The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham: East and West (Vol. 1 of 2))

by W. Somerset Maugham

  “Oh, what a beautiful dog he’s going to be when he’s as white as the driven snow. His master will be as proud as Punch to walk out with him and all the little lady-dogs will say: Good gracious, who’s that beautiful aristocratic-looking bull-terrier walking as though he owned the whole of Switzerland? Now stand still while you have your ears washed. You couldn’t bear to go out into the street with dirty ears, could you? like a nasty little Swiss schoolboy. Noblesse oblige. Now the black nose. Oh, and all the soap is going into his little pink eyes and they’ll smart.”

  Mrs Caypor listened to this nonsense with a good-humoured sluggish smile on her broad, plain face, and presently gravely took a towel.

  “Now he’s going to have a ducking. Upsie-daisy.”

  Caypor seized the dog by the fore-legs and ducked him once and ducked him twice. There was a struggle, a flurry and a splashing. Caypor lifted him out of the bath.

  “Now go to mother and she’ll dry you.”

  Mrs Caypor sat down and taking the dog between her strong legs rubbed him till the sweat poured off her forehead. And Fritzi, a little shaken and breathless, but happy it was all over, stood, with his sweet stupid face, white and shining.

  “Blood will tell,” cried Caypor exultantly. “He knows the names of no less than sixty-four of his ancestors, and they were all nobly born.”

  Ashenden was faintly troubled. He shivered a little as he walked upstairs.

  Then, one Sunday, Caypor told him that he and his wife were going on an excursion and would eat their luncheon at some little mountain restaurant; and he suggested that Ashenden, each paying his share, should come with them. After three weeks at Lucerne Ashenden thought that his strength would permit him to venture the exertion. They started early, Mrs Caypor businesslike in her walking boots and Tyrolese hat and alpenstock, and Caypor in stockings and plus-fours looking very British. The situation amused Ashenden and he was prepared to enjoy his day; but he meant to keep his eyes open; it was not inconceivable that the Caypors had discovered what he was and it would not do to go too near a precipice; Mrs Caypor would not hesitate to give him a push and Caypor for all his jolliness was an ugly customer. But on the face of it there was nothing to mar Ashenden’s pleasure in the golden morning. The air was fragrant. Caypor was full of conversation. He told funny stories. He was gay and jovial. The sweat rolled off his great red face and he laughed at himself because he was so fat. To Ashenden’s astonishment he showed a peculiar knowledge of the mountain flowers. Once he went out of the way to pick one he saw a little distance from the path and brought it back to his wife. He looked at it tenderly.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” he cried, and his shifty grey-green eyes for a moment were as candid as a child’s. “It’s like a poem by Walter Savage Landor.”

  “Botany is my husband’s favourite science,” said Mrs Caypor. “I laugh at him sometimes. He is devoted to flowers. Often when we have hardly had enough money to pay the butcher he has spent everything in his pocket to bring me a bunch of roses.”

  “Qui fleurit sa maison fleurit son cœur,” said Grantley Caypor.

  Ashenden had once or twice seen Caypor, coming in from a walk, offer Mrs Fitzgerald a nosegay of mountain flowers with an elephantine courtesy that was not entirely displeasing; and what he had just learned added a certain significance to the pretty little action. His passion for flowers was genuine and when he gave them to the old Irish lady he gave her something he valued. It showed a real kindness of heart. Ashenden had always thought botany a tedious science, but Caypor, talking exuberantly as they walked along, was able to impart to it life and interest. He must have given it a good deal of study.

  “I’ve never written a book,” he said. “There are too many books already and any desire to write I have is satisfied by the more immediately profitable and quite ephemeral composition of an article for a daily paper. But if I stay here much longer I have half a mind to write a book about the wild flowers of Switzerland. Oh, I wish you’d been here a little earlier. They were marvellous. But one wants to be a poet for that, and I’m only a poor newspaper-man.”

  It was curious to observe how he was able to combine real emotion with false fact.

