The House in Paris (24 page)

'What did you think had become of me when you tore off that message?'

'Have you written to Ray?'

'No.'

'I'm glad. Then don't write; wait till he comes home.'

'You mean, you think this will pass?'

'It's some kind of dream, Karen darling.'

'This is not a dream. But I've been asleep for years.'

'Sit down. You're not yourself. You are trembling.'

'Well,
say
something, Mother.'

'One cannot even discuss this.'

'You think it is horrible.'

Mrs Michaelis, turning round in her chair, looked out fixedly at the low windows of the mews. The world was unmoved. She said evenly: 'It would be horrible if it were a fact. As it is — you have had wild ideas ever since you were a child, you know; it was always odd; in some ways you were so sensible. You are younger, too, than you realize — and yet in ways older; you must have been missing Ray, and wanting to marry him more than you knew yourself. No one admits how trying long engagements are. And his not being here has made things take this form. In a year's time all this will seem unaccountable; when you are married you will want to forget it... Has Max Ebhart written to you, then, since he was in London?'

'No.'

'But then how —?'

'He rang me up one night; after that we met at Boulogne.'

Mrs Michaelis thought over this, too. 'You have put yourself in a false position,' she said. 'Because you are more innocent than you realize, and have grown up in a world where people behave well, I think you cannot see how you must have seemed to him. You can't see into the mind of a man like that. But apart from anything else, can you not see that a man who is treating Naomi as he is treating Naomi, and who has let you behave as you have behaved, would not be likely to make you a good husband? ... Have you heard from him since you have come home?'

'No. There are, there were — things to be done first.'

'Throwing Naomi over — yes.'

'Yes,' said Karen, without moving her eyes.

'I do not like saying this, Karen,' said Mrs Michaelis. 'But you have behaved like an infatuated woman, an "easy" woman and he is a very astute man. No Jew is unastute. Apart from being more beautiful and more ... more possible than Naomi, he can see for himself that you are very much wealthier. He knows your background; he has been to this house. His reasons for wanting Naomi may have been disinterested — though not altogether, as Mme Fisher herself says. No doubt he valued her goodness — I cannot believe he is altogether bad. But now something better offers, he naturally jumps at it.'

'You mean, I offered?'

Her mother did not speak.

'I realized when I went to meet Max,' said Karen, 'that everything that could be
said
was on your side.'

'As I said, we will not discuss this,' said Mrs Michaelis, 'you will see a year hence that there was not much to discuss. So that it must not make us enemies, Karen. Shall we leave it at this — that you promise to take no steps, not to write to Ray or — or this other man for a month?'

There was a pause. Karen glanced at the telephone. Then she said: 'Very well.'

Her mother let out a little quick sigh. She sat back in her chair, facing the shady study as she had faced the window, the afternoon she heard of Aunt Violet's death, eyes closed, but closed so calmly that it was startling to see tears escape from under the lids. Tears coursed their erratic way down her cheeks. In her face, old for the first time, a stubborn majesty showed.

Calm tears do not ask for pity. Karen said: 'Is this the worst you could possibly hear, Mother? Is this what you dreaded when you tore up the message?'

Mrs Michaelis, not liking the damp inconvenience of tears, patted them off with her handkerchief, unembarrassedly. 'I suppose so,' she said. 'I was foolish. I have not been sleeping so well. I suppose Aunt Violet's death was bad for me. You see, once one thing has happened — If I had had more courage, this week might have been different. But it seemed to me that a thing that made you not speak the truth — This week has been so unlike us.'

'It made me not feel I lived here.'

'Karen — I mean, you can't mean to be as ... as unkind as that sounds. Have you wanted to tell me, then?'

'You know you made that not possible.'

Her mother looked at the handkerchief with the tears on it; a whiff of lilac drifted across the room. She said: 'Then tell me, have you seen Evelyn Derrick? How did you know she had rung up?'

