And I do not know whether I have come back defeated or victorious. In
the conduct of life I was defeated. Whenever I tried to do right, I
did wrong. To the people I loved I was a curse. I had a few friends.
You remain, and Clémentine and Ludovic. But I must lose you too, now.
I feel it my destiny to be alone. I did not understand how to live
among men. But there are hours when sitting here in this shabby room,
I am conscious of a feeling of high stark bitter triumph. At such
times I think of my father’s grave over there beyond the horizon, on
a wide prairie under a high sky. A stone. That stone and I are linked
together. I loved Philibert once, I love Jinny. I am alone now, but
I shall hold out. I shall not give in. My life has been wasted, but
I shan’t end it. I shall see it through. It stretches behind me, a
confused series of blunders. I try to understand. It is finished, but I
go on living. There is nothing left for me to do but wait. Maybe if I
wait long enough I shall understand what it is all for.
I love France, but I had to come back here, and I know that I will
stay. It is right for me to be here. It is fitting and just. In some
way that I cannot explain the equation of my life is satisfied by my
coming, and the problem--I see it as clear, precise and cold as a
problem in algebra--is solved.
Here, in St. Mary’s Plains there is nothing for me. The big bustling
awkward town is full of strangers who have no time to interest
themselves in a derelict woman who has drifted back to them from
“foreign parts.” My return seems to those who remember me to be a
confession of failure. They are not interested in failure, so they
leave me alone. It is as well. I did not come back to talk but to
think. I did not come back to begin something new, but to understand
something old and finished. I do not need these bright brave ignorant
young people. To do what I am doing it is necessary to be alone.
But to go back to my story. Jinny had a shivering fit that night,
after the scene in your mother’s flat. Her maid called me. She lay on
her back in bed her teeth chattering, her knees drawn up and knocking
together. We put hot water bottles to her feet and her sides. It was a
warm night late in June, but she kept whispering that she was cold. The
doctor when he came said that it was nerves. He prescribed bromide and
perfect quiet for some time, afterwards a change. He told me that she
had a hypersensitive nervous organism, and should be protected always
as much as possible from excitement or emotional strain.
She slept quietly towards morning. Her hair clung to her forehead in
little damp curls, soft pale golden hair like a child’s. Her closed
eyelids were swollen above the long brown eyelashes. She lay on her
side with both hands together under her cheek, her lovely young body at
rest. Beautiful Jinny.
I sat watching her. The sound of her father’s voice and of mine, saying
hideous things rang in my ears.
Beyond the open window, the darkness was turning to light. All about
were still shuttered houses filled with sleeping people, a million
sleeping men and women. Their dreams and their weariness, and their
disappointments seemed to be rising like a mist above the hot close
houses.
I had promised Patience Forbes to love Jinny enough--enough for what?
Enough--for this--to save her this.
I had failed, and I felt old, so very old, and at the same time
my heart was full of childish longings and weakness. If only some
one would come and comfort me. If only some one would take my
responsibilities from me. I wanted help and relief. I thought of you. I
knew that you, Blaise, would have helped me, but Philibert had shut the
door in your face that evening and had snarled at me horrible things,
saying he would never have you in the house again. He had accused you
and me of a criminal affection for each other. I remembered his livid
face and twitching lips. A feeling of sickness pervaded my body and
soul. Jinny, asleep, was fragrant as a flower. I was contaminated,
unclean.
Suddenly she was there,--Patience Forbes, my Aunt Patience, standing
on the other side of Jinny’s bed. She had on her black mackintosh and
her bonnet with the strings tied in a knot under her chin. But she was
not quite as I had last seen her. The wisps of hair that straggled down
under her bonnet were white. There was something terrible and grand
about her. She was old, very old. Her face was brown and withered.
She looked thin, emaciated, her eyes sunken. She looked starved. Her
clothes were very shabby, the clothes of a poor woman. She was grand
and terrible. Her sunken eyes shone with a splendour I had never seen
before. She was looking down at Jinny--I saw her smile an ineffable
smile of unutterable beauty, then I waited breathlessly, with such
longing, with an anguish of longing. Surely in a moment she would turn
to me, gather me into her arms--now--now she was turning--
“Mummy--what time is it?” Jinny was sitting up in her bed rubbing her
eyes, yawning. Sunlight shone through the parted curtains. I looked at
my watch.
