During the three weeks which had ended for David and Elise in this
scene of passion, Louie had been deliberately going her own way,
managing even in this unfamiliar _milieu_ to extract from it
almost all the excitement or amusement it was capable of yielding
her. All the morning she dragged Madame Cervin about the Paris
streets: in the afternoon she would sometimes pose for Montjoie,
and sometimes not; he had to bring her bonbons and theatre tickets
to bribe her, and learn new English wherewith to flatter her. Then
in the evenings she made the Cervins take her to theatres and
various entertainments more or less reputable, for which of course
David paid. It seemed to Madame Cervin, as she sat staring beside
them, that her laughs never fell in with the laughs of other
people. But whether she understood or no, it amused her, and go she
would.
A looker-on might have found the relations between Madame Cervin
and her boarder puzzling at first sight. In reality they
represented a compromise between considerations of finance and
considerations of morals--as the wife of the _ancien prix de
Rome_ understood these last. For the ex-modiste was by no means
without her virtues or her scruples. She had ugly manners and ideas
on many points, but she had lived a decent life at any rate since
her marriage with a man for whom she had an incomprehensible
affection, heavily as he burdened and exploited her; and though she
took all company pretty much as it came, she had a much keener
sense now than in her youth of the practical advantages of good
behaviour to a woman, and of the general reasonableness of the
_bourgeois_ point of view with regard to marriage and the
family. Her youth had been stormy; her middle age tended to a
certain conservative philosophy of common sense, and to the
development of a rough and ready conscience.
Especially was she conscious of the difficulties of virtue. When
Elise Delaunay, for instance, was being scandalously handled by the
talkers in her stuffy _salon_, Madame Cervin sat silent. Not
only had she her own reasons for being grateful to the little
artist, but with the memory of her own long-past adventures behind
her she was capable by now of a secret admiration for an
unprotected and struggling girl who had hitherto held her head
high, worked hard, and avoided lovers.
So that when the artist's wife undertook the charge of the
good-looking English girl she had done it honestly, up to her
lights, and she had fulfilled it honestly. She had in fact hardly
let Louie Grieve out of her sight since her boarder was handed over
to her.
These facts, however, represent only one side of the situation.
Madame Cervin was now respectable. She had relinquished years
before the _chasse_ for personal excitement; she had replaced
it by 'the _chasse_ of the five-franc piece.' She loved her
money passionately; but at the same time she loved power, gossip,
and small flatteries. They distracted her, these last, from the
depressing spectacle of her husband's gradual and inevitable decay.
So that her life represented a balance between these various
instincts. For some time past she had gathered about her a train of
small artists, whom she mothered and patronised, and whose wild
talk and pecuniary straits diversified the monotony of her own
childless middle age. Montjoie, whose undoubted talent imposed upon
a woman governed during all her later life by the traditions and
the admirations of the artist world, had some time before
established a hold upon her, partly dependent on a certain
magnetism in the man, partly, as Elise had suspected, upon money
relations. For the grasping little _bourgeoise_ who would
haggle for a morning over half a franc, and keep a lynx-eyed watch
over the woman who came to do the weekly cleaning, lest the
miserable creature should appropriate a crust or a cold potato, had
a weak side for her artist friends who flattered and amused her.
She would lend to them now and then out of her hoards; she had lent
to Montjoie in the winter when, after months of wild dissipation,
he was in dire straits and almost starving.
But having lent, the thought of her jeopardised money would throw
her into agonies, and she would scheme perpetually to get it back.
Like all the rest of Montjoie's creditors she was hanging on the
Maenad, which promised indeed to be the _chef--d'oeuvre_ of an
indisputable talent, could that talent only be kept to work. When
the sculptor--whose curiosity had been originally roused by certain
phrases of Barbier's in his preliminary letters to his nephew,
phrases embellished by Dubois' habitual _fanfaronnade_--had
first beheld the English girl, he had temporarily thrown up his
work and was lounging about Paris in moody despair, to Madame
Cervin's infinite disgust. But at sight of Louie his artist's zeal
rekindled. Her wild nature, her half-human eye, the traces of Greek
form in the dark features--these things fired and excited him.
'Get me that girl to sit,' he had said to Madame Cervin, 'and the
Maenad will be sold in six weeks!'
