Roll-Call — Part 1, Chapter 9, part 3
V
When the uninformed chauffeur drove the car with a grand sweep under the marquise of the ostentatious pale yellow block in the Avenue Hoche where Irene Wheeler had had her flat, Mr. Ingram and a police-agent were standing on the steps, but nobody else was near.
Little Mr. Ingram came forward anxiously, his eyes humid, and his face drawn with pain and distress.
"We know," said Lois.
"I met Mr. Cardow at Longchamps.
He knew."
Mr. Ingram's pain and distress seemed to increase.
He said, after a moment: "Alfred will drive you home, dear, at once.
_Alfred, vous seriez gentil de reconduire Mademoiselle à la rue d'Athènes."
_ He had the air of supplicating the amiable chauffeur.
"Mr. Cannon, I particularly want a few words with you."
"But, father, I must come in!"
said Lois.
"I must----" "You will go home immediately.
Please, please do not add to my difficulties.
I shall come home myself as quickly as possible.
You can do nothing here.
The seals have been affixed."
Lois raised her chin in silence.
Then Mr. Ingram turned to the police-agent, spoke to him in French, and pointed to the car persuasively; and the police-agent permissively nodded.
The chauffeur, with an affectation of detachment worthy of the greatest days of valetry, drove off, leaving George behind.
Mr. Ingram descended the steps.
"I think, perhaps, we might go to a café," said he in a tone which dispersed George's fear of a discussion as to the propriety of the unchaperoned visit to the races.
They sat down on the _terrasse_ of a large café near the Place des Ternes, a few hundred yards away from the Avenue Hoche.
The café was nearly empty, citizens being either in the Bois or on the main boulevards.
Mr. Ingram sadly ordered bocks.
The waiter, flapping his long apron, called out in a loud voice as he went within: "_Deux blonds, deux.
_" George supplied cigarettes.
"Mr. Cannon," began Mr. Ingram, "it is advisable for me to tell you a most marvellous and painful story.
I have only just heard it.
It has overwhelmed me, but I must do my duty."
He paused.
"Certainly," said George self-consciously, not knowing what to say.
He nearly blushed as, in an attempt to seem at ease, he gazed negligently round at the rows of chairs and marble tables, and at the sparse traffic of the somnolent Place.
Mr. Ingram proceeded.
"When I first knew Irene Wheeler she was an art student here.
So was I. But I was already married, of course, and older than she.
Exactly what her age was I should not care to say.
I can, however, say quite truthfully that her appearance has scarcely altered in those nineteen years.
She always affirmed that her relatives, in Indianapolis, were wealthy--or at least had money, but that they were very mean with her.
She lived in the simplest way.
As for me, I had to give up art for something less capricious, but capricious enough in all conscience.
Miss Wheeler went to America and was away for some time--a year or two.
When she came back to Paris she told us that she had made peace with her people, and that her uncle, whom for present purposes I will call Mr. X,
a very celebrated railway magnate of Indianapolis, had adopted her.
Her new manner of life amply confirmed these statements."
"_Deux bocks_," cried the waiter, slapping down on the table two saucers and two stout glass mugs filled with frothing golden liquid.
George, unaccustomed to the ritual of cafés, began at once to sip, but Mr. Ingram, aware that the true boulevardier always ignores his bock for several minutes, behaved accordingly.
"She was evidently extremely rich.
I have had some experience, and I estimate that she had the handling of at least half a million francs a year.
She seemed to be absolutely her own mistress.
You have had an opportunity of judging her style of existence.
However, her attitude towards ourselves was entirely unchanged.
She remained intimate with my wife, who, I may say, is an excellent judge of character, and she was exceedingly kind to our girls, especially Lois--but Laurencine too--and as they grew up she treated them like sisters.
Now, Mr. Cannon, I shall be perfectly frank with you.
I shall not pretend that I was not rather useful to Miss Wheeler--I mean in the Press.
