The Lion's Share by Arnold Bennett (booksvooks TXT) 📕

gorgeous Mercedes, too spick, too span, altogether too celestial for earthly use, occupied most of the shop.

"Good afternoon, Madame," said a man in bad English. For Audrey had misguided herself into the emporium. She did not care to be addressed in her own tongue; she even objected to the instant discovery of her nationality, of which at the moment she was ashamed. And so it was with frigidity that she inquired whether cars were to be hired.

The shopman hesitated. Audrey knew that she had committed an indiscretion. It was impossible that cars should be handed out thus unceremoniously to anybody who had the fancy to enter the shop! Cars were naturally the subject of negotiations and references.... And then the shopman, espying the gold bag, and being by it and by the English frigidity humbled to his proper station, fawned and replied that he had cars for hire, and the best cars. Did the lady want a large car or a small car? She wanted a large car. Did she want a town or a touring car? She wanted a town car, and by the week. When did she want it? She wanted it at once--in half an hour.

"I can hire you a car in half an hour, with liveried chauffeur," said the shopman, after telephoning. "But he cannot speak English."

"_Ca m'est egal_," answered Audrey with grim satisfaction. "What kind of a car will it be?"

"Mercedes, Madame."

The price was eight hundred francs a week, inclusive. As Audrey was paying for the first week the man murmured:

"What address, Madame?"

"Hotel du Danube," she answered like lightning--indeed far quicker than thought. "But I shall call here for the car. It must be waiting outside."

The dispenser of cars bowed.

"Can you get a taxi for me?" Audrey suggested. "I will leave this roll here and this bag," producing her old handbag which she had concealed under her coat. And she thought: "All this is really very simple."

At the other address which she had found in the telephone book--a house in the Rue d'Aumale--she said to an aged concierge:

"Monsieur Foa--which floor?"

A very dark, rather short and negligently dressed man of nearly middle-age who was descending the staircase, raised his hat with grave ceremony:

"Pardon, Madame. Foa--it is I."

Audrey was not prepared for this encounter. She had intended to compose her face and her speech while mounting the staircase. She blushed.

"I come from Musa--the violinist," she began hesitatingly. "You invited him to play at your flat on Friday night, Monsieur."

Monsieur Foa gave a sudden enchanting smile:

"Yes, Madame. I hear much good of him from my friend Dauphin, much good. And we long to hear him play. It appears he is a great artist."

"He has had an accident," said Audrey. Monsier Foa's face grew serious. "It is nothing--a few days. The elbow--a trifle. He cannot play next Friday. But he will be desolated if he may not play to you later. He has so few friends.... I came.... I...."

"Madame, every Friday we are at home, every Friday. My wife will be ravished. I shall be ravished. Believe me. Let him be reassured."

"Monsieur, you are too amiable. I shall tell Musa."

"Musa, he may have few friends--it is possible, Madame--but he is nevertheless fortunate. Madame is English, is it not so? My wife and I adore England and the English. For us there is only England. If Madame would do us the honour of coming when Musa plays.... My wife will send an invitation, to the end of remaining within the rules. You, Madame, and any of your friends."

"Monsieur is too amiable, truly."

In the end they were standing together on the pavement by the waiting taxi. She gave him her card, and breathed the words "Hotel du Danube." He was enchanted. She offered her hand. He took it, raised it, and kissed the back of it. Then he stood with his hat off until she had passed from his sight.

Audrey was burning with excitement. She said to herself:

"I have discovered Paris."

When the taxi turned again into the Rue de la Paix, she thought:

"The car will not be waiting. It would be too lovely if it were."

But there the car was, huge, glistening, unreal, incredible. And a chauffeur gloved and liveried in brown, to match the car, stood by its side, and the shopman was at the door, holding the Caprice of Roussel and the old handbag ready in his hand.

"Here is Madame," said he.

The chauffeur saluted.

The car was closed.

"Will Madame have the carriage open or closed?"

"Closed."

Having paid the taxi-driver, Audrey entered the car, and as she did so, she threw over her shoulder:

"Hotel du Danube."

While the chauffeur started the engine, the shopman with brilliant smiles delivered the music and the bag. The door clicked. Audrey noticed the clock, the rug, the powder-box, the speaking-tube, and the mirror. She gazed, and saw a face triumphant and delicious in the mirror. The car began to glide forward. She leaned back against the pale grey upholstery, but in her soul she was standing and crying with a wild wave of the hand, to the whole street:

"It is a miracle!"

In a moment the gigantic car stopped in front of the Hotel du Danube. Two attendants rushed out in uniforms of delicate blue. They did not touch their hats--they raised them. Audrey descended and penetrated into the portico, where a tall dandy saluted and inquired her will. She wanted rooms; she wanted a flat? Certainly. They had nothing but flats. A large flat on the ground-floor was at her disposal absolutely. Two bedrooms, sitting-room, bathroom. It had its own private entrance in the courtyard. She inspected it. The suite was furnished in the Empire style. Herself and maid? No. A friend! Well, the maids could sleep upstairs. It could arrange itself. She had no maid? Her friend had no maid? Ah! So much the better. Sixty francs a day.

