Madame Claire/Chapter 14
It was February and it was sunny, and Noel had persuaded Connie to take a little gentle exercise in the Park.
She was finding London bearable, thanks to her nephew, and although she had, she said, nothing to look forward to, she was content with the present as long as the present remained as it was now.
They were discussing men in general, a topic that never lost its interest for Connie.
"Can't think why you're so keen on foreigners," Noel remarked; then said in his merciless way, "the only Englishman you ever had much to do with you ran away from."
Connie was quite soberly dressed in a dark blue coat and skirt, relieved by furs, hat, shoes and gloves of her favorite gray. She was no more made up than most of the other women who passed them. It was her forty-eighth birthday, and to celebrate it they were going to lunch at Claridge's later.
"Foreigners interest me so much more," she replied. "They understand women."
"Too damn well," agreed Noel. "Besides, the sort of men you mean only understand one sort of woman. They wouldn't understand Judy, for instance."
Connie smiled deprecatingly and put her head on one side.
"Well, as to that, I'm not sure I understand her myself. Frankly, I'm a little disappointed in Judy."
"You can't appreciate her, Connie. That's why."
"Perhaps." No one ever took offense at Noel. "To my mind she isn't feminine enough. She's handsome, but she has no magnetism, no allure."
"Nice English girls don't go in for allure," Noel said.
"Pooh!" She laughed rather scornfully. "Because they don't know how."
"Exactly," agreed her nephew. "And a good thing too. Look where it landed you."
"Now you're being rude and British, but I forgive you. And at any rate, I have lived."
It was Noel's turn to laugh scornfully.
"Lived! You surely don't call that living? Junketing around Europe with a lot of bounders! Why, Connie, you little innocent, you'd have lived a whole lot more if you'd stuck to Humphries and brought up a family."
She threw him an appealing look.
"You might remember that it's my birthday," she protested.
"Jove, that's so. And I'm hungry. Let's start walking toward Claridge's."
"Walk? It's too far. We must have a taxi."
"No, we mustn't. Great Scott, Connie, we've only walked half a mile or so. What'll you do in the next war?"
"Well, be nice to me then." She gave in as she usually did. "You know I'm horribly worried. I may have to go back to Chiozzi almost any day. If he finds out where I am"
"Nonsense. He can't make you go. You ought to divorce the little beast. I don't call that a marriage. And anyway, one more scandal won't matter much."
"I'm afraid of him."
"Has he any money of his own, or are you supporting him?"
"Oh, he has money of his own, but he's gambled away most of it. He gambled away most of mine, too. I didn't know how to stop it. Morton Freeman ought to have tied it up in some way, but you see he died so suddenly . . . that awful Titanic. . . ."
"What sort of a fellow was Freeman?"
"Oh, very nice, and very fond of me. But you don't like foreigners."
"I never said so. And besides, I don't call Americans foreigners."
"He stayed on the ship," Connie went on. "He made me go. It was so brave of him. I wasn't really in love with him. I've never really loved anybody but Petrovitch. But I was sorry."
"Where is Petrovitch now?"
"In America, I think, but I'm not sure. He never writes to me." She sighed.
"How are you getting on with Louise?" Noel asked, thinking it was time to change the subject. "I'd love to see you two together!"
"You never will," Connie said with feeling. "Eric needn't try to bring us together, either. I've seen her, and that's enough. How I hate those thin-lipped, straw-colored women! How Eric could have married her when he might have married any one, I cannot imagine."
"People have these sudden fancies," said Noel.
"What about Gordon? Is it true he's really engaged to Helen Dane? Not that I care much, as he's never had the politeness to come and see me."
"He's engaged right enough. I suppose he's happy. Gordon closes up like an oyster if you touch on anything personal. We've never discussed anything in our lives. Mother's frightfully pleased about it."
"What's the girl like?"
"Oh, she's all right, but she's cut to pattern."
"Pretty?"
"So so. Too bony, I think. But she suits Gordon. Related to everybody, rich, correct, hasn't got an original thought in her head. Thinks she's literary because young Shawn Bridlington the poet goes and reads his verses in her mother's drawing-room. Affects the Bloomsbury people. Opens bazaars and things. Jove! I'd rather marry a factory girl with a harelip."
Much of this was Greek to his aunt, who had the misfortune never to have heard of the Bloomsbury people.
"And what about Judy and that man she nearly ran over?"
"Why?" Noel asked innocently, not wishing to discuss Judy and her affairs with Connie. "What about them?"
"Is there anything in it? I hope not, because the thing's ridiculous. Who is he? What is he?"
Noel gave an amused chuckle.
