Olivia

by Dorothy Strachey

  “Yes,” said Cécile, with calm conviction. (And she did.)

  “Well, when you marry him, remember that though fashion is important, you are beautiful enough not to be the slave of fashion. Some of your countrywomen are so admirably turned out, so extraordinarily ‘shop-finished’ that they lose all their charm. Try to be perfect without showing it too much. Or rather, remember you are so perfect that you needn’t bother too much about showing it.—Is there anyone else here who would like to marry a duke?” she went on, looking round.

  “I should,” said I, “very much.”

  “Ah,” said Mlle Julie, examining me critically, “I’m not surprised. But, chère petite, I’m afraid you never will. Haven’t you a second choice?”

  “Yes,” I said, “the duke’s my second choice. I’d rather marry (I didn’t dare say ‘be loved by’ but that’s what I meant) a great man—a poet, an artist. But I shall never do that either.”

  “I’m not so sure of that,” she answered gravely.

  And yet, though I knew I was respected more than Cécile, there were moments when I envied her for her beauty, for her finish, for that immense power she had, without any effort, of making herself felt, moments when it wasn’t respect I wanted but something more—human, I called it.

  I was envious too in a different way of Signorina. I was conscious of a singleness in her passion of which I knew I was incapable. There was nothing in her which she had not devoted to her idol. Yes, I knew that with her, passion had obliterated every other feeling—jealousy even had been burnt up in the white heat of her adoration. I guessed that scruples, conscience, all idea of other duties, all other interests, engagements, affections, save as they related to this particular devotion, no longer existed for her. This gave her an extraordinary calm. There was nothing whatever conflicting in her. She was never traversed by those tempests of despair and resentment with their concomitant fits of self-contempt and self-loathing which so often shook me. I think she wanted nothing for herself but to be allowed to serve—to serve in any way—in every way. I think there was nothing else she wanted. If I too would have liked to serve, I was continually conscious that I was incapable and unworthy, continually devoured by vain humilities. And then there was also in me a curious repugnance, a terror of getting too near. I should not have liked to help Mlle Julie at her toilette, to brush her hair, to put on her shoes for her. When I thought of the particular services which Signorina performed with such entire gladness, I found myself shuddering. And then too, what about those other things that inhabited me? Wasn’t I likely to be caught up into excitement by a thousand extraneous causes? A curve of the river between its wooded banks, a mass of clouds in the sky, a line of poetry, a scene in a novel, the rapture of seeing the curtain roll back at the theatre, anguish for Swift’s madness, for Keats’ death—these were a few of my countless infidelities. I defended myself at the bar of my private tribunal by saying that all these emotions were but “the ministers of love” and that Love himself had created them “to feed his sacred flame.” But nevertheless I sometimes envied and very often admired Signorina.

  VII

  I remember the first éclat I witnessed between the ladies. For some weeks there had been whisperings among the girls that they were falling out; raised voices, angry words had been heard by people who passed by their door. But the first public scene took place at table. It was typical of all the others and started from a trifle.

  Hortense, the maid-servant, dropped a plate behind Mlle Cara’s chair, and Mlle Cara gave a start and a scream as if she had been shot.

  “The girl did it on purpose. I know she did,” she exclaimed.

  “Oh, Cara, I’m so sorry she startled you,” said Mlle Julie.

  “No, you’re not,” shrieked Mlle Cara. “You’re laughing at me. And you encourage her clumsiness. It was you and Mlle Baietto who engaged her. You knew she was totally unsuitable. But of course, you never listen to me.”

  Mlle Julie tried to turn the attack.

  “Well, in the meantime, we’ll get her to wait at the other table.”

  Another time Mlle Cara complained of the food. She pushed away her plate impatiently.

  “No one ever pays the faintest attention to my régime,” she cried. “And yet I should have thought Mlle Baietto knew by this time that I can’t eat beef. I believe you’re all trying to poison me.”

