Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

“Well, what is it? What do you mean by flourishing your arm at me like this?” asked Cosmo sharply, and Spire ventured on a warning “Ssh!”

“Why, there is nobody here,” said Cosmo, lowering his voice nevertheless.

“I want to tell you, sir, I have seen that fellow.”

“What fellow? Oh, yes. The fellow with the cap. Where did you see him?”

“He is here,” said Spire, pointing to the closed door.

“Here? What could a man like that want here? Did you speak to him?”

“No, sir, he has just come in, and for all I know he may be already gone away—though I don’t think so.”

“Oh, you don’t think so. Do you know what he has come for?”

Spire made no answer to the question, but after a short silence: “I will go and see, and if you stand where you are, sir, you will be able to look right into the room. He may not be the man.”

Without waiting for an answer he moved towards the closed door and threw it wide open. The room, very much like the dining–room, but smaller, was lighted gloomily by two smoky oil lamps hanging from the ceiling over a trestle table having a wooden bench on each side. Bad as the light was, Cosmo made out at once the peculiar cap. The wearer, sitting on one of the benches, was leaning with both elbows across the table towards the fair head of a girl half–hidden by a lace scarf. They were engaged in earnest conversation so that they never turned their heads at Spire’s entrance. Cosmo had just time to discern the fine line of the girl’s shoulders which were half–turned from him when Spire shut the door.

Returning to his bedroom Cosmo found the fire of logs still playing fitfully upon the drawn curtains, upon the dim shape of the canopied bed of state, and perceived that Spire as directed had prepared the writing–table, and had placed a screen round the inviting–looking arm–chair.

He did not sit down to write. He felt more than ever that in a moment of amused expansion he had made a rash promise to his sister. The difficulty in keeping it had confronted him for the first time in Paris. Henrietta would have liked to hear of people he met, of the great world indulging in the new–found freedom of travel, the English, the French, the Poles, the Germans. Certainly he had seen quite a lot of people; but the problem was as to what could be said about them to a young girl, ignorant of the world, brought up in the country, and having really no notion of what mankind was like. He admitted to himself with introspective sincerity that even he did not exactly know what mankind was really like. He was too much of a novice, and she, obviously, was too innocent to be told of his suspicions and of what it was like. Even to describe the world outwardly was not an easy task—to Henrietta. The world was certainly amusing. Oh, yes, it was amusing; but even as he thought that, he felt within him a certain distaste. Just before he had left Paris he had been at a rout given by a great lady. There was a fellow there who somehow became suspected of picking pockets. He was extremely ugly, and therefore attracted notice. The great lady, asked if she had invited him, denied ever having seen him before, but he assured her that he had spoken to her already that evening. Her Ladyship then declared that if he was really the man he gave himself out to be, she was not aware that he was in Paris. She imagined him to be in Ireland. Altogether a peculiar story. Cosmo never knew how it had ended, because his friend Hollis led him away to introduce him to Mrs. R., who was most affable and entertained him with a complete inventory of her daughter’s accomplishments, the daughter herself being then in the room, obviously quite lovely and clever, but certainly a little odd, for a little later, on his being introduced, she had discoursed to him for half an hour on things of the heart, charmingly, but in a perfectly cool and detached manner. There was also Lady Jane, very much in evidence, very much run after, with a voice of engaging sweetness, but very free, not to say licentious, in her talk. How could he confide his impressions of her to Henrietta? As a matter of fact his head had been rather full of Lady Jane for some time. She had, so to speak, attended him all the way from Paris up to the morning of his arrival at Cantelucci’s inn. But she had now deserted him. Or was it his mind that had dropped her out of a haunting actuality into that region where the jumble of one’s experiences is allowed to rest? But was it possible that a shabby fellow in tight breeches and bad boots, with a peculiarly shaped cap on his head, could have got between him and Lady Jane about the time of sunset?

Cosmo thought suddenly that one’s personal life was a very bizarre thing. He could write to his sister that before he had been three hours in Genoa he had been involved in passing secret correspondence from Italy to the island of Elba. Henrietta had solemnly charged him to write everything he could find out, hear, or even guess, about Napoleon. He had heard certainly a lot of most extraordinary stories; and if he had not made any guesses, he had been associating with persons who actually had been doing nothing else; frightened persons, exulting people, cast–down people, frivolous people, people with airs of mystery or with airs of contempt. But, by Jove, now he had been in personal touch, and had actually helped a man of the people who was mysteriously corresponding with Elba. He could write something about that, but, after all—was it worth while? Finally, he concluded, he wouldn’t write home at all that evening, pushed the table away, and throwing himself into the arm–chair extended his legs towards the fire. A moody expression settled on his face. His immobility resembled open–eyed sleep, with the red spark of the fire in his unwinking eyes, and a perfect insensibility to outward impressions. But he heard distinctly Spire knocking discreetly at the door. Cosmo’s first impulse was to shout that he wasn’t wanted, but he changed his mind. “Come in.”

Spire shut the door carefully, and crossing the room at once put a log on the fire. Then he said:

“Can’t get any hot water this evening, sir. Very sorry, sir. I will see that it won’t happen again.”

At the same time he thought, “Served him right for picking out such an inn to stay at.” Cosmo, still silent, stared at the fire and when he roused himself at last he perceived Spire in the act of putting down in front of his chair a pair of slippers of shiny leather and red heels.

“Take your boots off, sir?” suggested Spire under his breath.

Cosmo let him do it. “Going to bed now, sir?” asked Spire in the same subdued tone.

“No, but you needn’t wait. I won’t need you any more to–night.”

“Thank you, sir.” Spire lingered, boots in hand. “The two small pistols are on the bedside table, sir. I have looked to the primings. This town is full of rabble from all parts just now, so I hear. The lock of your door is fairly poor. I shall be sleeping just outside in the corridor, sir. They are going to put me a pallet there.”

“You will be very cold,” protested Cosmo.

“It will be all right, sir. I have got the fur rug out of the carriage. I had everything taken out of the carriage. The yard isn’t safe, sir. Nothing is properly safe in this house so far as I can see.”

Cosmo nodded absent–mindedly. “Oh, wait a moment, Spire. That man, that fellow in the cap, is he still downstairs?”

Spire thought rapidly that he wouldn’t be a party to bringing any of those ragamuffins up to the bedroom. “Gone a long time ago, sir,” he said stolidly.

Cosmo had a vivid recollection of the man’s pose of being settled for an earnest and absorbing conversation to last half the night.

“He doesn’t belong to this house?” he asked.