Christmas Holiday Read online

  “ ‘It’ll clean,’ I said.

  “ ‘Take Robert up his coffee,’ she said sharply. ‘It’s after eleven and quite time he woke. Leave me the trousers. I know what to do with them.’

  “I poured him out a cup and was just going upstairs with it when we heard Robert clattering down in his slippers. He nodded to his mother and asked for the paper.

  “ ‘Drink your coffee while it’s hot,’ I said to him.

  “He paid no attention to me. He opened the paper and turned to the latest news.

  “ ‘There’s nothing,’ said his mother.

  “I didn’t know what she meant. He cast his eyes down the columns and then took a long drink of coffee. He was unusually silent. I took his coat and began to give it a brush.

  “ ‘You made your trousers in an awful mess last night,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to wear your blue suit to-day.’

  “Madame Berger had put them over the back of a chair. She took them to him and showed him the stains. He looked at them for a minute while she watched him in silence. You would have thought he couldn’t take his eyes off them. I couldn’t understand their silence. It was strange. I thought they were taking a trivial accident in an absurdly tragic way. But of course the French have thrift in their bones.

  “ ‘We’ve got some petrol in the house,’ I said. ‘We can get the stains out with that. Or they can go to the cleaner’s.’

  “They didn’t answer. Robert, frowning, looked down. His mother turned the trousers round, I suppose to look if there were stains on the back, and then, I think, felt that there was something in the pockets.

  “ ‘What have you got here?’

  “He sprang to his feet.

  “ ‘Leave it alone. I won’t have you look in my pockets.’

  “He tried to snatch the trousers from her, but before he could do so she had slipped her hand into the hip-pocket and taken out a bundle of bank-notes. He stopped dead when he saw she had them. She let the trousers drop to the ground and with a groan put her hand to her breast as though she’d been stabbed. I saw then that they were both of them as pale as death. A sudden thought seized me; Robert had often said to me that he was sure his mother had a little hoard hidden away somewhere in the house. We’d been terribly short of money lately. Robert was crazy to go down to the Riviera; I’d never been there and he’d been saying for weeks that if we could only get a bit of cash we’d go down and have a honeymoon at last. You see, at the time we married, he was working at that broker’s and couldn’t get away. The thought flashed through my mind that he’d found his mother’s hoard. I blushed to the roots of my hair at the idea that he’d stolen it and yet I wasn’t surprised. I hadn’t lived with him for six months without knowing that he’d think it rather a lark. I saw that they were thousand-franc notes that she held in her hand. Afterwards I knew there were seven of them. She looked at him as though her eyes would start out of her head.

  “ ‘When did you get them, Robert?’ she asked.

  “He gave a laugh, but I saw he was nervous.

  “ ‘I made a lucky bet yesterday,’ he answered.

  “ ‘Oh, Robert,’ I cried, ‘you promised your mother you’d never play the horses again.’

  “ ‘This was a certainty,’ he said, ‘I couldn’t resist. We shall be able to go down to the Riviera, my sweet. You take them and keep them or they’ll just slip through my fingers.’

  “ ‘No, no, she mustn’t have them,’ cried Madame Berger. She gave Robert a look of real horror, so that I was astounded, then she turned to me. ‘Go and do your room. I won’t have the rooms left unmade all day long.’

  “I saw she wanted to get rid of me and I thought I’d be better out of the way if they were going to quarrel. The position of a daughter-in-law is delicate. His mother worshipped Robert, but he was extravagant and it worried her to death. Now and then she made a scene. Sometimes they’d shut themselves up in her pavilion at the end of the garden and I’d hear their voices raised in violent discussions. He would come away sulky and irritable and when I saw her I knew she’d been crying. I went upstairs. When I came down again they stopped talking at once and Madame Berger told me to go out and buy some eggs for lunch. Generally Robert went out about noon and didn’t come back till night, often very late, but that day he stayed in. He read and played the piano. I asked him what had passed between him and his mother, but he wouldn’t tell me, he told me to mind my own business. I think neither of them spoke more than a dozen sentences all day. I thought it would never end. When we went to bed I snuggled up to Robert and put my arms round his neck, for of course I knew he was worried and I wanted to console him, but he pushed me away.

  “ ‘For God’s sake leave me alone,’ he said. ‘I’m in no mood for love-making to-night. I’ve got other things to think about.’

  “I was bitterly wounded, but I didn’t speak. I moved away from him. He knew he’d hurt me, for in a little while he put out his hand and lightly touched my face.

