Gibbs George
The Splendid Outcast
"And I shall teach you to speak French, Harry – the real argot of the Quartier– and you shall love it as I do – "
"I do speak it a little already," he ventured.
"Really! And who was your instructress?"
The dropping intonation was sudden and very direct.
Jim Horton looked out of the window. He was sure that Harry wouldn't have been able to meet her gaze.
"No one," he muttered, "at least no girl. That's the truth. We had books and things."
"Oh," she finished dryly.
Her attitude in this matter was a revelation. The incident seemed to clarify their relations and in a new way, for in a moment she was conversing again in a manner most unconcerned. Friendly she might be with Harry for the sake of the things that he had accomplished, companionable and kind for the sake of the things he had suffered, but as for any deeper feeling – that was another matter. Moira was no fool.
But at least she trusted him now. She dared to trust him. Otherwise, why did she conduct him with such an air of unconcern to the apartment in the Rue de Tavennes? But he couldn't be unaware of the alertness in her unconcern, an occasional quick and furtive side glance which showed that, however friendly, she was still on her guard. Perhaps she wanted to study this newly-discovered Harry at closer range. But why had she chosen the venture? He had given her her chance. Why had she refused to take it?
The answers to these questions were still puzzling him when they drove up the hill by the Boulevard St. Michel —Boul' Miché she called it – reached the Luxembourg Gardens and then turning into a smaller street were presently deposited at their porte cochère. Her air of gayety was infectious and she presented him to the good Madame Toupin, who came out to meet them with the air of one greeting an ambassador.
"Welcome, Monsieur le Lieutenant. Madame Horton has promised us this visit since a long time."
"Merci, Madame."
"Enter, Monsieur – this house is honored. Thank the bon Dieu for the Americans."
Jim Horton bowed and followed Moira into the small court and up the stairway, experiencing a new sense of guilt at having his name coupled so familiarly with Moira's. Harry's name too – . And yet the circumstances of the marriage were so strange, the facts as to her actual relations with her husband so patent, that he found himself resenting Moira's placid acceptance of the appellation. There was something back of it all that he did not know… But Moira gave him no time to think of the matter, conducting him into the large studio and showing him through the bedroom and kitchen, where she proudly exhibited her goose (and Jim Horton's) that she was to cook. And after he had deposited his luggage in a room nearby which he was to occupy, she removed her gloves in a business-like manner, took off her hat and coat, and invited him into the kitchen.
"Allons, Monsieur," she said gayly in French, as she rolled up her sleeves.
"We shall now cook a goose, in this modern apparatus so kindly furnished by the Compagnie de Gaz. There's a large knife in the drawer. You will now help me to cut up the potatoes – Julienne, – and the carrots which we shall stew. Then some lettuce and a beautiful dessert from the pâtisserie– and a demi-tasse. What more can the soul of man desire?"
"Rien," he replied with a triumphant grin of understanding from behind the dish pan. "Absolument rien."
"Ah, you do understand," she cried in English. "Was she a blonde – cendrée? Or dark with sloe-eyes? Or red-haired? If she was red-haired, Harry, I'll be scratching her eyes out. No?"
He shook his head and laughed.
"She was black and white and her name was Ollendorff."
"You'll still persist in that deception?"
"I do."
"You're almost too proficient."
"You had better not try me too far."
She smiled brightly at him over the fowl which she was getting ready for the pan, stuffing it with a dressing already prepared.
"I wonder how far I might be trying you, Harry dear," she said mischievously.
He glanced at her.
"I don't know," he said quietly "but I think I've learned something of the meaning of patience in the army."
"Then God be praised!" she ejaculated with air of piety, putting the fowl into the pan.
"Here. Cut. Slice to your heart's content, thin – like jack-straws. But spare your fingers."
She sat him in a chair and saw him begin while she prepared the salad.
"Patience is by way of being a virtue," she resumed quizzically, her pink fingers weaving among the lettuce-leaves. And then, "so they taught you that in the Army?"
"They did."
"And did you never get tired of being patient, Harry dear?"
He met the issue squarely. "You may try me as far as you like, Moira," he said quietly, "I owe you that."
She hadn't bargained for such a counter.
