Bell Timson

by Marguerite Steen

  I called to Susan, who happened to be in the room behind me, pressing out one of the children’s frocks.

  “That won’t do, will it?”

  Susan came to stand beside me on the balcony; she watched for a moment, then nodded slowly.

  “There’s the din as well. Kathleen never gets her afternoon rest, and look at last night!” About a dozen people had come back with us from Biarritz, and, to use an old expression, “the rafters dirled” until four or five in the morning. I knew Kathleen, who woke if you dropped a pin, could not have slept, although Jo, the little pig, would snore through a bombardment.

  It was really very awkward, and I could not say anything to Mrs. Carpenter, as it was I who had made a point of bringing the girls, and nothing could have been kinder than the fuss she made of them — especially her favorite, Jo. If the child had not had a cast-iron inside she would have been killed by the sweets that were stuffed into her; as it was, unless I was mistaken, Jo was blowing up for a first-rate bilious attack, and Kathleen was green for want of rest and sleep.

  “Leave it to me,” said Susan suddenly. “I’ll fix it.”

  I should put in that Susan had the greatest gift for getting on in a foreign language of anyone I ever met. She did not know a syllable of French, and she never shouted, like many English people do when they talk to foreigners; but she made herself understood without, apparently, any trouble. I suppose she had had practice with Lady Cynthia.

  “You won’t be needing me this afternoon, Mrs. Timson?” she said. “I think I’ll catch the three o’clock bus and go down to the town.” The town, for Susan, was St.-Jean-de-Luz; she always said “Biarritz” with a kind of sniff, as if it left a bad smell under her nose.

  “All right, Susan,” I said. We had drawn much closer together since Kathleen’s illness. I always felt, up to then, she only stopped with me for the sake of Mr. Somervell. It made me a bit offhand in dealing with her; I don’t care for patronage, especially not from people who work for me. But she had been wonderful with Kathleen, and I knew that if Susan took the matter in hand everything would be put right.

  When she came back it was all fixed. She had found a little hotel on the Promenade: the kind of hotel English people don’t know about, where the French go, as they say, en famille. Goodness knows how she made them understand her; but she had arranged for a room for the girls with one opening out of it, for herself; she had got the terms en pension written down, and even in francs they looked a fleabite in comparison with what I paid for the four of us at Rhyl and such places during the usual holidays.

  I had to put it very tactfully to Mrs. Carpenter: that the girls were really in the way, that it made grown-up people uncomfortable to have children always around. At first she would not hear of it, but it ended in her insisting on paying the bill for the three of them. “After all, Tim, I promised I’d have them at the villa.” I realized she would have felt uncomfortable if I had refused, and off they went in the white car with Susan that very afternoon: Kathleen not so pleased as Jo, for, as I had seen, she was getting a taste for the gay life up at the villa.

  I then had to plan my day so as to do the fair thing by everybody. I spent the morning with Mrs. Carpenter and gave her her massages. I had lunch at Les Óleandres, and I let her send me down to the town in the car, because she never used it in the early afternoon, and it did that lazy beast Michel no harm to have an extra journey. I spent the afternoon with the girls and was back at the villa in time to change and have cocktails.

  We used to spend our time on the sands and then go back to the hotel, where they made themselves smart for tea. Then we strolled into the town, looking at the shops: lovely clothes and modern jewelry. I spent quite a lot of money, for I had been very lucky at the tables; playing every night, I seemed to have an instinct for it. I would follow rouge for an hour, making on every round, then for no reason I’d change, and noir would come up as if I’d called it! Quite a lot of the gamblers used to follow me, and I was more than two hundred pounds in pocket, which, as I always gambled in small stakes, was good. I looked on the money as a windfall I could spend on the girls. Kathleen was seventeen: an age when they love bits of jewelry and fancy oddments. It was harder to find things for Jo, but, bless the child, she never cared. “Never mind me, Mummy; I don’t want any dress-up things. Get something for Kay. She had a heart of gold.