'I saw her, yes, and she said you sounded surprised. But I knew before that. On Sunday night when I got home, I found the pad with the message — that I had noticed but not read when I first came in — gone when I went down later for Ray's letter. I naturally wondered why. I found the pad in the morning-room. Your writing had dinted through and I was so puzzled, I traced the dents with the pencil to see what the message was.'

'That does not seem like you, either. Don't you — do you not trust me any more?'

'I broke up our being silent, didn't I? Otherwise — '

Her mother paused again. Yes. And so — that was what had happened?'

'Yes,' Karen said, 'that was all.'

12

Naomi's telegram came late that same night. When it was brought in Karen thought it might be from Max. It was not.

At the end of her telegram, Naomi had added that she would be coming to London tomorrow. She had not understood that the inquest and police investigations might keep her; next day she wired to say that this had been so. After that there was silence for some time. Karen bought French newspapers, which gave short accounts of the tragedy. Max had been only beginning to be important; passion did not appear to figure; elections were coming on and two big scandals in progress, so the French papers did not give him much space.

It was not till the end of July that Naomi got to London; she arrived at Chester Terrace late one afternoon. Mr and Mrs Michaelis had left London; Karen stayed on in the house to see Naomi. Mrs Michaelis had been unwilling to leave Karen; in these weeks since the telegram she had, as a mother, risen to her full height, wrapping up in gentleness and in a comprehension that sometimes came too close. Mr Michaelis had been told that Karen had lost a very dear friend — perhaps told even more, now they were safe again. His charming blue eyes softened whenever he looked at his daughter; he and she went about London together, as they used to do when she was a little girl. A frightening harmony set up in her home, more frightening than the tension of the week after Hythe ... Mrs Michaelis had certainly not wanted to leave Karen, dreading for her the ordeal of this meeting with Naomi. But she realized they had to meet — and better, she thought, in the quiet of Karen's home.

Naomi was still in black for her aunt. Today, she was shown up to the drawing-room, where Karen stood waiting, looking out at the park. As she put her arms round Karen and kissed her, Karen could feel Naomi tremble with pity.

'You have understood that I could not come before.'

'I did think,' Karen said, 'of going over to you.'

'I think that was better not; it was better here.'

'Your letter said all there really was to say? There was no — no message?'

'No.'

'I see,' said Karen.

Naomi looked round the drawing-room for which the dust sheets were waiting; small objects were already put away.

'Your mother is not here?'

'No, they are both away. Are you tired, Naomi? If so — we have all night to talk.'

Naomi, sitting down, looked movelessly for a minute at the knees of her black skirt, her hat with the black feather hiding her bent-down face. 'No, I am not tired,' she said recollecting Karen's questions. 'Will you hear now? How much do you know?'

'I found the account in some papers, then there was your letter. That is all I know.'

'Then —?'

'Yes.'

'The Friday night before, Max had said to my mother that he would be out of Paris over the week-end. He was not at our house that day; they talked on the telephone. Then on Monday I had his letter, written on the steamer and posted in Paris after midnight; he told me of his decision and said he would come to see me if I wished. I did not wish this, and did not know how to reply. So I did not reply. On Tuesday evening it appeared to my mother that I was ill. She came to my room; there is no lock to my door. She connected my illness with Max, whose handwriting she had seen, and pressed me for news of him. I told her that he and I would not, after all, marry; she was very kind and gave me a sleeping draught. It appears that later that night she wrote to Max, bidding him come and see her. He refused. I had observed for some time that he dreaded to be with her. But he again wrote to me, saying he had a great wish to see me again at least once. This letter my mother thought it right to intercept; she told me I was not in a state to receive letters. I do not know if I was ill, my mother declared I was; she made me keep to my room, which perhaps made me more ill. She told me that the two American girls had commented on my state. So I saw no one but her; she was with me constantly. She brought Max's second letter to me, open, and said I should do right to grant him an interview. She represented to me that he was dependent upon me; she believed him, she said, to be in a state near dementia, and said it was in my power further to injure him, if I did not grant him the interview. She said his moral need of me was unchanging, and that my love for him should make me more than myself. "He has his life to live, and you can restore him," she said. I said: "He is not alone, he is going to marry Karen." She had not known that till then; her manner changed, but then she looked at me smiling, and said: "See him for both their sakes. Do you want to poison his love for her?" She stayed by me while I wrote to Max saying yes, that I would see him, next Friday afternoon. Then she said I should rest now and gave me another draught that I did not want, but I drank it. She took my letter away.

