Man and Maid
by Elinor Glyn · English · Gutenberg #20512 · 442,104 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Man and Maid
Author: Elinor Glyn
Release date: February 3, 2007 [eBook #20512]
Most recently updated: December 29, 2010
Language: English
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[Illustration: Suzette (Renee Adoree) makes the tedious hours of the
wounded Sir Nicholas Thormonde (Lew Cody) seem less monotonous. (A scene
from Elinor Glyn's production "Man and Maid" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)]
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MAN AND MAID
By ELINOR GLYN
A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Published by arrangement with J. B. Lippincott Company
Printed in U.S.A.
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COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY ELINOR GLYN
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MAN AND MAID
I
February, 1918.
I am sick of my life--The war has robbed it of all that a young man can
find of joy.
I look at my mutilated face before I replace the black patch over the
left eye, and I realize that, with my crooked shoulder, and the leg gone
from the right knee downwards, that no woman can feel emotion for me
again in this world.
So be it--I must be a philosopher.
Mercifully I have no near relations--Mercifully I am still very rich,
mercifully I can buy love when I require it, which under the
circumstances, is not often.
Why do people write journals? Because human nature is filled with
egotism. There is nothing so interesting to oneself as oneself; and
journals cannot yawn in one's face, no matter how lengthy the expression
of one's feelings may be!
A clean white page is a sympathetic thing, waiting there to receive
one's impressions!
Suzette supped with me, here in my _appartement_ last night--When she
had gone I felt a beast. I had found her attractive on Wednesday, and
after an excellent lunch, and two Benedictines, I was able to persuade
myself that her tenderness and passion were real, and not the result of
some thousands of francs,--And then when she left I saw my face in the
glass without the patch over the socket, and a profound depression fell
upon me.
Is it because I am such a mixture that I am this rotten creature?--An
American grandmother, a French mother, and an English father.
Paris--Eton--Cannes--Continuous traveling. Some years of living and
enjoying a rich orphan's life.--The war--fighting--a zest hitherto
undreamed of--unconsciousness--agony--and then?--well now Paris again
for special treatment.
Why do I write this down? For posterity to take up the threads
correctly?--Why?
From some architectural sense in me which must make a beginning, even of
a journal, for my eyes alone, start upon a solid basis?
I know not--and care not.
* * * * *
Three charming creatures are coming to have tea with me to-day. They had
heard of my loneliness and my savageness from Maurice--They burn to give
me their sympathy--and have tea with plenty of sugar in it--and
chocolate cake.
I used to wonder in my salad days what the brains of women were made
of--when they have brains!--The cleverest of them are generally devoid
of a logical sense, and they seldom understand the relative value of
things, but they make the charm of life, for one reason or another.
When I have seen these three I will dissect them. A divorcée--a war
widow of two years--and the third with a husband fighting.
All, Maurice assures me, ready for anything, and highly attractive. It
will do me a great deal of good, he protests. We shall see.
_Night._ They came, with Maurice and Alwood Chester, of the American Red
Cross. They gave little shrill screams of admiration for the room.
"_Quel endroit delicieux!_--What _boiserie_! English?--Yes, of course,
English _dix-septième_, one could see--What silver!--and cleaned--And
everything of a _chic_!--And the hermit so _séduisant_ with his air
_maussade_!--_Hein._"
"Yes, the war is much too long--One has given of one's time in the first
year--but now, really, fatigue has overcome one!--and surely after the
spring offensive peace _must_ come soon--and one must live!"
They smoked continuously and devoured the chocolate cake, then they had
liqueurs.
They were so well dressed! and so lissome. They wore elastic corsets, or
none at all. They were well painted; cheeks of the new tint, rather
apricot coloured--and magenta lips. They had arranged themselves when
they had finished munching, bringing out their gold looking-glasses and
their lip grease and their powder--and the divorcee continued to
endeavour to enthrall my senses with her voluptuous half closing of the
eyes, while she reddened her full mouth.
They spoke of the theatre, and the last _bons mots_ about their _chères
amies_--the last liasons--the last passions--They spoke of
Gabrielle--her husband was killed last week--'So foolish of him, since
one of Alice's 'friends' among the Ministers could easily have got him a
soft job, and one must always help one's friends! Alice adored
Gabrielle.--But he has left her well provided for--Gabrielle will look
well in her crepe--and there it is, war is war--_Que voulez vous?_'
"After all, will it be as agreeable if peace does come this summer?--One
will be able to dance openly--that will be nice--but for the rest? It
may be things will be more difficult--and there may be complications.
One has been very well during the war--very well, indeed--_N'est ce pas
ma cherie--n'est ce pas?_"
Thus they talked.
The widow's lover is married, Maurice tells me, and has been able to
keep his wife safely down at their place in Landes, but if peace should
come he must be _en famille_, and the wife can very well be disagreeable
about the affair.
The divorcée's three lovers will be in Paris at the same time. The
married one's husband returned for good--"Yes, certainly, peace will
have its drawbacks--The war knows its compensations--But considerable
ones!"
When they had departed, promising to return very soon--to dinner this
time, and see all the "exquisite _appartement_," Burton came into the
room to take away the tea things. His face was a mask as he swept up the
cigarette ash, which had fallen upon the William and Mary English lac
table, which holds the big lamp, then he carefully carried away the
silver ash trays filled with the ends, and returned with them cleaned.
Then he coughed slightly.
"Shall I open the window, Sir Nicholas?"
"It is a beastly cold evening."
He put an extra log on the fire and threw the second casement wide.
"You'll enjoy your dinner better now, Sir," he said, and left me
shivering.
* * * * *
I wish I were a musician, I could play to myself. I have still my two
hands, though perhaps my left shoulder hurts too much to play often. My
one eye aches when I read for too long, and the stump below the knee is
too tender still to fit the false leg on to, and I cannot, because of my
shoulder, use my crutch overmuch, so walking is out of the question.
These trifles are perhaps, the cause of my ennui with life.
I suppose such women as those who came to-day fulfill some purpose in the
scheme of things. One can dine openly with them at the most exclusive
restaurant, and not mind meeting one's relations. They are rather more
expensive than the others--pearl necklaces--sables--essence for their
motor cars--these are their prices.--They are so decorative, too, and
before the war were such excellent tango partners. These three are all
of the best families, and their relations stick to them in the
background, so they are not altogether _déclassé_. Maurice says they are
the most agreeable women in Paris, and get the last news out of the
Generals. They are seen everywhere, and Coralie, the married one, wears
a Red Cross uniform sometimes at tea--if she happens to remember to go
into a hospital for ten minutes to hold some poor fellow's hand.
Yes, I suppose they have their uses--there are a horde of them, anyway.
To-morrow Maurice is bringing another specimen to divert me--American
this time--over here for "war work." Maurice says one of the cleverest
adventuresses he has ever met; and I am still irresistible, he assures
me, so I must be careful--(for am I not disgustingly rich!)
Burton is sixty years old--He is my earliest recollection. Burton knows
the world.
* * * * *
_Friday_--The American adventuress delighted me. She was so shrewd. Her
eyes are cunning and evil--her flesh is round and firm, she is not
extremely painted, and her dresses are quite six inches below her knees.
She has two English peers in tow, and any casual Americans of note whom
she can secure who will give her facilities in life. She, also, is
posing for a 'lady' and 'a virtuous woman,' and an ardent war worker.
All these parasites are the product of the war, though probably they
always existed, but the war has been their glorious chance. There is a
new verb in America, Maurice says--"To war work"--It means to get to
Paris, and have a splendid time.
Their _toupé_ is surprising! To hear this one talk one would think she
ruled all the politics of the allies, and directed each General.
* * * * *
Are men fools?--Yes, imbeciles--they cannot see the wiles of woman.
Perhaps I could not when I was a human male whom they could love!
Love?--did I say love?
Is there such a thing?--or is it only a sex excitement for the
moment!--That at all events is the sum of what these creatures know.
Do they ever think?--I mean beyond planning some fresh adventure for
themselves, or how to secure some fresh benefit.
I cannot now understand how a man ever marries one of them, gives his
name and his honour into such precarious keeping. Once I suppose I
should have been as easy a prey as the rest. But not _now_--I have too
much time to think, I fear. I seem to find some ulterior motive in
whatever people say or do.
To-day another American lunched with me, a bright girl, an heiress of the
breezy, jolly kind, a good sort before the war, whom I danced with
often. She told me quite naturally that she had a German prisoner's
thigh bone being polished into an umbrella handle--She had assisted at
the amputation--and the man had afterwards died--"A really cute
souvenir," she assured me it was going to be!
Are we all mad--?
No wonder the finest and best "go West."--Will they come again, souls of
a new race, when all these putrid beings have become extinguished by
time? I hope so to God....
These French women enjoy their crepe veils--and their high-heeled shoes,
and their short black skirts, even a cousin is near enough for the
trappings of woe.--Can any of us feel woe now?--I think not....
Maurice has his uses--Were I a man once more I should despise
Maurice--He is so good a creature, such a devoted hanger on of the very
rich--and faithful too. Does he not pander to my every fancy, and
procure me whatever I momentarily desire?
How much better if I had been killed outright! I loathe myself and all
the world.
* * * * *
Once--before the war--the doing up of this flat caused me raptures. To
get it quite English--in Paris! Every _antiquaire_ in London had
exploited me to his heart's content. I paid for it through the nose, but
each bit is a gem. I am not quite sure now what I meant to do with it
when finished, occupy it when I did come to Paris--lend it to
friends?--I don't remember--Now it seems a sepulchre where I can retire
my maimed body to and wait for the end.
* * * * *
Nina once proposed to stay with me here, no one should know,
Nina?--would she come now?--How dare they make this noise at the
door--what is it?--Nina!
* * * * *
_Sunday_--it was actually Nina herself--"Poor darling Nicholas," she
said. "The kindest fate sent me across--I 'wangled' a passport--really
serious war work, and here I am for a fortnight, even in war time one
_must_ get a few clothes--"
I could see I was a great shock to her, my attraction for her had
gone--I was just "poor darling Nicholas," and she began to be
motherly--Nina motherly!--She would have been furious at the very idea
once. Nina is thirty-nine years old, her boy has just gone into the
flying corps, she is so glad the war will soon be over.
She loves her boy.
She gave me news of the world, our old world of idle uselessness, which
is now one of solid work.
"Why have you completely cut yourself off from everything and everybody,
ever since you first went out to fight?--Very silly of you."
"When I was a _man_ and could fight, I liked fighting, and never wanted
to see any of you again. You all seemed rotters to me, so I spent my
leaves in the country or here. Now you seem glorious beings, and I the
rotter. I am no use at all--"
Nina came close to me and touched my hand--
"Poor darling Nicholas," she said again.
Something hurt awfully, as I realized that to touch me now caused her no
thrill. No woman will ever thrill again when I am near.
Nina does know all about clothes! She is the best-dressed Englishwoman I
have ever seen. She has worked awfully well for the war, too, I hear,
she deserves her fortnight in Paris.
"What are you going to do, Nina?" I asked her.
She was going out to theatres every night, and going to dine with lots
of delicious 'red tabs' whose work was over here, whom she had not seen
for a long time.
"I'm just going to frivol, Nicholas, I am tired of work."
Nothing could exceed her kindness--a mother's kindness.
I tried to take an interest in everything she said, only it seemed such
aeons away. As though I were talking in a dream.
She would go plodding on at her war job when she got back again, of
course, but she, like everyone else, is war weary.
"And when peace comes--it will soon come now probably--what then?"
"I believe I shall marry again."
I jumped--I had never contemplated the possibility of Nina marrying, she
has always been a widowed institution, with her nice little house in
Queen Street, and that wonderful cook.
"What on earth for?"
"I want the companionship and devotion of one man."
"Anyone in view?"
"Yes--one or two--they say there is a shortage of men, I have never
known so many men in my life."
Then presently, when she had finished her tea, she said--
"You are absolutely out of gear, Nicholas--Your voice is rasping, your
remarks are bitter, and you must be awfully unhappy, poor boy."
I told her that I was--there was no use in lying.
"Everything is finished," I said, and she bent down and kissed me as she
said good-bye--a mother's kiss.
* * * * *
And now I am alone, and what shall I do all the evening? or all the
other evenings--? I will send for Suzette to dine.
* * * * *
_Night_--Suzette--was amusing--. I told her at once I did not require
her to be affectionate.
"You can have an evening's rest from blandishments, Suzette."
"_Merci!_"--and then she stretched herself, kicked up her little feet,
in their short-vamped, podgy little shoes, with four-inch heels, and lit
a cigarette.
"Life is hard, _Mon ami_"--she told me--"And now that the English are
here, it is difficult to keep from falling in love."
For a minute I thought she was going to insinuate that I had aroused her
reflection--I warmed--but no--She had taken me seriously when I told her
I required no blandishments.
That ugly little twinge came to me again.
"You like the English?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"They are very _bons garçons_, they are clean, and they are fine men,
they have sentiment, too--Yes, it is difficult not to feel," she sighed.
"What do you do when you fall in love then, Suzette?"
"_Mon ami_, I immediately go for a fortnight to the sea--one is lost if
one falls in love _dans le metier_--The man tramples then--tramples and
slips off--For everything good one must never feel."
"But you have a kind heart Suzette--you feel for me?"
"_Hein?_"--and she showed all her little white pointed
teeth--"Thou?--Thou art very rich, _mon chou_. Women will always feel
for thee!"
It went in like a knife it was so true--.
"I was a very fine Englishman once," I said.
"It is possible, thou art still, sitting, and showing the right
profile--and full of _chic_--and then rich, rich!"
"You could not forget that I am rich, Suzette?"
"If I did I might love you--_Jamais!_"
"And does the sea help to prevent an attack?"--
"Absence--and I go to a poor place I knew when I was young, and I wash
and cook, and make myself remember what _la vie dure_ was--and would be
again if one loved--Bah! that does it. I come back cured--and ready only
to please such as thou, Nicholas!--rich, rich!"
* * * * *
And she laughed again her rippling gay laugh--
We had a pleasant evening, she told me the history of her life--or some
of it--They were ever the same from Lucien's Myrtale.
* * * * *
When all of me is aching--Shall I too, find solace if I go to the sea?
Who knows?
II
I have been through torture this week--The new man wrenches my shoulder
each day, it will become straight eventually, he says. They have tried
to fit the false leg also, so those two things are going on, but the
socket is not yet well enough for anything to be done to my left eye--so
that has defeated them. It will be months before any real improvement
takes place.
There are hundreds of others who are more maimed than I--in greater
pain--more disgusting--does it give them any comfort to tell the truth
to a journal?--or are they strong enough to keep it all locked up in
their hearts?--I used to care to read, all books bore me now--I cannot
take interest in any single thing, and above all, I loathe myself--My
soul is angry.
Nina came again, to luncheon this time. It was pouring with rain, an
odious day. She told me of her love affairs--as a sister might--Nina a
sister!
She can't make up her mind whether to take Jim Bruce or Rochester
Moreland, they are both Brigadiers now, Jim is a year younger than she
is.
"Rochester is really more my mate, Nicholas," she said, "but then there
are moments when I am with him when I am not sure if he would not bore
me eventually, and he has too much character for me to suppress--Jim
fascinates me, but I only hold him because he is not sure of me--If I
marry him he will be, and then I shall have to watch my looks, and
remember to play the game all the time, and it won't be restful--above
all, I want rest and security."
"You are not really in love with either, Nina?"
"Love?" and she smoothed out the fringe on her silk jersey with her
war-hardened hand--the hand I once loved to kiss--every blue vein on
it!--"I often, wonder what really is love, Nicholas--I thought I loved
you before the war--but, of course, I could not have--because I don't
feel anything now--and if I had really loved you, I suppose it would not
have made any difference."
Then she realized what she had said and got up and came closer to me.
"That was cruel of me, I did not mean to be--I love you awfully as a
sister--always."
"Sister Nina!--well, let us get back to love--perhaps the war has killed
it--or it has developed everything, perhaps it now permits a sensitive,
delicious woman like you to love two men."
"You see, we have become so complicated"--she puffed smoke rings at
me--"One man does not seem to fulfill the needs of every mood--Rochester
would not understand some things that Jim would, and _vice versa_--I do
not feel any glamour about either, but it is rest and certainty, as I
told you, Nicholas, I am so tired of working and going home to Queen
Street alone."
"Shall you toss up?"
"No--Rochester is coming up from the front to-morrow just for the night,
I am going to dine with him at Larue's--alone, I shall sample him all
the time--I sampled Jim when he was last in London a fortnight ago--"
"You will tell me about it when you have decided, won't you, Nina. You
see I have become a brother, and am interested in the psychological
aspects of things."
"Of course I will"--then she went on meditatively, her rather plaintive
voice low.
"I think all our true feeling is used up, Nicholas--our souls--if we
have souls--are blunted by the war agony. Only our senses still feel.
When Jim looks at me with his attractive blue eyes, and I see the D.S.O.
and the M.C., and his white nice teeth--and how his hair is brushed, and
how well his uniform fits, I have a jolly all-overish sensation--and I
don't much listen to what he is saying--he says lots of love--and I
think I would really like him all the time. Then, when he has gone I
think of other things, and I feel he would not understand a word about
them, and because he isn't there I don't feel the delicious all-overish
sensation, so I rather decide to marry Rochester--there would be such
risk--because when you are married to a man, it is possible to get much
fonder of him. Jim is a year younger than I am--It would be a strain,
perhaps in a year or two--especially if I got fond."
"You had better take the richer," I told her--"Money stands by one, it
is an attraction which even the effects of war never varies or lessens,"
and I could hear that there was bitterness in my voice.
"You are quite right," Nina said, taking no notice of it--"but I don't
want money--I have enough for every possible need, and my boy has his
own. I want something kind and affectionate to live with."
"You want a master--and a slave."
"Yes."
"Nina, when you loved me--what did you want?"
"Just you, Nicholas--just you."
"Well, I am here now, but an eye and a leg gone, and a crooked shoulder,
changes me;--so it is true love--even the emotion of the soul, depends
upon material things--"
Nina thought for a while.
"Perhaps not the emotion of the soul--if we have souls?--but what we
know of love now certainly does. I suppose there are people who can love
with the soul, I am not one of them."
"Well, you are honest, Nina."
She had her coffee and liqueur, she was graceful and composed and
refined, either Jim or Rochester will have a very nice wife.
Burton coughed when she had left.
"Out with it, Burton!"
"Mrs. Ardilawn is a kind lady, Sir Nicholas."
"Charming."
"I believe you'd be better with some lady to look after you, Sir--."
"To hell with you. Telephone for Mr. Maurice--I don't want any woman--we
can play piquet."
This is how my day ended--.
Maurice and piquet--then the widow and the divorcée for dinner--and now
alone again! The sickening rot of it all.
* * * * *
_Sunday_--Nina came for tea--she feels that I am a great comfort to her
in this moment of her life, so full of indecision--It seems that Jim has
turned up too, at the Ritz, where Rochester still is, and that his
physical charm has upset all her calculations again.
"I am really very worried Nicholas," she said, "and you, who are a dear
family friend"--I am a family friend now!--"ought to be able to help
me."
"What the devil do you want me to do, Nina?--outset them both, and ask
you to marry me?"
"My dearest Nicholas!" it seemed to her that I had suggested that she
should marry father Xmas! "How funny you are!"
Once it was the height of her desire--Nina is eight years older than I
am--I can see now her burning eyes one night on the river in the June of
1914, when she insinuated, not all playfully, that it would be good to
wed.
"I think you had better take Jim my dear, after all. You are evidently
becoming in love with him and you have proved to me that the physical
charm matters most,--or if you are afraid of that, you had better do as
another little friend of mine does when she is attracted--she takes a
fortnight at the sea!"
"The sea would be awful in this weather! I should send for both in
desperation!" and she laughed and began to take an interest in the
furnishings of my flat. She looked over it, and Burton pointed out all
its merits to her (My crutch hurts my shoulder so much to-day I did not
want to move out of my chair). I could hear Burton's remarks, but they
fell upon unheeding ears--Nina is not cut out for a nurse, my poor
Burton, if you only knew--!
When she returned to my sitting room tea was in, and she poured it out
for me, and then she remarked.
"We have grown so awfully selfish, haven't we, Nicholas, but we aren't
such hypocrites as we were before the war. People still have lovers, but
they don't turn up their eyes so much at other people having them, as
they used. There is more tolerance--the only thing you cannot do is to
act publicly so that your men friends cannot defend you--'You must not
throw your bonnet over the windmills'--otherwise you can do as you
please--."
"You had not thought of taking either Jim or Rochester for a lover to
make certain which you prefer?"
Nina looked unspeakably shocked--.
"What a dreadful idea Nicholas!--I am thinking of both _seriously_, not
only to pass the time of day remember."
