Chapter 2

Mrs. Greyne was considerably shaken by the event of the previous night. Although, on the discovery of the diary, the house had been roused, and all the servants closely questioned, no light had been thrown upon its migration from the locked drawer to the schoolroom table. Adolphus and Olivia, jerked from sleep by the hasty hands of a maid, could only weep and wan. The powdered footmen, one and all, declared they had never heard of a diary. The butler gave warning on the spot, keeping on his nightcap to give greater effect to his pronunciamento. It was all most unsatisfactory, and for one wild moment Mrs. Greyne seriously thought of retaining her husband by her as a protection against the mysterious thief who had been at work in their midst. Could it be Mademoiselle Verbena? The dread surmise occurred, but Mr. Greyne rejected it.

“Her father was a count,” he said. “Besides, my darling, I don’t believe she can read English; certainly not unless it is printed.”

So there the matter rested, and the moment of parting came.

There was a murmur of respectful sympathy as Mrs. Greyne clasped her husband tenderly in her arms, and pressed his head against her prune-coloured bonnet strings. The whistle sounded. The train moved on. Leaning from a reserved first-class compartment, Mr. Greyne waved a silk pocket-handkerchief so long as his wife’s Roman profile stood out clear against the fog and smoke of London. But at last it faded, grew remote, took on the appearance of a feebly-executed crayon drawing, vanished. He sank back upon the cushions--alone. Darrell was travelling second with the dressing-case.

It was a strange sensation, to be alone, and _en route_ to Algiers. Mr. Greyne scarcely knew what to make of it. A schoolboy suddenly despatched to Timbuctoo could hardly have felt more terribly emancipated than he did. He was so absolutely unaccustomed to freedom, he had been for so long without the faintest desire for it, that to have it thrust upon him so suddenly was almost alarming. He felt lonely, anxious, horribly unmarried. To divert his thoughts he drew forth a Merrin’s exercise-book and a pencil, and wrote on the first page, in large letters, “_African Frailty, Notes for_” Then he sat gazing at the title of his first literary work, and wondering what on earth he was going to see in Algiers.

Vague visions of himself in the bars of African public-houses, in mosques, in the two-pair-backs of dervishes, in bazaars--which he pictured to himself like those opened by royalties at the Queen’s Hall--in Moorish interiors surrounded by voluptuous ladies with large oval eyes, black tresses, and Turkish trousers of spangled muslin, flitted before his mental gaze. When the train ran upon Dover Pier, and the white horses of the turbulent Channel foamed at his feet, he started as one roused from a Rip Van Winkle sleep. Severe illness occupied his whole attention for a time, and then recovery.

In Paris he dined at the buffet like one in a dream, and, at the appointed hour, came forth to take the _rapide_ for Marseilles. He looked for Darrell and the dressing-case. They were not to be seen. There stood the train. Passengers were mounting into it. Old ladies with agitated faces were buying pillows and nibbling biscuits. Elderly gentlemen with yellow countenances and red ribands in their coats were purchasing the _Figaro_ and the _Gil Blas_. Children with bare legs were being hauled into compartments. Rook’s agent was explaining to a muddled tourist in a tam-o’-shanter the exact difference between the words “Oui” and “Non” The bustle of departure was in the air, but Darrell was not to be seen. Mr. Greyne had left him upon the platform with minute directions as to the point from which the train would start and the hour of its going. Yet he had vanished. The most frantic search, the most frenzied inquiries of officials and total strangers, failed to elicit his whereabouts, and, finally, Mr. Greyne was flung forcibly upward into the _wagonlit_, and caught by the _contrôleur_ when the train was actually moving out of the station.

A moment later he fell exhausted upon the pink-plush seat of his compartment, realising his terrible position. He was now utterly alone; without servant, hair-brushes, toothbrushes, razors, sponges, pajamas, shoes. It was a solitude that might be felt. He thought of the sea journey with no kindly hand to minister to him, the arrival in Africa with no humble companion at his side, to wonder with him at the black inhabitants and help him through the customs--to say nothing of the manners. He thought of the dread homes of iniquity into which he must penetrate by night in search of the material for the voracious “Catherine.” He had meant to take Darrell with him to them all--Darrell, whose joyful delight in the prospect of exploring the Eastern fastnesses of crime had been so boyish, so truly English in its frank, its even boisterous sincerity.

