THE FAIRY GODMOTHER.
They were mounting the steep incline of the Route de Poissy before
Andrew replied. He had been staring fixedly ahead, absorbed apparently
in the business of guiding the automobile around the sharp turns of the
side streets, before they struck the wide main road. It was almost as if
he had not heard the remark at all; but Mrs. Carnby knew better. And she
was one of the discerning persons who never build els on telling
observations. Despite the tension with which the following pause was
instinct, it was Andrew, not she, who first spoke.
"That was a very singular speech, Mrs. Carnby."
"_On fait ce qu'on peut_," said Mrs. Carnby. "You're a very singular
young man, Mr. Vane."
"I have my failings, of course," said Andrew, a trifle coolly. "I'm only
human, you know. We're all of us that."
"Unfortunately, you're _not_ 'only human' my dear young friend; you're
masculine as well. And we're not all of us _that_, thank Heaven!"
"Aren't we talking a little blindly?" suggested Andrew.
"Yes, possibly," agreed his companion, "but some things aren't easy to
say. Do you remember that when one of the old prophets undertook to haul
a monarch over the coals for his misdeeds, he would always begin with a
parable? I think, in this instance, I shall follow the established
precedent."
"I was afraid you were going to begin by saying you were old enough to
be my mother," retorted Andrew, with a faint smile.
"I always skip unimportant details," said Mrs. Carnby. She observed with
satisfaction that, without increasing the speed at the top of the
incline, Andrew had turned from the direct route to St. Germain into one
of the forest by-roads. Evidently he was in no haste to curtail the
conversation.
"I'm waiting," he observed presently.
"Where I used to spend my summers, on the South Shore," said Mrs.
Carnby, with her eyes on the interlacing foliage overhead, "it was the
custom of the natives to make collections of marine trophies from the
beach and the rock-pools, and work upon them sundry transformations,
with an aim to alleged artistic effectiveness. They glued the smaller
shells and coloured pebbles on boxes and mirror-frames; and painted
landscapes on the pearl finish of the larger mussels; and tied
baby-ribbon around the sea-urchin shells; and gilded the dried starfish.
You know what I mean--the kind of thing that comes under the head of 'A
Present from North Scituate' or 'Souvenir of Nantasket Beach.' But you
may, perhaps, have remarked the appearance of one and all of these
objects while they were as yet where nature was pleased to put them--on
the sand, that is, or in the tidal pools. Do you remember the sheen of
the pebbles, the soft pinks and grays of the starfish? Is there anything
comparable to these, in the artistic combination of all the gilt paint
and baby-ribbon in the world? It seems to suggest, as a possibility,
that nature knows best; and that in lacking the simple touch of
sea-water they lack the one thing which ever made them beautiful at all.
It opens up a whole tragedy in the phrase 'out of one's element.' That's
my parable."
"You'll remember," said Andrew, falling in with her whim, "that the
transgressing monarch rarely understood what the prophet was driving at
in his parable. I, too, must follow precedent."
"Shall I speak plainly?" asked Mrs. Carnby, laying her hand for an
instant on his arm.
"Very, please. There seems to be something rather serious back of all
this."
"_Eh bien!_ You're a young man, Andrew Vane, to whom fate has been
uncommonly civil. Your family is rather exceptionally good, on--er--on
both sides. Your means are, or will be, some day, almost uncomfortably
ample. You're more than passably good-looking, and you're surprisingly
clever. Your health is magnificent, and, finally, nature chose America
as your environment."
"A mixed blessing, that last!"
"Five words, with Thomas Radwalader in every letter!" said Mrs. Carnby.
"I should think you'd find the _role_ of phonograph rather
unsatisfying."
"I thought you liked him," said Andrew, flushing.
"And I like the obelisk!" nodded Mrs. Carnby, "but that doesn't
necessarily imply that I should like half a hundred tin facsimiles set
up in its immediate vicinity, and making the Place de la Concorde look
like a colossal asparagus-bed! There are only three ways in which a man
can be distinguished, nowadays. He must be unimaginably rich,
unspeakably immoral, or unquestionably original. You're not the first,
as yet, and you've just proved that you're not the last."
"I'm not the second, I hope?"
Mrs. Carnby pursed her lips, and wrinkled her forehead.
