1
It was Jonathan Brockett who had recommended the little hotel in the Rue
St. Roch, and when Stephen and Puddle arrived one evening that June,
feeling rather tired and dejected, they found their sitting-room bright
with roses—roses for Puddle—and on the table two boxes of Turkish
cigarettes for Stephen. Brockett, they learnt, had ordered these things
by writing specially from London.
Barely had they been in Paris a week, when Jonathan Brockett turned up
in person: ‘Hallo, my dears, I’ve come over to see you. Everything all
right? Are you being looked after?’ He sat down in the only comfortable
chair and proceeded to make himself charming to Puddle. It seemed that
his flat in Paris being let, he had tried to get rooms at their hotel
but had failed, so had gone instead to the Meurice. ‘But I’m not going
to take you to lunch there,’ he told them, ‘the weather’s too fine,
we’ll go to Versailles. Stephen, ring up and order your car, there’s a
darling! By the way, how is Burton getting on? Does he remember to keep
to the right and to pass on the left?’ His voice sounded anxious.
Stephen reassured him good-humouredly, she knew that he was apt to be
nervous in motors.
They lunched at the Hotel des Reservoirs, Brockett taking great pains to
order special dishes. The waiters were zealous, they evidently knew him:
‘Oui, monsieur, tout de suite—à l’instant, monsieur!’ Other clients
were kept waiting while Brockett was served, and Stephen could see that
this pleased him. All through the meal he talked about Paris with
ardour, as a lover might talk of a mistress.
‘Stephen, I’m not going back for ages. I’m going to make you simply
adore her. You’ll see, I’ll make you adore her so much that you’ll find
yourself writing like a heaven-born genius. There’s nothing so
stimulating as love—you’ve got to have an affair with Paris!’ Then
looking at Stephen rather intently, ‘I suppose you’re capable of falling
in love?’
She shrugged her shoulders, ignoring his question, but she thought:
‘He’s putting his eye to the keyhole. His curiosity’s positively
childish at times,’ for she saw that his face had fallen.
‘Oh, well, if you don’t want to tell me—’ he grumbled.
‘Don’t be silly! There’s nothing to tell,’ smiled Stephen. But she made
a mental note to be careful. Brockett’s curiosity was always most
dangerous when apparently merely childish.
With quick tact he dropped the personal note. No good trying to force
her to confide, he decided, she was too damn clever to give herself
away, especially before the watchful old Puddle. He sent for the bill
and when it arrived, went over it item by item, frowning.
‘Maître d’hotel!’
‘Oui monsieur?’
‘You’ve made a mistake; only one liqueur brandy—and here’s another
mistake, I ordered two portions of potatoes, _not three_; I do wish to
God you’d be careful!’ When Brockett felt cross he always felt mean.
‘Correct this at once, it’s disgusting!’ he said rudely. Stephen sighed,
and hearing her Brockett looked up unabashed: ‘Well, why pay for what
we’ve not ordered?’ Then he suddenly found his temper again and left a
very large tip for the waiter.
2
There is nothing more difficult to attain to than the art of being a
perfect guide. Such an art, indeed, requires a real artist, one who has
a keen perception for contrasts, and an eye for the large effects rather
than for details, above all one possessed of imagination; and Brockett,
when he chose, could be such a guide.
Having waved the professional guides to one side, he himself took them
through a part of the palace, and his mind re-peopled the place for
Stephen so that she seemed to see the glory of the dancers led by the
youthful Roi Soleil; seemed to hear the rhythm of the throbbing violins,
and the throb of the rhythmic dancing feet as they beat down the length
of the Galerie des Glaces; seemed to see those other mysterious dancers
who followed step by step, in the long line of mirrors. But most
skilfully of all did he recreate for her the image of the luckless queen
who came after; as though for some reason this unhappy woman must appeal
in a personal way to Stephen. And true it was that the small, humble
rooms which the queen had chosen out of all that vast palace, moved
Stephen profoundly—so desolate they seemed, so full of unhappy thoughts
and emotions that were even now only half forgotten.
Brockett pointed to the simple garniture on the mantelpiece of the
little salon, then he looked at Stephen: ‘Madame de Lamballe gave those
to the queen,’ he murmured softly.
She nodded, only vaguely apprehending his meaning.
Presently they followed him out into the gardens and stood looking
across the Tapis Vert that stretches its quarter mile of greenness
towards a straight, lovely line of water.