"That is all lovers are for, then Nina?--I used to think--."
"Never mind what you thought, there is no reason to insult me."
"Nothing was farther from my desire."
Nina's face cleared, as it had darkened ominously.
"What will you do if, having married Rochester, you find yourself
bored--Will you send for Jim again?"
"Certainly not, that would be disaster. I shan't plunge until I feel
pretty certain I am going to find the water just deep enough, and not
too deep--and if I do make a mistake, well I shall have to stick to it."
"By Jove what a philosopher," and I laughed--She poured out a second cup
of tea, and then she looked steadily at me, as though studying a new
phase of me.
"You are not a bit worse off than Tom Green, Nicholas, and he has not
got your money, and Tom is as jolly as anything, and everybody loves
him, though he is a hopeless cripple, and can't even look decent, as you
will be able to in a year or two. There is no use in having this
sentiment about war heroes that would make one put up with their
tempers, and their cynicism! Everybody is in the same boat, women and
men, we chance being maimed by bombs, and we are losing our looks with
rough work--for goodness sake stop being so soured--."
I laughed outright--it was all so true.
* * * * *
_Friday_--Maurice brings people to play bridge every afternoon now. Nina
has gone back to England--having decided to take Jim!
It came about in this way--She flew in to tell me the last evening
before she left for Havre. She was breathless running up the stairs, as
something had gone wrong with the lift.
"Jim and I are engaged!"
"A thousand congratulations."
"Rochester had a dinner for me on Wednesday night. All the jolliest
people in Paris--some of those dear French who have been so nice to us
all along, and some of the War Council and the Ryvens, and so on--and,
do you know, Nicholas--I _heard_ Rochester telling Madame de Clerté the
same story about his _bon mot_ when a shell broke at Avicourt--as I had
already heard him tell Admiral Short, and Daisy Ryven!--that decided
me--. There was an element of self-glorification in that modest
story--and a man who would tell it _three times_, is not for me! In ten
years I should grow into being the listener victim--I could not face it!
So I said good-bye to him in the corridor, before up to my room--and I
telephoned to Jim, who was in his room on the Cambon side, and he came
round in the morning!"
"Was Rochester upset?"
"Rather! but a man of his age--he is forty-two, who can tell a
self-story three times is going to get cured soon, so I did not worry."
"And what did Jim say?"
"He was enchanted, he said he knew it would end like that--give a man of
forty-two rope enough and he'll be certain to hang himself, he said,
and, Oh! Nicholas--Jim is a darling, he is getting quite masterful--I
adore him!"
"Senses winning, Nina! Women only like physical masters."
She grew radiant. Never has she seemed so desirable. "I don't care a fig
Nicholas! If it is senses, well, then, I know it is the best thing in
the World, and a woman of my age can't have everything. I adore Jim! We
are going to be married the first moment he can get leave again--and I
shall 'wangle' him into being a 'red tab'--he has fought enough."
"And if meanwhile he should get maimed like me--what then, Nina?"
She actually paled.
"Don't be so horrid Nicholas--Jim--Oh! I can't bear it!" and being a
strict Protestant, she crossed herself--to avert bad luck!
"We won't think of anything but joy and happiness, Nina, but it is
quite plain to me you had better have a fortnight at the sea!"
She had forgotten the allusion, and turned puzzled brown eyes upon me.
"You know--to balance yourself when you feel you are falling in love"--I
reminded her.
"Oh! It is all stuff and nonsense! I know now I adore Jim--good-bye
Nicholas"--and she hugged me--as a sister--a mother--and a family
friend--and was off down the stairs again.
Burton had brought me in a mild gin and seltzer, and it was on the tray,
near, so I drank it, and said to myself, "Here is to the Senses--jolly
good things"--and then I telephoned to Suzette to come and dine.
* * * * *
There is a mole on the left cheek of Suzette, high up near her eye,
there are three black hairs in it--I had never seen them until this
morning--_c'est fini_--_je ne puis plus_!
* * * * *
Of course we have all got moles with three black hairs in them--and the
awful moment is when suddenly they are seen--That is the tragedy of
life--disillusion.
I cannot help being horribly introspective, Maurice would agree to
whatever I said, so there is no use in talking to him--I rush to this
journal, it cannot look at me with fond watery eyes of reproach and
disapproval--as Burton would if I let myself go to him.
_May 16th_--The times have been too anxious to write, it is over two
months since I opened this book. But it cannot be, it cannot be that we
shall be beaten--Oh! God--why am I not a man again to fight! The raids
are continuous--All the fluffies and nearly everyone left Paris in the
ticklish March and April times, but now their fears are lulled a little
and many have returned, and they rush to cinemas and theatres, to kill
time, and jump into the rare taxis to go and see the places where the
raid bombs burst, or Bertha shells, and watch the houses burning and the
crushed bodies of the victims being dragged out. They sicken me, this
rotten crew--But this is not all France--great, dear, brave France--It
is only one section of useless society. To-day the Duchesse de
Courville-Hautevine came to call upon me--mounted all the stairs without
even a wheeze--(the lift gave out again this morning!)--What a
personality!--How I respect her! She has worked magnificently since the
war began, her hospital is a wonder, her only son was killed fighting
gloriously at Verdun.
"You look as melancholy as a sick cat," she told me.
She likes to speak her English--"Of what good _Jeune homme_! We are not
done yet--I have cut some of my relatives who ran away from
Paris--Imbeciles! Bertha is our diversion now, and the raids at
night--jolly loud things!"--and she chuckled, detaching her scissors
which had got caught in the purple woolen jersey she wore over her Red
Cross uniform. She is quite indifferent to coquetry, this grande dame of
the _ancien regime_!
"My _blessés_ rejoice in them--_Que voulez vous?_--War is war--and there
is no use in looking blue--Cheer up, young man!"
Then we talked of other things. She is witty and downright, and her
every thought and action is kindly. I love la Duchesse--My mother was
her dearest friend.
When she had stayed twenty minutes--she came over close to my chair.
"I knew you would be bitter at not being in the fight, my son," she
said, patting me with her once beautiful hand, now red and hardened with
work, "So I snatched the moments to come to see you. On your one leg
you'll defend if the moment should come,--but it won't! And you--you
wounded ones, spared--can keep the courage up. _Tiens!_ you can at least
pray, you have the time--I have not--_Mais le Bon Dieu_ understands--."
And with that she left me, stopping to arrange her tightly curled fringe
(she sticks to all old styles) at the lac mirror by the door. I felt
better after she had gone--yes, it is that--God--why can't I fight!
III
Is some nerve being touched by the new treatment? I seem alternately to
be numb and perfectly indifferent to how the war is going, and then
madly interested. But I am too sensitive to leave my flat for any
meals--I drive whenever one of the "fluffies" (this is what Maurice
calls the widow, the divorcée and other rejoicers of men's war hearts)
can take me in her motor--No one else has a motor--There is no petrol
for ordinary people.
"It reminds one of Louis XV's supposed reply to his daughters"--I said
to Maurice yesterday. "When they asked him to make them a good road to
the Château of their dear _Gouvernante_, the Duchesse de la Bove--He
assured them he could not, his mistresses cost him too much! So they
paid for it themselves, hence the '_Chemin des Dames_.'"
"What reminds you of what--?" Maurice asked, looking horribly puzzled.
"The fluffies being able to get the petrol--."
"But I don't see, the connection?"
"It was involved--the mistresses got the money which should have made
the road in those days, and now--."
Maurice was annoyed with himself; he could not yet see, and no wonder,
for it _was_ involved!--but I am angry that the widow and the divorcée
both have motors and I none!
"Poor Odette--she hates taxis! Why should she not have a motor?--You are
_grinchant_, _mon cher_!--since she takes you out, too!"
"Believe me, Maurice, I am grateful, I shall repay all their
kindnesses--they have all indicated how I can best do so--but I like to
keep them waiting, it makes them more keen."
Maurice laughed again nervously.
"It is divine to be so rich, Nicholas"!
* * * * *
All sorts of people come to talk to me and have tea (I have a small
hoard of sugar sent from a friend in Spain). Amongst them an ancient
guardsman in some inspection berth here--He, like Burton, knows the
world.
He tests women by whether or no they take presents from him, he tells
me. They profess intense love which he returns, and then comes the
moment (he, like me, is disgustingly rich). He offers them a present,
some accept at once, those he no longer considers; others hesitate, and
say it is too much, they only want his affection--He presses them, they
yield--they too, are wiped off the list--and now he has no one to care
for, since he has not been able to find one who refuses his gifts. It
would be certainly my case also--were I to try.
"Women"--he said to me last night--"are the only pleasure in life--men
and hunting bring content and happiness, work brings satisfaction, but
women and their ways are the only _pleasure_."
"Even when you know it is all for some personal gain?"
"Even so, once you have realized that, it does not matter, you take the
joy from another point of view, you have to eliminate vanity out of the
affair, your personal vanity is hurt, my dear boy, when you feel it is
your possessions, not yourself, they crave, but if you analyse that, it
does not take away from the pleasure their beauty gives you--the
tangible things are there just as if they loved you--I am now altogether
indifferent as to their feelings for me, as long as their table manners
are good, and they make a semblance of adoring me. If one had to depend
upon their real disinterested love for their kindness to one, then it
would be a different matter, and very distressing, but since they can
always be caught by a bauble--you and I are fortunately placed,
Nicholas."
We laughed our vile laughs together.--It is true--I hate to hear my own
laugh. I agree with Chesterfield, who said that no gentleman should make
that noise!
* * * * *
As I said before, all sorts of people come to see me, but I seem to be
stripping them of externals all the time. What is the good in them? What
is the truth in them? Strip me--if I were not rich what would anyone
bother with me for? Is anyone worth while underneath?
One or other of the fluffies come almost daily to play bridge with me,
and any fellow who is on leave, and the neutrals who have no anxieties,
what a crew! It amuses me to "strip" them. The married one, Coralie, has
absolutely nothing to charm with if one removes the ambience of success,
the entourage of beautiful things, the manicurist and the complexion
specialist, the Reboux hats, and the Chanel clothes. She would be a
plain little creature, with not too fine ankles,--but that
self-confidence which material possessions bring, casts a spell over
people.--Coralie _is_ attractive. Odette, the widow, is beautiful. She
has the brain of a turkey, but she, too, is exquisitely dressed and
surrounded with everything to enhance her loveliness, and the serenity
of success has given her magnetism. She announces platitudes as
discoveries, she sparkles, and is so ravishing that one finds her trash
wit. She thinks she is witty, and you begin to believe it!
Odette can be best stripped, people could like her just for her looks.
Alice, the divorcée, appeals to one.--She is gentle and feminine and
clinging--she is the cruelest and most merciless of the three, Maurice
tells me, and the most difficult to analyse: But most of one's friends
would find it hard to stand the test of denuding them of their worldly
possessions and outside allurements, it is not only the fluffies, who
would come out of not much value!
Oh! the long, long days--and the ugly nights!
One does not sleep very well now, the noise of "Bertha" from six A.M.
and the raids at night!--but I believe I grow to like the raids--and
last night we had a marvelous experience. I had been persuaded by
Maurice to have quite a large dinner party. Madame de Clerté, who is
really an amusing personality, courageous and agreeable, and Daisy
Ryven, and the fluffies, and four or five men. We were sitting smoking
afterwards, listening to de Volé playing, he is a great musician.
People's fears are lulled, they have returned to Paris. Numbers of men
are being killed,--"The English in heaps--but what will you!" the
fluffies said, "they had no business to make that break with the Fifth
Army! Oh! No! and, after all, the country is too dull--and we have all
our hidden store of petrol. If we must fly at the last moment, why on
earth not go to the theatre and try to pass the time!"
de Volé was playing "Madame Butterfly"--when the sirens went for a
raid--and almost immediately the guns began--and bombs crashed. One very
seldom sees any fear on people's faces now, they are accustomed to the
noise. Without asking any of us, de Volé commenced Chopin's Funeral
March. It was a very wonderful moment, the explosions and the guns
mingling with the splendid chords. We sat breathless--a spell seemed to
be upon us all--We listened feverishly. de Volé's face was transfigured.
What did he see in the dim light?--He played and played. And the whole
tragedy of war--and the futility of earthly interests--the glory, the
splendour and the agony seemed to be brought home to us. From this, as
the noise without became less loud, he glided into Schubert, and so at
last ceased when the "all clear" commenced to rend the air. No one had
spoken a word, and then Daisy Ryven laughed--a queer little awed laugh.
She was the only Englishwoman there.
"We are keyed up," she said.
And when they had all gone I opened my window wide and breathed in the
black dark night. Oh! God--what a rotter I am.
* * * * *
_Friday_--Maurice has a new suggestion--he says I should write a
book--he _knows_ I am becoming insupportable, and he thinks if he
flatters me enough I'll swallow the bait, and so be kept quiet and not
try him so much.--A novel?--A study of the causes of altruism? What?--I
feel--yes, I feel a spark of interest. If it could take me out of
myself--I shall consult the Duchesse--I will tell Burton to telephone
and find out if I can see her this afternoon. She sometimes takes half
an hour off between four and five to attend to her family.
Yes--Burton says she will see me and will send me one of her Red Cross
cars to fetch me, then I can keep my leg up.
I rather incline to a treatise upon altruism and the philosophical
subjects. I fear if I wrote a novel it would be saturated by my ugly
spirit, and I should hate people to read it. I must get that part of me
off in my journal, but a book about--Altruism?
I must have a stenographer of course, a short-hand typist, if I do begin
this thing. There are some English ones here no doubt. I do not wish to
write in French--Maurice must find me a suitable one.--I won't have
anything young and attractive. In my idiotic state she might get the
better of me! The idea of some steady employment quite bucks me up.
* * * * *
I felt rather jarred when I arrived at the Hotel Courville--the paving
across the river is bad; but I found my way to the Duchesse's own
sitting room on the first floor--the only room apparently left not a
ward--and somehow the smell of carbolic had not penetrated here. It was
too hot, and only a little window was open.
How wonderfully beautiful these eighteenth century rooms are! What grace
and charm in the panelling--what dignity in the proportions! This one,
like all rooms of women of the Duchesse's age, is too full--crammed
almost, with gems of art, and then among them, here and there, a
shocking black satin stuffed and buttoned armchair, with a bit of
woolwork down its centre, and some fringe! And her writing table!--the
famous one given by Louis XV to the ancestress, who refused his
favours--A mass of letters and papers, and reports, a bottle of creosote
and a feather! A servant in black, verging upon ninety, brought in the
tea, and said Madame la Duchesse would be there immediately--and she
came.
Her twinkling eyes kindly as ever "Good day Nicholas," she said and
kissed me on both cheeks, "Thou art thy mother's child--_Va!_--And I
thank thee for the fifty thousand francs for my _blessés_--I say no
more--_Va!_--."
Her scissors got caught in her pocket, not the purple jersey this time,
and she played with them for a minute.
"Thou art come for something--out with it!"
"Shall I write a book?, that's it. Maurice thinks it might divert
me--What do you think?"
"One must consider," and she began pouring out the tea, "paper is
scarce--I doubt, my son, if what you would inscribe upon it would
justify the waste--but still--as a _soulagement_--an asperine so to
speak--perhaps--yes. On what subject?"
"That is what I want your advice about, a novel?--or a study upon
Altruism, or--or--something like that?"
She chuckled and handed me my tea, thin tea and a tiny slice of black
bread, and a scrape of butter. There is no cheating of the regulations
here, but the Sevres cup gave me satisfaction.
"You have brought me your bread coupon, I hope?" she interrupted
with,--"if you eat without it one of my household has less!"
I produced it.
"Two days old will do here," then she became all interest in my project
again and chuckled anew.
"Not a novel my son, at your age and with your temperament, it would
arouse emotions in you if you created them in your characters, you are
better without them.--No!--Something serious; Altruism as well as
another, by all means!"
"I expected you to say that, you are always so practical and kind, then
we will choose a research subject to keep me busy."
"Why not the history of Blankshire, your old county where the Thormondes
have sat since the conquest--_hein_?"
This delighted me, but I saw the impossibility. "I cannot get at the
necessary reference books, and it is impossible to receive anything from
England."
She realized this before I spoke.
"No--philosophy it must be--or your pet hobby, the furniture of your
William and Mary!"
This seemed the best of all, and I decided in a moment. This shall be my
subject. I really know something of William and Mary furniture! So we
settled it. Then she became reflective.
"The news is _très grave_ to-day, my son," she whispered softly, "the
fearful ones predict that the Boche will be within range in a few
days.--Why not leave Paris?"
"Are you going, Duchesse?"
"I,--_Mon Dieu!_--Of course not!--I must stay to get my _Blessés_
out--if the worst should come--but I never believe it.--Let the cowards
flee--. Some of my relatives have gone again. Those I speak to will have
become a minority when peace arrives, it would seem!"--then she frowned
angrily. "Many are so splendid--devoted, untiring, but there are
some--!--_Mon Dieu!_ the girls play tennis at the _tix aux
pigeons_!--and the Germans are sixty-five kilometers from Paris!"
I did not speak, and then, as though I had said something disparaging
and she must defend them--"But you must not judge them hardly--No!--it
is not possible with our National temperament that young girls of the
world can nurse men--No--No--and our ministry of War won't employ
women--what can they do--ask yourself, what can they do?--but wait and
pray! Other nations must not judge us--our men know what they want of
us--yes, yes--"
"Of course they do."
"My niece Madelaine--a lighthead--dragged me to the Ritz to lunch last
week, before the wild rush cleared them off again--_Mon Dieu!_ what a
sight there in that restaurant!--Olivier and the waiters are the only
things of dignity left! The women dressed to the eyes as Red Cross
nurses. Some Americans, and, yes, French--nursing the well English
officers I must believe--no nearer wounded than that!--floating veils,
painted lips--high heels--Heavens! it filled me with rage--I who know
the devoted and good of both nations who are not seen, and you
English--. But there it is easy for you with your temperament to be
good and really work--France is full of sensible kind Americans and
English--but those in Paris--they make me sick! Quarter of an hour twice
a day--to have the right to a passport to come--and to wear a
uniform--Pah! Sick, sick!--"
I thought of the fluffies!--they too played at something the first year
of the war, but now have given up even the pretence of that.
The Duchesse was still angry.
"My nephew Charles, le Prince de Vimont, eats chicken and cutlets on the
meatless days, he told me with pride, his _maître d'hôtel_--he of the
one eye--like thou, Nicholas, is able to procure plenty on the day
before from friends in the trade, and with ice--_Mon Dieu!_--and I pay
twenty-eight francs apiece for the best poulets for my _blessés_ for
extra rations!--and ice!--impossible to procure--. Oh! I would punish
them all, choke them with their own meat--it is they who should be "food
for the guns" as you English say,--they, these few disgrace our brave
France, and make the other nations laugh at us."
I tried to assure her that no one laughed, and that we all understood
and worshipped the spirit of France, that it was only the few, and that
we were not deceived, but I could not calm her.
"It makes me weep" at last she said and I could not comfort her.
"Heloise de Tavantaine--my Cousin's Jew daughter-in-law--paid four
thousand francs for a new evening dress, which did not cover a tenth of
her fat body--Four thousand francs would have given my
_blessés_--Ah!--well--I rage, I rage."
Then she checked herself--.
"But why do I say this to thee Nicholas?--because I am sore--it is ever
thus--we are all human, and must cry to someone."
So after all there is some meaning in my journal.
"_One must cry to someone!_"
* * * * *
Burton is delighted that I shall write a book!--He wrote at once to my
aunt Emmeline to tell her that I was better. I have her letter with
congratulations in it to-day. Burton does the correspondence with my few
relations, all war working hard in England. I am becoming quite excited,
I long to begin, but there is no use until Maurice finds me a
stenographer. He has heard of two. One a Miss Jenkins, aged
forty--sounds good, but she can only give three hours a day--and I must
have one at my beck and call--There is a second one, a Miss Sharp--but
she is only twenty-three--plain though, Maurice says, and wears horn
spectacles--that should not attract me! She makes bandages all the
evening, but is obliged to work for her living so could come for the
day. She is not out of a job, because she is very expert, but she does
not like her present one. I would have to pay her very highly Maurice
says--I don't mind that, I want the best.--I had better see Miss Sharp,
and judge if I can stand her. She may have a personality I could not
work with. Maurice must bring her to-morrow.
The news to-night is worse.--The banks have sent away all their
securities.--But I shall not leave--one might as well die in a
bombardment as any other way. The English Consul has to know all the
names of the English residents in case of evacuation. But I will not go.
Bertha is making a most fiendish noise, there were two raids last
night,--and she began at six this morning--one gets little sleep. I have
a one horse Victoria now, driven by Methusala; I picked Maurice up at
the Ritz this evening at nine o'clock--there was not a human soul to be
seen in the _Rue de la Paix_, or the _Place Vendôme_, or the _Rue
Castiglione_--a city of the dead--And the early June sky full of peace
and soft light.
