“Don’t you, Jane? Well, it’s no matter. It’s unimportant. The important
thing is that I’m sick to death of everything. Every one bores me.
I find you are the only woman in Paris who is alive. I’ve been
watching you--you are very extraordinary. You care for no one. You are
self-sufficient. You have achieved the impossible.”
All this time Madeleine was massaging my face and pretending not to be
interested. I could say nothing. I boiled with rage, helpless, wrapped
in sheets and towels, my face plastered with grease, and Bianca sat
there, her little white face buried in her furs and laughed at me. When
at last she had gone, Madeleine said the Princess had such a beautiful
character.
I felt that I was being bated like one of her famous bulls. I resolved
to make no move. I refused to be goaded to an attack. I was afraid of
her.
Then one day Fan came to see me. Instead of rushing in with her usual
shrill greeting, she walked up to me quietly, put her arm round me and
laid her cheek against mine.
“I’m so happy, Jane dear; I’m so happy.” Her voice was gentle. “I have
found what I have been waiting for all my life.” She went down on her
knees and looked up into my face. Hers was calm and rested and had upon
it an expression of sweetness that I had never seen there before. “I’m
in love, Jane dear. I’m in love with the most wonderful man in the
world. I wanted to tell you because I knew you’d be glad I was happy.”
She stayed with me for an hour and told me all about it. It was
the strangest thing, hard cynical Fan, suddenly become young and
sentimental and timid. They had met at St. Moritz that Christmas. He
was an Englishman, half Irish really, with a strong streak of Celt in
him. His name was Mark. She called him Micky. He was very beautiful, as
beautiful as a god. He had taught her to ski. They had been together
high up on snowy peaks above the world. One day she had fallen and
sprained her ankle. He had carried her down the mountain in his arms.
He was strong and straight like a young tree. He wanted her to divorce
Ivanoff and marry him. He said there was no other way for them to be
happy. He wanted to meet me. Would I come to lunch now, right away? He
was waiting for us. She had told him all about me.
I went, of course. That boy,--you remember him, and how handsome he
was, with his golden head and fresh bronzed cheeks and the long curly
eyelashes fringing his blue eyes, and his broad sunny smile. He was
too beautiful I had felt until he gave me that very broad smile.
Our luncheon was a happy absurd affair. Those two were ridiculously
in love--they behaved like children. They beamed, they blushed, they
looked into each other’s eyes, he very shy and sweet and attentive,
calling her Fan, and in talking to me trying to be dreadfully solemn.
“Please, Madame de Joigny, make her be serious. She must divorce that
chap, you know. There’s no alternative. It’s got to be done and I want
it done right away. Please back me up. I say, you mustn’t smile, you
know. It’s dead serious.”
How could I help smiling? He was very appealing. He rumpled his hair
and his eyes grew dark, and little beads of moisture stood out on
his high tanned forehead. I looked at Fan. Poor Fan! so much older,
so worn, so stamped with the stamp of her harrowing racketing years,
and yet a new Fan with a young light in her eyes; I was disturbed and
anxious.
My fears seemed during the weeks that followed to be groundless.
She held him. They continued their dream of bliss. He satisfied her
utterly. It was of course his beauty that she loved. Always she had
adored beauty in men--now she had it in its most charming aspect,
fresh, clean, young. They had nothing in common, but their passion. He
was stupid and rather a prude. He had grown up with horses and dogs and
a family of sisters in an English country house, had joined the army
and then had gone to South Africa with his regiment. He had ideas about
womanliness and the honour of a gentleman and the duties of his class.
He had never been in Paris before. Fan found no fault in him.
She began taking him about with her. Society was at first amused and
indulgent, then again the inevitable happened. He became the rage. A
number of women lost their heads over him. He was invited out without
her. Soon he was everywhere in demand, and Fan rightly or wrongly
persuaded him to go. This at first quite worried him. Women wanting him
for themselves and finding him obstinately faithful, turned spiteful.
He didn’t understand, for he wasn’t fatuous, but he must have heard a
good many things about Fan that he didn’t like.
I felt for him in a way. It seemed to me that he was holding his own
pretty well and behaving on the whole very decently, but I wished that
Fan’s divorce could be hurried along. She had hesitated about divorcing
Ivanoff. “Of course,” she said, “he lives off women, but I’ve known
that all along, and it doesn’t seem quite fair to get rid of him now--”
but she had given in, in the end.
The months dragged on. I began to wonder whether Micky would hold out.
It had been difficult to find Ivanoff. A long time elapsed before the
divorce papers could be served on him.
Micky still stuck to Fan, but he began talking about compromising
her and, after a time, I had an impression that he stuck to her
grimly, without enthusiasm. I imagined him to be cursing his own weak
character. He was weak and he knew it, and so did we. He clung to
Fan as a woman should cling to a man. This did not make her despise
him, it gave her a feeling of strength and safety. She encouraged his
dependence on her and adopted the rôle of guide and counsellor.
About this time I had a telephone message and a note from Bianca; both
summoning me to her in her old peremptory style. The message was that
the Princess wished to see me on urgent matters and would be at home
all that afternoon. I did not go. The note, received next morning was
as follows:
“It is silly and dangerous to stand out against me. I am attacked
by all the demons you know about and if you don’t come, something
unexpected and unpleasant will happen.”