It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that the very notion of it was ridiculous, but a thought checked her. Denis was a complete mystery to her. She believed with all her heart that he could do nothing that was not wholly right, but she was still sane enough to realise that the belief was based on nothing more than a desire that it should be so. The overwhelming feeling she had for him was certainly not based on a careful assessment of his character. She knew nothing about him that he had not conveyed to her himself. All the rest was conjecture. Now there was this story, odd and frightening as the doctor told it.
"I've startled you," said young Dr. Ledbury. "Perhaps I ought not to have put it quite so baldly. But do look after her, Mademoiselle Robert. Don't forget I'm trusting her to your care absolutely. Don't trouble to see me downstairs. I can very well let myself out. Go in to her now, will you? She really is quite the most wonderful person."
The final remark escaped him involuntarily and Margot smiled. So Zoff had made another conquest. All her life Margot had watched that happen. Young men, old men, men who had reached the middle age when women bored them, they all fell for Zoff and all in the same surprised and boyish way.
"I'll come tomorrow, tell her," said the doctor, disappearing down the stairs. "Tell her not to worry about anything, anything at all."
His voice faded and she heard his feet reach the tiles of the hall.
"Margot!" The thrilling whisper sped across the landing. "Isn't he superb?"
It was Zoff, of course. She was standing on the threshold of her bedroom, swaddled in shawls, her black eyes shining out of foaming Shetland wool. Margot hurried over to her.
"You'll catch cold," she said. "What are you doing wandering about in your nightie?"
Zoff's strong fingers caught her arm and they went into the huge warm room together. Zoff was laughing.
"I wanted to see him." she said. "When poor Cortot played Hernani to my Dona Sol, he had just such a profile, believe it or not. He was just such a man, too. The good God gave him beauty and said. My friend, that is enough, be content. Someone else must have the intelligence."
"But, darling, is it wise to have that kind of doctor?" Margot was inveigling her toward the mighty bed, with its dolphins, its cupids and rococo cornucopias. Zoff did not answer immediately but indicated a motif on the headboard of the edifice with some pride.
"Wet flowers growing out a golden cream horn," she said devastatingly. "Kit would have married me when his wife died-I think of her in hell sometimes, do you know-if my taste had not been so horrible. I adore this bed! The poor, beautiful doctor is stupid, you say?"
"No, I didn't, as you very well know. I only felt that you might have had someone more experienced."
"I will when I have pain." Zoff climbed into her couch with considerable agility. "Just now I am only tired. When I have pain I will endure an old and ugly doctor. Whose brains stick out in lumps all over his head. Meanwhile, this boy is charming. He talks so much, do you notice? It never stops, the pleasant British voice. And he is so delighted to be attending me. I am his star patient. While he is killing the others doubtless he tells them about me. There, now I am warm again. Sit here beside me on the bed, petite."
Margot settled herself obediently. The stiff folds of her gown made a dark shadow on the peach coverlet.
"What about these attacks, Zoff?"
Zoff's hand closed over her own, but the reply did not come immediately and when it did it was uncharacteristically evasive.
"They are both old women, Genvieve and the doctor. It is quite possible that I fainted only." She was sitting upright, her eyes thoughtful as she contemplated the shadows at the far end of the room.
"Do you expect me to believe that?"
"I do not care what you believe, cherie." Her hand was still firm and possessive. "I do not want to talk about the two contretemps. It is even possible that I am a little frightened." She shivered, a gesture so unlike herself as to be startling.
"Don't." The girl spoke sharply. "You'll frighten me. Would you like me to call Genvieve? Where is she?"
"Gone up to her own room. Don't call her. She's an old fool, Margot. No eyes, no nose, no ears. Nothing but a big heart. Poor Zoff, surrounded by fools! What else did my doctor tell you? Well?"
"He said you were not to see Denis any more."
"Ah. And do you think that is wise?"
"I?"
"Yes, you, mademoiselle. You, my petite." She was suddenly at her fiercest, her eyes black diamonds again. "Do you agree?"
