"I read that," Jeanne said.
"My bodyguard. They're the same people we use at Kastell at the works."
"I read about that, too."
"I wouldn't do it for my sake—I didn't do anything the other time—but I won't have my guests insulted at my own door."
"The violinist?"
"I didn't think of him."
Jeanne said, "You are fond of her."
"I wish she'd never met me!" said Sarah.
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"It must be a fake," said Caroline. "When I didn't share so much as a sandwich with poor Clara. Anyway, that's you with Jules in front of the Neronian spread, not me. It's familiar though—I have seen these hams and antlers before."
"In the family album," Sarah said. "Jules's fiftieth birthday, and mine. I have not forgotten it."
"Extraordinary backcloth. It isn't real—?"
"What?"
"The edibles?"
"Quite real," said Sarah.
"Frau Baronin, I did not wish to disturb Frau Geheimrat, but should we send out some soup to them?"
"Do you usually?"
"It has been our custom to dispense some charity."
"Then I suppose so. Oh, by all means."
"My dear child," Markwald said, "they're shouting for venison."
"Not very realistic of them," said Emil.
"Seeing it is not in season, sir," said Gottlieb.
"All the same, perhaps not soup?" said Caroline.
"They've come neither to be reasonable nor to be fed," said a voice from the door.
"Frau Eduard," announced Gottlieb.
Sarah was carrying a parasol. She looked cool, but cross. "Who said Prussia was a police state?"
"Do you think they'll keep it up, Gottlieb?" said Mark-wald.
"We might envisage retirement for a night's rest, sir."
"It was like walking through a bad Breughel," said Sarah.
"Their afflictions are impressive, ma'am."
"It's no worse than Spain," said Caroline.
"I didn't know we had so many in the town."
"Nobody ever does it for fun."
"If I may be permitted to quote Marie, ma'am," Gottlieb said, "Marie says they are the chorus from Boris Godunov."
"Edu got it this morning."
"What's Edu to Hecuba?"
"His debts."
"Well, he's not here to hear."
"No judge is ever going to give him a discharge now, he'll be a bankrupt till his dying day. I suppose one must take it as a blessing in disguise."
"But darling, the disguise.'*
Sarah said to Caroline, "Jeanne would like you to come and see her."
"That's very good of her."
"She would come to you, you know, if she could."
"She and Gustavus—"
"Do go," Sarah said.
"She must remember that I did not the first time I was here; it would hardly be a service to her if I did so now."
"Am I mad? Are they mad? Are all the Feldens mad?" Sarah picked up the newspaper.
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"This one says the chimps were part of a Southern-Separatist plot to bring dishonour to the country from within. That poor brute I spoke to once in a cage at Hamburg?"
"Caroline, you oughtn't to be here."
"My place is by my husband's side, isn't it? You should see the letters I get from home. They all make a point of writing to me. About the delphiniums and Mr. Asquith's Budget and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, and they're not addressed to me at all—it's as if I were already dead and buried."
"Has it occurred to you that Jules most likely wouldn't be here at all if it weren't for you? And for my telegram."
"Sarah, I cannot make plans now."
"That is unlike you."
"I daresay."
"You've got to decide something."
"I said I could make no plans."
Sarah said, "My dear, don't make it any harder for yourself than you can help."
Caroline said nothing.
"I have an idea," Sarah said.
"Oh don't insist."
"We can't stay here all summer. Do you never think of time? We'll soon be in August."
"I don't see why you stay," said Caroline.
Without a change of tone, Sarah said, "For one thing I happen to be a mother; just at present it would be difficult for me to leave without my daughter accusing me of dragging her away."
"How's that going?"
"Not well," Sarah said.
"Don't listen to her. No one knows what's good for them."
"And I know?"
"Forgive my temper," said Caroline. "We all have our troubles."
"Yes."
"They're always one's own."
"Caroline—there isn't anything else?"
"Of course not," said Caroline.
Pedro, the manservant who arrived with them from Spain, had become a problem. When he was with Jules, he was contented enough and they talked about the things that interested them. But he had to go to mass, and he had to have his day off, and he didn't know the town and he didn't know the language, yet he was getting known himself in the drinking cellars of the neighbourhood, and he was very bored, and often he came home late and incoherent. Marie, who had rarely had a good word for the man in Spain, had established herself his guardian angel here; she saw to it that rice was cooked for him that was not rice pudding, she made Gottlieb see to his daily wine, she fretted. When she was in an unbending mood Pedro called her Tia, and she liked it.
One hot Sunday morning Gottlieb, Marie and the flock of servants had returned from worship early; not so Pedro. Gottlieb served luncheon in the dining room; when he came to sit down to his own dinner, Marie, already in her bonnet, would not let him. She seemed to know exactly where to go; yet Gottlieb, whose intercourse with Marie was respectful, dared not chaff her. At the third Spelunke, as she called these taverns, he found Pedro (she of course had remained outside). Pedro was standing lightly on two tables; he had been given white beer to drink spiced with potato spirits; someone in the audience who knew about as much French as he did had constituted himself link and compere.
