Chapter IV

A few days later, Antoinette returned to London; and old Madame de Courcy, her grandmother, was interrogating her on the subject of her stay with the Faynes.... Had she met many amiable young men? Had they admired her? Had she told them to come and visit her grandmother and her parents? And her friend, la petite Fayne, had she also been admired?

Antoinette answered all these questions with a comprehensive “Oui, Grand’mère....” Conversation with Madame de Courcy was always difficult, firstly because she was very deaf and secondly because she was of an inquisitiveness and a lack of tact and discretion, that ruled out for Antoinette all possibility of confidence or affection. She could only see her grandmother as a comic figure; sometimes as a most irritating one; never by any chance as one to be loved or reverenced. Grand’mère frequently indulged in fits of hysteria, in which at the top of her voice, she would set forth the failings and shortcomings of three generations of the family, with a special notice for the particular offence of which each individual, whether dead or alive, had been guilty towards herself. The performance would usually be started by some quite irrelevant trifle—some slight breach of etiquette or imagined lack of consideration for her years and dignity. Part I would be purely personal and insulting; but Part II, transcending the limits of the personal, would be wider in range, epic and panoramic; while Part III was crudely effective through sheer noise and smashing of furniture, or whatever chanced to be most handy. But Madame de Courcy possessed the remarkable faculty of being able, without the slightest transition or modulation, to switch off her hysterics, if a change of front seemed desirable. Thus at one moment, with tears streaming down her face, she could rave _fortissimo_ because Antoinette had omitted to say good morning to her, or because her son-in-law René of Grenoble had once passed out of the dining-room in front of her ... and then when she had succeeded in working up everyone else to a similar pitch of excitement, she could on the instant turn round and smile, in dulcet tones demand of Antoinette the assurance that she “_aimait bien sa petite grand’mère_,” and resume the conversation where it had previously been abandoned. The audience—if audience there happened to be, and there usually did—was invariably staggered no less by the suddenness of the change than by the actual recital of the Family Saga.

She was a marvellous old lady, despite her seventy years; and her fierce dark eyebrows met above her patrician nose, and the hairs upon her upper lip were many. She had a wonderful memory—for grievances. And she needed to have, as her family was very extensive and scattered about in all portions of the globe; and only by reciting the tale of their manifold iniquities could she draw them together in her mind’s eye.... At least, so thought Antoinette, who from childhood upwards had listened to Grand’mère’s outbursts, first in fear and trembling, and later on in pure artistic appreciation of a spectacular performance.

Grand’mère’s chief hobbies and interests in life were births, deaths, marriages and operations; but especially marriages, the arrangement, furtherance and consequences of same. She combined the notion that a young girl should be brought up in darkest ignorance of the facts of life, with a fondness for discussing them publicly in intimate detail, and with a Rabelaisian virility of language. She had married off her six daughters, with more or less success, to gentlemen in suitable positions residing in France, Italy and Spain. But when Anatole, her darling only son, had come to England for business-reasons, she had accompanied him and his young wife, and lived with them ever since. Anatole de Courcy was a wholesale dealer in coffee, and a fairly astute man of business. In appearance he was lean, dark, rather yellow in the face, with projecting front teeth and a ragged moustache that he was in the habit of gnawing. He was the only one of her children whom Madame de Courcy had spoilt, and still manifested all the most objectionable characteristics of the nursery favourite. He was both obstinate and petty, and prone to outbursts of temper, not unlike his mother’s. Sometimes, indeed, mother and son would scream at each other for hours together, the duet only terminating when one of the vocalists fell dumb through exhaustion.

On these occasions, Henriette de Courcy, who had long ago learnt the futility of interfering between her husband and her mother-in-law, would with a sweeping gesture of her beautiful hand, beckon Antoinette out of the room. “Come, my child, we are not needed here ...” which was obvious: Anatole and his mother, both weeping tears of rage, and hurling the bitterest taunts and recriminations at each other, were supremely happy.... But Henriette could never let the slightest occasion for theatricality pass unnoticed. In her youth she had studied elocution, and had even had dreams of going on the stage, dreams which she had been obliged to relinquish when her parents married her to Anatole de Courcy. Anatole was rich; Henriette was poor, and one of a great many sisters.... But she never allowed either herself or her environment to forget that but for her marriage, she might have become one of the leading _tragédiennes_ of France. Her whole bearing, her gestures, the flowing draperies she affected, were all reminiscent of the great actress who, in her own opinion, had been sacrificed to matrimony with a coffee-dealer. Perhaps the constant habit of the theatrical pose accounted for the fact that Antoinette never felt any real warmth of affection existing between herself and her mother. There was always at the back of her mind the suspicion that Henriette’s magnificent gestures, and deep thrilling inflections expressive of maternal passion, were really no more than gestures and inflections, practised, perfectly finished, but with nothing genuine behind them. Henriette was perpetually voicing lofty sentiments upon the true development of the soul, and had even been known, in the presence of her family, to extol free love and the beauties thereof. Needless to say Anatole and old Madame de Courcy did their best to counteract her evil influence upon her daughter. But Antoinette felt that they need not have troubled: here again she could not rid herself of the conviction that her mother was not sincere, and that her vaunted broad-mindedness would turn into the righteous indignation of the conventional _bourgeoise_, if ever it were put to the test.

