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Tante

<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2> It was a hard, chill morning and Gregory, sauntering up and down the platform at Euston beside the open doors of the long steamer-train, felt that the taste and smell of London was, as nowhere else, concentrated, compressed, and presented to one in tabloid form, as it were, at a London station on a winter morning. It was a taste and smell that he, personally, rather liked, singularly compounded as it was, to his fancy, of cold metals and warm sooty surfaces; of the savour of kippers cooking over innumerable London grates and the aroma of mugs of beer served out over innumerable London bars; something at once acrid yet genial, suggesting sordidness and unlimited possibility. The vibration of adventure was in it and the sentiment, oddly intermingled, of human solidarity and personal detachment. Gregory, as he strolled and waited for his old friend and whilom Oxford tutor, Professor Blackburn, whom he had promised to see off, had often to pause or to deviate in his course; for, though it was still early, and the season not a favourite one for crossing, the platform was quite sufficiently crowded, and crowded, evidently, with homeward-bound Americans, mostly women. Gregory tended to think of America and its people with the kindly lightness common to his type. Their samenesses didn't interest him, and their differences were sometimes vexatious. He had a vague feeling that they'd really better have been Colonials and be done with it. Professor Blackburn last night had reproved this insular levity. He was going over with an array of discriminations that Gregory had likened to an explorer's charts and instruments. He intended to investigate the most minute and measure the most immense, to lecture continually, to dine out every evening and to write a book of some real appropriateness when he came home. Gregory said that all that he asked of America was that it should keep its institutions to itself and share its pretty girls, and the professor told him that he knew more about the latter than the former. There were not many pretty girls on the platform this morning, though he remarked one rather pleasing young person who sat idly on a pile of luggage and fixed large, speculative, innocently assured eyes upon him when he went by, while near her her mother and a tawny sister disputed bitterly with a porter. Most of the ladies who hastened to and fro seemed, while very energetic, also very jaded. They were packed as tightly with experiences as their boxes with contraband clothing, and they had both, perhaps, rather heavily on their minds, wondering, it was probable, how they were to get them through. Some of them, strenuous, eye-glassed and scholastic, looked, however, as they marshalled their pathetically lean luggage, quite innocent of material trophies. Among these alien and unfamiliar visages, Gregory caught sight suddenly of one that was alien yet recognizable. He had seen the melancholy, simian features before, and after a moment he placed the neat, black person, walking beside a truck piled high with enormous boxes, as Louise, Madame von Marwitz's maid. To recognise Louise was to think of Miss Woodruff. Gregory looked around the platform with a new interest. Miss Woodruff was nowhere to be seen, but a new element pervaded the dingy place, and it hardly needed the presence of four or five richly dressed ladies bearing sheaves of flowers, or that of two silk-hatted impresario-looking gentlemen with Jewish noses, to lead Gregory to infer that the element was Madame von Marwitz's, and that he had, inadvertently, fallen upon the very morning of her departure. Already an awareness and an expectancy was abroad that reminded him of that in the concert hall. The contagion of celebrity had made itself felt even before the celebrity herself was visible; but, in another moment, Madame von Marwitz had appeared upon the platform, surrounded by cohorts of friends. Dressed in a long white cloak and flowing in sables, a white lace veil drooping about her shoulders, a sumptuous white feather curving from her brow to her back, she moved amidst the scene like a splendid, dreamy ship entering some grimy Northern harbour. Mrs. Forrester, on heels as high as a fairy-godmother's and wearing a strange velvet cloak and a stranger velvet bonnet, trotted beside her; Sir Alliston was on the other hand, his delicate Vandyke features nipped with the cold; Mr. Claude Drew walked behind and before went Eleanor Scrotton, smiling a tight, stricken smile of triumph and responsibility. As the group passed Gregory, Miss Scrotton caught sight of him. "We are in plenty of time, I see," she said. "Dear me! it has been a morning! Mercedes is always late. Could you, I wonder, induce these people to move away. She so detests being stared at." Eleanor, as usual, roused a mischievous spirit in Gregory. "I'm afraid I'm helpless," he replied. "We're in a public place, and a cat may look at a king. Besides, who could help looking at those marvellous clothes." "It isn't a question of cats but of impertinent human beings," Miss Scrotton returned with displeasure. "Allow me, Madam," she forged a majestic way through a gazing group. "Where is Miss Woodruff?" Gregory inquired. He was wondering. "Tiresome girl," Miss Scrotton said, watching the ladies with the flowers who gathered around her idol. "She will be late, I'm afraid. She had forgotten Victor." "Victor? Is Victor the courier? Why does Miss Woodruff have to remember him?" "No, no. Victor is Mercedes's dog, her dearly loved dog," said Miss Scrotton, her impatience with an ignorance that she suspected of wilfulness tempered, as usual, by the satisfaction of giving any and every information about Madame von Marwitz. "It is a sort of superstition with her that he should