1919

  When Eleanor got back, with a lot of old Italian damask in her trunk, J.W. was up and around again. It seemed to Eveline that Eleanor had something cold and sarcastic in her manner of speaking she’d never had before. When she went to the Crillon to tea Miss Williams would hardly speak to Eveline, but put herself out to be polite to Eleanor. Even Morton, the valet, seemed to make the same difference. J.W. from time to time gave her a furtive squeeze of the hand, but they never got to go out alone any more. Eveline began to think of going home to America, but the thought of going back to Santa Fé or to any kind of life she’d lived before was hideous to her. She wrote J.W. long uneasy notes every day telling him how unhappy she was, but he never mentioned them when she saw him. When she asked him once why he didn’t ever write her a few words he said quickly, “I never write personal letters,” and changed the subject.

  In the end of April Don Stevens turned up in Paris. He was in civilian clothes as he’d resigned from the reconstruction unit. He asked Eveline to put him up as he was broke. Eveline was afraid of the concièrge and of what Eleanor or J.W. might say if they found out, but she felt desperate and bitter and didn’t care much what happened anyway; so she said all right, she’d put him up but he wasn’t to tell anybody where he was staying. Don teased her about her bourgeois ideas, said those sorts of things wouldn’t matter after the revolution, that the first test of strength was coming on the first of May. He made her read L’Humanité and took her up to the rue du Croissant to show her the little restaurant where Jaurès had been assassinated.

  One day a tall longfaced young man in some kind of a uniform came into the office and turned out to be Freddy Seargeant, who had just got a job in the Near East Relief and was all excited about going out to Constantinople. Eveline was delighted to see him, but after she’d been with him all afternoon she began to feel that the old talk about the theater and decoration and pattern and color and form didn’t mean much to her any more. Freddy was in ecstasy about being in Paris, and the little children sailing boats in the ponds in the Tuileries gardens, and the helmets of the Garde Republicaine turned out to salute the King and Queen of the Belgians who happened to be going up the rue de Rivoli when they passed. Eveline felt mean and teased him about not having gone through with it as a C.O.; he explained that a friend had gotten him into the camouflage service before he knew it and that he didn’t care about politics anyway, and that before he could do anything the war was over and he was discharged. They tried to get Eleanor to go out to dinner with them, but she had a mysterious engagement to dine with J.W. and some people from the quai d’Orsay, and couldn’t come. Eveline went with Freddy to the Opera Comique to see Pélléas but she felt fidgety all through it and almost slapped him when she saw he was crying at the end. Having an orange water ice at the Café Néapolitain afterwards, she upset Freddy terribly by saying Debussy was old hat, and he took her home glumly in a taxi. At the last minute she reflected and tried to be nice to him; she promised to go out to Chartres with him the next Sunday.

  It was still dark when Freddy turned up Sunday morning. They went out and got some coffee sleepily from an old woman who had a little stand in the doorway opposite. They still had an hour before train time and Freddy suggested they go and get Eleanor up. He’d so looked forward to going to Chartres with both of them, he said; it would be old times all over again, he hated to think how life was drawing them all apart. So they got into a cab and went down to the quai de la Tournelle. The great question was how to get in the house as the street door was locked and there was no concièrge. Freddy rang and rang the bell until finally the Frenchman who lived on the lower floor came out indignant in his bathrobe and let them in.

  They banged on Eleanor’s door. Freddy kept shouting, “Eleanor Stoddard, you jump right up and come to Chartres with us.” After a while Eleanor’s face appeared, cool and white and collected, in the crack of the door above a stunning blue negligée.

  “Eleanor, we’ve got just a half an hour to catch the train for Chartres, the taxi has full steam up outside and if you don’t come we’ll all regret it to our dying day.”

  “But I’m not dressed . . . it’s so early.”

  “You look charming enough to go just as you are.” Freddy pushed through the door and grabbed her in his arms. “Eleanor, you’ve got to come . . . I’m off for the Near East tomorrow night.”

  Eveline followed them into the salon. Passing the half open door of the bedroom, she glanced in and found herself looking J.W. full in the face. He was sitting bolt upright in the bed, wearing pyjamas with a bright blue stripe. His blue eyes looked straight through her. Some impulse made Eveline pull the door to. Eleanor noticed her gesture. “Thank you, darling,” she said coolly, “it’s so untidy in there.”