"Oh," she muttered, and diligently examined a doubtful lettuce leaf by the fading light of the small window, while Horton sliced scrupulously at his potato. And when the goose was safely over the flame she quickly disappeared into the studio.
He couldn't make her out. It seemed that a devil was in her, a mischievous, beautiful, tantalizing, little Irish she-devil, bent on psychological investigation. Also he had never before seen her with her hat off and he discovered that he liked her hair. It had bluish tints that precisely matched her eyes. He finished his last potato with meticulous diligence and then quickly rose and followed her into the studio where a transformation had already taken place. A table over which a white cloth had been thrown, had been drawn out near the big easel and upon it were plates, glasses, knives and forks and candles with rose-colored shades, and there was even a bowl of flowers. In the hearth fagots were crackling and warmed the cool shadows from the big north light, already violet with the falling dusk.
"Voilà, Monsieur – we are now chez nous. Is it not pleasant?"
It was, and he said so.
"You like my studio?"
"It's great. And the portrait – may I see?"
"No – it doesn't go —on sent le souffle– a French dowager who braved the Fokkers when all her family were froussards– fled in terror. She deserves immortality."
"And you – were you not afraid of the bombardments?"
"Hardly – not after all the trouble we had getting here – Horrors!" she broke off suddenly and catching him by the hand dashed for the kitchen whence came an appetizing odor – "The goose! we've forgotten the goose," she cried, and proceeded to baste it skillfully. She commended his potatoes and bade him stir them in the pan while she made the salad dressing – much oil, a little vinegar, paprika, salt in a bowl with a piece of ice at the end of a fork.
He watched her curiously with the eyes of inexperience as she brought all the various operations neatly to a focus.
"Allons! It is done," she said finally – in French. "Go thou and sit at the table and I will serve."
But he wouldn't do that and helped her to dish the dinner, bringing it in and placing it on the table.
And at last they were seated vis-à-vis, Horton with his back to the fire, the glow of which played a pretty game of hide and seek with the shadows of her face. He let her carve the goose, and she did it skillfully, while he served the vegetables. They ate and drank to each other in vin ordinaire which was all that Moira could afford – after the prodigal expenditure for the pièce de résistance. Moira, her face a little flushed, talked gayly, while the spurious husband opposite sat watching her and grinning comfortably. He couldn't remember when he had been quite so happy in his life, or quite so conscience-stricken. And so he fell silent after a while, every impulse urging confession and yet not daring it.
They took their coffee by the embers of the fire. The light from the great north window had long since expired and the mellow glow of the candles flickered softly on polished surfaces.
Suddenly Moira stopped talking and realized that as she did so silence had fallen. Her companion had sunk deep into his chair, his gaze on the gallery above, a frown tangling his forehead. She glanced at him quickly and then looked away. Something was required of him and so,
"Why have you done all this for me?" he asked gently.
She smiled and their glances met.
"Because – because – "
"Because you thought it a duty?"
"No – ," easily, "it wasn't really that. Duty is such a tiresome word. To do one's duty is to do something one does not want to do. Don't I seem to be having a good time?"
"I hope you are. I'm not likely to forget your charity – your – "
"Charity! I don't like that word."
"It is charity, Moira. I don't deserve it."
The words were casual but they seemed to illumine the path ahead, for she broke out impetuously.
"I didn't think you did – I pitied you – over there – for what you had been and almost if not quite loathed you, for the hold you seemed to have on father. I don't know what the secret was, or how much he owed you, but I know that he was miserable. I think I must have been hating you a great deal, Harry dear – and yet I married you."
"Why did you?" he muttered. "I had no right to ask – even a war marriage."
"God knows," she said with a quick gasp as she bowed her head, "you had made good at the Camp. I think it was the regimental band at Yaphank that brought me around. And then you seemed so pathetic and wishful, I got to thinking you might be killed. Father wanted it. And so – " she paused and sighed deeply. "Well – I did it… It was the most that I could give – for Liberty…"
She raised her head proudly, and stared into the glowing embers.
"For Liberty – you gave your own freedom – " he murmured.
