Читать книгу Five People - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 3

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SHE fastened a thin bracelet of gold silk rosebuds round her wrist and thought: "How happy I am. How happy I have always been."

And a light fear shadowed this reflection: "Is it possible always to be so happy?"

She smiled at this fear; of course she would always be happy, because this happiness was the result not only of her circumstances, but of her disposition; she gave and received light to and from everything about her; nothing unkind had ever pierced the radiance of her personality.

Her smile dimpled as she studied the childish ornament she had fastened gaily round the fair wrist she so innocently admired; she sat looking down at her curved hand lying at ease on her satin knee.

The scene was a Paris flat, a choice and secret apartment concealed in the graceful and melancholy garden of the sombre and despoiled building of one of those ancient convents still standing among the network of modern activities adrift from their time and purpose, not far from the Rue de Sèvres, yet defended by several obscure and lonely streets from the noise and vitality of the modern thoroughfares.

This apartment that Helen St. Luc had occupied for ten years had been that part of the convent that had formerly been set apart for the use of great ladies temporarily retired from the world, or permanently forced into a secular retreat dignified by the approximity of sanctity.

These stately rooms, lofty mannered and shadowed half the year by the tall trees in the deserted garden, had housed many a noble dame whose stately retreat from temptations that no longer tempted had earned her a holy reputation in her old age, many a wit and belle whose later years here had effaced a dubious and splendid youth.

People said it was a queer place, inconvenient and out of the way, for a woman like Helen St. Luc to live in. Gloomy too, especially for a woman living alone, for the centre of the building was only occupied during the day, as a tapestry and embroidery school, and the other wing was merely used as a storehouse by an antique dealer.

Under Madame St. Luc's flat lived the concierge and his family; these were her sole company in the ancient convent of Ste. Angelique. She loved the queer place and had always been wealthy enough to do as she pleased; she was not there very much, for her life, her interests and her friends were all cosmopolitan; but she never stayed anywhere else when she was in Paris, and was always, she declared, happier here than in any other part of the world she knew.

It was an evening of full summer. Helen St. Luc was seldom in Paris in the summer; she went to her bedroom window and gazed out into the shadow of the lime trees from which the green-gold flowers and fruit drooped in profusion. These trees were as high as the building; between the pale transparent leaves that the last light transmuted into the colour of amber, Helen could glimpse the garden, always deserted; the sweeps of grass, the neglected parterres, the overgrown box, the old bushes of roses and geraniums, the little painted summer-house where the nuns had sat and sewed; the mossy cracked basin of the dry stone fountain.

In the faint jade-green sky that arched over Paris hung the new moon, a vivid crescent in the heavens still pulsating with the withdrawing light of the sun.

Helen drew her silver brocade curtains further apart, so that the scent of the lime blossoms and the hesitating twilight came full into the tenderly lit room; Helen used candles of yellowish scented wax. As she stood so, taken with a curious little sense of uncertainty, she frowned slightly with the emotional woman's effort logically to pursue a thought to a clear conclusion, usually a fruitless effort.

She was the daughter of a middle-class Englishman and a Frenchwoman of no family and the widow of a Provençal perfume manufacturer of mean origin, but wealth and some chance trick of nature had given her that grace, that allure, that air of fragility and delicacy, the exquisite lines and poise associated with, but not always the result of, pure patrician blood.

Madame St. Luc was pale, of medium colouring, with uncommonly large grey eyes and a mobile mouth, rather wide and constantly trembling into a smile, her features were of ordinary feminine prettiness; it was her carriage, her movements, her hands and arms, her lovely feet, that made her beautiful; if she had had to jostle along with the crowd she might all her life have passed unnoticed, but placed, adorned, set off with every advantage, no person of taste could have overlooked her uncommon grace. Thirty-three years old, she had never shed a tear save out of gentle compassion for some stranger, and for one personal grief, her father's death; brought up as the only child of a widowed father, she had been completely happy, married at twenty-three to an elderly man she did not love, she had still been completely happy. When he had died she had not been callously glad to be rid of a burden; it had been a sincere sorrow.

With deep tenderness the kind old man had kissed her "Good-bye."

"Thank you for seven years of happiness," he had said. "And now you must marry Louis Van Quellin."

That was three years ago, and Helen had not yet married Louis Van Quellin.

