She was in the orchard now, and the path wound through the trees in front of her. There were no leaves on the trees yet, and the orchard looked desolate. A rotten windfall, the brown husk of what had been a fruit, lay at her feet, and for some reason the sight saddened her. She went on, and as the house came into view again her excitement mounted. Her heart was hammering now.
It was as she approached the house that she heard the sound of voices. She paused, trying to decide from what direction they came. She felt that at such a moment the right of surprise was hers.
The voices were quite plain now: they came from the conservatory, and she went closer. There was the sound of only one voice now, a man’s, and he was speaking rapidly, earnestly, as if it were a lesson he had learnt by heart. She moved forward and put her face up to the pane, but at first she could see nothing—the foliage inside was too dense and heavy. Then, just beside her, she found a gap, and the whole conservatory, her conservatory, was there before her, like a tiny stage. And as she looked she saw a pair of broad shoulders and a thick, gross neck that swelled over the top of the military collar. It was the Baron.
He was speaking to someone; but his bulk obscured the other person. All that Anna could tell was that he was very much in earnest. Then she caught some of the words that he was saying.
“It is not as if I were an old man, or even an elderly one,” she heard him say. “I am only now in middle-age.”
He bent forward a little as he was speaking and, as he did so, he revealed his listener. It was Berthe.
But it was not the Berthe whom Anna had known. Even though it was only a year since she had seen her, the child looked already older, much older. Her hair was up now, wound round her head in heavy plaits. And her face had changed. It was not a child’s face any more. There was anxiety and suffering in it. The eyes at this moment were fixed on those of the Baron.
“And so,” the Baron was continuing, “when I asked your father’s permission to speak to you, he was very pleased. I knew all the time that you were fond of me: I could see it. I am having the Schloss entirely repainted.”
Berthe’s eyes opened wide for a moment and she looked a child again. She raised her hands to her mouth as if she were going to cry, and then, as the Baron came towards her, she dropped them to her side again and stood there waiting for him.
“You are excited?” the Baron persisted. “To-morrow you will come with me to Düsseldorf and I will buy you presents.…”
“But it mustn’t be. It mustn’t be,” Anna told herself. “She’s too young for him. It’s horrible.”
She stood there outside the conservatory, her cheeks burning.
“I must find my father,” she decided. “I must find him at once so that he can stop it.”
She had reached the garden door and put her foot inside the house before she realised how frightened she was. Frightened of what? she-asked herself. And she could not find the answer. Not of her father surely. That was absurd: he had always been so kind to her, so gentle.
But the fear remained. She was back within her own house, within the one place on earth that had seemed safe to her, and she was terrified. Her hand was trembling as she opened the door of her father’s study.
He was sitting there as he always sat at that time of day. The Frankfurter Zeitung was spread open in front of him and his pipe was fuming lazily into the air, enveloping him in a little cloud of smoke. His fancy slippers were up resting upon his usual footstool, and, as she looked, she realised that it was this that she had come back for; it was the unchangingness, the continuity with things past, that she wanted. But she did not go nearer. She stood there at the door because she did not want to shatter the image that was in front of her.
“Father,” she said, and waited for him to turn towards her.
But he did not turn. He merely started and put down his paper for a moment. Since she had left he had heard that voice so often, had felt her beside him, or listened for the rustle of her dress upon the stairs, that he no longer trusted himself. He gave a sigh, and opened the paper again at his column of beloved politics.
As she looked, Anna found herself weeping for sheer love of him. She took a step towards him.
“Father,” she said for the second time.
This time it was impossible to doubt that Herr Karlin had heard her. He knew that it was her voice that was speaking to him; but it was the voice of a ghost, and like a ghost it frightened him. He threw down his paper and swung round sharply in his chair. The pipe he was holding fell from his hand.
She stretched out her arms to him and waited for the smile that would come across his face. But there was no smile there. He was looking past her without seeing her. The room might have been empty in front of him. And as she stood there the fear returned to her.
“Father,” she said for the last time.
This time, when he did not answer, she knew that he was not going to answer, would never answer her.
Looking back on it afterwards, she could not remember what had happened. Only isolated moments of it were clear to her. She was crying, she remembered that; and she had run out into the passage. Run, because she had become too much afraid to remain there any longer. The whole house had suddenly seemed terrifying. She had reached the front door and pulled desperately at the bolts. They were heavy, and she had broken her nails on them. But the door had opened at last, and she was free. It was the crash of the door as it swung to behind her that brought her to her senses. And she realised that she was running away to nowhere. The last refuge had collapsed behind her.
At the foot of the steps she hesitated and gripped the balustrade beside her; she felt dizzy, and the level main street with the flat-fronted shops began to revolve about her. She put her hand up to her forehead.
“But I mustn’t faint. I must go on,” she kept telling herself. “I must go—somewhere.”
She raised her eyes a little, and started. M. Moritz’s coach was still there. It had not moved since she left. And M. Moritz was coming towards her. She felt his arms go around her shoulders.
