II

It is very difficult for me to recall my state of mind during the days

that followed Philibert’s going off with her.

I’ve an idea that I was in a kind of stupor, not much noticing

anything. I must have given orders that no one was to be admitted, for

I learned afterwards that Claire and your mother both called, and a

number of other relatives. I think I remained in my room for a day or

two lying on the bed with my clothes on and refusing to open the door

to my maid. It was Jinny who roused me. The servants were frightened.

The nurse brought her down and she pounded on the door with her little

fists till I opened it, but when she saw me she gave a shriek and ran

away from me and hid in her nurse’s petticoats. That brought me to

my senses, my child’s fear and the servants’ faces. I had a bath and

something to eat. They brought me my letters obsequiously, and with

furtive curiosity. I could hear the servants hanging about whispering.

I imagined them talking, talking, endlessly talking it over downstairs.

They were strangers to me, Philibert’s servants, servants of that

great, horrible house that I disliked. I had no reason to stay there

now. Nothing kept me--I would go home to St. Mary’s Plains.

I started a letter to my Aunt Patience, what was I to say to her? “My

husband has run away with another woman. He never loved me. My mother

married me to him for her own purposes. Now that she is dead there is

no more reason to go on with this horrible farce. I am coming home.”

Something of that kind? No, I couldn’t. I stared at the words I had

written--“My dearest Aunt Patty.” I seemed to see her sitting off

there, at the end of that great distance, adjusting her spectacles,

opening my letter with expectant fingers. I saw the shabby room, the

sunlight on the worn carpet, the littered writing desk, the piles of

books, the stuffed birds in their glass cases. I saw my aunt an old

woman, facing old age alone, with equanimity, following year after

year the pursuit of knowledge, not afraid of time, not oppressed by

solitude, going up to bed night after night in the empty house and

kneeling down in her flannel dressing-gown beside her narrow white

counterpane to pray to God, and remembering me always, never forgetting

me, never leaving me alone.

Once she had said, “When you’re in a hole, Jane, and don’t know what to

do, you can always do the thing you hate doing most and you’ll probably

not be far wrong.”

Looking out of the window I became aware of Paris and I thought of

those words. Paris! There it was streaming by, to the races. Was it

aware of what had happened to me? I wondered. Did people know that

Bianca and Philibert had run away together like a couple of actors,

like a pair of quite common people? I imagined society agog with the

scandal. I saw them gloating pitying. I heard women saying--“_Cette

pauvre femme, elle était vraiment trop bête._” It seemed to me that

every one in the street must be looking up at my windows with curiosity

and derision. They were invading my privacy, pulling off from me the

last decent covering of my dignity. Well, why sit there and bear it?

Why suffer public humiliation? My eyes fell on my engagement book. I

observed that Philibert and I were due for dinner that night at your

Aunt Clothilde’s. I rang for my maid and told her to telephone _Madame

la Duchesse_ and say that although Monsieur, having been called out of

town, would not be able to present himself at her dinner, I would come

with pleasure, as had been arranged. My face in the glass seemed much

as usual. I had done all my weeping with you, my poor Blaise, three

nights before. Having made up my mind to go out I now experienced a

certain relief. The coiffeur was summoned and the manicurist. Aunt

Clo’s dinners were very special affairs, so I chose a nice dress,

white, and put on an extra rope of pearls. As you know, my appearance

created something of a sensation. I saw that at once. They had thought

me already dead and buried, and were gossiping as I suspected, over my

remains. My business for the moment was to show them that I was alive.

Ah, but how dreary and trivial it all seems now. Why? Why? What earthly

difference did it make what they said or thought? But I am telling

you about it, just as it was. I wanted, I needed desperately at that

moment, the sense of my own dignity. It was all I had left. So I went

out to that dinner party and defended it.

Aunt Clo was nice. She was pleased with me and put me opposite her. It

was a vatican dinner, semi-political. I had, I remember, the Italian

Ambassador on my right and the Foreign Minister on my left. Your aunt

was between the Archbishop and the Duc de B---- recently arrived

from Rome. The talk was brilliant, I believe. I heard it in a daze,

but managed to keep my end up somehow. Clémentine was there, at her

best, in wonderful form. She must have known all about Philibert,

for she came up to me after dinner and said--“Blaise de Joigny is my

great friend. You must come to see me. We have much in common.” Our

friendship dates from that night.

But when I reached home I felt more tired than I had thought it

possible to be. I went up to the nursery. Jinny was asleep in her cot,

hugging a white woolly dog. I knelt beside her and sent out my spirit

in search of God, but I did not find Him. I could not pray. I heard my

baby’s breathing, blissful, trustful breathing. I knelt listening. She

was so small and sweet. Above her was an immense blackness. She made

now and then happy little sounds in her sleep, and lying there so still

I saw her moving on and on, invisibly, into the future to the ticking

of the nursery clock, carried along as she lay there on the current of

life, life that was an enormous dupery, an ugliness and a lie.

