‘Oh, well, the Government never bothers very much about the convenience of its subordinates, does it?’ smiled Anne.
‘It’s just red-tape. I would offer to take you along, darling, only I shan’t stay a minute longer than I need. I want to get my evidence together for the Sessions Court as soon as possible. I think in a country like this it’s very important that justice should be prompt.’
When the launch came in to Port Wallace one of the harbour police told him that the harbour-master had a chit for him. It was from the Governor’s secretary and informed him that His Excellency desired to see him as soon as convenient after his arrival. It was ten in the morning. Alban went to the club, had a bath and shaved, and then in clean ducks, his hair neatly brushed, he called a rickshaw and told the boy to take him to the Governor’s office. He was at once shown in to the secretary’s room. The secretary shook hands with him. ‘I’ll tell H.E. you’re here,’ he said. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
The secretary left the room and in a little while came back.
‘H.E. will see you in a minute. Do you mind if I get on with my letters?’ Alban smiled. The secretary was not exactly come-hither. He waited, smoking a cigarette, and amused himself with his own thoughts. He was making a good job of the preliminary inquiry. It interested him. Then an orderly came in and told Alban that the Governor was ready for him. He rose from his seat and followed him into the Governor’s room.
‘Good morning, Torel.’
‘Good morning, sir.’
The Governor was sitting at a large desk. He nodded to Alban and motioned to him to take a seat. The Governor was all grey. His hair was grey, his face, his eyes; he looked as though the tropical suns had washed the colour out of him; he had been in the country for thirty years and had risen one by one through all the ranks of the Service; he looked tired and depressed. Even his voice was grey. Alban liked him because he was quiet; he did not think him clever, but he had an unrivalled knowledge of the country, and his great experience was a very good substitute for intelligence. He looked at Alban for a full moment without speaking and the odd idea came to Alban that he was embarrassed. He very nearly gave him a lead.
‘I saw Van Hasseldt yesterday,’ said the Governor suddenly.
‘Yes, sir?’
Will you give me your account of the occurrences at the Mud Estate and of the steps you took to deal with them.’
Alban had an orderly mind. He was self-possessed. He marshalled his facts well and was able to state them with precision. He chose his words with care and spoke them fluently.
‘You had a sergeant and eight policemen. Why did you not immediately go to the scene of the disturbance?’
‘I thought the risk was unjustifiable.’
A thin smile was outlined on the Governor’s grey face.
‘If the officers of this Government had hesitated to take unjustifiable risks it would never have become a province of the British Empire.’
Alban was silent. It was difficult to talk to a man who spoke obvious nonsense.
‘I am anxious to hear your reasons for the decision you took.’
Alban gave them coolly. He was quite convinced of the Tightness of his action. He repeated, but more fully, what he had said in the first place to Anne. The Governor listened attentively.
‘Van Hasseldt, with his manager, a Dutch friend of his, and a native overseer, seems to have coped with the situation very efficiently,’ said the Governor.
‘He had a lucky break. That doesn’t prevent him from being a damned fool. It was madness to do what he did.’
‘Do you realize that by leaving a Dutch planter to do what you should have done yourself, you have covered the Government with ridicule?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You’ve made yourself a laughing-stock in the whole colony.’
Alban smiled.
‘My back is broad enough to bear the ridicule of persons to whose opinion I am entirely indifferent.’
‘The utility of a government official depends very largely on his prestige, and I’m afraid his prestige is likely to be inconsiderable when he lies under the stigma of cowardice.’
Alban flushed a little.
‘I don’t quite know what you mean by that, sir.’
‘I’ve gone into the matter very carefully. I’ve seen Captain Stratton, and Oakley, poor Prynne’s assistant, and I’ve seen Van Hasseldt. I’ve listened to your defence.’
‘I didn’t know that I was defending myself, sir.’
