by Ursula Bloom
‘One wonder what ’e do with the t’ousands,’ she said. ‘’E not spend on the clothes. Women do not visit ’eem. It is ver’ strange,’ and she shrugged her massive shoulders with French disapproval.
‘He is so very nice,’ Diana said.
That was a mistake.
‘’Ave a care, m’lle, for all men are ver’ nice, when they desire. Give them the gift, give them it, and they no longer ver’ nice. No longer nice,’ and she was waving her hands with contempt.
‘I was thinking of his work, Madame.’
‘Ah!’ Instantly she had no further interest. At heart she was a promiscuous old woman of the streets, she was enchanted by l’affaire, even if she had no share in it. ‘Have a care, m’lle, be cautious. All men so charming when they desire. All men love the virgin.’ Mercifully the telephone rang and instantly she was absorbed by a financial problem.
Diana turned away.
She had the feeling that there was more attached to Bernard Dante than she knew, and more about him that Madame did not know, for plainly she had never kept a secret in her life and never would. But her warnings had a fragment of truth in them.
Poor old girl! Diana thought, and with a sudden sympathy.
Greville took her to the border next morning. It was a long drive, and she disliked the speed at which all the cars whirled about this part of the world, the constant accidents which one saw, and the fuss surrounding them. She saw Italy lying before her but could not go further for she had no visa. Greville thought it would be worth while to get a visa, but she did not bother.
They returned to Monte at speed, and she went into the casino again, although she had said that she would not do it. This time the beginner’s luck had played itself out, and she spent more than she had intended, always hoping with that strange fever of the gambler that next time the fortune would come. It did not work out that way.
She said to Greville, ‘The Alpes Maritimes and the people are artificial. They profess admiration and then play a game of pretty compliments, not believing a word of them.’
He laughed at her. ‘On the whole the visitors come here for fun, and don’t care if it is fun or just the glorious game of make-believe. They think it is worth the money, and they never think of the alternative chance of bankruptcy.’
They had come into the casino gardens, sweet with blossom, and passed under a banyan tree, the only one in the country, Greville told her. There, in the gentle shadow, he turned and kissed her cheek.
Somehow she had not expected that, and rubbed her cheek with her hand, not knowing why she did it, or why when she spoke to him her voice should be so angry. ‘I wish you had not done that.’
‘But why not? Everyone comes to the Riviera to flirt and enjoy themselves. To win a fortune, or of course to meet the man or the girl,’ and again he laughed.
‘The funny thing is that I came here for none of these things,’ and then quite suddenly she said something which she knew was the truth. ‘I came here to forget.’
She had come to forget the supreme happiness of Devonshire, and then the agony of that foggy November night when she had gone up to spend the night with Sarah and had first visited John’s flat to tell him what had happened. To forget the pain in her own heart, and later her reconciliation to that pain and her refusal to marry John. Afterwards the loss of the child.
Greville paused, she could see for a moment that the answer had disturbed him. ‘To forget what?’ he asked her.
‘That happens to be something I do not tell.’
‘Of course not. I’m sorry I asked it. I ‒ I’m an awful fool in some ways,’ and he paused again, then he went on, speaking in another tone. ‘Perhaps I also came down here to forget, the place serves the purpose for this. I am having the most stinking row with my mamma. She gives me an allowance which I cannot forgo, and every now and then she gets furiously angry with me, threatening to stop the lot. She never has done yet, and I am praying she will do nothing this time, but I get the jitters.’
‘What will you do if she doesn’t come round?’
He shrugged his shoulders, but it struck her that the gesture was rather strained. Then he admitted, ‘I daren’t think of that. She has always played the game to date, and I ought to get a fat cheque shortly. Then we’ll go out and celebrate.’ Impulsively he added, ‘I hope both our “forgets” work properly for us.’
They drove home, she realising that perhaps today things were changing. She remembered someone once saying that the Riviera was never the same two minutes together, one must always be prepared for that change to come, it is part of the atmosphere of the place. Perchance that is true. It is an extravagant part of the world, where one can escape liabilities, or at least hope to do so. It is full of new friends and flirtations which have no power to endure. Also the climate is unreal, too hot by day, too chilly by night.
There was a letter from her mother, and as she read it Diana came to the conclusion that it had been thoughtfully written with the idea of not alarming her. Her father had not been at all well. It was quite unusual for him to be ill, for he was a strongly-built thick-set man, careful not to overwork and always prepared to get others to do things for him. Apparently he had gone off his food, which was not like him, and when she had returned to the dining-room after dinner, she found him sitting with the paper, but flopped down and unconscious.
She thought he had fainted.
When he came round she wanted to send for their doctor, but he became very angry and forbade it, saying that he was not really ill. So she had done what he asked, and next day he had seemed to be all right again. Two days later the same thing happened, and whilst he was unconscious she acted on her own judgment and got the doctor round to visit him. Much against his will he was banished to bed, and no patient could ever have been more difficult to nurse. It was only the threat of being transferred to hospital which kept him in bed. The doctor was concerned about the heart condition, and said that it was high time for the patient to retire, but no one dared suggest such an idea to him. In the end, the doctor did so himself; there was a violent squabble, and Mr Richardson ordered his medical man out of the house for ever.