  When they reached the inn, with its view of the mountains and the lake, it was good to see the sensual pleasure with which he poured down his throat a bottle of ice-cold beer. You could not but feel sympathy for a man who took so much delight in simple things. They lunched deliciously off scrambled eggs and mountain trout. Even Mrs Caypor was moved to an unwonted gentleness by her surroundings; the inn was in an agreeably rural spot, it looked like a picture of a Swiss chalet in a book of early nineteenth-century travels; and she treated Ashenden with something less than her usual hostility. When they arrived she had burst into loud German exclamations on the beauty of the scene, and now, softened perhaps too by food and drink, her eyes, dwelling on the grandeur before her, filled with tears. She stretched out her hand.

  “It is dreadful and I am ashamed, notwithstanding this horrible and unjust war I can feel in my heart at the moment nothing but happiness and gratitude.”

  Caypor took her hand and pressed it and, an unusual thing with him, addressing her in German, called her little pet-names. It was absurd, but touching. Ashenden, leaving them to their emotions, strolled through the garden and sat down on a bench that had been prepared for the comfort of the tourist. The view was of course spectacular, but it captured you; it was like a piece of music that was obvious and meretricious, but for the moment shattered your self-control.

  And as Ashenden lingered idly in that spot he pondered over the mystery of Grantley Caypor’s treachery. If he liked strange people he had found in him one who was strange beyond belief. It would be foolish to deny that he had amiable traits. His joviality was not assumed, he was without pretence a hearty fellow, and he had real good nature. He was always ready to do a kindness. Ashenden had often watched him with the old Irish colonel and his wife who were the only other residents of the hotel; he would listen good-humouredly to the old man’s tedious stories of the Egyptian war, and he was charming with her. Now that Ashenden had arrived at terms of some familiarity with Caypor he found that he regarded him less with repulsion than with curiosity. He did not think that he had become a spy merely for the money; he was a man of modest tastes and what he had earned in a shipping-office must have sufficed to so good a manager as Mrs Caypor; and after war was declared there was no lack of remunerative work for men over the military age. It might be that he was one of those men who prefer devious, ways to straight for some intricate pleasure they get in fooling their fellows; and that he had turned spy, not from hatred of the country that had imprisoned him, not even from love of his wife, but from a desire to score off the big-wigs who never even knew of his existence. It might be that it was vanity that impelled him, a feeling that his talents had not received the recognition they merited, or just a puckish, impish desire to do mischief. He was a crook. It is true that only two cases of dishonesty had been brought home to him, but if he had been caught twice it might be surmised that he had often been dishonest without being caught. What did Mrs Caypor think of this? They were so united that she must be aware of it. Did it make her ashamed, for her own uprightness surely none could doubt, or did she accept it as an inevitable kink in the man she loved? Did she do all she could to prevent it or did she close her eyes to something she could not help?

  How much easier life would be if people were all black or all white and how much simpler it would be to act in regard to them! Was Caypor a good man who loved evil or a bad man who loved good? And how could such unreconcilable elements exist side by side and in harmony within the same heart? For one thing was clear, Caypor was disturbed by no gnawing of conscience; he did his mean and despicable work with gusto. He was a traitor who enjoyed his treachery. Though Ashenden had been studying human nature more or less consciously all his life, it seemed to him that he knew as little about it now in middle age as he had done when he was a child. Of co
urse R. would have said to him: Why the devil do you waste your time with such nonsense? The man’s a dangerous spy and your business is to lay him by the heels.

  That was true enough. Ashenden had decided that it would be useless to attempt to make any arrangement with Caypor. Though doubtless he would have no feeling about betraying his employers he could certainly not be trusted. His wife’s influence was too strong. Besides, notwithstanding what he had from time to time told Ashenden, he was in his heart convinced that the Central Powers must win the war, and he meant to be on the winning side. Well, then Caypor must be laid by the heels, but how he was to effect that Ashenden had no notion. Suddenly he heard a voice.

  “There you are. We’ve been wondering where you had hidden yourself.”

  He looked around and saw the Caypors strolling towards him. They were walking hand in hand.

  “So this is what has kept you so quiet,” said Caypor as his eyes fell on the view. “What a spot!”

  Mrs Caypor clasped her hands.