"I don't know." Margot released herself gently. "If he upsets you, of course-"
"Upsets me!" Zoff mimicked her contemptuously.
"Well, at any rate, you're not going to see him. That's been arranged. We'll pack him off tonight if you like. I don't think he can realise it, you know. He-"
"Margot." A vicious hand caught her wrist again. "I am disgustingly old, and the shame of being old is that one is still young. One still knows."
"Darling, once and for all, as far as Denis and I are concerned there is nothing to know."
"How true is that?"
"Utterly. I told you. Some months ago we had some greasy spaghetti together and talked of la patrie. We met twice."
"To meet once," said Zoff, "to see each other from the window of a taxicab, is enough for love if one is alive."
"Not nowadays, dearest." The girl dropped a kiss on the white shawl. "You're a romantic, Zoff. We don't love so extravagantly in these hard times."
"But how sordid!" Zoff was becoming herself again as she was half reassured. "It is a good thing," she went on more seriously. "All those D'Hivers were strange men. The grandfather of this Denis, my first husband. Mon Dieu, what a monster when once one knew! But be careful, Margot. There was always something in that family in the men-the women, my dear, were dull provincials and so ugly-which was extraordinary. They could hold spellbound any woman for a little time. They held in their faces, in their voices, in their thick, strong bodies a sort of promise-do you understand? a promise of something unknown and fearful and yet so beautiful it broke one's heart."
She closed her eyes and the lids, which were like Victor's, showed paper-fine. Presently she laughed.
"I am jeune fille again, so undignified. Jeune fille, with great bags under the eyes and no hair to speak of. What a horrible sense af humor he has, the bon Dieu. Well, as I was saying, the D'Hivers had a charm which was dangerous to the warm and impulsive hearts. But when one tore back the sheet, what did one see? Not a cloven hoof-ma foi! one could have forgiven that-but a whole chest and stomach of stone. They do not care, that family. They have nothing to care with. They go their way, and if you are in it they tread on your neck. I know. They have no fear and they never love in return."
Margot was listening to her, fascinated. This was a Zoff she hardly knew, speaking with a sincerity she seldom displayed, It was impossible not to be impressed by it. Up here in the big over-scented room it was easy for Margot to slide back into the sophisticated world of her childhood in which Denis had no place. Presently she began to feel liberated, as if the bondage of the last few months had disappeared. It was an odd experience, as embarrassing and unreasonable as her first violent attraction. Zoff was still talking.
"Genvieve tells me that you go back to London tomorrow for a luncheon. It is in your honour, I hope?"
"Yes, at the Ivy. Monsieur Bonnet wants to tell me I have been a clever girl."
"Naturally. What will you wear?"
They talked clothes for some time. Zoff was in tremendous form, racy, practical and inspired by turns, and gradually under her magic touch the exciting world of fashion and the theatre slid into focus again for Margot, and all its old appeal returned. The weariness of travel, the long hours, exacting parts, even the essential loneliness of the artist, disappeared before the glow and promise of the haze of glory at the top of the tree.
By the time Madame Zoffany was prepared to attempt to sleep all the alarms of the evening were in the back
ground. Margot returned to them with something of dismay. She took up a tray from the bed table.
"I'll take this down for Genvieve," she said. "She's growing old, Zoff, and the stairs are killing her. We must get someone younger to do the running about."
"Nonsense, she's younger than I. She is tired because she is so fat, the great elephant." The exacting Zoff, who was so mean over little things, had returned with a rush. "It does her good," she said airily. "Good night, petite. Come and kiss me in the morning so I may see your hat."
Margot left her lying peacefully in the outrageous bed and went down the staircase to the basement. Everywhere was so very well lit that a shocking suspicion occurred to her that poor Kit must be footing the power bill. There was no escaping it; Zoff was quite abominable in some matters.
