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Tante

<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2> On the morning that Gregory Jardine had waked from his dream, Madame von Marwitz sat at her writing-table tearing open, with an air of impatient melancholy, note after note and letter after letter, and dropping the envelopes into a waste-paper basket beside her. A cigarette was between her lips; her hair, not dressed, was coiled loosely upon her head; she wore a white silk peignoir bordered with white fur and girdled with a sash of silver tissue. She had just come from her bath and her face, though weary, had the freshness of a prolonged toilet. The room where she sat, with its grand piano and its deep chairs, its sofa and its capacious writing-table, was accurately adjusted to her needs. It, too, was all in white, carpet, curtains and dimity coverings. Madame von Marwitz laughed at her own vagary; but it had had only once to be clearly expressed, and the greens and pinks that had adorned her sitting-room at Mrs. Forrester's were banished as well as the rose-sprigged toilet set and hangings of the bedroom. "I cannot breathe among colours," she had said. "They seem to press upon me. White is like the air; to live among colours, with all their beauty, is like swimming under the water; I can only do it with comfort for a little while." Madame von Marwitz looked up presently at a wonderful little clock of gold and enamel that stood before her and then struck, not impatiently, but with an intensification of the air of melancholy, an antique silver bell that stood beside the clock. Louise entered. "Where is Mademoiselle?" Madame von Marwitz asked, speaking in French. Louise answered that Mademoiselle had gone out to take Victor for his walk, Victor being Madame von Marwitz's St. Bernard who remained in England during his mistress's absences. "You should have taken Victor yourself, Louise," said Madame von Marwitz, not at all unkindly, but with decisive condemnation. "You know that I like Mademoiselle to help me with my letters in the morning." Louise, her permanent plaintiveness enhanced, murmured that she had a bad headache and that Mademoiselle had kindly offered to take Victor, had said that she would enjoy taking him. "Moreover," Madame von Marwitz pursued, as though these excuses were not worthy of reply, "I do not care for Mademoiselle to be out alone in such a fog. You should have known that, too. As for the dress, don't fail to send it back this morning—as you should have done last night." "Mademoiselle thought we might arrange it to please Madame." "You should have known better, if Mademoiselle did not. Mademoiselle has very little taste in such matters, as you are well aware. Do my feet now; I think that the nails need a little polishing; but very little; I do not wish you to make them look as though they had been varnished; it is a trick of yours." Madame von Marwitz then resumed her cigarette and her letters while Louise, fetching files and scissors, powders and polishers, mournfully knelt before her mistress, and, drawing the mule from a beautifully undeformed white foot, began to bring each nail to a state of perfected art. In the midst of this ceremony Karen Woodruff appeared. She led the great dog by a leash and was still wearing her cap and coat. "I hope I am not late, Tante," she said, speaking in English and going to kiss her guardian's cheek, while Victor stood by, majestically benignant. "You are late, my Karen, and you had no business to take out Victor at this hour. If you want to walk with him let it be in the afternoon. Aïe! aïe! Louise! what are you doing? Have mercy I beg of you!" Louise had used the file awkwardly. "What is that you have, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz went on. Miss Woodruff held in her hand a large bouquet enveloped in white paper. "An offering, Tante; they just arrived as I came in. Roses, I think." "I have already sent half a dozen boxes downstairs for Mrs. Forrester to dispose of in the drawing-room. You will take off your things now, child, and help me, please, with all these weary people. Bon Dieu! do they really imagine that I am going to answer their inept effusions?" Miss Woodruff had unwrapped a magnificent bunch of pink roses and laid them beside her guardian. "From that good little dark-faced lady of yesterday, Tante." Madame von Marwitz, pausing meditatively over a note, glanced at them. "The dark-faced lady?" "Don't you remember? Mrs. Harding. Here is her card. She sat and gazed at you, so devoutly, while you talked to Mr. Drew and Lady Campion. And she looked very poor. It must mean a great deal for her to buy roses in January—un suprême effort," Miss Woodruff quoted, she and her guardian having a host of such playful allusions. "I see her now," said Madame von Marwitz. "I see her face; congestionnée d'émotion, n'est-ce-pas." She read the card that Karen presented. "Silly woman. Take them away, child." "But no, Tante, it is not silly; it is very touching, I think; and you have liked pink roses sometimes. It makes me sorry for that good little lady that you shouldn't even look at her roses." "No. I see her. Dark red and very foolish. I do not like her or her flowers. They look stupid flowers—thick and pink, like fat, smiling cheeks. Take them away." "You have read what she says, Tante, here on the back? I call that very pretty." "I see it. I see it too often. No. Go now, and take your hat off. Good heavens, child, why did you wear that ancient sealskin cap?" Karen paused at the door, the rejected roses in her arms. "Why, Tante, it was snowing a little; I didn't want to wear my best hat for a morning walk." "Have