CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE hot midday sun beat down upon the irregular pavé of the Place du Marche in Munster. On the hot pavements the gay striped awning of the Café de la Cigogne threw hard edged shadows like water spilled on sand. The rows of trees on the opposite side of the square stood dusty and listless against the dazzling white walls and blistered shutters of the buildings behind them, and every projecting stick and twig of the big stork’s nest perched on top of a pyramidical roof above the trees was etched black and clear cut upon the cloudless blue sky.

Pagan, in the shadow of the awning, drained his iced bock and put the glass down on the little table before him. He passed his handkerchief across his moist forehead. “Beware the noonday devil!” he murmured. “By the way, what is the noonday devil?”

Baron shook his head. “I have no idea, Charles,” he answered languidly. “But he would need to be a hardy little devil to function in this square.” He leisurely turned his head so that through the glass of the side screens he could see the brown sandstone tower of the florid Lutheran church that seemed to flame in the sunlight at the top of the square. At the lower end of the square the rustic whitewashed walls and slender lead spire of the Catholic church rose against the green background of hills.

Pagan grunted and pulled out his pipe. They sat in lethargic silence for some moments. Pagan tilted back his chair and idly snapped his fingers to an Alsatian dog that was sniffing among the little tables.

Presently Baron murmured, “There’s friend Kleber.”

Pagan turned his head and idly watched the square form of the innkeeper coming along the pavement towards them.

“Bon jour!” cried Baron as Kleber drew level. The man turned his head and then stepped under the awning towards them.

“Have a drink,” invited Pagan.

Kleber thanked them and asked to be excused as he was in a hurry. He pulled a letter from his pocket and held it out. It was for M’sieu Pagan. He was on his way to the hotel to deliver it, but perhaps M’sieu Pagan would be good enough to accept it now and so save him the remainder of the journey. Then he raised his hat, said good day and passed on.

Pagan tore open the envelope.

“From that poor devil with the smashed face, I suppose,” murmured Baron.

“Yes—thanking us for the wireless set,” answered Pagan still reading.

“Is he pleased with it?” asked Baron.

Pagan turned over the letter and then passed it to Baron. “Seems to be. Signs himself ‘yours very gratefully, R. V.’”

Baron withdrew his hands from his pockets and took the note.

Pagan pulled out his pouch and began filling his pipe. A long silence ensued. “He seems quite pleased, doesn’t he?” said Pagan at last as he fumbled in his pocket for a match.

“Yes,” answered Baron in a voice that was strangely quiet. “And he signs himself R. V.—the initials of Roger Vigers.”

Pagan, his pipe in one hand and the other in the act of withdrawing a matchbox from his pocket, became suddenly motionless like a wax figure. Then he slowly turned his head and looked at Baron. Baron appeared to be staring at the note which he held in his hand, but there was a frown of concentration upon his forehead, and his eyes were in reality fixed upon the sunlit pavement beyond the shadow of the awning.

“But, my dear chap, you don’t think …” began Pagan at last.

“No, I don’t think, I know,” answered Baron quietly.

Pagan allowed the matchbox to drop back into his pocket. “The same initials, yes,” he began. “But just a coincidence surely. There is no …”

“It is not merely the initials,” interrupted Baron. “Though they do add the final touch.” He tapped the note with his hand. “This is Vigers’ own handwriting.”

Pagan carried the unlighted pipe slowly to his mouth. “Are you sure?”

“My dear Charles, I’ve seen Vigers’ writing on orders and things hundreds of times—too often, anyway, not to recognise it now.”

Silence settled down again. With knit brows Pagan regarded the high perched stork’s nest that looked so hard and brittle in the harsh sunlight. “Clare,” he said at last, “how will she take this?”

“Thank God, she doesn’t know!” said Baron.

Pagan removed his pipe again and rubbed his forehead thoughtfully. “But she will have to.”

Baron raised his head sharply. “Why has she to? What good will it do?”

Pagan rubbed the back of his neck. “But she must be told. Hang it all we can’t …”

“Look here, Charles,” interrupted Baron, “we have got to think this out from every point of view; from hers, Roger’s and yours. What effect it would have upon her, God only knows—or upon him. She is happy now, and so is he in his way. I wish to God we had never poked our noses into this.”

“So do I,” murmured Pagan fervently.

Baron stared at the sunny pavement with knit brows for some moments. “We have hung together for a good long time, old Charles, you and I,” he said at last without looking up. “And we have been through some pretty bloody times together too, and … well, I ask you as man to man are you serious about Clare? You know what I mean.”

Pagan took the cold pipe from his mouth and regarded the unlighted tobacco in the bowl. “More serious than I have ever been about anything in my life, Dicky,” he answered at last.