So you see … wrote Mother rather frantically.
The new young doctor sought to please the patient. She wrote to her daughter that she was very concerned about all this, for she was sure that her husband was really ill, and what could she do about it?
Diane wrote a comforting letter; she knew what a trial her father could be. He always refused to believe any of the objectionable realities of life, and most certainly would never do anything that her mother suggested for him.
There was a note from Sarah, who was trying to persuade her husband to bring her down to the Cote d’Azur for a change. She wrote:
I’m sick of Pont St., coffee at Harrods every morning, and I do this daily. By the by, I ran into John in Harrods yesterday. An old aunt of his has left him a little money, and he has got a much better job, he tells me. He asked for your address, and of course I didn’t give it to him, but he rang up your mother, and I only hope she knows her onions and shut up. She would be taken by surprise, I’m afraid.
That would be the last straw, as Diana told herself. She was worried for her father, which surprised her, for she had never really loved him. She was so anxious that she needed someone to talk to about it, and Madame made a bid for the post of confidante. It was early in the morning when she was in the garden and Madame had come out to pick a small posy, a camellia here, a spray of mimosa there, or a lily.
‘You are triste?’ said Madame almost with affection.
‘My father is not at all well.’
‘And, hélas, one only has one father.’
‘Yes, that is so.’
‘Get ’eem to come down ’ere? It make the ill, well. I find the ideal room, oui? The good idea.’
‘I doubt if he would come, he has never been out of England, and is possibly much too old now.’
‘Quel dommage!’ an
d Madame assumed the suitable face. ‘But you be ’appy ’ere. You be ’appy. It is right for the young must ever be ’appy,’ and she presented Diana with an overblown rose which she had discarded from her personal acceptance.
That was the morning when Diana went to Bernard’s studio, and perhaps because he was one of those men to whom one can always talk, she chattered away with him. He listened quite silently, absorbing everything she said. She spoke of John and of how if he had discovered where she was and had sufficient money, she felt sure that he would follow her.
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘But this does not mean that you have to encourage him. You ignore him. When an affair is over, it is over.’
‘I know. I wish I could get my parents down here, it would do both of them a power of good, but …’
‘In life you cannot force things on others.’
Abruptly, and half ashamed of herself for doing it, she said, ‘He has always been difficult, at times impossible, and I cannot think how Mother is so fond of him.’
‘I can,’ he said, ‘it is just use. People become accustomed to each other, and after that the routine binds them together. It happens to so many. They live on in some dismal old house, only because it is the one they know, and therefore accept. They marry someone unsuitable, and because they have married them, abide by it, and suffer for ever after. It doesn’t make sense when you think about it.’
‘I know. You are so right.’
He made some coffee and did it astonishingly well. He produced some rhum babas of the kind that they make divinely in Nice. He was a man whose body seemed to be too big for him, and with hands which had nothing of a sculptor’s hands, she would have thought. They were neither particularly lithe nor slender. He ate gaily, cramming rhum babas into his mouth and twinkling. Part of him was, as she knew, just a boy at heart, and she longed to know more of him. Of the man, not the boy.
‘How did you come to live here?’ she asked, as a matter of interest, no more, spurred on by curiosity as to how he had found so satisfactory a backcloth.
‘A chance visit at first, I liked the warmth and the sunshine. To me when I am working the life about me must be beautiful, for thence comes my inspiration. Oh, I know that masterpieces have come out of prison cells, but I am not that sort of man. I need a colourful background; even if I only work in stone, colour is still essential to me. And I need friends.’
‘You have many?’
‘Yes. I choose my friends. When I see a stranger I say to myself, he or she shall be my friend,’ and he flung back the big tawny head, laughing. ‘The first time I saw you I knew that you would be my friend.’
‘I’m glad,’ and she said it in a low voice. ‘I’m so glad.’
He looked behind him to where the half-formed body of a woman towered; one hand was still a lump of nothing, unshaped, yet her slender body was admirable, poised so that she seemed to stand like a queen reigning over the room.
‘But there is more to a man than his work,’ he said very quietly.
‘The man does the work. I judge you by it.’
‘The man does the work, his future is written in his hand,’ and he picked her hand out of her lap, looking carefully at it. ‘You were born with an artist’s hands, look at them. Here is written your life, in lines and islands, crosses and mounts. These are the significance of things to come. When a man is born his whole life story is portrayed in his left hand.’
‘And the right?’
‘No. With the right we work out the predictions. Some follow closely, some stray. As yet you have to meet the man you marry. As yet you have to find the career, and it is going to be a great career.’
‘Seeing that I have no particular talent, I doubt that,’ and she smiled at him.
He looked uncertainly at her, then he said, ‘Genius gives us the gift, but life gives us the hour. You’ll do it, you’ll find.’