She owed a deep respect to the memory of Etienne St. Luc. She did not know the exact nature of her feelings towards Louis Van Quellin.

Some day she would marry him, of course, for he was already part of her life, but she felt no deep urge to do so; her present existence was very pleasant and hers was a nature to be long satisfied with a delicate and distant devotion. Nor had he pressed her, nor intruded on the delectable ground of their tacit understanding; he, too, was fastidious and fine with a certain added melancholy that she entirely lacked.

He was a man of peculiar character, of too many gifts, too much money, and one overwhelming obsession, rooted in an extravagant remorse.

This obsession was a sick girl, his half-sister, whose affliction was the one shadow over the brightness of Helen, who was so warmly piteous towards Cornelia; she loved the poor, ineffective cripple creature, really loved her, and had often thought:

"I should not like to take Louis away from her until she is better. No, not even by a little."

And she persuaded herself that this was why she had so constantly evaded the moment of a definite promise to Louis; she would have liked, before there was any precise talk of marriage, Cornelia to be cured.

There was always talk of her cure, first this treatment, then that; first one doctor, then another; hope was never dismissed, never allowed out of sight...Superb Helen left her bedroom and went into the salon that overlooked the courtyard by two lofty windows the entire height of the walls, which were hung with faded tapestry of faint lavender, cinnamon and rose hues, where heraldic beasts upheld fantastic shields on close packed fields of flowers.

Every object in the room was lovely and costly; the candle-light picked out from pools of shadow the acacia wood furniture, the chairs covered with white satin Chinese stitchery, the long wreaths of carved cedar wood fruit above the pelmets of the window and the slender mantelpiece, the puce coloured and saffron coloured crystal vases holding tuberoses, lilies and clove carnations, and the long straight yellow silk sofa near the gilt work-table and gilt bookcase where Helen usually sat.

When she entered this room she found Louis Van Quellin standing by the open window, through which the last twilight flowed to mingle with the golden flush of the candle radiance. She knew him so well that she could tell at once, from the very way he stood, that he was depressed. And his depression could only mean the one thing. Cornelia was worse, or, at least, not so well.

She asked before he had time to speak:

"Shall I go and sit with Cornelia to-night?"

"No. Why? She has a great deal of company. Even too much." It was as if he defended himself. "She is never alone."

"Of course. But I do not like to take you away from her—even for an evening, when she is not well."

"I did not say she was not well," he smiled. "You guessed that."

"Well, yes." She seated herself on the yellow sofa, the folds of her dress, which were stiff, of a ribbed silk in a dark petunia colour, made a flow of darkness in the blonde faded tints of the lovely gracious room.

"It is not so." She could see that he was denying his own conviction. "Cornelia is very well. Let us be alone together this evening."

They were due at the reception of a famous artist where fêtes en plein air were at present so fashionable, but Helen said at once:

"Shall we not go? Shall we stay here?"

"If that would please you? I like your old garden better than the park of M. de Guerin."

"Of course it pleases me. We will have coffee here and then go out."

"Everything pleases you, doesn't it?"

He smiled tenderly at her docility, her desire, so delicate and fine, to share her gaiety of spirits.

She considered him a little before she answered; this man, whose full name was Louis Van Quellin Van Paradys, came, as she came, of mixed ancestry; his mother English, his father Flemish, of an ancient and rather remarkable family, whose estate had been at one time of such princely beauty as to gain the name Paradys, which hereafter had remained to the Van Quellins, together with considerable wealth gained as bankers and spent as nobles.

Louis Van Quellin was a celebrated collector of all forms of rather exotic, over-refined and subtle objects of beauty; some people said that he would marry Helen St. Luc only to add another choice piece to his already world-famous collection.

He was now in his thirty-fifth year, very quiet in manner and appearance, with an aquiline face and close hair, slightly dark reddish; his eyes were rather too light, and this pale clear grey hawk's look from the dark face was discomposing to most people, for the expression was often both cold and lonely and always proud and keen, so that the finished courtesy of his manner seemed discounted as a mere surface pleasantness; his intimates called him un grand homme manqué, he was not idle, but seemed to disdain ambition.

Helen St. Luc was now, after her scrutiny, moved to confide in him, not so much for the sake of the confession, but to rouse him from one of those fits of inner abstraction which she knew and faintly disliked in him, as she faintly disliked anything that was not absolutely candid and clear.

