WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO
Audrey was in a white piqué coat and short skirt, with pale blue blouse and
pale blue hat--and at the extremity blue stockings and white tennis shoes.
She picked up a tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the
studio. She had bought the coat, the skirt, the blouse, the hat, the
tennis shoes, the racket, the press, and practically all she wore, visible
and invisible, at that very convenient and immense shop, the Bon Marché,
whose only drawback was that it was always full. Everybody in the Quarter,
except a few dolls not in earnest, bought everything at the Bon Marché,
because the Bon Marché was so comprehensive and so reliable. If you desired
a toothbrush, the Bon Marché not only supplied it, but delivered it in a
30-h.p. motor-van manned by two officials in uniform. And if you desired a
bedroom suite, a pair of corsets, a box of pastels, an anthracite stove, or
a new wallpaper, the Bon Marché would never shake its head.
And Audrey was now of the Quarter. Many simple sojourners in the Quarter
tried to imply the Latin Quarter when they said the Quarter. But the
Quarter was only the Montparnasse Quarter. Nevertheless, it sufficed. It
had its own boulevards, restaurants, cafés, concerts, theatres, palaces,
shops, gardens, museums, and churches. There was no need to leave it, and
if you were a proper amateur of the Quarter, you never did leave it save to
scoff at other Quarters. Sometimes you fringed the Latin Quarter in the big
cafés of the Boulevard St. Michel, and sometimes you strolled northwards as
far as the Seine, and occasionally even crossed the Seine in order to enter
the Louvre, which lined the other bank, but you did not go any farther. Why
should you?
Audrey had become so acclimatised to the Quarter that Miss Nickall's studio
seemed her natural home. It was very typically a woman's studio of the
Quarter. About thirty feet each way and fourteen feet high, with certain
irregularities of shape, it was divided into corners. There were the two
bed-corners, which were lounge-corners during the day; the afternoon-tea
corner, with a piece or two of antique furniture and some old silk
hangings, where on high afternoons tea was given to droves of visitors; and
there was the culinary corner, with spirit-lamps, gas-rings, kettles, and a
bowl or two over which you might spend a couple of arduous hours in
ineffectually whipping up a mayonnaise for an impromptu lunch. Artistic
operations were carried out in the middle of the studio, not too far from
the stove, which never went out from November to May. A large mirror hung
paramount on one wall. The remaining spaces of the studio were filled with
old easels, canvases, old frames, old costumes and multifarious other
properties for pictures, trunks, lamps, boards, tables, and bric-à-brac
bought at the Ham-and-Old-Iron Fair. There were a million objects in the
studio, and their situations had to be, and were, learnt off by heart. The
scene of the toilette was a small attached chamber.
The housekeeping combined the simplicity of the early Christians with the
efficient organising of the twentieth century. It began at about half-past
seven, when unseen but heard beings left fresh rolls and the _New York
Herald_ or the _Daily Mail_ at the studio door. You made your own bed, just
as you cleaned your own boots or washed your own face. The larder
consisted of tins of coffee, tea, sugar, and cakes, with an intermittent
supply of butter and lemons. The infusing of tea and coffee was practised
in perfection. It mattered not in the least whether toilette or breakfast
came first, but it was exceedingly important that the care of the stove
should precede both. Between ten and eleven the concierge's wife arrived
with tools and utensils; she swept and dusted under a considerable
percentage of the million objects--and the responsibilities of housekeeping
were finished until the next day, for afternoon tea, if it occurred, was a
diversion and not a toil.
A great expanse of twelve to fifteen hours lay in front of you. It was not
uncomfortably and unchangeably cut into fixed portions by the incidence of
lunch and dinner. You ate when you felt inclined to eat, and nearly always
at restaurants where you met your acquaintances. Meals were the least
important happenings of the day. You had no reliable watch, and you needed
none, for you had no fixed programme. You worked till you had had enough of
work. You went forth into the world exactly when the idea took you. If you
were bored, you found a friend and went to sit in a café. You were ready
for anything. The word "rule" had been omitted from your dictionary. You
retired to bed when the still small voice within murmured that there was
naught else to do. You woke up in the morning amid cups and saucers,
lingerie, masterpieces, and boots. And the next day was the same. All the
days were the same. Weeks passed with inexpressible rapidity, and all
things beyond the Quarter had the quality of vague murmurings and noises
behind the scenes.