"It was mad – Quixotic – " she broke in again, "a horrible sacrilege. I did not love, could not honor, had no intention of obeying you…" She stopped suddenly, and hid her face in her hands. He thought that she was in tears but he did not dare to touch her, though he leaned toward her, his fingers groping. Presently she took her hands down and threw them out in a wild gesture. "It is merciless – what I am saying to you – but you let loose the floodgates and I had to speak."
He leaned closer and laid his fingers over hers.
"It was a mistake – " he said. "I would do anything to repair it."
He meant what he said and the deep tones of his voice vibrated close to her ear. She did not turn to look at him and kept her gaze on the fire, but she breathed uneasily and then closed her eyes a moment as though in deep thought.
"Don't you believe me, Moira?"
She glanced at him and then leaned forward, away – toward the fire.
"I believe that I do," she replied slowly. "I don't know why it is that I should be thinking so differently about you, but I do. You see, if I hadn't trusted you we'd never have been sitting here this night."
"I gave you your chance to be alone – "
"Yes. You did that. But I couldn't let you be going to a pension, Harry. I think it was the pity for your pale face against the pillows."
"Nothing else?" he asked quietly.
His hand had taken the fingers on the chair arm and she did not withdraw them at once.
"Sure and maybe it was the blarney."
"I've meant what I've said," he whispered in spite of himself, "you're the loveliest girl in all the world."
There was a moment of silence in which her hand fluttered uneasily in his, while a gentle color came into her face.
Then abruptly she withdrew her fingers and sprang up, her face aflame.
"Go along with you! You'll be making love to me next."
He sank back into his chair, silent, perturbed, as he realized that this was just what was in his heart.
"Come," she laughed, "we've got all the dishes to wash. And then you're to be getting to bed, or your head will be aching in the morning. Allons!"
She brought him to himself with the clear, cool note of camaraderie, and with a short laugh and a shrug which hid a complexity of feeling, he followed her into the kitchen with the dishes. But a restraint had fallen between them. Moira worked with a business-like air, rather overdoing it. And Jim Horton, sure that he was a blackguard of sorts, wiped the dishes she handed to him and then obediently followed her to the room off the hall where his baggage had been carried.
She put the candle on the table and gave him her frankest smile.
"Sleep sound, my dear. For to-morrow I'll be showing you the sights."
"Good-night, Moira," he said gently.
"Dormez bien."
And she was gone.
He stood staring at the closed door, aware of the sharp click of the latch and the faint firm tap of her high heels diminishing along the hall – then the closing of the studio door. For a long while he stood there, not moving, and then mechanically took out a cigarette, tapping it against the back of his hand. Only the urge of a light for his cigarette from the candle at last made him turn away. Then he sank upon the edge of the bed and smoked for awhile, his brows furrowed in thought. Nothing that Harry had ever done seemed more despicable than the part that he had chosen to play. He was winning her friendship, her esteem, something even finer than these, perhaps – for Harry —as Harry, borrowing from their tragic marriage the right to this strange intimacy. If her dislike of him had only continued, if she had tolerated him, even, or if she had been other than she was, his path would have been smoother. But she was making it very difficult for him.
He paced the floor again for awhile, until his cigarette burnt his fingers, then he walked to the window, opened it and looked out. It was early yet – only eleven o'clock. The thought of sleep annoyed him. So he took up his cap, blew out the candle and went quietly out into the hall and down the stairs.
He wanted to be alone with his thoughts away from the associations of the studio, to assume his true guise as an alien and an enemy to this girl who had learned to trust him. The cool air of the court-yard seemed to clear his thoughts. In all honor – in all decency, he must discover some way of finding his brother Harry, expose the ugly intrigue and then take Harry's place and go out into the darkness of ignominy and disgrace. That would require some courage, he could see, more than it had taken to go out against the Boche machine gunners in the darkness of Boissière Wood, but there didn't seem to be anything else to do, if he wanted to preserve his own self-respect…
But of what value was self-respect to a man publicly disgraced? And unless he could devise some miracle that would enable him to come back from the dead, a miracle that would stand the test of a rigid army investigation, the penalty of his action was death – or at the least a long term of imprisonment in a Federal prison, from which he would emerge a broken and ruined man of middle age. This alternative was not cheering and yet he faced it bravely. He would have to find Harry.