What does it all mean?
IV
Maurice brought Miss Sharp to-day to interview me. I do not like her
much, but the exhibition she gave me of her speed and accuracy in
short-hand satisfied me and made me see that I should be a fool to look
further. So I have engaged her. She is a small creature, palish with
rather good bright brown hair--She wears horn rimmed spectacles with
yellow glasses in them so I can't see her eyes at all. I judge people by
their eyes. Her hands look as if she had done rather a lot of hard
work--they are so very thin. Her clothes are neat but shabby--that is
not the last look like French women have--but as if they had been turned
to "make do"--I suppose she is very poor. Her manner is icily quiet. She
only speaks when she is spoken to. She is quite uninteresting.
It is better for me to have a nonentity--then I can talk aloud my
thoughts without restriction. I am to give her double what she is
getting now--2000 francs a month--war price.
Some colour came into her cheeks when I offered that and she hesitated,
I said "Don't you think it is enough?"
She answered so queerly.
"I think it is too much, and I was wondering if I would be able to
accept it. I want to."
"Then do."
"Very well--I will of course do my very best to earn it"--and with that
she bowed and left me.
Anyhow she won't make a noise.
Nina writes since she has married Jim--which she did just before the
offensive in March--she has been too happy--or too anxious, to remember
her friends--even dear old ones--but now fortunately Jim is wounded in
the ankle bone which will keep him at home for two months so she has a
little leisure.
"You can't think, Nicholas, what a different aspect the whole war took
on when I knew Jim was in the front line--I adore him--and up to now I
have managed to keep him adoring me--but I can see I'll have to be
careful if he is going to be with me long at a time."
So it would seem that Nina had not obtained the rest and security she
hoped for.
I hope my writing a book will rest me. I have arranged all my first
chapter in my head--and to-morrow I begin.
_June 26th_--Miss Sharp came punctually at ten--she had a black and
white cotton frock on--There is nothing of her--she is so slight--(a
mass of bones probably in evening dress--but thank goodness I shall not
see her in evening dress,) she goes at six--She is to have her lunch
here--Burton has arranged it. An hour off for lunch which she can have
on a tray in the small salon, which I have had arranged for her work
room.--Of course it won't take her an hour to eat--but Burton says she
must have that time, it is always done. It is a great nuisance for
perhaps when 12:30 comes I shall just be in the middle of an inspiration
and I suppose off she'll fly like the housemaids used when the servants'
hall bell went at home. But I can't say anything.
I was full of ideas and the beginning of my first chapter spouted out,
and when Miss Sharp had read it over to me I found she had not made any
mistake. That is a mercy.
She went away and typed it, and then had her lunch--and I had mine, but
Maurice dropped in and mine took longer than hers--it was half past two
when I rang my hand bell for her (it is a jolly little silver one I
bought once in Cairo) She answered it promptly--the script in her hand.
"I have had half an hour with nothing to do," she said--"Can you not
give me some other work which I can turn to, if this should happen
again?"
"You can read a book--there are lots in the book case" I told her--"Or I
might leave you some letters to answer."
"Thank you, that would be best"--(She is conscientious evidently).
We began again.
She sits at a table with her notebook, and while I pause she is
absolutely still--that is good. I feel she won't count more than a table
or chair. I am quite pleased with my work. It is awfully hot to-day and
there is some tension in the air--as though something was going to
happen. The news is the same--perhaps slightly better.--I am going to
have a small dinner to-night. The widow and Maurice and Madame de
Clerté--just four and we are going to the play. It is such a business
for me to go I seldom turn out.--Maurice is having a little supper in
his rooms at the Ritz for us. It is my birthday--I am thirty-one years
old.
_Friday_--What an evening that 26th of June! The theatre was hot and the
cramped position worried me so--and the lights made my eye ache--Madame
de Clerté and I left before the end and ambled back to the Ritz in my
one horse Victoria and went and sat in Maurice's room. We talked of the
situation, and the effect of the Americans coming in, bucking everyone
up--we were rather cheerful. Then the sirens began--and the guns
followed just as Maurice and Odette got back--They seemed unusually
loud--and we could hear the bits of shrapnel falling on the terrace
beneath us, Odette was frightened and suggested going into the
cellar--but as Maurice's rooms are only on the second floor, we did not
want to take the trouble.
Fear has a peculiar effect upon some people--Odette's complexion turned
grey and she could hardly keep her voice steady. I wondered how soon she
would let restraint slip from her and fly out of the room to the cellar.
Madame de Clerté was quite unmoved.
Then the dramatic happened--Bang!--the whole house shook and the glass
of the window crashed in fragments--and Maurice turned out the one
light--and lifted a corner of the thick curtain to peep out.
"I believe they got the _Colome Vendôme_" he said awed--and as he spoke
another bomb fell on the Ministaìre beside us--and some of the splinters
shot into space and buried themselves in our wall.
We were all blown across the room--and Madame de Clerté and I fell in a
heap together by the door, which gave way outwards--Odette's shrieks
made us think that she was hurt, but she was not, and subsided into a
gibbering prayer--Maurice helped Madame de Clerté to rise and I turned
on the torch I keep in my pocket, for a minute. I was not conscious of
any pain. We sat in the dark and listened to the commotion beneath us
for some time, and the crashing bombs but never one so near
again.--Maurice's voice soothing Odette was the only sound in our room.
Then Madame de Clerté laughed softly and lit a cigarette.
"A near thing that, Nicholas!" she said--"Let us go down now and see who
is killed, and where the explosion actually occurred--The sight is quite
interesting you know you can believe me."
"When Bertha hit the ---- two days ago, we rushed for taxis to go down to
see the place--Coralie--has petrol for her motor since two weeks you
know"--and she smiled wickedly--"Monsieur le Ministre must show his
gratitude somehow mustn't he?--Coralie is such a dear--Yes--?--So some
of us packed in with her--we were quite a large party--and when we got
there they were trying to extinguish the fire, and bringing out the
bodies--You ought to come with us sometime when we go on these
trips--anything for a change."
These women would not have looked on at the sufferings of a mouse before
the war--.
The sight in the hall when we did arrive there after the "all clear"
went--was remarkable--the great glass doors of the salon blown in and
all the windows broken--and the _Place Vendôme_ a mass of debris--not a
pane whole there I should think.
But nobody seems very much upset--these things are all in the days
work--.
I wonder if in years to come we shall remember the queer recklessness
which has developed in almost everyones mentality, or shall we forget
about the war and go on just as we were before--Who knows?
* * * * *
I said to Miss Sharp this morning--
"What do you do in the evenings when you leave here"?
I had forgotten for a moment that Maurice had told me that she makes
bandages. She looked at me and her manner froze--I can't think why I
_felt_ she thought I had no right to question her--I say "looked at
me"--but I am never quite sure what her eyes are doing, because she
never takes off her yellow glasses--Those appear to be gazing at me at
all events.
"I make bandages."
"Aren't you dead tired after working all day with me?"
"I have not thought about it--the bandages are badly needed."
Her pencil was in her hand, and the block ready--she evidently did not
mean to go on conversing with me. This attitude of continuous diligence
on her part has begun to irritate me. She never fidgets--just works all
the time.
I'll ask Burton what he thinks of her at luncheon to-day--As I said
before, Burton knows the world.
* * * * *
"What do you think of my typist, Burton?"
He was putting a dish of make-believe before me--it is a meatless
day--my one-legged cook is an artist but he thinks me a fool because I
won't let him cheat--our want of legs makes us friendly though.
"And with a brother in the trade I could get Monsieur chickens and what
he would wish!" he expostulates each week.
"A-hem"--Burton croaked.
I repeated the question.
"The young lady works very regular."
"Yes--That is just it--a kind of a machine."
"She earns her money Sir Nicholas."
"Of course she does--I know all that--But what do you think of her?"
"Beg pardon Sir Nicholas--I don't understand?"
I felt irritated.
"Of course you do--What kind of a creature I mean--?"
"The young lady don't chatter Sir--She don't behave like bits of girls."
"You approve of her then Burton?"
"She's been here a fortnight only, Sir Nicholas, you can't tell in the
time"--and that is all I could get out of him--but I felt the verdict
when he did give it would be favourable.
Insignificant little Miss Sharp--!
What shall I do with my day--? that is the question--my rotten useless
idle day?--I have no more inspiration for my book--besides Miss Sharp
has to type the long chapter I gave her yesterday. I wonder if she knows
anything about William and Mary furniture really?--she never launches a
remark.
Her hands are very red these last days--does making bandages redden the
hands?
I wonder what colour her eyes are--one can't tell with that blurred
yellow glass--.
Suzette came in just as I wrote that; she seldom turns up in the
afternoon. She caught sight of Miss Sharp typing through the open door.
"_Tiens!_" she spit at me--"Since when?"
"I am writing a book, Suzette."
"I must see her face," and without waiting for permission, Suzette
flounced into the small salon.
I could hear her shrill little voice asking Miss Sharp to be so good as
to give her an envelope--She must write an address! I watched her--Miss
Sharp handed her one, and went on with her work.
Suzette returned, closing the door, without temper, behind her.
"Wouff!" she announced to me--"No anxiety there--an _Anglaise_--not
appetizing--not a _fausse maigre_ like us, as thin as a hairpin! Nothing
for thou Nicholas--and _Mon Dieu!_--she does the family washing by her
hands--I know! mine look like that when I have taken one of my
fortnights at the sea!"
"You think it is washing?--I was wondering--."
"Does she take off her glasses ever, Nicholas?"
"No perhaps she has weak light eyes. One never can tell!"
Suzette was not yet quite at ease about it all--. I was almost driven to
ask Miss Sharp to remove her glasses to reassure her.
Women are jealous even of one-legged half blind men! I would like to ask
my cook if he has the same trouble--but--Oh! I wish anything mattered!
Suzette showed affection for me after this--and even passion! I would be
quite good-looking she said--when I should be finished. Glass eyes were
so well made now--"and as for legs!--truly my little cabbage, they are
as nimble as a goat's!"
Of course I felt comforted when she had gone.
* * * * *
The hot days pass--Miss Sharp has not asked for a holiday, she plods
along, we do a great deal of work--and she writes all my letters. And
there are days when I know I am going to be busy with my friends, when I
tell her she need not come--there was a whole week at the end of July.
Her manner never alters, but when Burton attempted to pay her she
refused to take the cheque.
"I did not earn that" she said.
I was angry with Burton because he did not insist.
"It was just, Sir Nicholas."
"No, it was not, Burton--If she did not work here, she was out of pocket
not working anywhere else. You will please add the wretched sum to this
week's salary."
Burton nodded stubbornly, so I spoke to Miss Sharp myself.
"It was my business as to whether I worked or did not work for a
week--therefore you are owed payment in any case--that is logic----."
A queer red came into her transparent skin, her mouth shut firmly--I
knew that I had convinced her, and that yet for some reason she hated
having to take the money.
She did not even answer, just bowed with that strange aloofness that is
not insolent. Her manner is never like a person of the lower classes,
trying to show she thinks she is an equal. It has exactly the right
note--perfectly respectful as one who is employed, but with the serene
unselfconsciousness that only breeding gives. Shades of manner are very
interesting to watch. Somehow I _know_ that Miss Sharp, in her washed
cotton, with her red little hands, is a lady.
I have not seen my dear Duchesse lately--she has been down to one of her
country places--where she sends her convalescents, but she is returning
soon. She gives me pleasure--.
* * * * *
_August 30th_--The interest in the book has flagged lately--I could not
think of a thing, so I proposed to Miss Sharp to have a holiday. She
accepted the fortnight without enthusiasm. Now she is back and we have
begun again--Still I have no _flair_--Why do I stick to it?--Just
because I have said to the Duchesse that I _will_ finish it?----I
have an uneasy feeling that I do not want to probe my real reason--I
would like to lie even to this Journal. Lots of fellows have been upon
the five days' leave lately, things are going better--they jolly one,
and I like to see them, but after they go I feel more of a rotten beast
than ever. The only times I forget are when Maurice brings the fluffies
to dine with me--when they rush up to Paris from Deauville. We drink
champagne--(they love to know how much it costs) and I feel gay as a
boy--and then in the night I have once or twice reached out for my
revolver. They have all gone back to Deauville now.
Perhaps it is Miss Sharp who irritates me with her eternal
diligence--What is her life--who are her family? I would like to know
but I will not ask--I sit and think and think what to write about in my
book. I have almost come to the end of grinding out facts about Walnut
and ball fringe--and she sits taking it all down in short-hand, never
raising her head, day after day--.
Her hair is pretty--that silky sort of nut brown with an incipient wave
in it--her head is set on most gracefully, I must admit, and the
complexion is very pale and transparent--But what a firm mouth!--Not
cold though--only firm. I have never seen her smile. The hands are well
shaped really--awfully well shaped, if one watches them--How long would
it take to get them white again I wonder? She has got good feet, too,
thin like the hands--. How worn her clothes look--does she never have a
new dress--?
Yes Burton, I will see Madame de Clerté--.
* * * * *
Solonge de Clerté is a philosopher--she has her own aims--but I do not
know them.
"Writing a book, Nicholas?" There was the devil of a twinkle in her
eye--"There is a poor boy wounded in the leg who would make a perfect
secretary if you are not satisfied."
I grew irritated--.
"I am quite satisfied"--we heard the noise of the typing machine from
beyond--these modern doors allow nothing to be unknown.
"Young, is she?" Madame de Clerté asked turning her glance in that
direction.
"I don't know and don't care--she types well"--.
"_Hein?_"
She saw that I was becoming enraged.--My dinners are good and the war is
not yet over--.
"We shall all be terribly interested--yes--when we read the result--."
"Probably"--.
Then she told me of complications occurring about Coralie's husband.
"Of an insanity to attempt the three at once" she sighed--.
And now I can turn to my journal again--Good God--the last pages have
all been about Miss Sharp--ridiculous, exasperating Miss Sharp! did I
write ridiculous?--No--it is I who am ridiculous--I shall go for a
drive--!
* * * * *
God! what is the meaning of it all--!
I have been in hell----I came in from my drive very quietly, it was
early, a quarter to six, Miss Sharp goes at six--It was a horribly
chilly evening and Burton had lit a bright wood fire--and I suppose its
crackling prevented my hearing the sounds which were coming from the
next room for a minute. I sat down in my chair--.
What was that?--the _roucoulements_ of a dove?--No, a woman's voice
cooing foolish love words in French and English--and a child's treble
gurgling fondness back to her. It seemed as if my heart stopped
beating--as if every nerve in my spine quivered--a tremendous emotion of
I know not what convulsed me.--I lay and listened and suddenly I felt my
cheek wet with tears--then some shame, some anger shook me, and I
started to my feet, and hobbled to the door which was ajar--I opened it
wide--there was Miss Sharp with the _concierge's_ daughter's baby on her
lap fondling it--the creature may be six months old. Her horn spectacles
lay on the table. She looked up at me, the slightest flash of timidity
showing--but her eyes--Oh! God! the eyes of the Madonna--heavenly blue,
tender as an angel's--soft as a doe's--. I could have cried aloud with
some pain in the soul--and so that brute part of me spoke--.
"How dare you make this noise"?--I said rudely--"do you not know that I
have given orders for complete quiet"--.
She rose, holding the child with the greatest dignity--The picture she
made could be in the Sistine Chapel.
"I beg your pardon" she said in a voice which was not quite steady--"I
did not know you had returned, and Madame Bizot asked me to hold little
Augustine while she went to the next floor--it shall not occur again!"
I longed to stay and gaze at them both--I would have liked to have
touched the baby's queer little fat fingers--I would have liked--Oh--I
know not what--And all the time Miss Sharp held the child protectively,
as though something evil would come from me and harm it.--Then she
turned and carried it out of the room--and I went back into my
sitting-room and flung myself down in my chair--.
What had I done--Beast--brute--What had I done?
And will she never come back again?--and will life be emptier than
ever--?
I could kill myself--.
* * * * *
It shall not be only Suzette but six others for supper to-night--.
_Five a.m._--The dawn is here and it is not the rare sound of an August
pigeon that I am listening to, but the tender cooing of a woman and a
child--God, how can I get it out of my ears.
V
This morning I feel as if I could hardly bear it until Miss Sharp
arrives--I dressed early, ready to begin a new chapter although I have
not an idea in my head, and, as the time grows nearer, it is difficult
for me to remain still here in my chair.
Have I been too impossible?--Will she not turn up?--and if she does not,
what steps can I take to find her?--Maurice is at Deauville with the
rest, and I do not know Miss Sharp's home address--nor if she has a
telephone--probably not. My heart beats--I have every feeling of
excitement as stupid as a woman! I analyse it all now, how mental
emotion reacts on the physical--even the empty socket of my eye aches--I
could hardly control my voice when Burton began a conversation about my
orders for the day just now.
"You would not be wishin' for the company of your Aunt Emmeline, Sir
Nicholas"?--he asked me--.
"Of course not, Burton, you old fool--"
"You seem so much more restless, sir--lately--"
"I am restless--please leave me alone."
He coughed and retired.
Now I am listening again--it wants two minutes to the hour--she is never
late.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten--. It feels as
if the blood would burst the veins--I cannot write.
She came after all, only ten minutes beyond her usual time, but they
seemed an eternity when I heard the ring and Burton's slow step. I could
have bounded from my chair to open the door myself.--It was a telegram!
How this always happens when one is expecting anyone with desperate
anxiety--A telegram from Suzette.
"I shall return to-night, _Mon Chou_."
Her cabbage!--_Bah!_ I never want to see her again--.
Miss Sharp must have entered when the door was opened for the telegram,
for I had begun to feel pretty low again when I heard her knock at the
door of the sitting-room.
She came in and up to my chair as usual--but she did not say her
accustomary cold good morning. I looked up--the horn spectacles were
over her eyes again, and the rest of her face was very pale--while there
was something haughty in the carriage of her small head, it seemed to
me. Her eternal pad and pencil were in her little thin, red hands.
"Good morning"--I said tentatively, she made a slight inclination as
much as to say--"I recognize you have spoken," then she waited for me to
continue.
I felt an egregious ass, I knew I was nervous as a bird, I could not
think of anything to say--I, Nicholas Thormonde, accustomed to any old
thing! nervous of a little secretary!
"Er--would you read me aloud the last chapter we finished"--I barked at
last lamely.
She turned to fetch the script from the other room--.
I must apologize to her, I knew.
She came back and sat down stiffly, prepared to begin.
"I am sorry I was such an uncouth brute yesterday," I said--"It was good
of you to come back--. Will you forgive me?"
She bowed again. I almost hated her at that moment, she was making me
feel so much--A foolish arrogance rose in me--
"We had better get to work I suppose," I went on pettishly.
She began to read--how soft her voice is, and how perfectly
cultivated.--Her family must be very refined gentlefolk--ordinary
English typists have not that indescribable distinction of tone.
What voices mean to one!--The delight of that exquisite sound of
refinement in the pronunciation. Miss Sharp never misplaces an
inflection or slurs a word, she never uses slang, and yet there is
nothing pedantic in her selection of language--it is just as if her
habitual associates were all of the same class as herself, and that she
never heard coarse speech.--Who can she be--?
The music of her reading calmed me--how I wish we could be friends--!
"How old is Madame Bizot's grandchild?" I asked abruptly, interrupting.
"Six months," answered Miss Sharp without looking up.
"You like children?"
"Yes--."
"Perhaps you have brothers and sisters?"
"Yes--."
I knew that I was looking at her hungrily--and that she was purposely
keeping her lids lowered--.
"How many?"
"Two--."
The tone said, "I consider your questions impertinent--."
I went on--
"Brothers?"
"One brother."
"And a sister?"
"Yes."
"How old?"
"Eleven and thirteen."
"That is quite a gap between your ages then?"
She did not think it necessary to reply to this--there was the faintest
impatience in the way she moved the manuscript.
I was so afraid to annoy her further in case she should give me notice
to go, that I let her have her way, and returned to work.
But I was conscious of her presence--thrillingly conscious of her
presence all the morning. I never once was able to take the work
naturally, it was will alone which made me grind out the words.
There was no sign of nervousness in Miss Sharp's manner--I simply did
not exist for her--I was a bore, a selfish useless bore of an employer,
who was paying her twice as much as anyone else would, and she must in
return give the most perfect service. As a man I had no meaning. As a
wounded human being she had no pity for me--but I did not want her
pity--what did I want?--I cannot write it--I cannot face it--. Am I to
have a new torment in my life?--Desiring the unattainable?--Eating my
heart out; not that woman can never really love me again, but that, well
or ill, the consideration of _one_ woman is beyond my reach--.
