study and looked up with a rather haggard smile. “Thanks, old Charles, I knew there was something I wanted.”

  “I found it a bit trying,” said Pagan, “and he was not even a fellow I knew.”

  Baron nodded his head solemnly. “It was damned uncanny,” he murmured, “talking to a fellow one had believed dead for years. He was—sort of—flummoxed, and I—I wasn’t too happy. Found it a bit difficult to strike the right note you know. Didn’t want to overdo the cheerfulness business—nor the other thing. We were both a bit worked up, but we managed to get through the business all right—kept it matter of fact. Nice weather, jolly little place you’ve got up here, sort of thing. One or two awkward pauses though. Bit of a strain.”

  III

  The car came round for them at four o’clock, and Clare came down a few moments later. Except for a certain strained immobility of expression she looked her usual self, but Pagan noted that the colour in her face was for once artificial.

  “Will you come too, Charles?” she asked.

  “If you want me to,” he answered quietly.