Читать книгу: «Mademoiselle Blanche», страница 10

"Do you think," Blanche said at last, "do you think he would have loved me if I hadn't done that – if I hadn't done that plunge, I mean – in the Circus?"

Madeleine glanced at her quickly; she was unable to grasp the significance of the question. "But he did see you in the Circus," she replied. "If he hadn't seen you there, chérie, he wouldn't have seen you at all."

"Yes, yes, that's true." Blanche realized that it would be useless to try to explain what she meant. Then, after a moment, she added, "And now that I've given up the dive, – perhaps I shall never be able to do it again; the Doctor said I might not, – now that I've given it up, do you think he'll love me just the same?"

Madeleine's faded eyes turned to Blanche and examined her closely. "If he'll love you just the same?" she repeated. "What has put such a strange idea into your head, child? Of course he'll love you just the same."

Then Madeleine was launched on a flood of eulogy. Jules was so good, so faithful, so affectionate. There was not another like him. He had always been so tender with his mother; and oh, how his poor mother had worshipped him! Madeleine's praises had the effect of soothing Blanche for a time; they also made her ashamed of the half-conscious suspicion which had arisen in her mind, and which she would not have dared to formulate even to herself. She only permitted herself to acknowledge that his present manner toward her was different from his old one. She was also disturbed by his refusal for the past three Sundays to go to church with her.

The next afternoon Jules came home in a rage. "I've been down to see Marshall," he said. "What do you suppose the old fool's gone and done? He had the door of your dressing-room opened this morning and all your things turned out into Miss Van Pelt's old room, – the little hole next door, you know. It's hardly big enough to breathe in. He said you weren't the star any longer, and he must give the room to Miss King. It seems she's a kicker and he's afraid of a row."

Blanche had nothing to say in reply; this seemed to her only another indignity added to those she had already suffered. The worst was to come in the evening, when her rival would share the applause that used to be hers. A few moments later she asked, —

"Was she there – that woman?"

"No; she hasn't appeared yet, and Marshall was a little nervous. She was to come up from Manchester in a train that got in during the afternoon."

"But suppose she doesn't come."

"Oh, she'll come fast enough. Marshall had a telegram saying she'd started. Her big iron tub arrived this morning. They were putting it in the ground and laying the pipes for the water when I was there. They keep it covered till her act begins."

"What does she do besides her jump?"

"Oh, Marshall says she goes through a lot of antics, stays under the water till she nearly dies of suffocation, and cooks a meal, and – "

"Under water?" Blanche gasped.

"No, of course not, you ninny," Jules cried impatiently. His wife's simplicity had long before ceased to amuse him. "She does it while she's floating. Then one of the circus boys falls into the tank, and she shows how she used to rescue people out in California."

"Then she's an American."

"She's lived in America all her life, but her father was an Englishman, and she was born in England. Her father kept a swimming school out in San Francisco; that's how she got into the business. They say she's got a lot of medals for saving lives."

As Jules walked into the next room to change his clothes for the evening, he said to himself that his wife was growing very stupid and tiresome.

Blanche sat alone for a few moments, feeling cold and forlorn. She could not keep from thinking and wondering about that woman; she was anxious and yet afraid to see her. She could not account for the dislike and terror with which the mere thought of the woman inspired her. She had never before regarded the other performers in the circus as her rivals; so, for the first time in her life, she knew the bitterness of jealousy.

Before preparing for the evening she went into the nursery, and for several moments sat beside the cradle where Jeanne was peacefully sleeping, her little face rosy with health. The poor child, she thought, could never know the sacrifice she had made for her. She was glad she had made it; she had done her duty; but it was hard, it was so hard! Then she bent over and kissed Jeanne on the cheek; the child drew her head away, and buried her face impatiently in the pillow. Blanche turned her gently in the crib, adjusted the lace covering, and stole out of the room.

Jules met her as she was closing the door softly behind her. "What have you been doing in there?" he cried petulantly. "Why can't you let Jeanne alone when she's asleep? Every time she takes a nap you go in and wake her up. No wonder – "

"I haven't waked her," Blanche replied apologetically. "I only went in to see if she needed anything, and I sat beside her a moment."

