Part 35 (1/2)
”Our project would at least secure her from the risk of being run over by some vehicle.”
”Pray, why should the dear lady not choose to be run over? Surely she can please herself? It would be an appropriate ending to a brief and merry career. It would be more than this. We spoke, just now, of her example as a deterrent to others. Well, this example, so far as we spectators are concerned, would lose its point and pungency if she died as you propose--a half-reclaimed inebriate in some home. She must be run over, or otherwise violently destroyed, if we are to have the full benefit of the example. It is only then that we shall be able to say to ourselves: Ah, we always thought it was risky to drink strong waters, but NOW WE KNOW.”
”A fatal accident of this kind, quite apart from other considerations, would involve her relatives in all kinds of trouble with the legal authorities of this country.”
”I am glad you mentioned the legal aspects of the case; I had nearly forgotten them. They are most important. In electing to be crushed under a vehicle she acts on her own initiative. What you propose is nothing less than a curtailment of her liberty of action. How do you think the local authorities would envisage such an arbitrary step? I imagine it may cost you dear to arrogate to yourselves a power which, in this country at least, is vested in the proper authorities. You may well find yourselves in collision with the penal code of Italy which has been framed, and is now administered, by men of uncommonly wide views--men who reverence personal freedom above gold and rubies. I should not be surprised if our magistrate in Nepenthe were to take, on legal grounds, the same view of the case as I hold on purely moral ones, namely, that your action towards Miss Wilberforce would amount to an unwarranted persecution. He would regard it, very likely, as the unjustifiable incarceration of a perfectly harmless individual. Signor Malipizzo, I may say, has p.r.o.nounced views as to his duties towards society.”
This was too much for one of the respectable members of the deputation.
He asked:
”Are you referring to that blackguard, that pestilential hog, who calls himself a judge?”
”Perhaps you do not know him as well as I do. I wish you knew him better. I wish you knew him as well as I do! He is worth knowing. Let me tell you something about him--something new and characteristic. Like many natives, he is scrupulously fair minded and honest. Now I can get on, at a pinch, even with an upright man. That is because I always try to discover the good side of my fellow-creatures. But other people cannot. Accordingly, being an incorruptible magistrate, he is liable to encounter hostility among a certain disreputable section of the populace. His conscientious methods expose him to the accusation of harsh dealing. This has happened more than once. It happened only two days ago, when he sentenced to prison a batch of Russian lunatics who were responsible, among other damage, for the death of three innocent school-children. I commend his action. He erred, if at all, on the side of leniency; for we really cannot have a pack of raving wolves at large here. It is different in Russia. You can go mad there--indeed that country, with its vast plains and trackless forests, seems to have been especially created for the purpose of running amok. But this island is really too small; there are so many gla.s.s windows and babies about--don't you think so, gentlemen?”
”Nepenthe is certainly a small place, Mr. Keith.”
”Note, now, how differently he treats Miss Wilberforce, who not only never killed three school-children but has never, to the best of my knowledge, injured a living creature. I am informed on good authority that, after spending a tumultuous night in gaol, she has already regained her liberty. And this, if I am not mistaken, is the second or third occasion at least on which our judge has behaved in a similar manner towards her. Once more I commend his action. Why has Signor Malipizzo set the lady free? Because, unlike a modern philanthropist, he is aware of the wider issues involved; he acts not with the severity of a fanatic, but with the understanding, the tolerance, the mellow sympathy of a man of the world. I said that everyone on Nepenthe treated Miss Wilberforce as a pariah. That was a mistake. I ought to have allowed for one exception--our admirable judge! It strikes me as significant that an official who is bound to her by no ties of blood-relations.h.i.+p or nationality and who enjoys, moreover, a reputation--however undeserved--for harshness, should be the one person on Nepenthe to stretch a point in her favour; the one person who extends to her the hand of friends.h.i.+p, whose heart goes out in sympathy with her sad case. Significant, and not altogether creditable to us, her compatriots. Now who, I wonder, is the friend of man, the modern Prometheus; you who incarcerate her, or this alien lawyer who sets her free? To be perfectly frank, I find your att.i.tude contrasts unfavourably with his own. You are the rigorists, the harsh ones. He is the humanitarian. Yes, gentlemen! In my humble opinion there is not a shadow of a doubt about it. Signor Malipizzo is the true philanthropist....”