‘Be so good as not to interrupt me. I think you committed a grave error of judgement. As it turns out, the risk was very small, but whatever it was, I think you should have taken it. In such matters promptness and firmness are essential. It is not for me to conjecture what motive led you to send for a force of constabulary and do nothing till they came. I am afraid, however, that I consider that your usefulness in the Service is no longer very great.’
Alban looked at him with astonishment.
‘But would you have gone under the circumstances?’ he asked him. ‘I should.’
Alban shrugged his shoulders.
‘Don’t you believe me?’ rapped out the Governor.
‘Of course I believe you, sir. But perhaps you will allow me to say that if you had been killed the colony would have suffered an irreparable loss.’ The Governor drummed on the table with his fingers. He looked out of the window and then looked again at Alban. When he spoke it was not unkindly. ‘I think you are unfitted by temperament for this rather rough-and-tumble life, Torel. If you’ll take my advice you’ll go home. With your abilities I feel sure that you’ll soon find an occupation much better suited to you.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean, sir.’
‘Oh, come, Torel, you’re not stupid. I’m trying to make things easy for you. For your wife’s sake as well as for your own I do not wish you to leave the colony with the stigma of being dismissed from the Service for cowardice. I’m giving you the opportunity of resigning.’
‘Thank you very much, sir. I’m not prepared to avail myself of the opportunity. If I resign I admit that I committed an error and that the charge you make against me is justified. I don’t admit it.’
‘You can please yourself I have considered the matter very carefully and I have no doubt about it in my mind. I am forced to discharge you from the Service. The necessary papers will reach you in due course. Meanwhile you will return to your post and hand over to the officer appointed to succeed you on his arrival.’
‘Very good, sir,’ replied Alban, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. ‘When do you desire me to return to my post?’
‘At once.’
‘Have you any objection to my going to the club and having tiffin before I go?’ The Governor looked at him with surprise. His exasperation was mingled with an unwilling admiration.
‘Not at all. I’m sorry, Torel, that this unhappy incident should have deprived the Government of a servant whose zeal has always been so apparent and whose tact, intelligence, and industry seemed to point him out in the future for very high office.’
‘Your Excellency does not read Schiller, I suppose. You are probably not acquainted with his celebrated line: mit der Dummheit kiimpfen die GOtter selbst vergebens.’
‘What does it mean?’
‘Roughly: Against stupidity the gods themselves battle in vain.’
‘Good morning.’
With his head in the air, a smile on his lips, Alban left the Governor’s office. The Governor was human, and he had the curiosity to ask his secretary later in the day if Alban Torel had really gone to the club.
‘Yes, sir. He had tiffin there.’
‘It must have wanted some nerve.’
Alban entered the club jauntily and joined the group of men standing at the bar. He talked to them in the breezy, cordial tone he always used with them. It was designed to put them at their ease. They had been discussing him ever since Stratton had come back to Port Wallace with his story, sn
eering at him and laughing at him, and all who had resented his superciliousness, and they were the majority, were triumphant because his pride had had a fall. But they were so taken aback at seeing him now, so confused to find him as confident as ever, that it was they who were embarrassed.
One man, though he knew perfectly, asked him what he was doing in Port Wallace.
‘Oh, I came about the riot on the Mud Estate. H.E. wanted to see me. He does not see eye to eye with me about it. The silly old ass has fired me. I’m going home as soon as he appoints a D.O. to take over.’
There was a moment of awkwardness. One, more kindly disposed than the others, said:
‘I’m awfully sorry.’
Alban shrugged his shoulders.
‘My dear fellow, what can you do with a perfect damned fool? The only thing is to let him stew in his own juice.’
When the Governor’s secretary had told his chief as much of this as he thought discreet, the Governor smiled.
‘Courage is a queer thing. I would rather have shot myself than go to the club just then and face all those fellows.’