She had social ambitions.
And why not?
One may condescend towards them, but do they not serve a purpose in the structure of society?
Very rich as she was, it was easy for me to be useful to her.
And at worst her pleasure in publicity was quite innocent--indeed, it was so innocent as to be charming.
Naïve, shall we call it?"
Here Mr. Ingram smiled sadly, tasted his bock, and threw away the end of a cigarette.
"Well," he resumed, "I am coming to the point.
This is the point, which I have learnt scarcely an hour ago--I was called up on the telephone immediately after you and Lois had gone.
This is the point.
Mr. X was not poor Irene's uncle, and he had not adopted her.
But it was his money that she was spending."
Mr. Ingram gazed fixedly at George.
"I see," said George calmly, rising to the rôle of man of the world.
"I see."
He had strange mixed sensations of pleasure, pride, and confusion.
"And you've just found this out?"
"I have just found it out from Mr. X himself, whom I met for the first time to-day--in poor Irene's flat.
I never assisted at such a scene.
Never!
It positively unnerved me.
Mr. X is a man of fifty-five, fabulously wealthy, used to command, autocratic, famous in all the Stock Exchanges of the world.
When I tell you that he cried like a child ...
Oh!
I never had such an experience.
His infatuation for Irene--indescribable!
Indescribable!
She had made her own terms with him.
He told me himself.
Astounding terms, but for him it was those terms or nothing.
He accepted them--had to.
She was to be quite free.
The most absolute discretion was to be observed.
He came to Paris or London every year, and sometimes she went to America.
She utterly refused to live in America."
"Why didn't she marry him?"
"He has a wife.
I have no doubt in my own mind that one of his reasons for accepting her extraordinary terms was to keep in close touch with her at all costs in case his wife should die.
Otherwise he might have lost her altogether.
He told me many things about poor Irene's family in Indianapolis which I will not repeat.
It was true that they had money, as Irene said; but as for anything else ...!
The real name was not Wheeler."
"Has he been over, here long?"
"He landed at Cherbourg last night.
Just arrived."
"And she killed herself at once."
"Whether the deed was done immediately before or immediately after his arrival is not yet established.
And I need hardly tell you that Mr. X
has already fixed up arrangements not to appear in the case at all.
But one thing is sure--she had made all the preparations for suicide, made them with the greatest care.
The girls saw her yesterday, and both Lois and I spoke to her on the telephone this morning.
Not a trace of anything in her voice.
I assume she had given a message for Lois to the chauffeur."
"Yes," said George.
"We never dreamed----" "Of course not.
Of course not."
"But why did she----" "Another man, my dear sir!
Another man!
A young man named Defourcambault, in the French Embassy in London."
"Oh, him!"
George burst out.
"I know him," he added fiercely.
"You do?
Yes, I remember Laurencine saying....
Poor Irene, I fear, was very deeply in love with him.
She had written to Mr. X about Defourcambault.
He showed me the letter--most touching, really most touching.
His answer to it was to come to Europe at once.
But poor Irene's death had nothing to do with his coming.
She did not know he was coming.
She shot herself as she lay in bed, and on the pillow was a letter from this man Defourcambault--well, saying good-bye to her.
I saw the letter.
Not a letter that I should wish to remember.
Perhaps she had told him something of her life.
I much fear that Defourcambault will be fetched from London, though I hope not.
There would be no object....
No, thank you.
I will not smoke again.
I only wanted to say this to you.
All Paris knows that my daughters were intimate with poor Irene.
Now, if anything comes out, if anything _should_ come out, if there's any talk--you see my fear.
I wish to assure you, Mr. Cannon, that I had not the slightest suspicion, not the slightest.
And yet we journalists cannot exactly be called ingenuous!
But I had not the slightest suspicion, nor had my wife.
You know the situation between Laurencine and your friend Lucas.
You and he are very intimate, I believe.
