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MRS. VANDERSTEIN'S JEWELS
MRS. VANDERSTEIN'S JEWELS
BY MRS. CHARLES BRYCE
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY TORONTO: BELL & COCKBURN MCMXIV
THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX.
MRS. VANDERSTEIN'S JEWELS
CHAPTER I
The room looked very cool in the afternoon light. A few bowls of whiteroses that were arranged about it seemed to lend it an aspect of morethan usual specklessness.
To Madame Querterot, a person of no taste, who made no pretensionof being fastidious, and who had, moreover, little sympathy with apassion for cleanliness when this was carried to exaggeration, the airylightness of the place suggested the convent school of her youthfuldays; and, bringing again before her the figure of a stern sistersuperior who had been accustomed in those vanished times to deal outsevere penalties to the youthful but constantly erring Justine, causedher invariably to enter Mrs. Vanderstein's bedroom after a quick intakeof the breath on the threshold, as if she were about to plunge into anicy bath.
Mrs. Vanderstein, ever the essence of punctuality, was ready for her onthis particular evening, as she always was.
Wrapped in some diaphanous white garment, which she would perhaps havecalled a dressing-gown, she lay on a silk covered sofa and lazilywatched Madame Querterot unpacking the little bag in which she carriedthe accessories of her profession, that of a hairdresser and beautyspecialist.
"You must make me very beautiful to-night, Madame Justine," she said,with a smile. "We are going to hear _La Boheme_, and the Queen willbe there. My box is nearly opposite the Royal box, and in case HerMajesty's eyes fall in my direction I wish to look my best."
"All eyes will not fail to be directed to your side of the theatre,madame," replied Madame Querterot, taking out her collection of pomadepots, powder boxes and washes, and arranging them in a semicircle upon aLouis XVI table. "Royalties know the use of opera glasses as well as anycitizen. As for making you beautiful, the good God has occupied Himselfwith that! I can only preserve what I find. I can make your beautyendure, madame. More than that one must not ask of me. I am not thegood God, me!" and Madame Querterot's plump shoulders shook with easymerriment.
Mrs. Vanderstein, too, smiled. She did not suffer from any affectationof modesty as far as her obvious good looks were concerned. But she wasobliged to own regretfully--though only to herself--that she was nolonger as young as she had been; and the masseuse's assurances that heryouthful appearance could be indefinitely preserved fell on her earsas melodiously as if they were indeed a prelude to the magic strainsthat would presently rise to charm her through the envied, if stuffyatmosphere of Covent Garden.
"You are a flatterer, Madame Justine," she murmured. Then, before shelaid her head back against the cushions and gave herself up to MadameQuerterot's ministrations, she called to a figure that was seated in thewindow, half hidden among the muslin curtains that fluttered before it:"Barbara, be sure and tell me if you see anything interesting."
Barbara Turner answered without looking round:
"Nothing has come yet, but I am keeping a good look-out."
Mrs. Vanderstein closed her eyes, and Madame Querterot, after turning upher sleeves and arraying herself in an apron, began to pass her shortfingers over the placid features and smooth skin of the lady's face. Fora time nothing else stirred in the big room.
A ray of sunlight passed very slowly across a portion of the greypanelled walls, and coming to a gilded mirror climbed cautiously overthe carved frame, only to be caught and held a while on the flashingsurface of the looking-glass.
On every side the subdued gold of ancient frames, surrounding pricelesspictures that had been acquired by the help of the excellent judgmentand long purse of the late Mr. Vanderstein, shone softly and pleasantly.
The furniture, of the best period of the reign of Louis XVI--as wasthe case all over the house--had been collected by the same unerringconnoisseur, and each piece would have been welcomed with tears of joyby many an eager director of museums.
The thick carpet that covered the floor exactly matched the pale greytone of the walls and upholstery, and the extreme lightness of theseimparted that air of great luxury which the lavish use of fragilecolours, in a town as dirty as London, does more to convey than any moreostentatious sign of extravagance.
Through the open casements many noises rose from the street, for thebedroom was at the front of the house, which stood in a street inMayfair immediately opposite to a great hotel where the overflow offoreign Royalty is frequently sheltered at times of Court festivals,when the hospitable walls of the Palace are filled to bursting point.
The coming and going of these distinguished guests was always a sourceof the most unquenchable interest to Mrs. Vanderstein, to whom everytrivial action, if it were performed by any sort of a Highness, wasbrimming with thrilling suggestion.
At the period of which I speak, London was astir with preparations fora great function, and representatives of the Courts of Europe werearriving by every train from the Continent.
