Philibert had given himself a month in which to win Jane’s hand, and it
took him five. I don’t know why I find any comfort in this fact, but
I do. I am glad she kept him waiting. I am glad the two conspirators
were uncomfortable, even for so short a time, and there is no doubt
that they were uncomfortable. Jane paid no attention to her mother’s
funny little friend, who wore corsets and high heels and used scent.
She sized him up in a long grave glance that covered him from tip to
toe and then seemed to forget about him. The truth was that she was
absorbed in her mother. To her great delight she had found in that
quarter an unexpected cordiality. It almost seemed as if her mother had
decided to like her. She had never been half so nice.
And she fell in love with Paris.
Wonderful enchantress city, queen woman of cities! It had assumed
to greet her its most charming and gentle aspect. She arrived one
evening in June. She held her breath as she drove across the Place de
la Concorde, where the light was silver and blue, and up the Champs
Elysées towards the Arc de Triomphe that stood out against the sunset
glow like a great and lovely gate into Heaven. She thought, so she told
me afterwards, of the magic city under the sea in the poem by Edgar
Allen Poe. The following morning she was up with the milkman and had
slipped out of the house alone before any one was awake, and had walked
from the Avenue du Bois down to the Tuileries Gardens and back again
as the newsvenders were taking down the shutters of their kiosks. They
smiled at her and nodded. A little morning breeze laughed in the trees.
A woman came by wheeling a cart full of flowers. She filled her arms
and arrived at her mother’s doorway breathless with pleasure. Mrs.
Carpenter had the sense not to scold her, but she was obliged during
the days that followed to engage a special duenna who could walk far
enough and fast enough to keep up with her daughter. It appeared that
Jane had read a good deal of French history. She visited churches,
monuments and museums and made excursions to Versailles, la Malmaison,
Fontainebleau. The Rue de la Paix amused her, she liked the clothes
her mother bought her; but after a long morning at the dressmaker’s,
standing to let little kneeling women drape silks on her young body,
she would gulp down her lunch and start out again to explore, on foot,
refusing to take the motor.
One day she turned into this little street. I saw her. I thought at
first that she was a Russian, some young Cossack princess perhaps. Her
dog, a Great Dane, walked beside her, his head close to her splendidly
moving limbs. I had never seen any one walk like that. She came on, her
head up, her arms down along her sides, and the wind, or was it the
force of her own swift movement, made her garments flow back from her.
It was the _Victoire de Samothrace_ walking through the sunlit streets
of Paris. I watched her approach with a strange excitement. Behind
her trotted her valiant duenna, a hurrying little woman in black.
And as the radiant white figure came nearer I saw that she was very
young, scarcely more than a great glorious child, and her strange ugly
face under her close white hat shaped like a helmet seemed to me, all
glowing though it was with health, to be half asleep. When she was gone
I turned back to my rooms and sat with my head in my hands thinking of
how curious it was, the regal carriage of that fine free controlled
body, and that face that did not know itself. I felt oppressed and
exhilarated and somehow full of pity. It was dangerous to be like that,
so young, so brave, so unknowing. Yes, an ugly face, but her walk was
the most beautiful I had ever seen.
Through July Philibert made no progress with his suit. It was a
puzzling problem for him and for Izzy. Mrs. Carpenter found herself the
all too successful rival of the man she had selected for her daughter.
Jane’s attitude was simple enough. She enjoyed everything immensely
and felt that this was just what she had hoped to find. Her wonderful
mother who had appeared at one time not to care for her was now giving
her daily proofs of affection. And so she was happy. Mrs. Carpenter
must have been nonplussed. The connection was obvious, for the more
contented Jane was the less sign did she make of wanting anything else.
She was delighted at being with her mother: how could it occur to her
to want to get married?
And Philibert’s artfulness with women was of no use to him here. His
professional tricks were wasted. He could only hold her attention by
telling her about the things she looked at; histories, anecdotes,
dissertations on art and architecture she would listen to with profound
interest. She kept him for hours in the galleries of the Louvre
discoursing on the great masters, and occasionally she would say with
a sigh while he mopped his exhausted head--“How much you know.” It was
the only tribute he got from her.
