CHAPTER LII
Father had grown stouter. He always did. But he looked very well. And his shirts and socks seemed to be all right. Mélanie had seen to them, although the dust was thick all over the furniture, and the windows were semi-opaque with smoke. Father was glad to see her, said she was looking very pretty and asked her kindly if she didn't need some more money; but he was not in the least enthusiastic over her reforms in the housekeeping. "Who cares about dust!" he told her. "And as for smoke on the windows, I'm never here in the daytime anyhow except for lunch—and I don't want to look out of the windows then." And as for getting hold of Biron to keep him up to the mark, Marise found that it was trying to put your finger between the tree and the bark, to get between Biron and her father. Every evening after they had both earnestly finished the serious business of eating dinner, Biron left Mélanie to the mere brute labor of cleaning up and washing dishes while he put on a clean apron and came into the salon to consult with his employer about the two meals of the morrow. Marise was astonished at the learning and acumen displayed by both of them in the matter. However had her father learned so intimately all the resources of Les Halles in all the seasons? He subscribed to a newspaper which gave a complete report of the arrivals at the market from both sea-shore and countryside, over which he and Biron pored intently, putting on round spectacles and bending their portly frames over the page. And there was a wine-sellers' journal too, the news items of which were brought up for consideration once a week.
"When it fails, I go out and run a mile, and then I can eat anything."
Mélanie was no longer allowed to serve the meals thus prayerfully planned and created. It was Biron himself who brought in the plat, set it down and waited anxiously till it had been tasted and the verdict pronounced. He did not sit down opposite his master and share the meal … not yet! But Marise had an intuition that it would not be long before he would. Why not? He was the only other person capable of appreciating that meal. He and her father were bound together by a common passion: they completed and rounded out each other's lives. Where else could Mr. Allen find such another cook? Where else could Biron find another such employer? They were blood-brothers, fellow-priests of a common cult. They might be thankful that somehow they had found each other in the world.
When, after a few days of sharing this menage, she told her father she thought she would go down to see Jeanne, he said, sure, that was all right if she felt like it, and was she sure she didn't need any more money?
Under the thick green shade of pollarded sycamores sat old Jeanne in the wheeled-chair Marise and her father had given her. The young girl, whom Marise and her father paid to take care of Jeanne, came running to unlock the gate and let the visitor in.
There was old Jeanne, her head tied up in the black coif, just as Marise had seen her a thousand times, her face all twisted to one side just as she had seen her that one time she could not forget. And how glad she was to see Marise, pulling her down to kiss her on both cheeks, crying a little for joy and wiping away the tears with her one active hand; for although she had recovered somewhat, so that she could eat and talk a little if she formed the words very slowly and was not excited, she had never been able to use her paralyzed arm or leg again.
Marise must sit beside her, and let old Jeanne look into her face closely with her loving old eyes, and stroke her white young hand with her gnarled fingers that had worked so hard for the child Marise. And when her first agitation was over, and she was calm enough to try to talk, the questions, the loving, anxious questions: Was she well, the darling, darling girl? And was she happy? And did that Parisian slut of a maid look out for her decently? And who did the marketing? And who did her hair, her beautiful, beautiful hair? Jeanne's brown hand rested lightly on the shining dark head. No one had hair like her Marise. She must let it down so that Jeanne could see it again as in the old days. And how about her linen? Jeanne was troubled on this point. Linen was not what it had been and the way it was washed in Paris was a crime. A Parisian family were staying near by, and Jeanne's daughter-in-law did their washing. Such grimy, gray linen—it made Jeanne sick to think that perhaps her darling was no better cared for. Marise must needs open her valise there and then, and take out a chemise to show Jeanne, who handled it, held it close to her one good eye, touched the tip of her tongue to it, and gave it back, saying, with an attempt at tolerance, "Oh, well, it's as good as a laundress can do nowadays, I dare say," and possessed herself of Marise's hand again, holding it to her heart fondly.