Mrs. Vanderstein could hear the sounds of a constant stream of carriagesand motors stopping or starting below her window, and knew that itwas not to her door that they crowded, but across the road under themagnificent stucco portico of Fianti's Hotel.
"Barbara, has no one interesting appeared?" she called again after a fewminutes.
"Not yet," was the reply. "There's a victoria driving along the streetnow, though, which looks something like a Royal turnout. Rather a nicelooking pair in it."
"Is it a pair of foreign looking gentlemen?" asked Mrs. Vandersteinexcitedly.
"No, a pair of Cleveland bays. I hate them as a rule, but from here theydon't look bad. All back, though, of course."
"My dear girl, do tell me about the people. I don't want to hear aboutyour horrid horses. I believe all sorts of celebrities go in and out ofFianti's while I am lying here, and you never even notice them."
"Yes, yes, I do," said Barbara. "I will call you directly any one passeswho looks as if he might be accustomed to wield the sceptre, or who iswearing a crown over his top hat."
Mrs. Vanderstein made a little impatient movement. It annoyed her thather companion did not take her duties more seriously--did not, in fact,seem to understand how much more important was this task of keeping agood look-out in the wide bow of the window than any of the others thatshe was apt to approach in a quite admirable spirit of thoroughness.Why, wondered Mrs. Vanderstein, could the girl not do as she was askedin this matter, without making those attempts to be facetious whichappeared so ill-advised, and which fell so extremely flat, as a moment'sobservation would have made apparent to her? She did not make jokesabout the flowers while she arranged them, nor about Mrs. Vanderstein'scorrespondence, to which it was her business to attend. She was ableto answer the telephone or order the carriage without indulging inunseemly giggles. Why then, in heaven's name, couldn't she take up herpost of observation at the window without finding in it an excuse forpleasantries as dull as they were pointless?
Mrs. Vanderstein sighed deeply and wriggled her head deeper in thecushions.
Madame Querterot saw the cloud and guessed very easily what had causedit: she had often noticed similar disturbances of her customer'sotherwise easy-going temper. Knowing with remarkable accuracy on whichside of her bread the butter was applied, she at once set herself tocalm the troubled waters.
"You did not see me to-day, madame," she began, "but me, I have alread
yseen you. I passed in Piccadilly where your auto was stopped in a blockbefore the Ritz."
"Yes, we were kept there quite a long time, but I did not see you,Madame Justine," said Mrs. Vanderstein indifferently.
"How should you have seen me? I was in a bus. It's not there that youwould look for your acquaintances. That understands itself! But I wasnot the only one to see you, and what I heard said of you then willmake you smile. I said to myself at the moment, 'It is quite natural,Justine, but it will make her laugh all the same.'"
"What was it? Who can have said anything of me in an omnibus?"
"Ah, madame! Even in buses people do not cease to talk. One hears thingsto make one twist with laughter! But one hears the truth too, sometimes,and this young man, even if he made a mistake, one cannot surpriseoneself at that!"
"But you do not tell me what you heard," cried Mrs. Vanderstein.
"It was this young man of whom I speak to you. He was a nice smartlooking young gentleman, and he had with him a lady, well dressed andvery chic. What they did in that _galere_ I know not, but as we passedthe Ritz he touched his companion on the arm and pointed out of thewindow. 'Look, Alice,' said he, 'you see the dark lady in that motor?It is the Russian Princess they talk so much about, Princess Sonia. Isshe not handsome? She was pointed out to me last night at the ForeignOffice reception.' The lady he called Alice looked where he pointed andevery one in the bus looked also. I, too, turned round and followedthe eyes of the others. And who did I see, madame? Can you not guess?It was at you they looked, as you sat there in your beautiful car withMademoiselle Turner beside you. You, with your flowers and your prettyhat with the long white feather, and your wonderful pearls. And yourface, madame! But I must not permit myself to speak of that!"
"You talk great nonsense, and I do not believe a word you say," saidMrs. Vanderstein gaily, her good-humour more than restored. "No onecould mistake me for a moment for the beautiful Princess Sonia."
"Nevertheless, madame, it happened as I say. And I see nothing strangeabout it. It was a very natural mistake, as anyone who has seen bothyou and the Princess will readily agree."
Madame Querterot had not seen the Princess herself, but she had studiedher photograph in the illustrated papers and devoutly hoped that Mrs.Vanderstein had not herself met the lady at closer quarters.
"The poor young man was not near enough to observe my wrinkles and mydouble chin, Madame Justine!"
"Bah! You will have forgotten the word wrinkle, which is not_d'ailleurs_ a pretty one, by the time I have finished giving you mycourse of treatment. And as for a double chin, look at me, madame! Iassure you that, in my time, I have developed no less than five doublechins. And I have rubbed them all away. Do you suppose, then, that Ishall allow you to have one?"
