“a tous maux, il y a deux remèdes—le temps et le silence.”
“they call me uncle ben—comprenny?” one man explained very slowly to another for the sixth time across a small iron table set out upon the pavement.
they were seated in front of the humble café de l'europe, which lies concealed in an alley that runs between the keize straat and the lighthouse of scheveningen. it was quite dark and a lonely reveler at the next table seemed to be asleep. the economical proprietor of the café de l'europe had conceived the idea of constructing a long-shaped lantern, not unlike the arm of a railway signal, which should at once bear the insignia of his house and afford light to his out-door custom. but the idea, like many of the higher flights of the human imagination, had only left the public in the dark.
“yes,” continued the unchallenged speaker, in a voice which may be heard issuing from the door of any tavern in england on almost any evening of the week—the typical voice of the tavern-talker—“yes, they've always called me uncle ben. seems as if they're sort o' fond of me. me has seen many hundreds of 'em come and go. but nothing like this. lord save us!”
his hand fell heavily on the iron table, and he looked round him in semi-intoxicated stupefaction. he was in a confidential humour, and when a man is in this humour, drunk or sober, he is in a parlous state. it was certainly rather unfortunate that uncle ben should have in this expansive moment no more sympathetic companion than an ancient, intoxicated frenchman, who spoke no word of english.
“what i want to know, frenchy,” continued the englishman, in a thick, aggrieved voice, “is how long you've been at this trade, and how much you know about it—you and the other frenchy. but there's none of us speaks the other's lingo. it is a regular tower of babble we are!” and uncle ben added to his mental confusion a further alcoholic fog. “that's why i showed yer the way out of the works over the iron fence by the empty casks, and brought yer by the beach to this 'ere house of entertainment, and stood yer a bottle of brandy between two of us—which is handsome, not bein' my own money, seeing as how the others deputed me to do it—me knowing a bit of french, comprenny?” benjamin, like most of his countrymen, considering that if one speaks english in a loud, clear voice, and adds “comprenny” rather severely, as indicating the intention of standing no nonsense, the previous remarks will translate themselves miraculously in the hearer's mind. “you comprenny—eh? yes. oui.” “oui,” replied the frenchman, holding out his glass; and uncle ben's was that pride which goes with a gift of tongues.
he struck a match to light his pipe—one of the wooden, sulphur-headed matches supplied by the café—and the guest at the next table turned in his chair. the match flared up and showed two faces, which he studied keenly. both faces were alike unwashed and deeply furrowed. white, straggling beards and whiskers accentuated the redness of the eyelids, the dull yellow of the skin. they were hopeless and debased faces, with that disquieting resemblance which is perceptible in the faces of men of dissimilar features and no kinship, who have for a number of years followed a common calling, or suffered a common pain.
these two men were both half blind; they had equally unsteady hands. the clothing of both alike, and even their breath, was scented by a not unpleasant odour of sealing-wax.
it was quite obvious that not only were they at present half intoxicated, but in their soberest moments they could hardly be of a high intelligence.
the reveller at the next table, who happened to be tony cornish, now drew his chair nearer.
“englishman?” he inquired.
“that's me,” answered uncle ben, with commendable pride, “from the top of my head to me boots. not that i've anything to say against foreigners.”
“nor i; but it's pleasant to meet a countryman in a foreign land.” cornish deliberately brought his chair forward. “your bottle is empty,” he added; “i'll order another. friend's a frenchman, eh?”
“that he is—and doesn't understand his own language either,” answered uncle ben, in a voice indicating that that lack of comprehension rather intensified his friend's frenchness than otherwise.
the proprietor of the café de l'europe now came out in answer to cornish's rap on the iron table, and presently brought a small bottle of brandy.
“yes,” said cornish, pouring out the spirit, which his companions drank in its undiluted state from small tumblers—“yes, i'm glad to meet an englishman. i suppose you are in the works—the malgamite?”
“i am. and what do you know about malgamite, mister?”
“well, not much, i am glad to say.”
“there is precious few that knows anything,” said the man, darkly, and his eye for a moment sobered into cunning.
“i have heard that it is a very dangerous trade, and if you want to get out of it i'm connected with an association in london to provide situations for elderly men who are no longer up to their work,” said cornish, carelessly.
“thank ye, mister; not for me. i'm making my five-pound note a week, i am, and each cove that dies off makes the survivors one richer, so to speak—survival of the fittest, they call it. so we don't talk much, and just pockets the pay.”
“ah, that is the arrangement, is it?” said cornish, indifferently. “yes. we've got a clever financier, as they call it, i can tell yer. we're a good-goin' concern, we are. some of us are goin' pretty quick, too.”
“are there many deaths, then?”
“ah! there you're asking a question,” returned the man, who came of a class which has no false shame in refusing a reply.
cornish looked at the man beneath the dim light of the unsuccessful lamp—a piteous specimen of humanity, depraved, besotted, without outward sign of a redeeming virtue, although a certain courage must have been there—this and such as this stood between him and dorothy roden. uncle ben had known starvation at one time, for starvation writes certain lines which even turtle soup may never wipe out—lines which any may read and none may forget. tony cornish had seen them before—on the face of an old dandy coming down the steps of a st. james's street club. the malgamiter had likewise known drink long and intimately, and it is no exaggeration to say that he had stood cheek by jowl with death nearly all his life.
such a man was plainly not to be drawn away from five pounds a week.
cornish turned to the frenchman—a little, cunning, bullet-headed lyonnais, who would not speak of his craft at all, though he expressed every desire to be agreeable to monsieur.
“when one is en fête,” he cried, “it is good to drink one's glass or two and think no more of work.”
