‘I have been to the Sacré Cœeur.’ she repeated, ‘for the Messe de Minuit; it was very lovely.’
But she did not reveal the tragic fact that her fear had suddenly laid hold upon her at the moment of approaching the altar rails, so that she had scuttled back to her seat, terrified of receiving the Christmas Communion. Even a painfully detailed confession of intemperance, of the lusts of the eyes and the mind, of the very occasional sins of the body; even the absolution accorded by a white-haired old priest who had spoken gently and pitifully to his penitent, directing her prayers to the Sacred Heart from which his own heart had derived its compassion—even these things had failed to give Wanda courage when it came to the Christmas Communion. And now as she sat at Stephen’s table she ate little and drank but three glasses of wine; nor did she ask for a cognac brandy when later they went to the study for coffee, but must talk of the mighty temple of her faith that watched day and night, night and day over Paris.
She said in her very perfect English: ‘Is it not a great thing that France has done? From every town and village in France has come money to build that church at Montmartre. Many people have purchased the stones of the church, and their names are carved on those stones for ever. I am very much too hard up to do that—and yet I would like to own a small stone. I would just say: “From Wanda,” because of course one need not bother about the surname; mine is so long and so difficult to spell—yes, I would ask them to say: “From Wanda.” ’
Jamie and Barbara listened politely, yet without sympathy and without comprehension; while Mary must even smile a little at what seemed to her like mere superstition. But Stephen’s imagination was touched, and she questioned Wanda about her religion. Then Wanda turned grateful eyes upon Stephen and suddenly wanted to win her friendship—she looked so reassuring and calm sitting there in her peaceful, book-lined study. A great writer she was, did not everyone say so? And yet she was surely even as Wanda … Oh, but Stephen had got the better of her fate, had wrestled with her fate so that now it must serve her; that was fine, that was surely true courage, true greatness! For that Christmas none save Mary might know of the bitterness that was in Stephen’s heart, least of all the impulsive, erratic Wanda.
Wanda needed no second invitation to talk, and very soon her eyes were aglow with the fire of the born religious fanatic as she told of the little town in Poland, with its churches, its bells that were always chiming—the Mass bells beginning at early dawn, the Angelus bells, the Vesper bells—always calling, calling they were, said Wanda. Through the years of persecution and strife, of wars and the endless rumours of wars that had ravaged her most unhappy country, her people had clung to their ancient faith like true children of Mother Church, said Wanda. She herself had three brothers, and all of them priests; her parents had been very pious people, they were both dead now, had been dead for some years; and Wanda signed her breast with the Cross, having regard for the souls of her parents. Then she tried to explain the meaning of her faith, but this she did exceedingly badly, finding that words are not always easy when they must encompass the things of the spirit, the things that she herself knew by instinct; and then, too, these days her brain was not clear, thanks to brandy, even when she was quite sober. The details of her coming to Paris she omitted, but Stephen thought she could easily guess them, for Wanda declared with a curious pride that her brothers were men of stone and of iron. Saints they all were, according to Wanda, uncompromising, fierce and relentless, seeing only the straight and narrow path on each side of which yawned the fiery chasm.
‘I was not as they were, ah, no!’ she declared, ‘Nor was I as my father and mother; I was—I was …’ She stopped speaking abruptly, gazing at Stephen with her burning eyes which said quite plainly: ‘You know what I was, you understand.’ And Stephen nodded, divining the reason of Wanda’s exile.
But suddenly Mary began to grow restless, putting an end to this dissertation by starting the large, new gramophone which Stephen had given her for Christmas. The gramophone blared out the latest foxtrot, and jumping up Barbara and Jamie started dancing, while Stephen and Wanda moved chairs and tables, rolled back rugs and explained to the barking David that he could not join in, but might, if he chose, sit and watch them dance from the divan. Then Wanda slipped an arm around Mary and they glided off, an incongruous couple, the one clad as sombrely as any priest, the other in her soft evening dress of blue chiffon. Mary lay gently against Wanda’s arm, and she seemed to Stephen a very perfect dancer—lighting a cigarette, she watched them. The dance over, Mary put on a new record; she was flushed and her eyes were considerably brighter.
