The Favorite Short Stories of W. Somerset Maugham (69 page)

“Very good, sir,” replied Alban, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. “When do you desire me to return to my post?”

“At once.”

“Have you any objection to my going to the club and having tiffin before I go?”

The Governor looked at him with surprise. His exasperation was mingled with an unwilling admiration.

“Not at all. I’m sorry, Torel, that this unhappy incident should have deprived the Government of a servant whose zeal has always been so apparent and whose tact, intelligence, and industry seemed to point him out in the future for very high office.”

“Your Excellency does not read Schiller, I suppose. You are probably not acquainted with his celebrated line:
mit der Dummheit kämpfen die Götter selbst vergebens.”

“What does it mean?”

“Roughly: Against stupidity the gods themselves battle in vain.”

“Good morning.”

With his head in the air, a smile on his lips, Alban left the Governor’s office. The Governor was human, and he had the curiosity to ask his secretary later in the day if Alban Torel had really gone to the club.

“Yes, sir. He had tiffin there.”

“It must have wanted some nerve.”

Alban entered the club jauntily and joined the group of men standing at the bar. He talked to them in the breezy, cordial tone he always used with them. It was designed to put them at their ease. They had been discussing him ever since Stratton had come back to Port Wallace with his story, sneering at him and laughing at him, and all who had resented his superciliousness, and they were the majority, were triumphant because his pride had had a fall. But they were so taken aback at seeing him now, so confused to find him as confident as ever, that it was they who were embarrassed.

One man, though he knew perfectly, asked him what he was doing in Port Wallace.

“Oh, I came about the riot on the Alud Estate. H.E. wanted to see me. He does not see eye to eye with me about it. The silly old ass has fired me. I’m going home as soon as he appoints a D.O. to take over.”

There was a moment of awkwardness. One, more kindly disposed than the others, said:

“I’m awfully sorry.”

Alban shrugged his shoulders.

“My dear fellow, what can you do with a perfect damned fool? The only thing is to let him stew in his own juice.”

When the Governor’s secretary had told his chief as much of this as he thought discreet, the Governor smiled.

“Courage is a queer thing. I would rather have shot myself than go to the club just then and face all those fellows.”

A fortnight later, having sold to the incoming D.O. all the decorations that Anne had taken so much trouble about, with the rest of their things in packing-cases and trunks, they arrived at Port Wallace to await the local steamer that was to take them to Singapore. The padre’s wife invited them to stay with her, but Anne refused; she insisted that they should go to the hotel. An hour after their arrival she received a very kind little letter from the Governor’s wife asking her to go and have tea with her. She went. She found Mrs Hannay alone, but in a minute the Governor joined them. He expressed his regret that she was leaving and told her how sorry he was for the cause.

“It’s very kind of you to say that,” said Anne, smiling gaily, “but you mustn’t think I take it to heart. I’m entirely on Alban’s side. I think what he did was absolutely right and if you don’t mind my saying so I think you’ve treated him most unjustly.”

“Believe me, I hated having to take the step I took.”

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” said Anne.

“What are your plans when you get home? asked Mrs Hannay.

Anne began to chat brightly. You would have thought she had not a care in the world. She seemed in great spirits at going home. She was jolly and amusing and made little jokes. When she took leave of the Governor and his wife she thanked them for all their kindness. The Governor escorted her to the door.

The next day but one, after dinner, they went on board the clean and comfortable little ship. The padre and his wife saw them off. When they went into their cabin they found a large parcel on Anne’s bunk. It was addressed to Alban. He opened it and saw that it was an immense powder-puff.

“Hullo, I wonder who sent us this,” he said, with a laugh. “It must be for you, darling.”

Anne gave him a quick look. She went pale. The brutes! How could they be so cruel? She forced herself to smile.

“It’s enormous, isn’t it? I’ve never seen such a large powder-puff in my life.”

But when he had left the cabin and they were out at sea, she threw it passionately overboard.

And now, now that they were back in London and Sondurah was nine thousand miles away, she clenched her hands as she thought of it. Somehow, it seemed the worst thing of all. It was so wantonly unkind to send that absurd object to Alban, Powder-Puff Percy; it showed such a petty spite. Was that their idea of humour? Nothing had hurt her more and even now she felt that it was only by holding on to herself that she could prevent herself from crying. Suddenly she started, for the door opened and Alban came in. She was still sitting in the chair in which he had left her.

“Hullo, why haven’t you dressed?” He looked about the room. “You haven’t unpacked.”

“No.”

“Why on earth not?”

“I’m not going to unpack. I’m not going to stay here. I’m leaving you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve stuck it out till now. I made up my mind I would till we got home. I set my teeth, I’ve borne more than I thought it possible to bear, but now it’s finished. I’ve done all that could be expected of me. We’re back in London now and I can go.”

He looked at her in utter bewilderment.

“Are you mad, Anne?”

“Oh, my God, what I’ve endured! The journey to Singapore, with all the officers knowing, and even the Chinese stewards. And at Singapore, the way people looked at us at the hotel, and the sympathy I had to put up with, the bricks they dropped and their embarrassment when they realized what they’d done. My God, I could have killed them. That interminable journey home. There wasn’t a single passenger on the ship who didn’t know. The contempt they had for you and the kindness they went out of their way to show me. And you so self-complacent and so pleased with yourself, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. You must have the hide of a rhinoceros. The misery of seeing you so chatty and agreeable. Pariahs, that’s what we were. You seemed to ask them to snub you. How can anyone be so shameless?”

She was flaming with passion. Now that at last she need not wear the mask of indifference and pride that she had forced herself to assume she cast aside all reserve and all self-control. The words poured from her trembling lips in a virulent stream.