* * * * *
The feat was not difficult, for as he emerged from the gate of the porte cochère of the concierge and turned thoughtfully down the darkened street outside, a man in a battered slouch hat and civilian clothes approached from the angle of a wall and faced him.
"What the H – are you doing at No. 7 Rue de Tavennes?" said a voice gruffly.
Jim Horton started back at the sound, now aware that Fortune had presented him with his alternative. For the man in the slouch hat was his brother, Harry!
CHAPTER IV
OUTCAST
When Jim Horton, Corporal of Engineers, took his twin brother's uniform and moved off into the darkness toward the German lines, Harry Horton remained as his brother had left him, bewildered, angry, and still very much afraid. The idea of taking Jim Horton's place with his squad nearby did not appeal to him. The danger of discovery was too obvious – and soon perhaps the squad would have to advance into the dreadful curtain of black that would spout fire and death. He was fed up with it. The baptism of fire in the afternoon had shaken him when they lay in the field. It was the grinning head of Levinski of the fourth squad that had done the business. He had found it staring at him in the wheat as the platoon crawled forward. It wasn't so much that it was an isolated head, as that it was the isolated head of Levinski, for he hadn't liked Levinski and he knew that the man had hated him. And now Levinski had had his revenge. Harry had been deathly ill at the stomach, and had not gone forward with the platoon. He had seen the whites of the eyes of his men as they had glanced aside at him – and spat.
Why the H – he had ever gone into the thing … And now … suppose Jim didn't come back! What should he do? Why had the Major picked him out for this duty! His thoughts wandered wildly from one fancied injury to another. And Jim – it was like him to turn up and plunge into this wild venture that would probably bring them both to court-martial. And if Jim was shot, what the devil was he to do? Go on through the service as Jim Horton, Corporal of Engineers? He cursed silently while he groveled in the gully waiting for the shots that were to decide his fate.
For a moment he gathered nerve enough to pick up Jim's rifle and accoutrement with the intention of joining the squad of engineers. But just at that moment there were sounds of shots within the wood, followed by others closer at hand, and then bullets ripped viciously through the foliage just above him. By a movement just ahead of him he knew that the line was advancing. He couldn't … his knees refused him … so he crawled into the thicket along the gully and lay upon the ground among the fallen leaves. More shots. Cries all about him. A grunt of pain after a shrapnel burst nearby … the rush of feet as the second wave filtered through … then the rapid crackle of the engagement in the wood. Jim was there – in his uniform. He'd be taking long chances too. He had always been a fool…
From his cover he marked the dawn while the fighting raged – then sunrise. The fire seemed to slacken and then move farther away. The line was still advancing and only the wounded were coming in – some of them walking cases, with bandaged heads and arms. He eyed them through the bushes furtively – vengefully. Why couldn't he have gotten a wound like that – in the afternoon in the wheat field – instead of finding the head of Levinski and the terror that it had brought? Other wounded were coming on stretchers now. The gully near him made an easy path to the plain below and many of them passed near him … but he lay very still beneath the leaves. What if Jim came back on a stretcher…! What should he do?
Then suddenly as though in answer to his question two men emerged from the hollow above and approached, carrying something between them. There was a man of Harry's own platoon and a sergeant of the company. He heard their voices and at the sound of them he cowered lower.
"Some say he showed yellow yesterday in the wheat field," said the private.
"Yellow! They'd better not let me hear 'em sayin' it – "
They were talking about him– Harry Horton. And the figure, lying awkwardly, a shapeless mass – ?
At the risk of discovery, the coward straightened and peered down into the white face … Jim!
Harry Horton didn't remember anything very distinctly for a while after that, for his thoughts were much confused. But out of the chaos emerged the persistent instinct of self preservation. There was no use trying to find Jim's squad now. He wouldn't know them if he saw them. And how could he explain his absence with no wound to show? For a moment the desperate expedient occurred to him of thrusting himself through the leg with the bayonet. He even took Jim's weapon out of its scabbard. But the blue steel gave him a touch of the nausea that had come over him in the wheat field… That wouldn't do. And what was the use? They had Harry Horton lying near death on the stretcher. What mattered what happened to the brother? There was no chance now to exchange identities. Perhaps there was never to be a chance.
He sank down again into the thicket, pulling the leaves about him. He would find a way. It could be managed. "Missing" – that was the safest way out.