May I count on you to explain everything from my point of view to Mr. Lucas?
I
could not bear that the least cloud should rest upon my little Laurencine."
"You needn't trouble about Lucas," said George positively.
"Lucas 'll be all right.
Still, I'll talk to him."
"Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
I knew I could rely on you.
I've kept you a long time, but I'm sure you understand.
I'm thinking only of my girls.
Not for anything would I have them know the truth about the affair."
"But aren't they bound to know it?"
George asked.
Mr. Ingram was wounded.
"I hope not.
I hope not," he said gravely.
"It is not right that young girls should know such things."
"But surely, sooner or later----" "Ah!
After they are married, conceivably.
That would be quite different," he admitted, with cheerfulness.
"And now," he smiled, "I'm afraid I've got to go and write the case up for London.
I can catch the mail, I think.
If not, I must cable.
But they hate me to cable when the mail is possible.
Can I drop you anywhere?"
Simultaneously he signalled to a taxi and knocked on the window for the attendance of the waiter.
"Thanks.
If you're going anywhere near the Place de l'Opéra," said George.
VI
He was excited, rather than saddened, by the tragic event.
He was indeed very excited.
And also he had a deep satisfaction, because it seemed to him that he had at last been truly admitted into the great secret fellowship of adult males.
The initiation flattered his pride.
He left Mr. Ingram at the door of an English newspaper office in the Boulevard des Italiens, and, after vainly asking for telegrams at the hotel, walked away, aimlessly at first, along broad pavements encumbered with the chairs and tables of vast, crowded cafés, and with bright Sunday idlers and sinister street-vendors.
But in a moment he had decided that he must and ought to pay a call in the Rue d'Athènes.
Mr. Ingram had said nothing about his seeing Lois again, had not referred to Mrs. Ingram's invitation to repeat his visit, might even vaguely object to an immediate interview between him and Lois.
Yet he could not, as a man of the world, abandon Lois so unceremoniously.
He owed something to Lois and he owed something to himself.
And he was a free adult.
The call was natural and necessary, and if Mr. Ingram did not like it he must, in the Five Towns phrase, lump it.
George set off to find the Rue d'Athènes unguided.
It was pleasurable to think that there was a private abode in the city of cafés, hotels, and museums to which he had the social right of entry.
The watching concierge of the house nodded to him politely as he began to mount the stairs.
The Ingrams' servant smiled upon him as upon an old and familiarly respected friend.
"Mademoiselle Lois?"
he said, with directness.
The slatternly, benevolent girl widened her mouth still further in a smile still more cordial, and led him to the drawing-room.
As she did so she picked up a newspaper packet that lay on a table in the tiny hall, and, without putting it on a salver, deposited it in front of Lois, who was alone in the drawing-room.
George wondered what Lois would have thought of such an outrage upon established ritual had it happened to her in the home of Irene Wheeler instead of in her own; and then the imagined vision of Irene lying dead in the sumptuous home in the Avenue Hoche seemed to render all established ritual absurd.
"So you've come!"
exclaimed Lois harshly.
"Mother's quite knocked over, and Laurencine's looking after her.
All the usual eau-de-Cologne business.
And I should say father's not much better.
My poor parents!
What did dad want you for?"
The servant had closed the door.
Lois had got up from her chair and was walking about the room, pulling aside a curtain and looking out, tapping the mantelpiece with her hand, tapping with her feet the base of the stove, George had the sensation of being locked in a cage with a mysterious, incalculable, and powerful animal.
He was fascinated.
He thought: "I wanted to see her alone and I am seeing her alone!"
"Well?"
she insisted.
"What did dad want you for?"
"Oh!
He told me a few things about Miss Wheeler."
"I suppose he told you about Jules, and I suppose he told you I wasn't to know on any account!
Poor old dad!
Instead of feeling he's my father, d'you know what I feel?
I feel as if I was his mother.
