The Painted Face

by Jean Stubbs

  Berthe weighed and measured this information, underlip pursed. Then she said drily, ‘What had she become in all those years, so close to you? For I know what you are, madame.’ She jerked her head in the direction of her interested charge. ‘Even this old child in his dotage knows what you are. Though he would have driven you from the door with his whip ten years ago.’

  ‘You insult me to no purpose, madame. I deal with life on my own terms. I am as I am. As for m’sieu here, with his whip and his morality, he now sees too clearly — and too late. Too late, old man!’ she chided, laughing, and shook her finger at him. ‘You should have enjoyed yourself while you could!’

  ‘What do you want of me?’

  Natalie hazarded a guess. ‘I know all that you told the Inspector. I wish to know what you did not tell him, madame. Their happiness depends upon it.’

  ‘Happiness? To live with him as his mistress? To be discarded when he is tired of her? She is his sister. He must provide for her.’

  ‘You’re still ordering the lives of those you love, madame. Why not let them decide for themselves?’

  ‘I have harmed the child enough,’ said Berthe slowly. ‘So she loves him more than she should? Time will heal her. She will forget him. With his money, his connections, she can marry well — if you have not spoiled her.’

  Natalie reached for her hat, drew on her damp gloves. The clock on the wall ticked time over. The old man had fallen asleep suddenly, as the very young and the very old do. He sucked in breath, blew it out again. Berthe sank into a rocking-chair and creaked to and fro, to and fro. Her face was a mask of sorrow, of perplexity.

  ‘I can do nothing for her without you,’ said Natalie decisively. ‘But remember this. Once you made a decision that destroyed two lives and spoiled others — and your own. That is a high price to pay. Take care that your silence does not spoil two more!’

  The silence was prolonged. The struggle hard.

  Then Berthe said with difficulty, ‘Odette was not M. Carradine’s child.’

  And suddenly she lifted both hands in a gesture of renunciation, and let them drift into her lap.

  ‘I can do no more for mother or child,’ she said. ‘Odette must live as she pleases. Tell her I pray for her, madame.’

  Natalie sat down again and waited.

  ‘The Englishman was her husband, in every way. Oh yes,’ said Berthe, as though the fact were disputed, ‘Madame went to him as a virgin. That is true. But in the first six months of the marriage she did not conceive by him. She was young and passionate. She turned to M. Fauvel, and this time she was not afraid of becoming his mistress. We stayed six weeks in Paris that Spring. When we returned home to the husband she already suspected herself to be with child, and she was right. The child was Odette, the father M. Fauvel.’

  ‘And M. Carradine did not question a daughter who was born a little late?’

  ‘Madame, with a first infant the birth is often a little late. By Madame’s reckoning Odette arrived a little early. Between the two suppositions her coming seemed correct. And M. Carradine had neither cause nor desire to doubt the child’s parentage.’

  ‘Why not tell the English Inspector this? It would have saved time and trouble, madame.’

  Berthe raised an obdurate face. ‘He would not have known this much from me, madame,’ and she snapped her fingers, ‘except that he knew much already. My lady is dead, madame. I shall not let them spit on her grave.’ Her face changed, was troubled. ‘If this will harm Odette — you say you were a sister to her — I dare say you were good to her, in your fashion — I beg you not to tell her or him. Be wise in this, madame.’

  Natalie patted her arm, smiling.

  ‘M. Carradine wishes to marry Odette, madame. Yes, yes,’ as Berthe shook her head bewildered. ‘I swear it! I swear it on the sacred memory of my mother.’

  The memory of her mother was both faint and faulty, but brought tears to her eyes and conviction to her voice. She was weary with victory, with triumph.

  ‘And you did not tell me?’ Berthe asked slowly. ‘You let me suffer and doubt for nothing, madame? Why use me like this?’

  Natalie replied kindly, ‘I know something of your devotion, madame. Certainly, I may be wrong, but I thought that if I told you they wished to be man and wife ... you might think of a way of making them so! Come, madame, don’t stare at me! I’ve seen how you cast down morality, when it serves those you love. Well then, I ask your pardon. But I had to be sure.’

  Berthe rose majestically. The suggestion had taken her breath, and then returned her strength. She answered proudly, ‘I am a good Catholic, madame.’