  “Oh, do come, Eleanor . . . after all you can’t have forgotten old times the way hardhearted Hannah there seems to have,” said Freddy in a cajoling whine.

  “Let me think,” said Eleanor, tapping her chin with the sharp pointed nail of a white forefinger, “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, darlings, you two go out on the poky old train as you’re ready and I’ll run out as soon as I’m dressed and call up J.W. at the Crillon and see if he won’t drive me out. Then we can all come back together. How’s that?”

  “That would be lovely, Eleanor dear,” said Eveline in a singsong voice. “Splendid, oh, I knew you’d come . . . well, we’ve got to be off. If we miss each other we’ll be in front of the cathedral at noon . . . Is that all right?”

  Eveline went downstairs in a daze. All the way out to Chartres Freddy was accusing her bitterly of being absentminded and not liking her old friends any more.

  By the time they got to Chartres it was raining hard. They spent a gloomy day there. The stained glass that had been taken away for safety during the war hadn’t been put back yet. The tall twelfth-century saints had a wet, slimy look in the driving rain. Freddy said that the sight of the black virgin surrounded by candles in the crypt was worth all the trouble of the trip for him, but it wasn’t for Eveline. Eleanor and J.W. didn’t turn up; “Of course not in this rain,” said Freddy. It was a kind of relief to Eveline to find that she’d caught cold and would have to go to bed as soon as she got home. Freddy took her to her door in a taxi but she wouldn’t let him come up for fear he’d find Don there.

  Don was there, and was very sympathetic about her cold and tucked her in bed and made her a hot lemonade with cognac in it. He had his pockets full of money, as he’d just sold some articles, and had gotten a job to go to Vienna for the Daily Herald of London. He was pulling out as soon after May 1 as he could . . .“unless something breaks here,” he said impressively. He went away that evening to a hotel, thanking her for putting him up like a good comrade even if she didn’t love him any more. The place felt empty after he’d gone. She almost wished she’d made him stay. She lay in bed feeling feverishly miserable, and finally went to sleep feeling sick and scared and lonely.

  The morning of the first of May, Paul Johnson came around before she was up. He was in civilian clothes and looked young and slender and nice and lighthaired and handsome. He said Don Stevens had gotten him all wrought up about what was going to happen what with the general strike and all that; he’d come to stick around if Eveline didn’t mind. “I thought I’d better not be in uniform, so I borrowed this suit from a feller,” he said. “I think I’ll strike too,” said Eveline. “I’m so sick of that Red Cross office I could scream.”

  “Gee, that ud be wonderful, Eveline. We can walk around and see the excitement. . . . It’ll be all right if you’re with me . . . I mean I’ll be easier in my mind if I know where you are if there’s trouble . . . You’re awful reckless, Eveline.”

  “My, you look handsome in that suit, Paul . . . I never saw you in civilian clothes before.”

  Paul blushed and put his hands uneasily into his pockets. “Lord, I’ll be glad to get into civvies for keeps,” he said seriously. “Even through it’ll mean me goin’ back to work . . . I can’t get
a darn thing out of these Sorbonne lectures . . . everybody’s too darn restless, I guess . . . and I’m sick of hearing what bums the boche are, that’s all the frog profs seem to be able to talk about.”

  “Well, go out and read a book and I’ll get up. . . . Did you notice if the old woman across the way had coffee out?”

  “Yare, she did,” called Paul from the salon to which he’d retreated when Eveline stuck her toes out from under the bedclothes. “Shall I go out and bring some in?”

  “That’s a darling, do. . . . I’ve got brioches and butter here . . . take that enamelled milkcan out of the kitchen.”

  Eveline looked at herself in the mirror before she started dressing. She had shadows under her eyes and faint beginnings of crowsfeet. Chillier than the damp Paris room came the thought of growing old. It was so horribly actual that she suddenly burst into tears. An old hag’s tearsmeared face looked at her bitterly out of the mirror. She pressed the palms of her hands hard over her eyes. “Oh, I lead such a silly life,” she whispered aloud.