And Madame Cervin, fully determined on the one hand that Montjoie
should finish his statue and pay his debts, and on the other that
the English girl should come to no harm from a man of notorious
character, had first led up to the sittings, and then superintended
them with the utmost vigilance. She meant no harm--the brother was
a fool for his pains--but Montjoie should have his sitter. So she
sat there, dragon-like, hour after hour, knitting away with her
little fat hands, while Louie posed, and Montjoie worked; and
groups of the sculptor's friends came in and out, providing the
audience which excited the ambition of the man and the vanity of
the girl.
So the days passed. At last there came a morning when Louie came
out early from the Cervins' door, shut it behind her, and ran up
the ladder-like stairs which led to David's room.
'David!'
Her voice was pitched in no amiable key, as she violently shook the
handle of the door. But, call and shake as she might, there was no
answer, and after a while she paused, feeling a certain
bewilderment.
'It is ridiculous! He can't be out; it isn't half-past eight. It's
just his tiresomeness.'
And she made another and still more vehement attempt, all to no
purpose. Not a sound was to be heard from the room within. But as
she was again standing irresolute, she heard a footstep behind her
on the narrow stairs, and looking round saw the _concierge_,
Madame Merichat. The woman's thin and sallow face--the face of a
born pessimist--had a certain sinister flutter in it.
She held out a letter to the astonished Louie, saying at the same
time with a disagreeable smile:
'What is the use of knocking the house down when there is no one
there?'
'Where is he?' cried Louie, not understanding her, and looking at
the letter with stupefaction.
The woman put it into her hand.
'No one came back last night,' she said with a shrug. 'Neither
monsieur nor mademoiselle; and this morning I receive orders to
send letters to "Barbizon, pres Fontainebleau."'
Louie tore open her letter. It was from David, and dated Barbizon.
He would be there, it said, for nearly a month. If she could wait
with Madame Cervin till he himself could take her home, well and
good. But if that were disagreeable to her, let her communicate
with him 'chez Madame Pyat, Barbizon, Fontainebleau,' and he would
write to Dora Lomax at once, and make arrangements for her to lodge
there, till he returned to Manchester. Some one could easily be
found to look after her on the homeward journey if Madame Cervin
took her to the train. Meanwhile he enclosed the money for two
weeks' _pension_ and twenty francs for pocket money.
No other person was mentioned in the letter, and the writer offered
neither explanation nor excuses.
Louie crushed the sheet in her hand, with an exclamation, her
cheeks flaming.
'So they are amusing themselves at Fontainebleau?' inquired Madame
Merichat, who had been leaning against the wall, twisting her apron
and studying the English girl with her hard, malicious eyes. 'Oh! I
don't complain; there was a letter for me too. Monsieur has paid
all. But I regret for mademoiselle--if mademoiselle is surprised.'
She spoke to deaf ears.
Louie pushed past her, flew downstairs, and rang the Cervins' bell
violently. Madame Cervin herself opened the door, and the girl
threw herself upon her, dragged her into the _salon_, and then
said with the look and tone of a fury:
'Read that!'
She held out the crumbled letter. Madame Cervin adjusted her
spectacles with shaking hands.
'But it is in English!' she cried in despair.
Louie could not have beaten her for not understanding. But, herself
trembling with excitement, she was forced to bring all the French
words she knew to bear, and between them, somehow, piecemeal,
Madame Cervin was brought to a vague understanding of the letter.
'Gone to Fontainebleau!' she cried, subsiding on to the sofa. 'But
why, with whom?'
'Why, with that girl, that _creature--can't_ you understand?'
said Louie, pacing up and down.
'Ah, I will go and find out all about that!' said Madame Cervin,
and hastily exchanging the blue cotton apron and jacket she wore in
the mornings in the privacy of her own apartment for her walking
dress, she whisked out to make inquiries.
Louie was left behind, striding from end to end of the little
_salon_, brows knit, every feature and limb tense with excitement.
As the meaning of her discovery grew plainer to her, as she
realised what had happened, and what the bearing of it must be
on herself and her own position, the tumult within her rose and
rose. After that day in the Louvre her native shrewdness had of
course very soon informed her of David's infatuation for the little
artist. And when it became plain, not only to her, but to all Elise
Delaunay's acquaintance, there was much laughter and gossip on the
subject in the Cervins' apartment. It was soon discovered that
Louie had taken a dislike, which, perhaps, from the beginning had
been an intuitive jealousy, to Elise, and had, moreover, no
inconvenient sensitiveness on her brother's account, which need
prevent the discussion of his love affairs in her presence. So the
discussion went freely on, and Louie only regretted that, do what
she would to improve herself in French, she understood so little of
it. But the tone towards Elise among Montjoie's set, especially
from Montjoie himself, was clearly contemptuous and hostile; and
Louie instinctively enjoyed the mud which she felt sure was being
thrown.