"Connie, you really are a joy. You to ask 'Who is he? What is he?' Don't you try to take a leaf out of mother's book. It isn't your rôle."
"Judy's my niece, after all," protested Connie. "Isn't it natural that I should be interested?"
"Natural enough," said Noel. "I hope you are. Ask me if he's a good fellow, and if I think he could make her happy, and I'll be delighted to answer you. But 'who is he?' . . . that sort of tosh. . . . I should think you'd earned the right to be human, if anybody had."
"Very well," answered his chastened aunt. "Is he good enough?"
"I think he's as near being good enough as any fellow I've met. If he had any money at all, I should call it a match. But he hasn't, and I don't know how Judy would like being downright poor."
"All the same," Connie insisted, "I can't help wishing that my only niece would make a good match."
Noel raised his eyes heavenward, despairingly.
"For a woman who deemed the world well lost for love. . . ."
"I know," interrupted Connie. "But you see Judy hasn't my temperament."
"I'll refrain from saying 'Thank God!' because it's your birthday," returned Noel. "Here we are, and I bet I do justice to the lunch."
They both did, and Connie had occasion to congratulate the head waiter on a very perfect Petite Marmite. She was always at her best in restaurants. She loved the crowds and the chatter and the music, and the feeling that she was being looked at, and was still worth looking at. There was even a secret hope in her heart that people would take Noel for her son. She liked to imagine them saying, "There's a son who enjoys going about with his mother." And Noel, who really liked Connie and pitied her, had hopes of knocking some sense into her foolish head in time. It touched him, too, that she depended on him so.
Two men came in and sat at a table at Connie's left, and somewhat behind her. One was fat and old, with a round, coarse face. The other was at least impressive, and Noel found himself watching him. He had a dome-shaped head, rather flat at the back, and his hair, which began high up at the very summit of his temples was long and carefully brushed so as to fall slightly over the collar behind. A pair of level, frowning eyes looked out scornfully from under projecting brows, and the wide, thin lips protruded in a fierce pout. Presently, when something annoyed him, he spoke with great brusqueness to the waiter, scarcely moving his lips as he did so.
Connie heard his voice and turned, and their eyes met. Noel heard her draw in her breath sharply, and for a moment she sat staring, motionless. There was not the slightest change in the man's expression, as he stared back at Connie. There was an empty seat at his table, and suddenly he raised a large hand with spade-shaped fingers, and beckoned.
Connie started up from her chair like an automaton, and would have gone to him, but Noel's muscular hand closed on her wrist and fastened it to the table.
"Keep your seat!" he commanded. "Are you a dog to obey that man's whistle? If he wants to talk to you, let him come here."
Then as if ashamed of taking part in such an intense little drama, he dropped her hand and said lightly:
"Who's your friend, Connie? I don't care for his manners."
Connie strove to reach the normal again.
"It's Petrovitch," she said, scarcely above a whisper.
"Thought so. Do you realize he beckoned to you as though you were his slave? I'd like to wring his beastly neck."
"Noel! It's Petrovitch! What does he care about our silly little conventions? He wants me. I must talk to him."
"Then he can damn well come here. And for Heaven's sake don't make a scene, Connie. Eat your lunch."
"I can't eat. I haven't seen him for fifteen years. Oh, Noel, I've never loved any one as I've loved him."
"Well, I don't see that it's anything to have hysterics about. What of it? He'll come and talk to you, I expect, when he's finished that enormous lunch he's ordered. That is, if you're foolish enough to wait."
"I must. Oh, Noel, have pity on me!"
Her lips trembled.
"Cheer up!" he said. "I'll sit here all day, if you'll order another Entre Côte. Have you ever noticed what queerly shaped heads some of these fellows have? If I were a woman, I'd study phrenology a bit. That's where you have the best of us. You women may—and I expect often do—possess heads a congenital idiot would be proud of, but we never find it out. Don't even show your ears, now. It isn't fair. But your friend over there—I could tell you a whole lot about him just by looking at the back of his head."
"Oh, he's a devil if you like," said the unhappy Connie, "but I love him. And he loved me, once. I'd die for him."
"Neurotic," Noel told her.
"Call it what you like. I'd rather spend five minutes with him than a lifetime with any one else."
"I'd like to spend five minutes with him myself," said Noel. "Alone. Oh," remembering his empty sleeve, "I expect he'd wipe up the floor with me, but I'd tell him a few simple, home truths first."
"I tell you, Noel, ordinary rules of conduct don't apply to men like Petrovitch. He's a genius, a heaven-born genius. You've never even heard him play. There's nothing like it—there never has been anything like it. Oh, yes, he's made me suffer, but I forgive him for it, because he's a king among men."