For August they went to Trouville. Monsieur Cornuché had not yet
invented Deauville. The trip was very nearly Philibert’s undoing.
He was very hard put to it, was our Philibert, during that month of
August. And how he must have hated it. Nothing but sheer grit kept him
going, nothing less than the most enormous prize would have induced him
to put up with so much misery.
She rode, she swam, she played tennis, she hired a yacht and sailed
it. He was most of the time quite literally out of breath with running
after tennis balls, carrying golf clubs, galloping down the sands
after her vanishing figure; and to add to his discomfiture some of his
friends, those whom he could not be seen with under the circumstances,
saw him all too often and laughed behind the screen of the little red
and white bathing tents. I enjoy in retrospect his discomfiture. Such
as it was it constituted for Jane an unconscious revenge. For a month
she kept her mother and Philibert on pins and needles, and I believe
that if her mother had not been constantly at hand to dress him up
again and again in all the trappings of romance, that Jane would have
found him finally and irretrievably ridiculous, just a poor exasperated
absurd little man who was no good at games and got blue with cold in
the water. For of course what saved Philibert in the end was Jane’s
desire to please her mother.
Mrs. Carpenter was obliged to take a definite line. It had not been her
intention to do so, but she found that she must if the plan were to
come off at all. I don’t truly believe the woman was more double-faced
than most. She would if one hauled her out of the grave to make her
defence, put up, I suppose, a respectable argument. She would say that
she had done what thousands of mothers do every day, and what all
of them should do. She had picked out a husband whom she considered
a brilliant match for her daughter and had married her to him. The
only reason that obliged her to resort to subterfuge, and hers, she
would say, was of the vaguest and slightest, was the girl’s complete
financial independence. Her own extraordinary husband had given her
no hold over her daughter, but had put everything into the hands of
a trio of bumptious bigoted American citizens. What she really was
doing when she had made her plans for Jane and then got her to fulfil
them without knowing it, was not bamboozling the child, but getting
the best of those horrid trustees. If it had not been for them and the
grotesque will they kept waving in her face, she would have said to
Jane simply, “Here, my darling, is the man I have chosen for you. You
will be married in a month’s time.” But she couldn’t do that. She was
forced to make her daughter take him of her own free choice, and so she
would go on, briskly explaining that she had done it all for the best.
Was it not a creditable desire on her part to see her child the leader
of French society? And had not Jane subsequently become even more
than that? Was there a town in America that did not read with envy the
newspaper accounts of her triumphs? Did it not all come out quite as
she had foreseen? If the two were not happy what did that prove? Just
nothing at all beyond the tiresome truism that marriages always ended
in making people hate each other.
Mrs. Carpenter had adopted a jocular easy manner with her daughter on
bringing the girl to Europe that seemed to express her happy sense of
their being comrades and equals. The rôle she assumed was that of an
elder sister who was ready to give any amount of good-natured advice
when asked for, but would in no way interfere with the freedom of the
fortunate youngster. This was Izzy’s way of being careful and of making
it impossible for Jane ever to turn round and say--“It was my mother
who urged me to do it.” Fortunately for her peace of mind Jane hid
nothing from her and was constantly asking for guidance.
It was Mrs. Carpenter’s habit to have her morning coffee in bed at
nine o’clock after an hour’s massage, and to let Jane come and talk to
her while she sipped it and ran through her letters. The girl would
come in from an early ride, plunge into a cold bath, and all aglow and
smelling of soap and youth would run to her mother’s wonderful scented
bedroom where, draped in her dressing-gown, she would stretch herself
out on a chaise-longue; and Izzy, under her lace coverlet, enjoying
the sensation of her willowy figure rubbed down once more to smooth
well-being, would encourage Jane to talk. It was her hour for getting
together the data that she would hand on later in the day to Philibert.
Jane would say--“Our little Marquis was riding this morning. He joined
me. His eyes looked puffy. They had funny little pouches under them.”