"Perhaps not _unspeakably_ immoral," she said, "but immoral--yes, I
think you're that. Of course, there are many different conceptions of
immorality, and mine may be unique. Let us come back to my parable. What
I mean is this. You were born with every natural good fortune, and your
breeding and education secure to you every social advantage which one
could possibly desire. You've been placed, like the sea-urchins or the
starfish, in a situation preeminently befitting you. You're American in
every detail of your sane, clean make-up, my friend, and you've been
given America, the sanest, cleanest country on God's globe, in which to
develop and achieve. Might one ask what you're doing over here? Getting
a finish?--that's what it's called, isn't it? Allowing yourself, that is
to say, to be tied up with the baby-ribbon and decorated with the gilt
paint of Parisian frivolity! And when you go back--if you ever do--to
live in America, what will you be? 'A Souvenir of Paris,' my good sir,
'A Present from the Invalides,' as undeniably as if somebody had
lettered the words on your forehead in ornamental script, and pasted a
photograph of Napoleon's tomb on your shirt-bosom. That's what _I_ call
immoral. I like you better as an American; I like you better with the
sheen of the salt water on you; I like you better in your element, Mr.
Andrew Vane!"
"I never heard anything better in the way of a sermon," said Andrew,
groping for an answer.
"It's too true to be good," retorted Mrs. Carnby. "Do you believe any of
it?"
"Some, perhaps--not all. And the whole attack is a litle abrupt. What
_have_ I been doing?"
"Nothing! You've hit upon precisely the objection. '_Tekel!_--thou art
weighed in the balances and art found wanting!' Margery Palffy is like
my own daughter to me, Mr. Vane. She calls me her fairy godmother, you
know. Are you looking forward to introducing her to Mirabelle
Tremonceau?"
Mrs. Carnby was once more contemplating the forest foliage overhead. For
the second time in fifteen minutes, her instinct for distinguishing the
line which separates the boldly effective from the futilely impertinent
was standing her in good stead. As a matter of fact, Andrew had _not_
been weighed in the balances--but he was just about to be!
The forest was all alive with the lisp of leaves, and the shifting
dapple of sunlight and shadow, and, even as she waited, Mrs. Carnby
smiled quietly to herself, in pure enjoyment of the great Gothic arches
of green, that seemed to thrill and shiver with delight under the warm
sunlight and the fresh west wind. The forest, like the sea, has in its
every mood a magnificent dignity of its own--a superb indifference to
the transitory doings of man, which dwarfs human affairs to an aspect of
utter triviality. The world which Mrs. Carnby knew, and toward which her
attitude was alternately one of keen appreciation and of good-natured
contempt--the world of fashion and frivolity and easy cynicism, seemed,
as she contrasted it with this vast serenity, to become incomparably
little. The suggestion of endurance and repose with which these shadowy
reaches, opening to right and left, were eloquent, lent a curious
contemptible tawdriness to the little comedy, so conceivably potential
tragedy, in which she and the man beside her were playing each a part.
How little difference it made, after all, if men were fools or
blackguards, and women wantons or martyrs! For a moment she was sorry
she had spoken. She felt that here and now she could not quarrel, or
even dispute, with Andrew over what he chose to do. The intrusion of
intrigue and dissipation into these forest fastnesses was hideously
incongruous.
"There's cruelty in what you have said, but I can see that it's not
wanton cruelty, and that there's kindness as well."
Andrew was speaking slowly, thoughtfully; almost, thought Mrs. Carnby to
herself, as if he, too, had been touched by the softening sympathy of
the forest. But she shook off the mood which had been stealing over her,
as being wholly inadequate to the demand upon her fund of resource. What
was needed, far from being the influence of elemental nature, was the
keenest, if most worldly, diplomacy of which she was mistress. She
straightened herself, and began to put on her gloves, working the
fingers with the patient care of one who understood that, with a glove
above all things, it is _le premier pas qui coute_. Inwardly she was
keying taut the strings of her self-possession. She realized that
emotion would be as fatal to her purpose as would sheer frivolity.
"Under your words," continued Andrew, "I can see that there must lie a
more or less intimate knowledge of many things which we have never
mentioned--many things which I did not suppose you would ever--"
"Find out? You really _are_ young, aren't you? Why, my dear Mr. Vane,
any given woman of average intelligence can find out whatever she
chooses about any given man, provided always she hasn't the fatal
handicap of being in love with him. Not that I've been spying upon you,
understand. It's hardly a matter of vital concern to me if you go
completely to the dogs, but Margery would probably give her heart's
blood to hold you back. Therefore, people tell _me_ all the facts, and
keep _her_ in total ignorance. That's the way of the world. Why, my good
sir, I could probably tell you at this moment how you've spent fifty per
cent. of your time for the past week, and, between them, the other women
back there at the villa could account for another quarter. With gossip
all things are possible."
"I didn't think I was of sufficient importance to call for such strict
surveillance," said Andrew.
"You're not! That's precisely what you must learn about the American
Colony. It's what things are done, not who does them, that makes
four-fifths of the gabble. A man's a man, and a woman's a woman, and an
intrigue's an intrigue. You could tag them exhibits A, B, and C, and the
Colony would find almost as much to talk about as if you gave the full
names. What's not known is made up. It's necessary to find tea-table
topics, and necessity is the mother of invention. You can have no idea,
unless you're in the thick of the gossip, how absorbing any one person's
affairs can be, when there's nothing better to talk about."
