Robert Hichens

“ Mrs. Eustace Greyne (pronounced Green) wrinkled her forehead—that noble, that startling forehead which had been written about in the newspapers of two hemispheres—laid down her American Squeezer pen, and sighed. It was an autumn day, nipping and melancholy, full of the rustle of dying leaves and the faint sound of muffin bells, and Belgrave Square looked sad even to the great female novelist who had written her way into a mansion there. Fog hung about with the policeman on the pavement. The passing motor cars were like shadows. ”

“ 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! ”

“ The head waiter retired, looking painfully intelligent, and Mr. Greyne sprang upstairs, seized a Merrin’s exercise-book and a lead pencil, put on a dark overcoat, popped one of the Springfield revolvers into the pocket of it, and hastened down into the hall of the hotel, where the audacious-looking young man was standing, surrounded by saucy chasseurs in gay liveries and peaked caps, by Algerian waiters, and by German-Swiss porters, all of whom were smiling and looking choke-full of sympathetic comprehension. ”

“ Greyne.
“That England is a land of female devils,” returned the guide as the carriage plunged into a filthy alley, between two rows of blind houses, and began to ascend a steep hill.
Mrs. Greyne gasped. She opened her lips to protest vigorously, but her head swam—either from indignation or from fatigue—and she could not utter a word. The horses mounted like cats upward into the dense blackness, from which dropped down the faint sounds of squealing music and of hoarse cries and laughter. ”

“ Forbes retired, smiling.
An epic might well be written on the great novelist’s journey to Africa, upon her departure from Charing Cross, shrouded in a black gauze veil, her silent thought as the good ship Empress rode cork-like upon the Channel waves, her ascetic lunch—a captain’s biscuit and a glass of water—at the buffet at Calais, her arrival in Paris when the shades of night had fallen. An epic might well be written. ”

“ He was not intellectual enough to comprehend fully the deep imaginings of a mighty brain, the obsession work is in the worker.
“African frailty is what I want,” pursued Mrs. Greyne. “One hundred closely-printed pages of African frailty. You will collect for me the raw material, and I shall so manipulate it that it will fall discreetly, even elevatingly, into the artistic whole. Do you understand me, Eustace?”
“I am to travel to Algiers, and see all the wickedness to be seen there, take notes of it, and bring them back to you.” ”

“ 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! ”

“ There were white souls in Algiers—yes, even in Algiers. Strange that he should know one! Strange that he, who had filled a Merrin’s exercise-book with tiny writing, and had even overflowed on to the cover after “crossing” many pages, should receive the child-like confidences of one! “I go now to the church.” Tears came into his eyes as he laid the letter down beside a pile of buttered toast over which the burning afternoon sun of Africa was shining. ”

“ Eustace Greyne,” murmured the great novelist, grasping her bonnet with both hands.
The maître d’hôtel drew nearer.
“Madame wishes to see Monsieur Greyne?” he asked.
“I do—at once.”
A blessed consciousness of Mother Earth was gradually beginning to steal over her. She even strove feebly to sit up on her chair, a German-Swiss porter of enormous size assisting her.
“But Monsieur Greyne is out.”
“Out?”
“Yes, madame. Monsieur Greyne is always out at night.”
The eyes of the little chasseur who knew no better began to twinkle. Mrs. Forbes gave a slight cough. ”

“ There stood Abdallah Jack. He advanced roughly to the Ouled.
“Come,” he said angrily. “Have we not earned the money of the stranger? Have we not earned enough? To-morrow you shall marry me as you have promised, and we will return to our own land, to the canal where you and I were born. And nevermore shall the Levantine instruct the babes of the English devils, but dwell veiled and guarded in the harem of her master.”
“Mademoiselle Verbena!” ”

“ Greyne.
“I am a wicked person,” added Abdallah Jack, with a profound conviction. “That is why Monsieur Greyne chose me as his guide.”
The novelist began to quake. Her chocolate brocade fluttered. Was she herself to learn at first hand, and on her first evening in Africa, enough about African frailty to last her for the rest of her life? And how much more of life would remain to her after her stock of knowledge had been thus increased? ”

“ Eustace Greyne found himself impiously thanking the powers that be for this strange chance of going on the spree with a toque. When Mademoiselle Verbena returned he was looking almost rakish. He eyed her neat black hat and close-fitting black jacket with a glance not wholly unlike that of a militiaman. In her hand she held a vivid scarlet parasol.
“Monsieur,” she said, “it is terrible, this ombrelle, when mamma lies at death’s door. But what can I do? I have no other, and cannot afford to buy one. The sun is fierce. ”

“ Even while she sat over a cutlet and a glass of claret in the white-and-gold dining-room of the Grand Hotel, preparatory to her departure to the Kasbah with Abdallah Jack, the dozen of Merrin’s exercise-books lay upstairs in Mr. Greyne’s apartments filled to the brim with African frailty. Already there was material enough in their pages to furnish forth a library of “Catherines.” Yet Mr. Greyne still lingered far from his home, and wired to that home fabricated accounts of the singular innocence of Algiers. ”

“ But let it not be forgotten that he had fallen under the influence of a Levantine.
Mademoiselle Verbena’s mother, hidden in some unnamed hospital of Algiers, appeared to be one of those ingenious elderly ladies who can hover indefinitely upon the brink of death without actually dying. During the whole time that Mr. Greyne had been in Africa her state had been desperate, yet she still clung to life. As her daughter said, she possessed extraordinary vitality, and this vitality seemed to have been inherited by her child. ”

