Williams The Pigeon House

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-83-8162-738-2
Verlag: Ktoczyta.pl
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 254 Seiten

The novel begins in Paris on the wedding night of Sally and Rex Garrett. A former member of the French Foreign Legion Rex mysteriously disappears on the night of his wedding. At The Pigeon House, a lonely inn, a band of conspirators await the arrival of a deserter from the Foreign Legion, who is their 'key man' in their plan to start an uprising in French Morocco. The conspirators have also driven the bridegroom's closest friend into exile and a shameful death, which means he must hunt them down and destroy them. Williams' spy story, 'The Pigeon Man' (1927), presents us with a character whose motivations are as obscure as any in modernist literature. Why is the hero doing what he is doing? Why, for that matter, are the other characters? George Valentine Williams never says explicitly, leaving readers to puzzle this out for themselves.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Williams, Valentine

Leseproben

II. THE CONFESSION HE looked at her, twisting the telegram between his fingers. “Do I really have to read this?” he asked, with a comic air of resignation. “Please!” she said, so earnestly that he grew serious. He unfolded the message. It ran:   “Much better let him find out truth for himself. Love. Marcia.”   The French telegraphist had made a sad hash of the unfamiliar Anglo-Saxon handwriting. “Truth” was printed “turth.” The mutilation gave the whole message a sinister and monstrous appearance. But Rex Garrett’s face was unchanged as he handed the blue form back to the girl. “See here, Sally,” he said gently, “I don’t want to hear anything you don’t care about telling me...” “Let’s go down into the garden,” she proposed. He spread her scarf of silver lace about her shoulders, and in silence they descended the shallow steps. With a little comforting gesture he slipped his arm about her waist. Very close together they threaded a small firm path that wound its way among fragrant flower-beds to a sunken fish-pond in the centre of the garden. “Rex,” said the girl suddenly as they went along, “how much money do you suppose I’ve got?” “Lord,” he laughed, “I haven’t the remotest dea! I never thought about it...” “No, but how much do you think?” He stopped. “My dear Sara,” he remarked with mock gravity, “I do hope you’re not going to tell me that you’re a female millionaire. Millionaires are so vulgar, and they can’t digest their food...” “Don’t make fun of me,” she entreated wistfully. “Answer my question!” “My dear,” he said soothingly, “it’s a silly question. Any money you’ve got of your own will be in the way of pocket money. It does not concern me. You know I earn enough for both of us...” “I have my reasons for asking,” she insisted. “When we met at Cannes that time, did you think I was well off?” His shoulders moved in a little shrug. “I did, I suppose. I don’t know much about women’s clothes, but I can see that yours are expensive. And one can’t live for nothing a day at the Carlton at Cannes, either. And you had your car too...” “How much do you think I’ve got a year?” He jerked his shoulders up again. “Two or three thousand pounds, at least, if you ask me...” Very slowly she bowed her head. “Rex,” she said, “I haven’t played straight with you. I’m a common fraud. I let you think I was rich. I’m not. Marcia paid for my clothes. That car was Marcia’s. I haven’t a penny piece except the salary she gave me. And now, of course, that’s stopped...” They had come to the fish-pond where, in the placid water striated by the light of the moon, the fat, red carp hung motionless in the depths. “Salary?” he repeated. “But you told me Marcia was your chaperone!” “It was a lie,” she said with a little catch in her throat. “I was her paid companion!” “I see!” he answered slowly. She broke into hasty, disjointed explanation. “I was a saleswoman at a dress-shop in New York, at Madame Clémentine’s, on Fifty-Fifth Street. Marcia used to get frocks there. She took a fancy to me, and offered to take me to Europe. She said she’d give me a salary and buy my clothes, and ... and treat me like a friend and not a paid servant. That was nearly two years ago. When I look back I think I was a coward to accept her offer. But she was kind, and I was so deathly tired of the struggle to earn my own living...” She paused. “And it is a struggle, with thousands of beautiful and talented girls swarming every year into New York; and when one is penniless, one loses one’s nerve...” “I know!” he said gently, his eyes on her face. “And I was penniless, and almost friendless. I told you all my people were dead. I never knew my mother; and my father died after his business failed. After that I had to leave Richmond, in the South, where we Candlins have always lived. We were of good Southern stock, and the life Marcia offered me, travel, nice frocks, meeting interesting people, is the sort of life I might have had if Daddy hadn’t lost his money...” Rex’s voice