And now he was utterly alone, almost like Robinson Crusoe.

The _contrôleur_ came in to make the bed. Mr. Greyne told him the dreadful story.

“No doubt he has been lured away, monsieur. The dressing-case was of value?”

“Crocodile, gold fittings.”

“Probably monsieur will never see him again. As likely as not he will sleep in the Seine to-night, and at the morgue to-morrow.”

Mr. Greyne shuddered. This was an ill omen for his expedition. He drank a stiff whisky-and-soda instead of the usual barley water, and went to bed to dream of bloody murders in which he was the victim.

When the train ran into Marseilles next morning he was an unshaven, miserable man.

“Have I time to buy a tooth-brush,” he inquired anxiously at the station, “before the boat sails for Algiers?”

The _chef de gare_ thought so. Monsieur had four hours, if that was sufficient. Mr. Greyne hastened forth, had a Turkish bath, purchased a new dressing-case, ate a hasty _déjeuner_, and took a cab to the wharf. It was a long drive over the stony streets. He glanced from side to side, watching the bustling traffic, the hurry of the nations going to and from the ships. His eyes rested upon two Arabs who were striding along in his direction. Doubtless they were also bound for Algiers. He thought they looked most wicked, and hastily took a note of them for “African Frailty.” Beside his sense of loss and loneliness marched the sense of duty. The great woman at home in Belgrave Square, founder of his fortunes, mother of his children, she depended upon him. Even in his own hour of need he would not fail her. He took a lead pencil, and wrote down:

Saw two Arab ruffians. Bare legs. Look capable of anything. Should not be surprised to hear that they had----

There he paused. That they had what? Done things. Of course, but what things? That was the question. He exerted his imagination, but failed to arrive at any conclusion as to their probable crimes. His knowledge of wickedness was really absurdly limited. For the first time he felt slightly ashamed of it, and began to wish he had gone into the militia. He comforted himself with the thought that in a fortnight he would probably be fit for the regular army. This thought cheered him slightly, and it was with a slight smile upon his face that he welcomed the first glimpse of the _Général Bertrand_, which was lying against the quay ready to cast off at the stroke of noon. Most of the passengers were aboard, but, as Mr. Greyne stepped out of his cab, and prepared to pay the Maltese driver, a trim little lady, plainly dressed in black, and carrying a tiny and rather coquettish hand-bag, was tripping lightly across the gangway. Mr. Greyne glanced at her as he turned to follow, glanced, and then started. That back was surely familiar to him. Where could he have seen it before? He searched his memory as the little lady vanished. It was a smart, even a _chic_ back, a back that knew how to take care of itself, a back that need not go through the world alone, a back, in fine, that was most distinctly attractive, if not absolutely alluring. Where had he seen it before, or had he ever seen it at all? He thought of his wife’s back, flat, powerful, uncompromising. This was very different, more--how should he put it to himself?--more Algerian, perhaps. He could vaguely conceive it a back such as one might meet with while engaged in adding to one’s stock of knowledge of--well--African frailty.

At this moment the steward appeared to show him to his cabin, and his further reflections were mainly connected with the Gulf of Lyons.

Twilight was beginning to fall when, so far as he was capable of thinking, he thought he would like a breath of air. For some moments he lay quite still, dwelling on this idea which had so mysteriously come to him. Then he got up, and thought again, seated upon the cabin floor. He knew there was a deck. He remembered having seen one when he came aboard. He put on his fur coat, still sitting on the cabin floor. The process took some time--he fancied about a couple of years. At last, however, it was completed, and he rose to his feet with the assistance of the washstand and the berth.

The ship seemed very busy, full of almost American activity. He thought a greater calm would have been more decent, and waited in the hope that the floor would presently cease to forget itself. As it showed no symptoms of complying with his desire he endeavoured to spurn it, and, in the fulness of time, gained the companion.

It was very strange, as he remembered afterwards, that only when he had gained the companion did the sense of his utter loneliness rush upon him with overwhelming force: one of the ironies of life, he supposed. Eventually he shook the companion off with a good deal of difficulty, and found himself installed upon planks under a grey sky, and holding fast to a railing, which was all that interposed between him and eternity.