  “But, Cara,” said Mlle Julie, “here’s your chicken just been put on the table.”

  “It’s too late. I can’t eat anything now.” She got up to leave the table. Mlle Julie rose too and made a movement to accompany her, but Frau Riesener was beforehand with her. She hurried up to give Mlle Cara a supporting arm, and as they walked slowly from the room, Mlle Julie dropped back into her chair.

  My lesson with Signorina that afternoon was an agitated one.

  “Oh,” she cried. “Heaven knows I do my very best to give her food she’ll like. But it’s no use. She’s determined to find fault with everything.”

  “Why does she hate you?”

  “Oh, it’s not me she hates, or only in the second place. What she wants is to torture her. It’s bad enough now at table, but upstairs she’s getting more and more uncontrolled. She sobs and cries. She says she’s dying, that we’re all killing her. I listened at the door the other day. It was dreadful. ‘You don’t love me,’ she kept repeating; ‘nobody loves me.’ And then I heard Mlle Julie answer so tenderly, so sweetly, ‘Yes, Cara, indeed I do. I long for you to be well and happy.’ And Mlle Cara went on again. I made it out through her sobs: ‘No, no. You take everyone’s affection away from me. First one and then the other. They begin by liking me and then they change. You steal them from me.’ And then, Olivia, I heard your name. ‘I thought Olivia would like me, but it’s you she likes, always you.’”

  “It’s not my fault,” I cried. “How can I help it?”

  It was during my Italian lessons (and it may be believed that I learnt to understand and speak that language with uncommon facility) that I managed to piece together odds and ends of facts over which my imagination first brooded and then built its fantasies. But how far they were really facts, or Signorina’s coloured version of them, I never knew. And from first to last of this obscure history, I was nearly always at the outside edge of it, trying to grope my way into its heart, trying with my inexperience of all the fundamental elements of human nature, and my ignorance of most of the actual circumstances, to understand what was going on, to figure to myself the feelings and motives of the actors in it. Of course I never succeeded. And even now . . . no, even now I am still in the same uncertainty. Clouds of suspicion and surmise gather and form round first one and then the other of the characters in the drama, but clouds so unsubstantial and so vague that they dissolve at a breath and shape themselves in other forms and other colours, that they often seem to me to be the unwholesome exhalations of my own disordered heart and mind.

  Mlle Julie, then, and Mlle Cara (so Signorina told me) had lived together for about fifteen years. They were both young, beautiful and gifted when they first met and decided to become partners in starting a girls’ school. It was Julie who had the capital, the influential friends, the energy, the intellect, the commanding personality. It was Cara who had the charm that gained fond mothers’ hearts and the qualifications that made the enterprise possible. She had passed all the necessary examinations, and Julie none. They had begun in a small way, but had soon become surprisingly successful, increased their numbers, widened their circle, moved into a larger house, built a library and a music-room. They were something of an institution among a certain set of Parisian intellectuals. Julie was the daughter of a well-known man of letters; her father’s friends had been distinguished and at his death had continued their friendship for his brilliant daughter. Julie was eminently sociable and Cara’s caressing, cooing manners softened her abruptness and sweetened her epigrams; together they made their dra
wing-room an attractive place with the added charm of the jeunes filles who flitted in and out of it, ministering cakes and coffee to the guests. They were a model couple, deeply attached, tenderly devoted, the gifts of each supplementing the deficiencies of the other. They were admired and loved. They were happy.

  According to Signorina, this harmony had lasted undisturbed until the arrival of Frau Riesener three years ago. Signorina herself had come to the school a month or two earlier. At the beginning, being extremely young, she had filled a very subordinate position.

  “Nobody thought anything of me then,” she said, “but I have eyes and I watched.” (Signorina’s eyes were indeed surprisingly bright. She reminded me of a little mouse, whisking along with such astonishing rapidity, appearing and disappearing so unexpectedly, picking up crumbs of information with such deftness.)

