Mrs. Forrester was dispensing tea in her lofty drawing-room which, with
its illumined heights and dim recesses, gave to the ceremony an almost
ritualistic state. Mrs. Forrester's drawing-room and Mrs. Forrester
herself were long-established features of London, and not to have sat
beneath the Louis Quinze chandelier nor have drunk tea out of the blue
Worcester cups was to have missed something significant of the typical
London spectacle.
The drawing-room seemed most characteristic when one came to it from a
fog outside, as people had done to-day, and when Mrs. Forrester was
found presiding over the blue cups. She was an old lady with auburn hair
elaborately dressed and singularly bound in snoods of velvet. She wore
flowing silken trains and loose ruffled sacques of a curious bygone cut,
and upon each wrist was clasped, mounted on a velvet band, a large
square emerald, set in heavily chased gold. The glance of her eyes was
as surprisingly youthful as the color of her hair, and her face, though
complicatedly wrinkled, had an almost girlish gaiety and vigour. Abrupt
and merry, Mrs. Forrester was arresting to the attention and rather
alarming. She swept aside bores; she selected the significant; socially
she could be rather merciless; but her kindness was without limits when
she attached herself, and in private life she suffered fools, if not
gladly at all events humorously, in the persons of her three heavy and
exemplary sons, who had married wives as unimpeachable and as
uninteresting as themselves and provided her with a multitude of
grandchildren. Mrs. Forrester fulfilled punctiliously all her duties
towards these young folk, and it never occurred to her sons and
daughters-in-law that they and their interests were not her chief
preoccupation. The energy and variety of her nature were, however,
given, to her social relations and to her personal friendships, which
were many and engrossing. These friendships were always highly
flavoured. Mrs. Forrester had a _flair_ for genius and needed no popular
accrediting to make it manifest to her. And it wasn't enough to be
merely a genius; there were many of the species, eminent and emblazoned,
who were never asked to come under the Louis Quinze chandelier. She
asked of her talented friends personal distinction, the power of being
interesting in more than their art.
Such a genius, pre-eminently such a one, was Madame von Marwitz. She was
more than under the chandelier; Mrs. Forrester's house, when she was in
London, was her home. "I am safe with you," she had said to Mrs.
Forrester, "with you I am never pursued and never bored." Where Mrs.
Forrester evaded and relegated bores, Madame von Marwitz sombrely and
helplessly hated them. "What can I do?" she said. "If no one will
protect me I am delivered to them. It is a plague of locusts. They
devour me. Oh their letters! Oh their flowers! Oh their love and their
stupidity! No, the earth is black with them."
Madame von Marwitz was protected from the swarms while she visited her
old friend. The habits of the house were altered to suit hers. She
stayed in her rooms or came down as she chose. She had complete liberty
in everything.
To-day she had not as yet appeared, and everyone had come with the hope
of seeing her. There was Lady Campion, the most tactful and discreet of
admirers; and Sir Alliston, who would be perhaps asked to go up to her
if she did not come down; and Eleanor Scrotton who would certainly go up
unasked; and old Miss Harding, a former governess of Mrs. Forrester's
sons and a person privileged, who had come leading an evident yet
pathetic locust, her brother's widow, little Mrs. Harding, the shy lady
of the platform. Miss Harding had told Mrs. Forrester about this
sister-in-law and of how, since her husband's death, she had lived for
philanthropy, and music in the person of Madame Okraska. She had never
met her. She did not ask to meet her now. She would only sit in a corner
and gaze. Mrs. Forrester had been moved by the account of such humble
faith and had told Miss Harding to bring her sister-in-law.
"I have sent for Karen," Mrs. Forrester said, greeting Gregory Jardine,
who came in after Miss and Mrs. Harding; "she will tell us if our
chances are good. It was your first time, last night, wasn't it,
Gregory? I do hope that she may come down."
Gregory Jardine was not a bore, but Mrs. Forrester suspected him to be
one of the infatuated. He belonged, she imagined, seeing him appear so
promptly after his initiation, to the category of dazzled circlers who
fell into her drawing-room in their myriads while Mercedes was with her,
like frizzled moths into a candle. Mrs. Forrester had sympathy with
moths, and was fond of Gregory, whom she greeted with significant
kindliness.