  ‘I, too,’ Natalie replied, severely, honestly, ‘and I could not risk being party to so great a sin!’

  ‘But what do you English know of true passion?’ Natalie mused, over her third cognac. ‘Look how you strangle it in marriage. There are sensible marriages, of course, but no passionate ones. Beware of contentment, my friends. Passion, passion, and again passion, should be your watchword!’

  Claire was kissing one plump ringed hand. Carradine raised the other to his lips.

  ‘My dearest Natalie,’ he said, ‘we cannot possibly pay what we owe to you. Allow me, at least, to defray your expenses in this matter.’

  ‘Not one franc! How can you speak of money at such a moment? Oh, you English, how mercenary you can be!’

  Nevertheless, she dried her eyes and scolded Claire for weeping, restored.

  ‘Don’t let your lover see you looking ugly! Always the smile, the charm, the poise!’ She mimicked each mood. ‘Tears are for private moments only. And do not argue with him. Listen, agree, then do as you please. You have much to learn!’

  ‘Stay with us for a holiday, cherie,’ Claire begged.

  ‘One night only. In your hotel. Then I’ll attempt the English Channel again.’ She adjusted the shoulders of her gown. ‘Émile will be impatient for me. I wonder whether marriage is wise? A man tires of what he possesses absolutely. No, no, no, I will not!’ As Carradine opened her jet-fringed pochette and slipped a banker’s order inside it.

  Smiling, she murmured, ‘I shall never forgive you!’

  The amount would soothe her to sleep that night, calm the Channel crossing, and assume the high tone of a reward for virtue.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  ‘My heart’s treasure,’ said Émile Roche, adjusting the set of his tie in Natalie’s mirror, ‘I believe I have found a husband for Valentine.’

  Natalie played with the white cat, now allowed back on the bed, and raised her eyebrows.

  ‘There is a young man in the provinces, training to be a steward on my wife’s estate. Personable!’ He studied his reflection. ‘A cut above his station in life!’ Smoothing his moustache. ‘Quite the gentleman, in fact!’ Looking ironically down his fine nose.

  ‘Why should this paragon wish to marry Valentine, my dear?’ she asked lazily, watching him.

  He shrugged. ‘Oh, he was reared by foster-parents, and believes himself to be of gentle birth — the usual thing.’

  ‘How old is this love-child, did you say?’

  ‘A little older than Paul, I believe.’

  Natalie smiled, and half-closed her eyes.

  ‘But why should he wish to marry so young, and to a girl some years his senior, my dear?’

  ‘I have influence over him. I have been in the nature of a patron. He is worth attention, and knows I have his welfare at heart.’ He buttoned his waistcoat. ‘And Valentine is foolish, pretty and affectionate. She has her small dowry. He should find her most amenable.’

  ‘And their dreams of gentility will coincide?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  Natalie considered the cat’s composure, and yawned. ‘How will you arrange this, my dear?’

  ‘When her unfortunate affair is concluded I can bring him to Paris on pretext of business. There is one little point,’ and he laughed and frowned, reaching for his coat. ‘He believes me to be his father.’

&nbs
p; ‘Imagine!’ Astonished. ‘What a scandal that would have been, my dear, at an important part of your career, and with the prospect of a rich wife!’

  ‘Exactly! As difficult to believe as that you, my dearest, were the daughter of — say — a country baker.’

  ‘Quite ridiculous!’ Her smile and gaze did not falter. ‘So, that is settled. I must find myself another maid.’

  ‘And I must regretfully take my leave of you, Natalie,’ satisfied. ‘My wife is giving a dinner party this evening.’

  ‘I shall be alone!’ she pouted, as he bowed and kissed her fingers.

  ‘Oh, I think not. You have so many friends. Our dinner parties bore Paul,’ he added inconsequently. ‘How much the young have to learn! A certain amount of boredom is necessary in public life, but for the moment he puts pleasure before duty.’

  ‘He must try to combine both, as you do, Émile.’ They smiled. Her face changed.

  ‘Did you consult your doctor, my dear, as you promised me?’ she asked.

  Roche replied casually, ‘He told me nothing new. I must apparently choose between length of time and quality of living. Well, that is the way of it! One moment a man is alive, the next moment he fails.’ The subject was closed. ‘Until we meet again, my heart?’

  She rustled forward and kissed him gently on either cheek.