Marise found the tears were in her eyes. How sweet it was to be loved! She clung to the old hand as she had when she was a child and Jeanne's had been the only hand held out to her.
The old, crafty wrinkles came around Jeanne's eyes. She pulled Marise's head close to her and whispered, "You've never told? Nobody at all?"
"No, no," said Marise hastily. "No one." She felt the old sickness rise to her throat as she said it.
"And you're not … no man … you're not engaged or …"
"No, oh, no!" said Marise, still more hastily.
Jeanne's face quieted. She drew a long breath and stroked Marise's hand. "That's right! That's right! They're all alike, my darling. Don't forget that. They're all alike when it comes to women."
Next morning Marise was amazed to have Jeanne greet her all over again, as though she had not seen her, with fresh surprise and joy, the same questions, the same trembling stroking of her hair. Only why was her hair up on her head? That must be just a joke. She must be playing being a lady. And was she sure she knew her catechism? Her white veil was ready, finer than any other little girl's veil. How lovely she would look in it!
"Yes," whispered the young caretaker, in answer to Marise's look of bewilderment, "she doesn't remember you were here yesterday. She often imagines you are with her when she is quite alone. We hear her talking happily to you. And now she does not know the difference between you and her own daughter who died. No, she will never know if you just slip away now. She will never know that you came or that you are not still here."
When Marise went quietly out at the gate she left Jeanne dozing in her chair under the plane-trees, dozing, and waking to talk lovingly to the two little girls who had both died so long ago.
She had learned in the village that Mlle. Hasparren was no longer teaching in Bayonne, had gone back to her own little hill-town in the Pyrenees. Marise knew the way there very well, having spent many a week-end and vacation with Mlle. Hasparren in the old days. The boy from the farm where Jeanne was living chanced to have an errand that took him over the pass and down into that valley. On an impulse Marise asked to go with him. She stowed her valise away under the plank seat and scrambled up beside the bullet-headed boy in the blue béret. How it all took her back to her childhood! The little two-wheeled cart flew off behind the swift small horse, rattling and jolting up hill and down, just as when she and Mlle. Hasparren had gone off together.
At the beginning of the long steep road up to the divide, she and the boy go out and walked, her shoes soon powdered white with dust. How dusty Mlle. Hasparren's shoes had been the day they stood waiting in the station …!
They plunged down the other side into the green, poplar-planted valley with every home, every turn of the road as it had been. They stopped at the tiny, white-washed cabin, with its leafy atrium of sycamores. As the boy drove away and the sound of his rattling wheels died to silence, Marise heard from within the first notes of the Sonata in G, the one she had first studied with Mlle. Hasparren.
She went in without knocking, sure that the little home contained no servant, and there sat Mlle. Hasparren, her hair several shades whiter, her black dress several degrees shabbier, her quiet worn face and steady eyes bent lovingly over the keys. The music was like the very sound of her voice.
They sat up late that night talking—Marise must tell all about Rome and the old Visconti, as legendary a figure to Mlle. Hasparren as Paganini; and Mlle. Hasparren must tell how she came to leave her city-school and go back to the little mountaineers in the rough, plain village class-room. "I seemed to feel nearer to them," she said, not knowing very well how to tell why she had, "and I felt a great longing for my mountains and my own old home. And they need music here. Do you remember Father Armandariz?"
"Oh, yes," Marise nodded. She had never forgotten the lean young priest who led the open-air singing of his improvised chorus in front of his fortress-like old church. "Oh, yes, don't you remember we used to drive over just to hear his choir sing here and in another parish too?"
"He is doing wonderful work. We work together a great deal."
"You! With a curé!" Marise was astounded.
Mlle. Hasparren laughed. "Oh, yes, yes, those radical ideas of mine. Of course I still have them. But they don't seem so important as they did. Father Armandariz and I are good friends. We both love music. That's enough. He puts cotton in his ears when I let fall a heresy, and I dip my fingers in the holy-water font and cross myself when I go to play the organ in church. Those are little things, and little things mustn't be allowed to interfere with great ones."