That night, limping slightly, he emerged and made his way to the rear. It was ridiculously easy. Of the men he met he asked the way to the billets of the – th Regiment. But he didn't go where they told him. He followed their instructions until out of sight of them, and then went in the opposite direction.
He managed at last to get some food at a small farm house and under the pretext of having been sent to borrow peasant clothing for the Intelligence department, managed to get a pair of trousers, shirt, coat and hat. He had buried his rifle the night before and now when the opportunity came he dropped the bundle of Jim Horton's corporal's uniform, weighted by a stone, into deep water from a bridge over a river. With the splash Corporal James Horton of the Engineers had ceased to exist.
At the end of two weeks, thanks to some money that he had found in Jim's uniform – and a great deal of good luck – he was safe in a quiet pastoral country far from the battle line. Here he saw no uniforms – only old men and women in blouses and sabots, occupying themselves with the harvest, aware only that the Boches were in retreat and that their own fields were forever safe from invasion. He represented himself as an American art student of Paris, driven by poverty from the city, and offered to work for board and lodging. They took him, and there he stayed for awhile. There was a girl in the family. It was very pleasant. The nearest town was St. Florentin, and Paris was a hundred miles away. But after a few weeks he wearied of it, and of the girl, and having twenty francs left in his pockets stole away in the middle of the night.
Paris was the place for him. There identities were not questioned. He knew something of Paris. Piquette Morin! He could get her help without telling any unnecessary facts. As to Barry Quinlevin and Moira – that was different. It wouldn't be pleasant to fall completely in the power of a man like Barry Quinlevin – even if he was now his father-in-law. And Moira … No. Moira mustn't ever know if he could prevent it. And yet if Jim Horton in Harry's uniform had been killed Harry would be officially dead. He was already dead, to Moira, if Jim Horton had revived enough to tell the truth. It wasn't a pretty story to be spread around. But if Jim were alive … what then?
There were ways of getting along in Paris. He would find a way even if … Moira! He would have liked to be able to go to Moira. She was the one creature in the world whose opinion seemed to matter now. She would have been his on the next furlough. He knew women. If you couldn't get them one way you could another. Already her letters had been gentler – more conciliatory. His wife – the wife of an outcast! God! Why had he ever gone into the service? How had he known back there that he wouldn't have been able to stand up under fire – that he would have found the grinning head of the hated Levinski in the wheat field? Waves of goose flesh went over him and left him cold and weak… A sullen mood followed, dull, embittered, and vengeful, against all the world, with only one hope… If Jim were alive – and silent!
That opened possibilities – to substitute with his brother and come back to his own – with all the honors of the fool performance! It was his name, his job that Jim had taken, and his brother couldn't keep him out of them. He could make Jim give them up – he'd make him. If he couldn't come back himself, he would drag Jim down with him – they would be outcast together. In the dark that night he would have managed in some way to carry out the Major's orders if Jim hadn't found him just at the worst moment. What right had Jim to go butting in and making a fool of them both! D – n him!
He found his way into Paris at the end of a dreary day of tramping. He had a few francs left but he was tired and very hungry. With a lie framed he went straight to the apartment of Piquette Morin. She had gone out of town for a few days.
That failure baffled him. He had a deposit in a bank, but he dared not draw it out. So he trudged the weary way up to Montmartre, saving his sous, and hired a bed into which he dropped more dead than alive.