Brockett said, very low, so that Puddle should not hear him: ‘Those two
would often come here at sunset. Sometimes they were rowed along the
canal in the sunset—can’t you imagine it, Stephen? They must often have
felt pretty miserable, poor souls; sick to death of the subterfuge and
pretences. Don’t you ever get tired of that sort of thing? My God, I
do!’ But she did not answer, for now there was no mistaking his meaning.
Last of all he took them to the Temple d’Amour, where it rests amid the
great silence of the years that have long lain upon the dead hearts of
its lovers; and from there to the Hameau, built by the queen for a
whim—the tactless and foolish whim of a tactless and foolish but loving
woman—by the queen who must play at being a peasant, at a time when her
downtrodden peasants were starving. The cottages were badly in need of
repair; a melancholy spot it looked, this Hameau, in spite of the birds
that sang in its trees and the golden glint of the afternoon sunshine.
On the drive back to Paris they were all very silent. Puddle was feeling
too tired to talk, and Stephen was oppressed by a sense of sadness—the
vast and rather beautiful sadness that may come to us when we have
looked upon beauty, the sadness that aches in the heart of Versailles.
Brockett was content to sit opposite Stephen on the hard little let-down
seat of her motor. He might have been comfortable next to the driver,
but instead he preferred to sit opposite Stephen, and he too was silent,
surreptitiously watching the expression of her face in the gathering
twilight.
When he left them he said with his cold little smile: ‘To-morrow, before
you’ve forgotten Versailles, I want you to come to the Conciergerie.
It’s very enlightening—cause and effect.’
At that moment Stephen disliked him intensely. All the same he had
stirred her imagination.
3
In the weeks that followed, Brockett showed Stephen just as much of
Paris as he wished her to see, and this principally consisted of the
tourist’s Paris. Into less simple pastures he would guide her later on,
always provided that his interest lasted. For the present, however, he
considered it wiser to tread delicately like Agag. The thought of this
girl had begun to obsess him to a very unusual extent. He who had prided
himself on his skill in ferreting out other people’s secrets, was
completely baffled by this youthful abnormal. That she was abnormal he
had no doubt whatever, but what he was keenly anxious to find out was
just how her own abnormality struck her—he felt pretty sure that she
worried about it. And he genuinely liked her. Unscrupulous he might be
in his vivisection of men and women; cynical too when it came to his
pleasures, himself an invert, secretly hating the world which he knew
hated him in secret; and yet in his way he felt sorry for Stephen, and
this amazed him, for Jonathan Brockett had long ago, as he thought, done
with pity. But his pity was a very poor thing at best, it would never
defend and never protect her; it would always go down before any new
whim, and his whim at the moment was to keep her in Paris.
All unwittingly Stephen played into his hands, while having no illusions
about him. He represented a welcome distraction that helped her to keep
her thoughts off England. And because under Brockett’s skilful guidance
she developed a fondness for the beautiful city, she felt very tolerant
of him at moments, almost grateful she felt, grateful too towards Paris.
And Puddle also felt grateful.
The strain of the sudden complete rupture with Morton had told on the
faithful little grey woman. She would scarcely have known how to counsel
Stephen had the girl come to her and asked for her counsel. Sometimes
she would lie awake now at nights thinking of that ageing and unhappy
mother in the great silent house, and then would come pity, the old pity
that had come in the past for Anna—she would pity until she remembered
Stephen. Then Puddle would try to think very calmly, to keep the brave
heart that had never failed her, to keep her strong faith in Stephen’s
future—only now there were days when she felt almost old, when she
realized that indeed she was ageing. When Anna would write her a calm,
friendly letter, but with never so much as a mention of Stephen, she
would feel afraid, yes, afraid of this woman, and at moments almost
afraid of Stephen. For none might know from those guarded letters what
emotions lay in the heart of their writer; and none might know from
Stephen’s set face when she recognized the writing, what lay in her
heart. She would turn away, asking no questions about Morton.
Oh, yes, Puddle felt old and actually frightened, both of which
sensations she deeply resented; so being what she was, an indomitable
fighter, she thrust out her chin and ordered a tonic. She struggled
along through the labyrinths of Paris beside the untiring Stephen and
Brockett; through the galleries of the Luxembourg and the Louvre; up the
Eiffel Tower—in a lift, thank heaven; down the Rue de la Paix, up the
hill to Montmartre—sometimes in the car but quite often on foot, for
Brockett wished Stephen to learn her Paris—and as likely as not, ending
up with rich food that disagreed badly with the tired Puddle. In the
restaurants people would stare at Stephen, and although the girl would
pretend not to notice, Puddle would know that in spite of her calm,
Stephen was inwardly feeling resentful, was inwardly feeling embarrassed
and awkward. And then because she was tired, Puddle too would feel
awkward when she noticed those people staring.