‘Why did you never tell me?’ Stephen murmured.
‘Tell you what?’
‘Why, that you danced so well.’
Mary hesitated, then she murmured back: ‘You didn’t dance, so what was the good?’
‘Wanda, you must teach me to foxtrot,’ smiled Stephen.
Jamie was blundering round the room with Barbara clasped to her untidy bosom; then she and Barbara started to sing the harmless, but foolish words of the foxtrot—if the servants were singing their old Breton hymns along in the kitchen, no one troubled to listen. Growing hilarious, Jamie sang louder, spinning with Barbara, gyrating wildly, until Barbara, between laughing and coughing, must implore her to stop, must beg for mercy.
Wanda said: ‘You might have a lesson now, Stephen.’
Putting her hands on Stephen’s shoulders, she began to explain the more simple steps, which did not appear at all hard to Stephen. The music seemed to have got into her feet so that her feet must follow its rhythm. She discovered to her own very great amazement that she liked this less formal modern dancing, and after a while she was clasping Mary quite firmly, and they moved away together while Wanda stood calling out her instructions:
‘Take much longer steps! Keep your knees straight—straighter! Don’t get so much to the side—look, it’s this way—hold her this way; always stand square to your partner.’
The lesson went on for a good two hours, until even Mary seemed somewhat exhausted. She suddenly rang the bell for Pierre, who appeared with the tray of simple supper. Then Mary did an unusual thing—she poured herself out a whisky and soda.
‘I’m tired,’ she explained rather fretfully in answer to Stephen’s look of surprise; and she frowned as she turned her back abruptly. But Wanda shied away from the brandy as a frightened horse will shy from fire; she drank two large glasses of lemonade—an extremist she was in all things, this Wanda. Quite soon she announced that she must go home to bed, because of her latest picture which required every ounce of strength she had in her; but before she went she said eagerly to Stephen:
‘Do let me show you the Sacré Cœur. You have seen it of course, but only as a tourist; that is not really seeing it at all, you must come there with me.’
‘All right,’ agreed Stephen.
When Jamie and Barbara had departed in their turn, Stephen took Mary into her arms: ‘Dearest … has it been a fairly nice Christmas after all?’ she inquired almost timidly.
Mary kissed her: ‘Of course it’s been a nice Christmas.’ Then her youthful face suddenly changed in expression, the grey eyes growing hard, the mouth resentful: ‘Damn that woman for what she’s done to us, Stephen—the insolence of it! But I’ve learnt my lesson; we’ve got plenty of friends without Lady Massey and Agnes, friends to whom we’re not moral lepers.’ And she laughed, a queer, little joyless laugh.
Stephen flinched, remembering Brockett’s warning.
2
WANDA’S chastened and temperate mood persisted for several weeks, and while it was on her she clung like a drowning man to Stephen, haunting the house from morning until night, dreading to be alone for a moment. It cannot be said that Stephen suffered her gladly, for now with the New Year she was working hard on a series of articles and short stories; unwilling to visualize defeat, she began once again to sharpen her weapon. But something in Wanda’s poor efforts to keep sober, in her very dep
endence, was deeply appealing, so that Stephen would put aside her work, feeling loath to desert the unfortunate creature.
Several times they made a long pilgrimage on foot to the church of the Sacrè Cœur; just the two, for Mary would never go with them; she was prejudiced against Wanda’s religion. They would climb the steep streets with their flights of steps, grey streets, grey steps leading up from the city. Wanda’s eyes would always be fixed on their goal—pilgrim eyes they would often seem to Stephen. Arrived at the church she and Wanda would stand looking down between the tall, massive columns of the porch, on a Paris of domes and mists, only half revealed by the fitful sunshine. The air would seem pure up there on the height, pure and tenuous as a thing of the spirit. And something in that mighty temple of faith, that amazing thrust towards the sublime, that silent yet articulate cry of a nation to its God, would awaken a response in Stephen, so that she would seem to be brushing the hem of an age-old and rather terrible mystery—the eternal mystery of good and evil.