And Mrs. Carpenter, who, with a languid finger turning the page of a
letter, had pricked up her ears, would sigh inwardly and say aloud--
“The poor man must be tired. He has so many demands on him.” And then
secretly irritated but maintaining a bland countenance, she would
listen to the girl telling how she had given her would-be suitor a
lesson in riding.
“You know, Mummy, he was really hurting that horse’s mouth dreadfully,
and he didn’t seem to be sorry when I showed him. Do you think he is
just a tiny bit cruel?”
And again Izzy would reply mildly, in defense of the absent one--“My
darling, I know him to be the kindest man in the world.”
But Jane did not always by any means show interest in the Marquis de
Joigny, and much as it annoyed Mrs. Carpenter to hear him criticized,
it disturbed her even more when he was not mentioned at all for days
together. Jane would bring with her a letter from her Aunt Patty and
read aloud long extracts about St. Mary’s Plains and its tiresome
doings, about Patience’s rheumatism and Patience’s bird lectures, and
Uncle Bradford’s last new case, and the Mohican bank’s new building on
Pawamak Street, and Aunt Beth’s housekeeping adventures in Seattle,
until poor Izzy was bored to tears; or she would be full of the
problems of Fan’s life with her Polish husband. She saw Fan much more
often than her mother could have wished. One day she said--“I don’t
think Fan is happy. I suppose it’s because she has married a Roman
Catholic. It doesn’t seem to work very well, changing your religion.”
And Izzy in alarm scribbled a note of warning and sent it to Philibert
by a special messenger. She usually wrote to him on the days she
couldn’t manage to see him. Somehow or other he must be kept every day,
_au courant_. I can imagine these messages.
“The child’s head is full of Fan and her wretched Pole, and the effect
of religion on marriage. Don’t for anything touch on the subject in
talk. You had better keep away from churches when you take her out. She
is disturbed by Fan’s money troubles and Ivanoff’s gambling. Don’t for
heaven’s sake go near the Casino while we are here.”
It would be comic if it were not something else. I see my elder
brother perusing these missives with fervour and tossing them away with
exasperated petulance.
Go near the Casino? Had he done so? Was he not the perfect nursemaid?
It was Fan who told me about all this afterwards. She had been in Paris
three years before Jane, had got herself brought over by some chance
acquaintances who had paid her passage across the Atlantic, and had
allowed her to benefit by their loose indifferent chaperonage once
she got here. It was all she needed. In six months she had married
Ivanoff and knew everybody in Paris who from her point of view was
worth knowing. Mrs. Carpenter had been civil to her, but not friendly.
Nevertheless it was in Izzy’s drawing room that she had met Ivanoff.
Ivanoff was one of Izzy’s satellites. She was one of the people he
lived on. He could expect to win twenty thousand francs from her
at Bridge during a winter. Besides that she gave him many meals
and introduced him to other people who could be fleeced for more
substantial sums. We all knew Ivanoff. His title was supposed not
to bear too much looking into, and his estates in Poland were not,
I believe, to be found on the map of that country, but he was very
presentable and was renowned for his success with women. Fan fell in
love with him promptly. He was big, he was dark, his brown face with
its mongolian cast of feature, slanting eyes and thick sleek black hair
seemed to her beautiful, and she believed that he had a deep romantic
soul. Moreover he was a prince and he was like wax in her hands. She
could not and did not resist him. Her stepfather made her an allowance
of twenty-five thousand francs a year and showed no interest in what
she did with it. There was no one to enquire into Ivanoff’s affairs
or habits on Fan’s behalf. She was alone in the world and must make
her own way. Life with Ivanoff would be a continual stream of parties;
Monte Carlo, Paris, Biarritz, Deauville. The prospect glittered before
her. Where could she have a good time if not in these gay haunts of
pleasure? The thought of going back to St. Mary’s Plains made her feel
sick.