Sometimes Puddle must really give up and rest, in spite of the
aggressive chin and the tonic. Then all alone in the Paris hotel, she
would suddenly grow very homesick for England—absurd of course and yet
there it was, she would feel the sharp tug of England. At such moments
she would long for ridiculous things; a penny bun in the train at Dover;
the good red faces of English porters—the old ones with little stubby
side-whiskers; Harrods Stores; a properly upholstered arm-chair; bacon
and eggs; the sea front at Brighton. All alone and via these ridiculous
things, Puddle would feel the sharp tug of England.
And one evening her weary mind must switch back to the earliest days of
her friendship with Stephen. What a lifetime ago it seemed since the
days when a lanky colt of a girl of fourteen had been licked into shape
in the schoolroom at Morton. She could hear her own words: ‘You’ve
forgotten something, Stephen; the books can’t walk to the bookcase, but
you can, so suppose that you take them with you,’ and then: ‘Even my
brain won’t stand your complete lack of method.’ Stephen fourteen—that
was twelve years ago. In those years she, Puddle, had grown very tired,
tired with trying to see some way out, some way of escape, of fulfilment
for Stephen. And always they seemed to be toiling, they two, down an
endless road that had no turning; she an ageing woman herself
unfulfilled; Stephen still young and as yet still courageous—but the
day would come when her youth would fail, and her courage, because of
that endless toiling.
She thought of Brockett, Jonathan Brockett, surely an unworthy companion
for Stephen; a thoroughly vicious and cynical man, a dangerous one too
because he was brilliant. Yet she, Puddle, was actually grateful to this
man; so dire were their straits that she was grateful to Brockett. Then
came the remembrance of that other man, of Martin Hallam—she had had
such high hopes. He had been very simple and honest and good—Puddle
felt that there was much to be said for goodness. But for such as
Stephen men like Martin Hallam could seldom exist; as friends they would
fail her, while she in her turn would fail them as lover. Then what
remained? Jonathan Brockett? Like to like. No, no, an intolerable
thought! Such a thought as that was an outrage on Stephen. Stephen was
honourable and courageous; she was steadfast in friendship and selfless
in loving; intolerable to think that her only companions must be men and
women like Jonathan Brockett—and yet—after all what else? What
remained? Loneliness, or worse still, far worse because it so deeply
degraded the spirit, a life of perpetual subterfuge, of guarded opinions
and guarded actions, of lies of omission if not of speech, of becoming
an accomplice in the world’s injustice by maintaining at all times a
judicious silence, making and keeping the friends one respected, on
false pretences, because if they knew they would turn aside, even the
friends one respected.
Puddle abruptly controlled her thoughts; this was no way to be helpful
to Stephen. Sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof. Getting up she
went into her bedroom where she bathed her face and tidied her hair.
‘I look scarcely human,’ she thought ruefully, as she stared at her own
reflection in the glass; and indeed at that moment she looked more than
her age.
4
It was not until nearly the middle of July that Brockett took Stephen to
Valérie Seymour’s. Valérie had been away for some time, and was even now
only passing through Paris en route for her villa at St. Tropez.
As they drove to her apartment on the Quai Voltaire, Brockett began to
extol their hostess, praising her wit, her literary talent. She wrote
delicate satires and charming sketches of Greek mœurs—the latter were
very outspoken, but then Valérie’s life was very outspoken—she was,
said Brockett, a kind of pioneer who would probably go down to history.
Most of her sketches were written in French, for among other things
Valérie was bilingual; she was also quite rich, an American uncle had
had the foresight to leave her his fortune; she was also quite young,
being just over thirty, and according to Brockett, good-looking. She
lived her life in great calmness of spirit, for nothing worried and few
things distressed her. She was firmly convinced that in this ugly age
one should strive to the top of one’s bent after beauty. But Stephen
might find her a bit of a free lance, she was libre penseuse when it
came to the heart; her love affairs would fill quite three volumes, even
after they had been expurgated. Great men had loved her, great writers
had written about her, one had died, it was said, because she refused
him, but Valérie was not attracted to men—yet as Stephen would see if
she went to her parties, she had many devoted friends among men. In this
respect she was almost unique, being what she was, for men did not
resent her. But then of course all intelligent people realized that she
was a creature apart, as would Stephen the moment she met her.
Brockett babbled away, and as he did so his voice took on the effeminate
timbre that Stephen always hated and dreaded: ‘Oh, my dear!’ he
exclaimed with a high little laugh, ‘I’m so excited about this meeting
of yours, I’ve a feeling it may be momentous. What fun!’ And his soft,
white hands grew restless, making their foolish gestures.