  Frau Riesener had started by making herself agreeable and almost indispensable to both the ladies. A very capable, very intelligent woman, she had introduced new methods of organization, was informed of the latest theories of education, was extremely clever at finding good teachers, and spared no pains to do so efficiently. Mlle Julie had more time to devote to her special classes of literature and history, more time for visiting her friends in Paris. Mlle Cara was relieved of many household cares and not allowed to fatigue herself, as Frau Riesener said, uselessly.

  “But I noticed,” said Signorina, “that these attentions had the effect—I don’t know whether they had the intention—of separating the friends.”

  Mlle Cara was always being asked whether she hadn’t a headache, always being told she looked tired, always being urged to lie down. Mlle Julie’s library was jealously guarded from intrusion. She must not be disturbed at her work. Her visits to Paris were facilitated and encouraged. The breath of outside air was what gave the school its cachet, said Frau Riesener; it would be absurd to let them be interfered with by less important duties, which could be as well discharged by a subordinate—by herself, in fact.

  And so, from being a prop on which both the friends leaned, each on her different side, she turned gradually into a barrier between them.

  “And then,” said Signorina, “her methods changed.” As Mlle Julie was often away or often absorbed in her particular tasks, Frau Riesener established her hold more and more completely on Mlle Cara—a hold, which from being enveloping turned dominating, while Mlle Cara became more attached, more clinging, more subservient. She gradually sank—she was actually encouraged to sink—into invalidism. Every ailment was made the most of, every healthy reaction nipped in the bud, and the campaign of insinuation was begun. She was artfully led to believe that Mlle Julie didn’t understand her case, that, so strong herself, she was unsympathetic, indifferent to the sufferings of others, that she cared only for her own amusement and neglected her friend and her school. Often, Signorina said, she had heard conversations like the following:

  “Come into the garden, Cara.”

  “Do you think you’d better, Mlle Cara?” Frau Riesener would say. “It’s very wet underfoot.”

  “Would you like me to read to you to-night, Cara?”

  “Oh, Mlle Julie, Mlle Cara has had such a tiring day. I’m afraid it might make her head worse.”

  “Won’t you come to the R——’s to-morrow, Cara? They’ve asked us to lunch.”

  “Oh, Julie, you know I can’t. It’s far too exhausting. And really, if Minnie R—— had wanted me, I think she might have written to me. Don’t you think so too, Frau Riesener?”

  When was the motive of jealousy introduced? When did it become all-important? Obviously, as Mlle Cara was more and more withdrawn from her friend’s companionship, the latter’s vitality sought other outlets. Signorina herself crept gradually, unobtrusively into her affections. Frau Riesener had been glad enough at first to make use of her.

  “I was so small,” repeated Signorina, “that nobody noticed me—except Mlle Julie. She recognized me from the first day. She knew at once what I was capable of. Oh, how good she was to me, Olivia mia! When she found me first, we were starving in Paris, my mother, my sister and I. She took infinite pains to help us—provided hospitals, doctors, nurses, for my mother; established my sister as an Italian teacher in half a dozen wealthy families; and made me come to help her here. And so I do,” Signorina added, “and so I will, till the end of life.”

  “For that matter,” she went on, “why should Mlle Cara be more jealous of me than Mlle Julie of Frau Riesener?” In any case, the breach had widened, deepened. No smallest incident now but was distorted into a grievance. Complaints had become reproaches, reproaches were turning into taunts.

  “How long can it last? What will be the end? And I assure you, Olivia, Mlle Julie bears it all with extraordinary patience. I have never known her return an angry answer. She does all she can to soothe and pacify; she gives her the most devoted attention—when she is allowed to. She does everything, everything except——”

  “Except?”