Miss Sharp is not influenced because I am or am not a cripple--If I were
as I was when I first put on my grenadier's uniform, I should still not
exist for her probably--she can see the worthless creature that I
am--Need I always be so?--I wish to God I knew.
* * * * *
_Night._
She worked with her usual diligence the entire day almost, not taking
the least notice of me, until at five o'clock when my tea came I rang
for her--Perhaps it was the irritation reacting upon my sensitive
wrenched nerves, but I felt pretty rotten, my hands were damp--another
beastly unattractive thing, which as a rule does not happen to me--I
asked her to pour out the tea.
"If you will be so kind," I said--"I have let Burton go out"--Mercifully
this was true--she came in as a person would who knew you had a right to
command--you could not have said if she minded or no.
When she was near me I felt happier for some reason.
She asked me how I took my tea--and I told her--.
"Are you not going to have some with me?" I pleaded.
"Mine is already on my table in the next room--thank you"--and she rose.
In desperation I blurted out--.
"Please--do not go!--I don't know why, but I feel most awfully rotten
to-day."
She sat down again and poured out her cup.
"If you are suffering shall I read to you?" she said--"It might send you
to sleep--" and somehow I fancied that while her firm mouth never
softened, perhaps the eyes behind the horn spectacles might not be so
stony. And yet with it all something in me resented her pity, if she
felt any. Physical suffering produces some weaknesses which respond to
sympathy, and the spirit rages at the knowledge that one has given way.
I never felt so mad in all my year of hell that I cannot be a man and
fight--as I did at that moment.
A French friend of mine said--In English books people were always
having tea--handing cups of tea! Tea, tea--every chapter and every
scene--tea! There is a great deal of truth in it--tea seems to bring the
characters together--at tea time people talk, it is the excuse to call
at that hour of leisure. We are too active as a nation to meet at any
other time in the day, except for sport--So tea is our link and we shall
go down through the ages as tea fiends--because our novelists who
portray life accurately, chronicle that most of the thrilling scenes of
our lives pass among tea cups!--I ventured to say all this to Miss Sharp
by way of drawing her into conversation.
"What could one describe as the French doing most often?"--I asked
her--.
She thought a moment.
"They do not make excuses for anything they do, they have not to have a
pretext for action as we have--They are much less hypocritical and
self-conscious."
I wanted to make her talk--.
"Why are we such hypocrites?"
"Because we have set up an impossible standard for ourselves, and hate
to show each other that we cannot act up to it."
"Yes, we conceal every feeling--We show indifference when we feel
interest--We pretend we have come on business when we have come simply
to see someone we are attracted by--."
She let the conversation drop. This provoked me, as her last remark
showed how far from stupid she is.
That nervous feeling overcame me again--Confound the woman!
"Please read," I said at last in desperation, and I closed my one eye.
She picked up a book--it happened to be a volume of de Musset--and she
read at random--her French is as perfect as her English--The last thing
I remember was "_Mimi Pinson_"--and when I awoke it was past six o'clock
and she had gone home.
I wonder how many of us, since the war, know the desolation of
waking--alone and in pain--and helpless--Of course there must be
hundreds. If I am a rotter and a coward about suffering, at all events
it does not come out in words--and perhaps it is because I am such a
mixture that I am able to write it in this journal--If I were purely
English I should not be able to let myself go even here--.
Suzette came to dinner--I thought how vulgar she looked--and that if her
hands were white they were podgy and the nails short. The three black
hairs irritated my cheek when she kissed me--I was brutal and moved my
head in irritation--.
"_Tiens?! Mon Ami!_"--she said and pouted.
"Amuse me!" I commanded--.
"So! it is not love then, Nicholas, thou desirest--Bear!"
"Not in the least--I shall never want love again probably. Divert
me!--tell me--tell me of your scheming little mouse's brain, and your
kind little heart--How is it '_dans le metier_'?"
Suzette settled herself on the sofa, curled up among the pillows like a
plump little tabby cat. She lit a cigarette--.
"Very middling," she whiffed--"Cases of love where all my good counsel
remains untaken--a madness for drugs--very foolish--A drug--yes to
try--but to continue!--_Mon Dieu!_ they will no longer make fortunes
'_dans le metier_'--"
"When you have made your fortune, Suzette, what will you do with it?"
"I shall buy that farm for my mother--I shall put Georgine into a
convent for the nobility, and arrange a large dot for her--and for
me?--I shall gamble in a controlled way at Monte Carlo--."
"You won't marry then, Suzette?"
"Marry!" she laughed a shrill laugh--"For why, Nicholas?--A tie-up to
one man, _hein_?--to what good?--and yet who can say--to be an honored
wife is the one experience I do not know yet!"--she laughed again--.
"And who is Georgine--you have not spoken of her before, Suzette?"
She reddened a little under her new terra cotta rouge.
"No?--Oh! Georgine is my little first mistake--but I have her
beautifully brought up, Nicholas--with the Holy Mother at St. Brieux. I
am then her Aunt--so to speak--the wife of a small shop keeper in
Paris, you must know--She adores me--and I give all I can to _St.
Georges-des-Près_--. Georgine will be a lady and marry the Mayor's
son--one day--."
Something touched me infinitely. This queer little _demi-mondaine_
mother--her thoughts set on her child's purity, and the conventional
marriage for her--in the future. Her plebeian, insolent little round
face so kindly in repose.
I respect Suzette far more than my friends of the world--.
When she left--it was perhaps in bad taste, but I gave her a quite heavy
four figure cheque.
"For the education of Georgine--Suzette."
She flung her arms round my neck and kissed me frankly on both cheeks,
and tears were brimming over in her merry black eyes.
"Thou hast after all a heart, and art after all a gentleman,
Nicholas--_Va!_--"--and she ran from the room.
VI
For two days after I last wrote, I tried not to see Miss Sharp--I gave
short moments to my book--and she answered a number of business letters.
She knows most of my affairs now,--Burton transmits all the bills and
papers to her.--I can hear them talking through the thin door. The
excitement of that time I was so rude seems to have used up my vitality,
an utter weariness is upon me, I have hardly stirred from my chair.
The ancient guardsman, George Harcourt, came to lunch yesterday. He was
as cynically whimsical as ever--He has a new love--an Italian--and until
now she has refused all his offers of presents, so he is taking a
tremendous interest in her--.
"In what an incredible way the minds of women work, Nicholas!" he
said--"They have frequently a very definite aim underneath, but they
'grasshopper'--."
I looked puzzled I suppose--.
"To 'grasshopper' is a new verb!" he announced--"Daisy Ryven coined
it.--It means just as you alight upon a subject and begin tackling it,
you spring to another one--These lovely American war workers
'grasshopper' continuously.--It is impossible to keep pace with them."
I laughed.
"Yet they seem to have quite a definite aim--to get pleasure out of
life."
[Illustration: Alathea (Harriet Hammond) disguised with colored glasses
and plain clothes arrives to take up her duties as secretary to Sir
Nicholas (Lew Cody). (A scene from Elinor Glyn's production "Man and
Maid" for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer)]
"To 'grasshopper' does not prevent pleasure to the grasshopper.--It is
only fatiguing to the listener. You can have no continued sensible
conversation with any of these women--they force you to enjoy only their
skins--"
"Can the Contessa talk?"
"She has the languour of the South--She does not jump from one subject
to another, she is frankly only interested in love."
"Honestly, George--do you believe there is such a thing as real love?"
"We have discussed this before, Nicholas--You know my views--but I am
hoping Violetta will change them. She has just begun to ask daily if I
love her"--
"Why do women always do that--even one's little friends continually
murmur the question?"
"It is the working of their subconscious minds----Damn good cigars
these, my dear boy--pre-war eh?----Yes it is to justify their
surrender--They want to be assured _in words_ that you adore
them--because you see the actions of love really prove nothing of love
itself. A stranger who has happened to appeal to the senses can call
them forth quite as successfully as the lady of one's heart!"
"It is logical of women then to ask that eternal question?"
"Quite--I make a point of answering them always without irritation."
----I wonder--if Miss Sharp loved anyone would she?----but I am
determined not to speculate further about her--.
When Colonel Harcourt had gone--I deliberately rang my bell--and when
she came into the room I found I was not sure what I had rung for--It is
the most exasperating fact that Miss Sharp keeps me in a continual state
of nervous consciousness.
Her manner was indifferently expectant, if one can use such a
paradoxical description--.
"I--I--wondered if you played the piano?--"I blurted out.
She looked surprised--if one can ever say she looks anything, with the
expression of her eyes completely hidden. She answered as usual with one
word--.
"Yes."
"I suppose you would not play to me?--er--it might give me an
inspiration for the last chapter--"
She went and opened the lid of the instrument.
"What sort of music do you like?" she asked.
"Play whatever you think I would appreciate."
She began a Fox trot, she played it with unaccountable spirit and taste,
so that the sound did not jar me--but the inference hurt a little. I
said nothing, however. Then she played "Smiles," and the sweet
commonplace air said all sorts of things to me--Desire to live again,
and dance, and enjoy foolish pleasures--How could this little iceberg of
a girl put so much devilment into the way she touched the keys? If it
had not been for the interest this problem caused me, the longing the
sounds aroused in me to be human again, would have driven me mad.
No one who can play dance music with that lilt can be as cold as a
stone--.
From this she suddenly turned to Debussy--she played a most difficult
thing of his--I can't remember its name--then she stopped.
"Do you like Debussy?" I asked.
"No, not always."
"Then why did you play it?"
"I supposed you would."
"If you had said in plain words, 'I think you are a rotter who wants
first dance music, then an unrestful modern decadent, brilliantly clever
set of disharmonies,' you could not have expressed your opinion of me
more plainly."
She remained silent--I could have boxed her ears.
I leaned back in my chair, perhaps I gave a short harsh sigh--if a sigh
can be harsh--I was conscious that I had made some explosive sound.
She turned back to the piano again and began "Waterlily" and then
"1812"--and the same strange quivering came over me that I experienced
when I heard the cooing of the child.--My nerves must be in an awful
rotten state--Then a longing to start up and break something shook me,
break the windows, smash the lamp--yell aloud--I started to my one
leg--and the frightful pain of my sudden movement did me good and
steadied me.
Miss Sharp had left the piano and came over to me--.
"I am afraid you did not like that," she said--"I am so sorry"--her
voice was not so cold as usual.
"Yes I did--" I answered--"forgive me for being an awful ass--I--I--love
music tremendously, you see--"
She stood still for a moment--I was balancing myself by the table, my
crutch had fallen. Then she put out her hand.
"Can I help you to sit down again?"--she suggested.
And I let her--I wanted to feel her touch--I have never even shaken
hands with her before. But when I felt her guiding me to the chair, the
maddest desire to seize her came over me--to seize her in my arms to
tear off those glasses, to kiss those beautiful blue eyes they hid--to
hold her fragile scrap of a body tight against my breast, to tell her
that I loved her--and wanted to hold her there, mine and no one else's
in all the world----My God! what am I writing--I must crush this
nonsense--I must be sane--. But--what an emotion! The strongest I have
ever felt about a woman in my life--.
When I was settled in the chair again--things seemed to become blank for
a minute and then I heard Miss Sharp's voice with a tone--could it be of
anxiety? in it? saying "Drink this brandy, please." She must have gone
to the dining-room and fetched the decanter and glass from the case,
and poured it out while I was not noticing events.
I took it.
Again I said--"I am awfully sorry I am such an ass."
"If you are all right now--I ought to go back to my work," she
remarked--.
I nodded--and she went softly from the room. When I was alone, I used
every bit of my will to calm myself--I analysed the situation. Miss
Sharp loathes me--I cannot hold her by any means if she decides to go--.
The only way I can keep her near me is by continuing to be the cool
employer--And to do this I must see her as little as possible--because
the profound disturbance she is able to cause in me, reacts upon my raw
nerves--and with all the desire in the world to behave like a decent,
indifferent man, the physical weakness won't let me do so, and I am so
bound to make a consummate fool of myself.
When I was in the trenches and the shells were coming, and it was
beastly wet and verminy and uncomfortable, I never felt this feeble,
horrible quivering--I know just what funk is--I felt it the day I did
the thing they gave me the V.C. for. This is not exactly funk--I wish I
knew what it was and could crush it out of myself--.
Oh! if I could only fight again!--that was the best sensation in
life--the zest--the zest!--What is it which prompts us to do decent
actions? I cannot remember that I felt any exaltation specially--it
just seemed part of the day's work--but how one slept! How one enjoyed
any old thing--!
Would it be better to end it all and go out quite? But where should I
go?--the _me_ would not be dead.--I am beginning to believe in
reincarnation. Such queer things happened among the fellows--I suppose
I'd be born again as ugly of soul as I am now--I must send for some
books upon the subject and read it up--perhaps that might give me
serenity.
The Duchesse returned yesterday. I shall go and see her this afternoon I
think,--perhaps she could suggest some definite useful work I could
do--It is so abominably difficult, not being able to get about. What did
she say?--She said I could pray--I remember--she had not time, she
said--but the _Bon Dieu_ understood--I wonder if He understands me--? or
am I too utterly rotten for Him to bother about?
* * * * *
The Duchesse was so pleased to see me--she kissed me on both cheeks--.
"Nicholas! thou art better!" she said--"As I told you--the war is going
to end well--!"
"And how is the book?" she asked presently--"It should be finished--I am
told that your work is intermittent--."
My mind jumped to Maurice as the connecting link--the Duchesse of course
must have seen him--but I myself have seen very little of Maurice
lately--how did he know my work was intermittent--?
"Maurice told you?" I said.
"Maurice?"--her once lovely eyes opened wide--she has a habit of
screwing them up sometimes when she takes off her glasses.--"Do you
suppose I have been on a _partie de plaisir_, my son--that I should have
encountered Maurice--!"
I dared not ask who was her informant--.
"Yes, I work for several days in succession, and then I have no ideas.
It is a pretty poor performance anyway--and is not likely to find a
publisher."
"You are content with your Secretary?"
This was said with an air of complete indifference. There was no meaning
in it of the kind Madame de Clerté would have instilled into the tone.
"Yes--she is wonderfully diligent--it is impossible to dislodge her for
a moment from her work. She thinks me a poor creature I expect."
The Duchesse's eyes, half closed now, were watching me keenly--.
"Why should she think that, Nicholas--you can't after all fight."
"No----but--."
"Get well, my boy--and these silly introspective fancies will leave
you--Self analysis all the time for those who sit still--they imagine
that they matter to the _Bon Dieu_ as much as a _Corps d'Armée_--!"
"You are right, Duchesse, that is why I said Miss Sharp--my
typist--probably thinks me a poor creature--she gets at my thoughts when
I dictate."
"You must master your thoughts----"
And then with a total change of subject she remarked.
"Thou art not in love, Nicholas?"
I felt a hot flush rise to my face--What an idiotic thing to do--more
silly than a girl--Again how I resent physical weakness reacting on my
nerves.
"In love!"--I laughed a little angrily--"With whom could I possibly be
in love, _chère amie_?! You would not suggest that Odette or Coralie or
Alice could cause such an emotion!"
"Oh! for them perhaps no--they are for the senses of men--they are the
exotic flowers of this forcing time--they have their uses--although I
myself abhor them as types--but--is there no one else?"
"Solonge de Clerté?--Daisy Ryven?--both with husbands--."
"Not as if that prevented things" the Duchesse announced
reflectively--"Well, well--Some of my _blessés_ show just your symptoms,
Nicholas, and I discover almost immediately it is because they are in
love--with the brain--with the imagination you must understand--that is
the only dangerous kind--. When it is with a pretty face alone--a good
dose and a new book helps greatly."
"There would be no use in my being in love, Duchesse--"
"It would depend upon the woman--you want sympathy and a guiding
hand--_Va!_--"
Sympathy and a guiding hand!
"I liked ruling and leading when I was a man--"
"----We all have our ups and downs--I like my own bed--but last night
an extra batch of _blessés_ came in--and I had to give it up to one
whose back was a mass of festers--he would have lain on the floor
else--. What will you--_hein?_--We have to learn to accommodate
ourselves to conditions, my son."
Suddenly the picture of this noble woman's courage came to me vividly,
her unvarying resourcefulness--her common sense--her sympathy with
humanity--her cheerfulness--I never heard her complain or repine, even
when fate took her only son at Verdun--Such as these are the glory of
France--and Coralie and Odette and Alice seemed to melt into
nothingness--.
"The war will be finished this autumn--" she told me presently--"and
then our difficult time will begin--. Quarrels for all the world--Not
good fighting--But you will live to see a Renaissance, Nicholas--and so
prepare for it."
"What can I do, dear friend--If you knew how much I want to do
something!"
"Your first duty is to get well.--Have yourself patched
together--finished so to speak, and then marry and found a family to
take the place of all who have perished. It was good taste when I was
young not to have too many--but now!--France wants children--and
England too. There is a duty for you, Nicholas!"
I kissed her hand--.
"If I could find a woman like you!" I cried--"indeed then I would
worship her--."
"So--so--! There are hundreds such as I--when I was young I lived as
youth lives--You must not be too critical, Nicholas."
She was called away then, back to one of the wards, and I hobbled down
the beautiful staircases by myself--the lift was not working. The
descent was painful and I felt hot and tired when I reached the ground
floor, it was quite dusk then, and the one light had not yet been lit. A
slight wisp of a figure passed along the end of the corridor. I could
not see plainly, but I could have sworn it was Miss Sharp--I called her
name--but no one answered me so I went on out,--the servant, aged
ninety, now joining me, he assisted me into my one horse Victoria beyond
the concierge's lodge.
Miss Sharp and the Duchesse!--? Why if this is so have I never been told
about it?--The very moment Maurice returns I must get him to investigate
all about the girl--In the meantime I think I shall go to Versailles--.
I cannot stand Paris any longer--and the _masseur_ can come out there,
it is not an impossible distance away.
VII
RESERVOIRES, VERSAILLES.
September 10th.
How I love Versailles--the jolliest old hole on earth--(I wonder why one
uses slang like this, I had written those words as an exact reflection
of my thoughts--and nothing could be more inexact as a description of
Versailles! It is as far from being "jolly" as a place can be--nor is it
a "hole!") It is the greatest monument which the vanity of one man ever
erected, and like all other superlatives it holds and interests. If the
_Grand Monarque_ squandered millions to build it, France has reaped
billions from the pockets of strangers who have come to look at it. And
so everything that is well done brings its good. Each statue is a
personal friend of mine--and since I was a boy I have been in love with
the delicious nymph with the shell at the bottom of the horse-shoe
descent before you come to the _tapis vert_ on the right hand side. She
has two dimples in her back--I like to touch them--.
Why did I not come here sooner? I am at peace with the world--Burton
wheels me up onto the terrace every evening to watch the sunset from the
top of the great steps. All the masterpieces are covered with pent
houses of concrete faced with straw, but the lesser gods and goddesses
must take their chance.
And sitting here with peaceful families near me--old
gentlemen--soldiers on leave--a pretty war widow with a great white
dog--children with spades--all watching the glorious sky, seated in
groups on the little iron park chairs, a sense of stupefaction comes
over me--for a hundred or two kilometres away men are killing one
another--women are searching for some trace of their homes--the ground
is teeming with corpses--the air is foetid with the smell of death!
And yet we enjoy the opal sunset at Versailles and smile at the quaint
appearance of the camouflaged bronzes!
Thus custom deadens all painful recollections and so are we able to
live.
I wonder what Louis XIV would say if he could return and be among us?
He, with all his faults being a well bred person, would probably adapt
himself to circumstances, as the Duchesse does.
Suzette suggested that she should come and stay the week end out
here--She wants change of air she says. I have consented.--Miss Sharp
does not bring her eternal block and pencil until Tuesday--when Suzette
will have left.
Now that I am peaceful and have forgotten my perturbations, Suzette will
jolly me up--I have used the right term there!--Suzette does jolly
one--! I feel I could write out here, but not about William and Mary
furniture--! I could write a cynical story of the Duc de Richelieu's
loves.--Armande, the present duc, tells me that he has a dispatch box
filled with the love letters his ancestor received--their preservation
owed to a faithful valet who kept them all separated in bundles tied
with different ribbons--and every lock of hair and souvenir attached to
each.--There is an idea!--I wonder if Burton has ever thought of keeping
mine? He would not have had a heavy job in these last years--!
I read all the mornings, seated in the sun--I read Plato--I want to
furbish up my Greek--For no reason on earth except that it is difficult,
and perhaps if I start doing difficult things I may get more will.
* * * * *
Suzette arrived in an entirely new set of garments--the "_geste_" had
altered, she said, one had to have a different look, and she was sure
the autumn fashions would be even more pronounced.
"As you can readily understand, my friend, one cannot be _démodé, dans
le metier_,--especially in war time!--"
Naturally I agreed with her--.
"The only unfortunate part is that it obliged me to break into the sum
for Georgine's education."
