The Lonely Lady of Dulwich Page 3

  “I often wonder,” said Jean, taking no notice of what Bertrand had said, “whether things in life ever happen as they do in a novel. Do you think they do?”

  “When you are reading a novel,” said Bertrand, “you oughtn’t to feel it has really happened. A novel must not be too lifelike, or else where does the artist come in?”

  “If a writer,” said Jean, “invents a whole story and means you to think it like life, and you do think it like life, I consider he is a good artist. But life seems to me so badly constructed, as if the author were constantly forgetting what he had meant his characters to do.”

  “He never forgets what he means his characters to be,” said Bertrand; “people remain themselves.”

  “I don’t agree,” said Jean. “I think people are continually changing. They say that every seven years one has a totally new body. I am quite certain that every seven years one has a totally new mind. One has become a different person. And thinkof one’s friends. Every seven years one wants a new set of friends.”

  Bertrand laughed.

  “What are you laughing at?” asked Jean.

  “I was wondering how you could possibly know. Seven years ago you were a schoolboy.”

  “I wasn’t; I was a soldier. I don’t have to wait seven years to change,” said Jean. “I can’t look at the books I adored three years ago.”

  “And the people?” asked Zita.

  “Oh people – people are all alike. The more they change the more they stay the same.”

  “That’s exactly what I said just now, and what you contradicted,” said Bertrand.

  “I meant, we always see the same people here, we never see anything new, different, never hear anything original, fresh, except …” he stopped.

  “Except when?” asked Zita.

  “I stopped just in time; I was just going to pay you a banal compliment, madame, and then I remembered that English people don’t like compliments.”

  “Don’t they?” asked Zita, with serious expression. Jean laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?” she asked.

  “It is you who are laughing at me.”

  “Oh! No! I assure you.”

  “Bertrand,” said Jean, “you should paint Madame Harmer just as she was just now, when she laughed at me with her serious face; it would be marvellous. May I see?”

  He walked towards the easel.

  “No, not yet, wait till the end of the sitting. I shall not be a moment. I have done all I can today. There is little more I can do at all. The truth is, madame, you are too difficult – no, painters don’t pay compliments. There is something intangible; it is as if there were a curtain of gauze between you and the world, and then every day you are different. But it is more than that. It was as if you had the gift of making yourself almost invisible; of closing your petals. I feel there is something to see which I could paint, but you will not let me see it. You are wearing an invisible mask; or perhaps it is that I don’t know how to paint – how to look. What a trade! There now, I’ve finished for today.”

  “May we look?” asked Zita.

  “Yes, you may look now.” He walked back himself and looked at the canvas critically.

  “It seems to me wonderfully painted,” said Zita; “of course I can’t judge.”

  “Yes,” said Jean, “it’s good; it’s very good; mais il y a quelque chose qui manque, the touch of mockery, the malice.”

  “Ah! that was not there last time,” said Bertrand.

  “You think I am mischievous, wicked?” asked Zita.

  “Not wicked, but I think if you liked you could be very –”

  “Very what?”

  But at that moment Bertrand’s servant announced that monsieur was awaiting madame below.

  CHAPTER IV

  The sittings went on for a month, and Jean de Bosis attended them often, but the picture did not seem to advance. These sittings made a great difference to Zita’s life: they brought something new into it, and something gay.

  Zita never met either Bertrand or Jean de Bosis anywhere except at the studio, and this situation might have continued unchanged but for the arrival of Legge’s wife, Amelia. She arrived, although the apartment was not ready, feeling that if she did not come it never would be ready. Perhaps she was right.

  Amelia Legge was not pretty, but everybody said she had a nice face. She arrived in Paris with her two little boys…shewas only just over thirty; practical, shrill, plaintive, energetic, shrewd, inquisitive, and brimming with human interest. She stayed at an hotel one day only; the next day she and her husband moved into their apartment which, although it looked then as if it could not be finished for months, was, after they had once got into it, practically finished in forty-eight hours.

  They dined together on the night of their arrival, at their favourite restaurant out of doors, near the Rond Point. And they had hardly finished their melon when Amelia said: “Fancy Robert being here!”