"Do you know, just before you came, I was looking out on the lime trees—and I had a moment of fear—just a little stir of fear—that I was too happy."

"Polycrates and the ring," he quoted, smiling, taking her very lightly.

"Yes! But that is an unfortunate illustration, isn't it? Polycrates sacrificed his favourite ring and it was brought back to him—and afterwards he had all manner of misery."

"Sacrifice something that cannot be brought back," he suggested with a hint of mockery. "Polycrates threw his ring into the sea and a fish swallowed it—you could make a more definite offer to the gods—sometimes there is no possibility even of a fish."

Helen St. Luc leaned towards him, trying to understand his mood.

"What? I would like to sacrifice something—tell me what."

"Seriously? Now what could threaten you?"

"I don't know. Polycrates didn't, did he?"

"All a clear horizon, isn't it?"

"Yes—everything has been so happy for me. I came out of happiness, my father had a smooth, easy life. I've been too cherished, too comfortable, and ahead, well, as you say, Louis, what could happen to me?" She finished with a tender coquetry.

"Nothing. You haven't an enemy in the world."

"Nor a relation," she laughed. "Yes, it is all dangerously bright. Quick, what do we sacrifice?"

She rose and looked mischievously round the room, yet really watching him.

Louis Van Quellin took up something she had said.

"Have you really no relation, Helen?" He had always seen her surrounded by so many friends, she was so popular, so much of the world, that this thought of her inner isolation seemed strange.

She shook her fine little head.

"No—but yes! A cousin, I do believe. I had an uncle," she reflected, "who went quite definitely to the bad, like people used to in those days. You know, Louis, the absolute black sheep who was so shameful you could not speak of him and seems so old-fashioned now. My father hardly mentioned him. He died long ago, before I was born, but there was a daughter—my cousin, of course."

"She would be hardly likely to affect you," said Van Quellin, without much interest in what she said, but absorbed in watching the tender animation of her delicious face.

"No—she may be dead too, for all I have heard—I don't know where she is, if she is alive. I believe they went to Australia. My father was always helping them."

"I wonder why you have thought of her to-night?"

"Oh, yes, it is strange—but I do sometimes think of it. My poor uncle was an engineer too, and with my father at first. He left the firm in some awful disgrace just before father's big success—it seems sad." She spoke earnestly. Helen could be earnest in a second when thinking of other people's griefs.

Van Quellin lightly mocked her sudden interest in this dead trouble; to tease her he turned and picked up, as the first object that came to his hand, a long graceful vase in pink alabaster. "What of your sacrifice to the gods? This vase I brought you from Greece."

"Ah, Louis, I value that!"

"Isn't that what you throw away? What you value?"

She laughed at the discovery of her insincerity.

"Of course. Well, I will sacrifice it. I am too happy."

Van Quellin was surprised at the seriousness obvious under the raillery of her manner; he fancied that she was slightly, unaccountably nervous, yet he had never known Helen nervous, but he had always believed that the most sensible of women were at heart superstitious, and that it was kind to humour them in their superstitions.

"Very well," he said, "I will throw the vase from the window, and when you hear it crash below you will know that your sacrifice has been accepted by the gods—"

"My beautiful vase!" cried Helen a little breathlessly.

With mock drama Louis Van Quellin held the lovely rosy shape up and out of the open window that gave directly on to the quiet shadowed courtyard, empty save for Van Quellin's car near the old iron gates.

"I pray the high gods to accept this offering from one afraid of her happiness," he cried.

Helen's pearly laugh followed his words; she came close beside him and her silks rustled over her hastened breathing as she pressed into the window space.

Van Quellin dropped the vase.

"I didn't hear the crash," whispered Helen with an excited shiver.

They leant out but could see nothing in the soft gloom save the dark shape of the empty building, the sky, now a limpid violet, and the sinking crescent of the new moon; below was a mere well of shadow, with the pompous twists of the gate showing in the dimmed headlights of the car in which Van Quellin had driven, from his place at Marli.

"I will go down and see," smiled Van Quellin.

While he was gone, Helen's maid brought in her cloak.

Helen ordered coffee; she was rather vexed at the loss of the vase, yet secretly pleased that she had really carried out her unaccountable and, of course, foolish whim.