She found the kitchen cluttered by a great charcoal stove which was obviously a recent acquisition. Another demand on Kit, no doubt. The room was deserted when she entered it, but at the sound of her step Felix appeared from a pantry. He looked startled and sulky, and to her amazement she saw his cheeks were wet. In the twenty years she had known him she had seen him in many conditions of emotional deshabille, but the secret weeping was something new.
"Why, Felix, what's the matter?" she demanded. "What is it? What's happened?"
He stood before her, a forlorn figure in shirt sleeves. There were grease spots on his tie, on his waistcoat, even on the felt slippers on his sore feet. The moisture on his pallid face was both pathetic and ridiculous.
"I am low-spirited," he said, the French enhancing the statement. "It is nothing, nothing at all. Unless," he hesitated hopefully "perhaps Mademoiselle could influence Madame?"
"I could try, anyway," she said encouragingly. "Cheer up, Felix. What in the world is it?"
He perched himself on the kitchen table and brought long hands into play as he talked. Everything about him save his eyes, which were sombre, was slightly absurd.
"Mademoiselle Margot, it is like this. I have heard from Grenoble that my old father is very shaky. The time must come soon when he will die."
"I am sorry, Felix. I didn't know."
"Oh well, he is old, mademoiselle. He has had a good life. The end comes to everybody."
She digested this philosophy and began to understand.
"He still has the bakery, has he?"
"Presentiment. There is the little shop which you remember. I took you there when you were a small child. It has been done up recently and is doing a good trade. There is also the house where I was born. It is full of fine furniture of which my poor dead maman was inordinately proud. Behind that there is the orchard, with splendid apples planted by my father. And behind that there is a magnificent piece of land. It is a property, you understand."
"Yes, I do, Felix, I do perfectly." Margot was entirely serious. She could remember the little white baker's shop with the scrubbed shelves and the great trays of apple pastry in the window. Squat and secure, it lay by the side of the busy road, a symbol of the smallness, and the smugness, and the security of petit-bourgeois France. She put the pertinent question.
"Who is at home down there now?"
"Everybody." His agony was ludicrous. "My eldest brother is in the house with his wife and children; my second brother has moved into the town and is in lodgings near by, working at a factory; my sister who married the carpenter is at the end of the street; and my other sister's little farm is not more than twenty kilometres away in the country, and every Sunday she brings her family to see their grandfather. Mademoiselle, you will admit I should be there."
"Of course. The inheritance is assured by law, we know, but it is foolish not to be present as soon as any division is even considered. The mother bird brings the worm for all the mouths in the nest, but it goes hardly with the fledgling who is lying underneath the tree."
The simile was unfortunate. Felix looked very like a fledgling in his bedraggled black waistcoat and blue shirt sleeves. Margot was sorry for him.
"Won't Madame let you go?" she enquired.
"But yes." He was voluble. "I may go tomorrow. But if so, I am not to return and Madame strikes out of her will the five hundred thousand francs which is bequeathed to me. It is much too much to lose, mademoiselle. But meanwhile my sister writes to say my father grows very weak."
It was a problem, Margot knew Zoff far too well to venture any rash promises.
"I'll try, Felix," she said. "I must go to London in the morning, but I'll talk to her as soon as I get back. Don't count on anything, but we'll do what we can. After all, Madame is a Frenchwoman. She understands these family matters."
"Yet it would not appear so from her manner toward Monsieur Denis." The muttered words were hardly audible and were clearly meant to be an aside, but Margot's face tingled as though she had received a little blow. This must be an explanation of Denis's visits, of course, but she was loth to accept it. The whole matter was suddenly very distasteful. Felix continued to look piteous.
"It is too much to lose," he repeated, "I have been with Madame so long. Yet I should only be away for a little time."
"I'll see," she repeated. "I'll try. I can't promise to succeed, but I will try."
He sighed as if he knew already what the result would be, and she came away, leaving him still sitting there on the table, sullen bitterness in his eyes.