  ‘My friend,’ she said, with some emotion, ‘I hope to hear you mounting the stairs to my apartment many years from now. The climb will make your pulse quicken when I cannot.’

  ‘There will be no time when your beauty does not rule me, madame,’ he answered. Much had been understood without words. He said idly, at the door, ‘Is this love, perhaps?’

  She recollected that seriousness is unflattering to a woman, and smiled. ‘Who is to say what love might be, Émile? We understand one another. We accept each other for what we are. We give pleasure and are content. Why trouble God with questions?’

  ‘John! John! Bless me if you aren’t miles away! That fire needs a shovel of coal if it isn’t to go out this minute.’

  Lintott roused himself, laying his pipe carefully on the tiled hearth.

  ‘And it’s raining fit to burst outside, John,’ Bessie called after him. ‘Put my shawl over your head and shoulders. You’ll find it on a nail by the back door.’

  He called back sturdily, ‘I’m not a babby yet! When a drop of wet hurts me you can lay me underground!’ He came back, treading coal dust into her parlour carpet.

  ‘And now you’ve got your coat and slippers damp. It’s worse than minding a child! Look at the mess!’

  ‘Leave be, Bessie, leave be, my lass. I’ll soon sweep this little lot up, you needn’t fret.’

  He retired to his pipe and contemplation.

  ‘What a year that was, eh, Bess?’

  ‘Ah! King Teddy crowned,’ she said, nodding and knitting, ‘and the war well over in Africa.’

  ‘Mr Carradine and Miss Picard married.’

  ‘Two hundred pound for the work you did, John!’

  ‘He wanted to give me five hundred. I wouldn’t take it. Nobody needs that much!’

  ‘My picture!’ Her eyes loved Windy Day, hanging resplendent on the parlour wall. ‘He don’t paint proper pictures any more,’ she observed, critical of this new departure. ‘I didn’t think much to those we saw at that exhibition, though it was nice to be asked. I’m glad he thought to give me a good one. That chap flying the kite is the image of our Joey.’ She noticed the hour. ‘Shall we have a bit of toasted cheese for supper, John?’

  Lintott stirred, nodded, returning to dream over the flames licking up the chimney front.

  ‘You have a set and a think while I get the supper things,’ Bessie advised, maternally.

  His itinerary was once more transformed by fire. There was the lanky gesticulating figure of Le Jallu, who had sent him a letter at Christmas — which Lizzie translated as being a poem about the friendship of passing strangers. Very nice, that! A nice thought. Bessie had chosen a jolly card, depicting a coaching inn heavy with snow and guests. Lizzie had printed Bon Noel underneath Merry Christmas. Lintott had signed it, and gone to no end of trouble getting it addressed and properly stamped.

  Here was Madame Jeanne, ordering and feeding her customers. When he left she had embraced him, the cognac on her breath mingled with garlic. Nothing of l’amoor in this, just honest friendship. He did not mention her to Bessie, nevertheless.

  He drank coffee again, in the boudoir of a Parisian courtesan. He gazed from the Eiffel Tower. He turned the corner of a street, and the city caught his breath. He watched the animated brown landscape of the Old One’s face. He sat in the exotic solitude of Carradine’s dusty studio. He felt the thin cat wind round his trouser legs.

  These would be with him until someone closed his eyes.

  ‘I’m not wasting a penny for your thoughts!’ said Bessie tartly, spearing a slice of bread as though it were France itself.

  ‘My lass, my lass,’ Lintott chided, shaking his head. ‘There’s nothing to fear from an old bobby dozing at his hearth. I’m home with you, ain’t I? What do you want me to say as’ll please you? An Englishman’s home is his castle, and his wife’s his queen. How about that, Bess? I wouldn’t be anywhere else in the wide world, nor want anybody but you, now would I?’

  She tossed her head and compressed her mouth. He gave her a clumsy hug.

  ‘Be off with your nonsense, John. I’ve got this bread to toast!’

  ‘Then let me set with you while you toast it. Here, give me the other fork. Then it’ll be twice as quick.’

  ‘Fiddlesticks!’ said Bessie, mollified, flushed by the heat and his attention. ‘You’ll be kissing my hand next — and I’ll fetch you a slap if you do, John Lintott!’

