The longing to get away from it all was unbearable. I would go—I would go—I must go—Patience Forbes was the only person in the world who could help me—and yet I went on working out my idea that took me about among people, and you, dear Blaise, went with me. Your attitude was of a delicacy rare even in your world of delicate adjustments and sympathies. You understood, you constituted yourself my escort. Do you remember those days, how we went from one place to another, luncheons, dinners, private views, official receptions, and how we tacitly agreed on just the amount we were bound to do for our purpose? I scarcely realized at the time all that it meant for you to do this, and how the family would resent your attitude. I know now that they never quite trusted you after this. As I remember we talked nothing over and did not, I think, mention Philibert save once, when I asked you if you knew where he was. You did know, of course. Every one knew, I suppose, except myself. They had been seen, those two, boarding the Simplon express. They were in Venice, you told me, I had wanted to know for convenience. Having adopted a line, it seemed best to follow it consistently. One was to assume that my husband had gone away for a holiday. I was there to make his excuses to suffering hostesses deprived of his society. The note to be struck was light and commonplace, as if his absence were like any other of his many past absences. The pretence deceived no one, but then the consistent lying made for decency. I was marking time. It was particularly difficult because I was not acting in accord with my nature. Had I been natural at that time I should have been horrible; I should have smashed things. But I was not behaving like myself. I see now what it was; I was behaving like one of you, behaving as Claire, for instance, would have behaved in my place. I was adopting your methods and your standards. Not to give myself away, not to let any one suspect what I was feeling and thinking, not to make a false step, not to make above all a public fuss, that seems to have been my idea. To preserve appearances as beautifully as possible, that was what you and I were working at, as we trailed drearily round from one place to another saying suave things with smooth faces.
And there was another influence working on me, even more subtle and far more pervasive. You will smile, perhaps, when I tell you that my quiet behaviour came from looking every day across the Place de la Concorde to the austere and reserved façade of the Madeleine, or across a silver distance of pale houses to the far alabaster pinnacle of the Sacré Coeur high above the city, but it was so. Paris exercises upon its inhabitants a fine discipline of taste. Those who love it change unconsciously. The long, wide, symmetrical avenues, the formal gardens, with their slim fountains, single waving sprays of crystal water, the calm façades of long rows of narrow, uniform houses, palest yellow in sunlight, pearl white towards evening, these things have an effect upon one’s manners that is imperceptible and profound. They spelt to me harmony and restraint and Plato’s idea of beauty. My high falsity was at the best only less futile than a good, noisy bout of hysterics. What comforted me in these hours of doubt was that I knew you were no more certain than I. You did not represent your family. You were neither a go-between nor a spy nor a jailor, you were a friend. Positively I believe there were moments when you wanted me to break out, break away, throw caution and carefulness to the winds. Sometimes there was so much compassion in your face that I almost cried out to you not to care so much. I wanted to warn you that it was only for the moment that I was keeping my head up, that I wouldn’t be able and didn’t intend to go on with it indefinitely and that the thought behind all my smooth social words was; “He has gone for ever. Soon I’ll be free to say so.”
I did really believe Philibert had left me for good. It never occurred to me that he would ever come back, and that belief was in a way my refuge. I was rid of them both; Bianca, I told myself, would be satisfied now and would leave me alone. She would carry on her mischief elsewhere, not in my life. My life was, I believed, my own, separated for always from hers and from Philibert.
Then one day Fan turned up. She came in jauntily, her head in the air, as if nothing had happened. She looked very smart, her hat set at a rakish angle, her short, pleated skirt flippant above her neat ankles. From across the room she called out “Well,—Jane, we’ve married a nice pair of men. Here’s Philibert’s skipped and I’ve had to send Ivanoff packing. He’d taken to beating me, I’m black and blue all over. Some people like it—I don’t.” She gave me a peck on the cheek. “Poor old Jane, you’re taking it hard, I suppose.” She turned back the sleeve of her dress. Her arm had welts on it. “You should see my back.” I shuddered, but at sight of my emotion she twitched away from me with a nervous laugh. “Between my Slav and your Frenchman I don’t know that there’s much to choose. God, if it were only an occasional beating I shouldn’t mind.” She did a waltz step across the room, twirled round on her tiny feet, lit a cigarette standing on tiptoe, and collapsed into a chair in a spasm of coughing.
“I had it out with Ivanoff, my dear, about you, and I know all about it—just the exact sums you gave him for me, bless your baby heart, and everything. At first I doubted you. I was a fool. I’m sorry. Unfortunately I found out other things. There are other women in the world who don’t love me at all, but who pay for my shoes. Do you hear? Do you get what I mean? I find I’ve been paying my bills with their money. What do you say to that? I ask you simply. And we’re on the streets now—at least he’s gone—I’m staying with Madeleine de Greux, and the bailiffs have got our furniture.” And she went off into a wild scream of laughter. It was incredibly painful. She sat there as neat and smart as a pin. Her small cocked hat on one side of her head, her pretty little legs crossed, one high-heeled patent leather slipper dangling in the air, the other tapping the floor, she puffed smoke through her little tilted nose and looked at me desperately out of her hard, level eyes, while she yelled with laughter just as if some one were tickling her till she screamed with pain.
I went to my desk and got out my cheque book. “Let’s pay off the furniture first,” I said as prosaically as I could, but she jumped up irritably.
“God! Jane, what a fool you are. Put that cheque book away. Do you think I’d touch another penny of yours? There—don’t be hurt. Of course I would if I needed it, but what good will money do? I can’t go and hunt out Ivo’s mistresses and pay them back, can I? Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!—I did like him. Men are devils. Even now I’m worried about him. I imagine him locked up somewhere or dead drunk in the gutter lying out in the dark—whereas he’s probably at Monte having a high old time. By the way, your French family is in a great state about you. Claire says their position as regards you is very delicate. I suppose it is. They don’t know whether to come here or to leave you alone. They wonder what you’re going to do. They’re frightfully cut up about Fifi, and they’re afraid you’ll do something final like getting a divorce.”
“Well, my dear, that’s just what I do think of doing.”
“I see.” She ruminated, chewing her cigarette that had gone out. “They’ll never forgive you if you do.”
“I suppose not, but I don’t see that that matters.”