Arcades Ambo (1906)

by Bernard Capes

MIGUEL and Nicanor were the Damon and Pythias of Lima, Their devotion to one another, in a city of gamblers—who are not as a rule very wont to sentimental and disinterested friendships—was a standing pleasantry. The children of rich Peruvian neighbours, they had grown up together, passed their schooldays together (at an English Catholic seminary), and were at last, in the dawn of their young manhood, to make the “grand tour” in each other's company, preparatory to their entering upon the serious business of life, which was to pile wealth on wealth in their respective fathers’ offices.

In the meantime, awaiting a prosaic destiny, they continued inseparable—a proverb for clean though passionate affection.

The strange thing was that, in the matters of temperament and physique, they appeared to have nothing in common. Nicanor, the younger by a few months, was a little dark, curly-haired creature, bright-eyed as a mouse. He was, in fact, almost a dwarf, and with all the wit, galvanism, and vivaciousness which one is inclined to associate with elfishness. At the same time he was perfectly formed. A man in miniature, a little sheath crammed with a big dagger. Miguel, on the other hand, was large and placid, a smooth, slumberous faun of a youth, smiling and good-natured. He never said anything fine; he never did anything noteworthy; he was not so much admirable as lovable. The two started, well equipped in every way, on their tour. The flocks of buzzards, which are the scavengers of Lima, flapped them good-bye with approval. They were too sweetening an element to be popular with the birds.

Miguel and Nicanor travelled overland to Cayenne, in French Guiana, where they took boat for Marseilles, whence they were to proceed to the capital. The circular tour of the world, for all who would make it comprehensively, dates from Paris and ends there. They sailed in a fine vessel, and made many charming acquaintances on board.

Among these was Mademoiselle Suzanne, called also de la Vénerie, which one might interpret into Suzanne of the chase, or Suzanne of the kennel, according to one’s point of view. She had nothing in common with Diana, at least, unless it were a very seductive personality. She was a fashionable Parisian actress, travelling for her health, or perhaps for the health of Paris—much in the manner of the London gentleman, who was encountered touring alone on the Continent because his wife had been ordered change of air.

Photo by Agata Bak-Geerinck on Unsplash

Suzanne, as a matter of course, fell in love with Miguel first, for his white teeth and sleepy comeliness; and then with Nicanor, for his impudent, bright spirit. That was the beginning and end of the trouble.

One moonlight night, in mid-Atlantic, Miguel and Nicanor came together on deck. The funnel of the steamer belched out an enormous smoke, which seemed to stretch all the way back to Cayenne.

“I hate it,” said Nicanor; “don't you? It is like a huge cable paid out and paid out, while we drift farther from home. If they would only fasten it up there, so that we might swarm back by it, and leave the ship to go on without us!”

Miguel laughed; then sighed. “Dear Nicanor,” he said, “I will have nothing more to do with her, if it will make you happy.”

“I was thinking of your happiness, Miguel,” said Nicanor. “If I could only be certain that it would not be affected by what I have to tell you!”

“What have you to tell me, old Nicanor?”

“You must not be mistaken, Miguel. Your having nothing more to do with her would not lay the shadow of our separation, which the prospect of my union with her raises between us—though it would certainly comfort me a little on your behalf.”

“I did not mean that at all, Nicanor. I meant that, for your sake, I would even renounce my right to her hand.”

“That would be an easy renunciation, dear Miguel. I honour your affection; but I confess I expect more from it than a show of yielding, for its particular sake, what, in fact, is not yours to yield.”

Miguel had been leaning over the taffrail, looking at the white wraiths of water which coiled and beckoned from the prow. Now he came upright, and spoke in his soft slow voice, which was always like that of one just stretching awake out of slumber: “I cannot take quite that view, Nicanor, though I should like to. But I do so hate a misunderstanding, at all times, and when it is with you——!”

His tones grew sweet and full.

“Oh, Nicanor; let this strange new shadow between us be dispelled, at once and for ever. I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Nicanor.”

“I love Mademoiselle Suzanne, Miguel.”

“Very well. Then I yield her to you.”

“Oh, pardon me, Miguel; but that is just the point. I wanted to save you the pain—the sense of self-renunciation; but your blindness confounds me. More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows. Your infatuation for Mademoiselle Suzanne is very plain to very many. What is plain only to yourself is that Mademoiselle Suzanne returns your devotion. You are not, indeed, justified in that belief.”

“Why not?”

“She has confessed her regard in the first place for me.”

“But she has also confessed to me that I have won the leading place in her affections.”

“That is absurd, Miguel. She is the soul of ingenuousness.”

