The Rescue (35 page)

"You have no friends?"

"Not I," he said with decision. "A man like me has no chums."

"It's quite possible," murmured Mrs. Travers to herself.

"No, not even Jorgenson. Old crazy Jorgenson. He calls me King Tom, too.
You see what that's worth."

"Yes, I see. Or rather I have heard. That poor man has no tone, and so
much depends on that. Now suppose I were to call you King Tom now
and then between ourselves," Mrs. Travers' voice proposed, distantly
tentative in the night that invested her person with a colourless
vagueness of form.

She waited in the stillness, her elbows on the rail and her face in her
hands as if she had already forgotten what she had said. She heard at
her elbow the deep murmur of:

"Let's hear you say it."

She never moved the least bit. The sombre lagoon sparkled faintly with
the reflection of the stars.

"Oh, yes, I will let you hear it," she said into the starlit space in a
voice of unaccented gentleness which changed subtly as she went on. "I
hope you will never regret that you came out of your friendless mystery
to speak to me, King Tom. How many days ago it was! And here is another
day gone. Tell me how many more of them there must be? Of these blinding
days and nights without a sound."

"Be patient," he murmured. "Don't ask me for the impossible."

"How do you or I know what is possible?" she whispered with a strange
scorn. "You wouldn't dare guess. But I tell you that every day that
passes is more impossible to me than the day before."

The passion of that whisper went like a stab into his breast. "What am
I to tell you?" he murmured, as if with despair. "Remember that every
sunset makes it a day less. Do you think I want you here?"

A bitter little laugh floated out into the starlight. Mrs. Travers heard
Lingard move suddenly away from her side. She didn't change her pose by
a hair's breadth. Presently she heard d'Alcacer coming out of the Cage.
His cultivated voice asked half playfully:

"Have you had a satisfactory conversation? May I be told something of
it?"

"Mr. d'Alcacer, you are curious."

"Well, in our position, I confess. . . . You are our only refuge,
remember."

"You want to know what we were talking about," said Mrs. Travers,
altering slowly her position so as to confront d'Alcacer whose face was
almost undistinguishable. "Oh, well, then, we talked about opera, the
realities and illusions of the stage, of dresses, of people's names, and
things of that sort."

"Nothing of importance," he said courteously. Mrs. Travers moved forward
and he stepped to one side. Inside the Cage two Malay hands were hanging
round lanterns, the light of which fell on Mr. Travers' bowed head as he
sat in his chair.

When they were all assembled for the evening meal Jorgenson strolled up
from nowhere in particular as his habit was, and speaking through the
muslin announced that Captain Lingard begged to be excused from joining
the company that evening. Then he strolled away. From that moment till
they got up from the table and the camp bedsteads were brought in not
twenty words passed between the members of the party within the net. The
strangeness of their situation made all attempts to exchange ideas very
arduous; and apart from that each had thoughts which it was distinctly
useless to communicate to the others. Mr. Travers had abandoned himself
to his sense of injury. He did not so much brood as rage inwardly in
a dull, dispirited way. The impossibility of asserting himself in any
manner galled his very soul. D'Alcacer was extremely puzzled. Detached
in a sense from the life of men perhaps as much even as Jorgenson
himself, he took yet a reasonable interest in the course of events and
had not lost all his sense of self-preservation. Without being able to
appreciate the exact values of the situation he was not one of those men
who are ever completely in the dark in any given set of circumstances.
Without being humorous he was a good-humoured man. His habitual, gentle
smile was a true expression. More of a European than of a Spaniard he
had that truly aristocratic nature which is inclined to credit every
honest man with something of its own nobility and in its judgment is
altogether independent of class feeling. He believed Lingard to be an
honest man and he never troubled his head to classify him, except in
the sense that he found him an interesting character. He had a sort of
esteem for the outward personality and the bearing of that seaman. He
found in him also the distinction of being nothing of a type. He was a
specimen to be judged only by its own worth. With his natural gift of
insight d'Alcacer told himself that many overseas adventurers of history
were probably less worthy because obviously they must have been less
simple. He didn't, however, impart those thoughts formally to Mrs.
Travers. In fact he avoided discussing Lingard with Mrs. Travers who, he
thought, was quite intelligent enough to appreciate the exact shade of
his attitude. If that shade was fine, Mrs. Travers was fine, too; and
there was no need to discuss the colours of this adventure. Moreover,
she herself seemed to avoid all direct discussion of the Lingard element
in their fate. D'Alcacer was fine enough to be aware that those two
seemed to understand each other in a way that was not obvious even to
themselves. Whenever he saw them together he was always much tempted to
observe them. And he yielded to the temptation. The fact of one's
life depending on the phases of an obscure action authorizes a certain
latitude of behaviour. He had seen them together repeatedly, communing
openly or apart, and there was in their way of joining each other,
in their poses and their ways of separating, something special and
characteristic and pertaining to themselves only, as if they had been
made for each other.