  After tea we generally strolled back along the promenade and over the headland, to watch the waves dashing on the breakwater; it made me shudder, but they loved it. Then we went back to the hotel. Or we went across to the old town, that they call Ciboure, and watched the fishing boats come in. Then, as a rule, I sent them back with Susan and sometimes had a cocktail before I picked up my taxi for the villa.

  I liked St.-Jean-de-Luz and agreed with Susan that it was a better place for the children; it hadn’t the vicious element of Biarritz, and the bathing was safer. I liked the long, open front and the little Casino, which did not seem a kind of fascinating monster, like the one at Biarritz, but a funny little doll’s house, built for grown-up children. It had no records of suicides or nasty histories that sent a creepy feeling through your hair when you walked into the rooms. And I was glad to have them away from the feverish — although well-meaning — atmosphere of the villa, where they could not help hearing a lot of things they were better without.

  Just before you got to the Casino there used to be a little bar, where I often had my cocktail; you only had to step round the corner for a taxi, and it faced toward the sunset, which is always lovely at St.-Jean. The people there were young and healthy, jolly boys and girls — not like the crowd I was going back to at Les Oleandres. To tell the truth, I was beginning to get a bit tired of them; that sort of vice is amusing, to begin with, as a spectacle, but when it never varies or shows any sort of originality or invention the monotony begins to get you down.

  It was only a couple of nights before we came home, and I had been telling Susan about the packing, when I stepped into this little bar and ordered my usual martini. It was rather early for the usual customers, and the only person besides me was a man I had noticed once or twice in my walks along the Promenade.

  I am not good at descriptions, but for once I am going to try and make a picture in words of Dr. Lavigne. That is not his proper name; it would not do for me to put down the real one, for it was famous all over the continent, as well as in France and England, and although he is dead now, I don’t want to cause trouble or embarrassment, as I might do if his name were linked with mine. Let me say straight away there was never a shadow of an affaire between us and that our relationship, while it lasted, was conducted on the strictest lines that English professional etiquette — I don’t know anything about the French variety — would approve.

  He sat in an angle of the window and wall, just across from me, with the light falling on his face. It was one of those small-boned, sallow faces common among Frenchmen, which I do not admire as a rule; and he had a little pointed beard and mustache very like the cartoons of “M. Crapaud” in old magazines. He was, in fact, what I should have called a typical Frenchman, except he had not got that sexy self-consciousness that seems to come over any Frenchman when he looks at any woman between the ages of seventeen and seventy — unless she has got a squint and pigeon toes. He had heavy-lidded eyes, but they were not sensual; they gave one the idea that he had looked upon so many disappointing and saddening things that his soul was tired with them. I know that sounds romantic, but I give my word I never had a romantic thought about Dr. Lavigne during the short time I knew him; and the more I knew, the more he inspired in me a respect I have never known for any other man — except, in a different way, for Mr. Somervell. There was a neat, fastidious sort of thing about him; he made one feel that one must be very clean and particular about one’s person, whenever he came near one. He had rather a high, square brow, and — really, that’s all I remember: except that, sitting opposite him in the bar, I noticed he used his left hand for his gl
ass, and that the right hand lay on his knee, with a glove on. I got the idea that he had injured it in some way.

  I think all this shows that I was interested in Dr. Lavigne; but if anyone had told me that, sitting there, watching him, not too openly for fear of seeming flirtatious, there in the light of the sunset, I was watching my own fate, I would have laughed the idea to ridicule.

  Well, I am a friendly sort of person, and as we were by ourselves, except for the barman, polishing his glasses at the other end of the room, it did not seem natural not to speak. I tried out my sentence in a whisper, then I said it aloud, jerking my head toward the window, to make sure my meaning was clear.

  “Belle couche de soleil, monsieur” — a beautiful couch of the sun; otherwise, a pretty sunset.

  He smiled and to my relief, for I knew I couldn’t keep this up, answered me in English. I wondered if my French sounded as funny as his English; but he had a perfect command of the language, and, apart from the accent, he never made a slip.

  “We have beautiful sunsets on this coast, madame.”

  “You’re a native, I suppose?” I asked him.

  He shook his head.

  “No. I am only here, like yourself, on holiday. Madame is no doubt staying at one of the hotels.” He did not say it snoopily, like somebody trying to make a pickup, but with a sort of polite indifference-making conversation.