“Perhaps, Nicanor,—we are only boys, after all,—she is a practised coquette.”

“You must not say that, Miguel, if you want me to remain your friend. You, perhaps, attach too much importance to your looks, as an irresistible asset in matters of the heart.”

“Now I shall certainly quarrel with you.

“You are mistaken, I think. Mind, to women of intellect, is the compelling lure.”

“It remains to be proved.”

“You are determined to put it to the test, then? Good-bye, Miguel.”

“This is not a real breach between us? Oh, Nicanor!”

“We must come to a definite understanding. Until we do, further confidence between us is impossible.”

He strutted away, perking his angry head, and whistling.

But Suzanne had accomplished the amiable débâcle for which she had been intriguing. She had, paradoxically, separated the inseparables. It was a little triumph, perhaps; a very easy game to one of her experience—hardly worth the candle, in fact; but it was the best the boat had to offer. It remained only to solace the tedium of what was left of the voyage by playing on the broken strings of that friendship.

It was Nicanor who suffered most under the torture. He had always been rather accustomed to hear himself applauded for his wit—a funny little acrid possession which was touched with a precocious knowledge of the world. Now, to know himself made the butt of a maturer social irony lowered his cockerel crest confoundedly. As for good-natured Miguel, it was his way to join, rather than resent, the laugh against himself; and his persistent moral health under the infliction only added to the other’s mind-corrosion, In a very little time the two were at daggers-drawn.

The “affair” made a laughable distraction for many of the listless and mischievous among the passengers. They contributed their little fans to the flame, and exchanged private bets upon the probable consequences. But Suzanne, indifferent to all interests but her own, worked her oracles serenely, and affected a wide-eyed innocence of the amorous imbroglio which her arts had brought about. First one, then the other, of the rivals would she beguile with her pensive kindnesses, and, according to her mood or the accident of circumstances, reassure in hope. And the task grew simpler as it advanced, inasmuch as the silence which came to fall between Miguel and Nicanor precluded the wholesome revelations which an interchange of confidences might have inspired.

At last the decisive moment arrived, when Suzanne’s more intimate worldlings were to be gratified with her solution of the riddle. It was to end, in fact, in a Palais-Royal farce; and they were to be invited to witness the “curtain.”

A few hours before reaching port, she drew Miguel to a private interview.

“Ah, my friend!” she said, her slender fingers knotted, her large eyes wistful with tears: “I become distracted in the near necessity of decision. Pity me in so momentous a pass. What am I to do?”

“Mademoiselle,” said poor Miguel, his chest heaving, “it is resolved already. We are to journey together to Paris, where the bliss of my life is to be piously consummated.”

“Yes,” she said; “but the publicity, the scandal! Men are sure to attribute the worst motives to our comradeship; and that I could not endure.”

“Then we will make an appointment to meet privately somewhere whence we can escape without the knowledge of a soul.”

“It is what had occurred to me. Hush! there is a little accommodating place, the Café de Paris, on the Boulevard des Dames, near the harbour. Do you know it? No—I forgot: the world is all to open for you. But it is quite easy to find. Be there at eight o'clock to-morrow morning. I will await you. In the meantime, not a hint, not a whisper of our intention to any one. Now go—go!”

He left her, rapturous; but once without her radiance, struck his breast and sighed: “Ah, heart, heart! thou traitor to thy brother!”

And at that moment Suzanne was catching sight of the jealous Nicanor, angrily and ostentatiously ignoring her. She called to him piteously, timidly; and he came, after a struggle with himself, stepping like a bantam.

“Is it not my friend that you meant, Mademoiselle? I will summon him back. Your heart melts to him at the last moment.”

“Cruel!” she said. “You saw us together? I would not have had a witness to the humiliation of that gentle soul—least of all his brother, and happier rival.”

“His——! Ah, Mademoiselle, I entreat you do not torture me.”

“Are you so sensitive? Alas! I have much for which to blame myself! Perhaps I have coquetted too long with my happiness; but how many women realise their feelings for the first time in the shock of instant loss! We do not know our hearts until they ache, Nicanor!”

“Poor Miguel! poor fellow!”

“You love him best of all, I think. Well, go! I have no more to say.”

“Suzanne!”

““No, do not speak to me. To have so bared my breast to this repulse! Oh, I am shamed beyond words!”

“But do you not understand my heartfelt pity for his loss, when measured by my own ecstatic gain?”

“Well?”

“Suzanne! I cannot believe it true.”

“I feel so bewildered also. What are we to do?”

“You spoke once of a journey to Paris together.”

