Joseph Conrad: Within the Tides: Tales

He spoke with feeling. It was clear that what he had to tell appealed to his sentiment. Yet, as an experienced man of the world, he marked his amused wonder. Young man of good family and connections, going everywhere, yet not merely a man about town, but with a foot in the two big F’s.

Renouard lounging aimlessly in the room turned round: “And what the devil’s that?” he asked faintly.

“Why Fashion and Finance,” explained the Editor. “That’s how I call it. There are the three R’s at the bottom of the social edifice and the two F’s on the top. See?”

“Ha! Ha! Excellent! Ha! Ha!” Renouard laughed with stony eyes.

“And you proceed from one set to the other in this democratic age,” the Editor went on with unperturbed complacency. “That is if you are clever enough. The only danger is in being too clever. And I think something of the sort happened here. That swell I am speaking of got himself into a mess. Apparently a very ugly mess of a financial character. You will understand that Willie did not go into details with me. They were not imparted to him with very great abundance either. But a bad mess—something of the criminal order. Of course he was innocent. But he had to quit all the same.”

“Ha! Ha!” Renouard laughed again abruptly, staring as before. “So there’s one more big F in the tale.”

“What do you mean?” inquired the Editor quickly, with an air as if his patent were being infringed.

“I mean—Fool.”

“No. I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t say that.”

“Well—let him be a scoundrel then. What the devil do I care.”

“But hold on! You haven’t heard the end of the story.”

Renouard, his hat on his head already, sat down with the disdainful smile of a man who had discounted the moral of the story. Still he sat down and the Editor swung his revolving chair right round. He was full of unction.

“Imprudent, I should say. In many ways money is as dangerous to handle as gunpowder. You can’t be too careful either as to who you are working with. Anyhow there was a mighty flashy burst up, a sensation, and—his familiar haunts knew him no more. But before he vanished he went to see Miss Moorsom. That very fact argues for his innocence—don’t it? What was said between them no man knows—unless the professor had the confidence from his daughter. There couldn’t have been much to say. There was nothing for it but to let him go—was there?—for the affair had got into the papers. And perhaps the kindest thing would have been to forget him. Anyway the easiest. Forgiveness would have been more difficult, I fancy, for a young lady of spirit and position drawn into an ugly affair like that. Any ordinary young lady, I mean. Well, the fellow asked nothing better than to be forgotten, only he didn’t find it easy to do so himself, because he would write home now and then. Not to any of his friends though. He had no near relations. The professor had been his guardian. No, the poor devil wrote now and then to an old retired butler of his late father, somewhere in the country, forbidding him at the same time to let any one know of his whereabouts. So that worthy old ass would go up and dodge about the Moorsom’s town house, perhaps waylay Miss Moorsom’s maid, and then would write to ‘Master Arthur’ that the young lady looked well and happy, or some such cheerful intelligence. I dare say he wanted to be forgotten, but I shouldn’t think he was much cheered by the news. What would you say?”

Renouard, his legs stretched out and his chin on his breast, said nothing. A sensation which was not curiosity, but rather a vague nervous anxiety, distinctly unpleasant, like a mysterious symptom of some malady, prevented him from getting up and going away.

“Mixed feelings,” the Editor opined. “Many fellows out here receive news from home with mixed feelings. But what will his feelings be when he hears what I am going to tell you now? For we know he has not heard yet. Six months ago a city clerk, just a common drudge of finance, gets himself convicted of a common embezzlement or something of that kind. Then seeing he’s in for a long sentence he thinks of making his conscience comfortable, and makes a clean breast of an old story of tampered with, or else suppressed, documents, a story which clears altogether the honesty of our ruined gentleman. That embezzling fellow was in a position to know, having been employed by the firm before the smash. There was no doubt about the character being cleared—but where the cleared man was nobody could tell. Another sensation in society. And then Miss Moorsom says: ‘He will come back to claim me, and I’ll marry him.’ But he didn’t come back. Between you and me I don’t think he was much wanted—except by Miss Moorsom. I imagine she’s used to have her own way. She grew impatient, and declared that if she knew where the man was she would go to him. But all that could be got out of the old butler was that the last envelope bore the postmark of our beautiful city; and that this was the only address of ‘Master Arthur’ that he ever had. That and no more. In fact the fellow was at his last gasp—with a bad heart. Miss Moorsom wasn’t allowed to see him. She had gone herself into the country to learn what she could, but she had to stay downstairs while the old chap’s wife went up to the invalid. She brought down the scrap of intelligence I’ve told you of. He was already too far gone to be cross-examined on it, and that very night he died. He didn’t leave behind him much to go by, did he? Our Willie hinted to me that there had been pretty stormy days in the professor’s house, but—here they are. I have a notion she isn’t the kind of everyday young lady who may be permitted to gallop about the world all by herself—eh? Well, I think it rather fine of her, but I quite understand that the professor needed all his philosophy under the circumstances. She is his only child now—and brilliant—what? Willie positively spluttered trying to describe her to me; and I could see directly you came in that you had an uncommon experience.”

Renouard, with an irritated gesture, tilted his hat more forward on his eyes, as though he were bored. The Editor went on with the remark that to be sure neither he (Renouard) nor yet Willie were much used to meet girls of that remarkable superiority. Willie when learning business with a firm in London, years before, had seen none but boarding-house society, he guessed. As to himself in the good old days, when he trod the glorious flags of Fleet Street, he neither had access to, nor yet would have cared for the swells. Nothing interested him then but parliamentary politics and the oratory of the House of Commons.

He paid to this not very distant past the tribute of a tender, reminiscent smile, and returned to his first idea that for a society girl her action was rather fine. All the same the professor could not be very pleased. The fellow if he was as pure as a lily now was just about as devoid of the goods of the earth. And there were misfortunes, however undeserved, which damaged a man’s standing permanently. On the other hand, it was difficult to oppose cynically a noble impulse—not to speak of the great love at the root of it. Ah! Love! And then the lady was quite capable of going off by herself. She was of age, she had money of her own, plenty of pluck too. Moorsom must have concluded that it was more truly paternal, more prudent too, and generally safer all round to let himself be dragged into this chase. The aunt came along for the same reasons. It was given out at home as a trip round the world of the usual kind.

Renouard had risen and remained standing with his heart beating, and strangely affected by this tale, robbed as it was of all glamour by the prosaic personality of the narrator. The Editor added: “I’ve been asked to help in the search—you know.”