  “As a matter of fact I’m stopping at Les Óleandres; I expect you know Mrs. Carpenter,” I answered, knowing that practically everybody in these parts, whether native or visitors, knew the villa.

  “Ah, an anglaise, is it not? I have not the honor to know Mme. Carpenter, but I have met some of her friends. Am I permitted to offer Madame an aperitif?”

  I had not noticed my glass was empty, and now I looked rather hurriedly at my watch. I did not want to be late and put Mrs. Carpenter out, as I knew she liked me to be there at cocktail time — I never knew why, as her guests were more than capable of looking after themselves. But I only had two more nights before I left, so I was anxious to do the right thing. At the same time I felt interested in my companion and reluctant to cut the meeting short before I had learned a little more of him.

  “It will have to be a quick one,” I said. “These local chauffeurs go into slow motion at the sight of our hill!”

  He beckoned — still with his left hand — to the barman, who came over and collected our glasses.

  “Madame will allow me to join her at her table?”

  He sat down on the padded leather bench beside me. You generally feel a seat “give” when someone sits down, but he was so light that unless I had been looking at him I would not have known he was there. Like most Frenchmen, he was short, about the same height as I, and very slight in proportion.

  We chatted away easily enough; it appeared he had noticed me with the girls. He asked about them and their ages, and how we had enjoyed our holiday in St.-Jean-de-Luz.

  ‘Tor myself, I prefer this Côte d’Argent to the Côte d’Azur,” he told me. “No doubt Madame knows the South of France well.”

  “No, I don’t,” I corrected him. “This is my first visit to France, but I don’t mean it to be the last. Next time I hope I’ll see Paris, and Monte Carlo, and a bit of Provence — but I’ll have to earn some more money before I do that!”

  This seemed to catch his attention.

  “Alors, madame est femme d’affaires?” He had to translate that for me.

  “A business woman? Yes. I’m a masseuse,” I told him.

  I might almost have put a shot into him. His rather slack, indifferent manner vanished — although he did not change his position; and I felt that for the first time I had got his full attention.

  “C’est curieux,” I heard him murmur. “Will Madame permit me to ask a favor? Will you show me your hands?”

  I stripped off my gloves and laid my hands on the edge of the table. He bent over to look at them so closely that I could actually feel his breath on my knuckles.

  “Formidable ... How long have you practiced, madame?”

  I told him the number of years, and he continued to look at my hands as though he had never seen any like them before. I almost began to feel as if there was something the matter with them — some sort of deformity! I was just going to move them when he suddenly looked up at me.

  “Madame, will you do me the honor of dining with me tomorrow night? One moment; please do not accuse me of impertinence. Here is my card.” He passed it to me, still with his left hand, and I read Dr. Pierre Lavigne — it was not the name — and an address in, of all places, Orleans. I knew about Joan of Arc, of course, but Orleans, to me, was just one of those places that don’t happen, outside the history books.

  I have often wondered, since, what he must have thought of my blank look when I lifted my eyes from his card. I don’t suppose he had ever met anyone so ignorant in his life.

  “Oh, you’re a doctor.”

  “Yes, madame; I am a doctor.” He did not even smile as he said it. “Perhaps that explains to you my interest in your hands. Je vous en prie!” I had picked up my gloves again. “Leave them there It is not often that one has the — opportunity to look upon such a pair of hands.”

  I began to feel embarrassed.

  “I don’t see anything special about them —”

  This time he smiled.

  “Is there not a saying in your country, madame, ‘Familiarity

  “‘Breeds contempt,’“ I finished it for him.

  “Contempt — for such hands ...” It seemed to shock him.

  “Well, I’ve found them useful; but it certainly never struck me they were particularly beautiful,” I admitted.

  “Beautiful? Who speaks of beauty?” He sounded quite cross. Then he seemed to recover himself. “It is not usual, I know, to ask a lady to whom one has not been introduced to dine with one; it is, if I may say so, a compliment I would only venture to pay to an Englishwoman!”