"I never ask her to come down," she went on now to explain to him and to
the Hardings. "Never, never. She could not bear that. But she often does
come; and she has heard to-day from Karen Woodruff that special friends
are hoping to see her. So your chances are good, I think. Ah, here is
Karen."
Gregory did not trouble to undeceive his old friend. It was his habit to
have tea with her once or twice a month, and his motive in coming to-day
had hardly been distinguishable from his usual impulse. If he had come
hoping to see anybody, it had been to see the _protégée_, and he watched
her now as she advanced down the great room with her cheerful,
unembarrassed look, the look of a person serenely accustomed to a
publicity in which she had no part.
Seen thus at full length and in full face he found her more than ever
like an Alfred Stevens and an archaic Greek statue. Long-limbed,
thick-waisted, spare and strong, she wore a straight, grey dress--the
dress of a little convent girl coming into the _parloir_ on a day of
visits--which emphasized the boyish aspect of her figure. Narrow frills
of white were at wrist and neck; her shoes were low heeled and square
toed; and around her neck a gold locket hung on a black velvet ribbon.
Mrs. Forrester held out her hand to her with the undiscerning kindliness
that greets the mere emissary. "Well, my dear, what news of our Tante?
Is she coming, do you think?" she inquired. "This is Lady Campion; she
has never yet met Tante." The word was pronounced in German fashion.
"I am not sure that she will come," said Miss Woodruff, looking around
the assembled circle, while Mrs. Forrester still held her hand. "She is
still very tired, so I cannot be sure; I hope so." She smiled calmly at
Sir Alliston and Miss Scrotton who were talking together and then lifted
her eyes to Gregory who stood near.
"You know Mr. Jardine?" Mrs. Forrester asked, seeing the pleased
recognition on the girl's face. "It was his first time last night."
"No, I do not know him," said Miss Woodruff, "but I saw him at the
concert. Was it his first time? Think of that."
"Now sit here, child, and tell me about Tante," said Mrs. Forrester,
drawing the girl down to a chair beside her. "I saw that she was very
tired this morning. She had her massage?" Mrs. Forrester questioned in a
lower voice.
"Yes; and fortunately she was able to sleep for two hours after that.
Then Mr. Schultz came and she had to see him, and that was tiring."
Mr. Schultz was Madame Okraska's secretary.
"Dear, dear, what a pity that he had to bother her. Did she drink the
egg-flip I had sent up to her? Mrs. Jenkins makes them excellently as a
rule."
"I did my best to persuade her," said Miss Woodruff, "but she did not
seem to care for it."
"Didn't care for it? Was it too sweet? I warned Mrs. Jenkins that her
tendency was to put in too much sugar."
"That was it," Miss Woodruff smiled at the other's penetration. "She
tasted it and said: '_Trop sucré_,' and put it down. But it was really
very nice. I drank it!" said Miss Woodruff.
"But I am so grieved. I shall speak severely to Mrs. Jenkins," Mrs.
Forrester murmured, preoccupied. "I am afraid our chances aren't good
to-day, Lady Campion," she turned from Miss Woodruff to say. "You must
come and dine one night while she is with me. I am always sure of her
for dinner."
"She really isn't coming down?" Miss Scrotton leaned over the back of
Miss Woodruff's chair to ask with some asperity of manner. "Shall I wait
for a little before I go up to her?"
"I can't tell," the young girl replied. "She said she did not know
whether she would come or not. She is lying down and reading."
"She does not forget that she comes to me for tea to-morrow?"
"I do not think so, Miss Scrotton."
"Lady Campion wants to talk to you, Karen," Mrs. Forrester now said;
"come to this side of the table." And as Sir Alliston was engaged with
Miss and Mrs. Harding, Gregory was left to Eleanor Scrotton.
Miss Scrotton felt irritation rather than affection for Gregory Jardine.
Yet he was not unimportant to her. Deeper than her pride in old Sir
Jonas was her pride in her connection with the Fanshawes, and Gregory's
mother had been a Fanshawe. Gregory's very indifference to her and to
the standards of the Scrottons had always given to intercourse with him
a savour at once acid yet interesting. Though she knew many men of more
significance, she remained far more aware of him and his opinions than
of theirs. She would have liked Gregory to show more consciousness of
her and his relationship, of the fact that she, too, had Fanshawe blood
in her veins. She would have liked to impress, or please or, at worst,
to displease him. She would very much have liked to secure him more
frequently for her dinners and her teas. He vexed and he allured her.