  “Yes,” said Legge, “and established for good, at least I suppose for the next four or five years, or perhaps for ever; he’s a partner in the Bristol Bank. But what really interests me ishis wife; what is she? I asked the young men in the Chancery, and all they know is that she has been here since the summer before last. He goes to the races regularly, and she goes nowhere.”

  “Well,” said Amelia, “if I may say a word, darling, I can tell you quite a lot about her. In the first place, she is Teresa St Alwyn’s sister.”

  “I know, your cousin told me that.”

  “The youngest. Robert met her at Nice. They were married the year before we were married, and then they went to England and lived, I think, in the country, at Robert’s house, Wallington, near Easthampton, a dreadful place, a regular ‘Bleak House’. She’s good-looking, but nothing like so good-looking as the sisters, so they say.”

  “Well, I’m not sure you’re right,” said Legge. “Bertrand says she’s a dream.”

  “Artists!” said Amelia, “they always admire what other people don’t admire. They like discovering something nobody else sees; in fact, they like what they can paint.”

  “But he says she’s unpaintable.”

  “You haven’t seen her?”

  “No. I left cards, but your cousin made it plain he didn’t want to do anything till you came.”

  “Poor child; she must be lonely,” said Amelia. “But we will change all that; I’ve written to Robert already.”

  Two days later Robert asked the Legges to luncheon.

  “Amelia would like,” he explained to his wife, “a lot of jabbering Frenchmen to meet her, but she won’t get that here.”

  “I think she sounds rather alarming,” said Zita.

  “No,” said Robert, “Amelia’s all right really; she’s a sensible woman, but she’s restless, and she likes to have a finger in every pie.”

  She arrived the next day at one. She was unlike what Zitahad expected. Zita had expected something gaunt and spare, and tall and hard; Amelia Legge was soft and fair, essentially comfortable. She was warm in her manner. Cyril Legge was affable, buoyant and gay. Amelia greeted Robert affectionately, and then said: “So this is Zita. I used to know your mother a little. You are like her and like your beautiful sisters. You didn’t tell me, Robert, she was the most beautiful of the lot. I remember your elder sister, Teresa, coming out; it was the year I came out; she made a sensation, but there…”

  There was not a shadow of doubt that Amelia admired Zita. The Suttons and Wilmot, his partner, whom Robert had asked, arrived, and they went in to luncheon.

  Sutton asked after the portrait, and Zita said it had been almost finished when Bertrand had painted out everything he had done and started afresh.

  “I must see it at once, dear,” said Amelia, “I admire Bertrand’s work enormously.”

  “I’ve got a sitting tomorrow,” said Zita, “if you would like to come.”

  “I should like it above all things.”

  “Then you can bring Zita back,” said Robe
rt, “and have luncheon with us.”

  “Does Robert always take you to and from the studio?” asked Amelia.

  “Always to,” said Zita, “and sometimes from.”

  “He’s damned slow painting the thing,” said Harmer; “nearly a month now, and he’s hardly begun.”

  “Bertrand is always like that,” said Sutton. “He is a slow starter; he’ll work for six weeks and throw away everything he has done, then start again and finish it off in forty-eight hours.”

  “I hope it will be worth looking at when it’s finished,” said Harmer. “I wish we could have had it done in London by Millais, or someone like that.”

  “You’re lucky to have got Bertrand,” said Amelia; “you will never regret it.”

  They talked of other things. When the party broke up Amelia stayed behind with Zita.

  “You must tell me at once,” she said, “when you want to get rid of me, but as I am Robert’s cousin and have known your sister, I can’t feel that you are a stranger.”

  Zita thought Amelia original, lively, and comfortable. On the other hand she did not feel that anybody so intensely interested in human nature and in other people’s affairs as Amelia obviously was, could help being indiscreet.

  Amelia spoke a great deal of Paris, the Paris that she had known as a child, and that was now so changed, but where she still had a great many old friends – friends of her parents.

  After asking Zita whether she knew so-and-so and so-and-so, Amelia realized that Zita knew no French people at all.

  “So you know no French people?” she said.

  “Not one, except Mr Bertrand who is painting me, and there is another man who has been once or twice while I have been sitting.”

  “Who’s that?” asked Amelia.

  “His name is Jean de Bosis; he writes.”