At first he was only conscious of greyness and the noise of winds and waters, but presently a black daub seemed to hover for a second somewhere on the verge of his world, to hover and disappear. He wondered what it was. A smut, perhaps. He rubbed his face. The daub returned. It was very large for a smut. He strove to locate it, and found that it must be somewhere on his left cheek. With a great effort he took out his pocket-handkerchief. Suddenly the daub assumed monstrous proportions. He turned his head, and perceived the lady in black whom he had seen tripping over the gangway on his arrival.

She was a few steps from him, leaning upon the rail in an attitude of the deepest dejection, with her face averted; yet it struck him that her right shoulder was oddly familiar, as her back had surely been. The turn of her head, too--he coughed despairingly. The lady took no notice. He coughed again. Interest was quickening in him. He was determined to see the lady’s face.

This time she looked around, showing a pale countenance bedewed with tears, and totally devoid of any expression which he could connect with a consciousness of his presence. For a moment she stared vacantly at him, while he, with almost equal vacancy, regarded her. Then a thrill of surprise shook him. A sudden light of knowledge leaped up in him, and he exclaimed:

“Mademoiselle Verbena!” “Monsieur?” murmured the lady, with an accent of surprise.

“Mademoiselle Verbena! Surely it is--it must be!”

He had staggered sideways, nearing her.

“Mademoiselle Verbena, do you not know me? It is I, Eustace Greyne, the father of your pupils, the husband of Mrs. Eustace Greyne?”

An expression of stark amazement came into the lady’s face at these words. She leaned forward till her eyes were close to Mr. Greyne’s then gave a little cry.

“_Mon Dieu!_ It is true! You are so altered that I could not recognise. And then--what are you doing here, on the wide sea, far from madame?”

“I was just about to ask you the very same question!” cried Mr. Greyne.

IV

“Alas, monsieur!” said Mademoiselle Verbena in her silvery voice, “I go to see my poor mother.”

“But I understood that she was dying in Paris.”

“Even so. But, when I reached the Rue St. Honoré, I found that they had removed to Algiers. It was the only chance, the doctor said--a warm climate, the sun of Africa. There was no time to let me know. They took her away at once. And now I follow--perhaps to find her dead.”

Large tears rolled down her cheeks. Mr. Greyne was deeply affected.

“Let us hope for the best,” he exclaimed, seized by a happy inspiration.

The Levantine strove to smile.

“But you, monsieur, why are you here? Ah! perhaps madame is with you! Let me go to her! Let me kiss her dear hands once more----”

Mr. Greyne mournfully checked her fond excitement.

“I am quite alone,” he said.

A tragic expression came into the Levantine’s face.

“But, then----” she began.

It was impossible for him to tell her about “Catherine.” He was, therefore, constrained to subterfuge.

“I--I was suddenly overtaken by--by influenza,” he said, in some confusion. “The doctor recommended change of air, of scene.”

“He suggested Algiers----”

“_Mon Dieu!_ It is like poor mamma!”

“Precisely. Our constitutions are--are doubtless similar. I shall take this opportunity also of improving my knowledge of African manners and--and customs.”

A strange smile seemed to dawn for a second on Mademoiselle Verbena’s face, but it died instantaneously in a grimace of pain.

“My teeth make me bad,” she said. “Ah, monsieur, I must go below, to pray for poor mamma--” she paused, then softly added, “and for monsieur.”

She made a movement as if to depart, but Mr. Greyne begged her to remain. In his loneliness the sight even of a Levantine whom he knew solaced his yearning heart. He felt quite friendly towards this poor, unhappy girl, for whom, perhaps, such a shock was preparing upon the distant shore.

“Better stay!” he said. “The air will do you good.”

“Ah, if I die, what matter? Unless mamma lives there is no one in the world who cares for me, for whom I care.”

“There--there is Mrs. Greyne,” said her husband. “And then St. Paul’s--remember St. Paul’s.”

“Ah _ce charmant_ St. Paul’s! Shall I ever see him more?”

She looked at Mr. Greyne, and suddenly--he knew not why--Mr. Greyne remembered the incident of the diary, and blushed.

“Monsieur has fever!”

Mr. Greyne shook his head. The Levantine eyed him curiously.

“Monsieur wishes to say something to me, and does not like to speak.”

Mr. Greyne made an effort. Now that he was with this gentle lady, with her white face, her weeping eyes, her plain black dress, the mere suspicion that she could have opened a locked drawer with a secret key, and filched therefrom a private record, seemed to him unpardonable. Yet, for a brief instant, it had occurred to him, and Mrs. Greyne had seriously held it. He looked at Mademoiselle Verbena, and a sudden impulse to tell her the truth overcame him.

