Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ He felt sure she was not fit to live alone. He, Coxeter, would have known how to detach her from the unsuitable people by whom she was always surrounded, for Nan Archdale—and Coxeter was much concerned that it was so—had an instinctive attraction for those poor souls who lead forlorn hopes, and of whom—they being unsuccessful in their fine endeavors—the world never hears. ”

“ Coxeter did not believe in luck; the word which means so much to many men had no place in his vocabulary or even in his imagination. But still, the sudden appearance of Mrs. Archdale in the great Paris station had been an agreeable surprise, one of those incidents which, just because of their unexpectedness, make a man feel, not only pleased with himself, but at peace with the world. ”

“ Putting Nan aside, John Coxeter was only concerned with two things in life—his work at the Treasury and himself—and people only interested him in relation to these two major problems of existence. Nan Archdale was a citizen of the world—a freewoman of that dear kingdom of romance which still contains so many fragrant byways and sunny oases for those who have the will to find them. ”

“ Nan, with a confused sense of shame and anger, felt herself intimately hurt by his submission; she knew that most men in his place would have made short work of her resistance, would have taken her, masterfully, into the shelter of their arms.
There came a little stir among the people on the deck. Coxeter heard a voice call out in would-be cheery tones: "Now, then, ladies! Please step out—ladies and children only. Look sharp!" A sailor close by whispered gruffly to his mate: "I'll stick to the ship anyhow. No boats for me. We're best here. ”

“ Coxeter and Nan heard the laughing gibe, "Then you don't mind your poor maid being drowned as well as your poor husband," but the bride went on as if he hadn't spoken. "I've quite enough money with me; you needn't give me anything—good-by!"
She disappeared into the fog in the direction of the gangway, and Coxeter moved hastily to one side; he wished to save Bob Rendel the annoyance of recognizing him; but then, with amazing suddenness, came the quick patter of high-heeled shoes over the deck, and Mrs. Rendel was back again close to where her husband was standing. ”

“ Coxeter became dimly conscious of what it would mean to him to have Nan to come back to when work and the couple of hours he usually spent at his club had been done with. Perhaps if Nan were waiting for him he would not wish to stay as long as two hours at his club. But then, of course, he should want Nan all to himself. He was far too sensible a man to feel jealousy, but he would expect his wife to put him first—a very long way in front of any one else. ”

“ They met often, if only because they both lived in that most conventional quarter of old Georgian London, Marylebone—she in Wimpole Street, he in a flat in Wigmore Street. She always was glad to see him, and seemed a little sorry when he left her. Coxeter was one of the rare human beings to whom Nan ever spoke of herself and of her own concerns. But, in spite of that curious kindliness, she did not do what so many people who knew John Coxeter instinctively did—ask his advice, and, what was of course more seldom done, take it. ”

“ She had the power no human being had ever had—that of making John Coxeter jealous. This was the harder to bear inasmuch as he was well aware that jealousy is a very ridiculous human failing, and one with which he had no sympathy or understanding when it affected—as it sometimes did—his acquaintances and colleagues. Fortunately for himself, he was not retrospectively jealous—jealous, that is, of the dead man of whom certain people belonging to his and to Nan's circle sometimes spoke as "poor Jack Archdale." ”

“ A man had once told him that the best way to see the city was at night, but that if you were taking a lady you should choose a Sunday morning, and go there on the top of a 'bus. He had thought the man who said this very eccentric, but now he remembered the advice and saw that it was worth following.
By the time Coxeter turned into Cavendish Square he had travelled far further than the Monument; he was in Richmond Park; Nan's hand was thrust through his arm as it had been while they had watched the first boat fill slowly with the women and children. ”

“ At last the spaces round them became clear of moving figures; the cold, raw fog had driven almost every one below. But Coxeter felt curiously content, rather absurdly happy. This was to him a great adventure.
He took out his watch. If the boat started to time, they would be off in another five minutes. He told himself that this was turning out a very pleasant journey; as a rule, when crossing the Channel, one meets tiresome people one knows, and they insist on talking to one. ”

“ There'll be room in the boats for all the passengers on board"; and Coxeter, looking at the pale glistening face, told himself that the man was lying, and that he knew he lied.
They stumbled out, one by one, each man and woman there, and joined the great company which was now swarming over the upper deck, forlorn and lonely as human beings must ever be when individually face to face with death. ”

“ Coxeter, behind his newspaper, told himself it was amazing that any human being should tell so much of his private concerns to a stranger. Even more amazing that a refined, rather peculiar, woman like Nan Archdale should care to listen to such a commonplace story. ”

“ But for her freedom of this kingdom, she would have been a very sad woman, oppressed by the griefs and sorrows of that other world to which she also belonged, for Nan's human circle was ever widening, and in her strange heart there always seemed room for those whom others rejected and despised. ”

“ Nan had a mass of queer friends, odd protégés for whom she worked unceasingly in a curious detached fashion, which was quite her own, and utterly apart from any of the myriad philanthropic societies in which the world she lived in, and to which she belonged by birth, interests its prosperous and intelligent leisure. ”

“ She was also reckless—perhaps uncaring would be the truer word—of something which John Coxeter supposed every nice woman to value even more than anything concerning her health or appearance—that is, the curiously intangible, and yet so easily frayed, human vesture termed reputation.
One of the cardinal points of Coxeter's carefully thought-out philosophy of life was that in this world no woman can touch pitch without being defiled. ”

