CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I had a sense of walking very fast--almost of taking flight--down a longdim corridor, and of a door that opened into an immense room. All that Iremember of it, as I saw it then, was a number of pastel portraits ofweak, vacuous individuals, in dulled, gilt, oval frames. The heads stoodout from the panelling and stared at me from between ringlets, fromunder powdered hair, simpering, or contemptuous with the expression thatmust have prevailed in the _monde_ of the time before the Revolution. Ata great distance, bent over account--books and pink cheques on the flapof an escritoire, sat my aunt, very small, very grey, very intent on herwork.
The people who built these rooms must have had some property of thepresence to make them bulk large--if they ever really did so--in theeyes of dependents, of lackeys. Perhaps it was their sense of ownershipthat gave them the necessary prestige. My aunt, who was only a temporaryoccupant, certainly had none of it. Bent intently over her accounts,peering through her spectacles at columns of figures, she was nothingbut a little old woman alone in an immense room. It seemed impossiblethat she could really have any family pride, any pride of any sort. Shelooked round at me over her spectacles, across her shoulder.
"Ah ... Etchingham," she said. She seemed to be trying to carry herselfback to England, to the England of her land-agent and her selectvisiting list. Here she was no more superior than if we had been on adesert island. I wanted to enlighten her as to the woman she wassheltering--wanted to very badly; but a necessity for introducing thematter seemed to arise as she gradually stiffened into assertiveness.
"My dear aunt," I said, "the woman...." The alien nature of the themegrew suddenly formidable. She looked at me arousedly.
"You got my note then," she said. "But I don't think a woman _can_ havebrought it. I have given such strict orders. They have such strangeideas here, though. And Madame--the _portiere_--is an old retainer of M.de Luynes, I haven't much influence over her. It is absurd, but...." Itseems that the old lady in the lodge made a point of carrying lettersthat went by hand. She had an eye for gratuities--and the police, Ishould say, were concerned. They make a good deal of use of that sort ofperson in that neighbourhood of infinitesimal and unceasing plotting.
"I didn't mean that," I said, "but the woman who calls herself mysister...."
"My dear nephew," she interrupted, with tranquil force, as if she weretaking an arranged line, "I cannot--I absolutely cannot be worried withyour quarrels with your sister. As I said to you in my note of thismorning, when you are in this town you must consider this house yourhome. It is almost insulting of you to go to an inn. I am told it iseven ... quite an unfit place that you are stopping at--for a member ofour family."
I maintained for a few seconds a silence of astonishment.
"But," I returned to the charge, "the matter is one of importance. Youmust understand that she...."
My aunt stiffened and froze. It was as if I had committed some flagrantsin against etiquette.
"If I am satisfied as to her behaviour," she said, "I think that youmight be." She paused as if she were satisfied that she had set mehopelessly in the wrong.
"I don't withdraw my invitation," she said. "You must understand I_wish_ you to come here. But your quarrels you and she must settle. Onthose terms...."
She had the air of conferring an immense favour, as if she believed thatI had, all my life through, been waiting for her invitation to comewithin the pale. As for me, I felt a certain relief at having thecarrying out of my duty made impossible for me. I did not _want_ to tellmy aunt and thus to break things off definitely and for good. Somethingwould have happened; the air might have cleared as it clears after astorm; I should have learnt where I stood. But I was afraid of theknowledge. Light in these dark places might reveal an abyss at my feet.I wanted to let things slide.
My aunt had returned to her accounts, the accounts which were thecog-wheels that kept running the smooth course of the Etchinghamestates. She seemed to wish to indicate that I counted for not very muchin the scheme of things as she saw it.
"I should like to make your better acquaintance," she said, with herhead still averted, "there are reasons...." It came suddenly into myhead that she had an idea of testamentary dispositions, that she feltshe was breaking up, that I had my rights. I didn't much care for thething, but the idea of being the heir of Etchingham was--well, was anidea. It would make me more possible to my pseudo-sister. It would be,as it were, a starting-point, would make me potentially a somebody ofher sort of ideal. Moreover, I should be under the same roof, near her,with her sometimes. One asks so little more than that, that it seemedalmost half the battle. I began to consider phrases of thanks andacceptance and then uttered them.