The house in Cadogan Gardens was hideously furnished; the rooms, spacious and gloomy, were crammed with dreadful ornaments and pictures that were either family heirlooms or had been Anatole’s wedding presents from his numerous sisters. Many small tables in the drawing-room were laden with photographs of the six sisters with their respective husbands and offspring; a most alarming exhibition, thought Antoinette, as neither her aunts nor her cousins were remarkable for their beauty. On the contrary. However, the plain young cousins made up in virtue what they so manifestly lacked in looks; witness the embroidered mats and doyleys and cushion-covers that had been worked as birthday or Xmas presents for Madame de Courcy, and testified to many hours of patient toil on the part of her grandchildren. Antoinette’s handiwork alone was not represented in this orgy of cross-stitch and crochet. Antoinette could do neither cross-stitch nor crochet, wherefore her grandmother argued that there must be something radically wrong with her.

As long as she had been too young and helpless to protest against the outrage, she had always been made to recite on Madame de Courcy’s birthday. On one occasion she had been heavily coached by her mother in a long speech from “Athalie,” and Madame de Courcy, who was not interested in the classics, and too deaf to understand much anyway, began to chatter in the middle of the recitation. Antoinette stopped dead. Her mother signed to her to continue. Grand’mère went on chatting.... Antoinette fumed, shifting from one leg on to the other. “Go on, _chérie_,” whispered Henriette. “I’ll go on when that horrid old woman stops talking!” cried Antoinette, loud enough to be heard by the deafest of grandmothers.

... In the course of the scene which ensued, Grand’mère hurled a book at her young grand-daughter’s head. It missed its mark and fell to the ground; Antoinette, obeying the histrionic instinct inherited from her mother, picked it up and with icy politeness handed it back: “I think you have dropped something....”

Since that day, Madame de Courcy had realised that Antoinette was somehow different from her other grandchildren, and that she had “a difficult little character.” “_Tant pis_,” she was wont to reflect, “we will have to marry her young....” But so far Antoinette had refused to accept her grandmother’s sovereign cure for an unusual temperament. Grand’mère could not understand it. Why, she herself had manœuvred several meetings with suitable people, and the girl went out in that disgraceful free-and-easy English way with quite a lot of young men—by dint of some picturesque perversion of the truth, Antoinette had succeeded in obtaining a certain amount of liberty—but hitherto nothing had come either of Grand’mère’s efforts or of Antoinette’s gadding about. And it was not that Grand’mère was not vigilant, or that she failed in her duty towards her Anatole’s only child: no man could take Antoinette out to tea, or write or telephone to her, without Madame de Courcy enquiring into his financial position, and, after the second or third meeting had taken place: “_Eh bien, ma petite_, he has not yet spoken to you of marriage?”

When Antoinette, after many discussions, had finally been allowed to go to Amberhurst, Grand’mère had propounded the theory that she had been invited because the Faynes knew of some rich young man who would be staying there at the same time, and that they were doubtless trying to bring about a match between him and Antoinette. Henriette languidly reminded her mother-in-law that the Faynes had a daughter of their own; but Madame de Courcy, who was wonderfully imaginative where her favourite topic of matrimony was concerned, argued that even if Miss Fayne _did_ get engaged to the “_parti_,” the “_parti_” might be struck by the charms of Miss Fayne’s friend, and remember that he also possessed a friend, rich and suitable like himself, who would wish to be introduced to the friend of his friend’s _fiancée_....

Hence Grand’mère’s flood of questions on Antoinette’s return.

As the family sat down to dinner that night, the old lady greeted her son as usual with: “_Eh bien, mon fils, comment vont les affaires?_” And he, also as usual, replied impatiently: “_Mal, mal_ ...” for he was a confirmed pessimist. This short duologue took place between mother and son every evening. Having performed the ritual, Grand’mère continued to question Antoinette with an air of false benignity that was intended to put her at her ease, and draw forth her artless confidence.

“Tell me the names of the young men you have met. Do they live in London? Was there not one amongst them who pleased you more than the others?”

Very demurely, with dark lashes sweeping her white cheeks, Antoinette launched forth into descriptions of Mr. Griggs and Clive Blackwood. She drew a particularly beautiful imaginary portrait of Griggs, and Grand’mère pricked up her ears.

