Philibert had gone away, so when the doctor said a few days later
that Jinny should go to Biarritz it was I who took her, though I knew
she would rather have gone with some one else. I should have sent her
with a companion. Had I left her alone then things might have been
mended, but I was too jealous, and though I knew the truth in my heart
I couldn’t bear to admit that my child didn’t like being with me. I
kept on thinking of ways to win back her love, silly feeble ways. I
was like a despairing and foolish lover who cannot bring himself to
leave the object of his passion though he knows that everything he does
exasperates her. I had no pride. I gave her presents. I did errands for
her that the servants should have done. With a great lump of burning
pain in my heart I went on smiling and busy, avoiding her eyes and
fussing about her, and she was exquisitely patient and polite.
I do not know to this day whether Bianca followed us to Biarritz
knowingly and with intent, or not. Clémentine told me afterwards
that she had seen Bianca with Philibert at Fontainebleau at the Hôtel
de France on the Sunday, the day he left Jinny and me, after our
scene, but whether she learned from Philibert during the week they
spent together of Jinny’s whereabouts and tracked her down, I cannot
tell. Probably not. Yet it may be.... It is all so strange that one
can believe anything. Philibert and Bianca together--after all those
years--that in itself is extraordinary. What sort of relationship could
have existed between them at the end? I don’t know. I do not attempt to
understand. They were people beyond my comprehension, but some thing
that they possessed in common, some bond, some feeling profound and
complex, had evidently survived.
It is useless dwelling upon their problem. Revolting? Evil? I suppose
so, and yet their infernal passion has somehow imposed upon me a dread
respect. Philibert after Bianca’s death crumpled up as if by magic
into a silly little old man. I saw it happen to him, there in that
hotel where he came rushing on receipt of the news. He stood in my
room shaking and disintegrating visibly before my eyes, profoundly
unpleasant, pitiful. It was as if Bianca had held in her hand the vital
stuff of his life, and as if with her death he was emptied of all
energy and power.
All this happened you see at Biarritz where Bianca came and found us.
I am almost sure that I did not think of killing Bianca, even at the
very end, when I found myself in her room, standing over her. And yet,
if she hadn’t taken that overdose of morphine herself, that very night,
what would have happened I don’t know.
It is very curious, her dying like that, whether by accident or intent,
no one will ever know, on just that night, and in just that place,
involving me in Jinny’s eyes, for ever. God knows there were plenty of
other places on the earth where she might more logically have chosen
to breathe her last. Why not in Venice in that great dark vaulted
palace of hers with the black water lapping under her balcony? Or in
her castle in Provence, where she lived with her demons, or in Paris in
the red lacquer den with its golden cushions? Any one of those settings
would have been more in keeping--but in the Plage Hôtel--above the sea,
no, there was no poetic justice in her choosing that spot. And if it
was an accident, then the freakish spirit who planned it did it with
his diabolical eye on Jinny and me.
We had been a week in Biarritz. Jinny had found some young people with
whom she played tennis in the afternoon. Occasionally I left her for a
game of golf. One day coming back I saw her sitting on the terrace with
a woman whose eccentric elegance was familiar, but whom I did not at
first recognize. I saw her back, long and narrow, a fur wrap slipping
from the shoulders, an attenuated arm hanging across the back of her
chair. Jinny, all in white, her hair a golden halo in the light of the
sun that was setting behind her, was facing her. Their faces were close
together. The older woman was leaning forward. She had Jinny’s hand in
both of hers. There was about this pose something intimate and intense.
Jinny started up at the sight of me, and the woman turned her small
dark head round and gave me a little nod. It was Bianca.
She was very much changed. I remember every detail of her appearance,
her red turban, her soiled white gown, her fur coat that looked somehow
rather shabby. She was carelessly dressed, she had an air both tawdry
and neglected. Actually she didn’t look clean. Her face was startling.
The makeup was badly done. Once it had been a smooth even white, now
the eyelids were yellow and on the thin cheek-bones were spots of red.
The finger nails of the beautiful hand that hung limp over the back
of her chair were enamelled pink but dirty. She had obviously been
going down hill at a rapid pace, and for one instant this realization
in the midst of my panic at finding her with Jinny, gave me pleasure.
