The Wonderful Year

CHAPTER III-1

CHAPTER III

T HE bicycle journey of two young people through a mere three hundred miles of France is, on the face of it, an Odyssey of no importance. The only interest that could attach itself to such a humdrum affair would centre in the development of tender feelings reciprocated or otherwise in the breasts of both or one of the young people. But when the two of them proceed dustily and unemotionally along the endless, straight, poplar-bordered roads, with the heart of each at the end of the day as untroubled by the other as at the beginning, a detailed account of their wanderings would resolve itself into a commonplace itinerary.

“My children,” said Fortinbras, when, after having lunched with them at the Petit Cornichon and given them letters of introduction and his blessing, he had accompanied them to the pavement whence they were preparing to start, “I advise you, until you reach Brantôme to call yourself brother and sister, so that your idyllic companionship shall not be misinterpreted.”

“Pooh!”—or some such vocable of scorn—Corinna remarked. “We’re not in narrow-minded England.”

“In narrow-minded England,” Fortinbras replied, “without a wedding ring, and without the confessed brother-and-sisterly relation, inns would close their virtuous doors against you. In France, where a pair of lovers is universally regarded as an object of romantic interest, innkeepers would confuse you with zealous attentions. Thus in either country, though for opposite reasons, you would be bound to encounter impossible embarrassment.”

“I don’t think there would be any danger of that,” laughed Corinna lightly, “unless Martin went mad. But perhaps it would be just as well to play the comedy. I’ll stick up my cheek to be kissed every night in the presence of the landlady. ‘ Bon soir, mon frère.’—Do you think you can go through the performance, Martin?”

Martin, very uncomfortable, already experiencing at the suggestion of misconstrued relations, the embarrassment foreshadowed by Fortinbras, flushed deeply and took refuge in an examination of his bicycle. The celibate dreamer was shocked by her cool bravado. Since the episode of Gwendoline he had lived remote from the opposite s*x; the only woman he had known intimately was his mother and from that knowledge he had formed the profound conviction that women were entirely futile and utterly holy. Corinna kept on knocking this conviction endwise. She made hay, not to say chaos, with his theory of woman. He felt himself on the verge of a fog-filled abysm of knowledge. There she stood, a foot or two away—he scarce dared glance at her—erect, clear-eyed, the least futile person in the world, treating a suggestion the most disconcerting and appalling to maidenhood with the unholiest mockery, and coolly proposing that, in order to give themselves an air of innocence, they should contract the habit of a nightly embrace.

“I’ll do anything,” said he, “to prevent disagreeableness arising.”

Corinna laughed, and, after final farewells, they rode away down the baking little street leaving Fortinbras watching them wistfully until they had disappeared. And he remained a long time following in his thoughts the pair whom he had despatched upon their unsentimental journey. How young they were, how malleable, how agape for hope like young thrushes for worms, how attractive in their respective ways, how careless of sunstroke! If only he could have escaped with them from this sweltering Paris to the cool shadow of the Dordogne rocks and the welcome of a young girl’s eyes. What a hopeless mess and muddle was life. He sighed and mopped his forehead, and then a hand touched his arm. He turned and saw the careworn face of Madame Gaussart, the fat wife of a neighbouring print-seller.

“Monsieur Fortinbras, it is only you in this city of misfortune that can give me advice. My husband left me the day before yesterday and has not returned. I am in despair. I have been weeping ever since. I weep now——” she did, copiously regardless of the gaze of the street. “Tell me what to do, my good Monsieur Fortinbras, you whom they call the Marchand de Bonheur. See—I have your little honorarium.”

She held out the five-franc piece. Fortinbras slipped it into his waistcoat pocket.

“At your service, madame,” said he, with a sigh. “Doubtless I shall be able to restore to you a fallacious semblance of conjugal felicity.”

“I was sure of it,” said the lady already comforted. “If you would deign to enter the shop, Monsieur.”

Fortinbras followed her, and for a while lost his envy of Martin and Corinna in patient and ironic consideration of the naughtiness of Monsieur Gaussart.

This first stage out of Paris was the only time when the wanderers braved the midday heat of the golden August. They took counsel together in an earwiggy arbour outside Versailles, where they quenched their thirst with cider. They were in no hurry to reach their destination. A few hours in the early morning—they could start at six—and an hour or two in the cool of the evening would suffice. The remainder of the day would be devoted to repose. . . .

“And churches and cathedrals,” added Martin.

“You have a frolicsome idea of a holiday jaunt,” said Corinna.

“What else can we do?”

“Eat lotus,” said Corinna. “Forget that there ever were such places as Paris or London or Wendlebury.”

“I don’t think Chartres would remind you of one of them,” said Martin. “I’ve dreamed of Chartres ever since I read ‘ La Cathédrale’ by Huysmans.”

“You’re what they call an earnest soul,” remarked Corinna. “All the way here I’ve never stopped wondering why I’ve come with you on this insane pilgrimage to nowhere.”

“I’ve been wondering the same myself,” said Martin.

As he had lain awake most of the night and therefore risen late, the occupations of the morning involving the selection and hire of a bicycle, consultation with the concierge of the Hôtel du Soleil et de l’Ecosse with regard to luggage being forwarded, the changing of his money into French banknotes and gold, and various small purchases, had left him little time for reflection. It was only when he found himself pedalling perspiringly by the side of this comparatively unknown and startling young woman, who was to be his intimate companion for heaven knew how long, that he began to think. Qu’allait il faire dans cette galère? It was comforting to know that Corinna asked herself the same question.

