THE INVISIBLE POWERS
Several times already the rumour had spread in the Promenade that the
Promenade would be closed on a certain date, and the Promenade had not
been closed. But to-night it was stated that the Promenade would be
closed at the end of the week, and everybody concerned knew that the
prophecy would come true. No official notice was issued, no person
who repeated the tale could give a reliable authority for it;
nevertheless, for some mysterious reason it convinced. The rival
Promenade had already passed away. The high invisible powers who ruled
the world of pleasure were moving at the behest of powers still higher
than themselves; and the cloak-room attendants, in their frivolous
tiny aprons, shared murmuringly behind plush portières in the woe of
the ladies with large hats.
The revue being a failure, the auditorium was more than half empty. In
the Promenade to each man there were at least five pretty ladies, and
the ladies looked gloomily across many rows of vacant seats at the
bright proscenium where jocularities of an exacerbating tedium were
being enacted. Not that the jocularities were inane beyond the usual,
but failure made them seem so. None had the slightest idea why the
revue had failed; for precisely similar revues, concocted according to
the same recipe and full of the same jocularities executed by the same
players at the same salaries, had crowded the theatre for many months
together. It was an incomprehensible universe.
Christine suddenly shrugged her shoulders and walked out. What use in
staying to the end?
It was long after ten o'clock, and an exquisite faint light lingering
in the sky still revealed the features of the people in the streets.
The man who had devoted half a life to the ingenious project of
lengthening the summer days by altering clocks was in his disappointed
grave; but victory had come to him there, for statesmen had at last
proved the possibility of that which they had always maintained to be
impossible, and the wisdom of that which they had always maintained to
be idiotic. The voluptuous divine melancholy of evening June descended
upon the city from the sky, and even sounds were beautifully sad. The
happy progress of the war could not exorcise this soft, omnipotent
melancholy. Yet the progress of the war was nearly all that could be
desired. Verdun was held, and if Fort Vaux had been lost there had
been compensation in the fact that the enemy, through the gesture of
the Crown Prince in allowing the captured commander of the fort to
retain his sword, had done something to rehabilitate themselves in the
esteem of mankind. Lord Kitchener was drowned, but the discovery had
been announced that he was not indispensable; indeed, there were those
who said that it was better thus. The Easter Rebellion was well in
hand; order was understood to reign in an Ireland hidden behind the
black veil of the censorship. The mighty naval battle of Jutland had
quickly transformed itself from a defeat into a brilliant triumph.
The disturbing prices of food were about to be reduced by means of a
committee. In America the Republican forces were preparing to eject
President Wilson in favour of another Hughes who could be counted
upon to realise the world-destiny of the United States. An economic
conference was assembling in Paris with the object of cutting Germany
off from the rest of the human race after the war. And in eleven
days the Russians had made prisoners of a hundred and fifty thousand
Austrians, and Brusiloff had just said: "This is only the beginning."
Lastly the close prospect of the resistless Allied Western offensive
which would deracinate Prussian militarism was uplifting men's minds.
Christine walked nonchalantly and uninvitingly through the streets,
quite unresponsive to the exhilaration of events.
"Marthe!" she called, when she had let herself into the flat. Contrary
to orders, the little hall was in darkness. There was no answer. She
lit the hall and passed into the kitchen, lighting it also. There, in
the terrible and incurable squalor of Marthe's own kitchen, Marthe's
apron was thrown untidily across the back of the solitary windsor
chair. She knew then that Marthe had gone out, and in truth, although
very annoyed, she was not altogether surprised.
Marthe had a mysterious love affair. It was astonishing, in view of
the intensely aphrodisiacal atmosphere in which she lived, that Marthe
did not continually have love affairs. But the day of love had seemed
for Marthe to be over, and Christine found great difficulty in getting
her ever to leave the flat, save on necessary household errands. On
the other hand it was astonishing that any man should be attracted
by the fat slattern. The moth now fluttering round her was an Italian
waiter, as to whom Christine had learnt that he was being unjustly
hunted by the Italian military authorities. Hence the mystery
necessarily attaching to the love affair. Being French, Christine
despised him. He called Marthe by her right name of "Marta," and
Christine had more than once heard the pair gabbling in the kitchen
in Italian. Just as though she had been a conventional _bourgeoise_
Christine now accused Marthe of ingratitude because the woman was
subordinating Christine's convenience to the supreme exigencies of
fate. A man's freedom might be in the balance, Marthe's future might
be in the balance; but supposing that Christine had come home with a
gallant--and no _femme de chambre_ to do service!