'On Friday before six I went down to wait in the salon.

The American girls were out; I did not know Mariette was out also till Max rang and I heard my mother go to the door. She brought him immediately to the door of the salon, saying: "You must not stay long; Naomi has been ill." Then she went out, shutting the door: I did not ask where she went. Max looked ill; I tried to do what I could for him. It was evident that for nights he had hardly slept. We spoke of you and our love for you. When he began to be calmer, he told me that the difficulties of his situation with regard to you and your family had been preying on him. I said I was certain anything could be made possible. He spoke of a dread of being fatal to you.'

'Did he tell you everything that there was to tell?'

Naomi made a slight movement. 'Yes,' she said. She looked unthoughtfully, steadily at the window beside which Karen stood, and Karen again remembered Max's saying that Naomi was like furniture or the dark.

'Knowing my love for you, he expected that I would judge him. I said you, Karen, must have done as you wished; it did not seem strange to me. I reminded him how I could not have been content to marry until you and he had met again at least once. I reminded him of our happiness in the garden, we three, in the garden of my aunt's house. I believe that he took my hands. If I had been ill, I was still ill, for I felt weak, and sat down on that chair by the window where I sit to sew. He began to attack his own nature. "What she and I are," he said, "is outside life; we shall fail; we cannot live what we are." I said I believed love to make any life possible. "She does not know me, she does not know me," he said.

'All the time he spoke, I could be conscious of nothing outside him. But then he started, listened, turned white, then stepped to the door and suddenly opened it. My mother stood outside. She must have crept back or never gone away. She would have heard everything. You know our hall is dark and she wears black; I only saw her face, which seemed to be hanging there. When he opened the door she smiled and came in calmly, with the quiet manner she has when there is no more to know.

'I saw then that Max did not belong to himself. He could do nothing that she had not expected; my mother was at the root of him. I saw that what she had learnt about you and him pleased her, that she had pleasure in it in some terrible way. Her eyes were bright, she was smiling. She said: "This has been enough, Naomi, you must rest now. Go, now." Max looked at me like someone through bars in a death cell; to part is to leave him to what must be. The law takes you away. First, his eyes would not let me go; I stood by the door. Then my mother said to Max: "So with Karen you have already secured your position." He looked at me and said: "Go!" He stood with his back to the mantelpiece; after that I saw that my presence martyrized him. So I went. They were silent till I had shut the door. I went upstairs: the door of the room that used to be yours was open; the American girl who had it had left dresses about and I remember that I put them away.

'I do not know how long I was in her room. Wherever I looked, I saw Max's face as he stood opposite my mother, after his love for you had fallen into her hands. When I went to the head of the stairs I could hear her voice. Because I was ill, I began to tremble and sweat, and went back to your room. I saw then, that evil dominated our house, and that the girls who were with us should not be here. By the bed I saw a photograph of a house with white pillars, and of the young man the girl who slept here was to marry. Either my eyes suffered or it began to be dark: there was darkness on the photographs. Then I heard the salon door open and Max go out through the hall; the step was not like his own. It seemed to me that he fumbled with the street door; I heard the street door open and strike the wall, but I did not hear it shut. After that it was strange that I heard no movement anywhere in the house. I do not know what I feared. I began to go down. Our street door was wide open and three or four people stood out there in the daylight, staring at our doorstep. I felt they had come to attack my mother. When they saw me on the stairs their voices stopped. Not facing them, I went in at the salon door.