Inside the church would be brooding shadows, save where the wide lakes of amber fire spread out from the endless votive candles. Above the high altar the monstranced Host would gleam curiously white in the light of the candles. The sound of praying, monotonous, low, insistent, would come from those who prayed with extended arms, with crucified arms, all day and all night for the sins of Paris.
Wanda would make her way to the statue of the silver Christ with one hand on His heart, and the other held out in supplication. Kneeling down she would sign herself with His Cross, then cover her eyes and forget about Stephen. Standing quietly behind her Stephen would wonder what Wanda was saying to the silver Christ, what the silver Christ was saying to Wanda. She would think that He looked very weary, this Christ Who must listen to so many supplications. Queer, unbidden thoughts came to her at such moments; this Man Who was God, a God Who waited, could He answer the riddle of Wanda’s existence, of her own existence? If she asked, could He answer? What if she were suddenly to cry out loudly: ‘Look at us, we are two yet we stand for many. Our name is legion and we also are waiting, we also are tired, oh, but terribly tired … Will You give us some hope of ultimate release? Will You tell us the secret of our salvation?’
Wanda would rise from her prayers rather stiffly to purchase a couple of votive candles, and when she had stuck them into the sconce she would touch the foot of the silver Christ as she bade Him farewell—a time-honoured custom. Then she and Stephen might turn again to the lake of fire that flowed round the monstrance.
But one morning when they arrived at the church, the monstrance was not above the high altar. The altar had just been garnished and swept, so the Host was still in the Lady Chapel. And while they stood there and gazed at the Host, came a priest and with him a grey-haired server; they would bear their God back again to His home, to the costly shrine of His endless vigil. The server must first light his little lantern suspended from a pole, and must then grasp his bell. The priest must lift his Lord from the monstrance and lay Him upon a silken cover, and carry Him as a man carries a child—protectively, gently, yet strongly withal, as though some frustrated maternal instinct were finding in this a divine expression. The lantern swung rhythmically to and fro, the bell rang out its imperative warning; then the careful priest followed after the server who cleared his path to the great high altar. And even as once very long ago, such a bell had been the herald of death in the putrefying hand of the leper: ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ death and putrefaction—the warning bell in the dreadful hand that might never again know the clasp of the healthful—so now the bell rang out the approach of supreme purity, of the Healer of lepers, earth-bound through compassion; but compassion so vast, so urgent, that the small white disc of the Host must contain the whole suffering universe. Thus the Prisoner of love Who could never break free while one spiritual leper remained to be healed, passed by on His patient way, heavy-laden.
Wanda suddenly fell to her knees, striking her lean and unfruitful breast, for as always she very shamefully feared, and her fear was a bitter and most deadly insult. With downcast eyes and trembling hands she cowered at the sight of her own salvation. But Stephen stood upright and curiously still, staring into the empty Lady Chapel.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
1
THAT spring they made their first real acquaintance with the garish and tragic night life of Paris that lies open to such people as Stephen Gordon.
Until now they had never gone out much at night except to occasional studio parties, or occasional cafés of the milder sort for a cup of coffee with Barbara and Jamie; but that spring Mary seemed fanatically eager to proclaim her allegiance to Pat’s miserable army. Deprived of the social intercourse which to her would have been both natural and welcome, she now strove to stand up to a hostile world by proving that she could get on without it. The spirit of adventure that had taken her to France, the pluck that had steadied her while in the Unit, the emotional, hot-headed nature of the Celt, these things must now work together in Mary to produce a state of great restlessness, a pitiful revolt against life’s injustice. The blow struck by a weak and thoughtless hand had been even more deadly than Stephen had imagined; more deadly to them both, for that glancing blow coming at a time of apparent success, had torn from them every shred of illusion.