“My dear, how can you be so absurd?” he said good-naturedly, smiling. “You must be very nervous and high-strung to have got such ideas in your head. Why didn’t you tell me? You’re like a country bumpkin who comes to London and thinks everyone is staring at him. Nobody bothered about us, and if they did what on earth did it matter? You ought to have more sense than to bother about what a lot of fools say. And what do you imagine they were saying?”

“They were saying you’d been fired.”

“Well, that was true,” he laughed.

“They said you were a coward.”

“What of it?”

“Well, you see, that was true too.”

He looked at her for a moment reflectively. His lips tightened a little.

“And what makes you think so?” he asked acidly.

“I saw it in your eyes, that day the news came, when you refused to go to the estate and I followed you into the hall when you went to fetch your topee. I begged you to go, I felt that whatever the danger you must take it, and suddenly I saw the fear in your eyes. I nearly fainted with the horror.”

“I should have been a fool to risk my life to no purpose. Why should I? Nothing that concerned me was at stake. Courage is the obvious virtue of the stupid. I don’t attach any particular importance to it.”

“How do you mean that nothing that concerned you was at stake? If that’s true then your whole life is a sham. You’ve given away everything you stood for, everything we both stand for. You’ve let all of us down. We did set ourselves up on a pinnacle, we did think ourselves better than the rest of them because we loved literature and art and music, we weren’t content to live a life of ignoble jealousies and vulgar tittle-tattle, we did cherish the things of the spirit, and we loved beauty. It was our food and drink. They laughed at us and sneered at us. That was inevitable. The ignorant and the common naturally hate and fear those who are interested in things they don’t understand. We didn’t care. We called them Philistines. We despised them and we had a right to despise them. Our justification was that we were better and nobler and wiser and braver than they were. And you weren’t better, you weren’t nobler, you weren’t braver. When the crisis came you slunk away like a whipped cur with his tail between his legs. You of all people hadn’t the right to be a coward. They despise
us
now and they have the right to despise us. Us and all we stood for. Now they can say that art and beauty are all rot; when it comes to a pinch people like us always let you down. They never stopped looking for a chance to turn and rend us and you gave it to them. They can say that they always expected it. It’s a triumph for them. I used to be furious because they called you Powder-Puff Percy. Did you know they did?”

“Of course. I thought it very vulgar, but it left me entirely indifferent.”

“It’s funny that their instinct should have been so right.”

“Do you mean to say you’ve been harbouring this against me all these weeks? I should never have thought you capable of it.”

“I couldn’t let you down when everyone was against you. I was too proud for that. Whatever happened I swore to myself that I’d stick to you till we got home. It’s been torture.”

“Don’t you love me any more?”

“Love you? I loathe the very sight of you.”

“Anne!”

“God knows I loved you. For eight years I worshipped the ground you trod on. You were everything to me. I believed in you as some people believe in God. When I saw the fear in your eyes that day, when you told me that you weren’t going to risk your life for a kept woman and her half-caste brats, I was shattered. It was as though someone had wrenched my heart out of my body and trampled on it. You killed my love there and then, Alban. You killed it stone-dead. Since then when you’ve kissed me I’ve had to clench my hands so as not to turn my face away. The mere thought of anything else makes me feel physically sick. I loathe your complacence and your frightful insensitiveness. Perhaps I could have forgiven it if it had been just a moment’s weakness and if afterwards you’d been ashamed. I should have been miserable, but I think my love was so great that I should only have felt pity for you. But you’re incapable of shame. And now I believe in nothing. You’re only a silly, pretentious, vulgar poseur. I would rather be the wife of a second-rate planter so long as he had the common human virtues of a man than the wife of a fake like you.”

He did not answer. Gradually his face began to discompose. Those handsome, regular features of his horribly distorted and suddenly he broke out into loud sobs. She gave a little cry.

“Don’t Alban, don’t.”

“Oh, darling, how can you be so cruel to me? I adore you. I’d give my whole life to please you. I can’t live without you.”

She put out her arms as though to ward off a blow.

“No, no, Alban, don’t try to move me. I can’t. I must go. I can’t live with you any more. It would be frightful. I can never forget. I must tell you the truth, I have only contempt for you and repulsion.”

He sank down at her feet and tried to cling to her knees. With a gasp she sprang up and he buried his head in the empty chair. He cried painfully with sobs that tore his chest. The sound was horrible. The tears streamed from Anne’s eyes and, putting her hands to her ears to shut out that dreadful, hysterical sobbing, blindly stumbling she rushed to the door and ran out.

C
APTAIN
B
REDON
was good-natured. When Angus Munro, the Curator of the museum at Kuala Solor, told him that he had advised Neil MacAdam, his new assistant, on his arrival at Singapore to put up at the Van Dyke Hotel, and asked him to see that the lad got into no mischief during the few days he must spend there, he said he would do his best. Captain Bredon commanded the
Sultan Ahmed,
and when he was at Singapore always stayed at the Van Dyke. He had a Japanese wife and kept a room there. It was his home. When he got back after his fortnight’s trip along the coast of Borneo the Dutch manager told him that Neil had been there for two days. The boy was sitting in the little dusty garden of the hotel reading old numbers of
The Straits Times.
Captain Bredon took a look at him first and then went up.

“You’re MacAdam, aren’t you?”

Neil rose to his feet, flushed to the roots of his hair, and answered shyly: “I am.”

“My name’s Bredon. I’m skipper of the
Sultan Ahmed.
You’re sailing with me next Tuesday. Munro asked me to look after you. What about a stengah? I suppose you’ve learned what that means by now.”