For Bianca to turn into an untidy hag; that was something to make me
wickedly exultant.
She looked at me calmly out of her monstrous eyes. “It is centuries
since we met,” she said. I did not reply. I was trembling and I saw
that she saw my trembling. Her discoloured eyelids lifted, and sent
out their old fiery blue light. Her eyes grew more enormous. She
stared into mine and her thin pointed lips curved into a smile. “Not
since Deauville, after the death of poor Fan Ivanoff--four, five, six
years--is it not? Before the war. I have been so little in Paris.” Her
eyelids fluttered, her eyes deadened, a curious lassitude spread over
her suddenly. She drooped in her chair, she was like a bruised soiled
faded plant, almost to me she seemed to exhale the odour of decay.
“I have travelled--I have wandered--Spain--Portugal--America--Buenos
Aires--I am so restless, I go anywhere--” her voice trailed off. She
gave herself a little jerk. Her eyes slid to Jinny, dwelt upon her.
“Your daughter and I have been talking. ‘_Quel amour d’enfant_’--so
_exaltée_, so sensitive.”
Jinny, it seemed to me, was rather pale. She stood nervously clasping
her hands, her eyes moving from one of us to the other.
“The Princess brought me a message from Papa,” she said in a shrill
defiant note.
“Ah yes, I saw him just the other day--where was it? I cannot remember,
I have no memory, but he told me you were here.”
The long unclean hand again went out to Jinny. It caressed her arm. I
shivered. “Don’t,” I muttered in spite of myself.
Bianca jerked, a nervous twitch, and gave a little laugh.
“Ah, you see, my child, your mother doesn’t like--” She broke off.
Jinny’s face was crimson now. “Never mind--she is perhaps right. I will
leave you now. I go to the Casino. It is all so boring. Perhaps later--”
She did not look back at us as she trailed away. I thought to see
toads jumping up from the imprint of her feet.
Upstairs, I said as quietly as I could:
“How is it that you know the Princess?”
“Papa introduced me to her long ago--when I was quite a little girl.”
“You have seen her since?”
“Yes.”
“Often?”
“Several times.”
“You admire her?”
“Yes--she is strange. I like strange things.”
“I do not like her at all,” I said curtly.
Jinny sat on the edge of a table, poking into a box of chocolates.
“Why don’t you like her, Mummy?”
“Because she is a bad woman.”
“Oh no, surely you are wrong. She is Papa’s oldest friend.” She popped
a sweet into her mouth.
“Who told you that?”
“She did herself--and besides, I know--I have known a long time. She
was his first romance, his--what do you call it,--his calf love.”
I burst into harsh laughter. My laugh sounded to me ugly and terrible.
Jinny’s face went pale; I crossed to the window.
“What else did she tell you?” I asked with my back to her.
“She has told me about life in convents, she is very devout. She has
often been in convents to ‘_faire une retraite_.’ She says it is very
soothing there, but that I should not be in a hurry about making a
decision.”
“Ah!”
“Yes--she seems to understand me--she conveys much sympathy. She has a
magnetism--it draws one.”
“I know.”
“What is the matter, Mummy? You are angry. I feel sorry for the
Princess, she is so alone in the world, and she says she loves me,
that she is wonderfully attracted to me, that I would do her good.
She called herself laughing you know, but with a sadness--she called
herself ‘_une damnée_.’”
I could contain myself no longer. “_Une damnée_--well, that’s just
what she is--” I wheeled about. I felt my voice rising in spite of me.
“I forbid you ever to speak to her again. Do you understand? You must
never speak to her again.” My child’s face hardened. The eyes widened,
the nostrils dilated. She was very pale. Something sinister seemed to
rise between us. She receded from me.
“Don’t--don’t!” she whispered backing away.
“Don’t--don’t what?” I cried back. “You don’t want me to stand between
you and this horrible woman who has ruined my life--ruined your
father--ruined us all--and who wants now to ruin you.”
“No, no, no--don’t say such things.” She was screaming too now. “It is
wicked of you to say such things. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe
you. I won’t believe it. I love Papa, I love Papa better than you,
better than you. You have done it. You have ruined his life. I know it,
I have seen it. I have seen you look at him with hatred. How do you
think it feels to see one’s parents hating each other? Ruined? Yes, you
have ruined my life. You--you--you ought never to have brought me into
the world. I wish I were dead--I wish I were dead--” She rushed into
her room and banged the door.