"That is at least reparable"--I answered, and reached for my
cheque-book--Suzette is such a good little sort--and clothes give her
pleasure--and fancy being able to give _real pleasure_ for a few
thousand francs--pleasure, not comfort, or charity, or any respectable
thing, but just _pleasure_! The only worry about this cheque was that
Suzette was a little too affectionate after it!--I would nearly always
rather only talk to her--now.
She accompanied my bath chair on to the terrace. Her ridiculous little
outline and high heels contradicting all ideas of balance, and yet
presenting an indescribable elegance. She prattled gaily--then when no
one was looking she slipped her hand into mine.
"_Mon cher! Mon petit chou!_" she said.
We had the gayest dinner in my sitting-room--.
"The war was certainly nearing its close--Toinette, the friend of one of
the Generals, assured her--people were thoroughly bored, and it was an
excellent thing to finish it--."
"But even when peace comes, never again the restaurants open all night
to dance, Nicholas!--there is a sadness, my friend!"
That was one of the really bad aspects of wars--the way they upset
people's habits--, she told me. Even "_dans le metier_" things became of
an uncertainty! '--One was never sure if the _amant_ would not be
killed--and it might be difficult to replace him advantageously!'
"It is perhaps fortunate for you that I am wounded and an institution,
Suzette!"
"Thou--Nicholas!--Just as if I did not understand--I represent nothing
but an agreeable passing of some moments to thee--Thou art not an
_Amant_!--Not even a little pretense of loving me thou showest!"--
"But you said you never allowed yourself to care--perhaps I have the
same idea--"
She shook with laughter.
"An artist at love thou, Nicholas--but no lover!"
"It is a nice distinction--would you like me better if I were a lover?"
"We have before spoken of this, _Mon ami_--If you were a lover--that is,
if you loved--you would be dangerous even with your one leg and your one
eye--a woman could be foolish for you. There is that air of _Grand
seigneur_--that air of--mocking--of--_Mon Dieu!_ Something which I can't
find my word for--Thou art _rudement chic cheri_!"
I wished then that I had made the cheque larger--because there was
something in her merry black eyes which told me she meant what she
said--at the moment. I must be grateful to my money though after all--I
could not be "_rudement chic_" or a "_Grand seigneur_" without it--Thus
we get back to material things again!
----I wonder if material things could affect Miss Sharp?--One side of
her certainly--or she could not have played that dance music----What
can she think about all day?--certainly not my affairs, attending to
them must be purely mechanical--. I know she is not stupid. She plays
beautifully--she thinks--she has an air, and knowledge of the world. If
I were not so afraid of losing her I would act toward her quite
differently--I would chance annoying her by making her talk--but that
fear holds me back.
George Harcourt says that between men and women, no matter what the
relation may be, one or the other holds the reins and is the real
arbiter of things, and that if you find yourself not in the happy
position of master, there are many occasions when a man must look
ridiculous.--I feel ridiculous when I think about Miss Sharp. I am
"demand" and she is "supply"--I am wanting every moment of her time, and
to know all her thoughts--and she is entirely uninterested in me, and
grants nothing.
* * * * *
Suzette left last evening in the best of moods--I made the cheque
larger--and now I am awaiting Miss Sharp in my sitting-room--I love this
hotel--it has an air of indifference about it which is soothing, and the
food is excellent.
* * * * *
Miss Sharp arrived about eleven to-day. Her cheeks were quite pink when
she came in, and I could see she was warm with walking.--I wish I had
remembered to send to the station to meet her.
"Do you think we shall be able to work here?" I asked her--"we have only
the _résumé_ chapter to do, and then the book will be finished."
"Why not here as well as any other place?"
"Does not environment matter to you?"
"I suppose it would if I were creating it, it does not matter now."
"Do you ever write--I mean write on your own?"
"Sometimes."
"What sort of things?"
She hesitated for a moment and then said as though she regretted having
to speak the truth.--
"I write a journal."
I could not prevent myself from replying too eagerly--.
"Oh! I should like to see it!--er--I write one too!"--
She was silent. I felt nervous again--.
"Do you put down your impressions of people--and things?"
"I suppose so--."
"Why does one write a journal?--" I wanted to hear what she would
answer.
"One writes journals if one is lonely."
"Yes, that is true. Then you are lonely?"
Again she conveyed to me the impression that I had shown bad taste in
asking a personal question--and I felt this to be unjust, because in
justice, she would have been forced to admit that her words were a
challenge.
"You explain to me why one writes journals, and then when I presume upon
the inference you snub me--You are not fair, Miss Sharp--"
"It would be better to stick to business," was all she answered--"will
you dictate, please?"
I was utterly exasperated--.
"No, I won't!--If you only admit by inference that you are lonely, I say
it right out--I am abominably lonely this morning and I want to talk to
you.--Did I see you at the Duchesse de Courville-Hautevine's on
Wednesday last?"
"Possibly."
I literally had not the pluck to ask her what she was doing there.
However, she went on--.
"There are still many wounded who require bandages--."
That was it! of course--she was bringing bandages!
"She is a splendid woman, the Duchesse, she was a friend of my
mother's--" I said.
Miss Sharp looked down suddenly--she had her head turned towards the
window.
"There are many splendid women in France--but you don't see them--the
poor are too wonderful, they lose their nearest and dearest and never
complain, they only say it is '_la Guerre_!'."
"Have you any near relations fighting?"--
"Yes"--
It was too stupid having to drag information out of her like this--I
gave it up--and then I was haunted by the desire to know what relations
they were?--If she has a father he must be at least fifty--and he must
be in the English Army--why then does she seem so poor?--It can't be a
brother--her's is only thirteen--would a cousin count as a near
relation?--or--can she have a _fiancé_--?!
The sudden idea of this caused me a nasty twinge--But no, her third
finger has no ring on it.--I grew calmer again--.
"I feel you have a hundred thousand interesting things to say if you
would only talk!" I blurted out at last.
"I am not here to talk, Sir Nicholas--I am here to do your typing."
"Does that make a complete barrier?--Won't you be friends with me?"
Burton came into the room at that moment--and while he was there she
slipped off to her typing without answering me. Burton has arranged a
place for her in his room, which is next to mine, so that I shall not be
disturbed by the noise of her machine clicking.
"Miss Sharp must lunch with me"--I said.
Burton coughed as he answered.
"Very good, Sir Nicholas."
That meant that he did not approve of this arrangement--why?--Really
these old servants are unsupportable.
The antediluvian waiters come in to lay the table presently, and I
ordered peaches and grapes and some very special chablis--I felt
exultant at my having manoeuvred that Miss Sharp should eat with me!
She came in when all was ready with her usual serene calm--and took her
place at right angles to me.
Her hands are not nearly so red to-day, and their movements when she
began to eat pleased me--her wrists are tiny, and everything she does is
dainty.
She did not peck her food like a bird, as very slight people sometimes
do--and she was entirely at ease--it was I who was nervous--.
"Won't you take off your glasses," I suggested--but she declined--.
"Of what use--I can see with them on."
This disconcerted me.
The waiter poured out the chablis carefully. She took it casually
without a remark, but for an instant a cynical expression grew round her
mouth--What was she thinking of?--it is impossible to tell, not seeing
her eyes--but some cynical thought was certainly connected with the
wine--By the direction of her head she may have been reading the label
on the bottle--Does she know how much it cost and disapprove of that in
war time--or what?
We talked of French politics next,--that is, she answered everything I
said with intelligence, and then let the subject drop
immediately--Nothing could be more exasperating because I knew it was
deliberate and not that she is stupid, or could not keep up the most
profound conversation. She seemed to know the war situation very
well--Then I began about French literature--and at the end of the meal
had dragged out enough replies to my questions to know that she is an
exquisitely cultivated person--Oh! what a companion she would make if
only I could break down this wretched barrier of her reserve!
She ate a peach--and I do hope she liked it--but she refused a cigarette
when I offered her one--.
"I don't smoke."
"Oh, I am so sorry I did not know--" and I put out mine.
"You need not do that--I don't mind other people smoking, so long as I
need not do it myself."
I re-lit another one--.
"Do you know--I believe I shall have my new eye put in before
Christmas!" I told her just before she rose from the table--and for the
first time I have known her, the faintest smile came round her mouth--a
kindly smile--.
--"I am so very glad," she said.
And all over me there crept a thrill of pleasure.
After lunch I suggested the _parc_, and that I should dictate in some
lovely cool spot. She made no objection, and immediately put on her
hat--a plain dark blue straw. She walked a little behind my bath chair
as we turned out of the Reservoires courtyard and began ascending the
avenue in the _parc_, so that I could not converse with her. By the time
we had reached the _parterre_ I called to her--
"Miss Sharp"--
She advanced and kept beside me--.
"Does not this place interest you awfully?" I hazarded.
"Yes."
"Do you know it well?"
"Yes."
"What does it say to you?"
"It is ever a reminder of what to avoid."
"What to avoid! but it is perfectly beautiful. Why should you want to
avoid beauty?!"
"I do not--it is what this was meant to stand for and what human beings
failed in allowing it to do--that is the lesson."
I was frightfully interested.
"Tell me what you mean?"
"The architects were great, the king's thought was great--but only in
one way--and everyone--the whole class--forgot the real meaning of
_noblesse oblige_, and abused their power--and so the revolution swept
them away--They put false value upon everything--false values upon birth
and breeding--and no value upon their consequent obligations, or upon
character--."
"You believe in acknowledging your obligations I know"--
"Yes--I hope so--Think in that palace the immense importance which was
given to etiquette and forms and ceremonies--and to a quite ridiculous
false sense of honour--they could ruin their poor tradesmen and--yet--."
"Yes"--I interrupted--"it was odd, wasn't it?--a gentleman was still a
gentleman, never paying his tailor's bills--but ceased to be one if he
cheated at cards--."
Miss Sharp suddenly dropped her dark blue parasol and bent to pick it up
again--and as she did she changed the conversation by remarking that
there were an unusual quantity of aeroplanes buzzing from Buc.
This was unlike her--I cannot think why she did so. I wanted to steer
her back to the subject of Versailles and its meaning--.
Burton puffed a little as we went up the rather steep slope by the _Aile
du Nord_, and Miss Sharp put her hand on the bar and helped him to push
the chair.
"Is it not hateful for me being such a burden"--I could not help
saying--.
"It leaves you more time to think--."
"Well! that is no blessing--that is the agony--thinking."
"It should not be--to have time to think must be wonderful"--and she
sighed unconsciously.
Over me came a kind of rush of tenderness--I wanted to be strong again,
and protect her and make her life easy, and give her time and love and
everything in the world she could wish for--But I dared not say
anything, and she hung back again a little, and once more it made the
conversation difficult--and when we reached a sheltered spot by the
"_point du jour_" I felt there was a sort of armour around her, and that
it would be wiser to go straight to work and not talk further to-day.
She went directly from the _parc_ to catch her train at five
o'clock--and I was wheeled back to the hotel.
And now I have the evening alone before me--but the day is distinctly a
step onward in the friendship line.
VIII
I spent a memorable day with Miss Sharp in the _parc_ yesterday. I do
not even remember what I did in the intermediate time--it seems of so
little importance--but this Thursday will always stand out as a landmark
of our acquaintance.
We drove in a fiacre to the Little Trianon after she arrived, with
Burton on the box to help me out, and then I walked with my crutch to a
delicious spot I know, rather near the grotto, and yet with a view of
the house--I was determined I would entice her to talk as much as I
could, and began very cautiously so as not to provoke her to suggest
work.
"Have you ever read that wonderful story called 'An Adventure'--The two
old ladies seeing Marie Antoinette and some other ghosts here?"
"No."
So I told her about it, and how they had accounted for it.
"I expect it was true," she said.
"You believe in ghosts then?"
"Some ghosts."
"I wish I did--then I should know that there is a beyond--."
I felt she was looking surprised.
"But of course there is a beyond--we have all been there many times
during our evolution, after each life."
"That is what I want to know about--that theory of reincarnation," I
responded eagerly--"can you tell me?"
"I could get you a book about it--."
"I would much rather hear it personally explained--the merest
outline,--please tell me, it might help me not to be such a rotter--."
She looked away toward the giant trees, her mouth had a slightly sad
expression, I could have torn those glasses off her blue eyes!
"We came up through the animal group soul--and finally were re-born
individualized, into man--and from then onward the life on this earth is
but a school for us to learn experience in, to prepare us eventually for
higher spheres. When we advance far enough we need not be re-born
again--."
"Yes--as a theory--I follow that--."
She went on--
"Everything is _cause_ and _effect_--We draw the result of every action
we commit, good or bad--and sometimes it is not until the next re-birth
we pay for the bad ones, or receive the result of the good ones--."
"Is that why then that I am a cripple and life seems a beastly
affair--?"
"Of course--You drew that upon yourself by some actions in your last
life--. Also it may be to teach you some lesson in the improvement of
the soul--."
"I don't seem to have learned anything--I believe I am rebellious all
the time--."
"Probably."
"Miss Sharp--you could really help me if you would. Please explain to
me--I will be a diligent pupil."
"Perhaps you were in a position of great power the last time, and were
lavish and kind to people in a way--or you would not be so rich now--but
you caused suffering and relied upon yourself, not on anything
divine--you must have caused much suffering, perhaps mentally even, and
so you had to be re-born and be wounded--to teach you the lesson of it
all;--that is called your Karma. Our Karma is what we bring on with us
from life to life in the way of obligations which we must discharge--so
you see it rests with each one of us not to lay up more debts to pay in
the future."
Her refined voice was level, as though she were controlling herself, not
to allow any personal feeling to enter her discourse--her gloved hands
were perfectly still in her lap--She was in profile to me so that I
could see that her very long eyelashes seemed to be rather pressed
against the glasses--I have not before been so close to her in a bright
light.--Why does she wear those damned spectacles? I was thinking, when
she said--
"You find it hard to be confined to your chair and not to be able to
fight, don't you?--Well when you could fight it was not always the
pleasure of going over the top? You had to have times in the trenches
too, hadn't you--when you just had to bear it?"
"Of course--?"
"Well--you are in the trenches now, don't you see--and it is according
to how your soul learns the lesson of them, as to whether in this life
you will ever be allowed to go over the top again--or even to have
peace."
"What is the lesson?"
"I am not God--I cannot tell you--but we would all know what our lesson
to learn is, if we were not too vain to face the truth into ourselves."
"The aim being?"--
"Why of course to improve character and learn strength."
"What qualities do you most admire in a person, Miss Sharp?"
"Self control and strength."
"You have no sympathy with weaklings?"
"None whatever--bad strong people are better than weak good ones."
I knew this was true. This fragile creature suggests infinite repose and
strength--what could she have done in a former life to bring her back in
such unkind surroundings, that she must spend her days in drudgery, so
that she has never even leisure to think?--I longed to ask her, but did
not dare.
"Shall we not begin work now," she suggested--and I demonstrated my
first lesson in self control by agreeing, and we did not talk again
until luncheon time.
"If you don't mind we shall go to the little café by the _lac_," I
said--"and then afterwards we can find another place and work
again--Burton will have had my wheeled chair brought down there, so we
can choose a decent spot in one of the _bosquets_."
She nodded slightly--Now that it was not to help my moral regeneration
she did not intend to talk any more, it seemed!
As we got into the fiacre I slipped in the slightest degree, and caught
on to her arm--It was bare to the elbow in the little cheap cotton
frock, and as I touched the fine, fine skin, that maddening feeling came
over me again to clasp her in my arms.--I pulled myself together, and
she got in beside me. She has a darling tiny curl which comes behind her
ear, slipped down probably because her hair is so unfashionably
dressed--None of Suzette's "_geste_," nor even the subtle perfect taste
of the fluffies.--It is just torn back and rolled into a tight twist.
But now that I see her out of doors and in perspective I realize that
she has a lovely small figure, and that everything is in the right
place. I had told Burton to order the nicest lunch he could think of in
that simple place, and our table under one of the umbrellas was waiting
for us when we arrived.
There were only four other people there besides ourselves, and a few
came in afterwards.
I had forgotten my bread tickets, so Miss Sharp gave me one of hers. She
had relapsed into absolute silence. The only words she had uttered as
we came down that avenue from The Trianon to the _lac_ were when I
exclaimed at the beauty of it--I judged by her mouth that she was
admiring it too--and she said softly--
"For me, Versailles is the loveliest spot on earth!"
My mind flew then to the thought of what it would be to buy a really
nice house here and spend the summers--with her--for my own--. I found
myself clutching at my crutch--.
I tried to make conversation at lunch. There is nothing in the world so
difficult as to keep this up when you are nervous with interest, and the
other person is determined not to say a sentence which is unnecessary. A
chill crept over me.
Burton turned up in time to pay the bill and put me into my chair.
"I don't think you look well enough to stay out the afternoon, Sir
Nicholas"--he said--"Better go straight back to the hotel and rest--."
Miss Sharp joined in.
"I was going to say that"--she said.
I felt like a cross, disappointed child--I knew they were both right
though; I was feeling pretty tired and had not an idea in my head. But
if I did that, there would be a chance to see her lost--and all the long
hours to face alone--.
"I am quite all right and I want to work," I said fretfully--and we
started off.
We went up through the lovely _allées_ past _Enceledus_--and on to the
_Quinconce du Nord_, Miss Sharp walking a little behind my chair.
Here Burton bent over me--.
"It would be good for you to be taking a nap, Sir Nicholas--Indeed it
would."
It seemed as if Miss Sharp was abetting him, for she came to my side--.
"If you can get quite comfortable--I would read to you, and you might
sleep," she said--.
"We've no book"--I retorted--peeved, and yet pleased at the idea.
"I have one here which, will do"--and she took a little volume from her
bag.--"I have wanted it for a long time, and I bought it at the _Foire_
as I came from the station to-day--it cost a franc!"
It was a worn eighteenth century copy of François Villon--.
"Yes, that will be nice," I agreed--and leaned back while Burton settled
my cushion, and then retired to a distance. Twelve years on and off of
Paris has not taught him French--at least not the French of François
Villon!
Miss Sharp took a little _parc_ chair and I was able to watch her as she
read--I did not even hear the words--because, as she was looking down I
had not to guard myself, but could let my eye devour her small oval
face. All my nerves were thrilling again and there was no peace--how I
longed--ached--to take her into my arms!
She looked up once after an hour, to see if I were asleep, I
suppose.--She must have observed passionate emotion in my eye--she
looked down at the book instantly, but a soft pink flush came into her
cheeks--which have a mother of pearl transparency usually. This caused
me deep pleasure--I had been able to make her feel something at any
rate! but then I was frightened--perhaps she would suggest going if she
found the situation uncomfortable. Her voice had a fresh tone in it as
she went on, and finally it faltered, and she stopped.
"If it is not putting you to sleep" she remarked--"perhaps you would not
object if I walked on and typed what I took down this morning--It seems
a pity to waste this time."
I knew that if I did not let her have her way there might be
difficulties, so I agreed--and said that I would go back to the hotel
and rest upon the sofa in the salon--So the procession started, and as
we took the _allée_, to bring us to the Reservoirs on the level--I
suddenly caught sight of Coralie and her last favoured one!--both of
whom are supposed to be at Deauville with the rest!
Coralie was exquisitely dressed, Duquesnois in uniform.
I realized that she had seen us, and that she could not avoid coming up
to talk, although that had not been her intention--When one is supposed
to be at Deauville with one's family, and is in reality at Versailles
with one's lover--one does not seek to recognize one's friends!
She came forward with _empressement_ when she found the meeting was
inevitable--.
"Nicholas!" she cooed "--what happiness!"--
Then she eyed Miss Sharp mischievously, making a movement as though she
expected me to introduce them--.
But Miss Sharp defeated this by immediately walking on--.
"_Tiens!_" said Coralie--.
"That is Miss Sharp--my secretary--What are you doing--here Coralie?"
"Perhaps the same as you, _cher ami_--" and she rippled with
laughter--"Versailles is so tranquil a place!"
I could have slapped her--fortunately Miss Sharp was out of earshot--.
Jean Duquesnois now joined in--he was back from the front for two
days--things were going better--peace would certainly be declared before
Christmas--.
Coralie meanwhile was looking after Miss Sharp with an expression upon
her clever face which only a Frenchwoman is able to put there--It said
as plainly as words, "So this is the reason Nicholas!--Well you have
chosen something very every-day and inexpensive this time!--Men are
certainly crazy in their tastes!"
I pretended not to notice, and so she spoke.
"Why if you can come here cannot you come to Deauville, Nicholas?--there
must be some irresistible attraction stronger than to be with your
friends!"
"Yes--he is an excellent Swedish masseur who is glued to Paris.--Also I
like solitude sometimes--."
"Solitude!" and Coralie glanced at Miss Sharp's rapidly disappearing
figure--. "_Hein?_"
I would not permit myself to grow angry.