She had been married a year or so when Jane joined her mother. Ivanoff
was her slave. She could do anything with him except keep him from
the gaming table. Her one worry was money, but she did not allow this
to worry her much. Jane exasperated her that first summer. Fan felt
herself much the wiser and years the older. Jane’s lamblike devotion
to her mother “gave her fits.” And Jane seemed utterly indifferent
to the enormous power of her money, she was too stupid, the way she
let her mother and Philibert manage her. But Fan thought Philibert
a great catch. She knew her Paris well enough to know that if Jane
became Philibert’s wife her position would be immense. So she didn’t
interfere, merely watched and laughed and thought Jane a fool not to
see what Philibert was after.
October saw them all in Paris and Philibert not appreciably nearer
his goal. Jane no longer ignored him, she now took him for granted,
which was almost worse. He determined to be personal. It was not easy
with Jane, but he must risk being thought impudent. One day he asked
her what kind of a man she wanted to marry. She hesitated, thinking a
moment. “A hero or a friend,” she answered. But when he said that he
hoped he was her friend she smiled, refusing to take him seriously.
The word hero however, gave him his cue. He had too much sense to try
and pose as one himself, but the thought occurred to him that perhaps
by telling her of other heroes who had belonged to his family and
his country, some of the glamour of the past would touch him with a
reflected brilliance for those candid romantic eyes. And the task was
not uncongenial to him. He had a gift for story-telling and could
gossip endlessly about historic personages. Where history was meagre
he could rely upon his imagination. He began with the lovely story
of Bayard and Du Guesclin and she listened with glowing eyes as he
talked of those chivalrous knights. He had found the key. It was
easy now to hold her attention. There followed hours and days filled
with legend and anecdote, tales of brave chivalry and quaint custom.
_Philippe le Beau_ and _Jeanne la Folle_, _Saint Louis_, _Henri IV_,
_Clothilde de Joigny_, the saintly lady whose name was still honoured
in the family, _Monseigneur de B----_ who had had his tongue cut out
during the _Massacres de Septembre_; it was a rich field, and one where
he knew his way about, and to supplement his talk he gave her little
books of folklore and poetry, and songs of the Troubadours, the poems
of Ronsard, and found for her an old parchment copy in script of that
charming anonymous ballad that begins “Gentils Galants de France.”
And Jane, delighted, treated him with a new attentive kindness. He
had gained her confidence and had touched her imagination, but there
again his success seemed to end. He could get no further. It did not
occur to her to ask why he took such pains to supply her eager mind
with lovely legends. And so he fretted and fumed once more. I can
imagine him wracking his brains for a solution. The problem would have
presented itself to him with simple brutality. How rouse the girl’s
emotions without frightening her? He hit on a plan. Mrs. Carpenter took
a box at the Opera. There under cover of the music Philibert whispered
adroitly to romantic youth, told her on every note of the scale that
she was young and wonderful, that life was full of magic mystery, that
the throbbing of her heart was its response to the summons of love, and
that some day a man would come to her and beg her to allow him to carry
her up and out on the surging torrent of that inspiration into a heaven
of pure delight.
It worked. Under the hypnotic influence of the orchestra with its
disturbing rhythm and moving harmonies, ravished by the seeming beauty
of those sentimental voices, soaring, floating, dropping deep to caress
and moan and shiver, all unconscious of the mediocrity, the coarseness,
the bold sensuality, her little being stirred, and her senses, waking
slowly in their chaste prison responded to the appeal of the man
behind her in the shadow, who took on a little the romantic look of
the hero on the stage. She did not know what was happening to her. She
would come out of the theatre in a daze and walk silently between her
mother and Philibert to the carriage and sink back into her corner,
her head throbbing, and through half-closed eyelids would gaze with
confusion and fear and vague painful pleasure at the tall hat and white
shirt-bosom of the man facing her in the intimate gloom, and as though
the smoothly moving carriage were just another box for the continuation
of the performance she would hear the same voice speaking to her that
had mingled with all that music, and she would find it impossible to
distinguish between her companion’s reality and the magic charm of the
glorious fiction.
One night when he left them at their door after an evening of
this kind, she heard him say to her mother who had lingered
behind--“_C’était très réussi ce soir_,” and give a little dry laugh.