Stephen, who could see that the girl was fretting, would be seized with a kind of sick apprehension, a sick misery at her own powerlessness to provide a more normal and complete existence. So many innocent recreations, so many harmless social pleasures must Mary forego for the sake of their union—and she still young, still well under thirty. And now Stephen came face to face with the gulf that lies between warning and realization—all her painful warnings anent the world had not served to lessen the blow when it fell, had not served to make it more tolerable to Mary. Deeply humiliated Stephen would feel, when she thought of Mary’s exile from Morton, when she thought of the insults this girl must endure because of her loyalty and her faith—all that Mary was losing that belonged to her youth, would rise up at this time to accuse and scourge Stephen. Her courage would flicker like a lamp in the wind, and would all but go out; she would feel less steadfast, less capable of continuing the war, that ceaseless war for the right to existence. Then the pen would slip from her nerveless fingers, no longer a sharp and purposeful weapon. Yes, that spring saw a weakening in Stephen herself—she felt tired, and sometimes very old for her age, in spite of her vigorous mind and body.
Calling Mary she would need to be reassured; and one day she asked her: ‘How much do you love me?’
Mary answered: ‘So much that I’m growing to hate …’ Bitter words to hear on such young lips as Mary’s.
And now there were days when Stephen herself would long for some palliative, some distraction; when her erstwhile success seemed like Dead Sea fruit, her will to succeed a grotesque presumption. Who was she to stand out against the whole world, against those ruthless, pursuing millions bent upon the destruction of her and her kind? And she but one poor, inadequate creature. She would start to pace up and down her study; up and down, up and down, a most desolate pacing; even as years ago her father had paced his quiet study at Morton. Then those treacherous nerves of hers would betray her, so that when Mary came in with David—he a little depressed, sensing something amiss—she would often turn on the girl and speak sharply.
‘Where on earth have you been?’
‘Only out for a walk. I walked round to Jamie’s, Barbara’s not well; I sent her in a few tins of Brand’s jelly.’
‘You’ve no right to go off without letting me know where you’re going—I’ve told you before I won’t have it!’ Her voice would be harsh, and Mary would flush, unaware of those nerves that were strained to breaking.
As though grasping at something that remained secure, they would go to see the kind Mademoiselle Duphot, but less often than they had done in the past, for a feeling of guilt would come upon Stephen. Looking at the gentle and foal-like face with its innocent e
yes behind the strong glasses, she would think: ‘We’re here under false pretences. If she knew what we were, she’d have none of us, either. Brockett was right, we should stick to our kind.’ So they went less and less to see Mademoiselle Duphot.
Mademoiselle said with her mild resignation: ‘It is natural, for now our Stévenne is famous. Why should she waste her time upon us? I am more than content to have been her teacher.’
But the sightless Julie shook her head sadly: ‘It is not like that; you mistake, my sister. I can feel a great desolation in Stévenne—and some of the youngness has gone from Mary. What can it be? My fingers grow blind when I ask them the cause of that desolation.’
‘I will pray for them both to the Sacred Heart which comprehends all things,’ said Mademoiselle Duphot.
And indeed her own heart would have tried to understand—but Stephen had grown very bitterly mistrustful.
And so now, in good earnest they turned to their kind, for as Puddle had truly divined in the past, it is ‘like to like’ for such people as Stephen. Thus when Pat walked in unexpectedly one day to invite them to join a party that night at the Ideal Bar, Stephen did not oppose Mary’s prompt and all too eager acceptance.
Pat said they were going to do the round. Wanda was coming and probably Brockett. Dickie West the American aviator was in Paris, and she also had promised to join them. Oh, yes, and then there was Valérie Seymour—Valérie was being dug out of her hole by Jeanne Maurel, her most recent conquest. Pat supposed that Valérie would drink lemon squash and generally act as a douche of cold water, she was sure to grow sleepy or disapproving, she was no acquisition to this sort of party. But could they rely upon Stephen’s car? In the cold, grey dawn of the morning after, taxis were sometime scarce up at Montmartre. Stephen nodded, thinking how absurdly prim Pat looked to be talking of cold, grey dawns and all that they stood for up at Montmartre. After she had left, Stephen frowned a little.