“‘Ay!’ I heard the man speak in Spanish. ‘You’re killing me. Take it away. O God, help me!’
“He screamed. The brutes were torturing him. I flung open the door and burst in. The draught blew a shutter back and the moon streamed in so bright that it dimmed my lantern. In my ears, as clearly as I hear you speak and as close,
I heard the wretched chap’s groans. It was awful, moaning and sobbing, and frightful gasps. No one could survive that. He was at the point of death. I tell you I heard his broken, choking cries right in my ears. And the room was empty.”
Robert Morrison sank back in his chair. That huge solid man had strangely the look of a lay figure in a studio. You felt that if you pushed him he would fall over in a heap on to the floor.
“And then?” I asked.
He took a rather dirty handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead.
“I felt I didn’t much want to sleep in that room on the north side, so, heat or no heat, I moved back to my own quarters. Well, exactly four weeks later, about two in the morning, I was waked up by the madman’s chuckle. It was almost at my elbow. I don’t mind telling you that my nerve was a bit shaken by then, so next time the blighter was due to have an attack, next time the moon was full, I mean, I got Fernandez to come and spend the night with me. I didn’t tell him anything. I kept him up playing cards till two in the morning, and then I heard it again. I asked him if he heard anything. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘There’s somebody laughing,’ I said. ‘You’re drunk, man,’ he said, and he began laughing too. That was too much. ‘Shut up, you fool,’ I said. The laughter grew louder and louder. I cried out. I tried to shut it out by putting my hands to my ears, but it wasn’t a damned bit of good. I heard it and I heard the scream of pain. Fernandez thought I was mad. He didn’t dare say so, because he knew I’d have killed him. He said he’d go to bed, and in the morning I found he’d slunk away. His bed hadn’t been slept in. He’d taken himself off when he left me.
“After that I couldn’t stop in Ecija. I put a factor there and went back to Seville. I felt myself pretty safe there, but as the time came near I began to get scared. Of course I told myself not to be a damned fool, but, you know, I damned well couldn’t help myself. The fact is, I was afraid the sounds had followed me, and I knew if I heard them in Seville I’d go on hearing them all my life. I’ve got as much courage as any man, but damn it all, there are limits to everything. Flesh and blood couldn’t stand it. I knew I’d go stark staring mad. I got in such a state that I began drinking, the suspense was so awful, and I used to lie awake counting the days. And at last I knew it’d come. And it came. I heard those sounds in Seville-sixty miles away from Ecija.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was silent for a while.
“When did you hear the sounds last?” I asked.
“Four weeks ago.”
I looked up quickly. I was startled.
“What d’you mean by that? It’s not full moon tonight?”
He gave me a dark, angry look. He opened his mouth to speak and then stopped as though he couldn’t. You would have said his vocal cords were paralysed, and it was with a strange croak that at last he answered.
“Yes, it is.”
He stared at me and his pale blue eyes seemed to shine red. I have never seen in a man’s face a look of such terror. He got up quickly and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
I must admit that I didn’t sleep any too well that night myself.
THE LION’S SKIN
A GOOD MANY PEOPLE were shocked when they read that Captain Forestier had met his death in a forest fire when trying to save his wife’s dog, which had been accidentally shut up in the house. Some said they never knew he had it in him; others said it was exactly what they would have expected of him, but of these some meant it in one way and some in another. After the tragic occurrence Mrs. Forestier found shelter in the villa of some people called Hardy, whose acquaintance she and her husband had but lately made. Captain Forestier had not liked them, at any rate he had not liked Fred Hardy, but she felt that if he had lived through that terrible night he would have changed his mind. He would have realised how much good there was in Hardy notwithstanding his reputation, and like the great gentleman he was he would not have hesitated to admit that he had been mistaken. Mrs. Forestier did not know how she could ever have kept her reason after the loss of the man who was everything in the world to her but for the Hardys’ wonderful kindness. In her immense distress their unfailing sympathy had been her only consolation. They, who had been almost eyewitnesses of her husband’s great sacrifice, knew as did no one else how wonderful he had been. She could never forget the words dear Fred Hardy had used when he was breaking the dreadful news to her. It was these words that had enabled her not only to bear the frightful disaster, but to face the desolate future with the courage with which she well knew that brave man, that gallant gentleman, whom she had loved so well, would have wished her to face it.