  “I will ask Madeleine if she knows him. You must know Madeleine Laurent, she is a great friend of mine. She doesn’t write herself, but she knows all the writers. She likes English people, too – sincerely. She has even been to England, once. Fancy Bertrand painting you! Whoever put that into Robert’s head? Robert’s a dear, and I’m devoted to him, but the arts are not his strong point.”

  “It was Mr Sutton who suggested it,” said Zita, “and your husband approved.”

  “I suppose you’ve been to the Embassy?”

  “We went to a garden-party.”

  “But, my dear child, why live like a hermit? Why not make friends?”

  “Foreigners bore Robert,” said Zita, “and I am rather shy too. I am quite happy as I am.”

  “Seeing no one; going nowhere?”

  “I see a great deal of Robert’s English friends.” Amelia Legge needed to hear nothing further. She divined the tenor of Zita’s life with perfect accuracy. And she was appalled.

  “Unless something is done,” she said to herself, “this will end in disaster.” And Amelia Legge was one of those people who, when they resolve that a thing is to be done, set about to do it.

  She drove back to her apartment. She wrote a few letters and then drove to keep an appointment with her friend, Madeleine Laurent. Madeleine Laurent lived in a small apartment in a street leading into one of the new avenues. She was expecting Amelia Legge, and greeted her warmly with a wealth of kisses and exclamations. They each gushed at each other for a time. They both had warm, expansive, exuberant natures. Madeleine Laurent was a widow. In her youth she had done a little professional painting, but now she had given it up. Her husband had been dead some years. She lived for her friends, of whom she had a great number, both in France and England.

  She was small, dark, but not at all semitic-looking; her nose turned up a little; her eyes were full of observation and fun. There was something electric about her, but the electricity was in her expression; her movements were calm and rare.

  She led Amelia to a divan in a room almost entirely furnished with high bookcases and without pictures, except the portrait of a man on an easel, and bombarded her with pertinent questions. She commented briefly, sometimes only by a nod of the head, on Amelia’s answers.

  “I’ve found a cousin here,” said Amelia, “who is married.”

  “What cousin is that?”

  “Nobody, my dear, you would know, a middle-aged homme d’affaires ; but the point is he has now married the daughter of people I knew, a girl whom I had never set eyes on till yesterday, and she’s a real beauty, and charming.”

  “Quel genre? ” asked Madame Laurent.

  “I don’t know. I have never seen anybody like her. You would notice her anywhere. She has got a lovely smile and wide apart eyes; but she is celestial – like a tune played on muted strings or on a piano with the sourdine.”

  “Tall?”

  “Not really, I think, but she made me feel even smaller than I am.”

  “And how long have they been married?”

  “Seven years.”

  “Then she is much younger than her husband?”

  “Oh, much; she is only about twenty-seven.”

  “And children?”

  “There was one – stillborn. She can have no more.”

  “And any roman?”

  “Ah, that I don’t know. It is the first time I have seen her. I know Robert, her husband, very well. Apart from his being my first cousin and having known him all my life, we have always been great friends. I like Robert immensely and I admire him. I think he is remarkable in many ways besides being, everyone says, a first-rate man of business. I’m not surprised at his being attracted by a girl like that, but I do rather wonder whether it was wise to marry someone so much younger than himself and so different.”

  “So different?”

  “Oh! yes. One can see that at a glance. You see my cousin is a North countryman, shrewd and practical, fond of outdoor life and sports, but quite capable of giving them up for a time if necessary; fond of horses and racing, but all the artistic side of life – art, literature, music, painting – is a sealed book to him.”

  “And she?”

  “Ah, she…I don’t know what she likes, but nothing could be more different. She was brought up in a convent, and when the father died they lived at Cannes and Nice, anywhere, in pensions; so you see. I suppose she must have been in love with Robert to have married him. I don’t know what she’s really like, nor what she thinks, but I’m certain of one thing, that between her and Robert there cannot be one idea in common. I knew her mother – a sensible, amusing American, who they say was a beauty; and her father, a charming adventurer, half Irish, and cosmopolitan. The sisters were beautiful, and they married, but I think Zita is the best-looking of all of them. She is being painted here.”

  “Who by?”

  “Bertrand.”

  “Ah!”

  “And, by the way, there is a man apparently who goes to the studio to look on, Jean de Bosis. Do you know him?”

