IX
Claire was a person who attracted people to her in spite of herself, even those people whom she did not like. It had been so in the case of Jane. My sister charmed more often than not without wanting to do so. People in general were to her uninteresting and indiscriminate admiration annoyed her. She was constantly worried by having to snub would-be admirers who bored her. It was generally accepted in the family that she was the victim of her own charm, and we often half-laughingly commiserated with her. My mother once quite seriously said, “Cette pauvre Claire, with whom every one is in love and who cares for no one, it is really very tiring for her.”
Jane’s devotion was to her from the first unwelcome, though for a year or two she put up with it kindly enough. When Philibert asked her to help him with Jane’s education, she replied that she already had four children of her own to bring up, but she nevertheless let Jane go about with her, gave her advice about people and clothes, let her do errands for her; and in a mild way returned the girl’s demonstrations of affection, but it all bored and worried her. There was for her no pleasure in being adored by a young woman whom she found to be stupid. She did not on the whole care much for women, and often said she did not believe in their friendship. Her need of affection was abundantly supplied to her in her own family. Between her mother and her children she found all the tenderness she required; in society she asked merely to be amused. At bottom she was a confirmed cynic. Human nature appeared to her unsympathetic and pitiable. Her family represented for her a refuge from a world that disgusted her more than it interested. There was for her something ultimate and absolute in the ties of blood that gave to the members of a family, all of them mere ordinary human beings, a special precious significance for each other. If she had ever analyzed it she would have said—“But of course I know that Maman and Philibert and Blaise and Tante Marianne are no different from other people, but that does not matter, they are different for me. It’s not that I believe in my brothers as men, it’s that I believe in their relationship to me, and that, is the only thing I do believe in. Philibert may be the most selfish man in Paris; nevertheless he would not be selfish to me. That’s all, and that is enough. I don’t believe in men. I don’t believe in women. I don’t believe in myself or in love or happiness, but I believe in my family.” But of course she never did so express herself. She was not given to talking about herself.
Philibert realized from the first that Claire was necessary to his scheme, and somehow or other he prevailed upon her to exert herself on his behalf. She was constantly at his house and became its chief ornament, and one of its most potent attractions. Jane had her place, usually at the top of the staircase, but Claire’s corner was the corner people looked for. Always more quietly dressed than any one else, (and I believe that Philibert planned the contrast of Jane’s gorgeous brocades with an eye to the dramatic effect of the two women) my sister created about her an atmosphere, a hush, a kind of breathless attention. I have seen her often appear in one of those great doorways, a slim, shadowy figure, in trailing grey draperies, and stand there silently while gradually her presence made itself felt, drew all eyes to her and created a feeling among the assembled people that a new charm, a finer quality, had been conveyed to the atmosphere by her being there. Wonderful Claire, clever Philibert; they played beautifully into each other’s hands. I do not mean that they were coldly calculating in regard to each other. On the contrary, their mutual admiration gave them, each one, the warmest affectionate glow. They rejoiced each in the rare qualities of the other, and Claire, knowing that in Philibert’s house she would find men worthy of appreciating her, knowing too, that no artist could so set off her full value as her brother, seemed unlike my mother to derive a certain amount of half-cynical amusement from what went on in that mansion. It is, of course, possible that at bottom she was no more averse to lunching “dans l’intimité” with royalties than was Mrs. Carpenter. In any event, princes of royal blood paid court to her in Philibert’s salons. And Philibert was right when he placed her beside him in that house. She made it comme il faut. Her presence was to it a benediction.
It had taken three years to build Philibert’s palace, and by the time it was finished, Claire had prevailed upon her husband to move into Paris and buy there a very nice house of his own. On the whole, things had turned out for her better than any of us had expected. Six years of what he would have called I suppose conjugal bliss had tempered the ardour of my brother-in-law, who had to his wife’s immense relief begun to look elsewhere than in his home for his pleasures. Though she had never complained of her slavery and now never spoke of her freedom, we all knew what had happened and were relieved. My mother was delighted. “Enfin, he hasn’t killed her,” was her way of expressing it to me. “The poor child is prettier than ever, and she manages so as not to be talked about.” What it was that she managed I had no reason for asking. If Claire was happy, if at last she had selected some one from among her numerous admirers whom she could love and who was beautifying her life for her, then all was well. I had no fault to find with her there. My mother’s reading of the case seemed to me the true one. My mother had suffered over her daughter’s marriage, and was glad to have some one make up to her child some part of the joy of life she deserved.
All this was quite satisfactory. It never occurred to any one of us to disapprove of Claire. How could we? Why should we? Had she done anything preposterous like running away with a footman we should still have stood by her. As it was she remained one of the most admired women in Paris, and the least talked about, and her sentimental life was for us a vague rather romantic secret realm which we took for granted and respected. We never pryed into her affairs, and when one day Philibert, in my mother’s drawing room, twitted Claire with the fact that her beauty increased in proportion to her husband’s infidelities, she merely laughed shyly and said nothing, knowing well enough that we expected no explanation. The episode would certainly have passed unnoticed, if Jane’s face had not shown it to be for her a moment of quite terrible revelation. It was, I remember, on a Sunday afternoon. We had all been lunching with my mother, Philibert, Jane, Claire and I, and were sitting by the fire with our coffee cups. Philibert, with his coat-tails over his arms, standing on the hearthrug, had been quizzing me. He was in excellent spirits, having just brought off some one of his social coups—I think it was the Prince of Wales that week who had dined with him, and Philibert was particularly pleased with Claire. His little sally had been meant and received as a token of affection. Unfortunately he had forgotten Jane; or it may be that he had not forgotten her and had spoken deliberately. It is possible that he thought the time had come to carry her education a step further. He probably felt it tiresome to be always on his guard as to what he said in her presence for all the world as if she were a jeune fille. She had heard and continued to hear in the houses she frequented, enough talk of all kinds, heaven knows, to enlighten her as to the habits of our world, but for all that we had instinctively all of us in her presence been careful of what we said to each other. It was, I suppose, our tribute to her innocence, or perhaps even to our fear of her judgments. More than once I, for one, had stammered under the gaze of her candid eyes and had swallowed the words that were on the tip of my tongue. On this occasion the phrase spoken would not have struck me as dangerous. I did not look at Jane to see how she took it. I merely happened to be facing her on the sofa and couldn’t help seeing the pallor that mantelled her face like a coating of wax. It was like that, not as if she had grown pale because of the ebbing of blood from her face, but as if a kind of coating of misery and fear had visibly enveloped her in whiteness. For a moment I did not understand, and failed to connect Philibert’s words with her aspect. “But, Jane,” I exclaimed, “what is it? Are you ill?” Fiercely she motioned me to be silent, gripping my arm with her strong hand so as to hurt me, and conveying somehow without speaking, for she could not speak, that she wanted me not to attract the attention of the others. Unfortunately Philibert had taken it all in. He may have been watching for the effect of his speech. His next words and his general behaviour give colour to such a theory. He literally jumped forward toward her across the carpet.
“But, my poor child,” he cried out derisively, “don’t make up a face like that. It’s most unpleasant. Voyons, what a way to behave in your mother-in-law’s drawing-room. If I had known you were so stupid, I should have left you at home.”
Those were his words. They were uttered with animation, with an almost ferocious gaiety, and to accompany them he tweaked her playfully but not gently by the ear. I got up from my place beside her, feeling myself flush to my hair. I turned my back to get away from the sight of that cowering creature huddling back from the hand that held her.