She admitted frankly to herself that she was talking to gain time,
giving Andrew a chance to find his line of reply. It was going to be
important, that reply, at least for Margery Palffy. Mrs. Carnby would
undoubtedly have been at a loss to give a word-for-word rendition of the
duties of a sponsor in baptism, either fairy or otherwise, according to
the Book of Common Prayer. She recollected vaguely certain references to
the pomps and vanities of the world, and realized, with a little inward
smile, that she was warring more earnestly against these--and the
rest--in her adopted goddaughter's behalf than ever she had considered
it necessary to do in her own.
"As it happens," she continued, "there's been no one else to claim the
centre of the stage for the past few weeks, and therefore the lime-light
has been turned upon you, as being the latest novelty--and a highly
enterprising one at that! I think it manifestly impossible that you
could have performed all the exploits credited to you, even had you
given all your time to the task, with no allowance for eating and
sleeping. But I think, too, that you would be surprised to find how
extremely realistic gossip can be at times, and how much that you think
is known only to yourself or to a few is, in fact, the talk of half the
Colony. You remember dear old Sir Peter Teazle? I seem always to be
quoting him. He knew such an infinite deal, and guessed so much more. 'I
leave my character behind me,' he said, in parting from the
scandal-mongers. Now, that's _so_ true of Paris--only more. My dear
Andrew Vane, not only do you leave your character at the tea-table you
are quitting, but you'll meet it, more or less torn to shreds, at that
to which you are going: and, if you were at the pains, you might find
it, in a like state of demoralization, at a dozen others in the same
_arrondissement_! I wish I could make you understand that. It seems to
me to be so important to the conduct of life to know not only how we
stand, but in what manner we fall."
"As yet the charge against me seems to be a trifle indefinite,"
suggested Andrew.
"On the contrary," retorted Mrs. Carnby, "I mentioned the young person's
name quite distinctly--the one, you know, whom you saw by chance at the
Pavillon Henri Quatre, and whom you were going back to meet."
"I can't pretend to misunderstand you," began Andrew, "but of course any
reflection upon Mademoiselle Tremonceau--"
"Now, my dear man, _pray_ don't be comic!" burst in Mrs. Carnby. "That
sort of thing is as grotesque in these days as the doctrine of original
sin. And of all places in the world--Paris! Oh no! A spade's a spade
here, believe me, and when one is _demi-mondaine_, like Mirabelle
Tremonceau, one is perfectly understood. _She_ knows, and _you_ know,
and _I_ know. Don't let us argue over the indisputable."
"I _didn't_ know, at first," said Andrew gravely, "and, if I have
guessed recently, you must not take that to mean that our relations have
changed in the least degree. There's nothing between Mademoiselle
Tremonceau and myself that I could not mention, Mrs. Carnby--absolutely
nothing. But her friend I've been, and her friend I am. I'm not prepared
to hear her branded as a 'moral leper' or something of the sort. How
hard you are, you good women!"
"I suppose," said Mrs. Carnby resignedly, "that when one adds two and
two, the result is bound to be four. It isn't ever five or thirty-seven,
by any chance, is it, just by way of variety? It's provokingly
inevitable; but not more so than what a man will say under certain
circumstances. Do I really seem to you that kind of person? Do you
really imagine that I'm objecting to your _penchant_ for the little
Tremonceau, on the ground that her ideas of moral deportment are not all
that might be desired? I hadn't thought that I gave the impression of
being so desperately archaic."
"But you were about to warn me--"
"Merely to keep that self-same eccentricity of deportment well in mind,
my friend. _Chacun dans sa niche_, Mr. Vane--the little Tremonceau and
you, as well as the rest of us. And hers is not the Palais de Glace
before four o'clock, nor yet a _matinee classique_ at the Francais; and
yours is not her victoria in the Bois. Don't be crude. A certain amount
of privacy in the conduct of such affairs is as troublesome as a
pocket-handkerchief or a bathing-suit--but quite as essential. _Ne vous
affichez pas._ It only shows you to be an amateur--in the American
sense--and to be amateurish, nowadays, is to be grotesque. And, of
course, it doesn't make any difference how innocent your relations may
be. So long as Mirabelle Tremonceau is a figure in the calculation,
there's no reason why people should not believe anything they choose."
"You mentioned Miss Palffy," ventured Andrew. "Have you heard that
she--that I--"
"Indirectly. That, frankly, is why I have taken the liberty of meddling
in your affairs. It really isn't quite fair on the girl to bungle
things. So long as you're going to work to gallicize yourself, pray make
a thorough job of it. Don't copy the Frenchman's license, and neglect to
imitate his discretion. I abhor half-made methods."