interrupted her. “Listen, Sally,” he said. “Why are you telling me all this now? Why didn’t you follow Marcia’s advice?” She evaded his question. “Marcia wanted me to make a rich marriage. She was for ever dinning it into me. I think she had a title in mind too. She was always introducing men. But I never met a man I wanted to marry until I met you...” He laughed rather grimly. “You must have disappointed your friend,” he said. She threw him a piteous look. “Oh, Rex!” she pleaded wearily, “don’t be unkind to me! I never intended to deceive you. It didn’t occur to me that seeing the way we were living you might believe I was rich. It was something Marcia said that first made me realise you thought I had money of my own...” Nervously she twisted her hands together. “Marcia was very angry with me for falling in love with you. But when she saw that my mind was made up, she wouldn’t let me tell you the truth. I think her idea was...” She broke off; and her blue eyes anxiously searched his face. “What?” he demanded bluntly. “I think,” Sally answered slowly, “she wanted to test you to see if you would question her about my means. That was why she let you believe she was my chaperone. She made me bear her out...” He was standing away from her now, his tall form in evening clothes merging into the background of dark foliage. His face was severe, haggard almost, and he kept stubbing his foot irresolutely against the marble base of the fountain. “I can make allowances for Marcia,” he said at last. “You were in her care; it was her right. But you! Why couldn’t you have told me the truth?” Her face was flaming now. Once more she let his question go by unanswered. “You must have seen how stand-offish Marcia was at first. It was only when you told her about the life insurance you were settling on me, after you had asked me to marry you, that she became friendly. I wanted to own up then, but she wouldn’t let me. She was scared; she saw she had gone too far, I think. She told me that, when you discovered how you’d been deceived, you were the sort of man who’d break off our engagement and go away...” Her head was bent and she was staring at her silver shoe, turning the point this way and that to catch the moonbeams. He put his hands on her shoulders and made her look up at him. “Did you believe that, too?” he asked. She faltered and dropped her eyes. “I was afraid...” she whispered. “You wanted to be on the safe side, is that it?” “It’s your right to say such things”–the little gasp she gave sounded like a sob–“but you make it hard for me to explain...” She loosed his hands from her shoulders and stood away from him. From the far distance the very faint drumming of a motor-car welled up to them out of the darkness. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to wound you, dear. But I hate deceit, and from you”–a look of pain crept into his eyes–“it hurts.” He raised her hand and began to stroke the slim, white fingers. “And I don’t understand you, either. Why have you told me this to-night? After all, we’re married; any other time would have done as well...” Her voice was low as, with eyes downcast, she answered: “I was weak before. I gave way to Marcia. But I warned her I would speak to-night. That’s why she wired me...” She lifted her starry eyes to his. “When I give myself to you to-night,” she whispered, “I want to give myself wholly. You must know me and love me for what I am...” “I loved you from the beginning because I knew you,” he answered simply. “Do you think what you’ve told me about the money will make any difference, Sally?” He put his arm about her and drew her to him. Her hands were on the lapels of his coat, and she rested her face against them. “Can’t you guess,” she whispered, “why I let Marcia persuade me? All these two months that I’ve loved you, I’ve tried to have the courage to tell you the truth. When I was alone I used to promise myself I would, but as soon as I looked into your face my resolution always failed me. Oh, Rex, I was terrified lest you’d go away and leave me...” “Then you doubted me, too?” His voice had grown suddenly hard. Appealingly she looked up at him. “Only because I didn’t know you,” she said. “I never thought you cared anything about the money, but I couldn’t be sure how much you wanted me. You were different from all the other men I have known, so proud, so lonely, so–so hard to understand.” He had dropped his arms to his sides and was staring away from her into the darkness. “Oh, Rex,” she pleaded, “I never really doubted. But I couldn’t bear to think that I might lose you; I felt my heart would break if you should go away. Take me in your arms again, beloved, and tell me you’ve forgiven me. Don’t spoil our wedding night!” Across the river, beyond the double bridge, the village clock began to strike. They listened in silence, there in the moonlit garden, until the last of the twelve strokes had ceased to sing and quiver in the still air. As the last stroke died away, the rapid hammering of a motor-car swelling to a crescendo as it topped a ridge mounted out of the dark...