always be on the platform to see her off. It will be serious, really serious, if Karen doesn't get him here in time. It may depress Mercedes for the whole of the voyage." "And where has she gone to get him?" "Oh, she turned back nearly at once. She was with us in the carriage and we passed Louise in the omnibus with the boxes and fortunately Karen noticed that Victor wasn't with her. It turned out, when we stopped and asked Louise about him, that she had given him to the footman to take for a walk and she thought he had been brought back to Karen. Karen took a hansom at once and went back. She really ought to have seen to it before starting. I do hope she will get him here in time. Madam, if you please; we really can't get by." A little woman, stout but sprightly, in whom Gregory recognized the agitated mother of the pretty girl, evaded Miss Scrotton's extended hand and darted past her to place herself in front of Madame von Marwitz. She wore a large, box-like hat from which a blue veil hung. Her small features, indeterminate in form and incoherent in assemblage, expressed to an extraordinary degree determination and strategy. She faced the great woman. "Baroness," she said, in swift yet deliberate tones; "allow me to present myself; Mrs. Hamilton K. Slifer. We have mutual friends; Mrs. Tollman, Mrs. General Tollman of St. Louis, Missouri. She had the pleasure of meeting you in Paris some years ago. An old family friend of ours. My girls, Baroness; Maude and Beatrice. They won't forget this day. We're simply wild about you, Baroness. We were at your concert the other night." Maude, the lean and tawny, and Beatrice, the dark and pretty, had followed deftly in their mother's wake and were smiling, Maude with steely brightness, Beatrice with nonchalant assurance, at Madame von Marwitz. "Bon Dieu!" the great woman muttered. She gazed away from the Slifers and about her with helpless consternation. Then, slightly bowing her head and murmuring: "I thank you, Madam," she moved on, her friends closing round her. Miss Scrotton, pale with wrath, put the Slifers aside as she passed them. "Well, girls, I knew I could do it!" Mrs. Slifer ejaculated, drawing a deep breath. They stood near Gregory, and Beatrice, who had adjusted her camera, was taking a series of snaps of the retreating celebrity. "We've met her, anyway, and perhaps if she ever comes on deck we'll get another chance. That's a real impertinent woman she's got with her. Did you see her try and shove me back?" "Never mind, mother," said Beatrice, who was evidently easy-going; "I snapped her as she did it and she looked ugly enough to turn milk sour. My! do look at that girl with the queer cap and the big dog. She's a freak and no mistake! Stand back, Maude, and let me have a shot at her." "Why, I believe it's the adopted daughter!" Maude exclaimed. "Don't you remember. She was in the front row and we heard those people talking about her. I think she's distinguée myself. She looks like a Russian countess." It was indeed Miss Woodruff who had arrived and Gregory, whose eyes followed the Slifers', was aware of a sudden emotion on seeing her. It was the emotion of his dream, touched and startled and sweet, and even more than in his dream she made him think of a Hans Andersen heroine with the little sealskin cap on her fair hair, and a long furred coat reaching to her ankles. She stood holding Victor by a leash, looking about her with a certain anxiety. Gregory made his way to her and when she saw him she started to meet him, gladly, but without surprise. "Where is Tante?" she said, "Is she already in the train? Did she send you for me?" "You are in very good time," he reassured her. "She is over there—you see her feather now, don't you. I'll take you to her." "Thank you so much. It has been a great rush. You have heard of the misfortunes? By good chance I found the quickest cab." She was walking beside him, her eyes fixed before them on the group where she saw her guardian's plume and veil. "I don't know what Tante would have done if Victor had not been here in time to say good-bye to her." Madame von Marwitz was holding a parting reception before the open door of her saloon carriage. Flowers and fruits lay on the tables. Louise and Miss Scrotton's maid piled rugs and cushions on the chairs and divans. One of the Jewish gentlemen stood with his hat pushed off his forehead talking in low, important tones to a pallid young newspaper man who made rapid notes. Madame von Marwitz at once caught sight of Karen and Victor. Past the intervening heads she beckoned Karen to come to her and she and Gregory exchanged salutes. In her swift smile on seeing him he read a mild amusement; she could only think that, like everybody else, he had come to see her off. The cohorts opened to receive Miss Woodruff and Madame von Marwitz enfolded her and stooped to kiss Victor's head. Gregory watched the little scene, which was evidently touching to all who witnessed it, and then turned to find Professor Blackburn at his elbow. He, too, it appeared, had been watching Madame von Marwitz. "Yes; I heard her two years ago in Oxford," he said; "and even my antique blood was stirred, as much by her personality as by her music. A most romantic, most pathetic woman. What eyes and what a smile!" "I see that you are one of the stricken," said Gregory. "Shall I introduce you to my old friend, Mrs. Forrester? She'll no doubt be able to get you a word with Madame Okraska, if you want to hear her speak." No, the professor said, he preferred to keep his idols remote and vaguely blurred with incense. "Who is the young Norse maiden?" he inquired; "the one you were with. Those singular ladies are accosting her now." Karen Woodruff, on the outskirts of the group, had been gazing at her guardian with a constrained smile in which Gregory detected self-mastery, and turned her eyes upon