"The book is nearly finished--you can tell the rest--."
"That old book! You were much more entertaining before you commenced it,
Nicholas! Perhaps the idea has come to me why!"
I would not be drawn--I threw the war into the enemy's country.
"You are staying at the Reservoirs?"
I saw that she was--and that now the thought of my being there
disconcerted her--.
"But no!" she lied sweetly--"I am merely out here for the day to see
Louise, who has a son in the hospital--."
It was my turn to say--
"_Tiens?_"
And then we both laughed--and I let them go on--.
But when I got into my salon--I heard no typing--only there was a note
from Miss Sharp to say that some slight thing had gone wrong with the
machine, so she had taken the work to finish it at home--.
I cursed Coralie and all the fluffies in the world, and then in pain
laid down upon my bed.
IX
_Saturday Morning:_
Yesterday I was so restless I could not settle to anything. I read pages
and pages of Plato and was conscious that the words were going over in
my head without conveying the slightest meaning, and that the other part
of my mind was absorbed with thoughts of Miss Sharp--. If I only dared
to be natural with her we surely could be friends, but I am always
obsessed with the fear that she will leave me if I transgress in the
slightest beyond the line she has marked between us--. I see that she is
determined to remain only the secretary, and I realize that it is her
breeding which makes her act as she does--. If she were familiar or
friendly with me, she would feel it was not correct to come to my flat
alone--She only comes at all because the money is so necessary to
her--and having to come, she protects her dignity by wearing this ice
mask.--I know that she was affronted by Coralie's look on Thursday, and
that is why she went home pretending the typing machine was out of
order--Now if any more of these _contretemps_ happen she will probably
give me warning. Burton instinctively sensed this, and that is why he
disapproved of my asking her to lunch--If she had been an ordinary
typist Burton would not have objected in the least,--as I said before,
Burton knows the world!
Now what is to be done next?--I would like to go and confide in the
Duchesse, and tell her that I believe I have fallen in love with my
secretary, who won't look at me, and ask her advice--but that I fear
with all her broad-minded charity, her class prejudice is too strong to
make her really sympathetic. Her French mind of the _Ancien Régime_
could not contemplate a Thormonde--son of Anne de Mont-Anbin--falling in
love with an insignificant Miss Sharp who brings bandages to the
Courville hospital!
These thoughts tormented me so all yesterday that I was quite feverish
by the evening--and Burton wore an air of thorough disapproval. A rain
shower came on too, and I could not go up on the terrace for the sunset.
I would like to have taken asperines and gone to sleep, when night
came--but I resisted the temptation, telling myself that to-morrow she
would come again.
I am dawdling over this last chapter on purpose--and I have re-read the
former ones and decided to rewrite one or two, but at best I cannot
spread this out over more than six weeks, I fear, and then what excuse
can I have for keeping her? I feel that she would not stay just to
answer a few letters a day, and do the accounts and pay the bills with
Burton. I feel more desperately miserable than I have felt since last
year--And I suppose that according to her theory, I have to learn a
lesson. It seems if I search, as she said one must do without vanity,
that the lesson is to conquer emotion, and be serene when everything
which I desire is out of reach.
* * * * *
_Saturday Night:_
To-day has been one of utter disaster and it began fairly well. Miss
Sharp turned up at eleven as I shut my journal. I had sent to the
station to meet her this time--She brought all the work she had taken
away with her on Thursday, quite in order--and her face wore the usual
mask. I wonder if I had not ever seen her without her glasses if I
should have realized now that she is very pretty--I can see her
prettiness even with them on--her nose is so exquisitely fine, and the
mouth a Cupid's bow really--if one can imagine a Cupid's bow very firm.
I am sure if she were dressed as Odette, or Alice, or Coralie, she would
be lovely. This morning when she first came I began thinking of this and
of how I should like to give her better things than any of the fluffies
have ever had--how I would like her to have some sapphire bangles for
those little wrists and a great string of pearls round that little
throat--my mother's pearls--and perhaps big pearls in those shell
ears--And how I would like to take her hair down and brush it out, and
let it curl as it wanted to--and then bury my face in it--those stiff
twists must take heaps of hair to make.--But why am I writing all this
when the reality is further off than ever, and indeed has become an
impossibility I fear.
We worked in the sitting-room--it was a cloudy day--and presently, after
I had been dreaming on in this way, I asked her to read over the
earlier chapters of the book.--She did--.
"Now what do you think of the thing as a whole?" I asked her.
She was silent for a moment as though trying not to have to answer
directly, then that weird constitutional honesty seemed to force out the
words.
"It perhaps tells what that furniture is."
"You feel it is awful rot?"
"No--."
"What then?"
"It depends if you mean to publish it?"
I leaned back and laughed--bitterly! the realization that she understood
so completely that it was only a "_soulagement_"--an "asperine" for me,
so to speak as the Duchesse said--cut in like a knife. I had the
exasperated feeling that I was just being pandered to, humored by
everyone, because I was wounded. I was an object of pity, and even my
paid typist--but I can't write about it.
Miss Sharp started from her chair, her fine nostrils were quivering, and
her mouth had an expression I could not place.
"Indeed, it is not bad," she said--"You misunderstand me--."
I knew now that she was angry with herself for having hurt me--and that
I could have made capital out of this, but something in me would not let
me do that.
"Oh--it is all right--" I replied, but perhaps my voice may have been
flat and discouraged--for she went on so kindly.
"You know a great deal about the subject of course--but I feel the
chapters want condensing--May I tell you just where?"
I felt that the thing did not interest me any more, one way or another,
it was just a ridiculous non-essential--. I saw it all in a new
perspective--but I was glad she seemed kindly--though for a moment even
that appeared of less importance. Something seemed to have numbed me.
What, what could be the good of anything?--the meaning of anything?--I
unconsciously put my head back against the cushion of my chair in
weariness--I felt the soft silk and shut my eye for a moment.
When Miss Sharp spoke again, her voice was full of sympathy--and was it
remorse--?
"I would like to help you to take interest in it--again--won't you let
me?" she pleaded.
I was grateful that she did not say she was sorry she had hurt me--that
I could not have stood--.
I opened my eye now and looked at her, she was bending nearer to me, but
I felt nothing particular, only a desire to go to sleep and have done
with it all. It was as if the fabric of my make-believe had been rent
asunder.
"It is very good of you," I answered politely--"Yes--say what you
think."
Her tact is immense--she plunged straight into the subject without
further imputation of sympathy,--her voice, full of inflections of
interest and friendliness, her constrained self-control laid aside for
the time. She spoke so intelligently, showing trained critical
faculties--and at last my numbness began gradually to melt, and I could
not help some return of sensation. There may have been soothing syrup in
the fact that she must have been interested in the work, or she could
not have dissected it chapter by chapter, point by point, as she was
doing.
She grew animated as we discussed things, and once unconsciously took
off her glasses--It was like the sun coming out after days of storm
clouds--her beautiful, beautiful blue eyes!--My "heart gave a bound"--(I
believe that is the way to express what I mean!)--I felt a strange
emotion of excitement and pleasure--I had not time to control my
admiration, I expect,--for she took fright and instantly replaced them,
a bright flush in her cheeks--and went on talking in a more reserved
way--Alas!--
Of course then I realized that she does not wear the glasses for any
reason of softening light or of defective sight, but simply to hide
those blue stars and make herself unattractive--.
How mysterious it all is!--
I wish I had been able to conceal the fact that I had noticed that the
glasses were off--Another day I would certainly have taken advantage of
this moment and would have tried to make her confess the reason of her
wearing them; but some odd quality in me prevented me from reaping any
advantage from this situation, so I let the chance pass.--Perhaps she
was grateful to me, for she warmed up a little again.
I began to feel that I might write the fool of a book right over from
the beginning--and suggested to her that we should take it in detail.
She acquiesced--.
Then it suddenly struck me that she had not only spoken of style in
writing, of method in book making--but had shown an actual knowledge of
the subject of the furniture itself.--How could little Miss Sharp, a
poverty stricken typist, be familiar with William and Mary furniture?
She has obviously not "seen better days," and only taken up a
stenographic business lately, because such proficiency as she shows, not
only in this work but in account keeping and all the duties of a
secretary, must have required a steady professional training.
Could she have studied in Museums?
But the war has been on for four years and I had gathered that she has
been in Paris all that time--Even if she had left England in 1914, she
could only have been eighteen or nineteen then, and girls of that age do
not generally take an interest in furniture. This thought kept bothering
me--and I was silent for some moments. I was weighing things up.
Her voice interrupted my thoughts.
"The Braxted chair has the first of the knotted fringes known"--it was
saying.
I had spoken of the Braxted chair--but had not recorded this fact--.
How the devil could she have known about it?
"Where did you find that?"
"I knew someone who had seen it--" she answered in the same voice, but
her cheeks grew pinker--.
"You have never seen it yourself?"
"No--I have never been in England--."
"----Never been in England?"
I was stupefied.
She went on hurriedly--I was going to write feverishly,--so quickly did
she rush into questions of method in arranging the chapters, her armour
was on again--she had become cautious, and was probably annoyed with
herself for ever having allowed herself to slip off her guard.
I knew that I could disconcert her, and probably obtain some interesting
admissions from her--and have a thrilling fencing match, but some
instinct warned me not to do so--I might win out for the time being, but
if she has a secret which she does not wish me to discover, she will
take care not again to put herself in a situation where this can happen.
I have the apprehension always hanging, like Damocles' sword, over my
head, of her relinquishing her post. Besides, why should I trouble her
for my own satisfaction?--However, I registered a vow then that I would
find out all I could from Maurice.
The inference of everything she says, does and unconsciously infers, is
that she is a cultivated lady, accustomed to talking with people of our
world--people who know England and its great houses well enough to have
made her familiar with the knowledge of where certain pieces of famous
furniture are.--The very phrasing of her sentences is the phrasing of
our Shibboleth, and not the phrasing of the professional classes.
And yet--she is meanly dressed--does housework--and for years must have
been trained in professional business methods. It is profoundly
interesting.
I have never even questioned Maurice as to how he heard of her.
Well, I write all this down calmly, the record of the morning, to let
myself look back on it, and to where the new intimacy might have led us,
but for the sickening end to the day.
Burton did not question her lunching with me this time--he had given the
order as a matter of course--He is very fine in his distinctions, and
understood that to make any change after she once had eaten with me
would be invidious.
By the time the waiters came in to lay the table, that sense of hurt,
and then of numbness, had worn off--I was quite interested again in the
work, and intensely intrigued about the possible history of the Sharp
family!
I was using cunning, too, and displaying casual indifference, so
watchfulness was allowed to rest a little with the strange girl.
"I believe if you will give me your help I shall be able to make quite
a decent book of it after all,--but does it not seem absurd to trouble
about such thing's as furniture with the world in ruins and Empires
tottering!"--I remarked while the ark-relic handed the omelette--.
"All that is only temporary--presently people will be glad to take up
civilized interests again."
"You never had any doubt as to how the war would end?"
"Never."
"Why?"
"Because I believe in the gallantry of France, and the tenacity of
England, and the--youth of America."
"And what of Germany?"
"The vulgarity."
This was quite a new reason for Germany's certain downfall--! It
delighted me--.
"But vulgarity does not mean weakness!"
"Yes it does--Vulgar people have imperfect sensibilities, and cannot
judge of the psychology of others, they appraise everything by their own
standard--and so cannot calculate correctly possible contingencies--that
shows weakness."
"How wise you are--and how you think!"
She was silent.
"All the fighting nations will be filled with vulgarians even when we do
win, though with most of the decent people killed--" I ventured to
say--.
"Oh! no--Lots of their souls are not vulgar, only their environment has
caused their outward self-expression to seem so. Once you get below the
pompous _bourgeoisie_ in France, for instance, the more delightful you
find the spirit, and I expect it is the same in England. It is the
pretentious aspiring would-bes who are vulgar--and Germany seems filled
with them,"
"You know it well?"
"Yes, pretty well."
"If it is not a frightfully impertinent question--how old are you
really, Miss Sharp--?" I felt that she could not be only twenty-three
after this conversation.
She smiled--the second smile I have seen--.
"On the twentieth of October I shall be twenty-four."
"Where on earth did you learn all your philosophy of life in the time!"
"It is life which teaches us everything--if we are not half
asleep--especially if it is difficult--."
"And the stupid people are like me--not liking to learn any lessons and
kicking against the pricks--.",
"Yes--."
"I would try to learn anything you would teach me though, Miss Sharp."
"Why?"
"Because I have confidence in you"--I did not add--because I loved her
voice and respected her character and----.
"Thank you"--she said.
"Will you teach me?"
"What?"
"How not to be a rotter--."
"A man knows that himself--."
"How to learn serenity then?"
"That would be difficult."
"Am I so impossible?"
"I cannot say--but."
"But--what?"
"One would have to begin from the beginning--."
"Well?"
"And I have not time--."
I looked at her as she said this--there was in the tone a faint echo of
regret, so I wanted to see the expression of her mouth--It told me
nothing.
I could not get anything further out of her, because the waiters came in
and out after this rather frequently, changing the courses--and so I did
not have any success.
After lunch I suggested as it had cleared up that we should go at least
as far as the parterre, and sit under the shadow of the terrace--the
flower beds are full of beans now--their ancient glories departed. Miss
Sharp followed my bath chair,--and with extreme diligence kept me to the
re-arranging of the first chapter. For an hour I watched her darling
small face whenever I could. A sense of peace was upon me. We were
certainly on the first rung of the ladder of friendship--and
presently--presently--If only I could keep from annoying her in any way!
When we had finished our task she rose--.
"If you don't mind, as it is Saturday I have promised Burton"--and she
looked at him, seated on a chair beyond earshot enjoying the sun--"to do
up the accounts and prepare the cheques for you to sign--. So I will go
in now and begin."
I wanted to say "Damn the accounts"--but I let her go--I must play the
tortoise in this game, not the hare. She smiled faintly--the third
smile--as she made me a little bow, and walked off.
After a few paces she came back again.
"May I ask Burton for the bread ticket I lent you on Thursday," she
said--"No one can afford to be generous with them now, can they!"
I was delighted at this. I would have been delighted at anything which
kept her with me an extra minute.
I watched her as she disappeared down towards the Reservoirs with
longing eyes, then I must have dozed for a while, because it was a
quarter to five when I got back to my sitting-room.
And when I was safely in my chair there was a knock on the door, and in
she came--with a cheque-book in her hand. Before I opened it or even
took it up I knew something had happened which had changed her again.
Her manner had its old icy respect as of a person employed, all the
friendliness which had been growing in the last two or three days had
completely departed. I could not imagine why--.
She put the cheque-book open, and handed me a pen to sign with, and then
I signed the dozen that she had filled in, and tore them off as I did
so. She was silent, and when I had finished she took them, saying
casually that she would bring the corrected chapter typed again on
Tuesday, and was now going to catch her train--and before I could reply,
she had gone into the other room--.
A frightful sense of depression fell upon me--What could it possibly
be--?
Idly I picked up the cheque-book--and absently fingered the leaves--then
my eye caught a counterfoil where I had chanced to open it. It was not
in Miss Sharp's handwriting, although this was the house cheque-book
which Burton usually keeps, but in my own and there was written, just
casually as I scribble in my private account.--"For Suzette 5000 francs"
and the date of last Saturday--and on turning the page there was the
further one of "For Suzette 3000 francs" and the date of Monday!!
The irony of fate!--I had picked this cheque-book up inadvertently I
suppose on these two days instead of my own.
X
It is quite useless for me to comment upon the utterly annoying
circumstance of that mixup of cheque-books--Such things are fate--and
fate I am beginning to believe is nothing but a reflex of our own
actions. If Suzette had not been my little friend, I should not have
given her eight thousand francs--but as she has been--and I did--I must
stand by the consequences.
After all--a man?--Well--what is the use of writing about it. I am so
utterly mad and resentful that I have no words.
It is Sunday morning, and this afternoon I shall hire the one motor
which can be obtained here, at a fabulous price, and go into Paris.
There are some books I want to get out of my bookcase--and somehow I
have lost interest here. But this morning I shall go and sit in the
parish church and hear Mass.--I feel so completely wretched, the music
may comfort me and give me courage to forget all about Miss Sharp. And
in any case there is a soothing atmosphere in a Roman Catholic church,
which is agreeable. I love the French people! They are a continual
tonic, if one takes them rightly. So filled with common sense, simply
using sentiment as an ornament, and a relaxation; and never allowing it
to interfere with the practical necessities of life. Ignorant people say
they are hysterical, and over passionate--They are nothing of the
kind--They believe in material things, and in the "_beau geste_." Where
they require a religion, they accept a comforting one; and meanwhile
they enjoy whatever comes in their way and get through disagreeables
philosophically. _Vive la France!_
* * * * *
I am waiting for the motor now--and trying to be resigned.--Mass did me
good--I sat in a corner and kept my crutch by me. The Church itself told
me stories, I tried to see it in Louis XV's time--I dare say it looked
much the same, only dirtier--And life was made up with etiquette and
forms and ceremonies, more exasperating than anything now. But they were
ahead of us in manners, and a sense of beauty.
A little child came and sat beside me for about ten minutes, and looked
at me and my crutch sympathetically.
"_Blessé de la guerre_," I heard her whisper to her mother--"_Comme
Jean_."
The organ was not bad--and before I came out I felt calmer.
After all it is absurd of Miss Sharp to be disgusted about Suzette--She
must know, at nearly twenty-four, and living in France, that there are
Suzettes--and I am sure she is not narrow-minded in any way--What can
have made her so censorious? If she took a personal interest in me it
would be different, but entirely indifferent as she is, how can it
matter to her?--As I write this, that hot sense of anger and rebellion
arises in me--I'll have to keep saying to myself that I am in the
trenches again and must not complain.
I'll make Burton find out if Coralie is really staying here, and get her
to dine with me to-night--Coralie always pretended to have a _béguin_
for me--even when most engaged elsewhere.
* * * * *
_Monday:_
Sunday was a memorable day--.
I went through the _Bois de Marne_ on that bad road because the trees
were so lovely--and then through the _parc de St. Cloud_. Even in war
time this wonderful people can enjoy the open air life!--
I think of Henriette d' Angleterre looking from the terrace of her
Château over the tree tops--The poor Château! not a stone of which is
standing to-day--Did she feel sentimental with her friend the Comte de
Guiche--as I would like to feel now?--If I had someone to be sentimental
with. Alas! There was an ominous hot stillness in the air, and the sky
beyond the Eiffel tower had a heavy, lurid tone in it.
When we got across the river into the _Bois de Boulogne_ it seemed as if
all Paris was enjoying a holiday. I told the chauffeur to go down a side
_allée_ and to go slowly, and presently I made him draw up at the side
of the road. It was so hot, and I wanted to rest for a little, the
motion was jarring my leg.
I think I must have been half asleep, when my attention was caught by
three figures coming up another by-path obliquely--the tallest of them
was undoubtedly Miss Sharp--but Miss Sharp as I had never seen her
before!--
And a boy of thirteen, and a girl of eleven were at either side of her,
the boy clinging on to her arm, he was lame and seemed to be a
dreadfully delicate, rickety person. The little girl was very small and
sickly looking too--but Miss Sharp--my secretary!--appeared blooming and
young and lovely in her inexpensive foulard frock--No glasses hid her
blue eyes. Her hair was not torn back and screwed into a knot, but might
have been dressed by Alice's maid--and her hat, the simplest thing
possible, was most becoming, with the proper modish "look."--
Refinement and perfect taste proclaimed themselves from every inch of
her, even if everything had only cost a small sum.
So that dowdy get-up is for my benefit, and is not habitual to her!--Or
is it, that she has only one costume and keeps it for Sundays and days
of _fête_?--
In spite of my determination to put all thought of her from me--a wild
emotion arose--a passionate longing to spring from the car and join
her--to talk to her, and tell her how lovely I thought she was looking.
They came nearer and nearer--I could see that her face was rippling with
smiles at something the little brother had said--Its expression was
gentle and sympathetic and it was obvious that fond affection held all
three.
The children might have been drawn by Du Maurier in Punch long ago, to
express a family who were overbred. Race run to seed expressed itself in
every line of them. The boy wore an Eton jacket and collar and a tall
hat--and it looked quite strange in this place.
As they got close to me I could hear him cough in the hollow way which
tells its own story--.
I cowered down behind the hood of the motor, and they passed without
seeing me--or perhaps Miss Sharp did see me but was determined not to
look--. I felt utterly alone and deserted by all the world--and the same
nervous trembling came over me which once before made me suffer so, and
again I was conscious that my cheek was wet with a tear.
