The Man with the Double Heart Part 62

"What did you do?" he asked gently. "I'd no idea of all this worry.

I'm really awfully sorry, Fantine," he laid a hand over hers.

She gave him a sudden brilliant smile.

"The same Pierrot..." her voice was tender. Then she drew herself together, her fingers lightly clasped in his, a faint colour in her thin cheeks.

"You remember Archie Thesiger?"

"Yes." He knew what was coming.

"He offered me his ... protection." Fantine's eyes were enigmatic.

"It seemed ... the best thing to do. I was very happy--for a time. He took a little flat in Brighton and--you will laugh!"--she smiled herself--"I am domestic in my tastes--But yes!--and excellent manager.

I made Archie quite content. You think because I love my clothes I should be helpless in a kitchen? There you are wrong. One day I will come and make you," she paused--"_such_ an omelette! ... But of course I knew it couldn't last. That is the drawback to ... ce metier. He fell in love--with a young girl. Il faut se ranger--I understood. And there it was!--to begin again. The next time I was not so lucky.

Rich, yes. But a 'mauvais sujet.' And then I find that he is married!

Madame arrives ... Dieu, quelle scene! She seem to think I love her Reuben! Yes--a Jew ... _that too_! But I tell her, smiling, to her face, that it was purely business with me. My faith, she did not care for it. I agreed it was not suitable--ce menage--lowering for a woman such as I am, with brains and looks--that money is not everything! He drank too--and she knew that!"

At her mischievous sidelong glance McTaggart gave a grim laugh, conjuring up the unequal duel between this strange, dissimilar pair.

"I give her then some good advice,"--Fantine was enjoying her story, the topaz eyes keen and bright, lips curved in a mocking smile. "I say: 'You are a good woman, with babies, per'aps, and a linen press.

But that is not all a man wants. Learn to talk ... and walk ... an'

dress! Marriage--what is it? A legal tie. But a clever wife must _charm_ to hold ... You catch my point?--I am ver' glad. I could teach you ... yes, many things. But my cab waits--Adieu, Madame!'" ...

"Good Lord!--So you went. And then?"

Fantine made a wry grimace.

"I became companion to a lady. (Of men, you see, I had had enough!) Also rich, mais une femme du peuple! Archie gave me a written reference. His uncle is a baronet and that was quite sufficient to her. I learned there how to wash a dog and make petticoats for the poor. Not flannel--you understan'?--but flannelette--most dangerous--but good enough for _Charity_! (McTaggart chuckled, watching her.) And what a 'real lady' could do and what a 'real lady'

could not!

"It's a ... sale metier!--to my mind--hardly as moral as the other--so uncharitable"--she frowned.

"Have you ever lived in the suburbs?--No?--Then don't, my dear Pierrot.

It's to ... exist in hourly fear of gossip, one eye on each neighbour.

To call and flatter, peer and pry and pick their characters to ribbons.

What a life!" she shrugged her shoulders. "One of my duties was to teach my new employer a little French. That amused me enormously! She was as stupid as a goose--so I stuffed her"--Fantine laughed--"with some good spicy words. When she travels to Paris, mon Dieu!--she will surprise the chambermaid! Unluckily"--she ran on--"there was a nephew." Her cough stopped her. She battled with it for a moment, caught her breath and smiled bravely. "Un horreur de pet.i.t bonhomme!--dressed like a little groom. 'Tres sporting.' That is chic in the suburbs--always gaiters, pique necktie and no horse! You know the type, hein, Pierrot?

"'Bertie'--that was the youth's name--took a fancy to poor me!--Condescended to express it--even helped to wash the dog. That was fun--he _did_ get wet!" She laughed at the recollection. "Then, one day, Madame guessed. Actually she accused me of a wish to marry him!"

Up went Fantine's hands in horror. "Moi, Fantine!"

McTaggart roared.

"I said I had no use for 'Bertie.' It was not my fault if he cared for me!--That it nearly gave me 'mal au coeur' to sit facing him at dinner!

That I boxed his ears at many times--and that was true!--but she would not believe. She said: 'One can see you are no lady.' So I replied that she could not tell. Impossible! I knew, mon cher, she had started life as a kitchen maid and married her master through a trick and I added: 'I am quite ready to learn any hint regarding cooking, but of my birth you are no judge--I go to my equals to decide.' The servants were all in the hall and Bertie as red as a turkey-c.o.c.k--and they laughed! I heard them. Then I packed and got away as soon as I could, with all the neighbours' noses glued to the windows.