She walked about the flat, shut the windows, drew the blinds, removed
her hat, removed her gloves, stretched them, put her things away; she
gazed at the two principal rooms, at the soiled numbers of _La Vie
Parisienne_ and the cracked bric-à-brac in the drawing-room, at the
rent in the lace bedcover, and the foul mess of toilet apparatus in
the bedroom. The forlorn emptiness of the place appalled her. She had
been quite fairly successful in her London career. Hundreds of men had
caressed her and paid her with compliments and sweets and money. She
had been really admired. The flat had had gay hours. Unmistakable
aristocrats had yielded to her. And she had escaped the five scourges
of her profession....
It was all over. The chapter was closed. She saw nothing in front of
her but decline and ruin. She had escaped the five scourges of her
profession, but part of the price of this immunity was that through
keeping herself to herself she had not a friend. Despite her
profession, and because of the prudence with which she exercised it,
she was a solitary, a recluse.
Yes, of course she had Gilbert. She could count upon Gilbert to a
certain extent, to a considerable extent; but he would not be eternal,
and his fancy for her would not be eternal. Once, before Easter, she
had had the idea that he meant to suggest to her an exclusive liaison.
Foolish! Nothing, less than nothing, had come of it. He would not be
such an imbecile as to suggest such a thing to her. Miracles did not
happen, at any rate not that kind of miracle.
In the midst of her desolation an old persistent dream revisited her:
the dream of a small country cottage in France, with a dog, a
faithful servant, respectability, good name, works of charity, her
own praying-stool in the village church. She moved to the wardrobe
and unlocked one of the drawers beneath the wide doors. And rummaging
under the linen and under the photographs under the linen she
drew forth a package and spread its contents on the table in the
drawing-room. Her securities, her bonds of the City of Paris, ever
increasing! Gilbert had tried to induce her to accept more attractive
investments. But she would not. Never! These were her consols, part of
her religion. Bonds of the City of Paris had fallen in value, but not
in her dogmatic esteem. The passionate little miser that was in her
surveyed them with pleasure, even with assurance; but they were still
far too few to stand for the realisation of her dream. And she might
have to sell some of them soon in order to live. She replaced them
carefully in the drawer with dejection unabated.
When she glanced at the table again she saw an envelope. Inexplicably
she had not noticed it before. She seized it in hope--and recognised
in the address the curious hand of her landlord. It contained a week's
notice to quit. The tenancy of the flat was weekly. This was the last
blow. All the invisible powers of London were conspiring together to
shatter the profession. What in the name of the Holy Virgin had come
over the astounding, incomprehensible city? Then there was a ring at
the bell. Marthe? No, Marthe would never ring; she had a key and
she would creep in. A lover? A rich, spendthrift, kind lover? Hope
flickered anew in her desolated heart.
It was the other pretty lady--a newcomer--who lived in the house:
a rather stylish woman of about thirty-five, unusually fair, with
regular features and a very dignified carriage, indeed not unimposing.
They had met once, at the foot of the stairs. Christine was not sure
of her name. She proclaimed herself to be Russian, but Christine
doubted the assertion. Her French had no trace of a foreign accent;
and in view of the achieve-merits of the Russian Army ladies were
finding it advantageous to be of Russian blood. Still she had a fine
cosmopolitan air to which Christine could not pretend. They engaged
each other in glances.
"I hope I do not disturb you, madame."
"Not at all, madame. I am obliged to open the door myself because my
servant is out."
"I thought I heard you come in, and so--"
"No," interrupted Christine, determined not to admit the defeat
of having returned from the Promenade alone. "I have not been out.
Probably it was my servant you heard."
"Ah!... Without doubt."
"Will you give yourself the trouble to enter, madame?"
"Ah!" exclaimed the Russian, in the sitting-room. "You will excuse me,
madame, but what a beautiful photograph!"
"You are too amiable, madame. A friend had it done for me."
They sat down.
"You are deliciously installed here," said the Russian perfunctorily,
looking round. "Now, madame, I have been here only three weeks. And
to-night I receive a notice to quit. Shall I be indiscreet if I ask if
you have received a similar notice?"
"This very evening," said Christine, in secret still more disconcerted
by this further proof of a general plot against human nature. She was
about to add: "I found it here on my return home," but, remembering
her fib, managed to stop in time.