That evening Marise watched a choir rehearsal. Mlle. Hasparren at her piano. Father Armandariz, bony, threadbare, hollow-cheeked, his eyes gleaming with ardor, leading now the group of serious-faced Basque girls in black mantillas, now the great-chested, burly Basque men whose resonant basses shook the little house. One of them (Mlle. Hasparren had said he was the village shoemaker) was given a bass solo and practised it over several times, while the others listened. He held his head high, drew in a great breath and sang as though it were the meaning of his life he were singing out, "Magnificat anima mea Dominum!" And then all the others with him, "My soul magnifies God!" Father Armandariz stopped them. "No, the altos were too slow on coming in. Once more." And then again, "Once more."
They all kept their eyes on him earnestly; they began again unfalteringly as many times as was necessary; before the evening was over they looked tired; but it was a good fatigue, and when they finally finished and turned to smile at each other and fold their music sheets together, their faces wore a quiet, purified serenity which Marise envied them. This was music. Not one of them was thinking of himself nor how the music had made him appear to advantage nor how he could use music as a tool to get ahead of other people, or get himself talked about.
The memory of Donna Antonia's soirées, of Mme. de la Cueva's good advice came into her mind. People called that sort of thing "art-atmosphere," didn't they? It was the cemetery of art, that's what it was, with the egotism of the performer dancing ori the grave. One evening here, such an evening as this—there was more music in it than in months of chatter about the clothes and hair and morals and incomes of the people who make it on the platform.
At the piano Mlle. Hasparren and Father Armandariz were talking together of the next evening's rehearsal, Mlle. Hasparren occasionally illustrating with one hand what she was saying. How deeply human was the look of intimate confidence they bent on each other, the ugly young priest and the ugly old school-teacher. They might well be thankful that they had found each other in the world.
Mlle. Hasparren turned around now and asked Marise if she would not play for them. "I would be so proud to show my friends what an old pupil of mine has come to be," she said fondly.
It seemed to Marise that she had never in her life felt so like playing. What should it be? She swerved on her way to the piano to stoop to kiss Mlle. Hasparren's swarthy cheek, and, sitting down, with an affectionate smile at her, began the Toccata in D minor, just as Mlle. Hasparren had taught it to her, with all she had learned since then. She had never played to such an audience; when she turned around Father Armandariz was looking beatific and Mlle. Hasparren exalted with pride. She had never played so well. She had, she felt, just begun to know what music was.
Mlle. Hasparren had set up for her a folding cot in her own room, since there was no other bedroom in the tiny house. They slept side by side, near enough so that they could have reached out and clasped each other's hands as on that night so long ago when Mlle. Hasparren had pulled Marise out of the black pit. Marise could not go to sleep. Long after Mlle. Hasparren lay breathing deep, her dark face relaxed in a selfless quiet that was not more selfless than her waking look, Marise lay looking out at the stars and the mountains, thinking, trembling, sometimes feeling hot bitter tears in her eyes, sometimes feeling her heart swell high with strange, unearthly aspiration.
Mile. Hasparren was right. She had always been right. To keep clear of all troubling, maddening, personal relations that were sure to end by poisoning you, not to want anything for yourself, to give all for music—how safe you would be, to live like that. And how sweet it would be to feel safe! She never had. She was so tired of feeling afraid. Why not live like that? When you knew it was the only safe way! When you knew that if you did not, you would fall headlong into that dreadful mire that splashed up such indelible stains upon your mind at even the few chance contacts with it which life brought to a girl. Yes, that was the only safe way. Never to go back to Rome at all. Somehow to devise a life all devotion to music, with the miserable personal affections burned up in that greater ardor. Yes, that, Marise decided, that was the only tolerable, the only endurable future she could see.
People began to stand up, to put on their wraps and collect their valises. The train was passing the outskirts of Rome. It would be in the station in a few minutes.
Marise tied on her veil over a piteous white face. She had said she would not go back to Rome at all. She had scarcely been ten days away. She had come back. Like any other woman she had come back to the trap.