What he couldn't understand was why Mrs. Travers should have put off his
natural curiosity as to her latest conference with the Man of Fate by
an incredible statement as to the nature of the conversation. Talk about
dresses, opera, people's names. He couldn't take this seriously. She
might have invented, he thought, something more plausible; or simply
have told him that this was not for him to know. She ought to have known
that he would not have been offended. Couldn't she have seen already
that he accepted the complexion of mystery in her relation to that man
completely, unquestionably; as though it had been something preordained
from the very beginning of things? But he was not annoyed with Mrs.
Travers. After all it might have been true. She would talk exactly as
she liked, and even incredibly, if it so pleased her, and make the man
hang on her lips. And likewise she was capable of making the man talk
about anything by a power of inspiration for reasons simple or perverse.
Opera! Dresses! Yes—about Shakespeare and the musical glasses! For a
mere whim or for the deepest purpose. Women worthy of the name were like
that. They were very wonderful. They rose to the occasion and sometimes
above the occasion when things were bound to occur that would be comic
or tragic (as it happened) but generally charged with trouble even to
innocent beholders. D'Alcacer thought these thoughts without bitterness
and even without irony. With his half-secret social reputation as a man
of one great passion in a world of mere intrigues he liked all women.
He liked them in their sentiment and in their hardness, in the tragic
character of their foolish or clever impulses, at which he looked with a
sort of tender seriousness.

He didn't take a favourable view of the position but he considered Mrs.
Travers' statement about operas and dresses as a warning to keep off the
subject. For this reason he remained silent through the meal.

When the bustle of clearing away the table was over he strolled toward
Mrs. Travers and remarked very quietly:

"I think that in keeping away from us this evening the Man of Fate was
well inspired. We dined like a lot of Carthusian monks."

"You allude to our silence?"

"It was most scrupulous. If we had taken an eternal vow we couldn't have
kept it better."

"Did you feel bored?"

"Pas du tout," d'Alcacer assured her with whimsical gravity. "I felt
nothing. I sat in a state of blessed vacuity. I believe I was the
happiest of us three. Unless you, too, Mrs. Travers. . . ."

"It's absolutely no use your fishing for my thoughts, Mr. d'Alcacer. If
I were to let you see them you would be appalled."

"Thoughts really are but a shape of feelings. Let me congratulate you
on the impassive mask you can put on those horrors you say you nurse in
your breast. It was impossible to tell anything by your face."

"You will always say flattering things."

"Madame, my flatteries come from the very bottom of my heart. I have
given up long ago all desire to please. And I was not trying to get at
your thoughts. Whatever else you may expect from me you may count on my
absolute respect for your privacy. But I suppose with a mask such as you
can make for yourself you really don't care. The Man of Fate, I noticed,
is not nearly as good at it as you are."

"What a pretentious name. Do you call him by it to his face, Mr.
d'Alcacer?"