What a big man he was, and how exultant with life! She was sure he would enjoy every moment of it, and was an admirable guide. Her father had never helped, her mother had been too alarmed by him to do much for her daughter, and she had turned to John, but perhaps this had been the mistake. She had longed for heaven, and had not realised her heaven was a mirage.
Maybe the big sculptor was a thought-reader. He told her, ‘You are just discovering that a ship needs a star to steer her by. A woman needs a power to guide her life. Perhaps men too, they need each other.’
‘Perhaps,’ she said.
It seemed absurd to talk about his wife at this moment, yet she did. The question came suddenly, how had he married? He told her that he was staying in La Linea, doing a statue for them in the square where the palm trees never seem to stir, and the great arc of the bull ring towers over the town. The girl had come into his life, an elfish girl, Spanish, of course, and with a smother of hair which was wild as the wind. She had never worn it pinned back, and somehow Diana realised that the hair had won his heart. It had been a tempestuous meeting, her father had beaten her, and he had strode in and had knocked the man out. After that she could not return, so he had brought her to his rooms, got a doctor and had her wounds treated. Then he realised the psychological moment in his life, as one does when it comes.
‘One knows one is looking fate in the eyes,’ he said.
He had married her as soon as he could. Something had to be done to prevent that old devil of a father coming back at her. It was an exhilarating marriage, but of course she had the Spanish temper, blazing into rages all about nothing. He beat her, and she seemed quite used to that. He spoilt her. He had bought the snow-white little car in which later she was to die. He had bought her fine clothes so that her friends envied her. She liked that.
‘But nothing stayed her passion,’ he said, ‘I have never known a girl like her for it. She drove the car, and I wanted her to let me be always with her, but of course there came the day when she was so angry that she went alone. She did not know enough about driving, but all women think they know the earth,’ and he shrugged his big shoulders.
Apparently she had gone up into the mountains believing that it would be all right, but she had lost control. He paused, then he admitted that the shock had been almost more than he could bear. One loves warmly in life, coldly in death, and the coldness of that other love cuts.
Diana dared not sympathise, for she knew how great was the pain in his voice, and the look in his eyes. ‘How awful!’ was all she could say, because there are moments in our lives when even kindness becomes an insult.
He said, ‘One has to live with life. One learns this, or one dies with it, and that is the end. The hour will come when you also learn to live with life; we all do.’
She did not stay long after that, for she knew that she had touched his heart and was afraid of hurting him. She went back to the hotel, Madame watching her with an eagle eye piercingly keen, for she was always suspicious of everything that went on. That night she went over to the casino with a party and they stayed, late. She grew desperately tired. She lost every bet, couldn’t think why she did it, had made up her mind that she wouldn’t, and then she did. Just for something to do, she supposed. It was one of those nights, and the air of the place became vitiated so that she choked a little. Also there was an unfortunate accident. That was exactly the way the croupier put it. The man was tall and thin, a ghost of what once he had been, with a strange colour like the tallow of a candle faded in too brilliant a sun. He had been betting all the evening and apparently was well known in the casino, for everybody spoke to him. He lost all through. Then he risked the whole of his remaining chips in one big effort. Instinctively she felt that it was his all. He watched the whirl, the ball spinning round, and he was more puppet than man at the moment, then he saw what had happened. The croupier reached out for the chips and swept them towards himself with a chuckling sort of rattle, indifferently, almost callously, as old men sweep up leaves in autumn streets.
The man rose. He was still a man in a dream. He blundered from the table,
they saw him go, lurching to the door. Somehow Diana knew then that he was not drunk with wine, he was drunk with life itself. At the door a man, seeing that he was ill, tried to stay him; they heard their voices.
‘But, m’sieur …?’
‘I have the right to go when I wish. Get out of my way. I have the right.’
‘Pardon, M’sieur is not well. One moment, m’sieur, one little moment.’
Then there came a sharp scream from the man, he screamed more as a woman does, something which Diana knew she would never forget, and instantly on top of the scream there came the abrupt report of a shot.
She dared not look.
The authorities are accustomed to an act in life which they would term a misadventure, maybe they expect it as being part of the casino life. One saw nothing. One knew that he was dead; somehow it seemed to be quite cruel that on the instant in the suffocating heat of the room into which no real air ever pierced, one heard the voice of the croupier carrying on with the game of life.
‘Messieurs et mesdames, faites vos jeux … faites vox jeux.’
Mercifully Diana’s party left as soon as they could. Never had the drive seemed longer. They went into La Cloche and there was Madame at the seat of office, bright as a button and fully prepared to stay up all night if needs be.
‘It was charming?’ she asked.
One of the men told her what had happened there. He was probably so upset himself that he had to mention it. One of the losers had shot himself in the doorway and everybody felt very distressed.
‘Cognac!’ said Madame, quick to realise how she could make the most of it. She was adept at this.
Diana walked away from them and off to her own room. If I can sleep, I can forget, she thought, but she did not sleep easily. She had a bad headache next day and did not come to until late. She had to admit that Madame was kindness itself, sending her some special tablets she had, and in the end they did remove the pain.