  “Except give up her friends. Give up those who love her—those she loves. ‘What should I have left?’ she said to me once, ‘if I were to let you go?’ And she told me that Mlle Cara and Frau Riesener were making a concerted attempt to get rid of me. ‘Will it be too painful for you, I wonder, mon enfant, to stay on, with them against you?’ she asked me once. But there was no need for me to answer. And then everything got worse when Laura came. And if Laura hadn’t been a saint—a sublime, unconscious saint—I don’t know what would have happened. But I believe Laura, without the smallest hypocrisy, was devoted too to Mlle Cara. I think Mlle Cara was able to believe that she had her affection and that Mlle Julie only cared for her because of her intelligence. This time, however, Laura understood. She was right to cut her visit short, though it won’t do much good—for now—” a pause, a sombre pause—“for now, there’s you.”

  Let me think of those words later, I said to myself, there’s too much in them—too much joy and terror. I must brush them aside for the moment. I must keep them, bury them, like a dog his bone, till I can return to them alone.

  “But what is Frau Riesener’s object?” I asked. “Why does she want to separate them? Is it just pure love of mischief-making?”

  “I believe,” said Signorina slowly and reflectively, “I believe it was so at first, or love of power rather than of mischief. But now I think what she really wants is to drive Mlle Julie away and step into her shoes.”

  Something incomprehensible it was that Signorina had said: that Mlle Julie had only cared for Laura’s intelligence. But hadn’t I seen with my own eyes their affection manifested in fifty different ways, the obvious ease and happiness of their relationship? But Mlle Cara had not been jealous of Laura, neither was I jealous of her. “But now there’s you,” Signorina had said. So there was something different about me. Was it simply that I wasn’t a sublime, unconscious saint? That I wasn’t generous enough to be fond of Mlle Cara. Something perhaps different from that lay at the back of her remark. Nobody could say that Mlle Julie cared for my intellect. Oh, my intellect couldn’t compare with Laura’s. I had none of her gifts, I was totally unable to carry on a conversation with Mlle Julie on a footing of equality. Then why should Mlle Cara mind about me? Why should Signorina have said so sombrely, “And now there’s you”? So they must think she cares for me more than for Laura. Insensate thought! No, no, not more. But she cares a little. And differently. Just as I cared for her differently. And now I understood that it was that difference I wanted.

  But Laura had been a saint. It was because of that that the breach between the two friends had not become a catastrophe. But I—I was not a saint. How could I be one? And so perhaps it was I who was going to bring that catastrophe about. I couldn’t help it. If it depended on altering the feelings in my heart, I was no more capable of doing that than of plucking the heart out of my breast—and I didn’t want to. On the contrary. A strange exaltation filled me. Oh
no, I wasn’t a saint.

  Why had Signorina told me all this story? Because I wanted to hear it so? Wasn’t it as a warning, too? A warning then, given in vain, for there was nothing I could alter, nothing I would try to alter.

  And then my thoughts went back to that past when they had been both young, both beautiful, both happy. Like a wedded couple, I thought. And when couples who have loved part, what a tragedy is that! What disillusionment, what self-reproach, what regrets were eating my beloved’s heart out. It was that that had hollowed her cheek, that had made the sensitive curve of her lips so sad, so bitter. And I could do nothing for her. Yet oh! I sighed, how willingly I would die to make her happy.

  It was not long after this talk with Signorina, and a day or two after Laura had left, that I gathered up my courage and went by myself to the library at the usual hour. I stood for a minute or two outside the door before turning the handle. When I was alone, I always stood so before the door which was shut between her and me. It seemed an almost superhuman effort to open it. It wasn’t exactly fear that stopped me. No, but a kind of religious awe. The next step was too grave, too portentous to be taken without preparation—the step which was to abolish absence. All one’s fortitude, all one’s powers, must be summoned and concentrated to enable one to endure that overwhelming change. She is behind that door. The door will open and I shall be in her presence.

  “Is that you, Olivia? Come in.”

  “May I?”

  “Yes. I was feeling lonely without Laura. I’m glad you’ve come. But I’m busy. You needn’t go though. Take a book and read. The Sainte-Beuves are over there. You’d better take a Lundi.”