I told myself looking out over that horrible sea, immense, restless
and cold, that nothing irretrievable had happened, that Jinny would
come back to me, that she would forgive, that things would be the
same. But I had no faith, and what did that mean, if things were the
same. Was that sufficient as a basis for the future? What if we went
on and on having scenes--screaming at each other. I was ashamed, and
shaken, and I was afraid. Bianca had come back--Bianca was there, down
the corridor--close to us, close to Jinny. “Une damnée”? she called
herself.
I must take Jinny away in the morning, but what good would that do in
the end? Bianca would follow us sooner or later to Paris. Jinny would
be sure to see her. I had a ridiculous picture of Bianca pursuing us
from place to place, lying in wait for Jinny--laying infernal schemes.
I remembered what I had recently heard of her strange habits, her
vicious tastes, of the effect she had had on certain women. I saw her,
a restless, haunted damned soul, the slave of infernal passions, a
prowl in the world, hunting for victims, growing more implacable as she
grew old.
I dressed for dinner. Jinny sent word she would dine in bed. On the
way to the lift, I saw Bianca go into her room. She looked back at me
over her shoulder, half smiling but with a curious look in her eyes.
Was it fear? Was it regret? I thought for a long time of that look, I
thought of it all evening sitting in my high window, listening to the
interminable boom of the waves. Her presence, near, under the same roof
was intolerable, like a dreadful smell, or an excruciating nagging
sound. I was feeling again, even now, through my terror for Jinny, and
in spite of my sickened sense of the woman’s decay, the impact of her
personality. She existed there beyond my door, special, vivid, intense,
and I began to feel her decrepitude as a reproach, her ruin as a
responsibility. Moment by moment I felt her, exerting on me a horrible
pressure. There had been in her dreary face, an appeal, a claim, a
despair that laid on me a weight. In her eyes, there had been, memory.
It was that that haunted me. Somehow, actually, her eyes had reflected
the past and had dragged my mind back, afar back to the days when we
had been friends. I remembered everything. In their deep burning blue
light that was like a lamp lighted inside a corpse, I saw her youth
and my youth glowing, and I remembered how we had been together, two
strong young things, curiously linked, responding to each other, with a
sympathy that should have been a good thing to us. She had said once,
“Jane, I love you--you are the only friend I have ever had.” And I
remembered the day she had talked to me of herself in that old castle
in Provence, above the white road and dusty vineyard.
I felt sick and was aware of an intolerable physical pain in my side.
Bianca, who had been so beautiful, and whom I had loved divinely once,
was a rotten rag now, soiled, dingy, bad smelling--and I hated her. We
hated each other. Our youth was gone--and all its beauty. There was
nothing under the sun but ugliness and hatred and the principle of life
was decay.
I walked the room. Jinny was asleep--lovely youth--fresh and sweet.
What would become of her? Bianca and I were two old women, done for.
To protect Jinny from her, Jinny who hated me, that was all I could do
now. I must go to Bianca. Either she would respond to me and give in to
me because of the memory that had stared out of her face, or I would
make her; I would force her to do what I wanted as I had done before,
but this was to be the last time--this must be the end.
I looked in at Jinny. She seemed to be asleep. Out in the corridor some
one had turned the light low. The long red carpet of the corridor led
straight to Bianca’s room. I went out quickly closing the door after
me. It took an instant to reach the door of Bianca’s sitting room. I
knocked. There was no answer. I opened it and went in. To the right
another door was open, a light shone through. Bianca was in bed. I
could see her. Her eyes were closed. The lamp beside her bed shone on
her face, a peculiar odour pervaded the room. “I will wake her and have
it out with her,” I thought to myself.
I went into the bedroom. A number of bottles, a small aluminum saucepan
and a hypodermic syringe were on the night table beside her. She was
breathing heavily and noisily, drawing quick, regular, snoring breaths.
It was obvious that she was drugged; the noise of her breathing was
very ugly. Her face was sharp and pinched and evil. An extraordinary
disorder prevailed in the room. I remember now being astonished by it.