  “ ‘Go to sleep, my sweet,’ he said. ‘Don’t be upset because I’m in a bad humour to-day. I drank too much yesterday. I shall be all right to-morrow.’

  “ ‘Was it your mother’s money?’ I whispered.

  “He didn’t answer at once.

  “ ‘Yes,’ he said at last.

  “ ‘Oh, Robert, how could you?’ I cried.

  “He paused again before he said anything. I was wretched. I think I began to cry.

  “ ‘If anyone should ask you anything you never saw me with the money. You never knew that I had any.’

  “ ‘How can you think I’d betray you?’ I cried.

  “ ‘And the trousers. Maman couldn’t get the stains out. She’s thrown them away.’

  “I suddenly remembered that I’d smelt something burning that afternoon while Robert was playing and I was sitting with him. I got up to see what it was.

  “ ‘Stay here,’ he said.

  “ ‘But something’s burning in the kitchen,’ I said.

  “ ‘Maman’s probably burning old rags. She’s in a dirty temper to-day, she’ll bite your head off if you go and interfere with her.’

  “I knew now that it wasn’t old rags she was burning; she hadn’t thrown the trousers away, she’d burnt them. I began to be horribly frightened, but I didn’t say anything. He took my hand.

  “ ‘If anyone should ask you about them,’ he said, ‘you must say that I got them so dirty cleaning a car that they had to be given away. My mother gave them to a tramp the day before yesterday. Will you swear to that?’

  “ ‘Yes,’ I said, but I could hardly speak.

  “Then he said a terrifying thing.

  “ ‘It may be that my head depends on it.’

  “I was too stunned, I was too horrified, to say anything. My head began to ache so that I thought it would burst. I don’t think I closed my eyes all night. Robert slept fitfully. He was restless even in his sleep and turned from side to side. We went downstairs early, but my mother-in-law was already in the kitchen. As a rule she was very decently dressed and when she went out she looked quite smart. She was a doctor’s widow and the daughter of a staff officer; she had a feeling about her position and she would let no one know to what economies she was reduced to make the show she did when she went to pay visits on old army friends. Then, with her waved hair and her manicured hands, with rouge on her cheeks, she didn’t look more than forty; but now, her hair tousled, without any make-up, in a dressing-gown, she looked like an old procuress who’d retired to live on her savings. She didn’t say good morning to Robert. Without a word she handed him the paper. I watched him while he read it and I saw his expression change. He felt my eyes upon him and looked up. He smiled.

  “ ‘Well, little one,’ he said gaily, ‘what about this coffee? Are you going to stand there all the morning looking at your lord and master or are you going to wait on him?’

  “I knew there was something in the paper that would tell me what I had to know. Robert finished his breakfast and w
ent upstairs to dress. When he came down again, ready to go out, I had a shock, for he was wearing the light gray suit that he had worn two days before, and the trousers that went with it. But then of course I remembered that he’d had a second pair made when he ordered the suit. There had been a lot of discussion about it. Madame Berger had grumbled at the expense, but he had insisted that he couldn’t hope to get a job unless he was decently dressed and at last she gave in as she always did, but she insisted that he should have a second pair of trousers, she said it was always the trousers that grew shabby first and it would be an economy in the end if he had two pairs. Robert went out and said he wouldn’t be in to lunch. My mother-in-law went out soon afterwards to do her marketing and the moment I was alone I seized the paper. I saw that an English bookmaker, called Teddie Jordan, had been found dead in his flat. He had been stabbed in the back. I had often heard Robert speak of him. I knew it was he who had killed him. I had such a sudden pain in my heart that I thought I should die. I was terrified. I don’t know how long I sat there. I couldn’t move. At last I heard a key in the door and I knew it was Madame Berger coming in again. I put the paper back where she’d left it and went on with my work.”

  Lydia gave a deep sigh. They had not got to the restaurant till one or after and it was two by the time they finished supper. When they came in the tables were full and there was a dense crowd at the bar. Lydia had been talking a long time and little by little people had been going. The crowd round the bar thinned out. There were only two persons sitting at it now and only one table besides theirs was occupied. The waiters were getting restive.

  “I think we ought to be going,” said Charley. “I’m sure they want to be rid of us.”

  At that moment the people at the other table got up to go. The woman who brought their coats from the cloak-room brought Charley’s too and put it on the table beside him. He called for the bill.

  “I suppose there’s some place we could go to now?”