“Seven o’clock, darling.”
“I would like some coffee. Is any one about? I’m so hungry. Oh dear--”
She sank back onto her pillow. “I remember now, I remember--why did I
wake up?”
The next day, I received a cable announcing my Aunt Patience’s
death. Jinny was lying on her “chaise longue” eating chocolates. She
said--“Poor thing, but she was very old, wasn’t she?”
“Yes, seventy-five years old.”
“Older than _grandmère_!”
“Yes, several years older--” Jinny was not interested. There was no one
in Paris who had ever seen Patience Forbes.
Jinny seemed quite well again; only a little languid and silent. She
spent most of the day on her chaise longue, reading, having her nails
manicured, having her hair brushed, eating sweets, dozing; she was
quite affectionate.
One evening she said, “I think, Mummy, that I would like to go into a
convent.” She had on, I remember, a white satin négligé trimmed with
white fox, and emerald green brocade slippers. I must have smiled.
“Don’t smile, Mummy. I’m not joking, I have thought it all out. ‘_Il
faut se connaître._’ I am weak, I have a weak character. I liked Sam
Chilbrook, but I didn’t dare say so. I disliked the Prince very much,
I didn’t dare say so. If you and Papa could agree, I would be content
to do what you decided for me--but you can’t agree. No, no, don’t be
tragic. Don’t be so sorry. Let us be reasonable. If you never agree
on a husband for me, I must either choose one for myself and run off
with him and be married, or become an old maid. Neither seems a very
nice idea, does it--but to be a nun--that is beautiful. You remember
when I was little and tried to lead the saintly life--you thought it
ridiculous. You did not understand. There is something in me that
you do not take seriously because I am lazy and like pretty things
and marrons glacés. But it is there all the same. If you were a true
Catholic I could explain. To be a nun is beautiful--beautiful, and I
would be safe there, and out of the way. For you and Papa there would
be no more problem, you would not have to live together any more. And
the sisters love me; they would be glad to receive me. They are so
gentle, so sweet--you have no idea, and quite happy you know. Sometimes
they laugh and make little jokes, like children. It is much happier in
the convent than here.”
It was I that broke down then, and cried. I cried miserably, ugly
tears, sobbing against Jinny’s languid knees. I, a middle-aged woman,
disfigured, with a swollen face, a great, strong, tired, drab creature,
in whose tough body life had gone stale, was humbled before my
beautiful child.
I asked her forgiveness. Brokenly I begged her to be kind. And I
apologized to her. Kneeling beside her I tried to explain my inability
to believe in any creed, any dogma of the Church, I spoke of truth,
I proclaimed as if before a high spiritual judge, my honest search
for truth. Pitiful? Yes--but do you not believe that it is often
so--mothers kneeling to their children, avowing their mistakes, their
failures, begging for love?
I was desperate to destroy the thing that separated us--I was so lonely
so alone--it seemed to me that this moment held my one chance, my one
hope of drawing my child close to me. I looked up at her. Cool, lovely
youth holding aloof, if only she would come, if only she would respond
and take me in her slim fresh innocent arms. Ah, the relief it would
be--the comfort!
“Jinny--Jinny--love me--I need your love, I am your mother. I am
growing old. There is no one left for me to turn to--no one to advise
me, no one to care for me, except you. Do you realize what I mean? My
life is finished, it goes on only in you, only for you. Jinny, Jinny,
don’t you understand, I need you.”
She stroked my hair lightly with delicate fingers, but looking up, I
saw that her face was contracted in a nervous spasm--of distaste. A
moment longer I waited staring up at her face with a longing that must
have communicated itself to her, a longing so intense that I felt it
going out of me in waves but she made no sign.
“I do love you, Mummy--you know I do,” she said in a dull little voice.