Madame Gilbert

“ You know him—that workman—that man. Besides, what does it matter?
JANE (trembling with terror) .
Gilbert?
THE QUEEN.
Yes, Gilbert! That is the name.
JANE.
Madame! Oh, no, madame! Don't say that, madame! Gilbert—it would be too horrible! He has escaped!
THE QUEEN.
He was escaping when they seized him. They put him under the black veil in Fabiano's place. It is night. The people won't know. Rest easy.
JANE (with a frightful cry) .
Ah, madame! But the man I love—it is Gilbert!
THE QUEEN.
What? What do you say? Are you going crazy? Did you deceive me, too? Ah, it is Gilbert whom you love! ”

“ Before the slow-witted Skipper could take in this astonishing situation, Alexander Ewing burst through the ring of sailors which had clustered about the door. A rumour had flown through the ship that Madame Gilbert was dead. Alexander burst into her cabin, white and shaking, for he loved her.
The air still reeked with the acrid taste of burnt cordite, and for a moment Alexander could see no more of Madame than a glorious mass of copper tresses on the white pillow beyond Willie's shoulder. He groaned "Is she dead? Is our Madame really dead?" ”

“ I have done you a service, and perhaps you will remember Madame Gilbert, when you are far away in England. The scars upon your back will always remind you of my friend Willatopy, that perspicuous exterminator of vermin. I am sorry that we cannot entertain you, even with a share in our breakfast. We are hospitable folk, but we draw the hard stiff line at lawyers. ”

“ I love you, Marie, but love has nothing to do with making you my wife. I don't want a wife. When the King sends for me he will send for William, Lord Topsham, not for my wife. You and Madame Gilbert are the only white women I have known, close. I want to see other white women, lots of them, before I marry a wife. John says that they will all be my slaves in England, and that I can take my pick among them. ”

“ I am free to help or to hinder, at my pleasure."
"We are all at Madame Gilbert's pleasure," said Toppys, smiling. "We know, you and I, that Roger Gatepath is two parts flunkey, one quarter fool, and the other quarter unscrupulous lawyer. He cares for nothing except for the connections and profits of his firm. He would lick the new Lord Topsham's tawny feet if he did not fear to lose some handfuls from my golden pile. I do not value the Barony at a rush for myself, but there is in my blood a centuries-old reverence for my Family. ”

“ I have grave fears lest even now John Clifford has drawn Willatopy away to Thursday Island, thence to take ship for England."
"For my part," declared Ewing, "I doubt the accuracy of Madame Gilbert's prognostications. They do not carry conviction to my astute mind. The change over is too sudden. That he will ultimately be prevailed upon to depart for his English lordship I make no manner of doubt. But not yet. He is a good boy. He has a great respect and affection for you, Madame. He worships you, Madame, as a gracious white goddess. As we all do, we all do. ”

“ You deliberately conspire to compass the—the removal—of the Heir of Topsham, and you do not apparently give heed to the risks which both of you are running. You think in your foolishness that if I were bribed by the gold of Wigan to carry through the enterprise, the pretty neck of Madame Gilbert would be alone imperilled. Permit me to scatter your illusions. Should Madame Gilbert hang for her mercenary zeal in the interests of a white succession Sir John Toppys and Roger Gatepath would stand beside her upon the drop. ”

“ Madame Gilbert's eyes were full of tears, and she did not speak for a few minutes.
[Pg 111]
"He comes of good stock," said she at last. "Blood always tells."
"Good stock," assented Grant, "on both sides of the house. If his father was a Toppys of Devon, his mother is a Hula of New Guinea. Willatopy is grit all though." ”

“ A spice of adventurous illegality adds zest to an enterprise. But I won't go to the scaffold or the prison for all the mouldy Toppyses who were ever hatched through the centuries. And though I accept nothing but limited liability, I will make a much more fruitful job of my island voyage than you did of yours. The widow will have no attractions for me, and if the Baron of Topsham and Madame Gilbert should become—épris—so much the easier will my task be made. ”

