IF Mahomet, on arriving at the foot of the mountain, had met with a
frank repulse from the object of his condescension--say, an earthquake
or a stream of molten lava--it would have been permissible on the part
of the prophet to feel a little hurt. So that Jean may be excused for
suffering the same kind of annoyance when the Banque de Paris et des
Pays-Bas shut their doors in his face.
It had been an effort for Jean to go back to them at all, an effort
that had at once attacked his independence and his pride, and having
made this sacrifice, he was not at all prepared to find that it
had been made in vain. His old friends, the fellow clerks, winked
sympathetically, and one of them even invited him to return for
lunch at noon. Jean refused his offer somewhat magnificently, little
dreaming that in a very short time he would look at a proffered meal
as one of the more important gifts of Heaven. He turned away from the
gloomy portals of his former prison-house and said to himself that he
was still free; as indeed he was, quite free, with Paris before him,
twenty francs in his pocket, and two extremely good suits of unpaid-for
clothes.
The weeks that followed seemed an incredible time to Jean to look back
upon--and yet, while they were passing it was every other time that
seemed incredible. They began quite easily with that useful lady known
in Paris as “_ma Tante_.” “_Ma Tante_” willingly accepted Jean’s gold
watch and chain, stooped to his tie-pin and few small articles of
jewellery, and by and by absorbed, with an increasingly small return,
all that he did not wear of his wardrobe. Jean belonged to that class
of society which knows what it is to do without some of its wants, but
to whom it is wholly inconceivable that it should ever be asked to do
without them all.
Jean informed Margot quite comfortably that a little went a long way,
but he took for granted that he should have a little. A line, he felt,
must be drawn somewhere, a D’Ucelles could hardly starve; and he was
very cheerful and quite funny about it to Margot. Margot, however, took
matters very seriously; she didn’t seem to think that lines are drawn
anywhere, or that there was anything essentially amusing in a D’Ucelles
without an overcoat.
She merely bought Jean a winter overcoat for a Christmas present. Jean
almost quarrelled with her on the subject; but Margot cried, and said
he couldn’t really be her friend unless he took it; so eventually they
went to early Mass together, and Jean wore the overcoat.
Then Jean got a job as guide to a large and ignorant English family,
who took an absorbing interest in the relics of Napoleon. While they
remained in Paris nothing further went to _ma Tante_ and Jean paid his
board regularly.
Unfortunately even Napoleon can be exhausted in time, and having
exhausted him, the English family returned reluctantly to Birmingham,
and Jean found himself explaining to Margot that he was too busy to
come in for meals; in the future he would take them out. Margot knew
perfectly well what that meant, and she arranged a sly system of
_goûters_ and early cups of coffee, which he found it almost impossible
to evade.
Liane had kept her word to Margot; she had used the whole power of a
popular and unscrupulous woman to destroy every chance she had made for
Jean. None of her friends would look at the little musician any more.
As for Maurice Golaud, he stated frankly that if he saw the fellow
again it would come to swords, and as everyone knew how shockingly
badly Maurice fenced, this was felt to prove how atrociously Liane’s
little musician must have behaved. Still, of course, everyone wished
that he would meet Golaud.
It occurred to Margot once to mention very timidly the fine uncle of
the motor and the fur overcoat, as a possible source of supply, but
when Jean said that he would rather settle the question with the Seine
she dropped the subject.
“After all,” Jean would sometimes say carelessly, “look what a time it
gives me for your voice; it would be almost a pity, _chérie_, to take
up anything else just now!”
It was true Margot did wonders with her new singing master; he put his
whole soul into Margot’s voice, he polished it like a careful jeweller
polishes his favourite jewel.
He thought and planned for it as he wandered to and fro, looking
for work, and found whatever warm corners there are to be found for
shabby vagrants in Paris. The Parc Monceaux was peculiarly given up to
Margot’s middle notes; he wanted them to be the best of all.
Every evening he took her to the theatre and waited for her to come
out; fortunately Margot never knew that one of the things Jean did
while he was waiting was to find cabs for that class of society who
do not find things easily for themselves. On one occasion Jean was so
fortunate as to find his Uncle Romain a vehicle, for which service that
unconscious gentleman rewarded him with a franc, the only assistance at
this time that Jean received from his relatives.