  Paul was back. She could hear him moving around awkwardly in the salon. “I forgot to tell you . . . Don says Anatole France is going to march with the mutilays ofla guerre. . . . I’ve got the cafay o lay whenever you’re ready.”

  “Just a minute,” she called from the basin where she was splashing cold water on her face. “How old are you, Paul?” she asked him when she came out of her bedroom all dressed, smiling, feeling that she was looking her best.

  “Free, white and twenty one . . . we’d better drink up this coffee before it gets cold.” “You don’t look as old as that.” “Oh, I’m old enough to know better,” said Paul, getting very red in the face. “I’m five years older than that,” said Eveline. “Oh, how I hate growing old.” “Five years don’t mean anything,” stammered Paul.

  He was so nervous he spilt a lot of coffee over his trouserleg. “Oh, hell, that’s a dumb thing to do,” he growled. “I’ll get it out in a second,” said Eveline, running for a towel.

  She made him sit in a chair and kneeled down in front of him and scrubbed at the inside of his thigh with the towel. Paul sat there stiff, red as a beet, with his lips pressed together. He jumped to his feet before she’d finished. “Well, let’s go out and see what’s happening. I wish I knew more about what it’s all about.”

  “Well, you might at least say thank you,” said Eveline, looking up at him.

  “Thanks, gosh, it’s awful nice of you, Eveline.”

  Outside it was like Sunday. A few stores were open on the side streets but they had their iron shutters halfway down. It was a grey day; they walked up the Boulevard St. Germain, passing many people out strolling in their best clothes. It wasn’t until a squadron of the Guarde Republicaine clattered past them in their shiny helmets and their tricolor plumes that they had any inkling of tenseness in the air.

  Over on the other side of the Seine there were more people and little groups of gendarmes standing around.

  At the crossing of several streets they saw a cluster of old men in workclothes with a red flag and a sign, L’UNION DES TRAVAILLEURS FERA LA PAIX DU MONDE. A cordon of republican guards rode down on them with their sabres drawn, the sun flashing on their helmets. The old men ran or flattened themselves in doorways.

  On the Grands Boulevards there were companies of poilus in tin hats and grimy blue uniforms standing round their stacked rifles. The crowds on the streets cheered them as they surged past, everything seemed goodnatured and jolly. Eveline and Paul began to get tired; they’d been walking all morning. They began to wonder where they’d get any lunch. Then too it was starting to rain.

  Passing the Bourse they met Don Stevens, who had just come out of the telegraph office. He was sore and tired. He’d been up since five o’clock. “If they’re going to have a riot why the hell can’t they have it in time to make the cables . . . Well, I saw Anatole France dispersed on the Place d’Alma. Ought to be a story in that except for all this damned censorship. Things are pretty serious in Germany . . . I think something’s going to happen there.”

  “Will anything happen here in Paris, Don?” asked Paul.

  “Damned if I know . . . some kids busted up those gratings around the trees and threw them at the cops on the avenue Magenta. . . . Burnham in there says there are barricades at the end of the place de la Bastille, but I’m damned if I’m going over till I get something to eat . . . I don’t believe it anyway . . . I’m about foundered. What are you two bourgeois doing out a day like this?”

  “Hey, fellowworker, don’t shoot,” said Paul, throwing up his hands. “Wait till we get something to eat,” Eveline laughed. She thought how much better she liked Paul than she liked Don.

  They walked around a lot of back streets in the drizzling rain and at last found a little restaurant from which came voices and a smell of food. They ducked in under the iron shutter of the door. It was dark and crowded with taxidrivers and workingmen. They squeezed into the end of a marble table where two old men were playing chess. Eveline’s leg was pressed against Paul’s. She didn’t move; then he began to get red and moved his chair a little. “Excuse me,” he said.

  They all ate liver and onions and Don got to talking with the old men in his fluent bad French. They said the youngsters weren’t good for anything nowadays, in the old days when they descended into the street they tore up the pavings and grabbed the cops by the legs and pulled them off their horses. Today was supposed to be a general strike and what had they done? . . . nothing . . . a few urchins had thrown some stones and one café window had been broken. It wasn’t like that that liberty defended itself and the dignity of labor. The old men went back to their chess. Don set them up to a bottle of wine.