"Well, you'll spoil her if you keep on. From the way you act one would imagine that Jeanne was the only creature in the world worth thinking about!"

They both took their places at the table which Madeleine had prepared, and proceeded silently with their dinner. Madeleine, who hovered about them, wondered what the matter was; she had never seen Monsieur Jules like this before; he usually had a great deal to say. When she had left the room for a few minutes, Jules looked up from his plate.

"I've been wondering whether we ought to keep Madeleine or not. She's a great expense. We could get along just as well without her. The garçon could serve our meals. We have to pay for the service whether we get it or not."

When he had spoken he was startled by the look in his wife's face. Not keep Madeleine! The mere thought of parting with the old woman, whom she had come to regard almost as a second mother, shocked her so much that for a moment she could not formulate a reply.

"But we couldn't get along without her!" she said. "Think of all she does for me and for Jeanne!"

"Oh, Jeanne! It's always Jeanne, Jeanne. I'm sick of hearing her name. If Jeanne hadn't been born we shouldn't be in the pretty box we're in now, and you'd be going on with your work like a sensible woman. I tell you we must economize. We're under heavy expenses here, and we're going to lose a lot of money by this imaginary sickness of yours."

"I can't let Madeleine go," Blanche replied. "I should die without her. I should die of loneliness. And she loves you so, as much as if you were her son, and she loved your mother. She has often talked to me about her. I can't, I can't let her go. I'd rather – "

"Very well, then. Don't say anything more about it. We'll have to economize in some other way. Here she comes now. So keep quiet, or she'll want to find out what we've been talking about."

XVIII

The Hippodrome was crowded on the night of Miss King's first appearance. Jules, in evening dress as usual, leaned against the railing behind the highest tier of seats. At this moment he felt that he had been duped by fate, and he wanted to revenge himself on the crowd that had come to rejoice over his disappointment; for their presence seemed like a personal insult to him. But for the machinations of that crazy Englishwoman, Blanche would now be going on with her work; by this time they might have made arrangements for her visit to America in the early summer. However, the mischief was done, and there was no knowing when it would be undone. Blanche might have recovered in a few weeks from her terror of the plunge; but after once yielding to it, she would probably never get over it.

Jules believed in presentiments, and he had a strong presentiment that Blanche had taken her plunge for the last time. He tried to console himself, however, with the hope that Lottie King would make a failure. The extensive advertising that Marshall had given her made Jules hate the girl; her name had been posted in places all over London where his wife's alone had been. To Jules this was the most cruel evidence of his own decadence.

Half an hour before it was time for Blanche to appear Jules sauntered toward her dressing-room. When he reached the door, he stopped in surprise; he could hear an unfamiliar voice speaking English. Some one must be in there with Blanche and Madeleine. When he entered, he saw a plump, pretty young woman, with a shock of yellow hair and big blue eyes, dressed in a tight-fitting bathing-suit of blue flannel and in blue silk stockings. He recognized her at once from her photographs.

"Hello!" she cried, glancing at Jules familiarly. "Is this him? Introduce me, won't you?"

For a moment Blanche, whose face had been made up and whose figure, dressed in white silk tights, was covered with the cloak she threw off as she entered the ring, looked confused. Then she presented Jules to Miss King, who beamed upon him with extravagant pleasure.

"Your wife's been telling me about you," she said. "I've been making friends with her. I wanted to see what she was like, and I supposed she'd want to see what I was like. So we've agreed not to scratch each other's eyes out. You speak English too, don't you?"

This gave Jules an opportunity to reiterate his story about having learned English in America.

"So you've been to America!" Miss King cried, her eyes bigger than ever, and her open mouth showing her white, square teeth. "Were you with a troupe there?"

Jules shook his head. "I wasn't married then."

"Ah!" The diver glanced sharply at Blanche, and then back at Jules, as if making a rapid calculation of their ages. "Been married long?" she asked.

"A little over a year," Blanche replied.

"Too bad your wife had to give her dive up, ain't it?" the girl said to Jules. "I hear it was great. But I suppose you'll do it again, won't you, when you're better?"