“i knew one or two of your men once,” said cornish, returning to the genial uncle ben. “william martins, i remember, was a decent fellow, and had seen a bit of the world. i will come to the works and look him up some day.”
“you can look him up, mister, but you won't find him.”
“ah, has he gone home?”
“he's gone to his long home, that's where he's gone.”
“and his brother, tom martins, both london men, like myself?” inquired cornish, without asking that question which uncle ben considered such exceedingly bad form.
“tom's dead, too.”
“and there were two americans, i recollect—i came across from harwich in the same boat with them—hewlish they were called.”
“hewlishes has stepped round the corner, too,” admitted uncle ben. “oh yes; there's been changes in the works, there's no doubt. and there's only one sort o' change in the malgamite trade. come on, frenchy, time's up.”
the men stood up and bade cornish good night, each after his own manner, and went away steadily enough. it was only their heads that were intoxicated, and perhaps the brandy of the café de l'europe had nothing to do with this.
cornish followed them, and, in the keize straat, he called a cab, telling the man to drive to the house at the corner of oranje straat and park straat, occupied by mrs. vansittart. that lady, the servant said, in reply to his careful inquiry, was at home and alone, and, moreover, did not expect visitors. the man was not at all sure that madame would receive.
“i will try,” said cornish, writing two words in german on the corner of his visiting-card. “you see,” he continued, noticing a well-trained glance, “that i am not dressed, so if other visitors arrive, i would rather not be discovered in madame's salon, you understand?”
mrs. vansittart shook hands with cornish in silence, her quick eyes noted the change in him which the shrewd butler had noticed in the entrance-hall. the cornish of a year earlier would have gone back to the hotel to dress.
“i was just going out to the witte society concert,” said mrs. vansittart. “i thought the open air and the wood would be pleasant this evening. shall we go or shall we remain?” she stood with her hand on the bell looking at him.
“let us remain here,” he answered.
she rang the bell and countermanded the carriage. then she sat slowly down, moving as under a sort of oppression, as if she foresaw what the next few minutes contained, and felt herself on the threshold of one of the surprises that fate springs upon us at odd times, tearing aside the veils behind which human hearts have slept through many years. for indifference is not the death, but only the sleep of the heart.
“you have just arrived?”
“no; i have been here a week.”
“at the hague?”
“no,” answered cornish, with a grave smile; “at a little inn in scheveningen, where no questions are asked.”
mrs. vansittart nodded her head slowly. “then, mon ami,” she said, “the time has come for plain speaking?”
“i suppose so.”
“it is always the woman who wants to get to the plain speaking,” she said, with a smile, “and who speaks the plainest when one gets there. you men are afraid of so many words; you think them, but you dare not make use of them. and how are women to know that you are thinking them?” she spoke with a sort of tolerant bitterness, as if all these questions no longer interested her personally. she sat forward, with one hand on the arm of her chair. “come,” she said, with a little laugh that shook and trembled on the brink of a whole sea of unshed tears, “i will speak the first word. when my husband died, my heart broke—and it was otto von holzen who killed him.” her eyes flashed suddenly, and she threw herself back in the chair. her hands were trembling.
cornish made a quick gesture of the hand—a trick he had learnt somewhere on the continent, more eloquent than a hundred words—which told of his sympathy and his comprehension of all that she had left unsaid. for truly she had told him her whole history in a dozen words.
“i have followed him and watched him ever since,” she went on at length, in a quiet voice; “but a woman is so helpless. i suppose if any of us were watched and followed as he has been our lives would appear a strange mixture of a little good and much bad, mixed with a mass of neutral idleness. but surely his life is worse than the rest—not that it matters. whatever his life had been, if he had been a living saint, tony, he would have had to pay—for what he has done to me.”
she looked steadily into the keen face that was watching hers. she was not in the least melodramatic, and what was stranger, perhaps, she was not ashamed. according to her lights, she was a good woman, who went to church regularly, and did a little conventional good with her superfluous wealth. she obeyed the unwritten laws of society, and busied herself little in her neighbours' affairs. she was kind to her servants, and did not hate her neighbours more than is necessary in a crowded world. she led a blameless, unoccupied, and apparently purposeless life. and now she quietly told tony cornish that her life was not purposeless, but had for its aim the desire of an eye for an eye and a life for a life.
“you remember my husband,” continued mrs. vansittart, after a pause. “he was always absorbed in his researches. he made a great discovery, and confided in otto von holzen, who thought that he could make a fortune out of it. but von holzen cheated and was caught. there was a great trial, and von holzen succeeded in incriminating my husband, who was innocent, instead of himself. the company, of course, failed, which meant ruin and dishonour. in a fit of despair my husband shot himself. and afterwards it transpired that by shooting himself at that time he saved my money. one cannot take proceedings against a dead man, it appears. so i was left a rich woman, after all, and my husband had frustrated otto von holzen. the world did not believe that my husband had done it on purpose; but i knew better. it is one of those beliefs that one keeps to one's self, and is indifferent whether the world believes or not. so there remain but two things for me to do—the one is to enjoy the money, and to let my husband see that i spend it as he would have wished me to spend it—upon myself; the other is to make otto von holzen pay—when the time comes. who knows? the malgamite is perhaps the time; you are perhaps the man.” she gave her disquieting little laugh again, and sat looking at him.
“i understand,” he said at length. “before, i was puzzled. there seemed no reason why you should take any interest in the scheme.”
“my interest in the malgamite scheme narrows down to an interest in one person,” answered mrs. vansittart, “which is what really happens to all human interests, my friend.”