“ The soft and bountiful Devon produces sailors rather than engineers; the harsher and leaner North produces engineers rather than sailors. I cannot stop now to explain why. In association, Ching and Ewing were complementary, the one to the other. Both of them loved Madame Gilbert, but their affection, though sincere, was too platonic to excite serious rivalry. They would dine together in the big saloon of the yacht—at a table which had accommodation for twelve persons—and discuss over Sir John's port the merits of the gracious lady who had betaken herself to the shore. ”

“ If I had not set myself down to write the story of Madame Gilbert in relation to His Lordship the Cannibal I should entertain my readers with full details of the Humming Top's illicit enterprises. Abetted by Captain Ching and Madame Gilbert, the capable Scot, Ewing, let himself go. "It should never be said of me," he remarked, "that I encouraged the vices of the Dagoes by making them inexpensive. They shall find their sins a most costly luxury. ”

“ The war satisfactorily won, Madame Gilbert sped home to revel in the first holiday which she had known since August, 1914. She always seems to travel with fewer restrictions and at greater speed than any except Prime Ministers and commanding Generals. In Italy she is an Italian and in France a Frenchwoman—a dazzling Italian and a very winning Frenchwoman. ”

“ Her upper and main decks had been entirely refashioned, and nothing remained of her armament except a brass signal gun forward. At the main mast head waved in the breeze the burgee of the Royal Thames Yacht Club, and from the inclined jackstaff at her stern hung the Blue Ensign which it is the privilege of that Club to wear. The Humming Top lay in the Test above Southampton just where the magazines of Marchwood front the river. Madame Gilbert leaned upon the bridge rail, and beside her, as close beside her as Madame would permit, stood the Baronet of Wigan. ”

“ Marie, sitting there grinding her teeth, felt that she could hate Willatopy as savagely as a day or two ago she had loved him. If she had not also feared him, almost as much as she feared Madame Gilbert, she would have let loose her vixenish rage. It was perhaps a little late, but, as a new weapon, she affected a judicious propriety.
"I should not have met you—like this, Willie, if I had doubted your intention to marry me. White women, especially French women, are not like brown girls. They regard their—reputation. ”

“ He could think of no sentence more illuminating.
"I am not—everybody—or anybody," replied Marie with dignity. "I am a French lady, as good a lady as Madame Gilbert. When a man makes love, as you have done, to a French lady, she naturally thinks that he intends to marry her."
This was far over Willatopy's head. It is the woman who proposes marriage in the Straits, and [Pg 219] the man who, after fall consideration, gives or withholds his assent. An amour, such as this one of his with Marie, had nothing to do with marriage as he understood it. A man married so that his wife might work for him. ”

“ Down he dropped true upon the yawl's deck, and steadied himself with one hand on the mainmast. In a moment he had cast off and run up the sails.
Madame Gilbert watched the yawl fly through the slack water towards the bar, and heave and pitch in the swell. Willie took her over as a skilful rider lifts a horse over a gate, and slid away into the distant recesses of the bay.
She turned to Ching, who stood silent at her side.
"There is something hidden," said she. "Something that we do not know. One does not all at once become so fond of drink. What is that something, Captain Ching?" ”

“ And should he approach the ladder of the yacht again—I doubt myself if he can be persuaded to pay us another call—will you please give orders that Madame Gilbert is not at home—neither is her port."
The dinghy was swung out and Clifford invited to enter. He turned to Willatopy.
"Are you coming too, my lord?" asked he, obsequiously.
"No," said Willie. "I hate walking. And your society does not amuse me. The brown girls on Thursday Island who would not touch you, when you sought their favours, were right. You are an unclean beast. Go and walk and sweat by yourself. ”

“ She is a Queen, not a common thing like you. She cannot be a widow."
"She is," stated Marie positively, and left the assertion to sink into Willatopy's mind. She was horribly jealous of the boy's honest devotion to Madame Gilbert, and knew that widows were held in scant respect in the Torres Straits. Willie ranked his mother, once the wife of a white god, as altogether different from the ordinary run of brown widows, but she had been, so far, the one exception [Pg 225] permitted by his social code. The simple savage mind does not like exceptions. ”