Untidy heaps of underwear about, not very clean, dragged lacey things
on the floor, a high-heeled slipper on the centre table, a litter on
the toilet table that reminded one of an actress’s dressing room, a
tray with a champagne bottle and a plate of oyster shells on the end of
the chaise longue. And pervading every thing that horrid odour of drugs
and the sound of snoring.
I stood for a moment looking down at the woman in the bed. The sight
of her filled me with loathing. How unclean she was! She was like a
corpse. Already she was half dead. She was something no longer human,
scarcely alive. Her sleep had the quality of a disease, her breath was
poisonous.
Suddenly I felt some one beside me. It was Jinny, wrapped in her
dressing gown. White as a sheet, she stood staring down at that
dreadful face. “I heard you open the door,” she whispered, “I followed
you. What is it? What is the matter?”
“Nothing,” I murmured. “She is drugged, that is all.” I pointed to the
bottle of ether, the syringe in its little box. “Come,” I repeated
nervously, “come away.” It was horrible to have Jinny in that room.
“But, Mummy, can’t we do something, oughtn’t we to do something?”
“No--come--it’s nothing--I mean she’s used to it.” I dragged Jinny away.
The next morning, the people in the hotel were informed that the
Princess was dead. She had died in the night of an overdose of morphine.
It was Marie, Jinny’s maid, who burst in on her with the news, while
she was having her café au lait in bed. I heard Jinny give a shriek and
ran in to her--she had fainted.
Isn’t it strange the way it all happened? One would think that God
had a hand in it, but if there is a God, why should He want my child
to believe that I had committed a murder? It is that that I do not
understand.
Jane’s narrative was ended with those words. She had talked that last
night of my visit to her in St. Mary’s Plains, until nearly morning.
Her forehead grew damp as she talked and her lips dry and her words
carried along the sustained note of her voice like little frightened
sounds.
And during all those hours that she talked, I remember hearing no other
sound. I heard no voice in the street, nor the sound of trams going
by nor of dogs barking. In our concentration we were as cut off from
contact with the living world as if the whole city of St. Mary’s Plains
had been turned to stone.
That was just a year ago today. I suppose she is still there in that
meagre faded room, I can see her there, sitting in the high wooden
chair that belonged once upon a time to Patience Forbes. The wind is
hurrying across the immense prairies of her awful wide empty country.
It rattles the windows of that frail wooden house. She is alone there.
Last night we talked of Jane in Ludovic’s rooms. Clémentine was there
and Felix, we had been to Cocteau’s ballet. Jane would have enjoyed it,
they said; she would have understood the joke, and perceived the beauty.
Clémentine moved restlessly about. “What is she doing now, I wonder?
Surely she is doing something--”
“She is thinking things out.”
“Good God!” groaned Felix. “Our Jane--our great haughty creature--she
wasn’t meant to think. She was meant to be looked at--she ought never
to have had an idea in her head. What a waste--what a wicked waste.”
Clémentine on a footstool by the fire nursed her knees. “She did really
think we were immoral. We took life as a joke. She couldn’t understand.
She believed in the Bible--all the part about being wicked. She didn’t
know it, but her creed was the ten commandments. She is a victim of
the ten commandments.”
Ludovic shook his head. “She was right,” he said, “all her life she
wanted to do right--now she has done it. She has gone back to her
people. She should never have come here. There was nothing for her
here, but ourselves.”
“And were we nothing?” cried Clémentine, “didn’t we love her well?
Didn’t we understand?”
“No, we didn’t understand. And we didn’t count. We didn’t count for
her.”
Ah, Jane, Jane, it was true. We didn’t count. In all your story, you
scarcely alluded to us. We were just your friends who loved you, and
we didn’t count. If only you could know what we know about yourself;
if only you knew how we cared for you beyond all the differences of
conduct; if only you could have realized that life is not a thing to
fear, that it is a little trivial thing, or again, just a thing like
food, an element like air, to be eaten, or breathed or enjoyed. But you
thought it a mysterious gift, a terrible responsibility, a high and
serious obligation, with a claim on your soul. You thought it a thing
you could sin against. You confounded life with God.
This little street is so quiet tonight, so quiet and small. It shuts
me in. It shuts me comfortably in, but beyond it there is a great
distance--a great land--a great sea--a high and terrible sky.