Blanche flushed. "I don't know," she said, with a half-frightened look at Jules.

"Well, I would if I was you. It's sensational things like that that ketches 'em. My act's kind of sensational, but it ain't in it with yours for cold nerve an' grit. When you do it again you'd oughter go to America. You can make a good deal more there than you do here. I came over just for the reputation. It helps you a lot over there if you've made a hit in Europe."

"But you are English, aren't you?" Jules asked.

"Oh, yes, I s'pose I am, in a sort of way. I was born over here, but my father took me to America when I was about six, an' I'm American to the backbone."

"Have you been in the ring long?" Blanche asked.

"No, I only took to giving performances about five years ago; but I've been in the swimming business all my life. My Dad had a swimming school out in 'Frisco; but there's more money in this business. But I guess I'm keeping you folks. It must be most time for your act. Good-bye. P'raps I'll see you later. I'm mighty glad you can speak English," she laughed, with a glance at Jules. "I travelled with a troupe once with a lot of Italians in it, and my, what a time I had tryin' to talk with 'em!"

She hurried out, leaving Jules with a vision of tousled yellow hair, a roguish smile, and gleaming white teeth, and with the sound of a rich contralto voice in his ears. As soon as the door closed, he turned to Blanche.

"How did she happen to come in here?"

"She wanted me to help her with one of her slippers that was torn. Madeleine sewed it up for her."

"Hasn't she got any maid?"

"She left her behind in Manchester. She was sick. She's coming on when she gets better."

Jules merely grunted and walked out of the room. The sound of the contralto voice was still in his ears. What a sweet voice it was! She seemed to him just like an American in spite of her birth, and Jules preferred the Americans to the English. He wondered what her performance was like, and he waited impatiently for Blanche to finish her act on the trapeze and the rope. As his eyes followed Blanche, he kept seeing the tousled hair and the broad smile revealing the white teeth.

It took several moments for the tank to be arranged for the crowning performance. The audience waited in good-natured patience, however, and when finally the plump little figure in blue flannel ran out, there was a round of applause. Lottie King had added a touch of rouge to either cheek, and she looked very pretty as she ran up the flight of steps leading to the edge of the tank, poised there for a moment with the fingers of both hands touching high in the air, and then dived in a graceful curve into the water. She speedily reappeared, shaking her head and laughing, and struck out for the rope that hung from the platform. This she climbed hand over hand, the water dripping from her figure, and glistening on her face.

Jules, whose eyes had been eagerly following her, was surprised to see that she was going to begin her act with the dive, instead of keeping it for the climax. She seemed to take it very coolly, he thought, as she stood on the swaying platform, rubbing her face with a handkerchief and rearranging one of the sleeves of her costume. Then she steadied the platform, and, an instant later, she was cutting, feet foremost, through the air, her arms by her side and her body rigid. When she reached the water, there was very little splashing, and she speedily reappeared, shaking her head again and displaying her white teeth.

Jules had watched the dive breathlessly, Just as he had watched Blanche's on the night when he first saw her in the Cirque Parisien, and now he followed her feats of skill and strength with wonder and fascination. When she remained beneath the surface for more than three minutes he felt as if he himself were stifling, and when she reappeared, calm and smiling, he took a long breath.

He supposed that the rescue of one of the circus hands who fell opportunely into the tank would end the performance; but instead of leaving the ring, Lottie King climbed again to the platform. Surely, Jules thought, she would make a mistake if she repeated that plunge. Instead, however, she swung on the edge, leaped backward into the air, and after several swift turns, fell with a crash into the water. As she swam to the ladder, the band burst into triumphant music, and the audience cheered, and began to climb down from the circular seats and to rush to the spot where she was to make her exit.

Then Jules roused himself. He felt as if he had been in a dream. He had difficulty in reaching Blanche's dressing-room, for the crowd had gathered at the entrance to the ring in order to catch another glimpse of the dripping figure of the diver. When finally he succeeded in making his way there, he found Blanche sitting motionless, her arms resting on the table. He at once divined the cause of her dejection.

"You see what you've brought on yourself," he said. "A lot you'll amount to now! You might as well give up the business."