  “We could go to Montmartre. Graaf’s is open all night. I’m terribly tired.”

  “Well, if you like I’ll drive you home.”

  “To Alexey and Evgenia’s? I can’t go there to-night. He’ll be drunk. He’ll spend the whole night abusing Evgenia for bringing up the children to be what they are and weeping over his own sorrows. I won’t go to the Sérail. We’d better go to Graaf’s. At least it’s warm there.”

  She seemed so woebegone, and really so exhausted, that Charley with hesitation made a proposal. He remembered that Simon had told him that he could take anyone into the hotel.

  “Look here, I’ve got two beds in my room. Why don’t you come back with me there?”

  She gave him a suspicious look, but he shook his head smiling.

  “Just to sleep, I mean,” he added. “You know, I’ve had a journey to-day and what with the excitement and one thing and another I’m pretty well all in.”

  “All right.”

  There was no cab to be found when they got out into the street, but it was only a little way to the hotel and they walked. A sleepy night watchman opened the door for them and took them upstairs in the lift. Lydia took off her hat. She had a broad, white brow. He had not seen her hair before. It was short, curling round the neck, and pale brown. She kicked off her shoes and slipped out of her dress. When Charley came back from the bathroom, having got into his pyjamas, she was not only in bed but asleep. He got into his own bed and put out the light. They had not exchanged a word since they left the restaurant.

  Thus did Charley spend his first night in Paris.

  iv

  IT WAS LATE when he woke. For a moment he had no notion where he was. Then he saw Lydia. They had not drawn the curtains and a gray light filtered through the shutters. The room with its pitchpine furniture looked squalid. She lay on her back in the twin bed with her eyes open, staring up at the dingy ceiling. Charley glanced at his watch. He felt shy of the strange woman in the next bed.

  “It’s nearly twelve,” he said. “We’d better just have a cup of coffee and then I’ll take you to lunch somewhere if you like.”

  She looked at him with grave, but not unkindly, eyes.

  “I’ve been watching you sleep. You were sleeping as peacefully, as profoundly, as a child. You had such a look of innocence on your face, it was shattering.”

  “My face badly needs a shave,” said he.

  He telephoned down to the office for coffee and it was brought by a stout, middle-aged maid, who gave Lydia a glance, but whose expression heavily conveyed nothing. Charley smoked a pipe and Lydia one cigarette after another. They talked little. Charley did not know how to deal with the singular situation in which he found himself and Lydia seemed lost in thoughts unconcerned with him. Presently he went into the bathroom to shave and bath. When he came back he found Lydia sitting in an armchair at the window in his dressing-gown. The window looked into the courtyard and all there was to see was the windows, storey above storey, of the rooms opposite. On the gray Christmas morning it looked incredibly cheerless. She turned to him.

  “Couldn’t we lunch here instead of going out?”

  “Downstairs, d’you mean? If you like. I don’t know what the food’s like.”

  “The food doesn’t matter. No, up here, in the room. It’s so wonderful to shut out the world for a few hours. Rest, peace, silence, solitude. You would think they were luxuries that only the very rich can afford, and yet they cost nothing. Strange that they should be so hard to come by.”

  “If you like I’ll order you lunch here and I’ll go out.”

  Her eyes lingered on him and there was a slightly ironic smile in them.

  “I don’t mind you. I think probably you’re very sweet and nice. I’d rather you stayed; there’s something cosy about you that I find comforting.”

  Charley was not a youth who thought very much about himself, but at that moment he could not help a slight sense of irritation because really she seemed to be using him with more unconcern than was reasonable. But he had naturally good manners and did not betray his feeling. Besides, the situation was odd, and though it was not to find himself in such a one that he had come to Paris, it could not be denied that the experience was interesting. He looked round the room. The beds were unmade; Lydia’s hat, her coat and skirt, her shoes and stockings were lying about, mostly on the floor; his own clothes were piled up untidily on a chair.

  “The place looks terribly frowsy,” he said. “D’you think it would be very nice to lunch in all this mess?”

  “What does it matter?” she answered, with the first laugh he had heard from her. “But if it upsets your prim English sense of decorum, I’ll make the beds, or the maid can while I’m having a bath.”