  “Well, I always thought Frenchwomen were supposed to be — well, gayer than we are.” I was playing for time.

  “Perhaps one is not always looking for gaiety? Perhaps Madame may have a different conception of the French, after — pardon!” But his eyes were glistening with triumph. I had pulled my hands back off the table; I felt things were moving too fast. “I did not touch them. Parole d’honneur, madame, I did not take the liberty of touching your hands!”

  “But I distinctly felt —” I stammered. I felt like a silly girl of sixteen, but the sensation which had run through my fingers had now put me thoroughly on my guard.

  “A moment. Close your eyes.”

  I hesitated, then I did so.

  “Now put your hands back on the table.”

  After a moment I obeyed. Almost instantly I felt in my finger tips a sensation as if someone was touching them with a small feather. The feather was not stiff, but very soft and vibrant, as if it were still on the body of a living bird.

  “Open your eyes.”

  I did so.

  “Now look.”

  His left hand was lying on the table, the tips of the fingers pointing toward mine. But they were not touching. They were very close, but you could have slid a thick piece of paper between them, and our fingers would have cleared the paper on either side. He moved his hand away, and I no longer felt the sensation; he replaced it in the same position, and again I felt the tiny electric quiver enter my fingers.

  Now I was suspicious and on the lookout for funny business. I suppose my expression gave me away, for he said:

  “It is not at all uncanny, madame — or anything that science does not explain. It is as I had imagined: that the nerves in those thick, padded fingers of yours — particularly in the right hand, which is odd, for that is usually the less sensitive of the two — are abnormally developed; you would find that out if you ever became blind. Your right hand might serve you as a cats whiskers serve it in the dark; it would warn you of the proximity of objects before you touched them. My left ha
nd, you will observe, is not unlike yours. Such hands, as you have no doubt discovered, madame, may mean a fortune to the masseur.”

  “You’ve hurt your right one, haven’t you?”

  He seemed to stiffen.

  “A sprain. I do a little manipulation now and again — although it is not, as you see from my degree, my subject.” I knew nothing about foreign degrees and felt I might as well hide my ignorance, so I nodded. “It would give me great pleasure, madame, to talk with you; to discuss with you the range and the possibilities of your work. This, I give you my word, is my only motive in asking you to dine with me. Pray do me the honor of believing it and give me a single evening to relieve the boredom — for an invalid — of this charming St.-Jean-de-Luz!”

  My mind caught at the word “invalid,” and, giving him another look, at closer quarters, it struck me that the sallow pallor was not, as I had taken it to be, natural; he looked like a man who had recently come through a bad illness, from which he had not yet quite recovered. He was also much older than I had taken him to be, across the corner of the room, or his looks belied him. In spite of his dapper figure and the unstreaked darkness of his hair and beard, he was a man of sixty at least, although in a Kinder light, and from a short distance, he might have passed for forty-eight or fifty.

  Well, I did not know how it was to be managed or how Mrs. Carpenter would take it; but my curiosity was roused, and I meant to accept this invitation. I said I would be at the restaurant which I had already heard of as the best eating place in St.-Jean at eight o’clock the following night — and I told the taxi man to drive like the devil to Les Óleandres.

  Chapter II

  THE NEWSPAPERS, having nothing better on hand in the “Silly Season,” were making a great splash of a society divorce case. I was sorry for the duke, because the people concerned were his son and his daughter-in-law and a young lad of a guards officer — a boy I knew quite well by sight, being a fairly regular patron of Floras. As one can imagine, there was a lot of gossip, each person claiming to know a bit more than the last, and the family name was pretty well muddied-up by the time they had done with it. It was a long time before I saw the duke, who kept away from Flora’s — for which I didn’t blame him. Flora’s brand of sympathy was a bit too bracing for anybody who was feeling sore, and I felt pretty sure he was taking it to heart. The funny thing was that, although the duke was perhaps a bit of a rip on the side, he had great dignity and pride of family, and one could see that, for all his fun and games, he would never have entertained anything that meant blotting the escutcheon. Well, according to the scandalmongers, the escutcheon was now blotted, good and proper, and by the person he loved, next to his own son, best in the world.