A fortnight later, having sold to the incoming D.O. all the decorations that Anne had taken so much trouble about, with the rest of their things in packing-cases and trunks, they arrived at Port Wallace to await the local steamer that was to take them to Singapore. The padre’s wife invited them to stay with her, but Anne refused; she insisted that they should go to the hotel. An hour after their arrival she received a very kind little letter from the Governor’s wife asking her to go and have tea with her. She went. She found Mrs Hannay alone, but in a minute the Governor joined them. He expressed his regret that she was leaving and told her how sorry he was for the cause.
‘It’s very kind of you to say that,’ said Anne, smiling gaily, ‘but you mustn’t think I take it to heart. I’m entirely on Alban’s side. I think what he did was absolutely right and if you don’t mind my saying so I think you’ve treated him most unjustly.’
‘Believe me, I hated having to take the step I took.’
‘Don’t let’s talk about it,’ said Anne.
‘What are your plans when you get home? asked Mrs Hannay.
Anne began to chat brightly. You would have thought she had not a care in the world. She seemed in great spirits at going home. She was jolly and amusing and made little jokes. When she took leave of the Governor and his wife she thanked them for all their kindness. The Governor escorted her to the door.
The next day but one, after dinner, they went on board the clean and comfortable little ship. The padre and his wife saw them off. When they went into their cabin they found a large parcel on Anne’s bunk. It was addressed to Alban. He opened it and saw that it was an immense powder-puff
‘Hullo, I wonder who sent us this,’ he said, with a laugh. ‘It must be for you, darling.’
Anne gave him a quick look. She went pale. The brutes! How could they be so cruel? She forced herself to smile.
‘It’s enormous, isn’t it? I’ve never seen such a large powder-puffin my life.’ But when he had left the cabin and they were out at sea, she threw it passionately overboard.
And now, now that they were back in London and Sondurah was nine thousand miles away, she clenched her hands as she thought of it. Somehow, it seemed the worst thing of all. It was so wantonly unkind to send that absurd object to Alban, Powder-Puff Percy; it showed such a petty spite. Was that their idea of humour? Nothing had hurt her more and even now she felt that it was only by holding on to herself that she could prevent herself from crying. Suddenly she started, for the door opened and Alban came in. She was still sitting in the chair in which he had left her.
‘Hullo, why haven’t you dressed?’ He looked about the room. ‘You haven’t unpacked.’
‘No.’
‘Why on earth not?’
‘I’m not going to unpack. I’m not going to stay here. I’m leaving you.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve stuck it out till now I made up my mind I would till we got home. I set my teeth, I’ve borne more than I thought it possible to bear, but now it’s finished. I’ve done all that could be expected of me. We’re back in London now and I can go.’
He looked at her in utter bewilderment.
‘Are you mad, Anne?’
‘Oh, my God, what I’ve endured! The journey to Singapore, with all the officers knowing, and even the Chinese stewards. And at Singapore, the way people looked at us at the hotel, and the sympathy I had to put up with, the bricks they dropped and their embarrassment when they realized what they’d done. My God, I could have killed them. That interminable journey home. There wasn’t a single passenger on the ship who didn’t know. The contempt they had for you and the kindness they went out of their way to show me. And you so self-complacent and so pleased with yourself, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. You must have the hide of a rhinoceros. The misery of seeing you so chatty and agreeable. Pariahs, that’s what we were. You seemed to ask them to snub you. How can anyone be so shameless?’
She was flaming with passion. Now that at last she need not wear the mask of indifference and pride that she had forced herself to assume she cast aside all reserve and all self-control. The words poured from her trembling lips in a virulent stream.
‘My dear, how can you be so absurd?’ he said good-naturedly, smiling. ‘You must be very nervous and high-strung to have got such ideas in your head. Why didn’t you tell me? You’re like a country bumpkin who comes to London and thinks everyone is staring at him. Nobody bothered about us, and if they did what on earth did it matter? You ought to have more sense than to bother about what a lot of fools say. And what do you imagine they were saying?’