the Slifers as the professor asked his question. Mrs. Slifer, marshalling her girls, and stooping to pat Victor, was introducing herself, and while Gregory told the professor that that was Miss Woodruff, Madame Okraska's ward, she bent to expound to the Slifers the inscription on Victor's collar, speaking, it was evident, with kindness. Gregory was touched by the tolerance with which, in the midst of her own sad thoughts, she satisfied the Slifers' curiosity. "Then she really is Norse," said the professor. "Really half Norse." "I like her geniality and her reticence," said the professor, watching the humours of the little scene. "Those enterprising ladies won't get much out of her. Ah, they must relinquish her now; her guardian is asking for her. I suppose it's time that I got into my compartment." The groups were breaking up and the travellers, detaching themselves from their friends, were taking their places. Madame von Marwitz, poised above a sea of upturned faces on the steps of her carriage, bent to enfold Karen Woodruff once more. Doors then slammed, whistles blew, green flags fluttered, and the long train moved slowly out of the station. Standing at a little distance from the crowd, and holding Victor by his leash, Miss Woodruff looked after the train with a fixed and stiffened smile. She was near tears. The moment was not a propitious one for speaking to her; yet Gregory felt that he could not go without saying good-bye. He approached her and she turned grave eyes upon him. "And you are going to Cornwall, now?" said Gregory, patting Victor's head. "Yes; I go to-morrow," said Miss Woodruff in a gentle voice. "Have you friends there?" Gregory asked, "and books? Things to amuse you?" "We see the rector and his wife and one or two old ladies now and then. But it is very remote, you know. That is why my guardian loves it so much. She needs the solitude after her rushing life. But books; oh yes; my guardian has an excellent library there; she is a great reader; I could read all day, in every language, if I wanted to. As for amusement, Mrs. Talcott and I are very busy; we see after the garden and the little farm; I practice and take Victor out for walks." She had quite mastered her emotion and Gregory could look up at her frankly. "Isn't there something I could send you," he said, "to help to pass the time? Magazines? Do you have them? And sweets? Do you like sweets?" His manner was half playful and he smiled at her as he might have smiled at a young school-girl. If only those wide braids under the little cap had been hanging over her shoulders the manner would have been justified. As it was, Gregory felt with some bewilderment that his behaviour was hardly normal. He was not in the habit of offering magazines and sweets to young women. But his solicitude expressed itself in these unconventional forms and luckily she found nothing amiss with them. She was accustomed, no doubt, to a world where such offerings passed freely. "It is very kind of you," said Miss Woodruff. "I should indeed like to see a review now and then. Mr. Drew is writing another little article on my guardian, in one of this month's reviews, I did not hear which one; and I would like to see that very much. But sweets? No; when I like them I like them too much and eat too many and then I am sorry. Please don't send me sweets." She was smiling. "What do you like to eat, then, that doesn't make you sorry—even when you eat a great deal?" "Roast-beef!" she said, laughing, and the tip of her tongue was caught between her teeth. He was charmed to feel that, for the moment, at least, he had won her from her sadness. "But you get roast-beef in Cornwall." "Oh, excellent. I will not have roast-beef, please." "Fruit, then? You like fruit?" "Yes; indeed." "And you don't get much fruit in Cornwall in winter." "Only apples," she confessed, "and dried apricots." He elicited from her that nectarines and grapes were her favourite fruits. But in the midst of their talk she became suddenly grave again. "I do not believe that you had a single word with her after I came!" His face betrayed his bewilderment. "Tante," she enlightened him. "But before then? You did speak with her? She had sent you to look for me?" The depths of her misconception as to his presence were apparent. "No; it was by chance I saw you," he said. "And I didn't have any talk with Madame von Marwitz." He had no time to undeceive her further if it had been worth while to undeceive her, for Mrs. Forrester, detaching herself from the larger group of bereaved ones, joined them. "I can't give you a lift, Gregory?" she asked. "You are going citywards? We are all feeling very bleak and despoiled, aren't we? What an awful place a station is when someone has gone away from it." "Mrs. Forrester," said Karen Woodruff, with wide eyes, "he did not have one single word with her; Mr. Jardine did not get any talk at all with Tante. Oh, that should have been managed." But Mrs. Forrester, though granting to his supposed plight a glance of sympathetic concern, was in a hurry to get home and he was, again, spared the necessity of a graceless confession. He piloted them through the crowd, saw them—Miss Woodruff, Mrs. Forrester and Victor,—fitted into Mrs. Forrester's brougham, and then himself got into a hansom. It was still the atmosphere of the dream that hovered about him as he decided at what big fruit-shop he should stop to order a box of nectarines. He wanted her to find them waiting for her in Cornwall. And the very box of nectarines, the globes of sombre red fruit nested in cotton-wool, seemed part of the dream. He knew that he was behaving curiously; but she was, after all, the little Hans Andersen heroine and one needn't think of ordinary customs where she was concerned. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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