Madeleine looked at him with mild reproach in her eyes. He paid no attention to her, however. He walked back to the door, and turning, he added: "But you can't stay here all night. I thought you'd be dressed by this time. I'll wait out here for you."

Jules looked anxiously up and down the corridor, but he saw no one. He could hear the noise of the crowd slowly wending out of the Hippodrome, and from the dressing-rooms on either side the buzz of voices. Miss King must have succeeded in making her escape to her room.

XIX

If Jules had tried, he would have been unable to explain the fascination that Lottie King's performance had for him. In daring it was greatly inferior to his wife's plunge; but the fact that Blanche had lost courage lent her rival's serene indifference to danger an added attractiveness for him.

Every night he watched her with more delight. Besides being plucky and skilful, she was so pretty and so amusing! Jules liked to talk with her in the evening before she made her appearance, and she used to convulse him with laughter by her sallies. She soon fell into the habit of running into Blanche's room to ask Madeleine to do services for her, and toward Blanche she adopted a manner of half-amused patronage. By the end of the first week, Blanche had conceived a great dislike for her. This might have been at least partly due to her discovery of the pleasure which Jules took in the diver's society.

Mrs. Tate had expected that, after ceasing to make her plunge, Blanche would improve in health; but she speedily saw that she was mistaken. One afternoon she called at the hotel in Albemarle Street and found Blanche alone with the little Jeanne; Madeleine had just gone out to do some errands. They had a long talk, during which Blanche was obliged to confess that the pain in her back troubled her just as much as ever, and that she was very unhappy. When Mrs. Tate tried to find out why she was unhappy, she could elicit no satisfactory explanation. As soon as she arrived home that night, she repeated the conversation to her husband.

"Do you suppose the little creature can be mercenary, Percy?" she said. "Do you think she can be sorry she isn't risking her neck every day? I wanted to tell her this morning she ought to be ashamed of herself – she ought to think of her child. Suppose she had been killed! What would have become of the child, I'd like to know!"

"That other person has made a hit, I see. They're booming her in the papers. Did she speak of her?"

"Not a word!"

"H'm!"

"What do you mean by that, Percy?"

"Oh, nothing."

"I suppose you think she's jealous of her."

"Jealous?" Tate repeated, lifting his eyes. "You told me yourself that she was jealous before she even saw the other performer."

"Yes, and now she's jealous of her success."

"Oh, professional jealousy," he said, throwing back his head. A moment later he added: "There are worse kinds of jealousy than that in the world."

Mrs. Tate looked at him closely, but his eyes were fixed on his plate. For a few moments they did not speak; she was pondering his last remark. They understood each other so well that they often divined each other's thoughts. Now she saw that he did not care to discuss the subject, and she let it drop. She continued to think about it so much, however, that she determined to go to the Hippodrome alone some day, to a matinée, and see for herself what Blanche's successor as a star performer was like.

She returned home with a sickly feeling of regret and torturing anticipation; she had not only seen Lottie King, but she had also studied the face of Jules Le Baron, who, unconscious of her gaze, stood within a few yards of her seat. What she had observed in his expression, however, she did not communicate to her husband.

Her visit at the Hippodrome made her resolve to be even kinder to Blanche than she had been; she would take her and the child to drive in the Park two or three times a week, – oftener if she could. Mrs. Tate tried to shake off her forebodings, but for the rest of the day they clung to her, and the next morning she woke with them fresh in mind. So she resolved to drive at once to Albemarle Street. The weather was too dull to take the child out, and she would pass the morning with Blanche and try to cheer her up.

When she reached the hotel she felt relieved to find Blanche in a much better frame of mind than she had been on the occasion of her last call. The pain had left her for a few days, Blanche explained, and she had been greatly encouraged; even Jules had spoken of her improvement; he had been so patient with her, and now she felt ashamed of having been so dispirited. Mrs. Tate went away with a feeling that she had been a fool, that her forebodings were ridiculous.

