She was sixteen when she discovered (inaccurately) that England is an
island, that beyond its waters again there is what, superficially if
deceptively, you call land, and what you call people, busy, vivid,
quick-tongued, real to themselves, yet to you unconvincing,
phantasmagoric, like the land and people of a play.
She was not consciously insular. On the contrary, from her railway
carriage and her _pension_, her sight-seeing, her studio and her walks
abroad, she looked out upon the new order of existence with fascinated
and enthusiastic interest. And France responded, on occasion, with
_empressement_. The glance of your average Frenchman, not necessarily
discourteous, is nevertheless always and embarrassingly instructive. She
had begun to realize that she was English: she was now made aware that
she was good-looking. She was to take no credit; but this was her
birthright and her blessing. Wonderful facts! She had her moments of
pharisaic thankfulness to Providence for thus equipping her, as she
plunged with zest into the new life. Like a doubtful swimmer she put a
foot down, now and then, just to feel the safe English ground still
under her, but secretly, shamefast: on the surface she became, with the
dear, ridiculous adaptability of the teens, very French indeed—French
enough, in speech and air and manner, let alone clothing, to appal
Justin—but that comes later. She discovered France. She had her youthful
right, I think, to a spoil or two.
It was her age of discovery. She discovered the Louvre, and love, and
Wagner, and Marcel waves, and Mounet-Sully, and Botticelli, and how to
put on a hat. She was greedy. She swallowed enough to give her
indigestion for years, as indeed it did, and still, like a fledgeling,
squawked for more; but she enjoyed her own insatiability. If she could
have had Justin, the imaginary, perceptive Justin, to talk to once a
week, she would have been happy. She always missed Justin.
But among the endless other things she had also discovered that a year
has only fifty-two weeks in it, fifty-two series of seven definite days;
that it is no interminable road disappearing into the mists of the
future; that it is no more, indeed, than a streaking drive down a Paris
street, with busy months to right and left of her, like shops that she
had no time to explore. Terrible, how time went, when there was much to
see, and do, and learn, before she went back to Brackenhurst. Dear old
Brackenhurst! She meant to reform Brackenhurst. Justin would back
her.... Lectures in the schools on—oh, you know, interesting
people—Corneille and Racine and Anatole France (she was nothing if not
catholic) and some really decent recitations at the penny readings....
And the drawing-room must be done up ... black walls and futurist
cushions ... and get rid of the Landseers.... She should enjoy herself
when she returned to Brackenhurst—if Justin backed her.... She wondered
what he would say to the way she did her hair?... She couldn’t think why
Aunt Adela wrote such fussy letters about finding Brackenhurst quiet?
Because she had been to the opera twice in a week, she supposed.... But
Aunt Adela wouldn’t understand how absurdly cheap—and besides, she had
paid for it herself out of her birthday tip.... Aunt Adela needn’t think
she didn’t realize how good it was of Gran’papa to send her to Paris....
Aunt Adela might know she would be careful.... But a franc was only
tenpence, not a shilling ... and she had sold the picture she had been
copying at the Louvre ... a lady, an American, had come up and liked it
and bought it! Three pounds—seventy-five francs! Gran’papa needn’t send
her any more pocket-money: she could last for months on that.... As for
finding Brackenhurst quiet, she meant to turn the loose-box into an
_atelier_ when she got back, and paint the entire village. She wondered
if Gran’papa would sit to her?... A beard was such a comfort ... mouths
were always the trouble....
All this in the first months. But you can see how the old sullen,
childish distrust of everybody was wearing itself out. She was
astonished to find that people were inclined to like her at sight, and,
intrigued by such original behaviour, she unbent, responded, and ended
by acquiring in her turn a habit of appreciation.
She liked life. She liked her _pension_. She liked the courteous French
girls and the bravura Americans, and their world of scent, and powder,
and trim waist belts, and Smart Sets, and candy, and complicated love
affairs. It amused her immensely, and did not for an instant impress her
as having anything to do with real life. Real life was the other side of
the Channel. Unconsciously, however, the views of her fellows, and the
books they read, their surreptitious cigarettes, and their ready and
untruthful tongues, had a certain influence. She read La Rochefoucauld,
with a “Yes, indeed,” expression that might have tickled even that
disillusioned gentleman, bought a powder-puff and sometimes remembered
to use it, told a lie or two and was never found out. That impressed
her. In Brackenhurst one at least had conscience-ache. She acquired a
bosom friend and defended, upon occasion, two solid and reform-clad
Germans from the rest of the dormitory. In return she discovered that
they had adored her for weeks. She liked that. She discovered that she
could talk musingly and without effort, that it was perfectly easy to be
at the top of her classes. In spite of her foreignness she became the
show pupil—and she liked that too. She wished that Justin could see her
sometimes.... She discovered that she could act (indeed some devil
dispossessed her at charades and dressing-up, lurked behind her eyes,
rapturous and Bacchanal), that she could string words together for the
school plays, that she had a pretty voice, that she could captain an
emergency, that, in short, she was a success. This was perfectly
delightful! She only wished there were a way of telling Justin exactly
what a charming person every one thought her, without appearing
conceited. She tried, in one or two letters, but it couldn’t be done.
She had to tear them up.