She did not ask herself what he meant, but his tone struck her ear as
discordant and she remembered it afterwards. It was one of the things
that flashed up out of her memory when Philibert, some years later,
wanting once and for all to answer her questions as to why he had
married her, told her with his incomparable lucidity all about the
way he and her mother had used her. He put it to her completely then,
explaining to her the details of their method and summing it all up
with the words--“At least half the credit was your Mamma’s. Though
she did not seem to be doing much she was working all the same like a
galley-slave. Of course it was not her duty to make love to you, but
it was she who prepared your mind for the seed I sowed in it, and it
was she who kept me informed of your mental progress. I say mental;
you know what I mean. Call it anything you like, but give full credit
to your charming mother for what she did for you. She showed signs of
positive genius.”
Thus it was that they put their heads together, and after the
successful experiment of the Opera evenings had run its course for a
month, Jane’s manner began to change. She no longer came rollicking
into the room of a morning like a great roystering puppy. She no longer
talked so much or so freely, and sometimes, heavy-eyed and pale, as
if she had not slept well, she would lie silently on her back staring
at the ceiling, and blush crimson when asked what her thoughts were.
These facts were reported faithfully to Philibert of course, also the
incidents of the morning, when Jane got up with a bound and placed
herself abruptly before her mother’s long mirror and cried with the
accent of despair--“Am I always to be so ugly?”
But I imagine Mrs. Carpenter in telling Philibert did not finish the
story. She had said to Jane--“No, my child, you can be considered a
beauty if you want to. With that body your face doesn’t matter. Men
will admire you, never fear; in fact I know one that does already.”
Jane at that had turned away from the glass and had come to the foot
of her mother’s bed and had said earnestly, with a flood of crimson
mantling her face and throat--“But it’s not a man’s admiration I’m
thinking of, mother dear, it’s yours.” The child had then become
speechless and had gulped strangely with the effort not to break down
and had given it up and gone quickly out of the room.
If Mrs. Carpenter was touched she did not say so, and she never
referred to the incident in her subsequent talks with Jane, limiting
her remarks on the girl’s appearance to a voluble flow of worldly
advice.
“Never go in for curls or ribbons or fluffiness. That’s not your style.
If you must look like a Chinese mummy then look it even more than you
do. Make the most of your queerness. People won’t know whether you
are ugly or handsome, but they’ll be bound to look at you. That’s all
that’s necessary. Anything is better than being unnoticed. That you
never will be. Nonsense, you must get used to being stared at. Most
girls like it. Wear your hair straight back and close to your head.
Never mind your lower lip. Don’t make faces trying to draw it in. Stick
it out rather. Carry your head high. Look as if you were proud of your
profile. Your dresses should always be straight and stiff like an
oblong box. That one you’ve got on is too soft, and there’s too much
trimming. You will be able to wear any amount of jewellery later, but
never let yourself be tempted by lace. You walk well, and your back,
thank God, is as flat as a board. You’ll never need to wear corsets if
you’re careful, but you must learn what to do with your hands. You’re
always clenching your fists as if you were going to hit somebody. And I
don’t like those boys’ pumps you wear; they’re too round at the toe.”
And so on and so on. And Jane, rather bewildered, would try to make
out from all this whether her mother herself liked the person she was
giving advice to or not.
But in the end, in spite of all her cautiousness, Izzy was obliged
to commit herself. Jane didn’t let her off. On the contrary she went
straight to her one evening with the proposal Philibert had made her.
It was late and Mrs. Carpenter was sitting in front of her fire,
wondering whether she had been right in leaving the two alone together
for so long in the drawing room. She had never left them alone before.
It had been Philibert’s suggestion and she had agreed with some slight
misgiving. It had occurred to her of a sudden that perhaps he would
not have dared to make such a proposal to one of his own people, and
she felt a flush of annoyance. Strange inconsistency on the part of a
woman who had so thrown to the winds the spiritual decencies, but there
you are; she was worried and mortified, and when Jane entered, turned
to her with a warmer gesture than was her habit. The girl responded
by kneeling at her side and winding her arms round the slim waist and
saying--
“Do you really want me to do it, Mother dear?”
The question put in that way, suggesting as it did a keener insight on
Jane’s part into her mother’s heart than had even been imagined by the
latter, must have been startling. Mrs. Carpenter hesitated, hedged, was
at a loss.