One night at the end of the week, Tate returned home with the announcement that he was to start for Berlin the next day, to confer with the heads of a banking-house there with regard to the floating of a great loan. He gave her the choice of staying at home or of starting with him after only a few hours of preparation. She chose to start, and for two months she did not see London again; for, once away from the routine of his work, Tate took advantage of the opportunity to run for a holiday from Berlin down to Dresden, and thence over to Paris. During this time Mrs. Tate forgot her self-imposed cares, and gave herself up to the pleasures of travelling.

When she returned home, she was surprised to hear that Madame Le Baron had called several times, and had left word that she was anxious to see her as soon as she came back. This news sent her with a throbbing heart to Albemarle Street; she felt sure that something terrible had happened, something she might have prevented by staying in London. She was always assuming responsibilities and then dropping them! How often her husband had told her that! She had been more than culpable, she kept saying to herself, in going away without even bidding Blanche good-bye, without even leaving an address.

When she arrived at the hotel, at the close of a cold, foggy afternoon, she was surprised to be told by the garçon that Madame Le Baron had left, and had gone to an apartment in Upper Bedford Place. "It was too expensive for them here," the garçon explained with a contemptuous grin. "So they went to a private house."

Mrs. Tate drove at once to the number the boy gave her, and a few moments later she was climbing the stairs to Blanche's apartment. She was out of breath when she rapped on the door, and still breathing hard when Madeleine admitted her into the shabby drawing-room. A moment later, as Blanche appeared from the next room, she uttered an exclamation.

"Good Heavens, child, what has happened to you! You're whiter than ever, and so thin! What have you been doing to yourself? Have you had an illness?"

Blanche shook her head. "No, I haven't been ill," she replied, but her looks and her manner seemed to belie her words. The gray cloth dress which had once fitted her tightly now hung loosely about her; her face was drawn and of a chalklike pallor, and under the eyes were two black lines betraying weeks of suffering and sleeplessness.

"You were thin enough before I went away," said Mrs. Tate, "but now you're a perfect spectre."

Then she went on to explain how she had happened to desert her friends for so long a time. "I know you have something to tell me," she said, starting from her seat, "but before you begin I want to see Jeanne. How is she? But first tell me how you happened to come way up here. Isn't it a long distance for you to climb after your performance every night?"

"Jules chose these rooms because they were so much cheaper than the hotel," Blanche replied simply. "We prepare our own meals, too, and we save in that way. You know my salary is so much smaller than it used to be."

Mrs. Tate made no comment, and they went into the other room, where Jeanne was sleeping in the crib.

"She sleeps nearly all the time," said Blanche, with a faint smile that seemed to exaggerate the expression of pain and weariness in her face.

"How big she's growing!" Mrs. Tate whispered. "There's certainly nothing the matter with her, the dear little thing, with her fat rosy cheeks. I'd just like to take her in my arms and hug her."

For several minutes they stood talking about the child; then they left her with Madeleine and went back to the drawing-room, which Mrs. Tate's keen eyes discovered was used also as a bedroom. "They must be economizing with a vengeance," she thought. Blanche closed the door, and took a seat behind her visitor on the couch.

"Now I want to hear all about it," Mrs. Tate cried. "Something has happened. What is it?" She took both of Blanche's hands and looked into her eyes. "What is it?" she repeated.

For a moment they sat looking at each other. Then Blanche bent forward, buried her head on Mrs. Tate's lap, and burst into tears. Mrs. Tate said nothing, and allowed the paroxysm to spend itself. Then, gradually, the story came out.

Jules didn't love her any more, Blanche moaned. He had been cruel to her, oh, so cruel; he had said such dreadful things! And then there had been days and days when he scarcely spoke to her or to the little Jeanne or to Madeleine, and he had grown so strict with them all; he hardly allowed Madeleine enough to buy the things they needed. And once, he had said such dreadful things about Jeanne. He didn't love even Jeanne any more, – poor little Jeanne! He said they would have been better off if she had never been born. Oh, that had nearly killed her, that he should have spoken so about Jeanne. She didn't care so much about herself, though sometimes she wanted to die. One night she had prayed that God would take her and Jeanne together. Jules had always been so good to her until – until that woman came, that woman who had taken her place in the circus. It was that woman who had come between them, with her white teeth and her mocking laugh. She was making a fool of Jules; she did not care for him, but she pretended that she did, just to amuse herself. Jules followed her about everywhere; he even talked of going to America, because she was to go in a few weeks, when her engagement at the Hippodrome was over. But Blanche would die; she would throw herself into the river with Jeanne in her arms rather than go there now. Ah, it had been so hard for her, alone in a strange country, with no one but Madeleine to confide in. Madeleine had been so good; but she, too, had grown afraid of Jules in these last weeks. They scarcely dared to speak when he was at home, now.