you no other hat beside the best?" "No, Tante. And I like my little cap. You gave it to me—years ago—don't you remember; the first time that we went to Russia together." "Years ago, indeed, I should imagine from its appearance. Well; it makes no difference; you will soon be leaving town and it will do for Cornwall and Tallie." When Karen returned, Madame von Marwitz, whose feet were now finished, took her place in an easy chair and said: "Now to work. Leave the accounts for Schultz. I've glanced at some of them this morning and, as usual, I seem to be spending twice as much as I make. How the money runs away I cannot imagine. And Tallie sends me a great batch of bills from Cornwall, bon Dieu!" Bon Dieu was a frequent ejaculation with Madame von Marwitz, often half sighed, and with the stress laid on the first word. "Never mind, you will soon be making a great deal more money," said Karen. "It would be more to the point if I could manage to keep a little of what I make. Schultz tells me that my investments in the Chinese railroads are going badly, too. Put aside the bills. We will go through the rest of the letters." For some time they worked at the pile of correspondence. Karen would open each letter and read the signature; letters from those known to Madame von Marwitz, or from her friends, were handed to her; the letters signed by unknown names Karen read aloud:—begging letters; letters requesting an autograph; letters recommending to the great woman's kindly notice some budding genius, and letters of sheer adulation, listened to, these last, sometimes with a dreamy indifference to the end, interrupted sometimes with a sudden "Assez." There were a dozen such letters this morning and when Karen read the signature of the last: "Your two little adorers Gladys and Ethel Bocock," Madame von Marwitz remarked: "We need not have that. Put it into the basket." "But, Tante," Karen protested, looking round at her with a smile, "you must hear it; it is so funny and so nice." "So stupid I call it, my dear. They should not be encouraged." "But you must be kind, you will be kind, even to the stupid. See, here are two of your photographs, they ask you to sign them. There is a stamped and addressed envelope to return them in. Such love, Tante! such torrents of love! You must listen." Madame von Marwitz resigned herself, her eyes fixed absently on the smoke curling from her cigarette as if, in its fluctuating evanescence, she saw a symbol of human folly. Gladys and Ethel lived in Clapham and told her that they came in to all her concerts and sat for hours waiting on the stairs. Their letter ended: "Everyone adores you, but no one can adore you like we do. Oh, would you tell us the colour of your eyes? Gladys thinks deep, dark grey, but I think velvety brown; we talk and talk about it and can't decide. We mustn't take up any more of your precious time.—Your two little adorers, Gladys and Ethel Bocock." "Bocock," Madame von Marwitz commented. "No one can adore me like they do. Let us hope not. Petites sottes." "You will sign the photographs, Tante—and you will say, yes, you must—'To my kind little admirers.' Now be merciful." "Bocock," Madame von Marwitz mused, holding out an indulgent hand for the pen that Karen gave her and allowing the blotter with the photographs upon it to be placed upon her knee. "And they care for music, parbleu! How many of such appreciators are there, do you think, among my adorers? I do this to please you, Karen. It is against my principles to encourage the schwärmerei of schoolgirls. There," she signed quickly across each picture in a large, graceful and illegible hand, adding, with a smile up at Karen,—"To my kind little admirers." Karen, satisfied, examined the signatures, held them to the fire for a moment to preserve their vivid black in bold relief, and then put them into their envelope, dropping in a small slip of paper upon which she had written: "Her eyes are grey, flecked with black, and are not velvety." They had now reached the end of the letters. "A very good, helpful child it is," said Madame von Marwitz. "You are methodical, Karen. You will make a good housewife. That has never been my talent." "And it is my only one," said Karen. "Ah, well, no; it is a good, solid little head in other directions, too. And it is no mean musician that the child has become. Yes; there are many well-known artists to whom I would listen less willingly than to my Karen. It is only in the direction of la toilette," Madame von Marwitz smiled with a touch of roguishness, "only in the direction of la toilette that the taste is rather rudimentary as yet. I was very cross last night, hein?" "It was disappointing not to have pleased you," said Karen, smiling. "And I was cross. Louise has her souffre-douleur expression this morning to an exasperating degree." "We thought we were going to make the dress quite right," said Karen. "It seemed very simple to arrange the lace around the shoulders; I stood and Louise draped me; and Louise is clever, you know." "Not clever enough for that. It was all because with your solicitude about Louise you wanted her to escape a scolding. She took the lace to Mrs. Rolley too late and did not explain as I told her to do. And you did not save her, you see. Put those two letters of Mr. Drew's in the portfolio; so. And now come and sit, there. I want to have a serious talk with you, Karen." Karen obeyed. Madame von Marwitz sat in her deep chair, the window behind her. The fog had lifted and the pale morning sunlight struck softly on the coils of her hair and fell on the face of the young girl sitting before her. With her grey dress and folded hands and serene gaze Karen looked