“He lives in the country, that one? He has estates? He has asked you to visit his family?”

Antoinette immediately robbed Mr. Griggs of his vast country estates, by saying that alas, owing to the innate nobility of his character, he had renounced them in favour of a consumptive younger brother.... Grand’mère lost interest, until it struck her that the consumptive brother might die, and Griggs thus recover possession of the estates. Antoinette did not think it likely: the brother wasn’t as consumptive as all that....

“You waste your time with the wrong people,” her father declared irritably, “people who can be of no use to you.”

“She lacks the commercial instinct,” Henriette spoke very slowly and beautifully, and putting up her lorgnon, surveyed Antoinette through it. “_C’est bien ma fille...._”

Anatole banged his fist upon the table. “It is the nonsense you put into her head, that makes her so difficult.”

Henriette smiled her best smile of martyrdom and patient endurance.

... And Antoinette was glad that this wasn’t all: that this hideous house and this family-party with its bickerings and discussions, did not represent the sum-total of her universe; glad that she had given a more or less fictitious account of her stay, and that she could keep to herself everything that had really mattered. This sense of having a secret which the others could not guess, made her feel wonderfully secure, invulnerable, almost: as if no irritation or annoyance could touch her, while she wrapped herself around with her memories of Hester.

On the plea of fatigue after her journey, she soon escaped upstairs to her room; smiled at the tablecloth that had been embroidered by her cousin Marguerite from Lyons, and that Grand’mère had placed in Antoinette’s room, hoping it might exercise a beneficent influence upon her character. Antoinette laughed happily; went to bed, and was soon fast asleep, dreaming of Hester.

* * * * *

It was a long time since she had been as happy and as excited as she was now. Her schooldays had held occasional periods of a similar excitement, but the three years since she had left boarding-school, had been conspicuously barren, compared with what had gone before. When she was thirteen, there had been the melancholy-eyed young teacher of literature whom she had adored; a dreamy unpopular woman, who had been made to suffer horribly in the innumerable little ways in which schoolgirls can torment their victims. Antoinette had been seized with a kind of holy wrath, and desire to avenge and protect; she had flamed out against the whole class, almost wishing that they would turn and rend her, so that she might have the pleasure of sacrificing herself for her idol.... The idol very soon learnt to return the adoration of the fervent and hot-tempered worshipper; and simultaneously Antoinette began to lose interest. She had only enjoyed her rôle, as long as Miss Prescot had taken no notice of her: had been apparently unaware of the flutter and throb of excitement caused by her mere presence in the class-room, or her casual good-night kiss at bed-time. When Miss Prescot had come to single her out from the other girls and to linger fondly over that good-night kiss, Antoinette had had quite a fit of repulsion. She only enjoyed an up-hill battle; even at that age, the easy conquest had bored her. Also, she hated being touched, except in cases where her own feelings were aroused. She shook off the girls who sought to walk with their arms through hers, or to stroke her funny boyish head of hair; she would run away from them, revelling in the fun of the chase, yet dreading capture ... the fear in her eyes contradicted by the laughing curves of her mouth; the eyes of a nun, indeed, and the mouth of a voluptuary.

And then, some time later, there was the Russian girl, Natasha.

This time, Antoinette’s passion was not killed by easy reciprocity, but kept alive by a thousand subtle tortures, rekindled by a single look or gesture, whenever Natasha imagined that it showed signs of waning. Her beauty was her strongest weapon, and at seventeen she used it with a refinement of cruelty that would have done credit to a woman twice her years. Antoinette was fascinated by her long sleepy eyes, that were green as jade, and as hard; by the heavy black hair growing low down upon her forehead; by her indolent graceful body, and the coldly indifferent manner that seemed to express the disdain in which she held her schoolfellows and her teachers alike. She had many slaves and admirers in the school, but none so ardent, so abandoned in her devotion, as Antoinette. Therefore, seeing that this was the case, Natasha ignored her completely; avoided her on purpose when she knew that the younger girl was hovering about the stairs on the chance of being allowed to say good-night to her; ridiculed her adoration in front of the others; paraded ostentatiously with her favourites before Antoinette’s jealous eyes. And then, as she did not wish to forfeit altogether the entertaining spectacle of Antoinette’s passion, she would suddenly and unexpectedly be nice to her, making amends in five minutes for all the ill-treatment of the previous weeks. Antoinette forgave her gladly and generously, but the moment she imagined that her troubles were at an end, Natasha would with equal suddenness withdraw her favour, and treat her as badly as ever....

