“Noel, tell Connie that I want to see her to-morrow or the next day. As soon as she’s recovered. And, Eric, you’ll let me know about Louise, won’t you? She’s not to go without saying good-by to me … if she does go.”
“Oh, she’s going,” he said. “My wife,” he explained, turning to Noel, “finds life with me intolerable.”
“Well, there’s divorce, thank Heaven!” Noel said. “I always feel about marriage and divorce the way I feel about those illuminated signs in theaters—the exits, you know, in case of fire. One simply wouldn’t go into a theater unless they were there.”
“In this case, however,” said Madame Claire, “there isn’t going to be a fire, and Eric’s only seen the first act of the play. Good night, my dears.”
[CHAPTER XX]
Judy’s letter was followed by one from Stephen. Madame Claire felt that it was from some one very close at hand. He seemed to be coming nearer to her daily, and she no longer visualized him as separated from her by so many miles of land and water. He was accessible now. They were more readily accessible to each other by thoughts. She felt more confidence in his health, too, and in his determination to come to England again. She had been wise in sending Judy to him!
“It’s amazing,” Stephen wrote, “how much there is of you in Judy. She has your way of understanding what one wants to say almost before one has said it. She doesn’t make me feel an old man. We talk as equals. She is very human and is gifted with real humor, which means that she enjoys the humorous side of mankind. I think that her not very happy youth—for it’s obvious that she has been far from happy at home—has given her a certain depth and insight.
“She is much amused by an old friend of mine, an American named Colebridge. We met years ago in the Argentine, and he considers that he has reason to be grateful for something in the past. Together, the two are a source of great entertainment to me. Judy becomes every moment more British, and he—well, he couldn’t become more American. He admires Judy enormously, and I think he is ready to lay a not inconsiderable fortune at her feet. I wish I could remember their talk. Yesterday we motored to Grasse, and coming home we passed peasants returning from their work in the fields. Simple, contented people, with clothes colored like the earth.
“‘In America,’ says Mr. Colebridge, ‘all these folks would own Fords.’
“‘Then thank God for Europe!’ says Judy; and so they go on, until at last Mr. Colebridge turns to me and says, ‘Say, I guess I’m ready to agree to anything Miss Pendleton says. She’s got more sense than any woman I ever met.’ Which takes the wind out of Judy’s sails. They make me feel years younger. Colebridge wears the most Philistine clothes, and never looks at the scenery. He sees nothing.
“Judy often goes to the Casino, and she tells me she saw Chiozzi there last night. He was with Mlle. Pauline, whom Judy describes as a most exquisite creature. She was struck with the contrast between them—Chiozzi so dark and hideous, and the woman so fair and pretty—and she asked some one who they were. She says Chiozzi is extremely jealous and was constantly watching his companion. She also says that he was losing a great deal of money—Connie’s money, perhaps?—at the tables. He has left this hotel, so I never see him now.
“Miss McPherson seems to think I will be able to travel in less than a month. A month, Claire! Only thirty days. It’s nothing. And yet, it’s an eternity. I might have another stroke—no, no! I feel sure I won’t. Not with Judy here. I think it was sheer boredom that brought it on before. That, and a hopeless feeling that I should never quite reach you. Now I seem to have accomplished half the journey.
“I have said nothing to Judy as yet about a settlement. It is a difficult subject, and I feel I must tread lightly. All the same, I mean to have my way. If the young deny us these pleasures, what is left for us? Of course, if she were to marry Colebridge she wouldn’t want it, but that I feel almost certain she will not do. They are poles apart. It’s not because of their nationality. It’s because of their outlook on life. It wouldn’t do. If Judy were less sensitive, less feeling, less intelligent, it might.
“Well, I am aweary of this eternal sunshine. And when the sun does not shine, it all seems very drab. One is constantly reminded here of too much that is rich—and gross. And yet it is lovely, I suppose, very lovely.
“It’s you I want, Claire, and London. For the first time in my life I’m unspeakably, unutterably homesick. I long to see the rain on London streets, the lamps’ yellow eyes through the deep blue haze and smoke. I want crocuses and primroses instead of mimosa. I want little, homely, decorous shops, and people who put on their clothes merely to cover them and to keep warm. I want your fireside and you and Dawson, and crumpets for tea. What an old fool I am! I would like to hear the old talk of the London that I knew; these memoirs, that play, such and such a speech; what So and So said to Blank when he met him in the lobby of the House; who is talked of as the next Speaker. I hardly dare look at the papers, Claire, for then I know how many years there are between the old talk and the talk of to-day. The jingle of hansom bells seem to run through it all, and faint, forgotten old tunes.
“But it will all be preserved, summed up, epitomized in you. I will find it all again in you.
“It is Judy who has brought back this love of London. It is she who has made it fresh again.
“She says your hair is perfectly white. How pretty it must be!
“Good-by! I grow verbose, lachrymose, and comatose.
“Stephen.”
Well, he would find London changed, though it had changed less than most Western cities. But he would find that it had retained its old character even though it had assumed new manners. And after all, why pretend that it had not improved? It had improved. It was easier to get about now than it had been in Stephen’s day. There was more to do. There was less misery among the poor. One needn’t feel so suicidal on Sundays. There were better shops, better libraries, and—yes—more and better books. Better preachers in the pulpits, too, better food, better music, better teachers in the schools. And if one regretted the hansom bells and the old tunes, that was because one regretted one’s youth, and the friends of one’s youth. But the present couldn’t be blamed for that. The present was full of promise, let the old fogies say what they pleased. The sea was rougher, perhaps, but the port was nearer … and after all, seasickness wasn’t often fatal, and was very often beneficial. Not that there weren’t alarming symptoms—there were.…
Stephen and she could still go to the Temple and see the old, unchanged gray stones, and the vivid grass making a carpet for the delicate feet of spring when she visited London; and she loved to visit London, that beloved guest, as though she delighted in contrasting her fleeting and perennial loveliness with what was gray and immutable. The old, slow river, too, and the towers of Westminster—they could look at them and see little change there.