The humiliation of it! the disgrace of such feebleness!--
When they had gone by, I started forward again to watch them--I could
hear the little girl cry, "Oh! look Alathea!" as she pointed to the sky,
and then all three began to quicken their pace down another _allée_, in
the direction of Auteuil, and were soon out of sight.
Then, still quivering with emotion, I too glanced heavenward--Ye Gods!
what a storm was coming on--!
Where were they going? there into the deep wood?--it was a good mile or
two from the Auteuil gate--They would be soaked to the skin when the
rain did commence to fall--and there was a thunder storm beginning
also--were they quite safe?
All these thoughts tormented me, and I gave the chauffeur orders to take
a road I thought might cut across the path they had followed, and when
we reached the spot, I made him wait.
The livid lightning rent the sky and the thunder roared like guns, and
the few people in sight rushed, panic-stricken, in a hopeless search for
shelter--far greater fear on their faces than they show at German bombs.
My chauffeur complained audibly, as he got down to shut the car--Did
Monsieur wish to be struck by lightning? he demanded, very enraged.
Still I waited--but no Sharp family appeared--and at last I knew I had
missed them somehow--a very easy thing in that path-bisected wood. So I
told him he could drive like hell to my _appartement_ in the _Place des
Etats Unis_--and off we rushed in the now torrential rain--It was one of
the worst thunder storms I have ever seen in my life.
I was horribly worried as to what could have happened to that little
party, for that _alleé_ where I had seen them, was in the very middle of
the _Bois_, and far from any gate or shelter. They must have got soaking
wet if nothing worse had happened to them. And how could I hear anything
about them?--What should I do? Was the Duchesse in Paris?--Could I find
the address possibly from her? But would she be likely to know it? just
because Miss Sharp--"Alathea"--(what a lovely Greek name!) brought
bandages to the hospital?
However, this was worth trying, and I could hardly wait to get out of
the motor, and get to the telephone. The _concierge_ came out with an
umbrella in great concern and took me up in the lift herself--and there
was Burton waiting for me, he had come in by train to take me back
safely later on.
How I cursed my folly in not having asked Miss Sharp herself for her
address! Could Burton possibly know it?--How silly of me not to have
thought of that before!
"Burton, I saw Miss Sharp and her family in the _Bois_--do you know
their address by chance?--I want to ring up and find out if they got
home all right."
Burton could see my anxiety--and actually hurried in his reply!
"They live in Auteuil, Sir Nicholas, but I can't exactly say where--the
young lady never seems very particular to give me the address. She said
I should not be needing it, and that they were likely to move."
"Get on to the Duchesse de Courville-Hautevine as quickly as you can--."
Burton did so at once, but it seemed a long time.
--No, Madame la Duchesse was down at Hautevine taking some fresh
convalescents, and would not return until the middle of the week--if
then!
I nearly swore aloud--.
"Are they talking from the _concierge's_ lodge or the hotel?--Burton ask
at both if they know the address of a Miss Sharp who brings bandages to
the hospital!"
Of course by this time the connection had been cut off, and it took
quite ten minutes to get on again, and by that time I could have yelled
aloud with the feverish fret of it all, and the pain!
No one knew anything of a "Mees Shearp."
"Mees Shearp--_Mais non_!"
Many ladies brought bandages, _hein_?!
I mastered myself as well as I could and got into my chair--.
And in a few moments Burton brought me a brandy and soda, and put it
into my hand.
"It won't be cleared up enough to go back to Versailles before dinner,
Sir Nicholas," he said--and coughed--"I was just thinking maybe--you'd
be liking some friends to come in and dine--Pierre can get something in
from the restaurant, if you'd feel inclined."
The cough meant that Burton knows I am dreadfully upset, and that under
the circumstances anything to distract me is the lesser of two evils--!
"Ask whom you please," I answered and drank the brandy and soda down.
Presently, after half an hour, Burton came back to me, beaming--I had
been sitting in my chair too exhausted even to feel pain meanwhile--.
He had telephoned everywhere, and no one was in town, but at last, at
the Ritz, where the _concierge_ knows all my friends, he had been
informed that Mrs. Bruce (Nina) had arrived the night before, alone--he
had got connected up at her _appartement_, and she would be ''round at
eight o'clock, very pleased to dine!'
Nina!--A pleasant thrill ran through me--Nina, and without Jim--!
The wood fire was burning brightly, and the curtains were drawn when
Nina, fresh as a rose, came in--.
"Nicholas!" she cried delightedly--and held out both hands.
"Nina!--this is a pleasure, you old dear!--now let me look at you and
see what marriage has done--."
Nina drew back and laughed!
"Everything, Nicholas!" she said--.
A feeling of envy came over me--Jim's ankle is stiff for life--it seems
hard that an eye can make such a difference!--Nina is in love with Jim,
but no woman can be in love with me.
Her face is much softer, she is more attractive altogether.
"You look splendid, Nina," I told her--"I want to hear all about it."
"So you shall when we have finished dinner," and she handed me my crutch
as I got up from my chair.
Pierre had secured some quite respectable food, and during dinner and
afterwards when we were cosily smoking our cigarettes in the
sitting-room, Nina gave me all the news of our friends at home.--Every
single one of them was still working, she said.
"It is marvelous how they have stuck it," I responded--.
"Oh no, not at all," Nina answered. "We as a nation are people of
habit--the war is a habit to us now--heaps of us work from a sense of
duty and patriotism, others because they are afraid what would be said
of them if they did not--others because they are thankful to have some
steady job to get off their superfluous energy on--So it ends by
everyone being roped in--and you can't think, Nicholas, how divine it is
to get home after long hours of drudgery, to find the person you love
waiting for you, and to know you are going to have all the rest of the
time together, until next day!"
"No, I can't imagine the bliss of that, Nina--."
She looked at me suddenly--.
"Well, why don't you marry then, dear boy?"
"I would, if I thought I could secure bliss--but you forget, it would be
from pity and not love that a woman would be kind to me."
"I am--not quite sure of that, Nicholas"--and she looked at me
searchingly--"You are changed since last time--you are not so bitter and
sardonic--and you, always have that--oh! you know what Elinor Glyn
writes of in her books--that "it."--Some kind of attraction that has no
name--but I am sure has a lot to do with love--."
"So you think I have got 'it,' Nina?"
"Yes, your clothes fit so well--and you say rather whimsical
things--Yes, decidedly, Nicholas, now that you are not so bitter--I am
sure--."
"What a pity you did not find that out before you took Jim, Nina!"
"Oh! Jim! that is different--You have much more brain than Jim, and
would not have been nearly so easy to live with!"
"Is it going well, Nina?"
"Yes--perfectly--that is why I came to Paris alone--I knew it would be
good for him--besides I wanted a rest, Nicholas."
"I thought you had married for a rest!"
"Well, if a man 'in love' is what you really want,--and not his just
'loving' you--you have to use your wits; it can't be a rest, not if he
has made you care too.--When I was just tossing up between Jim and
Rochester, then I had not to bother about how I behaved to them. You see
I was the, as yet, unattained desired thing--but having accepted one of
them, he has time to think of things, not having to fight to get me, and
so I have to keep him thinking of things which have still speculation in
them--don't you see?"
"You have to keep the hunting instinct alive, in fact."
"Yes--"
"You don't think it would be possible to find someone who was just one's
mate so that no game of any sort would be necessary?"
She thought hard for a moment.
"That, of course, would be heaven--" then she sighed--"I am afraid it is
no use in hoping for that, Nicholas!"
"Someone who would understand so well that silence was eloquent--someone
who would read books with one, and think thoughts with one. Someone who
would lie in one's arms and respond to caresses--and not be counting the
dollars--or--doing her knitting--. Someone who was tender and kind and
true--Oh! Nina!"
I suppose my voice had taken on a tone of emotion--I was thinking of
Miss Sharp--Alathea--that shall be her name always for me now--.
"Nicholas!" Nina exclaimed--"My dear boy, of course you are in love!"
"And if so?"
Instantly I became of more value to Nina--she realized that she had lost
me, and that some other woman drew me and not herself--and although Nina
is the best sort in the world and more or less really in love with Jim,
I knew that a new note could grow in our friendship if I wished to
encourage it--Nina's fighting instinct had been aroused to try to get me
back!
"Who with?" she demanded laconically.
"With a dream--."
"Nonsense! you are much too cynical--Is it anyone I know?"
"I should not think so--she has not materialised yet."
"This is frightfully interesting, my dear old boy!"
"So you think I'll have a chance then?"
"Certainly when you are all finished."
"My new eye is to be in before Christmas, and my new leg after the new
year, and my shoulder gets straighter every day!"
Nina laughed--.
"Real love would be--I suppose--if you could make her adore you before
you looked any handsomer!"
And this sentence of Nina's rang in my ears long after she had gone, and
often in the night. I could not sleep, I felt something had happened and
that fate might be going to take Miss Sharp--Alathea--from me--.
* * * * *
And then before morning in fretful dreams I seemed to be obsessed by the
cooing of love words between a woman and a child--.
XI
Monday was a perfectly impossible day--I spent all the morning before I
returned to Versailles in writing to Maurice, telling him he must find
out all about Miss Sharp--Alathea--I felt if I told him her Christian
name it would be a clue--and yet even to assist in that, which was, at
the moment, my heart's desire, I could not overcome my personal dislike
to pronounce it to Maurice!--it seemed as something sacred to me
alone--which makes me reflect upon how egotistical we all are--and how
we would all rather fail in attaining what is our greatest wish than not
to be able to express our own personality--!
Nina had suggested before she left that I should stay in Paris and come
to the theatre with her--.
"We could have some delicious old times, Nicholas, now that you are so
much better."
Once this would have thrilled me--only last Spring! but now the
contrariness in me made me say that it was absolutely necessary that I
returned immediately to Versailles. I believe I should have answered
like that even if there had been no Miss Sharp,--Alathea--in the case,
just because I now knew Nina really wanted me to stay--every man is like
that, more or less, if only women knew!--The whole sex relation is one
of fence--until the object has been secured--and then emotion dies out
altogether, or is revived in one or the other, but very seldom in both.
Love--real love--is beyond all this I suppose, and does not depend upon
whether or no the other person excites one's desire for conquest. Love
must be wonderful--I believe Alathea--(I have actually written it
naturally this time!--) could love. I never used to think I could, at
the best of moments I have analysed my emotions, and stood aside as it
were, and measured just how much things were meaning to me.
But when I think of that scrap of a girl, with her elusive ways, her
pride, her refinement, even her little red hands--! I have a longing--a
passionate longing to hold her always near me--to know that she is
mine--that for the rest of time I should be with her, learning from her
high thoughts, comforted by her strength of character--believing in
her--respecting her--Yes, that is it--_respecting her_. How few women
one meets with attractions that one really respects.--One respects many
elderly ones, of course, and abstract splendid creatures, but bringing
it down to concrete facts, how few are the women who have drawn one's
admiration or excited one's desire, who at the same time one
reverenced!--Love must mean reverence--that is it.
And what is reverence--?
The soul's acknowledgment of the purity of another--and purity in this
sense means truth and honor, and lofty aims--not the denial of all
passion, or the practice of asceticism.
I utterly reverence Alathea, and yet I am sure with that mouth--if she
loved me she would be anything but cold. How on God's earth can I make
her love me--?
I went back to Versailles after luncheon, having had to see the
specialist about my eye, he thinks the socket is so marvelously healed
lately, that I could have the glass one in now much sooner than
Christmas. I wonder if some self confidence will return when I can feel
people are not revolted when looking at me?--That again is
super-sensitiveness. Of course no one is revolted--they feel pity--and
that is perhaps worse. When I get my leg too, shall I have the nerve to
make love to Alathea and use all the arts which used to be so successful
in the old days?
I believe if I were back in 1914--I should still be as nervous as a cat
when with her--Is this one of the symptoms of love again?
George Harcourt has many maxims upon the subject of love--One is that a
Frenchman thinks most of the methods of love--An Englishman more of the
sensations of love--and an Austrian of the emotions of love--. I wonder
if this is true? He also says that a woman does not really appreciate a
man who reverences her sex in the abstract, and is chivalrous about all
women,--she rather thinks him a simpleton--. What she does appreciate is
a man who holds cynical views about the female sex in general, and shows
reverence and chivalry towards herself in particular!
This I feel is probably the truth--!
I did not expect to hear anything of Alathea on the Monday, she was not
due until Tuesday at eleven o'clock, but when I came in from my sunset
on the terrace, I found two telegrams, all the first one said was--
"Extremely sorry will be unable to come to-morrow, brother
seriously ill.
A. Sharp--."
And no address!
So I could not send sympathy, or even offer any help--I could have sworn
aloud! The storm had wrecked its vengeance on someone, then, and the
poor little chap had probably taken cold.
If I could only be of some use to them--Perhaps getting the best Doctor
is out of their reach. I was full of turmoil while I tore open the other
blue paper--this was from Suzette--.
"I come this evening at eight."
It was nearly seven o'clock now, so I could not put her off--and I am
not sure that I wanted to--Suzette is a human being and kindly, and her
heart is warm.
When Burton was dressing me I told him of Miss Sharp's telegram.
"The poor young lady!" he said--.
Burton always speaks of her as the "young lady"--he never makes a
mistake about class.
Suzette for him is "Mam'zell"--and he speaks of her as a mother might
about her boy's noisy, tiresome rackety school friends--necessary evils
to be put up with for the boy's sake--The fluffies he announces always
by their full titles--"Madame la Comtesse"--etc., etc., with a face of
stone. Nina and the one or two other Englishwomen he is politely
respectful to, but to Miss Sharp he is absolutely reverential--she might
be a Queen!
"I expect the poor little fellow got wet through yesterday," I
hazarded--.
"He's that delicate," Burton remarked.
So Burton knows something more about the family than I do after all--!
"How did you know he was delicate, Burton, or even that Miss Sharp had a
brother?"
"I don't exactly know, Sir Nicholas--it's come out from one time to
another--the young lady don't talk."
"How did you guess, then?"
"I've seen her anxious when I've brought in her tray--sometimes, and
once I ventured to say to her--'I beg pardon Miss, but can I do anything
for you,' and she took off her glasses sudden like--and thanked me, and
said it was her little brother she was worrying about--and you may
believe me or not as you like, Sir Nicholas, but her eyes were full of
tears."
I wonder if Burton guessed the deep emotion he was causing me--My little
darling! with her beautiful blue eyes full of tears, and I impotent to
comfort or help her--!
"Yes--yes?" I said--.
"She told me then that he'd been delicate since birth, and she feared
the winter in Paris for him--I do believe Sir, it's that she works so
hard for, to get him away south."
"Burton--what the devil can we do about it?"
"I don't very well know, Sir Nicholas--Many's the time I've badly wanted
to offer her the peaches and grapes and other things, to take back to
him--but of course I know my place better than to insult a lady--tisn't
like as if she were of another class you see Sir--she'd have grabbed 'em
then, but bein' as she is, she'd have been bound to refuse them, and it
might have tempted her for him and made things awkward."
Burton not only knows the world but has tact--!
He went on, now once started.
"I saw her outside a wine shop once when I got off the tram at
Auteuil--She was looking at the bottles of port--and I made so as to
pass, and her not see me, but she turned and said friendly
like--'Burton, do you suppose this shop would keep really good port--?'
I said as how I would go in and see, and she came with me--They had some
fairly decent--though too young, Sir Nicholas, and it was thirty-five
francs the bottle--I saw she had not an idea it would be as much as
that--her face fell--Do you know, Sir, I could see she hadn't that much
with her,--it was the day before she's paid you see--her colour came and
went--then she said--'I wonder Burton if you could oblige me with paying
the ten extra francs until to-morrow--I must have the best!'--You may
believe me, Sir Nicholas, I got out my purse quick enough--and then she
thanked me so sweet like--'The Doctor has ordered it for my mother,
Burton,' she said--'and of course she couldn't drink any but the best!'"
"Who on earth can she be, Burton? It does worry me--can't you possibly
find out? I would so like to help them."
"I feel that, Sir--but here's the way I figure it--When gentry lives in
foreign towns and don't seem anxious for you to know their address it
don't seem right like to pry into it."
"Burton, you dear old brick!--well supposing we don't try to pry, but
just try how we can possibly help her--You could certainly be
sympathetic about the brother since she has spoken to you--and surely
something can be done--? I saw her at the Duchesse's you know--do you
suppose she knows her--?"
"I do, Sir Nicholas--I never meant to speak of it, but one day Her Grace
came to see you and you were out and she caught sight of Miss Sharp
through the half open door--and she jumped like a cat, Her Grace did,
'Halthee'--she cried out--or some name like that,--and Miss Sharp
started up and went down the stairs with her--She seemed to be kind of
explaining, and I am not sure that Her Grace was too pleased--."
(Burton thinks all Duchesses should be called "Grace" whether they are
French or English.)
"Then we should certainly be able to find out from the Duchesse--."
"Well, I would not be so sure of that Sir Nicholas--You see the Duchesse
is a very kind lady, but she is a lady of the world, and she may have
her reasons."
"Then what do you suggest, Burton?"
"Why, I hardly know--perhaps to wait and see, Sir Nicholas."
"Masterly inactivity!"
"It might be that I could do a bit of finding out if I felt sure no harm
could come of it."
I was not quite certain what Burton meant by this--What possible harm
could come of it?
"Find out all you can and let me know--."
* * * * *
Suzette opened the door and came in just as I finished dressing--Burton
left the room.--She was pouting.
"So the book is not completed, Nicholas?--and the English Mees comes
three times a week--_hein_?"
"Yes--does that upset you?"
"I should say!"
"May I not have a secretary?--You will be objecting to my Aunt coming to
stay with me, or my dining with my friends--next!"
I was angry--.
"No--_mon ami_--not that--they are not for me--those--but a secretary--a
'Mees'--_tiens_?--for why do you want us two?"
"You _two_! good Lord! Do you think, Suzette--_Mon Dieu!_"--I now became
very angry. "My secretary is here to type my book--. Let us understand
one another quite--You have overstepped the mark this time, Suzette, and
there must be an end. Name whatever sum you want me to settle on you and
then I don't ever wish to see you again."
She burst into frantic weeping. She had meant nothing--she was
jealous--she loved me--even going to the sea could do nothing for her! I
was her _adoré_--her sun, moon and stars--of what matter a leg or an
eye--! I was her life--her _Amant_!!
"Nonsense, Suzette!--you have told me often it was only because I was
very rich--now be sensible--these things have to have an end some day. I
shall be going back to England soon, so just let me make you comfortable
and happy and let us part friends--."
She still stormed and raged--'There was someone else--it was the
"Mees"--I had been different ever since she had come to the flat--She,
Suzette, would be revenged--she would kill her--!'
Then I flew into a rage, and dominated her, and when I had her
thoroughly frightened I appealed to the best in her--and when she was
sobbing quietly Burton came in to say that dinner was ready--his face
was eloquent!
"Don't let the waiters see you like that," I said.
Suzette rushed to the glass and looked at herself, and then began
opening her gold chain bag to get out her powder and lip grease--I went
on into the salon and left her--.
What an irony everything is--! When I was yearning for tenderness and
love--, even Suzette's, I was unable to touch her, and now because I am
quite indifferent, both she and Nina, in their separate ways, have begun
to find me attractive. So there is nothing in it really, it is only as
to whether or no you arouse the hunting instinct!
Suzette wore an air of deep pathos during our repast--. She had put some
blue round her eyes to heighten the effect of the red of the real tears,
and she appeared very pretty and gentle--It had not the slightest effect
upon me--I found myself looking on like a third person. The mole with
its three black hairs seemed to be the only salient point about her.
Poor little Suzette!--How glad I felt that I had never even pretended a
scrap of love for her!
That astonishing sense of the fitness of things which so many of these
women possess, showed itself as the evening wore on--. Finding the
situation hopeless, Suzette accepted it, curbed the real emotion in
herself and played the game--She tried to amuse me--and then we
discussed plans for her future. A villa at Monte Carlo she decided at
last--A _bijou_ of a place! which she knew of--. And when we parted at
about eleven o'clock everything was arranged satisfactorily. Then she
said good-bye to me--She would go back to Paris by the last train--.
"Good-bye, Suzette!"--and I bent down and kissed her forehead--"You have
been the jolliest little pal possible--and remember that I have
appreciated it,--and you will always have a real friend in me!"
She burst into tears once more--real tears--.
"_Je t'aime bien!_" she whispered--"I shall go to Deauville--_Va!_"
We wrung hands, and she went to the door, but there she turned, and some
of her old fire came back to her--.
"Pah! these English Meeses! thin, stiff, _ennuyeuse_!--thou wilt yet
regret thy Suzette, Nicholas!" and with this she left me.
* * * * *
So that episode in my life is ended--and I shall never repeat the
experiment.
But are not women the most amazing creatures!