Baron nodded. “I thought so.” He pulled out his own pipe and remained staring at the pavement. “I know Clare pretty well, Charles. She doesn’t spread herself over people—particularly men, but … well, she’s taken things from you that I would have sworn she wouldn’t take from any man on earth. I warned you that I was convinced that she would never marry, and … well, I’m beginning to change my opinion now.” He stuck his pipe in his mouth and unrolled his pouch. “I would give anything to see her happy and married and all that. I’m damned fond of Clare, you know, in a brotherly way, and … well, I can stick you better than I can stick most blighters, so you can imagine that I have been rather bucked with the way things seemed to be turning out.”

He put his pipe in his pouch and began to fill it jerkily. He went on rather diffidently: “I don’t know how far you have got, Charles. I don’t know whether you have come to any understanding with her.”

Pagan shook his head.

“You don’t mind my saying this, old Charles, do you? But … as a … well a naturally rather interested observer, my diagnosis of the situation at the moment between you and Clare is that it has reached a critical stage. Personally I think that Clare is damned fond of you and doesn’t know it. Now if she hears that poor old Roger is alive it might, it might, I say, have the effect of making her realize that she is more fond of you than she thought: on the other hand it might not. Anyway, she’d feel that she wasn’t free, and it would certainly finish your chances for the present—and perhaps for good.” He turned his head and looked at Pagan. “Why not leave it alone then?”

Pagan was gazing miserably at the sunlit pavement. He seemed to rouse himself with an effort. “But don’t you see, Dicky,” he said at last in a tired voice, “that that is just why I cannot leave it alone? I’m too interested in it personally. Suppose I did say nothing and suppose my luck was in, could I honestly take her, knowing that I had won her by what after all would be a pretty mean trick? And what would she think of me if ever she found out! And think of that poor devil Vigers himself—one of us, knocked out in the war. I’m not a sentimental cove, Dicky, but damn it all there is some sort of camaraderie among us who went through it. God help us if there isn’t.”

Baron took his unlighted pipe from his mouth with deliberation. “I see all that, Charles, but if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you are a being little sentimental. I remember during the war how some people at home were horrified when they heard that a man would take, let us say, the boots of his best friend who had just been killed and wear them. They thought it callous. But you and I know better.

“God knows I’m not callous about poor old Roger. He is the finest fellow I ever met, bar none except perhaps old G. B. And the six months we were together he was my best friend. And as you know, six months in the line is worth twenty years with a man in civilian life. So no one can accuse me of being unduly prejudiced in your favour. But much as I love old Roger, we must face the facts without sentiment. The two of you went into the war. You were lucky; Roger wasn’t. It was the luck of the game. He will never be any good any more; you will. You may say it isn’t fair. Perhaps not. Anyway you took the risk. He lost; you won. It is the way the cards were played. And it’s no good trying to put the clock back now. I suppose all of us who came through have asked ourselves sometime or other why we had the luck. We don’t know. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason about it. You were one of those who had the luck; Roger wasn’t. It’s no good trying to reverse it now. The justice of it doesn’t enter in to it; that’s no concern of ours: it’s on the shoulders of the power that arranges these things. We can only accept the fact. Poor old Roger had his innings and went out. He can’t expect to have a second; and he knows it—that’s why he is up there. Your innings is still going on, admittedly, if you like, not because you are a better bat, but you can’t retire in favour of a fellow who has already been in. You can only bless your luck and carry on. It’s not callousness: it’s the luck of the game.”

Pagan raised his head wearily and thrust his hands into his pockets. “You argue damn well,” he said almost irritably. “But you are only making out a case. I know what is the only decent thing to do, and what’s more you would do the same yourself if you were in my place, wouldn’t you? Now, honestly, wouldn’t you?”

“What I would do, does not affect the question,” retorted Baron. “Maybe I can see what ought to be done better than you can. If I were in your place, the personal element would come in and possibly spoil my judgment. And just because I am not in your place, I am able to judge better than you can.”

Pagan shook his head slowly. “I put it to you again, Dicky: would it be playing the game? Answer me that.”

Baron did not reply for a moment. He pulled out a box of matches and lighted his pipe. “It seems to me, Charles,” he said at last, “that you are thinking too much about yourself and too little about other people.”

Pagan uttered a mirthless laugh. “I like that!” he exclaimed. “If I were thinking only of myself I would go ahead and say nothing. Do you think it amuses me to chuck away the only thing I have ever really wanted in my life!”

“You are thinking of yourself, Charles,” repeated Baron. “You say, ‘Is it sporting’ without stopping to consider whether doing what is sporting is really going to make Vigers happy or unhappy. Is it sporting? That is the important question because Charles Pagan is a sportsman and he must not do anything that would lower his sportmanship in his own eyes or in those of other people. It does not matter if being a sport hurts someone else.”

“Hang it all, I …” began Pagan, but Baron went on imperturbably.