"Do you really mean that last night was the first time you ever heard
Mercedes Okraska?" she said, moving to a sofa, to which, somewhat
unwillingly, Gregory followed her. "It makes me sorry for you. It's as
if a person were to tell you that they'd never before seen the mountains
or the sea. If I'd realised that you'd never met her I could have
arranged that you should. She often comes to me quite quietly and meets
a few friends. She was so devoted to dear father; she called him The
Hammer of the Gods. I have the most wonderful letter that she wrote me
when he died," Miss Scrotton said, lowering her voice to a reverent
pause. "Between ourselves," she went on, "I do sometimes think that our
dear Mrs. Forrester cherishes her a little too closely. I confess that I
love nothing more than to share my good things. I don't mean that dear
Mrs. Forrester doesn't; but I should ask more people, frequently and
definitely, to meet Mercedes, if I were in her place."
"But if Madame Okraska won't come down and see them?" Gregory inquired.
"Ah, but she will; she will," Miss Scrotton said earnestly; "if it is
thought out; arranged for carefully. She doesn't, naturally, care to
come down on chance, like to-day. She does want to know whom she's to
meet if she makes the effort. She knows of course that Sir Alliston and
I are here, and that may bring her; I do hope so for your sake; but of
course if she does not come I go up to her. With Mrs. Forrester I am, I
think, her nearest friend in England. She has stayed with me in the
country;--my tiny flat here would hardly accommodate her. I am going,
did you know it, to America with her next week."
"No; really; for a tour?"
"Yes; through the States. We shall be gone till next summer. I know
several very charming people in New York and Boston and can help to make
it pleasant for Mercedes. Of course for me it is the opportunity of a
life-time. Quite apart from her music, she is the most remarkable woman
I have ever known."
"She's clever?"
"Clever is too trivial a word. Her genius goes through everything. We
read a great deal together--Dante, Goethe, French essayists, our English
poets. To hear her read poetry is almost as wonderful an experience as
to hear her play. Isn't it an extraordinary face? One sees it all in her
face, I think."
"She is very unusual looking."
"Her face," Miss Scrotton pursued, ignoring her companion's trite
comments, "embodies the thoughts and dreams of many races. It makes me
always think of Pater's Mona Lisa--you remember: 'Hers is the head upon
which all the ends of the world are come and the eyelids are a little
weary.' She is, of course, a profoundly tragic person."
"Has she been very unfortunate?"
"Unfortunate indeed. Her youth was passed in bitter poverty; her first
marriage was disastrous, and when joy came at last in an ideal second
marriage it was shattered by her husband's mysterious death. Yes; he was
drowned; found drowned in the lake on their estate in Germany. Mercedes
has never been there since. She has never recovered. She is a
broken-hearted woman. She sees life as a dark riddle. She counts herself
as one of the entombed."
"Dear me," Gregory murmured.
Miss Scrotton glanced at him with some sharpness; but finding his blue
eyes fixed abstractedly on Karen Woodruff exonerated him from intending
to be disagreeable. "Her childlessness has been a final grief," she
added; "a child, as she has often told me, would be a resurrection from
the dead."
"And the little girl?" Gregory inquired. "Is she any solace? What is the
exact relationship? I hear that she calls her Tante."
"The right to call her Tante is one of Mercedes's gifts to her. She is
no relation at all. Mercedes picked her up, literally from the roadside.
She is twenty-four, you know; not a child."
"So the story is true, about the Norwegian peasants and the forest?"
"I have to contradict that story at least twice a day," said Miss
Scrotton with a smile half indulgent and half weary. "It is true that
Karen was found in a forest, but it was the forest of Fontainebleau,
_tout simplement_; and it is true that she has Norwegian blood; her
mother was a Norwegian; she was the wife of a Norwegian artist in Rome,
and there Karen's father, an American, a sculptor of some talent, I
believe, met her and ran away with her. They were never married. They
lived on chestnuts up among the mountains in Tuscany, I believe, and the
mother died when Karen was a little child and the father when she was
twelve. Some relatives of the father's put her in a convent school in
Paris and she ran away from it and Mercedes found her on the verge of
starvation in the forest of Fontainebleau. The Baron von Marwitz had
known Mr. Woodruff in Rome and Mercedes persuaded him to take the child
into their lives. She hadn't a friend or a penny in the world. The
father's relatives were delighted to be rid of her and Mercedes has had
her on her hands ever since. That is the true story."