“ When you confront a problem, however bleakly impossible it may be, you never fail of solution. Dawson says so. You have not concerned yourself with our family affairs because of any interest in our troubles. You laugh at them. It is because no man or woman alive, except Madame Gilbert, could resolve a skein so hopelessly entangled. ”

“ It was very absurd, and I am really rather ashamed of my compatriot of Devon. No seaman can have precise local knowledge of all waters everywhere. Ching would have subordinated himself without a murmur to an authorised pilot in the Thames or the Scheldt. What irked him was to play second fiddle before Madame Gilbert to a wholly unauthorised Moor. It was no consolation to Ching to know, as did everyone else in the yacht, that Willatopy had swum in these Straits before he could walk, and had sailed them before he could talk. ”

“ Even the wayside streams belong to us. You cannot walk or lie down, or eat, or drink, save by our gracious permission. You are cut off from the world, an outcast. Draw comfort if you can from my words."
"You are pleased to chaff me, Madame Gilbert. The King's writ runs even in Tops Island."
"In the immortal words of a famous British statesman: wait and see, Mr. John Clifford, demobilised second lieutenant. And now for the moment I have done with you. Keep clear of my camp, and, for your life, flee from Willatopy. When you [Pg 166] are hungered lie on the beach and howl like a dog that is lost. ”

“ Hove by Captain Ching, he disappeared over the rail, and, so far as I can discover, has never since been seen. Roger Gatepath, who has his own underground methods of enquiry, declares that John Clifford has [Pg 303] not returned to St. Mary Axe. The "Justice" which he demanded against Madame Gilbert has never been invoked. He is not in the dock at Singapore; he must have clambered out; so much we know—but the rest is silence. ”

“ He was convinced that the gracious Madame Gilbert would share his horror when the tale reached its tragic close. "You may ask how, after 350 years of direct succession, the ancient and honourable Family of Toppys should have failed of heirs—except this half-caste spawn of a Melanesian savage. It is the war that has brought this disaster upon us. The only son of the late Lord Topsham was killed at Ypres early in the war. ”

“ Then: "Mankind," observed she sententiously to the stars which twinkled yet heeded not, "Mankind was never grateful to its true benefactors. And mankind never changes. But next time, Willie, please put the sucker back in the water before it is dead. It might come in useful another time."
[Pg 246]
CHAPTER XVI WILLATOPY SPURNS HIS GODS
That was the last of Madame Gilbert's happy days in Tops Island. Before twenty-four hours had gone by, the storm burst which whirled Willatopy as we have known him out of my story. In his place remained Lord Topsham. ”

“ He was ten feet away from her when he sprang, and six feet distant when her pistol cracked like a vicious whip lash. In the act of firing she threw herself backwards. The brown boy, carried irresistibly forward by the impetus of his leap, fell diagonally across Madame's body, the outstretched dagger-tipped arm passing close over her face. He fell across her, pinning her down, and the hammock bed creaked and swung with the shock. The stricken boy lay across Madame, his hands and feet tearing at the deck as the bed swung, his body heaving and writhing in convulsions. ”

“ And if he went I should still be an English Lord. But when a schooner calls he shall go. And I will never go to England. My father said: 'Always stick to Hula, Willie: Hula is better than England.' And I always will."
"That's right," said Madame. "You can't go wrong if you follow your father. And now, Willie dear, go back to your own hut, and be Hula once more. I love Willatopy, but I should hate an English Lord. He couldn't come to my tent like this—without even a bootlace about his middle. But my dear Willatopy may wear as little as he pleases. Be off; I don't want Marie to find you here." ”

“ The stern rose and rose until Willatopy, standing upright, and clutching the edge of the thwart with his bare, prehensile toes, towered over Madame's wet head. The surf all around boiled and roared and foamed over the gunwale. Madame low down got the worst of it, and wished that she had left that drenched linen coat in her cabin. The bathing dress was enough for decency, and was meant to be wetted. Down the hill of foaming water they raced faster, much faster, than they had climbed it, and always the line held true. Willatopy was always ready. ”