"No, I haven't the cheek," confessed d'Alcacer, equably. "And, besides,
it's too momentous for daily use. And he is so simple that he might
mistake it for a joke and nothing could be further from my thoughts.
Mrs. Travers, I will confess to you that I don't feel jocular in the
least. But what can he know about people of our sort? And when I reflect
how little people of our sort can know of such a man I am quite content
to address him as Captain Lingard. It's common and soothing and most
respectable and satisfactory; for Captain is the most empty of all
titles. What is a Captain? Anybody can be a Captain; and for Lingard
it's a name like any other. Whereas what he deserves is something
special, significant, and expressive, that would match his person, his
simple and romantic person."

He perceived that Mrs. Travers was looking at him intently. They
hastened to turn their eyes away from each other.

"He would like your appreciation," Mrs. Travers let drop negligently.

"I am afraid he would despise it."

"Despise it! Why, that sort of thing is the very breath of his
nostrils."

"You seem to understand him, Mrs. Travers. Women have a singular
capacity for understanding. I mean subjects that interest them; because
when their imagination is stimulated they are not afraid of letting it
go. A man is more mistrustful of himself, but women are born much
more reckless. They push on and on under the protection of secrecy and
silence, and the greater the obscurity of what they wish to explore the
greater their courage."

"Do you mean seriously to tell me that you consider me a creature of
darkness?"

"I spoke in general," remonstrated d'Alcacer. "Anything else would
have been an impertinence. Yes, obscurity is women's best friend. Their
daring loves it; but a sudden flash of light disconcerts them. Generally
speaking, if they don't get exactly at the truth they always manage to
come pretty near to it."

Mrs. Travers had listened with silent attention and she allowed the
silence to continue for some time after d'Alcacer had ceased. When she
spoke it was to say in an unconcerned tone that as to this subject she
had had special opportunities. Her self-possessed interlocutor
managed to repress a movement of real curiosity under an assumption
of conventional interest. "Indeed," he exclaimed, politely. "A special
opportunity. How did you manage to create it?"

This was too much for Mrs. Travers. "I! Create it!" she exclaimed,
indignantly, but under her breath. "How on earth do you think I could
have done it?"

Mr. d'Alcacer, as if communing with himself, was heard to murmur
unrepentantly that indeed women seldom knew how they had "done it," to
which Mrs. Travers in a weary tone returned the remark that no two
men were dense in the same way. To this Mr. d'Alcacer assented without
difficulty. "Yes, our brand presents more varieties. This, from a
certain point of view, is obviously to our advantage. We interest. . . .
Not that I imagine myself interesting to you, Mrs. Travers. But what
about the Man of Fate?"

"Oh, yes," breathed out Mrs. Travers.

"I see! Immensely!" said d'Alcacer in a tone of mysterious
understanding. "Was his stupidity so colossal?"

"It was indistinguishable from great visions that were in no sense mean
and made up for him a world of his own."

"I guessed that much," muttered d'Alcacer to himself. "But that, you
know, Mrs. Travers, that isn't good news at all to me. World of dreams,
eh? That's very bad, very dangerous. It's almost fatal, Mrs. Travers."

"Why all this dismay? Why do you object to a world of dreams?"

"Because I dislike the prospect of being made a sacrifice of by those
Moors. I am not an optimist like our friend there," he continued in a
low tone nodding toward the dismal figure of Mr. Travers huddled up in
the chair. "I don't regard all this as a farce and I have discovered
in myself a strong objection to having my throat cut by those gorgeous
barbarians after a lot of fatuous talk. Don't ask me why, Mrs. Travers.
Put it down to an absurd weakness."

Mrs. Travers made a slight movement in her chair, raising her hands to
her head, and in the dim light of the lanterns d'Alcacer saw the mass of
her clear gleaming hair fall down and spread itself over her shoulders.
She seized half of it in her hands which looked very white, and with her
head inclined a little on one side she began to make a plait.

"You are terrifying," he said after watching the movement of her fingers
for a while.

"Yes . . .? " she accentuated interrogatively.

"You have the awfulness of the predestined. You, too, are the prey of
dreams."

"Not of the Moors, then," she uttered, calmly, beginning the other
plait. D'Alcacer followed the operation to the end. Close against her,
her diaphanous shadow on the muslin reproduced her slightest movements.
D'Alcacer turned his eyes away.