“You and I? Think of the jests, the comments on the part of our shipmates! We are not to bear a slurred reputation with us. I should die of shame.”

“What if we were to meet somewhere, unknown to anybody, by appointment, and slip away before the world awoke?”

“Yes, that would do; but where?”

“Can’t you suggest?”

“I know of a little Café de Paris. It is on the Boulevard des Daines, near the harbour. Say we meet there, at eight o'clock to-morrow morning, in time to catch the early mail?”

“Oh yes—yes!”

‘Hush! We have been long enough together. Do not forget: be silent as the grave.”

“Brains triumph!” thought Nicanor, as he went. “Alas, my poor, sweet, simple-minded comrade!”

*⁠*⁠*⁠*⁠*

De la Vénerie carried betimes quite a select little company with her to the rendezvous. They were all choking with fun and expectation.

“The dear ingénus!” said Captain Robillard. “It will be exquisite to see the fur fly. But precocity must have its lesson.”

They had their rolls and coffee in a closet adjoining the common-room. There was a window overlooking the street.

“Hist!” whispered the tiny Comte de Bellenglise: “Here they come!”

Nicanor was the first to arrive. He was very spruce and cock-a-hoop. His big brown eyes were like fever-spots in his little body. He questioned, airily enough, the proprietor, who had been well prompted to answer him.

“No, monsieur; there is no lady at this hour. An appointment? Alas! such is always the least considered of their many engagements.”

As he spoke, Miguel came in. The two eyed one another blankly after the first shock. At length Nicanor spoke: the door between the closet and the café opened a little.

“You have discovered, then? Go away, my poor friend. This is, indeed, the worst occasion for our reconciliation.”

“I did not come to seek you, Nicanor. I came to meet Mademoiselle Suzanne alone, by appointment.”

“And I too, Miguel. I fear you must have overheard, and misconstrued her meaning. It was I she invited to this place.”

“No, Nicanor; it was I.”

“She has not come, at least. We must decide, at once and for ever, before she comes,”

“I know what you mean, Nicanor. This, indeed, is the only end to a madness. Have you your pistol? I have mine.”

“And I have mine, Miguel. You will kill me, as you are the good shot. I don’t know why I ever carried one, except to entice you to show your skill at breaking the floating bottles. But that was before the trouble.”

“Dear Nicanor!”

“But let it be à l'outrance. I want either to kill you or to be killed.”

“If she were only out of the way, you would love me again.”

“Amen to that, dear Miguel!”

“Yet we are to fight?”

“To the death, my brother, my comrade. Such is the madness of passion.”

The paralysed landlord found breath for the first time to intervene. “Gentlemen, gentlemen! for God’s sake! consider my reputation!”

Miguel, starting away, and leaving Nicanor with his back to the closet, produced and pointed his weapon at the trembling creature. These South Americans were a strange compound of sweetness and ferocity. “If you interfere,” he said, “I will shoot you instead.—Now, Nicanor; we fire at discretion, one shot to each.”

The bang of Nicanor’s pistol shattered the emptiness. Miguel was down on the floor. Nicanor cast away his reeking weapon, and, running to his friend, raised his body in his arms. The door of the closet opened, and Suzanne, radiant and gloating, stood in the entry.

“That was a good shot, Nicanor,” said Miguel, smiling weakly. “You are better at men than bottles.”

“Miguel! Miguel! you have your pistol undischarged. Faint as you are, you cannot miss me at this range.”

“Stand away, then, Nicanor.”

Nicanor stood up, tearing his coat apart. “Here, here!—to my heart, dearest!”

Miguel, supporting himself on his left hand, raised his pistol swiftly, and shot Mademoiselle Suzanné through the breast. Then he fell back to the floor. That is the short way to it, Nicanor. Confess, after all, I am the better shot. Now we are reunited for ever.”

Suzanne had not a word to say to that compact. She lay in a heap, like the sweetest of dressmaker’s dummies overturned.

The landlord raised a terrible outcry: “Messieurs! I am ruined, unless you witness to the truth of this catastrophe!”

“I, for one, will witness,” said De Bellenglise, very white. “Mademoiselle, it is plain to the humourist, has only reaped what she sowed. But I do not envy M. Nicanor his survival.”

Heaven, however, did, it appeared, from the fact of its claiming him to the most austere of its foundations, La Trappe in Normandy, where men, whom the law exonerates, may suffer, voluntarily, a lifelong penal servitude.

And, in the meanwhile, Miguel could await his friend whole-hearted, for he had certainly taken the direct way of sending Mademoiselle Suzanne to a place where her future interference between them was not to be dreaded.