The days passed, separate and distinct, moving in a procession, each

one to be watched and endured separately, moving by their own volition,

taking no account of me, having nothing to do with me, answerable to

some mysterious power that started each one rolling like a bead dropped

from the end of a string, and in each one, as in a crystal, I saw the

pageant of Paris revolving, but I was outside, drifting in empty space.

The longing to get away from it all was unbearable. I would go--I

would go--I must go--Patience Forbes was the only person in the world

who could help me--and yet I went on working out my idea that took me

about among people, and you, dear Blaise, went with me. Your attitude

was of a delicacy rare even in your world of delicate adjustments

and sympathies. You understood, you constituted yourself my escort.

Do you remember those days, how we went from one place to another,

luncheons, dinners, private views, official receptions, and how we

tacitly agreed on just the amount we were bound to do for our purpose?

I scarcely realized at the time all that it meant for you to do this,

and how the family would resent your attitude. I know now that they

never quite trusted you after this. As I remember we talked nothing

over and did not, I think, mention Philibert save once, when I asked

you if you knew where he was. You did know, of course. Every one knew,

I suppose, except myself. They had been seen, those two, boarding

the Simplon express. They were in Venice, you told me, I had wanted

to know for convenience. Having adopted a line, it seemed best to

follow it consistently. One was to assume that my husband had gone

away for a holiday. I was there to make his excuses to suffering

hostesses deprived of his society. The note to be struck was light and

commonplace, as if his absence were like any other of his many past

absences. The pretence deceived no one, but then the consistent lying

made for decency. I was marking time. It was particularly difficult

because I was not acting in accord with my nature. Had I been natural

at that time I should have been horrible; I should have smashed

things. But I was not behaving like myself. I see now what it was;

I was behaving like one of you, behaving as Claire, for instance,

would have behaved in my place. I was adopting your methods and your

standards. Not to give myself away, not to let any one suspect what

I was feeling and thinking, not to make a false step, not to make

above all a public fuss, that seems to have been my idea. To preserve

appearances as beautifully as possible, that was what you and I were

working at, as we trailed drearily round from one place to another

saying suave things with smooth faces.

And there was another influence working on me, even more subtle and

far more pervasive. You will smile, perhaps, when I tell you that my

quiet behaviour came from looking every day across the Place de la

Concorde to the austere and reserved façade of the Madeleine, or across

a silver distance of pale houses to the far alabaster pinnacle of the

Sacré Coeur high above the city, but it was so. Paris exercises upon

its inhabitants a fine discipline of taste. Those who love it change

unconsciously. The long, wide, symmetrical avenues, the formal gardens,

with their slim fountains, single waving sprays of crystal water, the

calm façades of long rows of narrow, uniform houses, palest yellow in

sunlight, pearl white towards evening, these things have an effect upon

one’s manners that is imperceptible and profound. They spelt to me

harmony and restraint and Plato’s idea of beauty. My high falsity was

at the best only less futile than a good, noisy bout of hysterics. What

comforted me in these hours of doubt was that I knew you were no more

certain than I. You did not represent your family. You were neither

a go-between nor a spy nor a jailor, you were a friend. Positively I

believe there were moments when you wanted me to break out, break away,

throw caution and carefulness to the winds. Sometimes there was so much

compassion in your face that I almost cried out to you not to care so

much. I wanted to warn you that it was only for the moment that I was

keeping my head up, that I wouldn’t be able and didn’t intend to go on

with it indefinitely and that the thought behind all my smooth social

words was; “He has gone for ever. Soon I’ll be free to say so.”

I did really believe Philibert had left me for good. It never occurred

to me that he would ever come back, and that belief was in a way

my refuge. I was rid of them both; Bianca, I told myself, would be

satisfied now and would leave me alone. She would carry on her mischief

elsewhere, not in my life. My life was, I believed, my own, separated

for always from hers and from Philibert.

Then one day Fan turned up. She came in jauntily, her head in the air,

as if nothing had happened. She looked very smart, her hat set at a

rakish angle, her short, pleated skirt flippant above her neat ankles.

From across the room she called out “Well,--Jane, we’ve married a nice

pair of men. Here’s Philibert’s skipped and I’ve had to send Ivanoff

packing. He’d taken to beating me, I’m black and blue all over. Some

people like it--I don’t.” She gave me a peck on the cheek. “Poor old

Jane, you’re taking it hard, I suppose.” She turned back the sleeve

of her dress. Her arm had welts on it. “You should see my back.” I

shuddered, but at sight of my emotion she twitched away from me with a

nervous laugh. “Between my Slav and your Frenchman I don’t know that

there’s much to choose. God, if it were only an occasional beating I

shouldn’t mind.” She did a waltz step across the room, twirled round on

her tiny feet, lit a cigarette standing on tiptoe, and collapsed into a

chair in a spasm of coughing.