‘They were saying you’d been fired.’
‘Well, that was true,’ he laughed.
‘They said you were a coward.’
‘What of it?’
‘Well, you see, that was true too.’
He looked at her for a moment reflectively. His lips tightened a little. ‘And what makes you think so?’ he asked acidly.
‘I saw it in your eyes, that day the news came, when you refused to go to the estate and I followed you into the hall when you went to fetch your topee. I begged you to go, I felt that whatever the danger you must take it, and suddenly I saw the fear in your eyes. I nearly fainted with the horror.’
‘I should have been a fool to risk my life to no purpose. Why should I? Nothing that concerned me was at stake. Courage is the obvious virtue of the stupid. I don’t attach any particular importance to it.’
‘How do you mean that nothing that concerned you was at stake? If that’s true then your whole life is a sham. You’ve given away everything you stood for, everything we both stand for. You’ve let all of us down. We did set ourselves up on a pinnacle, we did think ourselves better than the rest of them because we loved literature and art and music, we weren’t content to live a life of ignoble jealousies and vulgar tittle-tattle, we did cherish the things of the spirit, and we loved beauty. It was our food and drink. They laughed at us and sneered at us. That was inevitable. The ignorant and the common naturally hate and fear those who are interested in things they don’t understand. We didn’t care. We called them Philistines. We despised them and we had a right to despise them. Our justification was that we were better and nobler and wiser and braver than they were. And you weren’t better, you weren’t nobler, you weren’t braver. When the crisis came you slunk away like a whipped cur with his tail between his legs. You of all people hadn’t the right to be a coward. They despise us now and they have the right to despise us. Us and all we stood for. Now they can say that art and beauty are all rot; when it comes to a pinch people like us always let you down. They never stopped looking for a chance to turn and rend us and you gave it to them. They can say that they always expected it. It’s a triumph for them. I used to be furious because they called you Powder-Puff Percy. Did you know they did?’
‘Of course. I thought
it very vulgar, but it left me entirely indifferent.’
‘It’s funny that their instinct should have been so right.’
Do you mean to say you’ve been harbouring this against me all these weeks? I should never have thought you capable of it.’
‘I couldn’t let you down when everyone was against you. I was too proud for that. Whatever happened I swore to myself that I’d stick to you till we got home. It’s been torture.’
‘Don’t you love me any more?’
‘Love you? I loathe the very sight of you.’
‘Anne!’
‘God knows I loved you. For eight years I worshipped the ground you trod on. You were everything to me. I believed in you as some people believe in God. When I saw the fear in your eyes that day, when you told me that you weren’t going to risk your life for a kept woman and her half-caste brats, I was shattered. It was as though someone had wrenched my heart out of my body and trampled on it. You killed my love there and then, Alban. You killed it stone-dead. Since then when you’ve kissed me I’ve had to clench my hands so as not to turn my face away. The mere thought of anything else makes me feel physically sick. I loathe your complacence and your frightful insensitiveness. Perhaps I could have forgiven it if it had been just a moment’s weakness and if afterwards you’d been ashamed. I should have been miserable, but I think my love was so great that I should only have felt pity for you. But you’re incapable of shame. And now I believe in nothing. You’re only a silly, pretentious, vulgar poseur. I would rather be the wife of a second-rate planter so long as he had the common human virtues of a man than the wife of a fake like you.’
He did not answer. Gradually his face began to discompose. Those handsome, regular features of his horribly distorted and suddenly he broke out into loud sobs. She gave a little cry.
‘Don’t Alban, don’t.’
‘Oh, darling, how can you be so cruel to me? I adore you. I’d give my whole life to please you. I can’t live without you.’
She put out her arms as though to ward off a blow.
‘No, no, Alban, don’t try to move me. I can’t. I must go. I can’t live with you any more. It would be frightful. I can never forget. I must tell you the truth, I have only contempt for you and repulsion.’
65 Short Stories Page 115