“ She looked up, startled at the sharpness of his tone; and the man, whose eyes had been fixed on her face with so moved and doubting a look, sat back. "I want to tell you that I've seen your inventor, and that I've promised to put his floater before the right quarter at the Admiralty."
In a moment Nan was all eagerness. "It is really a very wonderful invention," she exclaimed. "I'm so grateful to you, Mr. Coxeter. Did you go and see it tried? I did; last time I was in Paris, the man took me to a swimming-bath on the Seine—such an odd place—and there he tested it before me. ”

“ If she was an ordinary smart lady I should prescribe philanthropy"—he made a slight grimace—"make her go and see some of my poorer patients—come into contact with a little real trouble. But that would be no change to Mrs. Archdale. No; what she wants is some one who will force her to be selfish, who will take her up the Monument one day, to a music-hall the next, motor her out to Richmond Park, and make her take a good long walk, and then sit by the sofa and hold her hand if she feels like crying——" He stopped, a little ashamed of his energy.
"Thank you," said Coxeter very seriously. ”

“ The doctor thought she ought to take a walk," and his muttered answer: "I won't keep her a moment. ..."
Again he feels the thrill of victory, of ecstasy which seized him when she slipped, he hardly knew how, into his arms, and when the sentences he had prepared, the arguments he had meant to use, in his hurried rush up Harley Street, are all forgotten. He hears himself imploring her to come away with him now, at once. Is she not dressed to go out? Instinct teaches him for the first time to make to her the one appeal to which she ever responds. ”

“ Now I have seen this floater tried."
There was such a tone of protest in her voice that Coxeter felt called upon to defend himself.
"I dare say the thing's all right in theory," he said quickly, "and I believe what he says about the ordinary life-belts; it's quite true, I mean, that they drown more people than they save; but that's only because people don't know how to put them on. ”

“ With the petty officer on one side and Coxeter on the other, she made a slow progress across the deck to the large, brilliantly lighted saloon. There the fog had been successfully shut out, and some fifteen or twenty people sat on the velvet benches, among them the sweetmeat merchant to whom Nan had talked in the train.
"We sha'n't be there till morning," Coxeter heard a man say—"till morning doth appear, at this rate."
"I suppose we're all right. There's no real danger in a fog, not in the Channel; there never has been an accident on the Channel passage—not an accident of any serious kind." ”

“ But the very man who had just said that he would stick to the steamer now came up to them. "You'd best hurry your lady forward, sir; there's no time to lose." There was an anxious, warning note in the voice.
"You must go now," said Coxeter heavily. "I shall be all right, Mrs. Archdale," for she was making no movement forward. "There'll be plenty of room for the men in the next boat. I'd walk across the deck with you, but I'm afraid they won't allow that." He spoke in his usual matter-of-fact, rather dry tone, and Nan looked up at him doubtingly. ”

“ Coxeter." Those who spend their lives in speeding others on their way are generally allowed themselves to trudge along alone; so at least this woman had found it to be. Coxeter made no answer to her words—perhaps he had not heard them.
Even in the few minutes which had elapsed since they came on board, the fog had deepened. The shadowy figures moving about the deck only took substance when they stepped into the circle of brightness cast by a swinging globe of light which hung just above Nan Archdale's head. ”

“ A very bad one to a Dieppe boat!" The man who recalled this could be heard, self-assertive, pragmatical, his voice raised above that of those round him. "I've been all over the world in my time, and when I'm caught in a fog at sea I always get up, dress, and go on deck, however sleepy I may be."
Coxeter, sitting apart by Nan's side, listened with some amusement. ”

“ She had supposed that being a man who evidently ordered his life according to some kind of system, he had believed himself ripe for the honorable estate of marriage and had chosen her as being "suitable." ”

“ I hope you have so arranged matters that, if anything should happen to you, this poor woman who loves you would not have to go back to the kind of life from which you took her." Even Coxeter divined that Nan had not found it easy to say this. ”

“ She was in his, Coxeter's, care to-night, and he alone had a right to her sympathy and attention. So he got up and walked down the saloon. To his surprise, the man, on seeing him come near, stopped dead. "I want to speak to you," he said in a low voice, "Mr.—er—Coxeter."
Coxeter looked at him, surprised, then reminded himself that his full name, John Coxeter, was painted on his Gladstone; also that Mrs. Archdale had called him "Mr. Coxeter," at least once, when discussing that life-saving toy. Still, sharp observant fellows, Jews! One should always be on one's guard with them. "Yes?" ”

“ Look at me and my men; we're not frightened—not a bit of it! My boat will last right enough for us to be picked up ten times over. I tell you quite fairly and squarely, if I'd my wife aboard I'd have kept her with me. I'd rather be on this boat of mine than I would be out there, on the open water, in this fog." But as he walked back to the place where stood the rocket apparatus, Coxeter heard him mutter, "The brutes! ”

“ He had meant to tell her what the doctor had said—to make that explain his great temerity—but instead he tells her that he wants her, that he cannot go on living apart from her. Is there any good reason why they should not start now, this moment, for Doctors' Commons, in order to see how soon they can be married? ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1947, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 75 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”