Chapter FIFTEEN

Crowds of people were waiting at the Porte d’Orléans for the trams to Fresnes. They stood with phlegmatic patience, craning their necks, and each tram was immediately packed when it did come with parties going to spend Sunday in the country. With each party was a jocular young man and two girls who giggled, or that was what it seemed like to Marya. The neat little houses slipped past and the endless row of sycamore trees. At the Café of the Cadran Bleu she got down.

The warder who took the permits knew her. His ‘_Qui êtes-vous?_’ was mechanical.

‘_Sa femme._’

‘_Passez_,’ said the warder. And she passed into the cobblestoned courtyard. She had begun to have a dreadful feeling of familiarity with the place: the whitewashed corridor that smelt of damp and rot, the stone staircase, the queue of women awaiting their turn in the cubicles. That day it was all arm-in-arm as it were. The drably terrible life of the underdog.

The prison was familiar, but it seemed to her that Stephan was a stranger: dark-bearded, shaven-headed, very thin, very bright-eyed. He wore--as usual--a piece of sacking over his head and he gripped the bars and leaned forward, talking slowly in his rusty voice.

He asked her why she had left the Heidlers.

‘Because you weren’t free there? _Mais, tu es folle, Mado._ What do you want to be free for? Have you got a job? What are you going to do now? Really you must be mad to do a thing like that.’

She reminded him, feeling nervous and awkward, that he would be at liberty in four months.

‘Only four months! Only four months! My God, it’s so easy to talk, isn’t it?’ He went on irritably, but always with those imploring eyes of a small boy. ‘How do I know what will happen when I am free? I’ve no money. I’ll have to leave France. You have friends and you lose them. You’re not clever. But I don’t mean to quarrel. I’m going off my head here. You’re not vexed?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘No, no, no.’

‘Last Sunday,’ he said, ‘when you didn’t come I felt awful. Of course, I didn’t get your letter in time and I was waiting for them to call out my number when visiting-time came. Every number that was called out I thought was mine. And it never was. And then I thought, “She’s late today.” And then I thought, “She’s never as late as this. She must be ill. She’s not coming.” But still I couldn’t help listening for my number each time they called. I was glad when the time was up, I can tell you. It sounds nothing, but it was awful. One goes mad shut up here.’

She smiled. ‘I never will not turn up again, Stephan. Never. So don’t worry.’

The warder banged open the door and snarled. Stephan disappeared.

As she walked away she knew why the prison had seemed closer and more terrible than ever before. It was because the thought of Heidler had always stood between her and the horror of it. He was big and calm and comforting. He said: ‘Don’t worry. I love you, d’you see?’ And one hadn’t worried. At least, not so much.

She sat in the corner of the tram watching the sycamore trees speed past.

Heidler, Heidler, Heidler.

Supposing she asked him, next time she saw him: ‘Heidler, save me. I’m afraid. Save me.’ Just like that. Then he’d think her a coward. ‘I wonder if I am a coward,’ reflected Marya. And then: ‘And how many of them could stick it--all the people who’d call me coward? Not many--with their well-fed eyes and their long upper lips.’ Something hard and dry in her chest was hurting her.

When she got back to her hotel, which was near the Gare de Montparnasse, she took all Heidler’s letters and re-read them. Five letters. She had left Brunoy four days before. Very good letters they were, too. Very convincing. She had answered once--shortly and coldly. The fifth and last letter told her that he was coming to the Hôtel du Bosphore to see her the next afternoon. It began: ‘Dearest. Dearest in all the world,’ and ended with an effect as of a sudden attack of caution--‘So I’ll be with you about four. Yours H.’

* * * * *

The Hôtel du Bosphore looked down on Montparnasse station, where all day a succession of shabby trains, each trailing its long scarf of smoke, clanked slowly backwards and forwards.

Behind the trains a background of huge advertisements: A scarlet haired baby Cadum: a horrible little boy in a sailor suit: _Exigez toujours du Lion Noir_. A horrible little girl with a pigtail: _Evitez le contrefaçons_.

An atmosphere of departed and ephemeral loves hung about the bedroom like stale scent, for the hotel was one of unlimited hospitality, though quietly, discreetly and not more so that most of its neighbours. The wallpaper was vaguely erotic--huge and fantastically shaped mauve, green and yellow flowers sprawling on a black ground. There was one chair and a huge bed covered with a pink counterpane. It was impossible, when one looked at that bed, not to think of the succession of _petites femmes_ who had extended themselves upon it, clad in carefully thought out pink or mauve chemises, full of tact and savour faire and savoir vivre and all the rest of it.

On the morning after her visit to Fresnes, Marya woke early and dressed slowly, listening for the man with the flock of goats who passed under her window every morning at about half-past ten, playing a frail little tune on a pipe. He was a sturdy man who looked as if he were out in all weathers. He wore country clothes and a _béret basque_, and he carried on his back a black bag marked in white letters: _Fromage de chèvre_.

But it was the little tune he played which enchanted her. Not a gay blast on a trumpet like the glazier. He also passed, but earlier. This was thin, high, sweet music like water running in the sun, and the man played, not to attract customers, but to keep his flock in order. They were wonderful goats, five of them, all black and white, and they crossed the street calmly, avoiding trams with dignity and skill. One behind the other and no jostling, like the perfect ladies that they were.

