It was part of their general attention to the surface of things that
Rose was never to appear deserted.
Léon and Madame tore themselves away from her with public reluctance at
the garden gate; they rejoined her eagerly like creatures reprieved,
after a prolonged but obviously penal absence.
They even arranged between them times and occasions when Monsieur Gérard
should also be represented, when the united four, like a procession on
parade, strolled before the watching eyes of Capri.
The watching eyes of Capri are indulgently accustomed to youth and
change, they are incapable of the element of shock, but they are equally
incapable of the delusion of a good appearance. When Capri beheld Rose
and Léon issuing from the Hotel Paradiso on their way to a “Thé Intime”
at the Villa degli Angeli, Capri was not hoodwinked by this overflow of
a dual domesticity, rather it laid a finger to the nose and cried, from
one doorway to the other, “Behold!--a festa of knives!”
It was a many-colored day in the late spring, the bright air shimmered
and danced like the bubbles in champagne. The Villa degli Angeli shone
pillow-shaped and glittering in a rose-hung garden. Wistaria streamed
from its porch, and cloaked like a shield its romantic lovers’ balcony.
Inside the high-ceilinged, gilded little salon, Madame Gérard moved
gracefully to and fro--she wore a white dress with touches of scarlet
and gold; her lips were very red, her cheeks were lightly powdered, her
eyes had a certain sparkle in them, and the heels of her small white
shoes were thrillingly high. It struck Rose, not for the first time,
that there was really no use being much prettier than that. Madame
Gérard greeted Rose with ecstatic pleasure and Léon with a charming
ironic gravity; behind her from the gloom Monsieur Gérard moved heavily
forward. It was plain that he found the occasion exhausting. Monsieur
Gérard easily exhausted most occasions, his was not a revivifying
nature; still, there was a certain dignity in the way he murmured over
Rose’s hand that he was impressed, greatly impressed, by her visit. She
remembered that he had been impressed before. Rose would have liked to
have said something pleasant in return, but it is difficult to appear
full of _savoir faire_ when expression is limited to requests for hot
water, the superficial qualities of dogs and cats, the time of day, and
the habits of railway trains.
Rose could talk quite easily about these things by now, and she was also
an expert in weather and could have made herself into a well of sympathy
to an invalid, but for ordinary tea-party purposes her French hung fire.
The burden of entertainment fell naturally enough upon Madame. She was
equal to it, in all probability she had arranged her rôle in advance.
The week had gone well with her. Monsieur Gérard had been roused from
practising operas and from nervous hostility over his matrimonial
liabilities. He perceived that at one stroke his liabilities and his
security had been snatched from him. He was jealous and had begun to be
a little eager; but Madame did not meet him half-way.
She no longer bored him to make love to her, indeed she ignored any
opening for his attention; she lived exquisitely and extremely
unapproachably a life of her own. Monsieur Gérard resented this; he
hadn’t meant anything so extreme, but he did not see his way to put an
end to it. Madame knew perfectly that he was ready to put an end to it,
and she had arranged this occasion, both that he might be given his
opportunity and that Léon might receive the punishment that he deserved.
Léon had wanted, it appeared, to reunite her to her husband. This was
the height of kindness on his part; she would repay him by showing him
that his efforts were a little in arrear of the facts. But alas! once
more she showed that lack of intelligence to be found in the cleverest
of women when they are dealing with the man they love. She understood
the man--she had proved it--but she muddled the love. She should have
hooked her fish before she dangled it before the exasperated eyes of
Léon, and she should have remembered that it was only half a fish--and
half an artist. But at first she was satisfied with the rôle of the
perfect wife--instantly she succeeded in exasperating Léon. She drew her
husband skilfully and prominently into the front of the situation; she
did not praise him, but little by little she tapped the fount of his
successes.
She laid him out before her guests with delicate touches that were far
finer than praise. It was intoxicating for Monsieur Gérard. After a
week’s complete indifference he found himself a hero in his wife’s eyes!
He found himself also in the most comfortable chair in the room (for
with men over forty a certain attention must be paid to an appropriate
background) and enjoying a wonderful “gouter” in which his taste ruled
supreme. Lately Madame had not studied his taste, but for the occasion
everything his fancy desired had been obtained for him. His future
spread before him in a rosy glow--after all this marriage of his had not
been a great mistake--he rather wished he had not taken Léon into his
confidence about it; still, it was amusing to watch the fellow’s nose
slipping out of joint! He would now have to return to his dull little
wife--that would be punishment enough for any man!
Léon was a bad loser; he became first restive, then actively hostile,
finally sulky. Madame turned his active hostility into gentle ridicule;
his restlessness served somehow to bring out the grand nature of
Monsieur Gérard. The grand nature of Monsieur Gérard was not as a rule,
active; and Léon, confronted with a specimen of it, sank into silent
resentment.
Even this tent of Achilles was not, however, left to him; it blew this
way and that under the delicate raillery of Madame. She noticed that
Monsieur was out of spirits?
She attacked Rose about it. “A woman is responsible for all that happens
to a man during his honeymoon, is she not?” she asked her. Rose,
thinking that Madame was doubtful as to the state of Léon’s health, told
her painstakingly that Léon was an “esprit fort.” Madame, with a happy
little shriek, proclaimed that she was sure of it, but was not his wit
like Madame’s own--this afternoon, at any rate--of the wonderful silent
English type? Even Monsieur Gérard laughed at this, but on the whole
Madame spared Rose; she kept as far as possible her hand off her. She
would gladly have spared her altogether, and, in a sense, of course, she
was doing so. She was giving her her husband back--not wiser, nor more
appreciative, and certainly in a far worse state of mind--but for all
that he would be returned to Rose this afternoon not so very much the
worse for wear, as husbands go.