“Yes,” he said.

“Tell me, monsieur.”

In broken words--the ship was still very busy--Mr. Greyne related the incident of the loss and finding of the diary. As he spoke a slight change stole over the Levantine’s face. It certainly became less pale.

“But you have fever now!” cried Mr. Greyne anxiously.

“I! No; I flush with horror, not with fever! The diary, the sacred diary of madame, exposed to view, read by the children, perhaps the servants! That footman, Thomas, with the nose of curiosity! Ah! I behold that nose penetrating into the holy secrets of the existence of madame! I behold it--ah!”

She burst into a fit of hysterics, the laughing species, which is so much more terrible than the other sort. Mr. Greyne was greatly concerned. He lurched to her, and implored her to be calm; but she only laughed the more, while tears streamed down her cheeks. The vision of Thomas gloating over Mrs. Greyne’s diary seemed utterly to unnerve her, and Mr. Greyne was able to measure, by this ebullition of horror, the depth of the respect and affection entertained by her for his beloved wife. When, at length, she grew calmer he escorted her towards her cabin, offering her his arm, on which she leaned heavily. As soon as they were in the narrow and heaving passage she turned to him, and said:

“Who can have taken the diary?”

Mr. Greyne blushed again.

“We think it was Thomas,” he said.

Mademoiselle Verbena looked at him steadily for a moment, then she cried:

“God bless you, monsieur!”

Mr. Greyne was startled by the abruptness of this pious ejaculation.

“Why?” he inquired.

“You are a good man. You, at least, would not condescend to insult a friendless woman by unworthy suspicions. And madame?”

“Mrs. Greyne”--stammered Mr. Greyne--“is convinced that it was Thomas. In fact--in fact, she was the first to say so.”

Mademoiselle Verbena tenderly pressed his hand.

“Madame is an angel. God bless you both!”

She tottered into her cabin, and, as she shut the door, Mr. Greyne heard the terrible, laughing hysterics beginning again.

The next day an influence from Africa seemed spread upon the sea. Calm were the waters, calm and blue. No cloud appeared in the sky. The fierce activities of the ship had ceased, and Mademoiselle Verbena tripped upon the deck at an early hour, to find Mr. Greyne already installed there, and looking positively cheerful. He started up as he perceived her, and chivalrously escorted her to a chair.

Everyone who has made a voyage knows that the sea breeds intimacies. By the time the white houses of Algiers rose on their hill out of the bosom of the waves Mademoiselle Verbena and Mr. Greyne were--shall we say like sister and brother? She had told him all about her childhood in dear Paris, the death of her father the count, murmuring the name of Louis XVI., the poverty of her mother the countess, her own resolve to put aside all aristocratic prejudices and earn her own living. He, in return, had related his Eton days, his momentary bias towards the militia, his marriage--as an innocent youth--with Miss Eugenia Hannibal-Barker. Coming to later times, he was led to confide to the tenderhearted Levantine the fact that he hoped to increase his stock of knowledge while in Africa. Without alluding to “Catherine,” he hinted that the cure of influenza was not his only reason for foreign travel.

“I wish to learn something of men and--and women,” he murmured in the shell-like ear presented to him. “Of their passions, their desires, their--their follies.”

“Ah!” cried Mademoiselle Verbena. “Would that I could assist monsieur! But I am only an ignorant little creature, and know nothing of the world! And I shall be ever at the bedside of mamma.”

“You will give me your address? You will let me inquire for the countess?”

“Willingly; but I do not know where I shall be. There will be a message at the wharf. To what hotel goes monsieur?”

“The Grand Hotel.”

“I will write there when I have seen mamma. And meanwhile----”

They were coming into harbour. The heights of Mustapha were visible, the woods of the Bois de Boulogne, the towers of the Hotel Splendid.

“Meanwhile, may I beg monsieur not to----” She hesitated.

“Not to what?” asked Mr. Greyne most softly.

“Not to let anyone in England know that I am here?”

She paused. Mr. Greyne was silent, wondering. Mademoiselle Verbena drooped her head.

“The world is so censorious. It might seem strange that I--that monsieur--a man young, handsome, fascinating--the same ship--I have no chaperon--enfin----”

She could get out no more. Her delicacy, her forethought touched Mr. Greyne to tears.