“What do you mean, child?”
But Jane was not to be put off.
“You know what I mean, Mummy darling. The question is, do you really
want it? I told him that I would do what you said, and I mean it.”
And then rather quaintly she added--“I don’t suppose Aunt Patty would
approve of me. She likes independence. But I have made up my mind to do
as you wish.”
There it was. Mrs. Carpenter was forced into it. Jane, all unknowingly,
had her. It was no use asking the girl if she liked him: she only said
she felt she undoubtedly would if she made up her mind to, and so at
last after some more hesitating Izzy was obliged to say--
“Well, darling, since you will have it so, I must tell you that your
acceptance of this distinguished man would make me very happy.” And
Jane, still uncommunicative and by some marvellous instinct of profound
youth hiding at last the tumultuous feelings of her heart, accepted her
mother’s decision sweetly and calmly and went away to her room.
If she saw there in her mirror, as we are told girls do on such
occasions, a new strange creature, the difference was in her case less
fictitious than most. A very rapid transformation does seem to have
come over her after this. It was as if in accepting Philibert she had
walked bravely up to him and had given him the secret key to her soul,
and as if in turn he had thrown a handful of dust in her eyes. The
effect of the interchange was instantaneous. Philibert had seemed to
her in the beginning, an old man, excessively foreign and occasionally
ridiculous; he was now a hero. I cannot explain the change. I only know
that it was so. The mystery of her girlhood remains to me a mystery.
Who am I to understand her love for my detestable brother? Who am I to
understand the love of any innocent girl for any man? I only know that
Jane’s passion was derived from her own romantic nature and not from
him. I have a feeling that had she once made up her mind to love an
iron poker, she would have loved it with the same fire and the same
ecstasy. At that period of her life the object of her affection was
scarcely more real than a symbol. Philibert represented for her not
himself but her dreams. It may be so with most young people. I do not
know. But what Jane meant when she said to her mother that she was
sure she would come to like him if she made up her mind to, was really
that she knew she would adore him if with her mother’s approval, she
let herself go, i. e., let her imagination control her feelings. What
she wanted from her mother was not only an indication but a guarantee.
Her mother’s consent to her marriage she took as a sign that she could
gloriously give her heart its freedom.
And Jane’s heart now that he had won it was a surprise to Philibert.
He had gone a-hunting for a dove or some timid sparrow, and he found
himself with an eagle on his hands. He was expected to soar with this
young companion that he had captured. There was no hesitation about
Jane. Spreading wide the wings of her beautiful belief, she flew, she
was making for heaven.
Poor, wonderful, ignorant Jane. It was to her of a simplicity. Since
she knew now, because her mother had said so, that he was worth
marrying, then he was worthy of all her confidence. Shyly but bravely
she told him so. She spoke to him of God, of life with him after death,
of sharing with him all her thoughts. She unbared to him her ideals,
confessed her dreams, faltered out her fear of her own wild impulses,
recounting to him simply the affair of the boy in St. Mary’s Plains
she had almost killed. She told him all about the Grey House and her
Aunt Patty and her grandmother’s death and her Aunt Minnie’s religious
fanaticism. It is dreadful to think of. He has said that he was never
so bored in his life. I have heard him say so, and of course he would
have been. After a rubber or two at the Jockey, he would turn up at
Izzy’s flat for tea and find Jane waiting for him, her face charged
with grave confident sweetness. She would put a hand on each of his
shoulders and kiss his lips, and then drawing him to a sofa beside her
would hold his hand in both of hers and pour out to him the secrets of
her heart, and he, beside himself with boredom, would listen and make
his responses to the clear chant of her young voice singing its joy.
“We will be everything to each other, Philibert.”
“Yes, dear.”
“We will share each other’s thoughts.”
“Of course.”
“You will teach me how to love you.”
“I will.”
“And be worthy of you.”
“My darling.”
“Love is very wonderful, Philibert.”
“Yes, dear.”
“I feel one should be very much alone to understand. You and I alone.