Yet, incredible as it may seem, with all this knowledge on her
part, all this amusement at her brother's expense, all this
blackening of Elise's character, the possibility of such an event
as had actually occurred had never entered the sister's
calculations.
And the reason lay in the profound impression which one side of his
character had made upon her during the five months they had been
together. A complete stranger to the ferment of the lad's
imagination, she had been a constant and chafed spectator of his
daily life. The strong self-restraint of it had been one of the
main barriers between them. She knew that she was always jarring
upon him, and that he was always blaming her recklessness and
self-indulgence. She hated his Spartan ways--his teetotalism, the
small store he set by any personal comfort or luxury, his powers of
long-continued work, his indifference to the pleasures and
amusements of his age, so far as Manchester could provide them.
They were a reflection upon her, and many a gibe she had flung out
at him about them. But all the same these ways of his had left a
mark upon her; they had rooted a certain conception of him in her
mind. She knew perfectly well that Dora Lomax was in love with him,
and what did he care? 'Not a ha'porth!' She had never seen him turn
his head for any girl; and when he had shown himself sarcastic on
the subject of her companions, she had cast about in vain for
materials wherewith to retort.
And _now_! That he should fall in love with this French
girl--that was natural enough; it had amused and pleased her to see
him lose his head and make a fool of himself like other people; but
that he should run away with her after a fortnight, without
apparently a word of marrying her--leaving his sister in the
lurch--
'_Hypocrite_!'
She clenched her hands as she walked. What was really surging in
her was that feeling of _ownership_ with regard to David which
had played so large a part in their childhood, even when she had
teased and plagued him most. She might worry and defy him; but no
sooner did another woman appropriate him, threaten to terminate for
good that hold of his sister upon him which had been so lately
renewed, than she was flooded with jealous rage. David had escaped
her--he was hers no longer--he was Elise Delaunay's! Nothing that
she did could scandalise or make him angry any more. He had sent
her money and washed his hands of her. As to his escorting her back
to England in two or three weeks, that was just a lie! A man who
takes such a plunge does not emerge so soon or so easily. No, she
would have to go back by herself, leaving him to his intrigue. The
very calmness and secretiveness of his letter was an insult. 'Mind
your own business, little girl--go home to work--and be good!
'--that was what it seemed to say to her. She set her teeth over it
in her wild anger and pride.
At the same moment the outer door opened and Madame Cervin came
bustling back again, bursting with news and indignation.
Oh, there was no doubt at all about it, they had gone off together!
Madame Merichat had seen them come downstairs about noon the day
before. He was carrying a black bag and a couple of parcels. She
also was laden; and about halfway down the street, Madame Merichat,
watching from her window, had seen them hail a cab, get into it,
and drive away, the cab turning to the right when they reached the
Boulevard.
Madame Cervin's wrath was loud, and stimulated moreover by personal
alarm. One moment, remembering the scene in Montjoie's studio, she
cried out, like the sister, on the brother's hypocrisy; the next
she reminded her boarder that there was two weeks' _pension_
owing.
Louie smiled scornfully, drew out the notes from David's letter and
flung them on the table. Then Madame Cervin softened, and took
occasion to remember that condolence with the sister was at least
as appropriate to the situation as abuse of the brother. She
attempted some consolation, nay, even some caresses, but Louie very
soon shook her off.
'Don't talk to me! don't kiss me!' she said impatiently.
And she swept out of the room, went to her own, and locked the
door. Then she threw herself face downwards on her bed, and
remained there for some time hardly moving. But with every minute
that passed, as it seemed, the inward smart grew sharper. She had
been hardly conscious of it, at first, this smart, in her rage and
pride, but it was there.
At last she could bear it quietly no longer. She sprang up and
looked about her. There, just inside the open press which held her
wardrobe, were some soft white folds of stuff. Her eye gleamed: she
ran to the cupboard and took out the Maenad's dress. During the
last few days she had somewhat tired of the sittings--she had at
any rate been capricious and tiresome about them; and Montjoie, who
was more in earnest about this statue than he had been about any
work for years, was at his wit's end, first to control his own
temper, and next so to lure or drive his strange sitter as to
manage her without offending her.