Mrs. Forestier was a very nice woman. Kindly people often say that of a woman when they can say nothing about her, and it has come to be looked upon as cold praise. I do not mean it as such. Mrs. Forestier was neither charming, beautiful nor intelligent; on the contrary she was absurd, homely and foolish; yet the more you knew her, the more you liked her, and when asked why, you found yourself forced to repeat that she was a very nice woman. She was as tall as the average man; she had a large mouth and a great hooked nose, pale-blue short-sighted eyes and big ugly hands. Her skin was lined and weather-beaten, but she made up heavily, and her hair, which she wore long, was dyed golden, tightly marcelled and elaborately dressed. She did everything she could to counteract the aggressive masculinity of her appearance, and succeeded only in looking like a vaudeville artist doing a female impersonation. Her voice was a woman’s voice, but you were always expecting her, at the end of the number as it were, to break into a deep bass, and tearing off that golden wig, discover a man’s bald pate. She spent a great deal of money on her clothes, which she got from the most fashionable dressmakers in Paris, but though a woman of fifty she had an unfortunate taste for choosing dresses that looked exquisite on pretty little mannequins in the flower of their youth. She always wore a great quantity of rich jewels. Her movements were awkward and her gestures clumsy. If she went into a drawing-room where there was a valuable piece of jade she managed to sweep it on the floor; if she lunched with you and you had a set of glasses you treasured she was almost certain to smash one of them to atoms.
Yet this ungainly exterior sheltered a tender, romantic and idealistic soul. It took you some time to discover this, for when first you knew her you took her for a figure of fun, and then when you knew her better (and had suffered from her clumsiness) she exasperated you; but when you did discover it, you thought yourself very stupid not to have known it all the time, for then it looked out at you through those pale-blue, nearsighted eyes, rather shyly, but with a sincerity that only a fool could miss. Those dainty muslins and spring-like organdies, those virginal silks, clothed not the uncouth body but the fresh, girlish spirit. You forgot that she broke your china and looked like a man dressed up as a woman, you saw her as she saw herself, as indeed she really was if reality were visible, as a dear little thing with a heart of gold. When you came to know her you found her as simple as a child; she was touchingly grateful for any attention you paid her; her own kindness was infinite, you could ask her to do anything for you, however tiresome, and she would do it as though by giving her the opportunity to put herself out you rendered her a service. She had a rare capacity for disinterested love. You knew that never an unkind nor a malicious thought had once passed through her head. And having granted all that you said over again that Mrs. Forestier was a very nice woman.
Unfortunately she was also a damned fool. This you discovered when you met her husband. Mrs. Forestier was American and Captain Forestier was English. Mrs. Forestier was born in Portland, Oregon, and had never been to Europe till the war of 1914
, when, her first husband having recently died, she joined a hospital unit and came to France. She was not rich by American standards, but by our English ones in affluent circumstances. From the way the Forestiers lived I should guess that she had something like thirty thousand dollars a year. Except that she undoubtedly gave the wrong medicines to the wrong men, put on their bandages so that they were worse than useless, and broke every utensil that was breakable, I am sure that she was an admirable nurse. I do not think she ever found work too revolting for her to do it without hesitation; she certainly never spared herself and was surely never out of temper; I have a notion that many a poor wretch had cause to bless the tenderness of her heart, and it may be that not a few took the last bitter step into the unknown with more courage because of the loving-kindness of her golden soul. It was during the last year of the war that Captain Forestier came under her care, and soon after peace was declared they married. They settled down in a handsome villa on the hills behind Cannes, and in a short time became conspicuous in the social life of the Riviera. Captain Forestier played bridge well and was a keen golfer. He was not a bad tennis player either. He had a sailing boat, and in the summer the Forestiers gave very nice parties between the islands. After seventeen years of marriage Mrs. Forestier still adored her good-looking husband, and you were unlikely to know her long without being told in that slow Western drawl of hers the full story of their courtship.