"What did the first wife do?"
"The first wife she weep all day." Pedro curled up on the boards, impersonating a lady moping on a chaise longue.
"And the second wife?"
"She weep all day, too." (The liar, Caroline said.) Pedro posed himself into a graceful figure pining by a window.
"Now tell them why these poor women weep."
Pedro drew himself up. "Because my Master is very Magnificent Man."
The old people and the house were getting ready for the annual departure to the spa; Sarah had called as usual, she and Caroline were upstairs in the latter's sitting room.
"I wish there was a dog," said Caroline. "Did you see, Faithful George has resigned the Service. After thirty-one years. 'Orderly says Army not the same without his Captain.' I hope he'll get his pension."
"Bound to," said Sarah.
"We ought to do something for him."
"Clara will have been seeing to that."
"We can't leave everything to Clara. And now there'll be all that money."
"You are speaking of Jules's and Gustavus's inheritance?"
"How convenient the papers are. We don't have to tell each other anything."
"Jules ought to see the lawyers, Caroline."
"I can't even ask him to. I dare not mention his brother's name."
"Something should be done," said Sarah.
"Don't I know? The money must be refused. Or given away. . . . Could / get a power of attorney?"
"I'm afraid not for such a matter. Unless— Jules is capable of transacting business?"
"Oh yes, yes. If he wishes to."
"He asked my father-in-law for an advance. Did you know? It appears he's ab
solutely penniless."
"How?"
"He lost a year's income at Granada, just before you left."
"Good God," said Caroline.
"And he isn't even fond of gambling. They do it absent-mindedly."
"It was while I was away."
"Perhaps he was lonely," said Sarah.
"The forms of consolation—" said Caroline .
"It seems the Madrid bills aren't paid."
"I thought / had paid them."
"Bills have a way of coming in."
"And now this money. . . . Not what it's said to be, but a good deal."
"The Captain's savings."
"Sarah—do you know how he lived? Clara told me."
"He had a house to himself, hadn't he?"
"There was nothing in it. Sarah—nothing; no possessions, hardly any furniture. Curtains, and a few cooking things. He never owned anything, he never bought anything. He preferred to sleep on straw, clean straw. . . . And there was his food; he seems to have lived chiefly on oatmeal and carrots and milk. Faithful George saw to his having plenty of warm easy clothes. But nothing else . . . nothing ever. . . . Can you imagine it, Sarah? can you see the years? Faithful George was very good about everything, he saw that he wasn't cheated. No wonder he hardly touched his pay."
"And there's what his father left him, a third of the estate. What Jules had."
"I gather Jules spent his early."
"On a lovely place off the Grasse road, on travel, on Madame de la Turbie. . . ."
"You remember when I was here last spring? I never thought of him then. I could have gone with Jules to see him. He would be alive now. No, Sarah, I have to think of it. Have you thought of something else, have you ever thought that he might have been cured? I've been reading
about that. Sarah, when he was found dead he had a card for my wedding in his house."
Sarah kept silent.
"And now I cannot speak of him to Jules. I can hardly speak to Jules at all."
"I know his total eclipses. It's time he reappeared. There's that other thing."
"That can only be ignored," said Caroline.
Unspoken, the words stood in the women's minds.
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"Her parents have not read it, thank God for that. But her brothers have. Emil has, Markwald has, the servants have. Her child may have—"
"It is poison," said Caroline.
"Melanie was a queer girl. If only there were an occasional word from Jules."
"He went out with me the other day. I made him. He hates my going out, but as he can't discuss it—I took advantage of that."
"What was it like?"
"Ghastly. They're pretty bored with me by now, this was the first time they set eyes on him. He was rather wonderful; never moved a muscle, just a little more stiff. I suppose that is what men look like on a battlefield— I had an uncle who rode at Balaclava. Jules never said a word. Nor did he say a word afterwards. I see now what Clara means by retribution."
"When did you see so much of her?"
"I saw her three times during the two weeks she was here," said Caroline. "I'm afraid, if anything, my outing's made Jules worse."
"Then someone must act for him; I agree there ought to be a gesture about the inheritance. It'll be complicated —generally is with intestates—I understand everything's
been invested, in a conservative sort of way though not at all badly. There's also the settlement the Captain had under the old Count's will."
"I expect that reverts to the Bernins," said Caroline.
"Not at all," said Sarah. "You ought to see the lawyers. It's to go to the Feldens. In trust to Gustavus and Jules, then outright to Clara's children, if she'd had any, and to Jules's. That'll be Henrietta at twenty-one."
"I wouldn't let a child of mine touch it!" said Caroline.
"The law would prevent your doing that."
"You mean to say that any children I might have would inherit that poor boy's money and I could do nothing about it?"
"Any children in wedlock with Jules—certainly."
Sarah went on. "It is extraordinary, people never do know. They seem to know all about how they ought to be tried for murder and about illegal arrest, but when it comes to property ... It makes everything so vague."