"Well, madame, I know little of London. Without doubt you know London
to the bottom. Is it serious, this notice?"
"I think so."
"Quite serious?"
Christine said:
"You see, there is a crisis. It is the war that in London has led to
the discovery that men have desires. Of course, it will pass, but--"
"Oh, of course.... But it is grotesque, this crisis."
"It is perfectly grotesque," Christine agreed.
"You do not by hazard know where one can find flats to let? I hear
speak of Bloomsbury and of Long Acre. But it seems to me that those
quarters--"
"I am in London since now more than eighteen months," said Christine.
"And as for all those things I know little. I have lived here in this
flat all the time, and I go out so rarely--"
The Russian put in with eagerness:
"Oh, I also! I go out, so to speak, not at all."
"I thought I had seen you once in the Promenade at the--"
"Yes, it is true," interrupted the Russian quickly. "I went from
curiosity, for distraction. You see, since the war I have lived
in Dublin. I had there a friend, very highly placed in the
administration. He married. One lived terrible hours during the
revolt. I decided to come to London, especially as--However, I do not
wish to fatigue you with all that."
Christine said nothing. The Irish Rebellion did not interest her.
She was in no mood for talking about the Irish Rebellion. She had
convinced herself that all Sinn Feiners were in German pay, and naught
else mattered. Never, she thought, had the British Government
carried ingenuousness further than in this affair! Given a free hand,
Christine with her strong, direct common sense would have settled the
Irish question in forty-eight hours.
The Russian, after a little pause, continued:
"I merely wished to ask you whether the notice to quit was
serious--not a trick for raising the rent."
Christine shook her head to the last clause.
"And then, if the notice was quite serious, whether you knew of any
flats--not too dear.... Not that I mind a good rent if one receives
the value of it, and is left tranquil."
The conversation might at this point have taken a more useful turn if
Christine had not felt bound to hold herself up against the other's
high tone of indifference to expenditure. The Russian, in demanding
"tranquillity," had admitted that she regularly practised the
profession--or, as English girls strangely called it, "the
business"--and Christine could have followed her lead into the region
of gossiping and intimate realism where detailed confidences are
enlighteningly exchanged; but the tone about money was a challenge.
"I should have been enchanted to be of service to you," said
Christine. "But I know nothing. I go out less and less. As for this
notice, I smile at it. I have a friend upon whom I can count for
everything. I have only to tell him, and he will put me among my own
furniture at once. He has indeed already suggested it. So that, _je
m'en fiche_."
"I also!" said the Russian. "My new friend--he is a colonel, sent from
Dublin to London--has insisted upon putting me among my own furniture.
But I have refused so far--because one likes to know more of a
gentleman--does not one?--before ..."
"Truly!" murmured Christine.
"And there is always Paris," said the Russian.
"But I thought you were from Petrograd."
"Yes. But I know Paris well. Ah! There is only Paris! Paris is a
second home to me."
"Can one get a passport easily for Paris?... I mean, supposing the
air-raids grew too dangerous again."
"Why not, madame? If one has one's papers. To get a passport from
Paris to London, that would be another thing, I admit.... I see that
you play," the Russian added, rising, with a gesture towards the
piano. "I have heard you play. You play with true taste. I know, for
when a girl I played much."
"You flatter me."
"Not at all. I think your friend plays too."
"Ah!" said Christine. "He!... It is an artist, that one."
They turned over the music, exchanged views about waltzes, became
enthusiastic, laughed, and parted amid manifestations of good breeding
and goodwill. As soon as Christine was alone, she sat down and wept.
She could not longer contain her distress. Paris gleamed before her.
But no! It was a false gleam. She could not make a new start in Paris
during the war. The adventure would be too perilous; the adventure
might end in a licensed house. And yet in London--what was there
in London but, ultimately, the pavement? And the pavement meant
complications with the police, with prowlers, with other women;
it meant all the scourges of the profession, including probably
alcoholism. It meant prostitution, to which she had never sunk!
She wished she had been killed outright in the air-raid. She had an
idea of going to the Oratory the next morning, and perhaps choosing
a new Virgin and soliciting favour of the image thereof. She sobbed,
and, sobbing, suddenly jumped up and ran to the telephone. And even
as she gave Gilbert's number, she broke it in the middle with a sob.
After all, there was Gilbert.