The deputation, wending to the market-place rather hurriedly in order to take their places in the funeral cortege, said to themselves:
”We ought to have waited.”
Thinking it over as they marched along, the respectable members came to the conclusion that the others, the Hopkins section, were really to blame for the discomfiture of the expedition. It was they who had insisted with specious arguments upon an interview at this unseasonable hour of the morning; as for themselves, they would gladly have waited for a more suitable occasion. In undertones, low but venomous, they commented upon the undue haste of Mr. Hopkins and its probable motives.
Later on they understood everything. Then they called him a thief and a rogue, loudly--but not to his face.
Which shows yet again how inadequately causes and effects are appreciated here on earth. The dubious Mr. Hopkins may well have been moved by mercenary considerations. But this fact had nothing to do with the unsatisfactory issue of the affair. In other words, even as the Saint, in the matter of that volcanic eruption, had previously gotten the praise for what was not his merit, so now this sinner was blamed for what was not his fault. Had the sub-committee waited till the crack of doom, it would have made no difference whatever to the general trend of Mr. Keith's sententious irrelevancies.
Perhaps, if they had caught him in a better humour, he might have had the decency to invite them to luncheon after the funeral.
Even this was problematical.
CHAPTER XXVII
The funeral was a roaring success. The display of ecclesiastics and choristers was unusually fine. Torquemada had seen to that part of the business. It was his duty henceforward to cherish the bereaved representative of Nicaragua--a possible convert, at his hand, to the true faith. The Clubmen, headed by the excellent Mr. Richards, wore their gravest faces. Furthermore, in view of the lady's quasi-official position, the authorities of the island were present in full numbers; the Militia, too, looked superb in their picturesque uniforms. And so large was the unofficial attendance, so deafening the music, so brilliant the suns.h.i.+ne, so perfect the general arrangements that even the deceased, captious as she was, could hardly (under other circ.u.mstances) have avoided expressing her approval of the performance.
There was an adequate display of fict.i.tious grief among her social equals. Madame Steynlin, in particular, carried it off--to outward appearances--with remarkable success. She looked really quite upset, and her hat, as usual, attracted the attention of all the ladies. Madame Steynlin's hats were proverbial. She was always appearing in new ones of the most costly varieties. And never, by any chance, did they accord with her uncommon and rather ripe style of beauty. Madame Steynlin was too romantic to dress well. She trimmed her heart, and not her garments. A tidy little income, however, enabled her to eke out lack of taste by recklessness of expenditure. This particular hat, it was observed, must have cost a fortune. And yet it was a perfect fright; it made her look fifteen years older, to the delight of all the other women.
What cared Madame Steynlin about hats? Her distressful appearance was not feigned; she was truly upset, though not about the death of the Commissioner's lady. With an effort whose violence n.o.body but herself could appreciate she had managed to extricate herself from the lion--like embraces of Peter the Great--to what purpose? To perform an odious social duty; to waste a fair morning in simulating grief for the death of a woman whom she loathed like poison. n.o.body would ever understand what a trial in altruism had been. n.o.body, in fact, ever gave her credit for a grain of self-abnegation. And yet she was always trying to please people--denying herself this and that. How harshly the world judged!
She was also troubled in mind, though in a lesser degree, about the fate of the remainder of the Russian colony. Were they not all her brothers and sisters--these laughing, round-cheeked primitives? The magistrate, that caricature of a man, that vindictive and corrupt atheist, that tiger in human form, was doubtless thirsting for the blood of those still at liberty on Nepenthe. How much longer would Peter escape his malice? The dear boy! Her lambkin, her little soul--she had learnt to babble a few words of Russian--her play for, harmless, ever-hungry Peter! On this lovely island, where all men should be at peace--how harshly they dealt with one another!
The rest of the foreign colony, undisturbed by such bitter personal reflections, appeared to bear the loss of the lady with praiseworthy equanimity. They were, in truth, considerably relieved in mind. Death is the great equalizer. In his pale presence they forgot their old squabbles and jealousies; they forgot their numberless and legitimate complaints against this woman. All honoured the defunct who had now lost, presumably for ever, the capacity of mischief-making.