"But Miss Palffy--"
"Is heels over head in love with you, Mr. Vane. That much I know. I
don't ask about _your_ feelings. As a matter of fact, they haven't much
bearing on the main issue, which is that I don't mean to have her
disappointed in her estimate of you, for want of a friendly warning from
an old woman who has seen many a young man spoil his life just because
he took serious things too lightly and trivial ones too seriously."
"I wonder how much of this is serious advice, Mrs. Carnby," said Andrew
suddenly, and with a perceptible ring of irritation in his voice, "and
how much of it banter, with more than a suggestion of contempt.
Apparently you're urging me to a change of course; actually, only to a
change of method. I know you can't approve of my friendship for
Mademoiselle Tremonceau, and yet you're not asking me to give it up, but
only to put it out of sight and hearing. Isn't that--excuse me--but
isn't it rather like trafficking with one's ideas of right and wrong? If
one's doing no harm, why not go on? If one's to blame, why not pull up
short?"
"Oh, nobody pulls up short, in these days," said Mrs. Carnby, "except
habitual drunkards who have been pronounced incurable. One mustn't ask
too much of people. It's like the servants: the old-fashioned kind used
to brush the dust into a dust-pan, wrap it up in newspapers, and see
that the ash-man carried it off; now they sweep it under the beds and
sofas, where it can't be seen. One mustn't complain of knowing it's
there, so long as it isn't actually in evidence. _Autre temps autres
moeurs._ It's a long cry from Hester Prynne to Mirabelle Tremonceau.
Besides, pulling up short all by oneself is one thing, and pulling a
woman up short into the bargain is quite another. She might object, the
little Tremonceau."
"She hasn't the shadow of a claim on me."
"Of course not," said Mrs. Carnby, wrinkling her eyes amusedly at the
corners, "of course not." Inwardly she added, "Two and two make four!"
"Whereas Margery--"
"Whereas Margery," echoed Mrs. Carnby, "will play a part which
convention has made absolutely iron-clad. She will continue to love, as
she loves now, an ideal man, endowed with an almost embarrassing
multiplicity of imaginary virtues; and, incidentally, will pray daily
that she may become worthy of him. Then, when he has sown his wild oats,
perhaps he'll come to her, at his own good pleasure, and lay at her feet
what he has achieved--a pleasant smattering of things generally talked
about, a comprehensive intimacy with things generally _not_ talked
about, a tobacco heart, and a set of nerves which make him unfit for
publication three days in the week. With these somewhat insufficient
materials she will proceed to build up something indefinitely resembling
her original ideal. And they will be married. And they will live--hem!
_haply_--ever afterwards!"
Andrew swung the automobile round a sharp corner with a vicious jerk,
and they emerged from the shelter of the wood-road, and found themselves
again upon the glaring white of the Route de Poissy. St. Germain was not
far distant. They could see the _octroi_ and the first houses through
the trees. But it was toward Poissy that Andrew turned.
"Shall we go back?" he asked.
"If you think the little Tremonceau won't be angry at the delay,"
answered Mrs. Carnby pleasantly.
"I'm fond of her," said Andrew abruptly, "very."
"I'm glad of that," said Mrs. Carnby, almost with enthusiasm. "It
excuses a great deal. I confess I was afraid that you were trying to be
big--to 'show off,' as the children say. After all, she's the most
beautiful _cocotte_ in Paris, and the most sought after. One couldn't
have blamed you for being flattered. But if you're really fond of her,
one can't very well do anything except be glad that it's impossible you
should always be so."
"Why impossible?" demanded Andrew. "I'm bound to confess that it seems
to me to be quite within the range of likelihood that I should always be
fond of her. Why impossible?"
"It's hard to explain--that," said Mrs. Carnby, "but those women don't
wear. They seem to be only plated with fascination, and in time the
plating wears off, and you come back to the kind with the Hall-mark. I'm
perfectly at ease about that. I've known too many cases of its
happening. Oh, I know how it all is now! The polish is absolutely
dazzling, and you can't imagine that it will ever be different. That's a
symptom of the earliest stages, but the disease will run its regular
course."
"You rather touch one on the quick, Mrs. Carnby. I think perhaps neither
of us realizes what an extremely unusual conversation this has been."
"I shouldn't call it commonplace," said Mrs. Carnby, "and I think you've
stood it beautifully. But I want to ask you one more question. _Do_ you
love Margery?"
"With all my heart and soul and strength, Mrs. Carnby!"
"Then, my dear young friend, it's time to think what you're about.
There's only one thing for you to do. The path lies open before you--and
I think you'll have the courage and the good sense, to say nothing of
the common decency, to follow it!"