Antoinette suffered greatly at the time, but when her passion had worn itself out, she began to look forward with new zest to being grown up. If already this world of women and girls, narrow though it was, could contain for her such a wealth of thrills and excitement, how much more wonderful must be that other world, the world beyond school, the world of men. So far, she was inclined to feel contemptuous of the world of men, as represented by the elderly masters who took some of the classes at the fashionable boarding-school, and by the coarse-looking schoolboys who grinned at the girls when they passed each other on their daily walks. But she knew that when she was grown-up, everything would be different. Antoinette, counting the months, the years—fifteen, sixteen, seventeen—indulging in occasional passing flickers of feeling for this girl or that mistress; Antoinette, young, eager and glowing with an exuberant vitality, could scarcely await her eighteenth birthday, and the meeting with the lover who, she knew, awaited her ... a lover to whom she could give all the passion of her soul, and whose touch would thrill her even more potently than had the touch of those women she had adored.

But when at last she was released from school, the grown-up world of men proved singularly disappointing; totally devoid of that stimulus for which she craved. The wonderful lover of her imagination had certainly not yet appeared upon the scene. In the meantime, various supers tried to play the part, but with no success as far as she was concerned. She let them kiss her, because she hoped that thus she might find what she sought; but those that did not arouse active repulsion in her, merely bored her, left her with a sense of staleness and dissatisfaction. She began to fear that she would never be capable of feeling anything for anybody again. And now Hester had proved her fears to be groundless.... Gladly, gratefully Antoinette welcomed her advent, and the rush of emotion which she had called forth; turned with relief from her fruitless search in the world of masculinity, to give herself up to whole-hearted worship of this proud silent woman, who had had the power to arouse her from her temporary lethargy. And in so doing, Antoinette was free from the least taint of morbidity; unaware that there was aught of unusual about her attitude—Hester herself had perceived this—she merely felt that she was coming into her own again, and was healthy-minded and joyous in her unquestioning obedience to the dictates of her inmost nature.

* * * * *

Hester wrote, giving her address at Bristol; nothing more. Antoinette turned the scrawled half-sheet over and over in the hope of finding some other message, but in vain. She had to rest content with having the address, and hence, obviously, the permission to write to Hester.... She wrote by return a very long letter that was amusing as well as ardent, for she remembered that she had on occasions been able to arouse Hester’s caustic sense of humour. And fervently she hoped that by-and-by Hester would come to reveal herself in writing more intimately than she was ever likely to do in speech.

The strain of waiting for Hester’s answer was almost unbearable; at last it came: a brief acknowledgment of the receipt of Antoinette’s letter, and the date of her departure from Bristol....

Hereupon Antoinette wrote despairingly: “Won’t you for once write me a _real_ letter?” And Hester wrote back: “I never write what you call _real_ letters....”

After the first disappointment, Antoinette was conscious of renewed stimulation. Hester was unlike anyone she had ever met. What must be the life-history, every clue to which was guarded from the merest chance of revelation by pen and paper? Antoinette determined that one day she would break through Hester’s reserve. In the meantime she continued to batter it with letters into which she put all the warmth and passion that were in her.

About the time she received Hester’s second note, a letter came from Dennis Blackwood in Devonshire. Without a formal mode of address, it started straight away with a request for permission to write to her, and then rambled on for many pages in a particularly charming style, giving vivid bits of description of the places where he and Crispin were staying, and telling her little humorous incidents of the day’s tramp. Antoinette said that certainly he might write to her, if he pleased; but she did not write to him at any length, because her one-sided correspondence with Hester was absorbing all her spare time and interest. But apparently her letter was cordial enough to call forth an answer by return.

Soon Dennis was writing to her every other day, then every day, then twice a day.... Regretfully she compared his long and truly delightful letters with Hester’s curt scrappy communications. It seemed such a waste not to be in love with Dennis. His veritable avalanche of letters undoubtedly pleased and flattered her, but did not cause one fraction of the palpitating excitement that she felt at the mere sight of Hester’s writing on an envelope.

But her grandmother’s agitation alone would have made it worth Antoinette’s while to keep up the correspondence. Grand’mère had naturally demanded full details concerning the young man who wrote to her grand-daughter with such improper frequency. And Antoinette, more demure and “jeune fille” than ever, had modestly said that he was a great artist....

“_Hein, hein_, an artist? That does not please me at all. He has doubtless not a farthing, and you know very well that _la vie de bohème_ is nothing for you,” with a warning glance at Henriette, from whom Antoinette was assumed to have inherited all her immoral tendencies.

Antoinette continued gleefully to foster in her grandmother’s mind the vision of Dennis as an impecunious artist with short nails and long hair, who would encourage her to dance upon tables, drink champagne for breakfast, associate with people who posed for “_L’ensemble_”—even if she did not actually pose for “_L’ensemble_” herself—and generally behave in a manner incompatible with Cadogan Gardens and the dignity of the de Courcys.