“It was a ease of love at first sight,” she said. “He was brought in when I happened to be off duty, and when I came on and found him lying in one of my beds, oh, my dear, I felt such a pang in my heart, for a moment I thought I’d been overworking and had strained it. He was the handsomest man I’d ever seen in my life.”
“Was he badly wounded?”
“Well, he wasn’t exactly wounded. You know, it’s a most extraordinary thing, he went all through the war, he was under fire for months at a time, and of course he risked his life twenty times a day, He’s one of those men who simply doesn’t know what fear is; but he never even got a scratch. He had carbuncles.”
It seemed an unromantic ailment on which to start a passionate attachment. Mrs. Forestier was a trifle prudish, and though Captain Forestier’s carbuncles greatly interested her she always found it a little difficult to tell you exactly where they were.
“They were right down at the bottom of his back, even farther really, and he hated to have me dress them. Englishmen are curiously modest, I’ve noticed that over and over again, and it mortified him terribly. You’d have thought being on those terms, if you know what I mean, from our first acquaintance it would have made us more intimate. But somehow it didn’t. He was very stand-offish with me. When I used to get to his bed on my round I was so breathless and my heart beat so I couldn’t make out what was the matter with me. I’m not naturally a clumsy woman, I never drop things or break anything; but you wouldn’t believe it, when I had to give Robert his medicine I used to drop the spoon and break the glass, I couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking of me.”
It was almost impossible not to laugh when Mrs. Forestier told you this. She smiled rather sweetly.
“I suppose it sounds very absurd to you, but you see I’d never felt that way before. When I married my first husband— well, he was a widower with grown-up children, he was a fine man anti one of the most prominent citizens in the state, but somehow it was different.”
“And how did you eventually discover that you were in love with Captain Forestier?”
“Well, I don’t ask you to believe me, I know it sounds funny, but the fact is that one of the other nurses told me, and as soon as she did of course I knew it was true. I was terribly upset at first. You see, I knew nothing about him. Like all Englishmen he was very reserved and for all I knew he had a wife and half a dozen children.”
“How did you find out he hadn’t?”
“I asked him. The moment he told me he was a bachelor I made up my mind that by hook or by crook I was going to marry him. He suffered agonies, poor darling; you see, he had to lie on his face almost all the time, lying on his back was torture, and as to sitting down—well, of course he couldn’t even think of that. But I don’t believe his agonies were worse than mine. Men like clinging silks and soft, fluffy things, you know what I mean, and I was at such a disadvantage in my nurse’s uniform. The matron, one of those New England spinsters, couldn’t bear make-up, and in those days I didn’t make-up anyway; my first husband never liked it; and then my hair wasn’t as pretty as it is now. He used to look at me with those wonderful blue eyes of his, and I felt he must be thinking I looked a perfect sight. He was very low and I thought I ought to do all I could to cheer him up, so whenever I had a few minutes to spare I’d go and talk to him. He said he couldn’t bear the thought of a strong, husky chap like he was lying in bed week after week while all his pals were in the trenches. You couldn’t talk to him without realising that he was one of those men who never feel the joy of life so intensely as when the bullets are whistling all round them, and the next moment may be their last. Danger was a stimulant to him. I don’t mind telling you that when I used to write down his temperature on the chart I added a point or two so that the doctors should think him a little worse than he was. I knew he was doing his damnedest to get them to discharge him, and I thought it only fair to him to make sure that they wouldn’t. He used to look at me thoughtfully while I talked away and I know he looked forward to our little chats. I told him that I was a widow and had no one dependent on me, and I told him that I was thinking of settling down in Europe after the war. Gradually he thawed a little. He didn’t say much about himself, but he began to chaff me, he has a great sense of humour, you know, and sometimes I really began to think he rather liked me. At last they reported him fit for duty. To my surprise he asked me to dine with him on his last evening. I managed to get leave from the matron and we drove in to Paris You can’t imagine how handsome he looked in his uniform. I’ve never seen anyone look so distinguished. Aristocratic to his finger-tips. Somehow or other he wasn’t in such good spirits as I’d expected. He’d been crazy to get back to the front.