"A king! My good aunt, pull yourself together and observe the way he eats asparagus. There! I knew it . . . he's dribbled some of the melted butter down his chin and on to his waist-coat. How would you like the job of spot-remover to His Highness? I suppose some wretched woman—but has he a wife? I forget."
"He has had two," murmured Connie.
"How any woman" began Noel, and gave it up.
"There are men like that. They are unattractive to other men perhaps, but they have an irresistible fascination for some women. They command—we obey."
"Cut it, Connie!" exclaimed Noel. "Do you mean to tell me that if that bounder, to satisfy his filthy vanity, said 'Come,' you'd go? Like a wretched poodle on a string. Good Lord! Where is your pride?"
She shook her head.
"I only know that I must talk to him again."
They finished lunch with little conversation. Noel was angry and uncomfortable. As they drank their coffee, and he saw that Petrovitch too was nearing the end, he made another effort.
"Connie, let's get out before he's finished. Will you? You'll be glad of it all your life. I promise you you will. It means a lot to me."
His earnestness had no effect. He went on:
"You've always followed the line of least resistance—that's why you're what you are now. You've chucked away your life. Don't do it again, Connie. You know what that man's opinion of you is. He showed it pretty clearly when he beckoned to you just now. There's just one way you can hurt him—and one way you can prove to him, and to yourself, that you've got the right stuff in you. Leave here with me, without speaking to him. Please, Connie. Will you?"
She wavered. Then she seized upon some words of his, and he knew that he had lost.
"Hurt him? I wouldn't hurt him for anything in the world. I want to show him that one woman at least is faithful to him, to the end."
This was too much for Noel. He remembered the French officer, Freeman, Chiozzi, and felt sick. His impulse was to get up and leave her then and there, but he stayed with a set jaw and angry eyes. His hair seemed to bristle with antagonism when Petrovitch pushed back his chair at last and said to his companion:
"Pardon—a moment. I go to speak to a lady." And in a second he was at their table.
Connie gave him both hands without speaking, and he bent over them with a smile that was a mere widening of those protruding lips.
"Connie! As beautiful as ever! My dear lady, the sight of you takes ten—fifteen years from my age. I feel young again, and happy. You come to my concert next week, eh? I play for you."
"Same old stuff!" thought Noel.
Connie released her hands, and when she spoke her voice was breathless and unnatural, as if she had been running.
"I . . . I didn't know you were here. . . . I hadn't seen any notices. I thought you were still in America. This is a great surprise to me, Illiodor." Then, turning to Noel, "I want you to meet Monsieur Petrovitch, Noel. My nephew . . ."
Noel, standing behind his chair and feeling younger and more intolerant than he had ever felt in his life, inclined his head.
"Eh? Your nephew? Charmed." The great man bowed, impressively. "Are you too a lover of music?" He bent his frowning gaze upon the young man. "But no, you are English. So, you will say, is the adorable aunt. But she is different. She is of the world, eh? She loves beauty, art, genius." He moved his large hands. "Ah, Connie, you and I had much in common. They told me you had married again. Is it true?"
"I married Count Chiozzi, four years ago," she told him. "My husband is in the south of France."
"Always the good cosmopolitan!" he approved. Then turning once more to Noel:
"You also will come to my concert."
"Expects me to say, 'Yes, master!'" thought Noel.
"No, thanks," he answered evenly and casually. "I don't care for concerts."
Petrovitch looked at Connie, working his prominent brows.
"Philistine, eh? No matter, you are one of us. I am staying here. You will do me the honor to dine with me to-morrow night. Good! We have much to say to one another. Perhaps also my friend Silberstein, eh? He is gourmet. He will eat, you will talk to me." He could frown and smile at the same time, Noel observed. "At eight."
"I'll come," said the fascinated Connie.
He bent once more over her hands.
"Au revoir, my dear friend," he said, in his strangely harsh voice. "To-morrow night." Then with an indifferent nod of the head in Noel's direction, he returned to his table.
Connie paid the bill—she always insisted on that—in a sort of trance, with a little excited smile on her lips. As they got up to go out she threw a glance at Petrovitch, and left the room, still with that trancelike smile. It irritated Noel beyond expression. It plainly said:
"He is not indifferent to me. He has forgotten nothing. I shall live again."