  Eveline was sitting back halflistening, wondering if she’d go around to see J.W. in the afternoon. She hadn’t seen him or Eleanor since that Sunday morning; she didn’t care anyway. She wondered if Paul would marry her, how it would be to have a lot of little babies that would have the same young coltish fuzzy look he had. She liked it in this little dark restaurant that smelt of food and wine and caporal ordinaire, sitting back and letting Don lay down the law to Paul about the revolution. “When I get back home I guess I’ll bum around the country a little, get a job as a harvest hand and stuff like that and find out about those things,” Paul said finally. “Now I don’t know a darn thing, just what I hear people say.”

  After they had eaten they were sitting over some glasses of wine, when they heard an American voice. Two M.P.’s had come in and were having a drink at the zinc bar. “Don’t talk English,” whispered Paul. They sat there stiffly trying to look as French as possible until the two khaki uniforms disappeared, then Paul said, “Whee, I was scared . . . they’d picked me up sure as hell if they’d found me without my uniform. . . . Then it’d have been the Roo Saint Anne and goodby Paree.” “Why, you poor kid, they’d have shot you at sunrise,” said Eveline. “You go right home and change your clothes at once . . . I’m going to the Red Cross for a while anyway.”

  Don walked over to the rue de Rivoli with her. Paul shot off down another street to go to his room and get his uniform. “I think Paul Johnson’s an awfully nice boy, where did you collect him, Don?” Eveline said in a casual tone. “He’s kinder simple . . . unlicked cub kind of a kid . . . I guess he’s all right . . . I got to know him when the transport section he was in was billeted near us up in the Marne . . . Then he got this cush job in the Post Despatch Service and now he’s studying at the Sorbonne. . . . By God, he needs it . . . no social ideas . . . Paul still thinks it was the stork.”

  “He must come from near where you came from . . . back home, I mean.”

  “Yare, his dad owns a grain elevator in some little tank town or other . . . petit bourgeois . . . bum environment . . . He’s not a bad kid in spite of it . . . Damn shame he hasn’t read Marx, something to stiffen his ideas up.” Don made a funny face. “That goes with you too, Eveline, but I gave you up as hopeless long ago. Ornamental but not useful.
” They’d stopped and were talking on the streetcorner under the arcade. “Oh, Don, I think your ideas are just too tiresome,” she began. He interrupted, “Well, solong, here comes a bus . . . I oughtn’t to ride on a scab bus but it’s too damn far to walk all the way to the Bastille.” He gave her a kiss. “Don’t be sore at me.” Eveline waved her hand, “Have a good time in Vienna, Don.” He jumped on the platform of the bus as it rumbled past. The last Eveline saw the woman conductor was trying to push him off because the bus was complet.

  She went up to her office and tried to look as if she’d been there all day. At a little before six she walked up the street to the Crillon and went up to see J.W. Everything was as usual there, Miss Williams looking chilly and yellowhaired at her desk, Morton stealthily handing around tea and petit fours, J.W. deep in talk with a personage in a cutaway in the embrasure of the window, halfhidden by the heavy champagnecolored drapes, Eleanor in a pearlgrey afternoon dress Eveline had never seen before, chatting chirpily with three young staffofficers in front of the fireplace. Eveline had a cup of tea and talked about something or other with Eleanor for a moment, then she said she had an engagement and left.

  In the anteroom she caught Miss Williams’ eye as she passed. She stopped by her desk a moment: “Busy as ever, Miss Williams,” she said.

  “It’s better to be busy,” she said. “It keeps a person out of mischief . . . It seems to me that in Paris they waste a great deal of time . . . I never imagined that there could be a place where people could sit around idle so much of the time.”

  “The French value their leisure more than anything.”

  “Leisure’s all right if you have something to do with it . . . but this social life wastes so much of our time . . . People come to lunch and stay all afternoon, I don’t know what we can do about it . . . it makes a very difficult situation.” Miss Williams looked hard at Eveline. “I don’t suppose you have much to do down at the Red Cross any more, do you, Miss Hutchins?”