From broken utterances, Mrs. Tate pieced together the whole miserable story. For the moment, her pity was lost in admiration for her husband's perspicacity. He had foreseen this! Now, for the first time, she realized what she had vaguely surmised before, the full meaning of his mysterious remark about Blanche and Jules. Then she turned her attention to the prostrate figure before her, offering sympathy and counsel. She knew that she was speaking in platitudes, but they were all she could offer then; and, after all, it was Blanche's own outburst that would do the poor pent-up creature the most good, the consciousness that she had some one to confide in.

Mrs. Tate stayed in the little apartment a long time, and when she went away, Blanche seemed to feel more hopeful. "Act as if he were just as kind to you as ever," was her parting injunction, "and I know everything will come out all right. He'll find out that that dreadful woman is only making a fool of him, and then he'll care more for you than ever."

In her heart, however, Mrs. Tate knew that what she said was not true. Jules had probably grown tired of his wife. The more she thought of the case, the more she pitied Blanche, – the more she realized what a tragedy in the poor little woman's life it meant. And she really had been to blame, she kept saying to herself. But for her interference, Blanche would have gone on with her diving, that other performer would not have come to the Hippodrome, and all of Blanche's agony of jealousy and neglect would have been avoided.

Oh, what a lesson it taught her! Never, never would she interfere in a family again! She would have done much better to let Blanche go to her death, rather than to drive her to despair, perhaps to a worse form of death by her meddling.

On reaching home, she was in a fever of remorse and sympathy, and she passed a miserable hour waiting for her husband to return. When at last he did appear, she met him in the hall.

"Percy," she cried dramatically, "you're a prophet!"

"Am I, indeed?" he said, putting his umbrella in the rack. "Do you mean to say this is the first time you've found it out?"

"I'll never doubt your word again, Percy," she went on, stifling a sob. Her appeal to her husband for sympathy threatened to make her hysterical, but she controlled herself and gasped out: "Don't you remember what you said about that man, Le Baron, – you know, the night he dined here, about his falling in love with his wife's performance! Well, that's just what he did do. He didn't fall in love with her; he's never been in love with her, poor thing. Fortunately she doesn't know that. It's only her performance, that horrible plunge she used to make, that he's been in love with all along."

"I don't see anything very prophetic about that," he said, walking into the drawing-room, where she followed him, clutching at the lace handkerchief in her hand. "It was as plain as daylight to any one that heard him talk and saw what kind of man he was."

"I don't mean your seeing merely that. I could tell from what you said that you saw a great deal more. Don't you remember what you said about professional jealousy not being the worst kind of jealousy in the world? That was the first thing that opened my eyes. I went to the next matinée to see for myself if it could be true, and if I hadn't been an idiot I should have realized it all then. But the next day, just before we left for Berlin, I called on that poor woman, and she seemed so much easier in mind, I thought I must have misunderstood what you meant and been mistaken about that look."

"My dear, I don't quite follow you. Aren't you just a little bit illogical?"

"No, I'm not. I'm perfectly logical. I never was more logical in my life."

"I suppose you mean that the fellow has got tired of his wife, now that she's given up her dive, and he's fallen in love with the other woman."

Mrs. Tate rose tragically from her chair and made a sweeping gesture with her right hand. "With the other woman's performance."

Tate looked at her for a moment, with smiling incredulity. "How ridiculous!" he said.

"That's exactly what I said when you told me he had fallen in love with his wife's performance. I said it was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard in my life. I couldn't have believed it if I hadn't observed it with my own eyes. But that afternoon I saw him – he stood near me, leaning against the railing – and I wish you could have seen the expression in his face while that woman was exhibiting herself, especially when she made her horrible dives."