Man and Maid

E >> Elinor Glyn >> Man and Maid

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

"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 Clerte 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 _blesses_ 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 divorcee 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 Chateau 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 divorcee
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 divorcee, 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 Clerte, 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 Vole 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 Vole 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 Vole 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 Vole'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 _blesses_--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 _tres 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 _Blesses_
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 _maitre d'hotel_--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 _blesses_ 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
_blesses_--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 Vendome_, 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.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17