“A year is a long time,” he was saying. “There are many things that can happen in it. And you were so certain. It was because you were so certain that I couldn’t bear to think that you would be disappointed. That was why I waited. Just in case you might need me.”
And gently, very gently, he helped her into the coach.
Book VI. The House In The Sun
Chapter XXVII
I
There was nothing in all Europe quite like Monaco. It was a legend, this toyland monarchy with its prince and its castle and its cream-and-scarlet army of a hundred men.
The small bay, reflecting the hanging gardens of the cliffs, charmed the place. Viewed from the sea, Monte Carlo presented itself as a shining back-cloth of all the luxuries. Some of the buildings were of white Mediterranean marble, and those which were not blazed with the brilliance of painted stucco. To the yachtsman, the face of Monte Carlo kept flashing through the foliage of the palms like a mirror.
On one of the lower terraces of the rock was a garden. Someone had squandered money on it, and paved the lining-stone with mosaics. The cypresses and oleanders grew in patterns, and there were fountains and tiny waterfalls. Behind the garden, leaning up almost against the cliff itself, was a house with honey-coloured walls and trellised windows. It was the house of a dreamer and a romantic. In front of it lay the sea; and the rock behind hid it from the rest of Europe.
It was to this house that M. Moritz was bringing Anna; he had described it to her a hundred times already upon the journey.
“We shall be able to see it in a moment,” M. Moritz was saying. “We turn the next corner, and then we are inside the gates. It is so hidden that you might go past it a score of times and never know that it is there. That was why I bought it: its secrecy amused me.”
He linked his fingers through Anna’s and squeezed her hand.
“I hope you will like it,” he said simply. It has been wa
iting for you so long, and this is the moment that I had always hoped for.”
When Anna did not reply he turned to her anxiously.
“There is nothing about it which you don’t like?” he asked. “The situation? The climate?”
Anna shook her head, and M. Moritz continued.
“But you’ve seen nothing of it yet. It’s a jewel. Everything that have collected, my paintings, my tapestries, my bronzes— they are all there. And they will come to life now: they have been so cold before.”
The carriage had turned in sharply at the gate, and was moving between the bushes of azaleas that fringed the drive. The house, open and smiling, lay before them. At the foot of the steps a young man, a very handsome young man, was standing. He was holding a bouquet in his hand.
M. Moritz bent over and whispered in Anna’s ear.
“My secretary,” he said. “He lives with us.”
The carriage had stopped now, and M. Moritz addressed the young man.
“Come and be presented,” he said. “Carlos, this is Madame Moritz.”
The young man bowed beautifully. He behaved as if he had been presenting flowers all his life. And he knew exactly how to withdraw. It was evident that he was used to effacing himself.
But M. Moritz called him back again.
“My telegrams arrived?” he asked. “Everything ready?”
“Everything.” Carlos answered. “The orchestra. …”
But M. Moritz waved him into silence. “Do you want to ruin the whole homecoming?” he asked. “For Madame, to-day must be a day of surprises.”
He sprang down and held out his hand to Anna.
“It is the moment I have been waiting for,” he said. “The moment when I should bring you to our home.”
The doors of the house were open as they approached them, and Anna found herself looking into a shadowy hall full of flowers. They had been the subjects of one of M. Moritz’s telegrams, those flowers. There were banks upon banks of them, so that it seemed to Anna that she was entering a world entirely of lily and hydrangea. The heavy perfume stifled her, and she wondered whether inside the house she would ever breathe again.
But M. Moritz was enchanted. “Just as I desired it,” he said. “Everything as I would have wished.”
They were inside the house now, and the staff was standing there before them. The housekeeper, a spacious Piedmontese with large bosoms and a great sweep of white skirt, dropped a little curtsey. The moment had come. Behind the hydrangeas a man in evening dress was standing, a baton in his hand. Swinging round, he raised his baton and the hidden players began.
M. Moritz gave his arm to Anna and they mounted the little flight of steps together.
“La da di di! La da di di!” M. Moritz was chanting in time to the music as he walked. At the top of the stairs he turned again to Anna.
“You see,” he said. “I have thought of everything. Even the wedding march.”
The room into which he led her was the principal room of the villa. Through its long windows the sea sparkled, and there were flowers leaning in across the sills. M. Moritz drew her forward until there was nothing in front of them but the falling garden and the waves.
“The world can never disturb us here,” he said. “It is beautiful always.”
She did not answer, and he glanced nervously towards her.
“But I’m forgetting,” he said. “You’re tired. You’ve been travelling. You will want to rest. You will want to lie down until supper-time. I shall ring immediately for your maid.”
A thought crossed his mind as he was speaking, and he lifted his hand from the bell-pull. “No,” he said. “I must show you to your room myself. I invented it for you. It was nothing before you came.”
He led her up the staircase and threw open a door above which a little bronze cupid was riding. The boudoir that was revealed was all of pink. It was magnificent: there was no way in which M. Moritz could have spent more money on it.