For half-an-hour Madame Gérard took upon her little supple shoulders the
entertainment of her guests. She was for that half hour like the whole
cast of the Comédie Française put together--brilliant, exquisitely
decorative and incredibly, ironically knowing; then she turned to her
husband with her eyes like an innocent caress, and said, “Now, _mon
ami_, will you not make music for us?” Monsieur Gérard was not unwilling
to use his magnificent gift. Léon, who felt that the end had come,
politely echoed the request; and then Madame made her fatal mistake. The
game was hers--she had only to stand aside and let it finish itself; but
she could not stand aside--nervously, with happy flutterings, she must
show them how she followed her husband’s work, and how she helped him:
and she didn’t help him at all.
She drew out his music--it wasn’t what he wanted to sing and he said so
crisply; he always knew what he wanted to sing. Then she said she must
play his accompaniment, so that he could stand up and let his voice out.
Now Monsieur Gérard’s voice was not of a quantity to be lightly let out
in a small bird-cage of a room; it would have been sufficient to roll
over Capri like a rock-stream. Also, Monsieur Gérard was like a tiger to
any accompanist but his own, who was taking at the moment a much-needed
holiday.
It counted for nothing at all with Monsieur Gérard that his wife was
dressed in white and scarlet and gold and that she had roused in him the
temporary sentiments of attraction. From the moment that she mounted the
music-stool nothing counted but her power of playing a correct
accompaniment without too much expression. She had evoked the artist,
and the artist upsets everything.
Monsieur Gérard began to sing; he modulated his great dramatic voice,
but the sound of it shook the Villa degli Angeli; it poured out on the
dancing air with the majestic roll of great billows breaking on the
beach.
Madame tinkled mildly and prettily on the piano after him--too prettily
of course, and not very accurately. The little ineffective notes were
like a pee-wit chirping in a storm. In an instant Monsieur Gérard had
swept her from the music-stool almost on to the floor. “You have no more
music in you than a fly!” he broke off abruptly to inform her, then he
sat down in her place and roared in velvet with magnificent effect.
Madame, shaken and reduced from triumph to the verge of tears, quivered
for a little in the window-seat; but even then her prize was still
within her grasp--Monsieur had simply for the moment forgotten her. She
was capable, if she had waited, of reminding him successfully. Alas! she
had that fatal longing to help which reduces the greatest women to the
level of a nuisance. She could not let herself be forgotten even for a
moment--even for his art. She would go back and turn over the leaves for
Raoul. He frowned, he swore under his breath, he shook his heavy head at
her; but she went on turning over the leaves--he was not playing to the
score, he did not want his leaves turned over--her eager, fluttering
figure drove him frantic. In ten minutes he banged the piano lid down,
and threw the score on the carpet. He told her before Léon, before Rose,
in the drawing-room of the Villa degli Angeli that she was an intrusive
insect!
There was a horrible pause. Léon approached Madame in a state of mingled
chivalry and satisfaction. She was a pitiable figure as she stood there
biting at her dainty lace handkerchief to keep the tears back; her face
was very white under its layer of powder. Probably it would have been
better if she had sat down. She simply stood with imploring, helpless
eyes fixed upon the angry tyrant before her.
No angry man likes to be looked at helplessly. Monsieur Gérard glared at
her--then he made the gulf that had come between them impassable.
“Understand!” he shouted, turning the music still on the piano to and
fro, as if he were making hay, “To-night I go to Naples! I cannot stand
more of this! I will go to Naples for one night, for two--for three! You
must remain here! I go to Naples!” Madame’s eyes went from her husband
to Léon. Léon’s eyes were fixed on hers in pity, in forgiveness--and
were they also fixed a little in expectation? He knew, and Madame knew,
precisely the purpose of Monsieur Gérard in going to Naples.
Rose did not understand as much as this, but she thought it was very
wicked of Monsieur Gérard to go away from his wife on their honeymoon
because she tried to turn over the leaves of his music.
She got up and crossed the room towards Madame. It was Rose who put an
end to the unendurable silence.
Léon was waiting for a cue from Madame, and Madame was too stunned to
give him any cue. She was like a little helpless leaf that has brought
on its own storm, but Rose waited for nothing. She looked first at
Monsieur Gérard. She compelled that enraged artist to meet her steady,
disapproving eyes; then she held out her hand to Madame Gérard and with
a gracious diffidence that was the perfection of dignity, she said in
her stumbling French, “I hope very much, Madame, that if your husband is
to leave you for a few days, you will give us as much of your company as
possible.”
Madame excused herself. She murmured under her breath that Rose was too
kind. Once more her eyes flickered from her husband to Léon. “It is a
great happiness to me to second my wife’s invitation,” said Léon
gravely. He murmured something more as he bowed over her hand and kissed
it. Rose had already turned and without even glancing in the direction
of Monsieur Gérard she went out into the gay little garden.
Capri saw them return to the Hotel Paradiso.
Léon was remorsefully attentive to his wife; he treated her as if she
were something very valuable that might break.
Perhaps in some subconscious way he knew that he was going to break her,
but he was very much impressed by her behavior.
She was, he thought to himself, the soul of generosity, and when we are
sure that we have the soul of generosity to deal with we sometimes find
it difficult not to take advantage of it.