“I had it out with Ivanoff, my dear, about you, and I know all about

it--just the exact sums you gave him for me, bless your baby heart,

and everything. At first I doubted you. I was a fool. I’m sorry.

Unfortunately I found out other things. There are other women in the

world who don’t love me at all, but who pay for my shoes. Do you hear?

Do you get what I mean? I find I’ve been paying my bills with their

money. What do you say to that? I ask you simply. And we’re on the

streets now--at least he’s gone--I’m staying with Madeleine de Greux,

and the bailiffs have got our furniture.” And she went off into a wild

scream of laughter. It was incredibly painful. She sat there as neat

and smart as a pin. Her small cocked hat on one side of her head, her

pretty little legs crossed, one high-heeled patent leather slipper

dangling in the air, the other tapping the floor, she puffed smoke

through her little tilted nose and looked at me desperately out of her

hard, level eyes, while she yelled with laughter just as if some one

were tickling her till she screamed with pain.

I went to my desk and got out my cheque book. “Let’s pay off the

furniture first,” I said as prosaically as I could, but she jumped up

irritably.

“God! Jane, what a fool you are. Put that cheque book away. Do you

think I’d touch another penny of yours? There--don’t be hurt. Of course

I would if I needed it, but what good will money do? I can’t go and

hunt out Ivo’s mistresses and pay them back, can I? Oh, God! Oh, God!

Oh, God!--I did like him. Men are devils. Even now I’m worried about

him. I imagine him locked up somewhere or dead drunk in the gutter

lying out in the dark--whereas he’s probably at Monte having a high old

time. By the way, your French family is in a great state about you.

Claire says their position as regards you is very delicate. I suppose

it is. They don’t know whether to come here or to leave you alone. They

wonder what you’re going to do. They’re frightfully cut up about Fifi,

and they’re afraid you’ll do something final like getting a divorce.”

“Well, my dear, that’s just what I do think of doing.”

“I see.” She ruminated, chewing her cigarette that had gone out.

“They’ll never forgive you if you do.”

“I suppose not, but I don’t see that that matters.”

“Oh, but it does. They’re so perfectly charming. They’d make Paris

impossible for you.”

“That sounds charming, I must say.”

“Don’t be stupid, Jane. You know what I mean. You know how clever they

are. They’re the most attractive people on earth. But if you set them

against you, the whole clan, you’ll find life here very different.”

“I don’t propose to live here.”

“Where then?”

“In St. Mary’s Plains.”

“Heaven help you, my poor misguided lamb.”

“I’m homesick,” I persisted obstinately.

“Of course, for the moment, because you’re unhappy.”

“No, not only because I’m unhappy. I like the Grey House. I belong

there. It’s quiet, it’s safe, it’s real, it’s the place I know best in

the world.”

“Nonsense. It’s a dingy little shanty.”

“You can call it names if you like. I don’t care what you say. I’m

going back there.”

“For good?”

“I don’t know--perhaps.”

“Well, you won’t stay, so you’d better not risk it.”

“Risk what?”

“Having to eat humble pie and come back to be forgiven.”

It was my turn to get up with a fling of exasperation and walk about.

She followed me with her bright, piercing gaze.

“Think a little, Jane. Use your brains, if you can. Think of the

difference between your life here and your life at home in that

Godforsaken hole of St. Mary’s Plains. Look at this room. Look out

of the window and remember. Don’t I remember? Wooden sidewalks with

weeds growing between the boards, boys playing marbles in the street,

women hanging out their washing in backyards, Sunday clothes, oh,

those best Sunday clothes, revival meetings, Moody and Sankey in tents

on the lake shore, picnics, bicycle rides, dances at the Country

Club, freckled youths kissing you on the verandah, great news--Ethel

Barrymore is coming in her new play that’s been running a year in New

York. Excursions on the lake, fifty cents a round trip and soft drinks,

sarsaparilla, ginger ale, buggy rides, shopping down town, talking to

old women--cats who gossip about somebody’s new red silk petticoat,

too flighty, indecent. All going to church and shouting ‘Hallaleluja’

and eating blueberry pie afterwards till their mouths are all black

inside.”

“Well,” I said. She wriggled about as if sitting on pins.

“You want to give up Paris, this house, your position here, for that?

You’ve got Europe at your feet. You’ve only got to sit tight and every

one in Paris will be on your side. Fifi will come back and be as good

as gold. You’ll be able to do what you like with him after this.”