Hugo, Arnold Bennett [the false prince TXT] 📗

like that, bursting out all of a sudden. So I said, 'Well?' He said: 'It's very serious, and in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand I should be a blundering idiot to tell you.' I said to him: 'You've begun. Finish. And let's see whether I'll thank you.' He then told me that I'd got malignant disease of the heart, might die at any moment, and in any case couldn't live more than a few years. He said: 'I thought you'd like to know, so that you could arrange your life accordingly.' I thanked him. I was really most awfully obliged to him. It wanted some pluck to tell me. He said: 'I wouldn't admit to anyone else that I'd told you.' I never admired Darcy more than I did that night. His tone was so finely casual.

In something like a month I had got used to the idea of being condemned to death. At any rate, it ceased to interfere with my sleep. I purchased a vault for myself in Brompton Cemetery. Then I took this flat that I'm talking in now, and began deliberately to think over how I should finish my life. I'd got money--much more than old Ravengar imagined--and I'm a bit of a philosopher, you know; I have my theories as to what constitutes real living. However, I won't bother you with those. I expect they're pretty crude, after all. Besides, my preparations were all knocked on the head. I saw Camilla Payne again in Hugo's. She had stopped typewriting, and was a milliner there. I tried my level best to strike up an intimacy with her, but I failed. She wouldn't have it. The fact is, I was too rich and showy. And I had a reputation behind me which, possibly--well, you're aware of all that, Polycarp. In about a fortnight I worshipped her--yes, I did actually worship her. I would have done anything she ordered me, except leave her alone; and that I wouldn't do. I dare say I might have got into a sort of friendship with her if she'd had any home, any relatives, any place to receive me in. But what can a girl do with nothing but a bed-sitting-room? I asked her to go up the river; I asked her to dinner and to lunch, and to bring her friends with her; I even asked her to go with me to an A.B.C. shop, but she wouldn't. She was quite right, in a general way. How could she guess I wasn't like the rest, or like what I had been?

Once, when she let me walk with her from Hugo's down to Walham Green, I nearly went mad with joy. I think I verily was mad for a time. I used to take out licenses for our marriage, and I used to buy clothes for her--heaps of clothes, in case. Yes, I was as good as mad then. And when she made it clear that this walking by my side was nothing at all, meant nothing, and must be construed as nothing, I grew still more mad.

At last I wrote to her that if she didn't call and see me at my flat, I should blow my brains out. I didn't expect her to call, and I did expect that I should blow my brains out. I was ready to do so. A year more or a year less on this earth--what did it matter to me?

Some people may think--_you_ may think, Polycarp--that a man like me, under sentence of death from a doctor, had no right to make love to a woman. That may be so. But in love there isn't often any question of right. Human instincts have no regard for human justice, and when the instinct is strong enough, the sense of justice simply ceases to exist for it. When you're in love--enough--you don't argue. You desire--that's all.

To my amazement, she came to the flat. When she was announced, I could scarcely tell the servant to show her in, and when she entered, I couldn't speak at all for a moment. She was so--however, I won't describe her. I couldn't, for one thing. No one could describe that woman. She didn't make any fuss. She didn't cry out that she had ruined her reputation or anything like that. She simply said that she had received my letter, and that she had believed the sincerity of my threat, while regretting it, and what did I wish to say to her--she wouldn't be able to stay long. It goes without saying I couldn't begin. I couldn't frame a sentence. So I suggested we should have some tea. Accordingly, we had some tea. She poured it out, and we discussed the furniture of the drawing-room. I might have known she had fine taste in furniture. She had. When tea was over, she seemed to be getting a little impatient. Then I rang for the tray to be removed, and as soon as we were alone again, I started: 'Miss Payne--'

Now, when I started like that, I hadn't the ghost of a notion what I was going to say. And then the idea stepped into my head all of a sudden: 'Why not tell her exactly what your situation is? Why not be frank with her, and see how it works?' It was an inspiration. Though I didn't believe in it, and thought in a kind of despair that I was spoiling my chances, it was emphatically an inspiration, and I was obliged to obey it.