“That old humbug Fortinbras must have put a spell upon us,” she continued, without commenting on Martin’s lack of gallantry. “He sort of envelops one in such a mist of words uttered in that musical voice of his and he looks so inspired with benevolent wisdom that one loses one’s common sense. The old wretch can persuade anybody to do anything. He once inveigled a girl—an art student—into becoming a nun.”

Martin’s Protestant antagonism was aroused. He expressed himself heatedly. He saw nothing but reprehensibility in the action of Fortinbras. Corinna examined her well-trimmed fingernails.

“It was a question of Saint Clothilde—that I think was the order—or Saint Lazare. Some girls are like that.”

“Saint Lazare?”

“Don’t you know anything?” she sighed. “What’s the good of being decently epigrammatic? Saint Lazare is the final destination of a certain temperament unsupported by good looks or money. It’s the woman’s prison of Paris.”

“Oh!” said Martin.

“How he did it I don’t know, but he saved her body and soul. And now she’s the happiest creature in the world. I had a letter from her only the other day urging me to go over to Rome and take the vows——”

“I hope you’re not thinking of it,” said Martin.

“I’m in no danger of Saint Lazare,” replied Corinna drily.

There was a long silence. In the leafy arbour screened from the dust and glare of the highway there prevailed a drowsy peace. Only one of the dozen other green blistered wooden tables was occupied—and that by a blue-bloused workman and his wife and baby, all temperately refreshing themselves with harmless liquid, the last from nature’s fount itself. The landlord, obese, unshaven and alpaca-jacketed, read the Petit Journal at the threshold of the café of which the arboured terrace was but a summer adjunct. A mangy mongrel lying at his feet snapped spasmodically at flies. A couple of tow-headed urchins hung by the arched entrance, low-class Peris at the gates of a dilapidated Paradise.

“Who is Fortinbras?” Martin asked.

Corinna shrugged her dainty shoulders. She did not know. Rumour had it—and for rumour she could not vouchsafe—that he was an English solicitor struck off the rolls. With French law at any rate he was familiar. He had the Code Napoléon at his finger-ends. In spite of the sober black clothes and white tie of the French attorney which he affected, he certainly possessed no French qualifications which would have enabled him to set up a regular cabinet d’avoué and earn a professional livelihood. Nor did he presume to step within the avoué’s jealously guarded sphere. But his opinion on legal points was so sound, and his fee so moderate, that many consulted him in preference to an orthodox practitioner. That was all that Corinna knew of him in his legal aspect. The rest of his queer practice consisted in advising in all manner of complications. He arbitrated in disputes between man and man, woman and woman, lover and mistress, husband and wife, parent and child. He diverted the debtor from the path to bankruptcy. He rescued youths and maidens from disastrous nymphs and fauns. He hushed up scandal. Meanwhile his private life and even his address remained unknown. Twice a day he went the round of the cafés and restaurants of the quartier, so that those in need of his assistance had but to wait at their respective taverns in order to see him—for he appeared with the inevitability of the sun in its course.

“There are all kinds of parasitical people,” said Corinna, “who try to sponge on students for drinks and meals and money—but Fortinbras isn’t that kind. Now and again, but not often, he will accept an invitation to lunch or dinner—and then it’s always for the purpose of discussing business. Whether it’s his cunning or his honesty I don’t know—but nobody’s afraid of him. That’s his great asset. You’re absolutely certain sure that he won’t stick you for anything. Consequently anybody in trouble or difficulty goes to him confident that his five francs consultation fee is the end of the financial side of the matter and that he will concentrate his whole mind and soul on the case. He’s an odd devil.”

“The most remarkable man I’ve ever met,” said Martin.

“You’ve not met many,” said Corinna.

“I don’t know——” replied Martin reflectively. “I once came across a prize-fighter—a remarkable chap—in the bar-parlour of the pub at the corner of our street who was afterwards hanged for murdering his wife, and I once met a member of Parliament, another remarkable man—I forget his name now—and then of course there was Cyrus Margett.”

“But none of them is in it with Fortinbras,” Corinna smiled with ironic indulgence.

“None,” said Martin, “had his peculiar magnetic quality. Not even the member of Parliament. But,” he continued after a pause, “is that all that is known of him? He seems to be a very mysterious person.”

“I shouldn’t mind betting you,” said Corinna, “that you and I are the only people in Paris who are aware of his daughter in Brantôme.”

“Why should he single us out for such a confidence?” asked Martin. “He said last night that he was giving us a bit of his heart because we were good children—it was quite touching—but why should we be the only ones to have a bit of his heart?”

“Would you like to know?” asked Corinna, meeting his eyes full.

“I should.”

“He told me before you turned up at the Petit Cornichon, this morning, that you interested him as a sort of celestial freak.”

“I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not,” replied Martin, pausing in the act of rolling a cigarette. “It’s tantamount to calling me an infernal ass.”

At this show of spirit the girl swiftly changed her tone.

“You may take it from me that Fortinbras doesn’t give a bit of his heart to infernal asses. If I had gone to him, on my own, he would never—you heard him—he would never have touched on ‘things precious to him.’ It’s for your sake, not mine.”

“But why?”

“Because he’s fed up with the likes of me,” said Corinna, with sudden bitterness. “There are hundreds and thousands of us.”

Martin knitted his brow. “I don’t understand.”

“Better not try,” she said. “Let us pay for the cider and get on.”

So they paid and went on and halted at the townlet of Rambouillet, where as Monsieur and Mademoiselle Overshaw, they engaged rooms at the most modest of terms. And to Martin’s infinite relief Corinna did not summon him to kiss her cheek in the presence of the landlady, before they retired for the night. He went to bed comforted by the thought that Corinna’s bark was worse than her bite.

I have done my best to tell you that this was an unsentimental journey.