  “Ach Gott wie schön’ she cried.” Wie schön. When I look at that blue lake and those snowy mountains I feel inclined, like Goethe’s Faust, to cry to the passing moment: Tarry.”

  “This is better than being in England with the excursions and alarums of war, isn’t it?” said Caypor.

  “Much,” said Ashenden.

  “By the way, did you have any difficulty in getting out?”

  “No, not the smallest.”

  “I’m told they make rather a nuisance of themselves at the frontier nowadays.”

  “I came through without the smallest difficulty. I don’t fancy they bother much about the English. I thought the examination of passports was quite perfunctory.”

  A fleeting glance passed between Caypor and his wife. Ashenden wondered what it meant. It would be strange if Caypor’s thoughts were occupied with the chances of a journey to England at the very moment when he was himself reflecting on its possibility. In a little while Mrs Caypor suggested that they had better be starting back and they wandered together in the shade of trees down the mountain paths.

  Ashenden was watchful. He could do nothing (and his inactivity irked him) but wait with his eyes open to seize the opportunity that might present itself. A couple of days later an incident occurred that made him certain something was in the wind. In the course of his morning lesson Mrs Caypor remarked:

  “My husband has gone to Geneva today. He had some business to do there.”

  “Oh,” said Ashenden, “will he be gone long?”

  “No, only two days.”

  It is not everyone who can tell a lie and Ashenden had the feeling, he hardly knew why, that Mrs Caypor was telling one then. Her manner perhaps was not quite as indifferent as you would have expected when she was mentioning a fact that could be of no interest to Ashenden. It flashed across his mind that Caypor had been summoned to Berne to see the redoubtable head of the German secret service. When he had the chance he said casually to the waitress:

  “A little less work for you to do, Fräulein. I hear that Herr Caypor has gone to Berne.”

  “Yes. But he’ll be back tomorrow.”

  That proved nothing, but it was something to go upon. Ashenden knew in Lucerne a Swiss who was willing in emergency to do odd jobs, and looking him up, asked him to take a letter to Berne. It might be possible to pick up Caypor and trace his movements. Next day Caypor appeared once more with his wife at the dinner-table, but merely nodded to Ashenden and afterwards both went straight upstairs. They looked troubled. Caypor, as a rule so animated, walked with bowed shoulders and looked neither to the right nor to the left. Next morning Ashenden received a reply to his letter: Caypor had seen Major von P. It was possible to guess what the Major had said to him. Ashenden well knew how rough he could be; he was a hard man and brutal, clever and unscrupulous, and he was not accustomed to mince his words. They were tired of paying Caypor a salary to sit still in Lucerne and do nothing; the time was come for him to go to England. Guess-work? Of course it was guess-work, but in that trade it mostly was; you had to deduce the animal from its jaw-bone. Ashenden knew from Gustav that the Germans wanted to send someone to England. He drew a long breath; if Caypor went he would have to get busy.

  When Mrs Caypor came in to give him his lesson she was dull and listless. She looked tired and her mouth was set obstinately. It occurred to Ashenden that the Caypors had spent most of the night talking. He wished he knew what they had said. Did she urge him to go or did she try to dissuade him? Ashenden watched them again at luncheon. Something was the matter, for they hardly spoke to one another and as a rule they found plenty to talk about. They left the room early, but when Ashenden went out he saw Caypor sitting in the hall by himself.

  “Hullo,” he cried jovially, but surely the effort was patent, “how are you getting on? I’ve been to Geneva.”

  “So I heard,” said Ashenden.

  “Come and have your coffee with me. My poor wife’s got a headache. I told her she’d better go and lie down.” In his shifty green eyes was an expression that Ashenden could not read. “The fact is, she’s rather worried, poor dear; I’m thinking of going to England.”

  Ashenden’s heart gave a sudden leap against his ribs, but his face remained impassive:

  “Oh, are you going for long? We shall miss you.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m fed up with doing nothing. The war looks as though it were going on for years and I can’t sit here indefinitely. Besides, I can’t afford it, I’ve got to earn my living. I may have a German wife, but I am an Englishman, hang it all, and I want to do my bit. I could never face my friends again if I just stayed here in ease and comfort till the end of the war and never attempted to do a thing to help the country. My wife takes her German point of view and I don’t mind telling you that she’s a bit upset. You know what women are.”