She heard from Justin sometimes. They corresponded in sets of threes and
fives—letter, answer, letter—or letter, answer, letter, answer,
letter—and then a pause of months. His half sheets, terse, generalizing,
almost void of personality, were the events of her exile, a double
source of delight. They were Justin’s letters and—they had to be
answered! It was in the code, you see, that you only wrote to Justin
turn and turn about, and never twice running, except birthdays and
Christmas and Easter or anything special, like sending a New Year parcel
to Mrs. Cloud, or when you hadn’t heard for a very long time; because
letters bored Justin. And besides——
Certainly a changing Laura, though she herself could not have explained
to you the meaning of that “and besides——”
That she was homesick for him or for home—but indeed the two words were
synonyms to her—we already know; but when the prospect of a finishing
school had been first mooted, she had made up her curious mind, so
plastic and yet so stubborn, that she would not be silly again as she
had been when she was young (surely the Great Gulf is fixed between
twelve and sixteen) and that it was worth her while to buy with only two
black years the chance of growing as good and great and wise as
Justin—that is to say, nearly as good and as great and as wise. She knew
her limitations. And then, when she came back, she would be able to be
friends with Justin—real friends—not a little girl to be played with any
more.... She would be ‘adequate’.... She was very jealous of that
adjective. “Adequate! Oh, an awfully adequate chap!”... Justin was
always saying that people he approved were “adequate”.... Very good....
He should say so of her.... To that end, behold her tethered, a willing
sacrifice, to a French Grammar and verbs of unmentionable irregularity!
Also, a second motive for docility, there were studios in
Paris—pictures—statues of the gods—teachers of the Arts—one Rodin and a
thing called a _Salon_. She might learn to paint, really paint!
She got her way. She had been sent to a quiet, middle-class _pension_,
owned by intelligent women, who taught the newcomers themselves, while
the French girls and the more advanced foreigners attended various
classes. It was easy to find a studio for Laura.
And so, for nearly two years, she worked three days a week, and for
three days sat enchanted, soaking herself in strange oils, smeared from
her eyebrows to her aching palette thumb, painting portraits and
dreaming dreams. And tragic Monsieur La Motte, that great artist who
could not paint, who taught victoriously by word of mouth, because his
art must out and his hands could not obey him, Monsieur La Motte,
swan-herd fallen on hard times, yet ever alert for a cygnet in the
gaggle of geese he must drive for a living, Monsieur La Motte watched
and peered and waited. At last, when her two years were nearly at an
end, and the studio-talk that frothed like a fountain was less of Cubism
and the expensiveness of rose-madder, Ingres, Bergson, Strindberg,
symbolic colour schemes and _the Eternal Return_ (for they were an
enquiring, philosophical crew) and more and more and ever more of
England and its delectable villages, high in the Kentish hills, he could
contain himself no longer. He assumed his conspiratorial hat and went,
then and there, to call upon his old friends the Demoiselles Dunois.
Here, he explained, was his chance. Here was the pupil for whom he had
waited. Talent—enormous talent. Genius? Ah, that was another matter—that
he could not say—not yet—(he spoke as might a doctor, finger on pulse,
awaiting the crisis) but talent there was by the potful, talent to
deceive the crowd, and, he bade them observe, a temperament to back it.
Fire was there, mingling paradoxically with the cold English blood, like
the abominable English drink, the cold yet burning ouiski-soda. Not for
nothing had the door between _atelier_ and Monsieur’s sanctum stood
ajar. Could he have Mademoiselle Valentine for two years, only two
years—they should see what they should see! But he understood it was a
question of expense. Now would it not be possible——?
His black eyes and his pointed beard and his long yellow fingers all
twinkled together as he elaborated his ideas, till he looked like a
_Svengali_ possessed by the spirit of _Mr. Samuel Pickwick_. The
Demoiselles Dunois, who admired him immensely, and were fond, too, of
Laura, responded with enthusiasm. Heads together over the coffee cups
they hatched their kindly plot.
But other folk, fortunately or not, had been plotting too. Mrs. Cloud
dreaded the March winds as she did not dread the still cold of true
winter weather. Justin, at home six months now, was growing restless
again though his lounge round the world had bored him at the time. He
had started out in high enough spirits and with more money in his
pockets than is good for the youthful male. But he had not the knack of
enjoying himself illegitimately. He was virtuous, because vice did not
appeal to him and he had not the inquisitiveness of little minds. Yet he
cried for Our Lady the Moon like any other youngster. It was borne in
upon him that he was plodding through enchanted lands with the
thoroughness of a typical tourist, and it annoyed him hugely. Yet he had
no notion of how to help himself. He was relieved to get home again. His
mother was very sweet. He enjoyed unpacking the spoils of his
comfortable Odyssey and scattering them about the house, though the
birds’-egg collection still held the place of honour in his den. It was
considerably enlarged since the days of Laura’s protest, and he was
tenacious of old likes and dislikes. One of the first visits he paid on
his return was to Bellew, who welcomed him with chirrups of pleasure.
Everybody was always delighted to see Justin. He had, quite
unconsciously, the disarming assurance of the big strange dog with the
wet coat, who greets you with vigorous affection at church parade. Why
shouldn’t you be pleased to see him? And you are, you know, in spite of
splashed taffetas. You cannot help yourself.
Bellew and Justin picked up their acquaintance where they had dropped it
eighteen months before, and agreed better than ever, enjoying, not so
much each other, as their common interest in a common hobby. Bellew even
talked tentatively of the voyage he intended to make up the coast, and
on to the Hebrides to take photographs of sea-birds and their nests for
his new book. He needed an active assistant. But Justin, tempted, was
non-committal. He was only just home. His mother did not grow younger.
He was too fond of her even to tell her of the idea lest she should
insist, yet, with time heavy on his hands, it made him restless, the
readier for a change when she, coughing a little and looking, in spite
of her comfortable house and the furs from Russia, a frail, nipped leaf
of a woman, talked of the Riviera—or Italy? She had not been to Italy
since her honeymoon, and Justin, for all his globe-trotting, had not
been at all. What about Italy? Italy would be delightful if Justin
wouldn’t find it dull, with just the two of them?
It was then that Justin said—I am always glad that it was Justin who
said—
“Well, what about Laura?”
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