But to-day the dress recalled David--promised distraction and
retaliation. She slipped off her tight gingham with hasty fingers,
and in a few seconds she was transformed. The light folds floated
about her as she walked impetuously up and down, studying every
movement in the glass, intoxicated by the polished clearness and
whiteness of her own neck and shoulders, the curves of her own
grace and youth. Many a night, even after a long sitting, had she
locked her door, made the gas flare, and sat absorbed before her
mirror in this guise, throwing herself into one attitude after
another, naively regretting that sculpture took so long, and that
Montjoie could not fix them all. The ecstasy of self-worship in
which the whole process issued was but the fruition of that
childish habit which had wrought with childish things for the same
end--with a couple of rushlights, an old sheet and primroses from
the brook.
Her black abundant hair was still curled about her head. Well, she
could pull it down in the studio--now for a wrap--and then no
noise! She would slip downstairs so that madame should know nothing
about it. She was tired of that woman always at her elbow. Let her
go marketing and leave other people in peace.
But before she threw on her wrap she stood still a moment, her
nostril quivering, expanding, one hand on her hip, the other
swinging her Maenad's tambourine. She knew very little of this
sculptor-man--she did not understand him; but he interested, to
some extent overawed, her. He had poured out upon her the coarsest
flatteries, yet she realised that he had not made love to her.
Perhaps Madame Cervin had been in the way. Well, now for a
surprise and a _tête-a-tête_! A dare-devil look--her mother's
look--sprang into her eyes.
She opened the door, and listened. No one in the little passage,
only a distant sound of rapid talking, which suggested to the girl
that madame was at that moment enjoying the discussion of her
boarder's affairs with monsieur, who was still in bed. She hurried
on a waterproof which covered her almost from top to toe. Then,
holding up her draperies, she stole out, and on to the public
stairs.
They were deserted, and running down them she turned to the right
at the bottom and soon found herself at the high studio door.
As she raised her hand to the bell she flushed with passion.
'I'll let him see whether I'll go home whining to Dora, while he's
amusing himself,' she said under her breath.
The door was opened to her by Montjoie himself, in his working
blouse, a cigarette in his mouth. His hands and dress were daubed
with clay, and he had the brutal look of a man in the blackest of
tempers. But no sooner did he perceive Louie Grieve's stately
figure in the passage than his expression changed.
'You--you here! and for a sitting?'
She nodded, smiling. Her look had an excitement which he perceived
at once. His eye travelled to the white drapery and the beautiful
bare arm emerging from the cloak; then he looked behind her for
Madame Cervin.
No one--except this Maenad in a waterproof. Montjoie threw away his
cigarette.
'_Entrez, entrez, mademoiselle!_' he said, bowing low to her.
'When the heavens are blackest, then they open. I was in a mind to
wring the Maenad's neck three minutes ago. Come and save your
portrait!'
He led her in through the ante-room into the large outer studio.
There stood the Maenad on her revolving stand, and there was the
raised platform for the model. A heap of clay was to one side, and
water was dripping from the statue on to the floor. The studio
light had a clear evenness; and, after the heat outside, the
coolness of the great bare room was refreshing.
They stood and looked at the statue together, Louie still in her
cloak. Montjoie pointed out to her that he was at work on the
shoulders and the left arm, and was driven mad by the difficulties
of the pose. '_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ when I heard you knock, I
felt like a murderer; I rushed out to let fly at someone. And there
was my Maenad on the mat!--all by herself, too, without that little
piece of ugliness from upstairs behind her. I little thought this
day--this cursed day--was to turn out so. I thought you were tired
of the poor sculptor--that you had deserted him for good and all.
Ah! _déesse--je vous salue_!'
He drew back from her, scanning her from head to foot, a new tone
in his voice, a new boldness in his deep-set eyes--eyes which were
already old. Louie stood instinctively shrinking, yet smiling,
understanding something of what he said, guessing more.
There was a bull-necked strength about the man, with his dark,
square, weather-beaten head, and black eyebrows, which made her
afraid, in spite of the smooth and deprecating manner in which he
generally spoke to women. But her fear of him was not unpleasant to
her. She liked him; she would have liked above all to quarrel with
him; she felt that he was her match, He stepped forward, touched
her arm, and took a tone of command.
'Quick, mademoiselle, with that cloak!'
She mounted the steps, threw off her cloak, and fell into her
attitude without an instant's hesitation. Montjoie, putting his
hands over his eyes to look at her, exclaimed under his breath.
It was perfectly true that, libertine as he was, he had so far felt
no inclination whatever to make love to the English girl. Nor was
the effect merely the result of Madame Cervin's vigilance.