FOUR
The hall was bright and so silent when she came up into it that the sighing of her long skirts on the tiles sounded almost noisy. She was not at all happy. Things were bad in the house. Everyone was frustrated and a sense of unrest and vague menace was growing stronger all the time. She had given up thinking about Denis. Every time he came into her mind she thrust him out again. That folly had been scotched, she decided, fortunately in time before she had done anything silly. The escape from the petty cruelty which had tormented her was a great relief, but all the same it had left a very weary emptiness behind it.
She turned into the drawing room expecting to find them all there, still talking about the clock if she knew Victor. From her new mood of safety she was prepared to regard Denis dispassionately and was half looking forward to, half dreading, the experience. On the threshold she paused. A gust of rain-soaked air met her and she closed the door behind her quickly as the draught blew the silk window curtains out into the room.
She saw Denis at once. He was alone, standing before the French windows, which were wide open. His back was toward her and he was looking out into the wet darkness, but he turned at the sound of the latch and she saw a frown sweep over his forehead as he caught sight of her.
He came back into the room reluctantly.
"I hope you don't mind this. I don't think the rain's actually coming in." His deep, pleasant voice was unusually brusque and the ease which was one of his principal characteristics was strained.
"No, I don't mind." She moved over to the fire as she spoke and stood on the rug, her fair head framed against the prim carving of the mantelpiece. The room was chilly, and here too the brightness of the lights shed a hard unfriendliness over the mellow wood and faded colouring of chintz and tapestry.
He started to stroll toward her but hesitated and half turned, as if he were contemplating taking up his old position before the windows again.
"Where are the others?" she demanded and was irritated to find her voice husky.
"Soubise has driven Sir Kit down to the town. They're going to drag some poor wretched clockmaker away from his supper. Someone's torn up one of the family heirlooms."
He changed his mind again and wandered down toward her as he spoke. At that moment she was more vividly aware of the look of the man than ever before. One of Zoff's remarks leapt into her mind. "In their faces, in their voices, in their thick, strong bodies they held a sort of promise."
She took a vigorous hold of herself and her smile was casual.
"It's a pity about the clock."
"Oh. you knew, did you?" His eyes met hers briefly. "Yes, I suppose it is. I hate
that sort of baroque decoration, all gold pie-crust. But I don't like the damage either. It's a little mad, isn't it? It jolts me. However, this house is reeking with that sort of thing. That's why I opened the windows, I suppose."
"To let the baroquerie out?" she enquired, laughing. Her face was raised to his and the light fell on her skin and on her beautiful mouth and made narrow blue jewels out of her eyes. She was unconscious of the effect and of the sudden colour which came into her face as his expression changed.
"No," he said, clinging to each trivial word as if it were some sort of life line. "No, I opened the window because for some reason tonight I could not breathe."
The final word choked him and he put out his hand helplessly.
The kiss was very gentle. His arms folded round her as she leaned toward him, and the first startled flicker of surprise in her eyes gave way to another emotion before her lids covered them.
For a minute he held her hard, hurting her, hugging her against him as if he were afraid she must vanish. And then suddenly he drew, back roughly and turned away down the room.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Margot did not move. Everything that had once seemed to set her free from him, Zoff's tirade, the doctor's query, Felix's bland assumption, disappeared as if none of them had existed, and she felt again as she had done in her cabin coming home across the Atlantic, when every mile meant only a mile nearer to him.
"I love you, Denis."
"I know." He swung around to her furiously. "I saw, just now."
"And you don't love me, I suppose?"
"No."
She was not angry, not even hurt. The word glanced off her like a shaft of straw. She stood straight, unutterably happy, her lips parted, her eyes shining with laughter.
"That's-not true."
He came close to her, holding her again, looking down at her covetously, smiling a little, his square chin drawn down.
"Just now you saw too, I suppose."
She nodded and he kissed her again. He was shaking a little and she could feel their hearts beating.
"But it won't do," he said with sudden weariness. "It won't do, Margot. There's too much against it. You're all tied up to Victor, for one thing, aren't you?"
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