"Virtue did not seem a success--it hides, you see, so much meanness. I tried in vain to find Gustave"--(the name slipped out unconsciously)--"but all my letters were returned--'not known' at the old address.

"Then I thought of the Stage. Chorus per'aps?--I sing a little. That began and ended too with a heavy fee to an agent. I got a cold one snowy day and fell ill. Then doctor's bills and the little money I had saved melted away--and so, you see ... here I am!" She finished gaily--"Open--how do you make the phrase?--to any pleasant salaried post!"

She glanced sideways at the man, noting the pity on his face.

"You wouldn't like...?" Her meaning was plain.

"No," said McTaggart, very gently.

"Tant pis! You cared once..." She sighed, then coughed. "I can live," she whispered, "on ve-ry little ... also cook..."

"Don't!" he quivered on the word. "It's horrible!--to think that _you_..." He swallowed hard, remembering the pretty flat, with the Fantine of old, proud and brilliant--and now ... this!

"I'm going to be married," he said quickly--"At least I hope so. But that's no reason why I shouldn't help an old friend."

Fantine drew herself up erect.

"If I choose to _take_----" her voice was sharp--"I _give_ too! That is honest, I think. I have never asked for charity. But ... oh, mon Dieu!" she broke down under McTaggart's pitiful glance. "Life is hard.

C'est un sale metier! And I can't sink--I can't ... I can't ..." a sob broke from the painted lips--"not to ... _that_!"

She pointed straight to the lights beyond the silvery arch, to Piccadilly, broad and smooth.

McTaggart felt suddenly humbled. He thought for a moment painfully of the lives of those other women, placed for ever outside the pale, sacrificed to man's desire...

Then he spoke.

"Look here, Fantine. I think you're a splendid little woman! I'd feel proud to be your friend. The pluck of you!"--(he meant it, too). "I wouldn't dream of insulting you by--well--by offering financial help without any equivalent. But there's something you can do for me--if you will?--and it's not too dull?"

She stared at him wonderingly. A faint glimmer of hope shone in the tragic depths of her topaz eyes. The reddened lips parted a little.

"Eh bien?"

He felt the strain in her voice and hurried on, full of compa.s.sion.

"It's like this. I've been left a villa--a wee place abroad near the sea. I stayed there for a few weeks before my return--and was bored to death! I don't want to shut it up and I have a dislike to letting it.

It occurred to me to find some one, as a sort of caretaker," he paused, his eyes fixed on the gra.s.s at his feet. "It's in Italy, not far from Spezzia--a pretty place with lovely air and fairly gay in the Summer time--but in the Winter months----" he laughed--"about as lonely as the Pole. So that's what I am up against--to find someone I can trust to live there and keep it aired. There's an old woman who does odd jobs--I daresay she could cook a bit--and her son who gardens, cleans windows and all that--but it's not enough. I want some one--a different cla.s.s--to keep an eye on the pair. But I warn you--it's awfully dull--but healthy--the air comes over the snows. Now as you're feeling a bit run down, would you like to try it?" He broke off sharply.

"Fantine, my dear! Oh, you poor little soul!..."

She was sobbing sharply, her head in her hands. The breeze rustled through the trees and far away, in wave on wave, came the noise of the traffic, London's voice, not unlike the swell of the sea.

Beside him, cast up on the tide, this wreck and flotsam of life's storms, battered and broken, but still lit by the flickering lamp of the human soul.

"Fantine--don't feel hurt, my dear. I mean what I say--it's give and take--fair play, I give you my word."

She raised a streaming, haggard face.

"You don't know ... oh, mon Dieu! Listen----"

she caught him by the arm. "I tried to ruin you," she cried--"that last evening--at the flat!"

"Nonsense!--it's all ... part of the game----" his voice was rough through sheer discomfort. "If you had, I deserved it, Fantine--a young a.s.s--that's all right. I'd have ruined _you_ without a thought--in another way, but it's just as bad. There isn't a penny to choose between us. Besides, I _knew_--when I left you that night. I saw your husband come up the stairs--and--afterwards--I guessed the truth. You were driven to it--it wasn't your fault."

He paused a moment, his face grim.