“ Greyne would have prescribed a dose of Kasbah air, but to-night she felt strange, and she wanted strangeness. Mrs. Forbes with the vertigo, in a small carriage, would be inappropriate. She, therefore, bade her retire, mounted into the vehicle with Abdallah Jack, and was quickly driven away, her bonnet strings floating upon the winsome wind.
“You know my husband?” she asked softly of the guide.
Abdallah Jack replied in French that he rather thought he did.
“How is he looking?” continued Mrs. Greyne in a slightly yearning voice. “My Eustace!” she added to herself, “my devoted one!” ”

“ But in book six of ‘Catherine’ I have to deal with sin, with tumult, with African frailty. It is inevitable.”
She sighed once more. The burden of the new book was very heavy upon her.
“African frailty!” murmured the astonished Eustace Greyne.
“Now, neither you nor I, my husband, know anything about this.”
“Certainly not, my darling. How should we? We have never explored beyond Lucerne.”
“We must, therefore, get to know about it—at least you must. For I cannot leave London. The continuity of the brain’s travelling must not be imperiled by any violent bodily activity. ”

“ In a moment Mrs. Forbes, who was the great novelist’s maid, appeared on the threshold of the oracle’s lair. She was a sober-looking, black-silk personage, who always wore a pork-pie cap in the house, and a Mother Hubbard bonnet out of it. Having been in service with Mrs. Greyne ever since the latter penned her last minor poetry—Mrs. Greyne had been a minor poet for three years soon after she put her hair up—Mrs. Forbes had acquired a certain literary expression of countenance and a manner that was decidedly prosy. ”

“ Greyne decidedly sinister. “He is worse than the tourists of Rook, who laugh in the doorways of the mosques and twine in their hair the dried lizards of the Sahara. Even the guide of Rook rejected him. I only would undertake him because I am full of evil.”
Mrs. Greyne began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, and to wish she had not been so ready to pander to Mrs. Forbes’ vertigo. She stole a sidelong glance at her strange companion. The carriage was small. ”

“ Forbes endeavouring to disembark, in bonnets that were placed seaward upon the head instead of landward, unbuttoned boots, and gowns soaked with the attentions of the waves.
After being gently and permanently relieved of their light hand-baggage, the mistress and maid, who seemed greatly overwhelmed by the sight of Africa, and who moved—or rather were carried—as in a dream, were placed reverently in the nearest omnibus, and conveyed to the farthest hotel, which was situated upon a lofty hill above the town. ”

“ It seemed that the wickedness of Africa was very difficult to come at. It did not lie upon the surface, but was hidden far down in depths to which the ordinary tourist found it almost impossible to penetrate. In his numerous letters Mr. Greyne described his heroic and unremitting exertions to fill the Merrin’s note-books with matter that would be suitable for the purging of humanity. He set out in full his interview with Alphonso at the office of Rook, and his definite rejection by that cosmopolitan official. ”

“ 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. ”

“ According to the letters, after this event he had spent no less than a fortnight searching in vain for any sign of wickedness in the Algerian capital. He had frequented the cafés, the public bars, the theatres, the churches. He had been to the Velodrome. He had sat by the hour in the Jardin d’Essai. At night he had strolled in the fairs and hung about the circus. Yet nowhere had he been able to perceive anything but the most innocent pleasure, the simple merriment of a gay and guileless population to whom the idea of crime seemed as foreign as the idea of singing the English national anthem. ”

“ Greyne had never seen the Ouled since his first evening in Algiers, but he still paid her a weekly salary, through Abdallah Jack, who explained to him that the interesting lady, in a discreet retirement, was perpetually occupied in arranging the exhibitions of African frailty at which he so frequently assisted. She was, in fact, earning her liberal salary. Mademoiselle Verbena and Abdallah Jack had met on several occasions, and Mr. Greyne had introduced the latter to the former as his guide, and had generously praised his abilities ”

“ The proprietor, the maître d’hôtel, the waiters, the porters, the chasseurs, Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes, all turned about to face the determined speaker.
And there before them, his dark eyes gleaming, his long moustaches bristling fiercely—here stood Abdallah Jack.
VII
Man is a self-deceiver. It must, therefore, ever be a doubtful point whether Mr. Eustace Greyne, during his residence in Africa, absolutely lost sight of his sense of duty ”

“ Eustace Greyne was deeply moved. She felt she had been hasty. She knew that to very few women was it given to have a husband so free from all masculine infirmities as Mr. Greyne. At the same time there was “Catherine,” there was the mansion in Park Lane, there was the Venezuelan millionaire. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The great novelist had consented to become a mother.
“Certainly.”
In another moment Mademoiselle Verbena was added to the group beside the fire.
II
We have said that Mademoiselle Verbena was the French governess of little Adolphus and Olivia Greyne, and so she was to this extent—that she taught them French, and that Mr. and Mrs. Greyne supposed her to be a Parisian. But life has its little ironies. Mademoiselle Verbena in the house of this great and respectable novelist was one of them; for she was a Levantine, born at Port Said of a Suez Canal father and a Suez Canal mother. ”