May had come. Audrey and Miss Ingate had lived in the studio for six months
before they realised that they had settled down there and that habits had
been formed. Still, they had accomplished something. Miss Ingate had gone
back into oils and was attending life classes, and Audrey, by terrible
application and by sitting daily at the feet of an oldish lady in black,
and by refusing to speak English between breakfast and dinner, had acquired
a good accent and much fluency in the French tongue. Now, when she spoke
French, she thought in French, and she was extremely proud of the
achievement. Also she was acquainted with the names and styles of all known
modern painters from pointillistes to cubistes, and, indeed, with the
latest eccentricities in all the arts. She could tell who was immortal, and
she was fully aware that there was no real painting in England. In brief,
she was perhaps more Parisian even than she had hoped. She had absorbed
Paris into her system. It was still not the Paris of her early fancy; in
particular, it lacked elegance; but it richly satisfied her.
She had on this afternoon of young May an appointment with a young man. And
the appointment seemed quite natural, causing no inward disturbance. Less
than ever could she understand her father's ukases against young men and
against every form of self-indulgence. Now, when she had the idea of doing
a thing, she merely did it. Her instincts were her only guide, and, though
her instincts were often highly complex, they seldom puzzled her. The old
instinct that the desire to do a thing was a sufficient reason against
doing it, had expired. For many weeks she had lived with a secret fear that
such unbridled conduct must lead to terrible catastrophes, but as nothing
happened this fear also expired. She was constantly with young men, and
often with men not young; she liked it, but just as much she liked being
with women. She never had any difficulties with men. Miss Thompkins
insinuated at intervals that she flirted, but she had the sharpest contempt
for flirtation, and as a practice put it on a level with embezzlement or
arson. Miss Thompkins, however, kept on insinuating. Audrey regarded
herself as decidedly wiser than Miss Thompkins. Her opinions on vital
matters changed almost weekly, but she was always absolutely sure that the
new opinion was final and incontrovertible. Her scorn of the old English
Audrey, though concealed, was terrific.
And it is to be remembered that she was a widow. She was never half a
second late, now, in replying when addressed as "Mrs. Moncreiff."
Frequently she thought that she in fact was a widow. Widowhood was a very
advantageous state. It had a free pass to all affairs of interest. It
opened wide the door of the world. It recked nothing of girlish codes. It
abolished discussions concerning conventional propriety. Its chief defect,
for Audrey, was that if she met another widow, or even a married woman, she
had to take heed lest she stumbled. Fortunately, neither widows nor wives
were very prevalent in the Quarter. And Audrey had attained skill in the
use of the state of widowhood. She told no more infantile perilous tales
about husbands who ate peas with a knife. In her thankfulness that the
tyrannic Rosamund had gone to Germany, and that Madame Piriac had vanished
back into unknown Paris, Audrey was at pains to take to heart the lesson of
a semi-hysterical blunder.
She descended the dark, dusty oak stairs utterly content. And at the door
of the gloomy den of the concierge the concierge's wife was standing. She
was a new wife, the young mate of a middle-aged husband, and she had only
been illuminating the den (which was kitchen, parlour, and bedroom in a
space of ten feet by eight) for about a month. She was plump and pretty,
and also she was fair, which was unusual for a Frenchwoman. She wore a
striped frock and a little black apron, and her yellow hair was waved with
art. Audrey offered her the key of the studio with a smile, and, as Audrey
expected, the concierge's wife began to chatter. The concierge's wife loved
to chatter with Anglo-Saxon tenants, and she specially enjoyed chattering
with Audrey, because of the superior quality of Audrey's French and of her
tips. Audrey listened, proud because she could understand so well and
answer so fluently.
The sun, which in May shone on the courtyard for about forty minutes in the
afternoon on clear days, caught these two creatures in the same beam. They
made a delicious sight--Audrey dark, with her large forehead and negligible
nose, and the concierge's wife rather doll-like in the regularity of her
features. They were delicious not only because of their varied charm, but
because they were so absurdly wise and omniscient, and because they had
come to settled conclusions about every kind of worldly problem. Youth and
vitality equalised their ranks, and the fact that Audrey possessed many
ascertained ancestors, and a part of the earth's surface, and much money,
and that the concierge's wife possessed nothing but herself and a few bits
of furniture, was not of the slightest importance.
The concierge's wife, after curiosity concerning tennis, grew confidential
about herself, and more confidential. And at last she lowered her tones,
and with sparkling eyes communicated information to Audrey in a voice that
was little more than a whisper.
"Oh! truly? I must go," hastily said Audrey, blushing, and off she ran,
reduced in an instant to the schoolgirl. Her departure was a retreat.
These occasional discomfitures made a faint blot on the excellence of being
a widow.