You adore them and give them abject devotion and they treat you as
dirt--nothing can be so cruel as the tenderest hearted woman is to a
male slave--! Another woman appears upon the scene--then the first one
begins to treat you with some respect. You grow masterful--love is
aroused in her. You become indifferent--and very often it is she who
then turns into the slave!--The worst of it is that when you really care
you are incapable of playing a game successfully. The woman's
subconscious mind _knows_ that it is merely pretense--and so she remains
a tyrant.--It is only when she herself has ceased to put forth
sufficient attraction to keep you and you are growing numb that you can
win out and find your self-respect again.
There was a moment when I was very angry with Suzette and almost shaking
her, when I saw in her eyes the first look of real passionate
affection--!
Are there any women in the world who could be mates?--who would be able
to love one, and hold one at the same time--satisfying one's mind and
one's spirit and one's body--?--Could Alathea--?--I do not know.
I had got this far in my speculations when a note was brought to me by a
smart French maid--it was now past eleven at night--.
It was from Coralie--.
"I am here, _cher Ami_--I am rather in a difficulty--Can I come to your
sitting-room?"
I scribbled "of course"--and in a moment she came--seductive and
distressful. Duquesnois had been recalled to the front suddenly--her
husband would be back on the morrow--. Might she stay and have some St.
Galmier water with me--could we ring the bell and order it, so that the
waiter might see her there?--because if the husband asked anything--he
could be sure it was only the much wounded Englishman, and he would not
mind--!!
I was sympathetic!--the St. Galmier came.
Coralie did not seem in a hurry to drink it, she sat by the fire and
talked, and looked at me with her rather small expressive eyes--and
suddenly I realized that it was not to save any situation that even a
complacent and much-tried war-husband might object to, but just to talk
to me alone--!!
She put forth every charm she possessed for half an hour--I led her
on--watching each move with interest and playing right cards in return.
Coralie is very well born and never could be vulgar or blatant, so it
was all entertaining for me. This is the first time she has had the
chance of being quite alone. We fenced--I showed enough _empressement_
not to discourage her too soon----and then I allowed myself to be
natural, which was being completely indifferent--and it worked its usual
charm!
Coralie grew restless--she got up from the sofa she stood by the
fire--she came at last quite close up to my chair--.
"What is there about you, Nicholas," she cooed, "which makes one forget
that you are wounded--. When I saw you even in the _parc_--with that
_demoiselle_ I felt--that--"--She looked down with a sigh--.
"How hard upon Duquesnois, Coralie! a good-looking, whole man!"
"I have tired of him, _Mon ami_--he loves me too much--the affair has
become tame--."
"And I am wild, is that it?"
"A savage--yes--One feels that you would break one's bones if you were
angry--and would mock most of the time,--but if you loved. _Mon
Dieu!_--it would be worth while!"
"You have had immense experience of love Coralie, haven't you?"
She shrugged her shoulders--.
"I am not sure that it has been love--."
"Neither am I."
"They say that you have given millions to the little _demi-mondaine_
Suzette la Blonde----and that you are crazy about her, Nicholas--Did I
see her on the stairs just now?"--
I frowned--. She saw in a moment it was not the right line--. "For that!
it is nothing, Nicholas--they are very attractive, those ladies--one
understands--but--your book and your secretary?--_hein?_--"
I lit a cigarette with supreme calm, and did not answer, so that she was
obliged to go on--.
"Her face is pretty in spite of those glasses, Nicholas--and one saw
that she walked well as she went on."
"May not a secretary have a decent appearance then?"
"When they have they do not remain secretaries long."
"You had better ask Miss Sharp if she means to stay when next you chance
upon her then--I don't exchange much conversation with her myself."
There is no exact English word which would describe Coralie's face--She
was longing to believe me--but felt she could not--quite--! She knew it
was foolish to bait me, and yet the female in her was too strong for
any common sense to win--Her personality had to express herself just as
strongly about her jealousy of my secretary, as mine had to express
itself about not telling Maurice, Alathea's name,--in both cases we cut
off our noses to spite our faces. I was aware of my folly, I do not know
if Coralie was aware of hers. Her exasperation so increased in a few
moments that she could not control herself--and she spoke right out--.
"When we have all been so kind to you, Nicholas, it is too bad for you
to waste your time upon that--!"
I became stern, then, as I had earlier become with Suzette, and made
Coralie understand that I would have no interference from anyone. I
frightened her--and presently she left me more attracted than she has
ever been--. As I said before, women are amazing creatures.
XII
On Wednesday morning I received a reply from Maurice at Deauville--he
hastened to answer he said--He had heard of Miss Sharp through a man in
the American Red Cross, where Miss Sharp had been employed. He knew
nothing more about her, he had seen her once when he was interviewing
her, and Miss whatever the other woman's name was, he had forgotten
now--and he had thought her suitable and plain and capable, that is all.
I had tried to word my letter not to give the impression of peculiar
interest, but no doubt Coralie, who had returned to the band on Monday,
had given him her view of the case, for he added that these people were
often designing although they looked simple--and in my loneliness he
felt sure I would be happier and better at the sea with my friends--!
I would have been angry, only there was something humorous in the way
everyone seems to think I am incapable of managing my own affairs!--What
is it they all want of me--? Not that I should be happy in my own way,
but that I should contribute to their happiness--they want to
participate in what my money is able to procure--and they do not want
interference from outside. Every one of my friends--and relations--would
be hostile if I were to announce that I was in love with Miss Sharp, and
wanted to marry her--Even though it was proved to them that she was
pretty--a perfect lady--intelligent--virtuous--clever! She is not of
their set and might, and probably would, be a stumbling block in their
path when they wished to make use of me!--so she would be taboo! None of
them would put it in that way of course, their opposition would be (and
they might even think they were sincere) because they were thinking of
_my_ happiness!
Burton is the only person whose sympathy I could count upon!
How about the Duchesse?--that is the deepest mystery of all--I must find
out from Burton what was the date about when she came to my
_appartement_ and found Alathea. Was it before that time when she asked
me if I were in love--and I saw that dear little figure in the
passage?--Could she have been thinking of her--?
By Thursday when there was no further news I began to feel so restless
that I determined to go back to Paris the following week. It was all
very well to be out in the _parc_ at Versailles with a mind at ease, but
it feels too far away when I am so troubled.
I sent Burton in on Friday to Auteuil--.
"Just walk about near the wine shop, Burton, and try to find out by
every clue your not unintelligent old pate can invent, where Miss Sharp
lives, and what is happening? Then go to the Hotel de Courville and chat
with the concierge--or whatever you think best--I simply can't stand
hearing nothing!"
Burton pulled in his lips.
"Very good, Sir Nicholas."
I tried to correct my book in the afternoon. I really am trying to do
the things I feel she thinks would improve my character--But I am one
gnawing ache for news--Underneath is the fear that some complication may
occur which will prevent her returning to me. I find myself listening to
every footstep in the passage in case it might be a telegram, so of
course quite a number of messages and things were bound to come from
utterly uninteresting sources, to fill me with hope and then disappoint
me--It is always like that. I really was wild on Friday afternoon, and
if George Harcourt had not turned up--he is at the Trianon Palace now
with the Supreme War Council--I don't know what I should have done with
myself. Lots of those fellows would come and dine with me if I wanted
them--some are even old pals--but I am out of tune with my kind.
George was very amusing.
"My dear boy," he said, "Violetta is upsetting all my calculations--she
has refused everything I have offered her--But I fear she is beginning
to show me too much devotion!"
This seemed a great calamity to him.
"It is terribly dangerous that, Nicholas!--because you know, my dear
boy, when a woman shows absolute devotion, a man is irresistibly
impelled to offer her a back seat--it is when she appeals to his senses,
shows him caprice, and remains an insecure possession, that he will
offer her the place his mother held of highest honour."
"George, you impossible cynic!"
"Not at all--I am merely a student of human instincts and
characteristics--Half a cynic is a poor creature--A complete one has
almost reached the mercy and tolerance of Christ."
This was quite a new view of the subject--!
He went on--.
"You see, when men philosophize about women, they are generally unjust,
taking the subject from the standpoint that whatever frailties they
have, the male is at all events exempt from them. Now that is
nonsense--Neither sex is exempt--and neither sex as a rule will
contemplate or admit its failings.--For instance, the sense of abstract
truth in the noblest woman never prevents her lying _for_ her lover or
her child, yet she thinks herself quite honest--In the noblest man the
sense is so strong that it enables him to make only the one exception,
that of invariably lying _to_ the woman!"
I laughed--he puffed one of my pre-war cigars--.
"Women have no natural sense of truth--they only rise to it through
sublime effort,"--
"And men?"
"It is ingrained in them, they only sink from it to cover their natural
instincts of infidelity."
His voice was contemplative now--.
"How we lie to the little darlings, Nicholas! How we tell them we have
no time to write--when of course we have always time if we really want
to--we never are at a loss for the moments before the creatures are a
secure possession!"
"The whole thing gets back to the hunting instinct, my dear George--I
can't see that one can be blamed for it--."
"I am not blaming, I am merely analysing. Have you remarked that when a
man feels perfectly secure about the woman he will give his hours of
duty to his country, his hours of leisure to his friends who flatter
him, and the crumbs snatched from either to the poor lady of his heart!
But if she excites his senses, and remains problematic, he will skimp
his duty, neglect his friends, and snatch even hours from sleep to spend
them in her company!"
"You don't think then that there is something higher and beyond all this
in love, George?--something which you and I have never come across
perhaps?"
"If one met a woman who was all man in mind, all woman in body, and all
child in soul--it is possible--but where are these phoenixes to be
discovered, my son?--It is wiser not to dissatisfy oneself by thinking
of them--but just go on accepting that which is always accorded to the
very rich!--By the way, I saw Suzette la Blonde dining last night with
old Solly Jesse--_Monsieur le Comte Jessé!_--She had a new string of
pearls on and was stroking his fat hand, while her lips curled with
love--I thought--??"
I lay back in my chair and laughed and laughed--And I had imagined that
Suzette really felt for me, and would grieve for at least a week or
two--but I am replaced in four days--!
I do not think I even felt bitter--all those things seem so far away
now.
When George had gone, I said to myself--"All man in mind"--yes I am sure
she is--"All woman in body"--Certainly that--"All child in soul"--I want
to know about her soul--if we have souls, as Nina says--by the way, I
will send a messenger into the Ritz with a note to ask Nina to spend the
day with me to-morrow. We have got accustomed to the impossible
difficulty of telephoning to Paris, and waiting hours for telegrams--a
messenger is the quickest in the end.
How the war drags on--! Will it really finish this year after
all--people are very depressed these last days--I do not write of any of
this in my journal--others will chronicle every shade--When I let myself
think of it I grow too wild. I become feverish with longing to be up and
with the old regiment--When I read of their deeds--then I grow
rebellious.
* * * * *
_Monday:_
No news--yet--It is unbearable--Burton returned from Auteuil with no
clue whatsoever--except that the _concierge_ at the Hotel de Courville
had never heard of the name of Sharp! That proves to me that "Sharp" is
not Alathea's name at all. He was a newcomer--and there were so many
young ladies who came and went to see Madame la Duchesse that he could
not identify anyone in particular by description.
Nina turned up early on Saturday in time for lunch--She was looking
ravishing in entirely new clothes--like Suzette, she has found that the
"_geste_" is altering--Germans may be attacking Paris--Friends and
relations may be dying in heaps, but women must have new clothes and
fashion must have her say as to their shapes--And what a mercy it is so!
If there was nothing to relieve war and seriousness--all the nations
would be raving lunatics by now.
"Jim will be crazy about you, Nina, when he sees you in that hat!"
"Yes, won't he! I put it on to make you crazy now!"
"Of course I always am!"
"No, Nicholas--you were once--but you are altered, some quite new
influence has come into your life--you don't say half such horrid
things."
We lunched in the restaurant. Some of the Supreme War Council were about
at the different tables, and we exchanged a few words--Nina preferred it
to my sitting-room.
"Englishmen do look attractive in uniform, Nicholas, don't they," she
said--. "I wonder if I had seen Jim in ordinary things if I would have
been so drawn to him?"
"Who knows? Do you remember how sensible you were about him and
Rochester!--it is splendid that it has turned out so well."
" ... Where is happiness, Nicholas?" and her eyes became dreamy,--"I
have a well balanced nature, and am grateful for what has been given me
in Jim, but I can't pretend that I have found perfect content--because
some part of me is always hungry--. I believe really that you were the
only person who could have fulfilled all I wanted in a man!"
"Nina, you had not the least feeling for me when you first saw me after
I was wounded, do you remember you felt like a sister--a mother--and a
family friend!"
"Yes, was not that odd!--because of course the things which used to
attract me in you and which could again now, were there all the time."
"At that moment you were so occupied with 'Jim's blue eyes,' and his
'white nice teeth,' and 'how his hair was brushed,' and 'how well his
uniform fitted'--to say nothing of his D.S.O. and his M.C. that you
could not appreciate anything else."
"You have a V.C., your teeth are divine, and you too have blue eyes,
Nicholas--."
"Eye--please,--the singular or plural in this case makes all the
difference, but I shall have my new one in fairly soon now and then
illusion will help me!"
Nina sighed--.
"Illusion! I am just not going to think of what perhaps might have
happened if I had not been surrounded with illusion, last February--."
"Well, you can always have the satisfaction of knowing that as your
interest in Jim diminishes, so his will increase--George Harcourt and I
thrashed it all out the other day--and you yourself admitted it, when we
dined. To keep the hunting instinct alive is the thing--You will have
the fondest lover when you go back to Queen Street, Nina!"
"I--suppose so--. But would it not be wonderful if one had not to play
any game, but could just love and be so satisfied with each other that
there would not be any fear--."
Nina's eyes were sad--Did she remember my words at our last meeting?
"Yes that would be heaven!"
"Is that what you are dreaming about, Nicholas?"
"Perhaps."
"What a fortunate woman she will be!--And of yourself, what shall you
give her?"
"I shall give her passion--and tenderness, and protection, and
devotion--she shall share the thoughts of my mind and the aspirations of
my soul--."
"Nicholas!--you talking in this romantic way--she must be a miracle!"
"No--she is just a little girl."
"And it is she who has made you think about souls?"
"I expect so--."
"Well, I must not think of them, or of anything but what a good time we
shall all have when the war is over, and what nice things I've bought in
Paris--and of how good-looking Jim is--Let us talk of something else!"
So we spoke of every-day matters--and then we went into the _parc_--and
Nina stayed by my bath chair and amused me. But she does not know
anything about Versailles or its history--and she cannot make
psychological deductions--and all the time I was understanding with one
part of me that her hat was awfully becoming, and everything about her
perfect; and with another part I was seeing that her brain is
limited--and that if I had married her I should have been bored to
death!
And when the evening came and she left me, after our long day, I felt a
sense of relief--Oh! there can be no one in the world like my
Alathea--with her little red hands, and cheap cotton garments! I realize
now that life used to be made up of the physical--and that
something,--perhaps suffering, has taught me that the mental and the
spiritual matter more.
Even if she does come back--how am I to break through the wall of ice
which she has surrounded herself with since the Suzette cheque
business?--I can't explain--she won't even know that I have parted with
her.
Of course she has heard the fluffies often in the next room when they
have come to play bridge in the afternoon. Perhaps she may even have
heard the idiotic things they talk about--yes--of course she must have
an awful impression of me--.
The contrast of her life and theirs--and mine! I shall go on with my
Plato--it bores me--it is difficult, and I am tired--but _I will_!.
XIII
Suspense is the hardest thing to bear--what a ridiculous truism! It has
been said a thousand times before and will be said a thousand times
again!--because it has come to everyone at some moment, and so its pain
is universally understood. To have attained serenity would mean that one
was strong enough not to allow suspense to cause one a moment's doubt or
distress. I am far from serenity, I fear--for I am filled with unrest--I
try to tell myself that Alathea Sharp does not matter in my life at
all--that this is the end--that I am not to be influenced by her
movements or her thoughts, or her comings and goings--I try not to think
of her even as "Alathea"--And then when I have succeeded in some measure
in all this, a hideous feeling of sinking comes over me--that physical
sensation of a lead weight below the heart. What on earth is the good of
living an ugly maimed life?
It was ten times easier to carry on under the most disgusting and
fearsome circumstances when I was fighting, than it is now when
everything is done for my comfort, and I have all that money can buy.
What money cannot buy is of the only real consequence though. I must
read Henley again, and try to feel the thrill of pride I used to feel
when I was a boy at the line "I am the master of my fate, I am the
captain of my soul."
----What if she does not come back, and I do not hear any more of her?
Stop! Nicholas Thormonde, this is contemptible weakness!
* * * * *
This evening it was wonderful on the terrace, the sun set in a blaze of
crimson and purple and gold, every window in the _Galerie des Glasses_
seemed to be on fire--strange ghosts of by-gone courtiers appeared to be
flitting past the mirrors.
What do they think of the turmoil they have left behind them, I wonder?
Each generation torn by the same anguish which the worries of love
bring?--And what is love for?--Just to surround the re-creative instinct
with glamour and render it æsthetic?
Did cave men love?--They were exempt from pain of the mind at all
events. Civilization has augmented the mental anguishes, and pleasures
of love, and when civilization is in excess it certainly distorts and
perverts the whole passion.
But what is love anyway? the thing itself I mean. It is a want, and an
ache and a craving--I know what I want. I want firstly Alathea for my
own, with everything which that term implies of possession. Then I want
to share her thoughts, and I want to feel all the great aspirations of
her soul--I want her companionship--I want her sympathy--I want her
understanding.
When I was in love with Nina--and five or six others--I never thought of
any of these things--I just wanted their bodies: Therefore it is only
when the spiritual enters into the damned thing, I suppose, that one
could call it love. By that reasoning I have loved only Alathea in all
my life. But I am stumped with this thought--If she had one eye and no
leg below the knee--should I be in love with her? and feel all these
exalted emotions about her? I cannot honestly be certain how I would
answer that question yet, so this shows that the physical plays the
chief rôle even in a love that seems spiritual.
Matho--in Flaubert's Salammbô was beaten to a jelly but his eyes still
flamed with love for his princess--But when she saw him as this
revolting mass, did her love flame for him? Or was she exalted only by
the incense to her vanity--and a pity for his sufferings? Heloise and
Abelard were pretty wonderful in their love, but his love became
transmuted much sooner than hers, because all physical emotions were
gone from him. Plato's idea that man gravitates towards beauty for some
subconscious soul desire to re-create himself through perfection, and so
attain immortality, is probably the truth. And that is why we shrink
from mutilated bodies--. Until I can be quite sure that I should love
Alathea just the same were she disfigured as I am--I cannot in justice
expect her to return my passion--.
Nina became re-attracted (if I can coin that word)--because I was out of
reach. The predatory instinct in woman had received a rebuff, and
demanded renewed advance.--She still keeps a picture in some part of
her mental vision of what I was too, therefore, I am not so revolting
to her--but Alathea has not this advantage, and has seen me only
wounded.
I have done nothing to earn her respect--She has apprehended my useless
life in these last months--She has heard the chattering of my
companions, whom I have been free to choose--the obvious deduction being
that these are what I desire--And finally, she knows that I have had a
mistress.--In heaven's name _why_ should she be anything but what she is
in her manner to me!--Of course she despises me. So that the only thing
I could possibly allure her by would be that intangible something which
Nina and Suzette and even Coralie--have inferred that I
possess--"It"!!--. And how would that translate itself to a mind like
Alathea's?--It might mean nothing to her--It probably would not. The
only times I have ever seen any feeling at all in her for me were when
she thought she had destroyed a wounded man's interest in a harmless
hobby--and felt remorse--And the freezing reserve which showed when she
handed me the cheque-book--and the perturbation and contempt when I was
rude about the child.--At other times she has shown a blank
indifference--or a momentary consciousness that there was admiration in
my eye for her.
Now what do I get out of the iciness over Suzette's cheque?
Two possibilities--.
One--that she is more prudish than one of her literary cultivation, and
worldly knowledge is likely to be, so that she strongly disapproves of
a man having a "_petite amie_"--or--
Two--that she has sensed that I love her and was affronted at the
discovery that at the same time I had a--friend?--
The second possibility gives me hope, and so I fear to entertain a
belief in it--but taken coldly it seems the most likely.--Now if she had
_not_ been affronted at this stage, would she have gone on believing I
loved her, and so eventually have shown some reciprocity?
It is just possible--.
And as it is, will that same instinct which is in the subconscious mind
of all women--and men too for the matter of that--which makes them want
to fight to retain or retake what was theirs, influence her now
unconsciously to feel some, even contemptuous, interest in me? This also
is possible--.
If only fate brings her to me again--. That is where one is done--when
absence cuts threads.
To-morrow it will be Monday--a whole week since I received her telegram.
I shall go up to Paris in the morning if I hear nothing and go myself to
the
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