She looked at him coldly, wondering the while how she could tolerate
this young man—why indeed, she chose to endure him.
5
The first thing that struck Stephen about Valérie’s flat was its large
and rather splendid disorder. There was something blissfully unkempt
about it, as though its mistress were too much engrossed in other
affairs to control its behaviour. Nothing was quite where it ought to
have been, and much was where it ought not to have been, while over the
whole lay a faint layer of dust—even over the spacious salon. The odour
of somebody’s Oriental scent was mingling with the odour of tuberoses in
a sixteenth century chalice. On a divan, whose truly regal proportions
occupied the best part of a shadowy alcove, lay a box of Fuller’s
peppermint creams and a lute, but the strings of the lute were broken.
Valérie came forward with a smile of welcome. She was not beautiful nor
was she imposing, but her limbs were very perfectly proportioned, which
gave her a fictitious look of tallness. She moved well, with the quiet
and unconscious grace that sprang from those perfect proportions. Her
face was humorous, placid and worldly; her eyes very kind, very blue,
very lustrous. She was dressed all in white, and a large white fox skin
was clasped round her slender and shapely shoulders. For the rest she
had masses of thick fair hair, which was busily ridding itself of its
hairpins; one could see at a glance that it hated restraint, like the
flat it was in rather splendid disorder.
She said: ‘I’m so delighted to meet you at last, Miss Gordon, do come
and sit down. And please smoke if you want to,’ she added quickly,
glancing at Stephen’s tell-tale fingers.
Brockett said: ‘Positively, this is too splendid! I feel that you’re
going to be wonderful friends.’
Stephen thought: ‘So this is Valérie Seymour.’
No sooner were they seated than Brockett began to ply their hostess with
personal questions. The mood that had incubated in the motor was now
becoming extremely aggressive, so that he fidgeted about on his chair,
making his little inadequate gestures. ‘Darling, you’re looking
perfectly lovely! But do tell me, what have you done with Polinska? Have
you drowned her in the blue grotto at Capri? I hope so, my dear, she
_was_ such a bore and so dirty! Do tell me about Polinska. How did she
behave when you got her to Capri? Did she bite anybody before you
drowned her? I always felt frightened; I loathe being bitten!’
Valérie frowned: ‘I believe she’s quite well.’
‘Then you have drowned her, darling!’ shrilled Brockett.
And now he was launched on a torrent of gossip about people of whom
Stephen had never even heard: ‘Pat’s been deserted—have you heard that,
darling? Do you think she’ll take the veil or cocaine or something? One
never quite knows what may happen next with such an emotional
temperament, does one? Arabella’s skipped off to the Lido with Jane
Grigg. The Grigg’s just come into pots and pots of money, so I hope
they’ll be deliriously happy and silly while it lasts—I mean the
money. . . . Oh, and have you heard about Rachel Morris? They
say. . . .’ He flowed on and on like a brook in spring flood, while
Valérie yawned and looked bored, making monosyllabic answers.
And Stephen as she sat there and smoked in silence, thought grimly:
‘This is all being said because of me. Brockett wants to let me see that
he knows what I am, and he wants to let Valérie Seymour know too—I
suppose this is making me welcome.’ She hardly knew whether to feel
outraged or relieved that here, at least, was no need for pretences.
But after a while she began to fancy that Valérie’s eyes had become
appraising. They were weighing her up and secretly approving the result,
she fancied. A slow anger possessed her. Valérie Seymour was secretly
approving, not because her guest was a decent human being with a will to
work, with a well-trained brain, with what might some day become a fine
talent, but rather because she was seeing before her all the outward
stigmata of the abnormal—verily the wounds of One nailed to a
cross—that was why Valérie sat there approving.
And then, as though these bitter thoughts had reached her, Valérie
suddenly smiled at Stephen. Turning her back on the chattering Brockett,
she started to talk to her guest quite gravely about her work, about
books in general, about life in general; and as she did so Stephen began
to understand better the charm that many had found in this woman; a
charm that lay less in physical attraction than in a great courtesy and
understanding, a great will to please, a great impulse towards beauty in
all its forms—yes, therein lay her charm. And as they talked on it
dawned upon Stephen that here was no mere libertine in love’s garden,
but rather a creature born out of her epoch, a pagan chained to an age
that was Christian, one who would surely say with Pierre Louÿs: ‘Le
monde moderne succombe sous un envahissement de laideur.’ And she
thought that she discerned in those luminous eyes, the pale yet ardent
light of the fanatic.
Presently Valérie Seymour asked her how long she would be remaining in
Paris.