"Sarah, I must know something. You have known him for a long time. Will Jules—will he, will he be himself again?"
"He has never been anything else." Sarah had answered at once. She spoke in her coldest tone, the one Caroline so seldom heard. "Jules is a rock. India-rubber, but a rock. He's kept himself wrapped in untouchable delicacy—and he is untouchable. Jules has never known what any other human being felt. Jules will outlast us all."
"You are very bitter."
"I feel rather anti-Felden this morning."
Caroline looked away. "What we have dragged you into," she said.
"You?" Sarah raised a face to her friend in which there was no hope. And in the manner of someone who has let go all care of good opinion, she said, "You might as well know, you must have been wondering with every newspaper blaring it, I was in love with Jules, and he was rather taken with the little Merz girl, so I made the marriage— To save my face to myself— To look magnanimous— Not so much in love either, enough to touch Vamour propre. It's all so long ago that it's hardly true any more. Yet, / made that marriage, I'm good at arranging things, as good as your Clara in my different way." Her mood collapsed. "But—" she gave full weight to her words— "I did not arrange yours."
"No . . ." Caroline said, "no. . . ." trying to think. Appalled more by the sound, having hardly taken in what she had heard, she tried, "It'll never be what it was . . . paying is not buying back . . . let's not open doors to further desolation . . . let's be what we are, wiser perhaps, not better women."
When two days later Sarah entered Voss Strasse she was shown into the Herrenzimmer. "You have heard our news?"
"My parents are so pleased."
"We are all so pleased."
"Jules told us last night."
"He is pleased."
"She only told him yesterday."
"Henrietta is to have a little brother, ma'am."
"Early in the next year."
"Jules said January."
"Or February."
"You must go and congratulate him."
"Where is Caroline?" said Sarah.
"Upstairs."
"She hasn't come down today."
Sarah hesitated.
"Frau Baronin just went out, ma'am," Gottlieb said; "Herr Baron put her in the carriage. Herr Baron wanted her to have the air."
Caroline, as a matter of fact, had decided to call on Jeanne. Perhaps she did so in a spirit of New Year's resolutions, she hardly knew herself. At any rate she went.
Jeanne was now living in a very pretty flat in a nondescript street.
Caroline looked at it with new eyes. "What a charming room," she said.
"One does what one can," said Jeanne. She only saw her visitor. Conscious always of beauty in a woman, and the possession of it in a woman's life, she was moved.
"Of course Sarah's house is lovely."
"Sarah does everything a l'anglaise," said Jeanne.
Caroline laughed.
(Jeanne already heard herself saying, She is not only beautiful—she is radiant.)
"Not her pictures, though."
"No, not those," said Jeanne. "I'm coming round to them."
"I was round. But I never really saw them until Sarah. She taught me."
Jeanne rang for tea. "Tell me," Caroline said, "does everybody spend the summer in Berlin, or only everybody I know?"
"I'm a bad example. Friedrich likes to be where his parents are, and I'm not much of a one for the country."
"No—?" said Caroline.
"It makes me feel lost. I have a little house, a villa, at Travemunde—that's the seaside—I don
't think I spent more than three days there half a dozen times in ten years."
"It seems a waste."
"I didn't buy it to go there. It seemed a sensible idea— you know, safer than the bank."
"It's by the sea?" said Caroline.
"Oh yes, the sea's there. Though it's not a wilderness, you can put your foot to ground without getting your ankle turned, the walks are paved. It's quite a coming place." Something made her add, "Would you like to go there? The house is empty. There's a little garden, and it's really not too bad. Why don't you try it, and see
whether you can put up with it? It's not far, you and your husband could drive there. And it would give me such pleasure."
"What a very sweet thing to suggest," said Caroline.
"Don't say no, think it over. It would be a change. Not a big change. . . ." She smiled. Then, bethinking herself that there was some point in being sixty, she said, "Will you let me say something? I really wish you were going back to your own home."
"Where?"
"Aren't you thinking of going back to Spain?"
"Oh no!" said Caroline.
"Travel, then . . . Some kind of move. . . . You should not stay here." She said it very kindly.
Caroline said, "You see, I am enceinte."
"My dear." Jeanne made no pretence of taking it entirely in her stride, yet she kept herself in hand. She said warmly, "Yes, that will make a difference. I am very glad for Jules. It will be the greatest help to him."
"He seems to take it in that way."
"And you?" Jeanne said.
Caroline made no answer.
"You are so young."
"Not so young; most of my friends have children."
"Many women," Jeanne said, "have children before they want them; or they wait and it is too late. That is the way. . . . But one can never tell."
Caroline said, "This is not a good moment."
"No, my dear, no. It will help you, though, to put it behind you."
There was benevolence behind Jeanne's words, benevolence and compassion, but there was no suffering; the suffering Caroline half knew that she put on Sarah with almost every word she said. For once she had the sense that her meaning did not sink away into layers of emotion and despair, or glance off, bootless or alien, as it did with Jules
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