So I told her what Darcy had told me. I explained how it was that I couldn't live long. I said I had nothing to hope for in this world, no joy, nothing but blackness and horror. I said how tremendously I was in love with her. I said I knew she wasn't in love with me, but at the same time I thought she ought to have sufficient insight to see that I was fundamentally a decent chap. I went so far as to say that I didn't see how she could dislike me. And I said: 'I ask you to marry me. It will only be for a year or two, but that year or two are all my life, while only a fraction of yours. I am rich, and after my death you will be rich, and free from the necessity of this daily drudgery of yours. But I don't ask you to marry me for money; I ask you to marry me out of pity. I ask you, out of kindness to the most unfortunate and hopeless man in the world, to give me a trifle out of your existence. Merely out of pity; merely because it is a woman's part in the world to render pity and balm. I won't hide anything from you. There will be the unpleasant business of my sudden death, which will be a shock to you, even if you learn to hate me. But you would get over that. And you would always afterwards have the consciousness of having changed the last months of a man's career from hell to heaven. There's no disguising the fact that it's a strange proposition I'm making to you, but the proposition is not more strange than the situation. Will you consent, or won't you?' She was going to say something, but I stopped her. I said: 'Wait a moment. I shan't try to terrorize you by threats of suicide. And now, before you say "Yes" or "No," I give you my solemn word not to commit suicide if you say "No."' Then I went on in the same strain appealing to her pity, and telling her how humble I should be as a husband.

I could see I had moved her; and now I think over the scene I fancy that my appeal must have been a lot more touching than I imagined it was when I was making it.

She said: 'I have always liked you a little. But I haven't loved you, and I don't love you.' And then, after a pause--I was determined to say nothing more--she said: 'Yes, I will marry you. I may be doing wrong--I am certainly doing something very unusual; but I have no one to advise me against it, and I will follow my impulse and marry you. I needn't say that I shall do all I can to be a good wife to you. Ours will be a curious marriage.... Perhaps, after all, I am very wicked!'

I cried out: 'No, you aren't--no you aren't! The saints aren't in it with you!'

She smiled at this speech. She's so sensible, Camilla is. She's like a man in some things; all really great women are.

I could tell you a lot more that passed immediately afterwards, but I can feel already my voice is getting a bit tired. Besides, it's nothing to you, Polycarp.

Then, afterwards, I said: 'You _will_ love me, you know.'

And I meant it. Any man in similar circumstances would have said it and meant it. She smiled again. And then I wanted to be alone with her, to enjoy the intimacy of her presence, without a lot of servants all over the place; so I went out of the drawing-room and packed off the whole tribe for the evening, all except Mrs. Dant. I kept Mrs. Dant to attend on Camilla.

We had dinner sent up; it was like a picnic, jolly and childish. Camilla was charming. And then I took photographs of her by flashlight, with immense success. We developed them together in the dark-room. That evening was the first time I had ever been really happy in all my life. And I was really happy, although every now and then the idea would shoot through my head: 'Only for a year or two at most; perhaps only for a day or two!'

I returned to the dark-room alone for something or other, and when I came back into the drawing-room she was not there. By heaven! my heart went into my mouth. I feared she had run away, after all. However, I met her in the passage. She looked very frightened; her face was quite changed; but she said nothing had occurred. I kissed her; she let me.

Soon afterwards she went on to the roof. She tried to be cheerful, but I saw she had something on her mind. She said she must go home, and begged my permission to precede me into the flat in order to prepare for her departure. I consented. When ten minutes had elapsed I followed, and in the drawing-room, instead of finding Camilla, I found Louis Ravengar.

I needn't describe my surprise at all that.

Ravengar was beside himself with rage. I gathered after a time that he claimed Camilla as his own. He said I had stolen her from him. I couldn't tell exactly what he was driving at, but I parleyed with him a little until I could get my revolver out of a drawer in my escritoire. He jumped at me. I thrust him back without firing, and we stood each of us ready for murder. I couldn't say how long that lasted. Suddenly he glanced across the room, and his eyes faltered, and I became aware that Camilla had entered silently. I was so startled at her appearance and by the transformation in Ravengar that I let off the revolver involuntarily. I heard Camilla order him, in a sharp, low voice, to leave instantly. He defied her for a second, and then went. Before leaving he stuttered, in a dreadful voice: 'I shall kill you'--meaning her. 'I may as well hang for one thing as for another.'

I said to Camilla, gasping: 'What