  ‘You’ll excuse me, sir,’ said Mrs Tilling, agitated, ‘but the cabman’s come back specially to say that Mrs Carradine is in a bit of trouble, and he’ll take you there.’

  He had been weltering in vermilion, in cadmium, in viridian and Antwerp blue, forgetful of her. He threw down his brush, pulled off his smock.

  ‘She would be, blast her! What sort of trouble?’

  ‘She’s at Buckingham Palace, sir, chained to the railings.’

  ‘Almighty God!’ Carradine implored. ‘I thought she was shopping!’

  Mrs Tilling helped him on with his coat, saying, ‘She was, sir, but she saw these Suffrage women and got out. The cabman says they’ll send for the police.’

  He wiped the paint from his fingers, exasperated. ‘Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn! Sorry, Tilley. I was right in the middle of this!’ His face brightened, softened. ‘What do you think of it?’

  ‘Very cheerful, sir,’ said the housekeeper firmly. ‘Oh, do hurry, sir!’

  There were only a dozen women, after all, and their protest was patient rather than obtrusive. Three or four were from the upper classes: articulate, intelligent, confident in their cause and themselves. The rest were humbly respectable, a little dowdy, but as determined as their more fortunate sisters. A crowd had gathered, jeering, sympathetic, or merely curious. The two sentries, bewildered but mindful of their duty, stood motionless, staring ahead of them as though nothing existed. As Carradine jumped from the cab he saw a group of policemen, accompanied by a locksmith in a leather apron, clearing the way.

  ‘Move along now, if you please. Move along there.’

  The women braced themselves, apprehensive but obstinate.

  ‘Come along now, ladies,’ said the sergeant soothingly, arms akimbo, genial. ‘We don’t want no trouble, do we?’

  ‘Give us the Vote!’ cried one handsome girl, and held her placard high.

  ‘Give us the Vote!’ they repeated, and then in unison, ‘The Vote! The Vote! The Vote!’

  Carradine saw Claire side by side with a tall plain woman of the lower middle class, whose bearing was as resolute as her own.

  ‘Just get these here padlocks unfastened, will you, Mr Lynes?’ begged the sergeant.

  ‘Hold
on to the railings!’ their ring-leader commanded. ‘Don’t let them take us away!’

  Awkward, puzzled, struggling against old mores of chivalry and class distinction, the bobbies hesitated.

  ‘I have to warn you ladies,’ said the sergeant, harassed, ‘that if you obstruct the police in the course of their duties you’ll be committing a breach of the peace.’

  ‘The Vote! The Vote! The Vote!’

  ‘If you won’t come peaceable,’ he pleaded, ‘we shall have to use force — and we don’t want that, do we?’

  ‘Call yourselves women!’ shouted an outraged matron in a feathered hat. ‘You’re a disgrace to our sex. Go home to your husbands — if you’ve got any!’

  ‘The Vote! The Vote! The Vote!’

  ‘Give ’em a taste of the stick!’ bellowed a retired colonel, shaking his own. ‘That’s what they need to bring them to heel!’

  ‘Be reasonable, madam!’ the sergeant begged the ring-leader.

  ‘If you wish us to leave here you will have to take us by force,’ she replied calmly. And to her cohorts. ‘Hold on to the railings!’

  ‘All right, lads,’ said the sergeant, resigned. ‘No rough stuff. Just firm and comfortable. Mr Lynes!’

  Carradine, elbowing people aside in his effort to reach Claire, felt their excitement rise like heat. The suffragettes, in pursuit of other rights, had forfeited the right to womanly dignity.

  One cockney woman darted forward and snatched at the ring-leader’s hat, clapped it on her own head. ‘Oooh! I’m a lidy! I’m a lidy!’ she shrieked.

  The onlookers cheered and clapped as she flourished her skirts, the expensive piece of millinery pulled over one eye.

  ‘Resist them!’ cried the handsome girl, and brought her placard down smartly on the sergeant’s helmet.

  He blinked and gasped, grabbed her arms and pinioned them to her sides. She kicked his ankles furiously.

  ‘Forward, lads!’ he shouted, in rage and pain.

  Red-faced, the police dared to grasp members of the sacred sex in a manner hitherto regarded as unthinkable. Scratching, biting, threshing, the women fought as best they could. The crowd whooped at the spectacle of flashing drawers and petticoats. Carradine reached the front.