“And in case,” M. Moritz went on, “you should think you will be lonely, let me show you.”
He went over and opened a door which led into another room, pink like the first. “I shall never be far away. If you want me ever you have only to call and I shall hear you.”
M. Moritz had gone now. Anna had stood there watching the door close after him. It seemed to be like release to be alone.
She went over to the dressing-mirror and took off her hat, the fabulously costly hat that M. Moritz had insisted upon giving her; and she sat for a moment looking at her image in the glass. Then she removed the long elegant gloves and ran her fingers through her hair. It was dressed differently now. M. Moritz had taken her to a fashionable coiffeur, and he had played his fancy with it. But she was not thinking of her hair, the gloves, the hat. She was still staring into the glass, staring into the eyes that looked back at her.
Then she raised her hands and put them across her face.
“No,” she said. “It’s no use. I can’t. I can’t go on with it.”
Getting up from the mirror, she threw herself upon the bed. She lay there, her head buried in her arms, her whole body shaking.
She had still not moved when her lady’s maid entered the room to set out Anna’s gown for dinner.
II
During the days that followed, M. Moritz seemed to have abandoned all thoughts of business. Letters came and he left them unanswered; telegrams reached him and he stuffed them away into his pocket. He had, indeed, since his arrival at the villa drifted into the happy laziness of a perpetual honeymoon; he appeared content to let Europe struggle back into order without him. He now wore fancy shirts that did not suit him, lay in the sunlight until his face was tanned, cultivated a taste in poetry. And, in their walks through the garden, he was forever reminding Anna that the statues of satyrs and nymphs had been modelled by a race of men who had not shared the modern fear of life.
It was late one evening, when the garden was a pool of shadows and the scent of flowers, that he finally unbared his soul. He removed from his lips the cigar that he had been smoking—the glowing butt made a half-orbit of fire in the dusk—and declared himself. He excused his way of life, his impetuousness, his vast ambitions.
“I have always held,” he went on, “that poverty is one of the chief blessings when one is young. It sharpens the senses. If I had always had enough I should probably never have asked for more. It is the sense of deprivation, of denial, that is so valuable. It is because when I was young I had nothing that I am resolved to have so much to-day. I keep telling myself”—Anna heard his voice rise as he was speaking and saw the cigar butt in his hand tremble— “that I must have more. Even if I could drive the Rothschilds and the Barings from the market, I should still be hungry. I should feel somehow inside me that I had failed.”
His free hand sought Anna’s in the darkness. “And now that I have you,” he said, “I shall ask for twice as much.”
Then he spoke again.
“It is not difficult to make a fortune,” he said. “I have made several and spent them. Spent them, not lost them. I have bought everything I have ever wanted. But it hasn’t been enough. It has given me nothing really. That’s why I want to have children. Children who will be able to enjoy all this. Children who will be born with their feet upon the neck of the world.”
A little shudder ran through her, and she turned away from him.
M. Moritz pulled himself together at once.
“You’re cold, my love,” he said. “I must take you into the house again. It’s the old cliff: she’s treacherous. She cuts out the late sun and then freezes us.”
He drew Anna’s wrap about her shoulders and gave his arm to her. The night was dark by now, and the flowering bushes showed only as ragged masses that glowed up at them.
“To have your children,” M. Moritz continued quietly. “That’s what would please me. To have a son who could grow up and go out into the world. Someone to play with the banks as I have done. I could make a duke of him,
I tell you. We could divide Europe between us. There need be no limit to our power, if only you will give me a son.”
They had reached the house by now, and M. Moritz had one foot upon the low step leading into the drawing-room.
“Go inside,” he said. “Go inside and stand where the light falls on you. I want to look at you.”
When he came inside he put his arms around her.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. But your neck’s too bare. There are some pearls I’ve seen. I’ll buy them for you. I’ll send the jeweller a telegram in the morning.”
Their honeymoon, as M. Moritz very deliberately called it, was three weeks old now; and in M. Moritz the first signs of restlessness were already to be seen. Not that he neglected Anna. On the contrary, he had never been more attentive and adoring: he paid her compliments, debated by whom he should have her portrait painted, gave her the pearls that he had promised. But he was ready at last to share her with the world. Instead of those rapturous walks in the twilight in the garden, he suggested that they should pay a visit to M. Blanc’s casino.
It was obvious from the start that M. Moritz was very much at home there. The commissionaires saluted, the secretary came forward in person to greet him as he entered, and even the croupier at the table in the public rooms gave a little bow of acknowledgement.
But M. Moritz at first seemed content merely to watch, as though the spectacle of money changing hands—not anybody’s in particular, but just money—held sufficient fascination for him. And as though there were some obscure mathematical system at work all the time within his mind, he would shake his head dubiously as he saw a stake doubled, or smile pityingly as he saw a player change his mind at the last moment. Then he turned to Anna, as though apologising for his preoccupation.
Anna Page 30
