I am not sure whether it was late in April or early in May that Nina
left us. But one day towards the middle of October, coming home from
the restaurant where I had lunched, I found in my letter box, in the
concierge's room, two half sheets of paper, folded, with the corners
turned down, and my name superscribed in pencil. The handwriting
startled me a little--and yet, no, it was impossible. Then I hastened
to unfold, and read, and of course it was the impossible which had
happened.
'Mon cher, I am sorry not to find you at home, but I'll wait at the
café at the corner till half-past twelve. It is now midi juste.' That
was the first. The second ran: 'I have waited till a quarter to one.
Now I am going to the Bleu for luncheon. I shall be there till three.'
And each was signed with the initials, N.C.
It was not yet two, so I had plenty of time. But you will believe that
I didn't loiter on that account. I dashed out of the _loge_--into the
street--down the Boulevard St. Michel--into the Bleu, breathlessly. At
the far end Nina was seated before a marble table, with Madame Chanve
in smiles and tears beside her. I heard a little cry; I felt myself
seized and enveloped for a moment by something like a whirlwind--oh,
but a very pleasant whirlwind, warm and fresh, and fragrant of
violets; I received two vigorous kisses, one on either cheek; and then
I was held off at arm's length, and examined by a pair of laughing
eyes.
And at last a voice--rather a deep voice for a woman's, with just a
crisp edge to it, that might have been called slightly nasal, but was
agreeable and individual--a voice said: 'En voilà assez. Come and sit
down.'
She had finished her luncheon, and was taking coffee; and if the whole
truth must be told, I'm afraid she was taking it with a _petit-verre_
and a cigarette. She wore an exceedingly simple black frock, with a
bunch of violets in her breast, and a hat with a sweeping black
feather and a daring brim. Her dark luxurious hair broke into a riot
of fluffy little curls about her forehead, and thence waved richly
away to where it was massed behind; her cheeks glowed with a lovely
colour (thanks, doubtless, to Yorkshire breezes; sweet are the uses of
adversity); her eyes sparkled; her lips curved in a perpetual play of
smiles, letting her delicate little teeth show themselves furtively;
and suddenly I realised that this girl, whom I had never thought of
save as one might think of one's younger sister, suddenly I realised
that she was a woman, and a radiantly, perhaps even a dangerously
handsome woman. I saw suddenly that she was not merely an attribute,
an aspect, of another, not merely Alfred Childe's daughter; she was a
personage in herself, a personage to be reckoned with.
This sufficiently obvious perception came upon me with such force, and
brought me such emotion, that I dare say for a little while I sat
vacantly staring at her, with an air of preoccupation. Anyhow, all at
once she laughed, and cried out, 'Well, when you get back...?' and,
'Perhaps,' she questioned, 'perhaps you think it polite to go off
wool-gathering like that?' Whereupon I recovered myself with a start,
and laughed too.
'But say that you are surprised, say that you are glad, at least,' she
went on.
Surprised! glad! But what did it mean? What was it all about?
'I couldn't stand it any longer, that's all. I have come home. Oh,
que c'est bon, que c'est bon, que c'est bon!'
'And--England?--Yorkshire?--your people?'
'Don't speak of it. It was a bad dream. It is over. It brings bad luck
to speak of bad dreams. I have forgotten it. I am here--in Paris--at
home. Oh, que c'est bon!' And she smiled blissfully through eyes
filled with tears.
Don't tell me that happiness is an illusion. It is her habit, if you
will, to flee before us and elude us; but sometimes, sometimes we
catch up with her, and can hold her for long moments warm against our
hearts.
'Oh, mon père! It is enough--to be here, where he lived, where he
worked, where he was happy,' Nina murmured afterwards.
She had arrived the night before; she had taken a room in the Hôtel
d'Espagne, in the Rue de Médicis, opposite the Luxembourg Garden. I
was as yet the only member of the old set she had looked up. Of course
I knew where she had gone first--but not to cry--to kiss it--to place
flowers on it. She could not cry--not now. She was too happy, happy,
happy. Oh, to be back in Paris, her home, where she had lived with
him, where every stick and stone was dear to her because of him!
Then, glancing up at the clock, with an abrupt change of key, 'Mais
allons donc, paresseux! You must take me to see the camarades. You
must take me to see Chalks.'
And in the street she put her arm through mine, laughing and saying,
'On nous croira fiancés.' She did not walk, she tripped, she all but
danced beside me, chattering joyously in alternate French and English.
'I could stop and kiss them all--the men, the women, the very
pavement. Oh, Paris! Oh, these good, gay, kind Parisians! Look at the
sky! Look at the view--down that impasse--the sunlight and shadows on
the houses, the doorways, the people. Oh, the air! Oh, the smells! Que
c'est bon--que je suis contente! Et dire que j'ai passé cinq mois,
mais cinq grands mois, en Angleterre. Ah, veinard, you--you don't know
how you're blessed.' Presently we found ourselves labouring knee-deep
in a wave of black pinafores, and Nina had plucked her bunch of
violets from her breast, and was dropping them amongst eager fingers
and rosy cherubic smiles. And it was constantly, 'Tiens, there's
Madame Chose in her kiosque. Bonjour, madame. Vous allez toujours
bien?' and 'Oh, look! old Perronet standing before his shop in his
shirt-sleeves, exactly as he has stood at this hour every day, winter
or summer, these ten years. Bonjour, M'sieu Perronet.' And you may be
sure that the kindly French Choses and Perronets returned her
greetings with beaming faces. 'Ah, mademoiselle, que c'est bon de vous
revoir ainsi. Que vous avez bonne mine!' 'It is so strange,' she said,
'to find nothing changed. To think that everything has gone on quietly
in the usual way. As if I hadn't spent an eternity in exile!' And at
the corner of one street, before a vast flaunting 'bazaar,' with a
prodigality of tawdry Oriental wares exhibited on the pavement, and
little black shopmen trailing like beetles in and out amongst them,
'Oh,' she cried, 'the "Mecque du Quartier"! To think that I could weep
for joy at seeing the "Mecque du Quartier"!'
By and by we plunged into a dark hallway, climbed a long, unsavoury,
corkscrew staircase, and knocked at a door. A gruff voice having
answered, ''Trez!' we entered Chalks's bare, bleak, paint-smelling
studio. He was working (from a lay-figure) with his back towards us;
and he went on working for a minute or two after our arrival, without
speaking. Then he demanded, in a sort of grunt, 'Eh bien, qu'est ce
que c'est?' always without pausing in his work or looking round. Nina
gave two little _ahems_, tense with suppressed mirth; and slowly,
indifferently, Chalks turned an absent-minded face in our direction.
But, next instant, there was a shout--a rush--a confusion of forms in
the middle of the floor--and I realised that I was not the only one to
be honoured by a kiss and an embrace. 'Oh, you're covering me with
paint,' Nina protested suddenly; and indeed he had forgotten to drop
his brush and palette, and great dabs of colour were clinging to her
cloak. While he was doing penance, scrubbing the garment with rags
soaked in turpentine, he kept shaking his head, and murmuring, from
time to time, as he glanced up at her, 'Well, I'll be dumned.'
'It's very nice and polite of you, Chalks,' she said, by and by, 'a
very graceful concession to my sex. But, if you think it would
relieve you once for all, you have my full permission to pronounce it
--amned.'
Chalks did no more work that afternoon; and that evening quite twenty
of us dined at Madame Chanve's; and it was almost like old times.