He's _so_ clever;
he's frightfully clever; but he was never meant for this world.
He's just a beautiful child.
How in Heaven's name could he think that a girl like me could be intimate with Irene, and not know about the things that were in her mind?
How could he?
Why!
I've talked for hours with Irene about Jules!
She'd much sooner talk with me even than with mother.
She's cried in front of me.
But I never cried.
I always told her she was making a mistake about Jules.
I detested the little worm.
But she couldn't see it.
No, she couldn't. She'd have quarrelled with me if I'd let her quarrel.
However, I wouldn't let her.
Fancy quarrelling--over a man!
She couldn't help being mad over Jules.
I told her she couldn't--that was why I bore with her.
I always told her he was only playing with her.
The one thing that I didn't tell her was that she was too old for him.
She really believed she never got any older.
When I say too old for him, I mean for her sake, not for his.
He didn't think she was too old.
He couldn't--with that complexion of hers.
I never envied her anything else except her complexion and her money.
But he wouldn't marry an American.
His people wouldn't let him.
He's got to marry into a family like his own, and there're only about ten for him to choose from.
I know she wrote to him on Thursday.
She must have had the answer this morning.
Of course she had a revolver.
I've got one myself.
She went to bed and did it.
She used to say to me that if ever she did it that was how she would do it....
And father tells me not to add to his difficulties!
Don't you think it's comic?...
But she never told me everything.
I knew that.
I accused her of it.
She admitted it.
However..."
Lois spoke in a low, regular murmur, experimentally aware that privacy in a Paris flat is relative.
There were four doors in the walls of the drawing-room, and a bedroom on either side.
At moments George could scarcely catch her words.
He had never heard her say so much at once, for she was taciturn by habit, even awkward in conversation.
She glowered at him darkly.
The idea flashed through his mind: "There can't be another girl like her.
She's unique."
He almost trembled at the revelation.
He was afraid, and yet courageous, challenging, combative.
She had grandeur.
It might be moral, or not; but it was grandeur.
And--(that touch about the complexion!
)--she could remember her freckles!
She might, in her hard egotism, in the rushing impulses of her appetites--she might be an enemy, an enemy to close with whom would be terrible rapture, and the war of the sexes was a sublime war, infinitely superior in emotions to tame peace.
(And had she not been certified an angel?
Had he not himself seen the angel in her?
) She dwarfed her father and mother.
The conception, especially, of Mr. Ingram at lunch, deliciously playful and dominating, and now with the adroit wit crushed out of him and only a naïve sentimentality left, was comic--as she had ruthlessly characterized it.
She alone towered formidably over the devastated ruins of Irene's earthly splendour.
He said nothing.
She rang the bell by the mantelpiece.
He heard it ring.
No answer.
She rang again.
"_Arrivez donc, jeune fille!
_" she exclaimed impatiently.
The servant came.
"_Apportez du thé, Séraphine.
_" "_Oui, mademoiselle.
_" Then Lois lounged towards the table and tore sharply the wrapper of the newspaper.
George was still standing.
"He's probably got something in about her this week--about her soirée last Tuesday.
We weren't invited.
Of course he went."
George saw the name the _Sunday Journal_.
The paper had come by the afternoon mail, and had been delivered, according to weekly custom, by messenger from Mr. Ingram's office.
Lois's tone and attitude tore fatally the whole factitious 'Parisian' tradition, as her hand had torn the wrapper.
"See here," she said quietly, after a few seconds, and gave the newspaper with her thumb indicating a paragraph.
He could hardly read the heading, because it unnerved him; nor the opening lines.
But he read this: "The following six architects have been selected by the Assessors and will be immediately requested by the Corporation to submit final designs for the town hall: Mr. Whinburn, Mr....
Mr....
Mr. George E. Cannon ..."
"What did I always tell you?"
she said.
And then she said: "Your telegram must have been addressed wrong, or something."
He sat down.
Once again he was afraid.
