CHAPTER XV
IF Mahomet, on arriving at the foot of the mountain, had met with a frank repulse from the object of his condescension—say, an earthquake or a stream of molten lava—it would have been permissible on the part of the prophet to feel a little hurt. So that Jean may be excused for suffering the same kind of annoyance when the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas shut their doors in his face.
It had been an effort for Jean to go back to them at all, an effort that had at once attacked his independence and his pride, and having made this sacrifice, he was not at all prepared to find that it had been made in vain. His old friends, thefellow clerks, winked sympathetically, and one of them even invited him to return for lunch at noon. Jean refused his offer somewhat magnificently, little dreaming that in a very short time he would look at a proffered meal as one of the more important gifts of Heaven. He turnedaway from the gloomy portals of his former prison-house and said to himself that he was still free; as indeed he was, quite free, with Paris before him, twenty francs in his pocket, and two extremely good suits of unpaid-for clothes.
The weeks that followed seemed an incredible time to Jean to look back upon—and yet, while they were passing it was every other time that seemed incredible. They began quite easily with that useful lady known in Paris as “ma Tante.” “Ma Tante” willingly accepted Jean’s gold watch and chain, stooped to his tie-pin and few small articles of jewellery, and by and by absorbed, with an increasingly small return, all that he did not wear of his wardrobe. Jean belonged to that class of society which knows what it is to do without some of its wants, but to whom it is wholly inconceivable that it should ever be asked to do without them all.
Jean informed Margot quite comfortably that a little went a long way, but he took for granted that he should have a little. A line, he felt, must be drawn somewhere, a D’Ucelles could hardly starve; and he was very cheerful and quite funny about it to Margot. Margot, however, took matters very seriously; she didn’t seem to think that lines are drawn anywhere, or that there was anything essentially amusing in a D’Ucelles without an overcoat.
She merely bought Jean a winter overcoat fora Christmas present. Jean almost quarrelled with her on the subject; but Margot cried, and said he couldn’t really be her friend unless he took it; so eventually they went to early Mass together, and Jean wore the overcoat.
Then Jean got a job as guide to a large and ignorant English family, who took an absorbing interest in the relics of Napoleon. While they remained in Paris nothing further went toma Tanteand Jean paid his board regularly.
Unfortunately even Napoleon can be exhausted in time, and having exhausted him, the English family returned reluctantly to Birmingham, and Jean found himself explaining to Margot that he was too busy to come in for meals; in the future he would take them out. Margot knew perfectly well what that meant, and she arranged a sly system ofgoûtersand early cups of coffee, which he found it almost impossible to evade.
Liane had kept her word to Margot; she had used the whole power of a popular and unscrupulous woman to destroy every chance she had made for Jean. None of her friends would look at the little musician any more. As for Maurice Golaud, he stated frankly that if he saw the fellow again it would come to swords, and as everyone knew how shockingly badly Maurice fenced, this was felt to prove how atrociously Liane’s little musician must have behaved. Still, of course, everyone wished that he would meet Golaud.
It occurred to Margot once to mention very timidly the fine uncle of the motor and the fur overcoat, as a possible source of supply, but when Jean said that he would rather settle the question with the Seine she dropped the subject.
“After all,” Jean would sometimes say carelessly, “look what a time it gives me for your voice; it would be almost a pity,chérie, to take up anything else just now!”
It was true Margot did wonders with her new singing master; he put his whole soul into Margot’s voice, he polished it like a careful jeweller polishes his favourite jewel.
He thought and planned for it as he wandered to and fro, looking for work, and found whatever warm corners there are to be found for shabby vagrants in Paris. The Parc Monceaux was peculiarly given up to Margot’s middle notes; he wanted them to be the best of all.
Every evening he took her to the theatre and waited for her to come out; fortunately Margot never knew that one of the things Jean did while he was waiting was to find cabs for that class of society who do not find things easily for themselves. On one occasion Jean was so fortunate as to find his Uncle Romain a vehicle, for which service that unconscious gentleman rewarded him with a franc, the only assistance at this time that Jean received from his relatives.
Romain was too busy protecting the pink silkpetticoats of the lady who was to share his cab to notice his nephew’s face. Jean gave a little laugh as he regarded his franc under the nearest lamppost.