Romain was too busy protecting the pink silk petticoats of the lady
who was to share his cab to notice his nephew’s face. Jean gave a
little laugh as he regarded his franc under the nearest lamppost.
“Funny thing,” remarked Romain to his companion, “the man I tipped just
now laughed like my brother Alphonse--one had not supposed that _ces
gens-là_ could resemble one’s family!”
“You probably gave him far too much,” said the lady, with a deep sigh.
“You are generous to everyone but me,” and the conversation followed
its accustomed channels.
It was a wet night, and even Margot’s overcoat did not succeed in
keeping any warmth in Jean, and he was guilty of deliberately wondering
if it would be any colder at the bottom of the Seine. It was strange
how much he had felt his little meeting with his uncle.
He was not altogether taken by surprise next morning, when he found
himself after dressing (a process which he had noticed seemed to
lengthen itself out inordinately after a sleepless night) stretched
upon the floor, with Margot bending over him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked rather crossly. “What are you making such
a fuss about, Margot?” He felt an indisposition to get up; he was very
well where he was.
“I heard you fall; you must have fainted, Jean! I knew you would! Oh, I
knew you would!”
“Well, never mind!” said Jean. “I suppose I must get up.” He did not
know how much Margot helped him, but he was not sorry to find himself
lying on his bed again and staring at the ceiling.
“It’s only this bad cold,” he said, half to himself and half to Margot.
“People always have colds in the early spring. It’s a bore it’s
raining.”
“Your hands are burning hot, Jean; you’ll stay in and keep quite quiet
to-day, won’t you?” Margot pleaded.
Jean made a face, but he agreed that he would stay in.
Margot immediately called in a doctor. He was as reassuring as doctors
usually are. Jean would need very careful nursing, he said; there was
a spot on his left lung, and his heart was terribly over-strained and
weak. Still, he had youth on his side. Margot mustn’t be alarmed;
the first thing was to bring down the temperature and to keep up his
strength.
Margot despatched Madame Selba to her father’s friends, broke her
theatre engagements and threw herself body and soul into the struggle
with the thermometer. She would get the temperature down! Margot knew
no more than Jean how many days and weeks passed before that blessed
moment when the thermometer definitely dropped. She knew that she told
the doctor that Jean was to have everything that money could buy, and
that to buy the things the doctor ordered she spent the last of her
savings. Her days passed making poultices, cooking, pawning furniture
round the corner, thinking of all that Jean could possibly want, and
seeing that he had it. When he was quiet she prayed. She had a theory
that at night she slept.
There was only one thing that Jean wanted that Margot could not supply;
and he wanted that incessantly, and cried for it as a dying man cries
for water.
“Liane! Liane!” Jean moaned over and over again, and Margot tried to
get Liane for Jean. She wrote to her--and when she got back the cruel
answer: “Madame de Brances knows no such person as Monsieur Jean
D’Ucelles and regrets that she cannot oblige Mademoiselle Selba,”
Margot cried.
Sometimes he would think Margot was Liane, and then the look came into
his eyes which Margot had never seen there for herself, and Margot
would answer it with a tenderness that surely Liane had never felt for
Jean or for anyone else. And for the moment Jean would be satisfied,
only an hour later to rend her heart anew with the same low, impatient
murmur, “Liane! Liane!”
“Yes,” said the doctor with his finger on Jean’s pulse and his eye on
the clock, “he’ll pull through now, I think, but you’ll have to feed
him up, you know; he’s had a close shave, and he is desperately weak.”
The doctor was not supposed to be a sympathetic man, he had very little
time for it, and experience had buried his heart under the dust of
innumerable human needs; yet he paused for a moment as he saw the look
in Margot’s eyes; it was the Magnificat come to life again, and it
touched the doctor.
“I should suggest your feeding up yourself, you know,” he said kindly.
“That young fellow owes his life to you; his kind of case depends
almost entirely on good nursing.”
The look in Margot’s eyes deepened, her lips trembled so that she could
not speak; the doctor shook hands with her and hurried away.
“Margot,” said a weak voice from the bed. “Margot, I’m very hungry.”
Margot gave a little sob of delight. He was to have chicken to-day. Her
face clouded over a little when she remembered the price of chicken.
Never mind, there was still the best bedstead; she had not meant to
pawn that if she could help it; but she could not help it. So she
thanked God, and ran to get Jean’s breakfast.