Mrs. Vanderstein looked as she was bidden. Indeed she lost noopportunity of studying the countenance of the little Frenchwoman, who,on her own admission, was at least ten years older than herself, butwhose face was as smooth and unlined as that of a girl, though therewas an indefinable something in the expression, an experienced glimmer,perhaps, in the eyes, that prevented her appearance from being entirelyyouthful.
Still, she might very well have been taken for Mrs. Vanderstein'sjunior, even for her younger sister, possibly, if she had been as welldressed, for there was a certain resemblance between the two women. Bothwere short and plump, both had long oval faces and brown eyes set rathernear together beneath arched, well-marked eyebrows, and, though MadameQuerterot had not a drop of Jewish blood in her veins and her nose didnot assume the Hebraic droop that in Mrs. Vanderstein betrayed herrace, yet it was distinctly of the hooked variety and gave her a familylikeness to the children of Israel, on which fact her relations andfriends had frequently considered it entertaining to dwell. Her hair,however, was golden and fluffy, curling about her head with a juvenileabandon; while Mrs. Vanderstein's dark, straight locks were simply andseverely dressed at the back, and concealed on her forehead by a large,flat curled fringe in the manner affected by the English Royal ladies.
Mrs. Vanderstein at all events was sincere in her admirations.
"If you can make me look as young as you do," she said now, "I asknothing better. But indeed London in this hot weather is very wearing,and I see myself grow older every morning. To-day it was oppressive todrive even in an open motor."
To drive? Ah! Madame Querterot was not imaginative, but a vision of thecrowded bus in which she went about her business floated before her,side by side with one of a rushing motor car; and she paused in her workfor a minute and looked around her.
An electric fan revolved tirelessly above the window, and on a tableat the foot of the bed was placed a large block of ice, half hidden inflowers and ferns. She raised herself, inhaling the cool air in long,deep breaths.
"It has been hot, very hot, these last days," she admitted. "It remindsme of our beautiful Paris, and of much in my young days that I would becontent to forget," she added, with a laugh. "Ah, the room in that city,in which as a girl I used to work; the little dark room where I learntmy trade! It was hot in that room in the summer. But, madame, I couldnot tell you how hot it was. I remember one of the girls who used topray quite seriously to die, because, she explained to us, wherever shewent in another world it could not fail to be more cool. It was over abaker's kitchen and had no window except one which gave on to a sort ofshaft that ran up the middle of the house, so that we had the gas alwaysburning. Oh, la, la!"
"How dreadful!" murmured Mrs. Vanderstein comfortably. "I wonder it wasallowed."
"Allowed? Ah, madame, there are plenty of worse workrooms than that inParis. I wonder what you would say if you could see your dresses made!We liked it very well in the winter, for there were no stairs, and itwas agreeable then to shut the window and profit by the warmth from thekitchen. That was all long ago, before I married that poor Eugene andcame to live in London. They were, all the same, not so bad, those days.Ah, la jeunesse, la belle jeunesse, which one does not know how to enjoywhen one has it."
Madame Querterot crossed over to the table and laid her hands on theblock of ice, casting a glance over her shoulder to the window whereBarbara sat at her sentry post. The motionless, silent figure annoyedMadame Querterot. To be conscious that all her chatter was overheardby that quiet listener got on her nerves and sometimes made her, asshe said, feel as if her own words would suffocate her. There was somuch she could have said to Mrs. Vanderstein from time to time if theyhad been alone--much that she instinctively felt would have been veryacceptable to that lady--but in the presence of Miss Turner, even thoughnothing of her were visible except the back of her head, there were, itappeared, lengths of flattery to which Madame Querterot found herselfincapable of proceeding. Thus did a feeling of awkwardness, some senseof restraint, cast a certain gloom over hours that should have been thebrightest in the day.
"These roses, madame, how fine they are," she murmured, bending towardsa bowl that stood on the table, and unconsciously her voice took on anote of defiance as she faced the window. "They are as beautiful as ifthey were artificial. One would say they were made of silk!"
Mrs. Vanderstein laughed tolerantly, but Barbara, her face turned to thestreet, made a naughty face.
Madame Querterot, with hands ice cool, went back to her massage, and fora little while again no one spoke.
Suddenly Barbara turned.
"Here comes a Royal carriage," she said. "I think it is Prince Felipe ofTargona and his mother."
"Oh I must see them," cried Mrs. Vanderstein, jumping up, and brushingMadame Querterot unceremoniously aside. "Where are they?" She ran to thewindow.
The masseuse followed more slowly, and three heads were thrust out overthe street.
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