I never quite understood the bearings of that scene; never quite whethermy aunt really knew that my sister was not my sister. She was awonderfully clever woman of the unscrupulous order, with a _sang-froid_and self-possession well calculated to let her cut short anyinconvenient revelations. It was as if she had had long practice in theart, though I cannot say what occasion she can have had for itspractice--perhaps for the confounding of wavering avowers of Dissent athome.
I used to think that she knew, if not all, at least a portion; that theweight that undoubtedly was upon her mind was nothing else but that. Shebroke up, was breaking up from day to day, and I can think of no otherreason. She had the air of being disintegrated, like a mineral under animmense weight--quartz in a crushing mill; of being dulled and numbed asif she were under the influence of narcotics.
There is little enough wonder, if she actually carried that imponderablesecret about with her. I used to look at her sometimes, and wonder ifshe, too, saw the oncoming of the inevitable. She was limited enough inher ideas, but not too stupid to take that in if it presented itself.Indeed they have that sort of idea rather grimly before them all thetime--that class.
It must have been that that was daily, and little by little, pressingdown her eyelids and deepening the quivering lines of her impenetrableface. She had a certain solitary grandeur, the pathos attaching to thelast of a race, of a type; the air of waiting for the deluge, oflistening for an inevitable sound--the sound of oncoming waters.
It was weird, the time that I spent in that house--more thanweird--deadening. It had an extraordinary effect on me--an effect thatmy "sister," perhaps, had carefully calculated. She made pretensions ofthat sort later on; said that she had been breaking me in to perform myallotted task in the bringing on of the inevitable.
I have nowhere come across such an intense solitude as there was there,a solitude that threw one so absolutely upon one's self and into one'sself. I used to sit working in one of those tall, panelled rooms, veryhigh up in the air. I was writing at the series of articles for the_Bi-Monthly_, for Polehampton. I was to get the atmosphere of Paris, youremember. It was rather extraordinary, that process. Up there I seemedto be as much isolated from Paris as if I had been in--well, in HamptonCourt. It was almost impossible to write; I had things to think about:preoccupations, jealousies. It was true I had a living to make, but thatseemed to have lost its engrossingness as a pursuit, or at least to havesuspended it.
The panels of the room seemed to act as a sounding-board, the belly ofan immense 'cello. There were never any noises in the house, onlywhispers coming from an immense distance--as when one drops stones downan unfathomable well and hears ages afterward the faint sound ofdisturbed waters. When I look back at that time I figure myself asforever sitting with uplifted pen, waiting for a word that would notcome, and that I did not much care about getting. The panels of the roomwould creak sympathetically to the opening of the entrance-door of thehouse, the faintest of creaks; people would cross the immense hall tothe room in which they plotted; would cross leisurely, with laughter andrustling of garments that after a long time reached my ears in whispers.Then I should have an access of mad jealousy. I wanted to be part of herlife, but I could not stand that Salon of suspicious conspirators. Whatcould I do there? Stand and look at them, conscious th
at they alldropped their voices instinctively when I came near them?
That was the general tone of that space of time, but, of course, it wasnot always that. I used to emerge now and then to breakfastsympathetically with my aunt, sometimes to sit through a meal with thetwo of them. I danced attendance on them singly; paid depressing callswith my aunt; calls on the people in the Faubourg; people without anyindividuality other than a kind of desiccation, the shrivelledappearance and point of view of a dried pippin. In revenge, they hadnames that startled one, names that recalled the generals and _flaneurs_of an impossibly distant time; names that could hardly have had anyexistence outside the memoirs of Madame de Sevigne, the names of peoplethat could hardly have been fitted to do anything more vigorous than bereflected in the mirrors of the _Salle des Glaces_. I was so absolutelydepressed, so absolutely in a state of suspended animation, that Iseemed to conform exactly to my aunt's ideas of what was desirable in meas an attendant on her at these functions. I used to stand behindchairs and talk, like a good young man, to the assorted _Peres_ and_Abbes_ who were generally present.
And then I used to go home and get the atmospheres of these people. Imust have done it abominably badly, for the notes that broughtPolehampton's cheques were accompanied by the bravos of that gentlemanand the assurances that Miss Polehampton liked my work--liked it verymuch.
I suppose I exhibited myself in the capacity of the man who knew--whocould let you into a thing or two. After all, anyone could write aboutstudents' balls and the lakes in the Bois, but it took _someone_ towrite "with knowledge" of the interiors of the barred houses in the Ruede l'Universite.