Very little was said on the way to Connie's hotel. She was beyond speech for the present—she was reliving the days when the world was at Petrovitch's feet, and he, the master, was at hers. For she believed now that it was the depth and tumult of his passion for her that had carried her away. She had forgotten her notes, her flowers, the interviews she had prayed for—forgotten all that. She won him by deliberate assault, but once won, she became his slave, and it was as his adoring slave in those first, brief, happy months, that she liked to remember herself.
Noel was disgusted and annoyed. Also, he was extremely disappointed. Was all his scolding, his chaffing, his affection for her, the influence he had gained, to go for nothing now? Simply because that . . . brute . . . had turned up again? Was there nothing he could say or do to save her? What would Claire say? And then he asked himself, well, what would Claire say? Why not find out? That was an idea. He would find out.
"You'll come upstairs, won't you?" she asked when they were in the hall of the hotel. Noel thought her invitation somewhat perfunctory. He suspected she wanted to be alone with her thoughts. Nevertheless, he meant to come, presently.
"Yes, I'll be up in a minute," he said. "You go on. I've got to ring up somebody."
The lift carried her up out of his sight and he went into the telephone booth and rang up Madame Claire. Her telephone stood on a table close beside her chair, and he had hardly a second to wait before she answered.
"Yes? Oh, it's you, Noel. Where are you?"
He told her. Then he described briefly the luncheon at Claridge's and what befell there.
"I saw the announcement of his concert in last Sunday's paper," she said. "Connie never reads the papers, or she would have seen it herself. What is he like now?"
"I don't want to use offensive language over the telephone," he answered.
He heard Madame Claire's laugh.
"Well, Noel, I think the whole thing is in your hands. You are the only one who can do anything with her. If I say anything she will only tell me I am tryng to rob her of her happiness. You know how she talks—such sentimental nonsense!"
"But I don't see that I can do anything either. What can I do?"
"Of course you can do something. She knows well enough that Petrovitch is here to-day and gone to-morrow, while you're her nephew for life. Make her choose, Noel. It will appeal to her sense of the dramatic. You'll see. Make her choose."
"Him or me, you mean? I believe she'd choose him."
"I'm not so sure. But try it, anyway. You're so good about managing Connie."
"All right," he said. "I'll try."
"Oh, and Noel, if she chooses you, you might be magnanimous and offer to take her to his concert next week. I think you could safely do that. Good-by. I can't talk any more. Millie is just coming up to see me, and she mustn't hear this. Good-by and good luck!"
Noel remained for a thoughtful moment in the booth, and then went upstairs. Claire was quite right. It was the only chance.
He found his troublesome aunt waiting for him in her sitting room. She was humming softly and looking out of the window. His indignation grew as he looked at her.
"Connie," he said quietly. "About this Petrovitch business. I'm pretty angry about it, as you know perfectly well. I've made up my mind that you'll have to choose between me and that fellow, and choose here and now. You can't have us both. If you go out to dinner with Petrovitch to-morrow night or any other night, or have anything further to do with him, that's the end as far as I'm concerned. You won't see me again."
Connie came swiftly back from dreams of Petrovitch and seized Noel's arm.
"Noel! You can't mean that! You can't mean that you'd drop me—have nothing more to do with me? Oh, Noel!"
"I've said it and I mean it. It's up to you. If you have anything more to do with that bounder, I'll have nothing more to do with you. And that's flat."
She pleaded with him. He didn't understand Petrovitch. He didn't understand her. Ordinary rules didn't apply to him because he was a genius, nor to her because she loved him. If Noel were older
That was more than he could bear.
"That'll do, Connie. I'm not a fool. I've been sorry for you because you were down on your luck; and anyway, I'm always sorry for people like you. And I'm fond of you, too. But if you're going to be so damn weak, and slop over with disgusting sentiment—well, I'm off."
Connie looked out of the window again.
"If you'll pull up and try to make something of your life, I'm with you. If not, I'm through."
"I can't give him up," moaned Connie. "I want to talk over old times with him, and hear him say that he loved me once. It means everything to me. I must talk to him, Noel!"
"All right. Then that's that. Well, I'm walking home. I feel I need a little air after all this. It's good-by then, Connie?"
He held out his hand. She turned and looked at him wildly.
"Noel, I never thought you could be so hard! You don't know how miserable you're making me!"
"There's Eric, too," he reminded her. "Don't forget he's got no love for Petrovitch. Don't forget Humphries was his friend. Eric's been pretty decent to you. As for . . . as for Claire! . . ."
Tears welled into her eyes. Noel, who, like many another man, found them undermining the foundations of his wrath, softened a little.
"Sleep on it, Connie," he said more kindly. "I'll give you until to-morrow to make up your mind. Ring me up in the morning and let me know what you've decided to do. So long!"
And he turned and left her.