  She went into the bathroom and Charley telephoned for a waiter. He ordered some eggs, some meat, cheese and fruit, and a bottle of wine. Then he got hold of the maid. Though the room was heated there was a fireplace and he thought a fire would be cheerful. While the maid was getting the logs he dressed himself, and then, when she got busy setting things to rights, he sat down and looked at the grim courtyard. He thought disconsolately of the jolly party at the Terry-Masons’. They would be having a glass of sherry now before sitting down to their Christmas dinner of turkey and plum pudding, and they would all be very gay, pleased with their Christmas presents, noisy and jolly. After a while Lydia came back. She had no make-up on her face, but she had combed her hair neatly, the swelling of her eyelids had gone down, and she looked young and pretty; but her prettiness was not the sort that excites carnal desires and Charley, though naturally susceptible, saw her come in without a flutter of his pulse.

  “Oh, you’ve dressed,” she said. “Then I can keep on your dressing-gown, can’t I? Let me have your slippers. I shall float about in them, but it doesn’t matter.”

  The dressing-gown had been a birthday present from his mother, and it was of blue patterned silk; it was much too long for her, but she arranged herself in it so that it was not unbecoming. She was glad to
see the fire and sat down in the chair he had drawn up for her. She smoked a cigarette. What seemed to him strange was that she took the situation as though there were nothing strange in it. She was as casual in her behaviour as though she had known him all her life; if anything more was needed to banish any ideas he might have cherished about her, nothing could have been more efficacious than the impression he so clearly got from her that she had put out of her mind for good and all the possibility of his wanting to go to bed with her. He was surprised to see with what good appetite she ate. He had a notion after what she had told him the night before that she was too distraught to eat but sparingly, and it was a shock to his romantic sensibility to see that she ate as much as he did and with obvious satisfaction.

  They were drinking their coffee when the telephone rang. It was Simon.

  “Charley? Would you like to come round and have a talk?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t just now.”

  “Why not?” Simon asked sharply.

  It was characteristic of him to think that everyone should be ready to drop whatever he was doing if he wanted him. However little something mattered to him, if he had a whim for it and he was crossed, it immediately assumed consequence.

  “Lydia’s here.”

  “Who the devil’s Lydia?”

  Charley hesitated an instant.

  “Well, Princess Olga.”

  There was a pause and then Simon burst into a harsh laugh.

  “Congratulations, old boy. I knew you’d click. Well, when you have a moment to spare for an old friend, let me know.”

  He rang off. When Charley turned back to Lydia she was staring into the fire. Her impassive face gave no sign that she had heard the conversation. Charley pushed back the little table at which they had lunched and made himself as comfortable as he could in a shallow armchair. Lydia leaned over and put another log on the fire. There was a sort of intimacy in the action that did not displease Charley. She was settling herself down as a small dog turns round two or three times on a cushion and, having made a suitable hollow, curls up in it. They stayed in all the afternoon. The joyless light of the winter day gradually failed and they sat by the light of the wood-fire. In the rooms on the opposite side of the court lights were turned on here and there, and the pale, uncurtained windows had a false strange look like lighted windows in the stage-set of a street. But they were not more unreal than the position in which he found himself seemed to Charley, sitting in that sordid bedroom, by the fitful blazing of the log fire, while that woman whom he did not know told him her terrible story. It seemed not to occur to her that he might be unwilling to listen. So far as he could tell she had no inkling that he might have anything else to do, nor that in baring her heart to him, in telling him her anguish, she was putting a burden on him that a stranger had no right to exact. Was it that she wanted his sympathy? He wasn’t even sure of that. She knew nothing about him and wanted to know nothing. He was only a convenience, and but for his sense of humour, he would have found her indifference exasperating. Towards evening she fell silent, and presently by her quiet breathing Charley knew she had fallen asleep. He got up from his chair, for he had sat in it so long that his limbs ached, and went to the window, on tiptoe so as not to wake her, and sitting down on a stool looked out into the courtyard. Now and again he saw someone pass behind the lighted windows; he saw an elderly woman watering a flower-pot; he saw a man in his shirtsleeves lying on his bed reading; he wondered who and what these people were. They looked like ordinary middle-class persons in modest circumstances, for after all the hotel was cheap and the quarter dowdy; but seen like that, through the windows, as though in a peep-show, they looked strangely unreal. Who could tell what people were really and what grim passions, what crimes, their commonplace aspect concealed? In some of the rooms the curtains were drawn and only a chink of light between them showed that there was anyone there. Some of the windows were black; they were not empty, for the hotel was full, but their occupants were out. On what mysterious errands? Charley’s nerves were shaken and he had a sudden feeling of horror for all those unknown persons whose lives were so strange to him; below the smooth surface he seemed to sense something confused, dark, monstrous and terrible.