Man and Maid

E >> Elinor Glyn >> Man and Maid

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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-Pres_--. 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 Clerte 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'Armee_--!"

"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, _chere 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 Clerte?--Daisy Ryven?--both with husbands--."

"Not as if that prevented things" the Duchesse announced
reflectively--"Well, well--Some of my _blesses_ 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 _blesses_ 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 _demode, 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_!"

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