“ ‘Why are you so down to-night?’ I asked him. ‘After all, you’ve got your wish at last.’
“ ‘I know I have,’ he said. ‘If for all that I’m a bit blue, can’t you guess why?’
“I simply dared not think what he meant. I thought I’d better make a little joke.
“ ‘I’m not very good at guessing,’ I said, with a laugh. ‘If you want me to know you’d better tell me.’
“He looked down and I could see he was nervous.
“ ‘You’ve been most awfully good to me,’ he said. ‘I can never begin to thank you for all your kindness. You’re the grandest woman I’ve ever known.’
“It upset me terribly to hear him say that. You know how funny Englishmen are; he’d never paid me a compliment before.
“ ‘I’ve only done what any competent nurse would have,’ I said.
“ ‘Shall I ever see you again?’ he said.
“ ‘That’s up to you,’ I said.
“I hoped he didn’t hear the tremble in my voice.
“ ‘I hate leaving you,’ he said.
“I really could hardly speak.
“ ‘Need you?’ I said.
“ ‘So long as my King and Country want me I am at their service.’ ”
When Mrs. Forestier reached this point her pale blue eyes filled with tears.
“ ‘But the war can’t, last for ever,’ I said.
“ ‘When the war ends,’ he answered, ‘supposing a bullet hasn’t put an end to me, I shan’t have a penny. I don’t even know how I shall set about earning my living. You’re a very rich woman; I’m a pauper.’
“ ‘You’re an English gentleman,’ I said.
“ ‘Will that matter very much when the world has been made safe for democracy?’ he said bitterly.
“I was just crying my eyes out by then. Everything he said was so beautiful. Of co
urse I saw what he meant. He didn’t think it honourable to ask me to marry him. I felt he’d sooner die than let me think he was after my money. He was a fine man. I knew that I wasn’t worthy of him, hut I saw that if I wanted him I must go out and get him myself.
“ ‘It’s no good pretending I’m not crazy about you, because I am,’ I said.
“ ‘Don’t make il harder for me,’ he said hoarsely.
“I thought I should die, I loved him so much when he said that. It told me all I wanted to know. I stretched out my hand.
“ ‘Will you marry me, Robert?’ I said, very simply.
“‘Eleanor,’ he said.
“It was then he told me that he’d loved me from the first day he ever saw me. At first he hadn’t taken it seriously, he thought I was just a nurse and perhaps he’d have an affair with me, and then when he found out that I wasn’t that sort of woman and had a certain amount of money, he made up his mind that he must conquer his love. You see, he thought that marriage was quite out of the question.”
Probably nothing flattered Mrs. Forestier more than the idea that Captain Forestier had wanted to have a slap and tickle with her. It was certain that no one else had ever made dishonourable proposals to her, and though Forestier hadn’t either, the conviction that he had entertained the notion was a never-failing source of satisfaction to her. When they were married Eleanor’s relations, hard-bitten Western people, had suggested that her husband should go to work rather than live on her money, and Captain Forestier was all for it. The only stipulation he made was this:
“There are some things a gentleman can’t do, Eleanor. Anything else I’ll do gladly. God knows, I don’t attach any importance to that sort of thing, but if one’s a sahib one can’t help it, and damn it all, especially in these days, one docs owe something to one’s class.”
The Complete Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham - II - The World Over Page 40