"Isn't she fond of her?" Gregory asked.
"Yes, she is fond of her," Miss Scrotton with some impatience replied;
"but she is none the less a burden. For a woman like Mercedes, with a
life over-full and a strength continually overtaxed, the care and
responsibility is an additional weight and weariness."
"Well, but if she misses children so much; this takes the place,"
Gregory objected.
"Takes the place," Miss Scrotton repeated, "of a child of her own? This
little nobody, and an uninteresting nobody, too? Oh, she is a good girl,
a very good girl; and she makes herself fairly useful in elementary
ways; but how can you imagine that such a tie can satisfy maternal
craving?"
"How does she make herself useful?" Gregory asked, waiving the question
of maternal cravings. He had vexed Miss Scrotton a good deal, but the
theme was one upon which she could not resist enlarging; anything
connected with Madame von Marwitz was for her of absorbing interest.
"Well, she is a great deal in Cornwall, at Mercedes's place there," she
informed him. "It's a wonderfully lovely place; Les Solitudes; Mercedes
built the house. Karen and old Mrs. Talcott look after the little farm
and keep things in order."
"Old Mrs. Talcott? Where does she come in?"
"Ah, that is another of Mercedes's romantic benevolences. Mrs. Talcott
is a sort of old pensioner; a distant family connection; the funniest
old American woman you can conceive of. She has been with Mercedes since
her childhood, and, like everybody else, she is so devotedly attached to
her that she regards it as a matter of course that she should be taken
care of by her for ever. The way Karen takes her advantages as a matter
of course has always vexed me just a little."
"Is Mrs. Talcott interesting?" Gregory pursued his questions with a
placid persistence that seemed to indicate real curiosity.
"Good heavens, no!" Miss Scrotton said. "The epitome of the commonplace.
She looks like some of the queer old American women one sees in the
National Gallery with Baedekers in their hands and bags at their belts;
fat, sallow, provincial, with defective grammar and horrible twangs; the
kind of American, you know," said Miss Scrotton, warming to her
description as she felt that she was amusing Gregory Jardine, "that the
other kind always tell you they never by any chance would meet at home."
"And what kind of American is Miss Woodruff? The other kind or Mrs.
Talcott's kind?"
"By the other kind I mean Lady Jardine's," said Miss Scrotton; "or--no;
she constitutes a further variety; the rarest of all; the kind who would
never think about Mrs. Talcott one way or the other. But surely Karen is
no kind at all. Could you call her an American? She has never been
there. She is a sort of racial waif. The only root, the only nationality
she seems to have is Mercedes; her very character is constituted by her
relation to Mercedes; her only charm is her devotion--for she is indeed
sincerely and wholeheartedly devoted. Mercedes is a sort of
fairy-godmother to her, a sun-goddess, who lifted her out of the dust
and whirled her away in her chariot. But she isn't interesting," Miss
Scrotton again assured him. "She is literal and unemotional, and, in
some ways, distinctly dull. I have seen the poor fairy-godmother sigh
and shrug sometimes over her inordinately long letters. She writes to
her with relentless regularity and I really believe that she imagines
that Mercedes quite depends on hearing from her. No; I don't mean that
she is conceited; it's not that exactly; she is only dull; very, very
dull; and I don't know how Mercedes endures having her so much with her.
She feels that the girl depends on her, of course, and she is helplessly
generous."
Gregory Jardine listened to these elucidations, leaning back in the
sofa, a hand clasping his ankle, his eyes turning now on Miss Scrotton
and now on the subject of their conversation. Miss Scrotton had amused
him. She was entertainingly simple if at moments entertainingly
intelligent, and he had divined that she was jealous of the crumbs that
fell to Miss Woodruff's share from the table of Madame von Marwitz's
bounty. A slight malice that had gathered in him during his talk with
Eleanor Scrotton found expression in his next remark. "She is certainly
charming looking; anyone so charming looking has a right to be dull."
But Miss Scrotton did not heed him. She had risen to her feet. "Here she
is!" she exclaimed, looking towards the door in radiant satisfaction.
"You will meet her after all. I'll do my very best so that you shall
have a little talk with her."
The door had been thrown open and Madame Okraska had appeared upon the
threshold.