The Island Pharisees. Galsworthy John
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to the people, air, and voices, all brought to him the sense of home. Meanwhile he wavered between purchasing a book called Market Hayborough, which he had read and would certainly enjoy a second time, and Carlyle’s French Revolution, which he had not read and was doubtful of enjoying; he felt that he ought to buy the latter, but he did not relish giving up the former. While he hesitated thus, his carriage was beginning to fill up; so, quickly buying both, he took up a position from which he could defend his rights. “Nothing,” he thought, “shows people up like travelling.”
The carriage was almost full, and, putting his bag, up in the rack, he took his seat. At the moment of starting yet another passenger, a girl with a pale face, scrambled in.
“I was a fool to go third,” thought Shelton, taking in his neighbours from behind his journal.
They were seven. A grizzled rustic sat in the far corner; his empty pipe, bowl downwards, jutted like a handle from his face, all bleared with the smear of nothingness that grows on those who pass their lives in the current of hard facts. Next to him, a ruddy, heavy-shouldered man was discussing with a grey-haired, hatchet-visaged person the condition of their gardens; and Shelton watched their eyes till it occurred to him how curious a look was in them – a watchful friendliness, an allied distrust – and that their voices, cheerful, even jovial, seemed to be cautious all the time. His glance strayed off, and almost rebounded from the semi-Roman, slightly cross, and wholly self-complacent face of a stout lady in a black-and-white costume, who was reading the Strand Magazine, while her other, sleek, plump hand, freed from its black glove, and ornamented with a thick watch-bracelet, rested on her lap. A younger, bright-cheeked, and self-conscious female was sitting next her, looking at the pale girl who had just got in.
“There’s something about that girl,” thought Shelton, “they don’t like.” Her brown eyes certainly looked frightened, her clothes were of a foreign cut. Suddenly he met the glance of another pair of eyes; these eyes, prominent and blue, stared with a sort of subtle roguery from above a thin, lopsided nose, and were at once averted. They gave Shelton the impression that he was being judged, and mocked, enticed, initiated. His own gaze did not fall; this sanguine face, with its two-day growth of reddish beard, long nose, full lips, and irony, puzzled him. “A cynical face!” he thought, and then, “but sensitive!” and then, “too cynical,” again.
The young man who owned it sat with his legs parted at the knees, his dusty trouser-ends and boots slanting back beneath the seat, his yellow finger-tips crisped as if rolling cigarettes. A strange air of detachment was about that youthful, shabby figure, and not a scrap of luggage filled the rack above his head.
The frightened girl was sitting next this pagan personality; it was possibly the lack of fashion in his looks that caused, her to select him for her confidence.
“Monsieur,” she asked, “do you speak French?”
“Perfectly.”
“Then can you tell me where they take the tickets?
“The young man shook his head.
“No,” said he, “I am a foreigner.”
The girl sighed.
“But what is the matter, ma’moiselle?”
The girl did not reply, twisting her hands on an old bag in her lap. Silence had stolen on the carriage – a silence such as steals on animals at the first approach of danger; all eyes were turned towards the figures of the foreigners.
“Yes,” broke out the red-faced man, “he was a bit squiffy that evening – old Tom.”
“Ah!” replied his neighbour, “he would be.”
Something seemed to have destroyed their look of mutual distrust. The plump, sleek hand of the lady with the Roman nose curved convulsively; and this movement corresponded to the feeling agitating Shelton’s heart. It was almost as if hand and heart feared to be asked for something.
“Monsieur,” said the girl, with a tremble in her voice, “I am very unhappy; can you tell me what to do? I had no money for a ticket.”
The foreign youth’s face flickered.
“Yes?” he said; “that might happen to anyone, of course.”
“What will they do to me?” sighed the girl.
“Don’t lose courage, ma’moiselle.” The young man slid his eyes from left to right, and rested them on Shelton. “Although I don’t as yet see your way out.”
“Oh, monsieur!” sighed the girl, and, though it was clear that none but Shelton understood what they were saying, there was a chilly feeling in the carriage.
“I wish I could assist you,” said the foreign youth; “unfortunately – ” he shrugged his shoulders, and again his eyes returned to Shelton.
The latter thrust his hand into his pocket.
“Can I be of any use?” he asked in English.
“Certainly, sir; you could render this young lady the greatest possible service by lending her the money for a ticket.”
Shelton produced a sovereign, which the young man took. Passing it to the girl, he said:
“A thousand thanks – ’voila une belle action’.”
The misgivings which attend on casual charity crowded up in Shelton’s mind; he was ashamed of having them and of not having them, and he stole covert looks at this young foreigner, who was now talking to the girl in a language that he did not understand. Though vagabond in essence, the fellow’s face showed subtle spirit, a fortitude and irony not found upon the face of normal man, and in turning from it to the other passengers Shelton was conscious of revolt, contempt, and questioning, that he could not define. Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he tried to diagnose this new sensation. He found it disconcerting that the faces and behaviour of his neighbours lacked anything he could grasp and secretly abuse. They continued to converse with admirable and slightly conscious phlegm, yet he knew, as well as if each one had whispered to him privately, that this shady incident had shaken them. Something unsettling to their notions of propriety-something dangerous and destructive of complacency – had occurred, and this was unforgivable. Each had a different way, humorous or philosophic, contemptuous, sour, or sly, of showing this resentment. But by a flash of insight Shelton saw that at the bottom of their minds and of his own the feeling was the same. Because he shared in their resentment he was enraged with them and with himself. He looked at the plump, sleek hand of the woman with the Roman nose. The insulation and complacency of its pale skin, the passive righteousness about its curve, the prim separation from the others of the fat little finger, had acquired a wholly unaccountable importance. It embodied the verdict of his fellow-passengers, the verdict of Society; for he knew that, whether or no repugnant to the well-bred mind, each assemblage of eight persons, even in a third-class carriage, contains the kernel of Society.
But being in love, and recently engaged, Shelton had a right to be immune from discontent of any kind, and he reverted to his mental image of the cool, fair face, quick movements, and the brilliant smile that now in his probationary exile haunted his imagination; he took out his fiancee’s last letter, but the voice of the young foreigner addressing him in rapid French caused him to put it back abruptly.
“From what she tells me, sir,” he said, bending forward to be out of hearing of the girl, “hers is an unhappy case. I should have been only too glad to help her, but, as you see” – and he made a gesture by which Shelton observed that he had parted from his waistcoat – “I am not Rothschild. She has been abandoned by the man who brought her over to Dover under promise of marriage. Look” – and by a subtle flicker of his eyes he marked how the two ladies had edged away from the French girl “they take good care not to let their garments touch her. They are virtuous women. How fine a thing is virtue, sir! and finer to know you have it, especially when you are never likely to be tempted.”
Shelton was unable to repress a smile; and when he smiled his face grew soft.
“Haven’t you observed,” went on the youthful foreigner, “that those who by temperament and circumstance are worst fitted to pronounce judgment are usually