She put on her cloak and went to the window again; the tranquil harmony of the evening was exquisite with pulsations of dying light, with fading drifts of lime perfume, with the ripple of unseen trees coming and going on the fragile trembling of the furtive breeze.

Van Quellin returned; he held the intact alabaster vase.

"It fell on a pile of sacking," he explained, "some unwrappings from the tapestry people's goods. You see, Helen, we have been saved from the consequences of our own foolishness."

He put the vase back in its place; she saw that the incident meant nothing to him, and dutifully she laughed it off as a jest that had been carried far enough.

"How lucky—I am glad to have my vase back," she answered. "One cannot often be foolish with impunity."

But she glanced at the rejected offering with a suspicion of dread; Van Quellin had been right in thinking her a superstitious woman. The invisible menace to her flawless content seemed to have become suddenly definite. This was perhaps because the happiness of which she had been frightened was really established on nothing more stable than money and her own disposition; she had nothing else.

Her father had been what the world she now moved in but did not belong to, and never would belong to, still called a self-made man; he had been a very successful engineer, wealthy, kind, prudent, but reserved and solitary, not a morose or melancholy man, but one in whom the natural gaiety seemed to have been quenched; he had made few friends, and though he had loved Helen deeply, she had not seen very much of him; in the pleasant life he arranged for her, with a certain anxiety, he had himself taken little part; it had been with a certain anxiety too that he had insisted on her marriage to a man much older than herself, but a kind man, a reliable man; it was as if Mark Fermor had wished to consolidate his daughter's position; he was not strong and he continually told her that she had no one but himself; her mother was long since dead, and her mother's people were negative; insignificant and obscure French provincials; even in the tender regard of his daughter Mark Fermor's marriage had been vague and ineffective; she had never thought that grief for her mother had made of her father a quiet, slightly depressed man.

Soon after Mark Fermor had arranged this sensible successful marriage for his cherished daughter, he died, rather suddenly.

That had been Helen's one grief; yet not as deep a grief as it might have been, for her father had kept her so apart from his own simple reserved life that she had never been able to love him as it was in her nature to love; yet she knew how he loved her, and the pang of the unexpected parting had been poignant enough.

Mark Fermor had been away for a few days and returned to his London home a sick man; he had caught a chill that ended in sharp bronchitis, and Helen had hurried from France to find him dead before her arrival.

He left her a considerable fortune; he had founded a firm success and made a good deal of money by the invention, early in his career, of a new brake system, and his business had been one of steady and increasing prosperity.

Yet he left her nothing but the money; she never thought of, yet sometimes faintly sensed, the fact that she was really very much isolated, a waif and stray among the kind, pleasant people who caressed her in so amiable a fashion.

The death of her husband had further emphasised her position; once again there was nothing left her but money, and, by her own wish, not much of this. Etienne St. Luc had provided generously for his own people, none of whom was well off, for he, like Mark Fermor, was a self-made man.

Helen might have known that she was lonely had it not been for Louis Van Quellin; this man, her superior in everything but character, had something grand about him that gave a splendour to all his actions.

During her husband's lifetime his acquaintance had been the colour of her days, and since he had been her declared lover she had known this happiness of which she was afraid; yet Helen, who had never realised passion, was not sure that she loved this man any more than she had loved her father or Etienne St. Luc.

Possibly it was this uncertainty that was like the shadow behind the radiance of her delight in life; perhaps the shadow came from her sense of being indefinably alien to her world, even a little alien to Louis Van Quellin; she knew that he loved her almost with reluctance; that he unconsciously condescended, that he was moody, melancholy, obsessed by an invalid, that it was despite himself that he was tempted by her, Helen's gaiety, candour and simplicity.

Afraid of happiness she had said; it was really of Louis Van Quellin that she was afraid; such frankness as hers is always afraid of what it does not understand.

While she drank her coffee and listened to him talking, with a sort of reluctant interest, of his recent treasures purchased at a sale in Brussels, she was looking at an engraving by Guidon that hung beside the fireplace.

It was the portrait of a man in rigid modern dress, a man with a humorous, cheerful face, from which the humour and the cheerfulness seemed to have been sharply withdrawn—a portrait of her father, Mark Fermor.