“Funny thing,” remarked Romain to his companion, “the man I tipped just now laughed like my brother Alphonse—one had not supposed thatces gens-làcould resemble one’s family!”
“You probably gave him far too much,” said the lady, with a deep sigh. “You are generous to everyone but me,” and the conversation followed its accustomed channels.
It was a wet night, and even Margot’s overcoat did not succeed in keeping any warmth in Jean, and he was guilty of deliberately wondering if it would be any colder at the bottom of the Seine. It was strange how much he had felt his little meeting with his uncle.
He was not altogether taken by surprise next morning, when he found himself after dressing (a process which he had noticed seemed to lengthen itself out inordinately after a sleepless night) stretched upon the floor, with Margot bending over him.
“What’s the matter?” he asked rather crossly. “What are you making such a fuss about, Margot?” He felt an indisposition to get up; he was very well where he was.
“I heard you fall; you must have fainted, Jean! I knew you would! Oh, I knew you would!”
“Well, never mind!” said Jean. “I suppose I must get up.” He did not know how much Margot helped him, but he was not sorry to find himself lying on his bed again and staring at the ceiling.
“It’s only this bad cold,” he said, half to himself and half to Margot. “People always have colds in the early spring. It’s a bore it’s raining.”
“Your hands are burning hot, Jean; you’ll stay in and keep quite quiet to-day, won’t you?” Margot pleaded.
Jean made a face, but he agreed that he would stay in.
Margot immediately called in a doctor. He was as reassuring as doctors usually are. Jean would need very careful nursing, he said; there was a spot on his left lung, and his heart was terribly over-strained and weak. Still, he had youth on his side. Margot mustn’t be alarmed; the first thing was to bring down the temperature and to keep up his strength.
Margot despatched Madame Selba to her father’s friends, broke her theatre engagements and threw herself body and soul into the struggle with the thermometer. She would get the temperature down! Margot knew no more than Jean how many days and weeks passed before that blessed moment when the thermometer definitely dropped. She knew that she told the doctor that Jean was to have everything that money could buy, and that to buy the things the doctor ordered she spent thelast of her savings. Her days passed making poultices, cooking, pawning furniture round the corner, thinking of all that Jean could possibly want, and seeing that he had it. When he was quiet she prayed. She had a theory that at night she slept.
There was only one thing that Jean wanted that Margot could not supply; and he wanted that incessantly, and cried for it as a dying man cries for water.
“Liane! Liane!” Jean moaned over and over again, and Margot tried to get Liane for Jean. She wrote to her—and when she got back the cruel answer: “Madame de Brances knows no such person as Monsieur Jean D’Ucelles and regrets that she cannot oblige Mademoiselle Selba,” Margot cried.
Sometimes he would think Margot was Liane, and then the look came into his eyes which Margot had never seen there for herself, and Margot would answer it with a tenderness that surely Liane had never felt for Jean or for anyone else. And for the moment Jean would be satisfied, only an hour later to rend her heart anew with the same low, impatient murmur, “Liane! Liane!”
“Yes,” said the doctor with his finger on Jean’s pulse and his eye on the clock, “he’ll pull through now, I think, but you’ll have to feed him up, you know; he’s had a close shave, and he is desperately weak.”
The doctor was not supposed to be a sympathetic man, he had very little time for it, and experience had buried his heart under the dust of innumerable human needs; yet he paused for a moment as he saw the look in Margot’s eyes; it was the Magnificat come to life again, and it touched the doctor.
“I should suggest your feeding up yourself, you know,” he said kindly. “That young fellow owes his life to you; his kind of case depends almost entirely on good nursing.”
The look in Margot’s eyes deepened, her lips trembled so that she could not speak; the doctor shook hands with her and hurried away.
“Margot,” said a weak voice from the bed. “Margot, I’m very hungry.”
Margot gave a little sob of delight. He was to have chicken to-day. Her face clouded over a little when she remembered the price of chicken. Never mind, there was still the best bedstead; she had not meant to pawn that if she could help it; but she could not help it. So she thanked God, and ran to get Jean’s breakfast.