Thus it was that two nights later, unable yet to bring himself to the point of begging from passersby, with scant hope indeed of success, his weary feet brought him at last to the Rue de Tavennes. Hiding his face under the shadow of his hat he inquired of the concierge and found that the apartment of Madame Horton was au troisième. He strolled past the porte cochère and walked on, looking hungrily up at the lighted windows of the studio. Moira was there – his wife, Barry Quinlevin perhaps. Who else? He heard sounds of laughter from somewhere upstairs. Laughter! The bitterness of it! But it didn't sound like Moira's voice. He walked to and fro watching the lighted windows and the entrance of the concierge, trying to keep up the circulation of his blood, for the night was chill and his clothing thin. He had no plan – but he was very hungry and his resolution to remain unknown was weakening. A man couldn't let himself slowly starve, and yet to seek out any one he knew meant discovery and the horrible publicity that must follow. The lights of the troisième étage held a fascination for him, like that of a flame for a moth. He saw a figure come to a window and throw open the sash. He stared, unable to believe his eyes. It was a man in the uniform of an officer of the United States Army – his own uniform and the man who wore it was his brother Jim! Alive – well, covered with honors perhaps – here – in Moira's apartment? What had happened to bring his brother here? And Moira …
His head whirled with weakness and he stood for a moment leaning against the wall, but his strength came back to him in a moment, and he peered up at the window again. The light had gone out. Jim masquerading in his shoes – with Moira – as her husband – alone, perhaps, in the apartment! And Moira? The words of conciliation in her last letters which had seemed to promise so much for the future, had a different significance here. Fury shook him like a leaf, the fury of desperation, that for the moment drove from his craven heart all fear of an encounter with his brother.
There was a sound of a door shutting and in a moment he saw the man in uniform emerge by the gate of the concierge. He walked toward the outcast, his head bent in deep meditation. There was no doubt about its being Jim. With clenched fists Harry barred his way, the thought that was uppermost in his mind finding utterance.
Jim Horton stopped, stepped back a pace and then peered at the man in civilian clothing from beneath his broad army hat-brim.
"Harry!" he muttered, almost inaudibly.
"What are you doing here – in this house?" raged Harry in a voice thick with passion. And then, as no reply came, "Answer me! Answer me!"
One of Harry's fists threatened but his brother caught him by the wrist and with ridiculous ease twisted his arm aside. He was surprised as Harry sank back weakly against the wall with a snarl of pain. "D – n you," he groaned.
This wouldn't do. Any commotion would surely arouse the curiosity of Madame Toupin, the concierge.
"Keep a civil tongue in your head, Harry," he muttered, "and I'll talk to you."
He caught him firmly by the arm, but Harry still leaned against the wall, muttering vaguely.
"A civil tongue —me? You – you dare ask me?"
"Yes," said Jim gently, "I've been trying to find you."
"Where?" leered Harry, "in my wife's studio?"
Jim Horton turned suddenly furious, but shocked into silence and inertia by the terrible significance of the suspicion. But he pulled himself together with an effort.
"Come," he said quietly. "Let's get away from here."
He felt Harry yield to the pressure of his fingers and slowly they moved into the shadows down the street away from the gas lamps. A moment later Harry was twitching at his arm.
"G-get me something to cat. I – I'm hungry," he gasped.
"Hungry! How long – ?"
"Since yesterday morning – a crust of bread – "
And Jim had been eating goose – ! The new sense of his own guilt appalled him.
"Since yesterday – !" he muttered in a quick gush of compassion. "We'll find something – a café– "
"There's a place in the Rue Berthe – Javet's," he said weakly.
Jim Horton caught his brother under an elbow and helped him down the street, aware for the first time of the cause of his weakness. He marked, too, the haggard lines in Harry's face, and the two weeks' growth of beard that effectually concealed all evidence of respectability. There seemed little danger of any one's discovering the likeness between the neatly garbed lieutenant and the civilian who accompanied him. But it was well to be careful. They passed a brilliantly lighted restaurant, but in a nearby street after awhile they came to a small café, not too brightly lighted, and they entered. There was a polished zinc bar which ran the length of a room with low, smoke-stained ceilings. At the bar were two cochers, in shirt sleeves, their yellow-glazed hats on the backs of their heads, sipping grenadine. There was a winding stair which led to the living quarters above, but through a doorway beside it, there was a glimpse of an inner room with tables unoccupied. They entered and Jim Horton ordered a substantial meal which was presently set before the hungry man. The coffee revived him and he ate greedily in moody silence while Jim Horton sat, frowning at the opposite wall. For the present each was deeply engrossed – Jim in the definite problem that had suddenly presented itself, and the possible courses of action open to do what was to be required of him; Harry in his food, beyond which life at present held no other interest. But after a while, which seemed interminable to Jim, his brother gave a gasp of satisfaction, and pushed back his dishes.
"Give me a cigarette," he demanded with something of an air.
Jim obeyed and even furnished a light, not missing the evidences of Dutch courage Harry had acquired from the stimulation of food and coffee.