Marya listened to the music of the pipe, dwindling away in the distance, persistent as the hope of happiness. Then she lunched at Boots’ Bar (once A la Savoyard, renamed by the proprietor, an anglophile), and after lunch went back to her melancholy bedroom and slept, for she had lain awake all night, tormented by doubts and fears. When she awoke, bewildered, Heidler was there looking down on her.

She had meant to tell him: ‘I love you. You aren’t making any mistake about that, are you?’ But all she said was: ‘Please will you draw the curtains?’

* * * * *

‘H. J....’

‘What is it, my darling?’

‘You aren’t sad?’

‘My dear, no, of course not.’

She said: ‘Listen. I feel as if I’d fallen down a precipice.’

‘You funny thing,’ said Heidler.

But that was how she felt. Because she knew that she would never be able even to pretend to fight him again, and because, when she looked anxiously into his eyes, she had imagined that they were sad and cold like ashes.

‘Well, look here, my dear one, I must go. I’ve got to--’ He stopped.

Of course he’d been going to say, ‘I’ve got to go back to Lois.’

She thought: ‘I must get used to this. No use making a fuss,’ and fixed a mechanical smile on her lips.

‘Don’t get up,’ said Heidler. ‘I’ll send you in dinner and some wine. And a book. Have you got any books? It’s horrible outside.’

When he went he left the door open. The gramophone belonging to the South American gentleman next door was playing ‘I want to be happy.’ Naturally.

* * * * *

He was very different next morning. A new Heidler, one she had never seen before. To begin with, he wore a bowler hat. When they were seated in the Restaurant de Versailles she was still thinking uneasily about the hat, because it seemed symbolical of a new attitude. He looked self-possessed, respectable, yet not without a certain hard rakishness. There is something impressive, something which touches the imagination about the sight of an English bowler hat in the Rue de Rennes.... In the middle of the meal he announced:

‘Lois is expecting you to tea this afternoon.’

‘But I don’t want to go.’

‘My darling child,’ said Heidler with calmness, ‘your whole point of view and your whole attitude to life is impossible and wrong and you’ve got to change it for everybody’s sake.’

He went on to explain that one had to keep up appearances. That everybody had to. Everybody had for everybody’s sake to keep up appearances. It was everybody’s duty, it was in fact what they were there for.

‘You’ve got to play the game.’

Marya said: ‘Lois simply wants me around so that she can tear me to bits and get her friends to help her to tear me to bits.’ She added slowly: ‘They’ll tear me up and show you the bits. That’s what will happen. And you won’t see it. A Frenchman would see the game at once, but you won’t see it, or you pretend not to.’

‘Rubbish!’ said Heidler, looking vexed. ‘Lois is very fond of you. One’s got to take certain things into account which may not seem to you very important. But which....’ His nose seemed to lengthen oddly as he spoke.

Marya thought: ‘He looks exactly like a picture of Queen Victoria.’

But he was convincing, impressive and full of authority. He overwhelmed her. She made one last effort.

‘H. J., Lois doesn’t like me,’ she said. ‘She can’t possibly want to see me.’

‘I tell you that she’s extremely fond of you,’ asserted Heidler. ‘She’s always saying so. She’s very sorry for you, for the dreadful life you’ve had and all that.’

‘Ah,’ said Marya, helplessly.

‘I hate explaining these things,’ Heidler went on fretfully. ‘I hate talking about things, but you surely must see that you can’t let Lois down. Everybody knows that you were staying with us and if there’s a definite split it will give the whole show away. I can’t let Lois down,’ he kept saying, ‘we must keep up appearances, we must play the game.’

Marya told him at last miserably: ‘Oh, all right, of course.’

‘Savage,’ he said, watching her, ‘Bolshevist! You’ll end up in red Russia, that’s what will happen to you.’

‘I thought that you understood that in me.’

‘Oh, theoretically,’ answered Heidler. ‘Theoretically, of course I do. My darling, have a chartreuse and don’t look so miserable.’

‘But he really is like Queen Victoria sometimes,’ thought Marya.

He took his bowler hat and they departed. They bought cakes on the way.

Lois greeted Marya in a high voice and with a gleam of triumph in her eyes. She wore a gown of purple georgette, silk stockings and high-heeled shoes. She had changed the colour of her face-powder and looked younger. Below the décolleté of her dress was a glimpse of a rose-coloured chemise.

Marya thought: ‘How ridiculous we both are,’ and sat on the divan feeling like a captive attached to somebody’s chariot wheels.

Miss Nicolson arrived, and Mrs O’Mara, and the Satterbys and Guy and partner, and several young men of various nationalities.

Lois handed cups of tea and ordered Heidler about and called Marya ‘Darling Mado’ when he was there, and was spiteful when he was out of earshot. They talked about a new dance club they were starting, and whether the Countess Stadkioff ought to be barred.

‘Bar a countess?’ Marya expected to hear Lois say. ‘No, certainly not.’ She turned politely in her direction. But, to her surprise, Lois nodded.

Everybody said: ‘Yes, we’ll bar the countess this time.’ Then they all looked relieved, as though they had sacrificed to some tribal god.

Miss Anna Nicolson, who painted landscapes and was a very bright talker indeed was witty about the colour of the countess’s hair.

She was Lois’s friend and confidante and, as she talked, she watched Marya with amused and virginal eyes. She was thinking:

‘The idea of a woman making such an utter fool of herself. It’s hardly to be believed. Her hand is trembling. No poise.... Lois needn’t be afraid of her. But then, Lois is a bit of a fool herself. Englishwomen very often are.’