“You say, ‘What would Clare think of me if she ever found out.’ It is her opinion of Charles Pagan that matters: not her happiness. Far better that she should be made miserable for the rest of her life than that she should think Charles Pagan unsporting. That’s damned selfishness and damned cruelty.”

“Cruelty!” exclaimed Pagan.

“Well, isn’t it? To walk up to a girl and say ‘Here’s this fellow you thought was dead, the fellow you’ve loved all these years, whose memory you almost worshipped, that fine handsome soldier Captain Roger Vigers, V. C., look at him now—look at his face.’

Pagan stirred uncomfortably in his chair.

“Isn’t that cruelty?” demanded Baron.

“Who but a fool would do it like that!” protested Pagan, but his voice had lost its ring of confidence.

“That is what it amounts to, however it’s done,” retorted Baron. “And think what it means to her, Charles. First of all, there is the shock. Then the reopening of all the old wounds that these long years have nearly healed. That sad but pleasant memory of hers destroyed and this, this ghastly reality put in its place.

“And then what is she going to do? Well, there are only two courses open, aren’t there? Either to stick to the original contract and marry him … but that is out of the question. She couldn’t do it. You see that. Why you shied like a horse just now when I mentioned it. But supposing she did; do you think that they would be happy? Apart from his disfigurement, do you think that Vigers can be the same man that he was all those years ago? That ghastly disfigurement must have affected his character as well as his body. And anyway he hasn’t stood still all these years; neither has she. You and I are not the same as we were fifteen years ago, and neither are they. But do you think that their two lines of development have converged since 1918? I don’t.

“But take the other course. She is terribly, terribly sorry for him, but she cannot bring herself to marry him. What then? Isn’t the picture of that terribly disfigured man going to be with her for the rest of her life? That and the picture of what he once was? And isn’t the thought of him up there in his dug-out going to take the edge off every enjoyment? Do you think she would ever be really happy again? Wouldn’t it be cruelty to force her to make a choice?”

Pagan nodded his head miserably.

“And how about Vigers? He is content now in his way, but I would be prepared to swear that it has taken him some years of careful self-discipline to reach that state of content. All those years of effort and self-denial would be chucked on the muck heap. All the old hopelessness, misery and longing would be let loose again. He could never go back to his dug-out again and be content. What is left of his life would be wrecked.

“That is why he is living up there—because he knows all this. He is not doing it for the fun of it; he is doing it for her. He does not want her to know. Any time during the last fifteen years he could have let her know if he had wanted to. But he hasn’t. You talk about it being unsporting to Clare not to let her know. I think it would be damned unsporting to Vigers to tell. It would be directly contrary to what are obviously his wishes and it would be to destroy deliberately all his years of patience and self-sacrifice.

“He has made his choice. He is able to judge for himself. What is more, he has the right to judge for himself, and you haven’t the right to butt in and reverse his judgment. He has thought it all out. He must know damn well that a woman like Clare can’t go about without somebody wanting to marry her. And if I know old Roger at all, he wants her to marry. He is thinking of her; he wants her to be happy. And you, Charles, haven’t the right to stop his efforts to make her happy. Supposing you were Vigers. Supposing you had done what he has done. Supposing you had deliberately chosen that life in order that the girl you loved should never know your tragedy and be made miserable by it; what would you say if some clumsy conscientious fool butted in and spoilt it all?”

Pagan nodded his head slowly without speaking. “I suppose you are right, Dicky,” he said at last. “But it seems so callous and dirty somehow, to leave him up there.”

“But it is the only decent thing to do; isn’t it now— honestly?”

“I suppose it is,” answered Pagan.

A long silence ensued. To Pagan the harsh, garish sunshine seemed irritating and cruel. “You will go and see him?” he asked at last.

Baron thought for a moment, and then he shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. I would like to, but I think it would be kinder not to. It might bring back old times rather vividly, and it would be bound to bring up the subject of Clare. I should probably have to tell lies; I mean I couldn’t tell him she was here in Munster and that the other night she was within half a mile of him. The whole thing would be too unsettling and unfair to him. It would not do any good, and would only make things more difficult for him. As it is he does not know I am here, and had he really wanted to get in touch with me he could have done so any time during all these years. I can always send little comforts to him by way of Kleber from time to time. I don’t suppose he makes much of a living out of those carvings.”

Pagan shook his head. “They are too well done to be a commercial success,” he agreed. “But didn’t you say he had some money—oh, but of course as he is officially dead, he can’t touch that.”

Baron nodded. “Yes, but I think I told you that he left all he had to Clare. And don’t you see, that is another complication. Obviously he wants her to have it, but if she knew he was alive she would give it back; and it would complicate that difficult choice of hers too, wouldn’t it? She would feel she was bound to him in a way. The more we look at this thing, Charles, the more certain it becomes that we have got to keep quiet. It’s all a horrible mess up.”

Pagan nodded his head slowly. “It is,” he agreed with a sigh.