And Stephen answered: ‘I’m going to live here,’ feeling surprised at the
words as she said them, for not until now had she made this decision.
Valérie seemed pleased: ‘If you want a house, I know of one in the Rue
Jacob; it’s a tumbledown place, but it’s got a fine garden. Why not go
and see it? You might go to-morrow. Of course you’ll have to live on
this side, the Rive Gauche is the only possible Paris.’
‘I should like to see the old house,’ said Stephen.
So Valérie went to the telephone there and then and proceeded to call up
the landlord. The appointment was made for eleven the next morning.
‘It’s rather a sad old house,’ she warned, ‘no one has troubled to make
it a home for some time, but you’ll alter all that if you take it,
because I suppose you’ll make it your home.’
Stephen flushed: ‘My home’s in England,’ she said quickly, for her
thoughts had instantly flown back to Morton.
But Valérie answered: ‘One may have two homes—many homes. Be courteous
to our lovely Paris and give it the privilege of being your second
home—it will feel very honoured, Miss Gordon.’ She sometimes made
little ceremonious speeches like this, and coming from her, they sounded
strangely old-fashioned.
Brockett, rather subdued and distinctly pensive as sometimes happened if
Valérie had snubbed him, complained of a pain above his right eye: ‘I
must take some phenacetin,’ he said sadly, ‘I’m always getting this
curious pain above my right eye—do you think it’s the sinus?’ He was
very intolerant of all pain.
His hostess sent for the phenacetin, and Brockett gulped down a couple
of tablets: ‘Valérie doesn’t love me any more,’ he sighed, with a
woebegone look at Stephen. ‘I do call it hard, but it’s always what
happens when I introduce my best friends to each other—they foregather
at once and leave me in the cold; but then, thank heaven, I’m very
forgiving.’
They laughed and Valérie made him get on to the divan where he promptly
lay down on the lute.
‘Oh God!’ he moaned, ‘now I’ve injured my spine—I’m so badly
upholstered.’ Then he started to strum on the one sound string of the
lute.
Valérie went over to her untidy desk and began to write out a list of
addresses: ‘These may be useful to you, Miss Gordon.’
‘Stephen!’ exclaimed Brockett, ‘Call the poor woman Stephen!’
‘May I?’
Stephen acquiesced: ‘Yes, please do.’
‘Very well then, I’m Valérie. Is that a bargain?’
‘The bargain is sealed,’ announced Brockett. With extraordinary skill he
was managing to strum ‘O Sole Mio’ on the single string, when he
suddenly stopped: ‘I knew there was something—your fencing, Stephen,
you’ve forgotten your fencing. We meant to ask Valérie for Buisson’s
address; they say he’s the finest master in Europe.’
Valérie looked up: ‘Does Stephen fence, then?’
‘Does she fence! She’s a marvellous, champion fencer.’
‘He’s never seen me fence,’ explained Stephen, ‘and I’m never likely to
be a champion.’
‘Don’t you believe her, she’s trying to be modest. I’ve heard that she
fences quite as finely as she writes,’ he insisted. And somehow Stephen
felt touched, Brockett was trying to show off her talents.
Presently she offered him a lift in the car, but he shook his head: ‘No,
thank you, dear one, I’m staying.’ So she wished them good-bye; but as
she left them she heard Brockett murmuring to Valérie Seymour, and she
felt pretty sure that she caught her own name.
6
‘Well, what did you think of Miss Seymour?’ inquired Puddle, when
Stephen got back about twenty minutes later.
Stephen hesitated: ‘I’m not perfectly certain. She was very friendly,
but I couldn’t help feeling that she liked me because she thought
me—oh, well, because she thought me what I am, Puddle. But I may have
been wrong—she was awfully friendly. Brockett was at his very worst
though, poor devil! His environment seemed to go to his head.’ She sank
down wearily on to a chair: ‘Oh, Puddle, Puddle, it’s a hell of a
business.’
Puddle nodded.
Then Stephen said rather abruptly: ‘All the same, we’re going to live
here in Paris. We’re going to look at a house to-morrow, an old house
with a garden in the Rue Jacob.’
For a moment Puddle hesitated, then she said: ‘There’s only one thing
against it. Do you think you’ll ever be happy in a city? You’re so fond
of the life that belongs to the country.’
Stephen shook her head: ‘That’s all past now, my dear; there’s no
country for me away from Morton. But in Paris I might make some sort of
a home, I could work here—and then of course there are people. . . .’
Something started to hammer in Puddle’s brain: ‘Like to like! Like to
like! Like to like!’ it hammered.