very like the little convent pensionnaire. Madame von Marwitz scrutinized her thoughtfully for some moments. "You are—how old is it, Karen?" she said at last. "I shall be twenty-four in March," said Karen. "Bon Dieu! I had not realised that it was so much; you are singularly young for your years." "Am I, Tante? I don't know," Karen reflected, genially. "I often feel, oh far older than the people I talk with." "Do you, mon enfant. Some children, it is true, are far wiser than their elders. You are a wise child; but you are young, Karen, very young for your years, in appearance, in demeanour, in candour of outlook. Tell me; have you ever contemplated your future? asked yourself about it?" Karen, looking gravely at her, shook her head. "Hardly at all, Tante. Is that very stupid?" "Not stupid, perhaps; but, again, very child-like. You live in the present." "The past was so sad, Tante, and since I have been with you I have been so happy. There has seemed no reason for thinking of anything but the present." "Well, that is right. It is my wish to have you happy. As far as material things go, too, your future shall be assured; I see to that. But, you are twenty-three years old, Karen; you are a woman, and a child no longer. Do you never dream dreams of un prince charmant; of a home of your own, and children, and a life to build with one who loves you? If I were to die—and one can count on nothing in life—you would be very desolate." Karen, for some silent moments, looked at her guardian, intently and with a touch of alarm. "No; I don't dream," she said then. "And perhaps that is because you fill my life so, Tante. If someone came who loved me very much and whom I loved, I should of course be glad to marry;—only not if it would take me from you; I mean that I should want to be often with you. And when I look forward at all I always take it for granted that that will come in time—a husband and children, and a home of my own. But there seems no reason to think of it now. I am quite contented as I am." The kindly melancholy of Madame von Marwitz's gaze continued to fix her. "But I am not contented for you," she observed. "I wish to see you established. Youth passes, all too quickly, and its opportunities pass, too. I should blame myself if our tie were to cut you off from a wider life. Good husbands are by no means picked up on every bush. One cannot take these things for granted. It is of a possible marriage I wish to speak to you this morning, my Karen. We will talk of it quietly." Madame von Marwitz raised herself in her chair to stretch her hand and take from the mantelpiece a letter lying there. "This came this morning, my Karen," she said. "From our good Lise Lippheim." Frau Lippheim was a warm-hearted, talented, exuberant Jewess who had been a fellow student of Madame von Marwitz's in girlhood. The eagle-flights of genius had always been beyond her, yet her pinions were wide and, unburdened by domestic solicitudes, she might have gone far. As it was, married to a German musician much her inferior, and immersed in the care and support of a huge family, she ranked only as second or third rate. She gave music-lessons in Leipsig and from time to time, playing in a quintet made up of herself, her eldest son and three eldest girls, gave recitals in Germany, France and England. The Lippheim quintet, in its sober way, held a small but dignified position. Karen had been deposited by her guardian more than once under the Lippheim's overflowing roof in Leipsig, and it was a vision of Frau Lippheim that came to her as her guardian unfolded the letter—of the near-sighted, pale blue eyes, heavy, benignant features, and crinkled, red-brown hair. So very ugly, almost repulsively so; yet so kind, so valiant, so untiring. The thought of her was touching, and affectionate solicitude almost effaced Karen's personal anxiety; for she could not connect Frau Lippheim with any matrimonial project. Madame von Marwitz, glancing through her letter, looked up from the last sheet. "I have talked with the good Lise more than once, Karen," she said, "about a hope of hers. She first spoke of it some two years ago; but I told her then that I would say nothing to you till you were older. Now, hearing that I am going away, to leave you for so long, she writes of it again. Did you know that Franz was very much attached to you, Karen?" Franz was Frau Lippheim's eldest son. The vision that now flashed, luridly, for Karen, was that of an immense Germanic face with bright, blinking eyes behind glasses; huge lips; a flattened nose, modelled thickly at the corners, and an enormous laugh that rolled back the lips and revealed suddenly the Semitic element and a boundless energy and kindliness. She had always felt fond of Franz until this moment. Now, amazed, appalled, a violent repulsion went through her. She became pale. "No. I had not guessed that," she said. Her eyes were averted. Madame von Marwitz glanced at her and vexation clouded her countenance. She knew that flinty, unresponsive look. In moments of deep emotion Karen could almost disconcert her. Her face expressed no hostility; but a sternness, blind and resisting, like that of a rock. At such moments she did not look young. Madame von Marwitz, after her glance, also averted her eyes, sighing impatiently. "I see that you do not care for the poor boy. He had hoped, with his mother to back him, that he might have some chance of winning you;—though it is not Franz who writes." She paused; but Karen said nothing. "You know that Franz has talent and is beginning, now, to make money steadily. Lise tells me that. And I would give you a little dot; enough to assure your future, and his. I only