"Where is the dining-room?" demanded Audrey.

"Madame," said the dandy, shocked. "We have no dining-room. All meals are specially cooked to order and served in the private rooms. We have the reputation...." He opened his arms and bowed.

Good! Good! She would return with her friend in one hour or so.

"106 Rue Delambre," she bade the chauffeur, after being followed to the pavement by the dandy and a suite.

"Rue de Londres?" said the chauffeur.

"No. Rue Delambre."

It had to be looked out on the map, but the chauffeur, trained to the hour, did not blench. However, when he found the Rue Delambre, the success with which he repudiated it was complete.

"Winnie!" began Audrey in the studio, with assumed indifference. Miss Ingate was at tea.

"Oh! You are a swell. Where you been?"

"Winnie! What do you say to going and living on the right bank for a bit?"

"Well, well!" said Miss Ingate. "So that's it, is it? I've been ready to go for a long time. Of course you want to go first thing to-morrow morning. I know you."

"No, I don't," said Audrey. "I want to go to-night. Now! Pack the trunks quick. I've got the finest auto you ever saw waiting at the door."


CHAPTER XVI


ROBES

On the second following Friday evening, Audrey's suite of rooms at the Hotel du Danube glowed in every corner with pink-shaded electricity. According to what Audrey had everywhere observed to be the French custom, there was in this flat the minimum of corridor and the maximum of doors. Each room communicated directly with all the other rooms. The doors were open, and three women continually in a feverish elation passed to and fro. Empire chairs and sofas were covered with rich garments of every colour and form and material, from the transparent blue silk _matinee_ to the dark heavy cloak of velvet ornamented with fur. The place was in fact very like the showrooms of a cosmopolitan dressmaker after a vast trying-on. Sundry cosmopolitan dressmakers had contributed to the rich confusion. None had hesitated for an instant to execute Audrey's commands. They had all been waiting, apparently since the beginning of time, to serve her. All that district of Paris had been thus waiting. The flat had been waiting, the automobile had been waiting, the chauffeur had been waiting, and purveyors of every sort. A word from her seemed to have released them from an enchantment. For the most part they were strange people, these magical attendants, never mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it, and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of their unquestionable genius. Still, Audrey reckoned that she owed about twenty-five thousand francs to Paris.

The third woman was the maid, Elise. The hotel had invented and delivered Elise, and thereafter seemed easier in its mind. Elise was thirty years of age and not repellent of aspect. On a black dress she wore the smallest white muslin apron that either Audrey or Miss Ingate had ever seen. She kept pins in her mouth, but in other respects showed few eccentricities beyond an extreme excitability. When at eight o'clock Mademoiselle's new gown, promised for seven, had not arrived, Elise begged permission to use Madame's salts. When the bell rang at eight-thirty, and a lackey brought in an oval-shaped box with a long loop to it of leathern strap, she only just managed not to kiss the lackey. The rapid movement of Mademoiselle and Elise with the contents of the box from the drawing-room into Mademoiselle's bedroom was the last rushing and swishing that preceded a considerable peace.

Madame was absolutely ready, in her bedroom. In the large mirror of the dark wardrobe she surveyed her victoriously young face, the magnificent grey dress, the coiffure, the jewels, the spangled shoes, the fan; and the ensemble satisfied her. She was intensely and calmly happy. No thought of the past nor of the future, nor of what was going on in other parts of the earth's surface could in the slightest degree impair her happiness. She had done nothing herself, she had neither earned money nor created any of the objects which adorned her; nor was she capable of doing the one or the other. Yet she felt proud as well as happy, because she was young and superbly healthy, and not unattractive. These were her high virtues. And her attitude was so right that nobody would have disagreed with her.

Her left ear was listening for the sound, through the unlatched window, of the arrival of the automobile with Musa and his fiddle inside it.

Then the door leading from Mademoiselle's bedroom opened sharply, and Mademoiselle appeared, with her grey hair, her pale shining forehead, her sardonic grin, and the new dress of those Empire colours, magenta and green. Elise stood behind, trembling with satisfaction.

"Well----" Audrey began. But she heard the automobile, and told Elise to run and be ready to open the front door of the flat.

"Rather showy, isn't it? Rather daring?" said Miss Ingate, advancing self-consciously and self-deprecating.

"Winnie," answered Audrey. "It's a nice question between you and the Queen of Sheba."

Suddenly Miss Ingate beheld in the mirror the masterpiece of an illustrious male dressmaker-a masterpiece in which no touch of the last fashion was abated-and little Essex Winnie grinning from within it.

She screamed. And forthwith putting her hands behind her neck she began to unhook the corsage.

"What are you doing, Winnie?"

"I'm taking