  Now Ashenden knew what it was that he saw in Caypor’s eyes. Fear. It gave him a nasty turn. Caypor didn’t want to go to England, he wanted to stay safely in Switzerland; Ashenden knew now what the major had said to him when he went to see him in Berne. He had got to go or lose his salary. What was it that his wife had said when he told her what had happened? He had wanted her to press him to stay, but, it was plain, she hadn’t done that; perhaps he had not dared tell her how frightened he was; to her he had always been gay, bold, adventurous, and devil-may-care; and now, the prisoner of his own lies, he had not found it in him to confess himself the mean and sneaking coward he was.

  “Are you going to take your wife with you?” asked Ashenden.

  “No, she’ll stay here.”

  It had been arranged very neatly. Mrs Caypor would receive his letters and forward the information they contained to Berne.

  “I’ve been out of England so long that I don’t quite know how to set about getting war-work. What would you do in my place?”

  “I don’t know; what sort of work are you thinking of?”

  “Well, you know, I imagine I could do the same thing as you did. I wonder if there’s anyone in the Censorship Department that you could give me a letter of introduction to.”

  It was only by a miracle that Ashenden saved himself from showing by a smothered cry or by a broken gesture how startled he was; but not by Caypor’s request, but what had just dawned upon him. What an idiot he had been! He had been disturbed by the thought that he was wasting his time at Lucerne, he was doing nothing, and though in fact, as it turned out, Caypor was going to England it was due to no cleverness of his. He could take to himself no credit for the result. And now he saw that he had been put in Lucerne, told how to describe himself and given the proper information, so that what actually had occurred should occur. It would be a wonderful thing for the German secret service to get an agent into the Censorship Department; and by a happy accident there was Grantley Caypor, the very man for the job, on friendly terms with someone who had worked there. What a bit of luck! Major von P. was a man of culture and, rubbing his hands, he must surely have m
urmured: stultum facit fortuna quem vult perdere. It was a trap of that devilish R. and the grim major at Berne had fallen into it. Ashenden had done his work just by sitting still and doing nothing. He almost laughed as he thought what a fool R. had made of him.

  “I was on very good terms with the chief of my department, I could give you a note to him if you liked.”

  “That would be just the thing.”

  “But of course I must give the facts. I must say I’ve met you here and only known you a fortnight.”

  “Of course. But you’ll say what else you can for me, won’t you?”

  “Oh, certainly.”

  “I don’t know yet if I can get a visa. I’m told they’re rather fussy.”

  “I don’t see why. I shall be very sick if they refuse me one when I want to go back.”

  “I’ll go and see how my wife is getting on,” said Caypor suddenly, getting up. “When will you let me have that letter?”

  “Whenever you like. Are you going at once?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  Caypor left him. Ashenden waited in the hall for a quarter of an hour so that there should appear in him no sign of hurry. Then he went upstairs and prepared various communications. In one he informed R. that Caypor was going to England; in another he made arrangements through Berne that wherever Caypor applied for a visa it should be granted to him without question; and these he dispatched forthwith. When he went down to dinner he handed Caypor a cordial letter of introduction.

  Next day but one Caypor left Lucerne.

  Ashenden waited. He continued to have his hour’s lesson with Mrs Caypor and under her conscientious tuition began now to speak German with ease.

  They talked of Goethe and Winckelmann, of art and life and travel. Fritzi sat quietly by her chair.

  “He misses his master,” she said, pulling his ears. “He only really cares for him, he suffers me only as belonging to him.”

  After his lesson Ashenden went every morning to Cook’s to ask for his letters. It was here that all communications were addressed to him. He could not move till he received instructions, but R. could be trusted not to leave him idle long; and meanwhile there was nothing for him to do but have patience. Presently he received a letter from the consul in Geneva to say that Caypor had there applied for his visa and had set out for France. Having read this Ashenden went on for a little stroll by the lake and on his way back happened to see Mrs Caypor coming out of Cook’s office. He guessed that she was having her letters addressed there too. He went up to her.