We must keep ourselves free to be alone together.”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes I am sorry that we have so much money.”
“Why, my darling?”
“It will create obligations. We shall be expected to see so many people
and do so many things. But I am glad to have it if you like it. I
am proud to bring you something. I would give you everything in the
world if I could. I am yours, and what I have is yours, to do with
as you like. But you must never feel indebted to me, for there is no
indebtedness. I can’t quite explain what I mean, but it humiliates me
even to think of giving between you and me. The money is ours, that is
all, and therefore yours. You will control it and give me an allowance
for dresses. I say this now because I don’t want to speak of it again.
You understand, don’t you, Philibert? Let’s not talk of it any more,
ever.”
Such was her attitude, such was her idea, and all he had to do was to
let himself be loved.
But I don’t like to think about Philibert in his relation to Jane. I
wish I could leave him out of the story altogether.
In the meantime Mrs. Carpenter, while highly gratified that her plans
had worked out so well, was nevertheless a little taken aback at the
extravagant turn they were taking. She may well have been more then
a little worried at Jane’s going ahead at such a pace. There was no
comfort for Izzy now in conferring with Philibert. The shape of the
triangle had changed. The coveted man had drawn away from her and was
as close now to her daughter as he had once been to her. She found
herself no longer the strong base that held them together. They could
exist now without her. And Philibert began very delicately to make her
feel this. His manner conveyed--“You have done your part, and very well
on the whole, but still you know it’s finished. You’re really no use to
me now. I shan’t of course go back on my bargain. You shall have your
share of the fun. Only don’t bother me by continually making mysterious
signs. You will only succeed in awakening her suspicions and wearing
out my patience.”
Poor Jane, it would have taken more than her mother’s irritable gaiety
to rouse her suspicions. If any one in those days had come to her with
a full recital of the truth, she would not have believed a word of it.
And when her Uncle Bradford did come in his capacity of trustee to have
a look at the fiancé, she flew into a rage with the good man at the
first sign of his disapproval. I did not see Bradford Forbes. I never
saw him. Jane tells me that he was a large heavy man with a strong
American accent, a rosy face and a pince-nez. I should like to have
seen him. I should like to have seen the image of Philibert reflected
in those eyeglasses. The sight would have been edifying.
Mr. Forbes had said to Jane--“Well, I don’t think much of your little
Dude. I’d rather you had taken some one more your own size. I guess he
can’t come much higher than your shoulder.” And Jane had flown at him
like a wild cat and had told him that he had no business to make fun
of her lover, who was the most important man in Paris and a million
times cleverer than anybody from their home town. If her Uncle Bradford
had had any hope of dissuading her from the step she was about to take
he seems to have abandoned it then and there. He could find out nothing
positively wrong with the head of the house of Joigny. The little
Marquis proved satisfactorily that though his income was pitiful he
had no debts. And when Mr. Forbes pointed out to him that there could
be nothing in the way of a marriage settlement, Silas Carpenter’s
will making such an alienation of property impossible, Philibert had
taken his breath away by the graceful ease with which he accepted
the situation. How was the kind shrewd American citizen to know that
Philibert already had the will by heart, and long ago had accepted
the inconvenience and risk of hanging on to his wife’s property by
hanging on to her? He made a better impression in their hour’s talk
than Jane’s uncle wanted to admit to himself. The good man was obliged
to fade away as he had come, and float off like some wistful porpoise
across the Atlantic leaving behind him only light ephemeral bubbles of
amused disapproval. All the same he had done enough to make Jane very
angry and obstinate and produce from her hand a long letter to her Aunt
Patty in which she inveighed against the obtuse narrow-mindedness of
the entire American nation. Patience Forbes seems not to have answered
this letter. She had sent Jane a note by her uncle of terse affection
and grim good wishes, but her correspondence with her niece during the
months preceding and following the marriage almost entirely ceased.
I imagine that after listening to her brother’s account of the man
in Paris who was to claim her Jane, she was filled with foreboding,
and being powerless chose to remain silent. And Jane was too happy to
wonder why her aunt did not write to her. She did not often think of
the Grey House during those days.