  “Yes, I know him well. His mother is my greatest friend.”

  “He will be able to tell you all about Zita Harmer. But I shall soon know more myself; in the meantime, can I bring her to see you?”

  “Of course; bring her tomorrow, it’s my jour. Does she like seeing people?”

  “I think she might, but I don’t believe my poor cousin has ever given her the opportunity. You see he goes to the races, and he never asks anyone to the house except business friends.”

  “Is he jealous?”

  “That would be the obvious explanation, and had occurred even to me.”

  Madeleine laughed.

  “But, but,” Amelia went on, “I don’t think it’s the right one after all.”

  “No?”

  “Well, you see Robert is in many ways an odd man, and it’s quite possible he may be jealous of everybody, but he’s very fair, and I am quite certain he is not jealous of anyone.”

  CHAPTER V

  The next morning Amelia Legge went with Zita to the studio. Mrs Legge admired the picture, and she made the acquaintance of Jean de Bosis, who was the
re as usual. She took Zita in the afternoon to see Madeleine Laurent. There were not more than four or five people there – there never were. Madeleine Laurent took an instant fancy to Zita and admired her.

  “She is a belle de nuit,” she said to Amelia.

  The arrival of the Legges entirely changed Zita’s life. Cyril Legge’s apartment soon became an agreeable centre of a group of literary and artistic people, French, English and foreign. They asked Zita and Robert as often as they could to their house, and at first it was not difficult to get them to come, but Robert suddenly urged Zita to go without him to the Legges. He distrusted foreigners, it is true, but he thought she was safe among the literary, and just at that time he made friends with a handsome American widow, a Mrs Rylands, who was to play an important part in his life. She was about the same age as himself – a practical, sensible woman of great and ripe experience. It was thought by some to be a liaison, by others not. Robert Harmer admired her immensely and took everything she said for gospel. He found it more and more convenient for Zita to go out by herself to houses of intimate friends.

  Bertrand finished his picture, and it was exhibited inthe spring at the Salon. It attracted a great deal of attention. It was the year of the Exhibition. There were many foreigners and many English people in Paris. Cyril Legge had persuaded Robert, without difficulty, to go to the Embassy, and the English people who saw Zita there, hearing her picture, Portrait de Madame — talked about, and behaving, as usual, like sheep, began to admire her, having said before, without having seen her, that she could not hold a candle to any of her sisters; the catchword which was now handed about was that she was the best-looking of the whole family.

  She had certainly blossomed into something ravishing. She was lovely because she was happy, and she was happy because she was admired. That spring and summer, Sarah Bernhardt, who had just appeared as Doña Sol in Hernani, and Zita and her portrait were the two main topics. But it was neither the catchwords of the fashionable nor the admiration of the manin-the-street that affected Zita, but the admiration of one person: Jean de Bosis.

  And now I come to the moment of the story when Amelia Legge says she was probably to blame, although she never was prepared to plead guilty. The facts are these: when Bertrand finished his picture, Zita could, of course, no longer see Jean de Bosis at the studio. At first the only place where they met was Madeleine Laurent’s, where there were seldom less than four other people. Zita never asked him to her apartment, and Madeleine Laurent was not at home to visitors except on her day. By this time Zita had got to know Mrs Legge intimately; intimately for her, that is to say. Zita was not a person who allowed people to become intimate with her; she was veiled and reserved, and generally rather silent. Amelia thought her a puzzle. She liked her immensely, but she did not pretend to understand her. She was startled sometimes by the things that Zita would say. For instance, one day they were talking of her sister, Teresa, and Zita said she thought she was one of the most fortunate people in the world. Amelia asked why, and Zita said she was fortunate because if her husband hadn’t left her she would have led a miserable life; she simply hated wealth and everything that appertained to it. Now Amelia thought she knew Teresa well. She had known her as a girl, and met her since her separation at Rome, where Teresa had stayed at the Embassy, and she knew that Teresa detested poverty and moreover felt lonely; that she had been devoted to her husband in spite of all; also that she was extravagant, pleasure-loving, and born with expensive tastes, which she was obliged to forgo, and she made no secret of this. But Amelia reflected that people rarely understood their brothers and sisters; they knew them too well and not well enough.