Then, too, I attended the more showy entertainments with my sister. Ihad by now become so used to hearing her styled "your sister" that theepithet had the quality of a name. She was "mademoiselle votre soeur,"as she might have been Mlle. Patience or Hope, without having anythingof the named quality. What she did at the entertainments, thecharitable bazaars, the dismal dances, the impossibly bad concerts, Ihave no idea. She must have had some purpose, for she did nothingwithout. I myself descended into fulfilling the functions of arudimentarily developed chaperon--functions similar in importance tothose performed by the eyes of a mole. I had the maddest of accesses ofjealousy if she talked to a man--and _such_ men--or danced with one. Andthen I was forever screwing my courage up and feeling it die away. Weused to drive about in a coupe, a thing that shut us inexorablytogether, but which quite as inexorably destroyed all opportunities forwhat one calls making love. In smooth streets its motion was too glib,on the _pave_ it rattled too abominably. I wanted to make love toher--oh, immensely, but I was never in the mood, or the opportunity wasnever forthcoming. I used to have the wildest fits of irritation; not ofmadness or of depression, but of simple wildness at the continualrecurrence of small obstacles. I couldn't read, couldn't bring myself toit. I used to sit and look dazedly at the English newspapers--at anynewspaper but the _Hour_. De Mersch had, for the moment, disappeared.There were troubles in his elective grand duchy--he had, indeed,contrived to make himself unpopular with the electors, excessivelyunpopular. I used to read piquant articles about his embroglio in anAmerican paper that devoted itself to matters of the sort. All sorts ofinternational difficulties were to arise if de Mersch were ejected.There was some other obscure prince of a rival house, Prussian orRussian, who had desires for the degree of royalty that sat so heavilyon de Mersch. Indeed, I think there were two rival princes, each waitingwith portmanteaux packed and manifestos in their breast pockets, readyto pass de Mersch's frontiers.
The grievances of his subjects--so the Paris-American _Gazette_said--were intimately connected with matters of finance, and de Mersch'spersonal finances and his grand ducal were inextricably mixed up withthe wild-cat schemes with which he was seeking to make a fortune largeenough to enable him to laugh at half a dozen elective grand duchies.Indeed, de Mersch's own portmanteau was reported to be packed againstthe day when British support of his Greenland schemes would let himafford to laugh at his cantankerous Diet.
The thing interested me so little that I never quite mastered thedetails of it. I wished the man no good, but so long as he kept out ofmy way I was not going to hate him actively. Finally the affairs ofHolstein-Launewitz ceased to occupy the papers--the thing was arrangedand the Russian and Prussian princes unpacked their portmanteaux, and, Isuppose, consigned their manifestos to the flames, or adapted them tothe needs of other principalities. De Mersch's affairs ceded their spacein the public prints to the topic of the dearness of money. Somebody,somewhere, was said to be up to something. I used to try to read thearticles, to master the details, because I disliked finding a wholefield of thought of which I knew absolutely nothing. I used to readabout the great discount houses and other things that conveyedabsolutely nothing to my mind. I only gathered that the said greathouses were having a very bad time, and that everybody else was having avery much worse.
One day, indeed, the matter was brought home to me by the receipt fromPolehampton of bills instead of my usual cheques. I had a good deal oftrouble in cashing the things; indeed, people seemed to look askance atthem. I consulted my aunt on the subject, at breakfast. It was the sortof thing that interested the woman of business in her, and we werealways short of topics of conversation.
We breakfasted in rather a small room, as rooms went there; my auntsitting at the head of the table, with an early morning air of being _enfamille_ that she wore at no other time of day. It was not a matter ofgarments, for she was not the woman to wear a _peignoir_; but lay, Isupposed, in her manner, which did not begin to assume frigidity untilseveral watches of the day had passed.
I handed her Polehampton's bills and explained that I was at a loss toturn them to account; that I even had only the very haziest of ideas asto their meaning. Holding the forlorn papers in her hand, she began tolecture me on the duty of acquiring the rudiments of what she called"business habits."
"Of course you do not require to master details to any considerableextent," she said, "but I always have held that it is one of the dutiesof a...."
She interrupted herself as my sister came into the room; looked at her,and then held out the papers in her hand. The things quivered a little;the hand must have quivered too.