speak of the material things because it is part of your childishness never to consider them. Of him I would not have spoken at all, had I not believed that you felt friendship and affection for him. He is so good, so strong, so loyal that I did not think it impossible." After another silence Karen found something to say. "I have friendship for him. That is quite different." "Why so, Karen?" Madame von Marwitz inquired. "Since you are not a romantic school-girl, let us speak soberly. Friendship, true friendship, for a man whose tastes are yours, whose pursuits you understand, is the soundest basis upon which to build a marriage." "No. Only as a friend, a friend not too near, do I feel affection for Franz. It is repulsive to me—the thought of anything else. It makes me hate him," said Karen. "Tiens!" Madame von Marwitz opened her eyes in genuine surprise. "I could not have imagined such, decisive feeling. I could not have imagined that you despised the good Franz. I need not tell you that I do not agree with you there." "I do not despise him." "Ah, there is more than mere negation in your look, your voice, my child. It is pride, wounded pride, that speaks; and it is as if you told me that I had less care for your pride than you had, and thought less of your claims." "I do not think of my claims." "You feel them. You feel Franz your inferior." "I did not think of such things. I thought of his face, near me, and it made me hate him." Karen continued to look aside with a sombre gaze. And, after examining her for another moment, Madame von Marwitz held out her hand. "Come," she said, "come here, child. I have blundered. I see that I have blundered. Franz shall be sent about his business. Have I hurt you? Do not think of it again." The girl got up slowly, as if her stress of feeling made her awkward. Stumbling, she knelt down beside her guardian and, taking the hand and holding it against her eyes, she said in a voice heavy with unshed tears: "Am I a burden? Am I an anxiety? Let me go away, then. I can teach. I can teach music and languages. I can do translations, so many things. You have educated me so well. You will always be my dear friend and I shall see you from time to time. But it is as you say, I am a woman now. I would rather go away than have you troubled by me." Madame von Marwitz's face, as she listened to the heavy voice, that trembled a little over its careful words, darkened. "It is not well what you say, Karen," she replied. "No. You speak to me as you have no right to speak, as though you had a grievance against me. What have I ever done that you should ask me whether you are a burden to me?" "Only—" said Karen, her voice more noticeably trembling—"only that it seemed to me that I must be in the way if you could think of Franz as a husband for me. I do not know why I feel that. But it hurt me so much that it seemed to me to be true." "It has always been my joy to care for you," said Madame von Marwitz. "I have always loved you like my own child. I do not admit that to think of Franz as a husband for you was to do you a wrong. I would not listen to an unfitting suitor for my child. It is you who have hurt me—deeply hurt me—by so misunderstanding me." Sorrow and reproach grew in her voice. "Forgive me," said Karen, who still held the hand before her eyes. Madame von Marwitz drew her hand gently away and raising Karen's head so that she could look at her, "I forgive you, indeed, Karen," she said. "How could I not forgive you? But, child, do not hurt me so again. Never speak of leaving me again. You must never leave me except to go where a fuller happiness beckons. You do not know how they stabbed—those words of yours. That you could think them, believe them! No, Karen, it was not well. Not only are you dear to me for yourself; there is another bond. You were dear to him. You were beside me in the hour of my supreme agony. You desecrate our sacred memories when you allow small suspicions and fears to enter your thoughts of me. So much has failed me in my life. May I not trust that my child will never fail me?" Tragic grief gazed from her eyes and Karen's eyes echoed it. "Forgive me, Tante, I have hurt you. I have been stupid," she spoke almost dully; but Madame von Marwitz was looking into the eyes, deep wells of pain and self-reproach. "Yes, you have hurt me, ma chérie," she replied, leaning now her cheek against Karen's head. "And it is not loving to forget that when a cup of suffering brims, a drop the more makes it overflow. You are harsh sometimes, Karen, strangely harsh." "Forgive me," Karen repeated. Madame von Marwitz put her arms around her, still leaning her head against hers. "With all my heart, my child, with all my heart," she said. "But do not hurt me so again. Do not forget that I live at the edge of a precipice; an inadvertent footstep, and I crash down to the bottom, to lie mangled. Ah, my child, may life never tear you, burn you, freeze you, as it has torn and burned and frozen me. Ah, the memories, the cruel memories!" Great sighs lifted her breast. She murmured, while Karen knelt enfolding her, "His dead face rises before me. The face that we saw, Karen. And I know to the full again my unutterable woe." It was rare with Madame von Marwitz to allude thus explicitly to the tragedy of her life, the ambiguous, the dreadful death of her husband. Karen knelt holding her, pale with the shared memory. They were so for a long time. Then, sighing softly, "Bon Dieu! bon Dieu!" Madame von Marwitz rose and, gently putting the girl aside, she went into her bedroom and closed the door. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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