Personally, for all her extraordinary beauty, his new model left
him cold. Originally he had been a man of the most complex artistic
instincts, the most delicate and varied perceptions. They and his
craftsman's skill were all foundering now in a sea of evil living.
But occasionally they were active still, and they had served him
for the instant detection of that common egotistical paste of which
Louie Grieve was made. He would have liked to chain her to his
model's platform, to make her the slave of his fevered degenerating
art. But she had no thrill for him. While he was working from her
his mind was often running on some little _grisette_ or other,
who had not half Louie Grieve's physical perfection, but who had
charm, provocation, wit--all that makes the natural heritage of the
French woman, of whatever class. At the same time it had been an
irritation and an absurdity to him that, under Madame Cervin's eye,
he had been compelled to treat her with the ceremonies due to
_une jeune fille honnete._ For he had at once detected the
girl's reckless temper. From what social stratum did she come--she
and the brother? In her, at least, there was some wild blood! When
he sounded Madame Cervin, however, she, with her incurable habit of
vain mendacity, had only put her lodger in a light which Montjoie
felt certain was a false one.
But this morning! Never had she been so superb, so inspiring! All
the vindictive passion, all the rage with David that was surging
within her, did but give the more daring and decision to her
attitude, and a wilder power to her look. Moreover, the boldness of
her unaccompanied visit to him provoked and challenged him. He
looked at her irresolutely; then with an effort he turned to his
statue and fell to work. The touch of the clay, the reaction from
past despondency prevailed; before half an hour was over he was
more enamoured of his task than he had ever yet been, and more
fiercely bent on success. Insensibly as the time passed, his tone
with her became more and more short, brusque, imperious. Once or
twice he made some rough alteration in the pose, with the
overbearing haste of a man who can hardly bear to leave the work
under his hands even for an instant. When he first assumed this
manner Louie opened her great eyes. Then it seemed to please her.
She felt no regret whatever for the smooth voice; the more
dictatorial he became the better she liked it, and the more
submissive she was.
This went on for about a couple of hours--an orgie of work on his
side, of excited persistence on hers. Her rival in the clay grew in
life and daring under her eyes, rousing in her, whenever she was
allowed to rest a minute and look, a new intoxication with herself.
They hardly talked. He was too much absorbed in what he was doing;
and she also was either bent upon her task, or choked by wild gusts
of jealous and revengeful thought. Every now and then as she stood
there, in her attitude of eager listening, the wall of the studio
would fade before her eyes, and she would see nothing but a
torturing vision of David at Fontainebleau, wrapt up in 'that
creature,' and only remembering his sister to rejoice that he had
shaken her off. _Ah_! How could she sufficiently avenge
herself! how could she throw all his canting counsels to the winds
with most emphasis and effect!
At last a curious thing happened. Was it mere nervous reaction
after such a strain of will and passion, or was it the sudden
emergence of something in the sister which was also common to
the brother--a certain tragic susceptibility, the capacity for
a wild melancholy? For, in an instant, while she was thinking
vaguely of Madame Cervin and her money affairs, _despair_ seized
her--shuddering, measureless despair--rushing in upon her, and
sweeping away everything else before it. She tottered under it,
fighting down the clutch of it as long as she could. It had no
words, it was like a physical agony. All that was clear to her for
one lurid moment was that she would like to kill herself.
The studio swam before her, and she dropped into the chair behind
her.
Montjoie gave a protesting cry.
'Twenty minutes more!--_Courage_!'
Then, as she made no answer, he went up to her and put a violent
hand on her shoulder--beside himself.
'You _shall_ not be tired, I tell you. Look up! look at me!'
Under the stimulus of his master's tone she slowly recovered
herself--her great black eyes lifted. He gazed into them steadily;
his voice sank.
'You belong to me,' he said with breathless rapidity. 'Do you
understand? What is the matter with you? What are those tears?'
A cry of nature broke from her.
'My brother has left me--with that girl!'
She breathed out the words into the ears of the man stooping
towards her. His great brow lifted--he gave a little laugh. Then
eagerly, triumphantly, he seized her again by the arms. '_A la
bonne heure_! Then it is plainer still. You belong to me and I
to you. In that statue we live and die together. Another hour, and
it will be a masterpiece. Come! one more!'
She drank in his tone of mad excitement as though it were wine, and
it revived her. The strange grip upon her heart relaxed; the
nightmare was dashed aside. Her colour came back, and, pushing him
proudly away from her, she resumed her pose without a word.