"You are going to Halderschrodt's?" she said, interrogatively. "Youcould get him to negotiate these for Etchingham?"
Miss Granger looked at the papers negligently.
"I am going this afternoon," she answered. "Etchingham can come...." Shesuddenly turned to me: "So your friend is getting shaky," she said.
"It means that?" I asked. "But I've heard that he has done the same sortof thing before."
"He must have been shaky before," she said, "but I daresayHalderschrodt...."
"Oh, it's hardly worth while bothering that personage about such a sum,"I interrupted. Halderschrodt, in those days, was a name that suggestedno dealings in any sum less than a million.
"My dear Etchingham," my aunt interrupted in a shocked tone, "it isquite worth his while to oblige us...."
"I didn't know," I said.
That afternoon we drove to Halderschrodt's private office, asumptuous--that is the _mot juste_--suite of rooms on the first floor ofthe house next to the Duc de Mersch's _Sans Souci_. I sat on aplush-bottomed gilded chair, whilst my pseudo-sister transacted herbusiness in an adjoining room--a room exactly corresponding with thatwithin which de Mersch had lurked whilst the lady was warning me againsthim. A clerk came after awhile, carried me off into an enclosure, wheremy bill was discounted by another, and then reconducted me to my plushchair. I did not occupy it, as it happened. A meagre, very tall Alsatianwas holding the door open for the exit of my sister. He said nothing atall, but stood slightly inclined as she passed him. I caught a glimpseof a red, long face, very tired eyes, and hair of almost startlingwhiteness--the white hair of a comparatively young man, without anylustre of any sort--a dead white, like that of snow. I remember thatwhite hair with a feeling of horror, whilst I have almost forgotten thefe
atures of the great Baron de Halderschrodt.
I had still some of the feeling of having been in contact with apersonality of the most colossal significance as we went down the redcarpet of the broad white marble stairs. With one foot on the loweststep, the figure of a perfectly clothed, perfectly groomed man wasstanding looking upward at our descent. I had thought so little of himthat the sight of the Duc de Mersch's face hardly suggested any train ofemotions. It lit up with an expression of pleasure.
"You," he said.
She stood looking down upon him from the altitude of two steps, lookingwith intolerable passivity.
"So you use the common stairs," she said, "one had the idea that youcommunicated with these people through a private door." He laugheduneasily, looking askance at me.
"Oh, I ..." he said.
She moved a little to one side to pass him in her descent.
"So things have arranged themselves--_la bas_," she said, referring, Isupposed, to the elective grand duchy.
"Oh, it was like a miracle," he answered, "and I owed a great deal--agreat deal--to your hints...."
"You must tell me all about it to-night," she said.
De Mersch's face had an extraordinary quality that I seemed to notice inall the faces around me--a quality of the flesh that seemed to lose allluminosity, of the eyes that seemed forever to have a tendency to seekthe ground, to avoid the sight of the world. When he brightened toanswer her it was as if with effort. It seemed as if a weight were onthe mind of the whole world--a preoccupation that I shared withoutunderstanding. She herself, a certain absent-mindedness apart, seemedthe only one that was entirely unaffected.
As we sat side by side in the little carriage, she said suddenly:
"They are coming to the end of their tether, you see." I shrank awayfrom her a little--but I did not see and did not want to see. I said so.It even seemed to me that de Mersch having got over the troubles _labas_, was taking a new lease of life.
"I _did_ think," I said, "a little time ago that ..."
The wheels of the coupe suddenly began to rattle abominably over thecobbles of a narrow street. It was impossible to talk, and I was thrownback upon myself. I found that I was in a temper--in an abominabletemper. The sudden sight of that man, her method of greeting him, theintimacy that the scene revealed ... the whole thing had upset me. Oflate, for want of any alarms, in spite of groundlessness I had had theimpression that I was the integral part of her life. It was not alogical idea, but strictly a habit of mind that had grown up in thedesolation of my solitude.
We passed into one of the larger boulevards, and the thing ran silently.
"That de Mersch was crumbling up," she suddenly completed my unfinishedsentence; "oh, that was only a grumble--premonitory. But it won't takelong now. I have been putting on the screw. Halderschrodt will ... Isuppose he will commit suicide, in a day or two. And then the--the funwill begin."
I didn't answer. The thing made no impression--no mental impression atall.