Jane--Our Stranger: A Novel

by Mary Borden

What I think we all felt when Jane entered was the warmth and vitality of her youth. She was so very much more alive than all the rest of us that we could not help noticing it. We felt cold and dry beside her, and rather small. We were literally, almost all of us, smaller than she was. This was disconcerting: I caught actually on my mother’s face after the first presentation had taken place an almost comic expression, and could not make out what she was after as she looked quickly from one to the other, until I discovered that she was simply looking for some one to put next the girl who was tall enough to look well beside her. My mother had an eye for tableaux vivants; she did not like to see a woman towering above men. Not finding any one she was reduced to sitting down herself, and motioning the great long child to a stool at her knee. It was then that I realized Jane was growing frightened, and was struck by the keenness of her perceptions. There was nothing obvious to frighten her, and yet there was something in the air for a fine sensitive nostril to sniff at in alarm if it were fine enough; just the faintest whiff of antagonism, an antagonism tempered and mingled with curiosity, surprise and humour.

My family saw possibilities in Jane. Of that I became growingly conscious. It was evident in the way they eyed her with rapid sidelong glances, appraising tilts of the head, steps to the side to get a closer or different view, and in their murmured undertones. They did not discuss her then and there, they did not whisper, they were not rude, God forbid, but they showed that they were struck. She engaged their attention and was more of a person than they had bargained for. They looked from her to her mother and back again with lifted eyebrows. They were surprised to find that Mrs. Carpenter had such a daughter. It was clear to them that something could be made out of Jane.

The girl sat on her low seat quite still, one hand in her lap, the other hanging down by her side, and while she answered my mother’s questions, shot an occasional clear glance from under her eyebrows at the people around her. I saw that she was nervous, but not too nervous to take in a great deal. I was impressed by the amount she did seem to take in.

Philibert all this time hung off in a corner and watched her. She never once looked at him. She seemed determined not to do so. If he were putting her to some sort of a test she was obviously going to go through the ordeal without an appeal for aid. It was a fine performance; unfortunately no one but myself appeared to appreciate it.

Her nervousness evidently had something to do with her deep desire to please, and her increasing realization that these relations of Philibert’s were not people easily pleased with anything or any one. She felt that she was the object of a finer scrutiny than she had ever before undergone. Her eyes searched rapidly one face then another, and veiled themselves again under lowered lids. The one thing that might have consoled her in her sense of their superlative fastidiousness was, however, just the thing that she could not divine. She didn’t know that they none of them cared a fig for pretty doll faces and found her ugly strangeness a very good substitute. It had not yet dawned on her, in spite of her mother’s preaching, that her countenance was just the sort of thing that would have worth for sophisticated people.

I don’t remember just how long this part of the show lasted, or just how Philibert suddenly changed its character and made the whole thing seem like a circus performance with himself as ringmaster and his fiancée as the high-stepper whom he was showing off to the spectators, but that is nevertheless what happened.

I had taken a long look at my brother that day. It had come to me, watching the attention and respect with which my august uncles treated him, that perhaps I had never done him justice. It was obvious that they liked him and that he not only amused them vastly, but imposed himself on them. He had talked to them with even more than his usual brilliance, and all Paris knows what that means, and I had listened to his talk marvelling at the power of words. Paris can never resist words; France succumbs inevitably to talk. No one, I was forced to admit, was such a talker as Philibert. Like a consummate juggler keeping half a dozen ivory balls in the air, he played with ideas and phrases. Gaily he tossed up epigrams and paradoxes, let fly a challenge, caught it with a counter-challenge, argued two sides of a question, flung wide a generality, chopped it into bits in a second, was serious for two minutes, mimicked a public character, gave a sketch of the political situation, recounted a recent scandal. The faces of his auditors were a study. They were the faces of delighted spectators at a play. Positively I expected them now and then to applaud. My Aunt Suze was wiping her eyes, weeping with laughter. Uncle Louis was waving his handkerchief excitedly and ejaculating “Parfaitement, parfaitement. Je vois cela d’ici.” Bianca’s father, his rubicund face wrinkled into a masque of comedy, was watching out of the corner of his sporting eye and muttering affectionately—“Ah, le coquin, ah quel comédien.” And my dear little mother from her place by the fire was smiling shyly over her fire screen, her eyes filled with gentle adoration.

I have heard women rave about the fineness of Philibert’s features, the nobility of his nose, which was certainly a good and generous example of our high type, signs of the race in the drawing of his head. I suppose it is true that he had something special about his head. It was the same head after all that had hung on our walls for generations, capped by Cardinals’ bonnets and courtiers’ wigs. Nevertheless, when he called to Jane he looked suddenly like a ringmaster in a circus. With his little waxed moustache and his little perky coat-tails and his lightly gesturing hand positively creating in space the image and sound of a delicate long-lashed whip, he put Jane through her paces. He had her beautifully trained. He had done it all in a month. She was perfectly in hand.

At the sound of his voice she had sprung to her feet. Yes, it was a spring, quite sufficiently quick to startle my mother. Ha, but that was a mistake at the very beginning. She was made to turn and mutely apologize. Whist! she obeyed the sign and crossed to the venerable and monstrous Aunt Clothilde who sat like a large brown Buddha by the window. “A lower curtsey this time and kiss the plump old hand. Step backward now and smile at these gentlemen. Hold up your head. Right about turn, straight across the ring. Not too fast—proudly do it—show them how you can walk. Aha, what made you do that? No stumbling, mind you. High-steppers don’t look at their feet. Flip—just a flick of the lash to put more life into you.”

I watched fascinated. I watched till I could bear it no longer. I said to Claire—“Lead the way into the dining-room. Tea’s been ready this hour.” And Claire went forward gracefully and put an arm through the trembling creature’s and led her away from her master; but I saw the girl’s eyes ask for leave, and I saw him condescendingly grant it. By the tea-table I joined her, and heard the rattle of the cup in her hand against the saucer. She greeted me with a smile of extreme youthfulness that tried to conceal nothing. Looking down at me timidly from her splendid height, her pale countenance made me the frankest fullest confession and asked wistfully for help, and seemed presently to find relief.