“Not a word,” he said. “You are right. The world is evil, and, as you say, I am a--not a word!”

He ventured to press her hand, as an elder brother might have pressed it. For the first time he realised that even to the husband of Mrs. Eustace Greyne the world might attribute--Goodness gracious! What might not the militia think, for instance?

He felt himself, for one moment, potentially a dog.

They parted in a whirl of Arabs on the quay. Mr. Greyne would have stayed to assist Mademoiselle Verbena, but she bade him go.

She whispered that she thought it “better” that they should not seem to--_enfin!_

“I will write to-morrow,” she murmured. “_Au revoir!_”

On the last word she was gone. Mr. Greyne saw nothing but Arabs and hotel porters. Loneliness seemed to close in on him once more.

That very evening, after a cup of tea, he presented himself at the office of Rook near the Place du Gouvernement. As he came in he felt a little nervous. There were no tourists in the office, and a courteous clerk with a bright and searching eye at once took him in hand.

“What can we do for you, sir?”

“I am a stranger here,” began Mr. Greyne.

“Quite so, sir, quite so.”

The clerk twiddled his business-like thumbs, and looked inquiring.

“And being so,” Mr. Greyne went on, “it is naturally my wish to see as much of the town as possible; as much as possible, you understand.”

“You want a guide? Alphonso!”

Turning, he shouted to an inner room, from which in a moment emerged a short, stout, swarthy personage with a Jewish nose, a French head, an Arab eye with a squint in it, and a markedly Maltese expression.

“This is an excellent guide, sir,” said the clerk. “He speaks twenty-five languages.”

The stout man, who--as Mr Greyne now perceived--had on a Swiss suit of clothes, a panama hat, and a pair of German elastic-sided boots, confessed in pigeon English, interspersed occasionally with a word or two of something which Mr. Greyne took to be Chinese, that such was undoubtedly the case.

“What do you wish to see? The mosque, the bazaars, St. Eugène, La Trappe, Mustapha, the baths of the Etat-Major, the Jardin d’Essai, the Villa-Anti-Juif, the----”

“One moment!” said Mr. Greyne.

He turned to the clerk.

“May I take a chair?”

“Be seated, sir, pray be seated, and confer with Alphonso.”

So saying, he gave himself to an enormous ledger, while Mr. Greyne took a chair opposite to Alphonso, who stood in a Moorish attitude looking apparently in the direction of Marseilles.

“I have come here,” said Mr. Greyne, lowering his voice, “with a purpose.”.

“You wish to see the Belle Fatma. I will arrange it. She receives every evening in her house in the Rue ------”

“One minute! One minute! You said the something ‘Fatma’?”

“The Belle Fatma, the most beautiful woman of Africa. She receives every----”

“Pardon me! One moment! Is this lady----”

Mr. Greyne paused.

“Sir?” said Alphonso, settling his Spanish neck-tie, and gazing steadily towards Marseilles.

“Is this lady--well, sinful?”

Alphonso threw up his hands with a wild Asiatic gesture.

“Sinful! La Belle Fatma! She is a lady of the utmost respectability known to all the town. You go to her house at eight, you take coffee upon the red sofas, you talk with La Belle, you see the dances and hear the music. Do not fear, sir; it is good, it is respectable as England, your country----”

“If it is respectable I don’t want to see it,” interposed Mr. Greyne. “It would be a waste of time.”

The clerk lifted his head from the ledger, and Alphonso, by means of standing with his back almost square to Mr. Greyne, and looking over his right shoulder, succeeded at length in fixing his eye upon him.

“I have not travelled here to see respectable things,” continued Mr. Greyne, with a slight blush. “Quite the contrary.”

“Sir?”

The voice of Alphonso seemed to have changed, to have taken on a hard, almost a menacing tone. Mr. Greyne thought of his beloved wife, of Merrin’s exercise-books, and clenched his hands, endeavouring to feel, and to go on, like a militiaman.

“Quite the contrary,” he repeated firmly; “my object in coming to Africa is to--to search about in the Kasbah, and the disrep----”

He choked, recovered himself, and continued: “Disreputable quarters of Algiers--hem------”

“What for, sir?”

The voice of Alphonso was certainly changed.

“What for?” said Mr. Greyne, growing purple. “For frailty.”

“Sir?”

“For frailty--for wickedness.”