Barbara had one of her bad fits of coughing: “It’s nothing …” she gasped, “I swallowed the wrong way; don’t fuss, Jamie … darling … I tell you it’s … nothing.”
Jamie, flushed already, drank more crème-de-menthe. This time she poured it into a tumbler, tossing it off with a dash of soda. But Adolphe Blanc looked at Barbara gravely.
The party did not disperse until morning; not until four o’clock could they decide to go home. Everybody had stayed to the very last moment, everybody, that is, except Valérie Seymour—she had left immediately after supper. Brockett, as usual, was cynically sober, but Jamie was blinking her eyes like an owl, while Pat stumbled over her own goloshes. As for Henry Jones, he started to sing at the top of his lungs in a high falsetto:
“Oh, my, help, help, ain’t I nobody’s baby?
Oh, my, what a shame, I ain’t nobody’s baby.”
“Shut your noise, you poor mutt!” commanded his brother, but Henry still continued to bawl: “Oh, my, what a shame, I ain’t nobody’s baby.”
They left Wanda asleep on a heap of cushions—she would probably not wake up before midday.
XLVI
I
Stephen’s book, which made its appearance that May, met with a very sensational success in England and in the United States, an even more marked success than The Furrow. Its sales were unexpectedly large considering its outstanding literary merit; the critics of two countries were loud in their praises, and old photographs of Stephen could be seen in the papers, together with very flattering captions. In a word, she woke up in Paris one morning to find herself, for the moment, quite famous.
Valérie, Brockett, indeed all her friends were wholehearted in their congratulations; and David’s tail kept up a great wagging. He knew well that something pleasant had happened: the whole atmosphere of the house was enough to inform a sagacious person like David. Even Mary’s little bright-coloured birds seemed to take a firmer hold on existence; while out in the garden there was much ado on the part of the proudly parental pigeons—fledglings with huge heads and bleary eyes had arrived to contribute to the general celebration. Adèle went singing about her work, for Jean had recently been promised promotion, which meant that his savings, perhaps in a year, might have grown large enough for them to marry.
Pierre bragged to his friend, the neighbouring baker, anent Stephen’s great eminence as a writer, and even Pauline cheered up a little.
When Mary impressively ordered the meals, ordered this or that delicacy for Stephen, Pauline would actually say with a smile: “Mais oui, un grand génie doit nourrir le cerveau!”
Mademoiselle Duphot gained a passing importance in the eyes of her pupils through having taught Stephen. She would nod her head and remark very wisely: “I always declare she become a great author.” Then because she was truthful she would hastily add: “I mean that I knowed she was someone unusual.”
Buisson admitted that perhaps, after all, it was well that Stephen had stuck to her writing. The book had been bought for translation into French, a fact which had deeply impressed Monsieur Buisson.
From Puddle came a long and triumphant letter: “What did I tell you? I knew you’d do it! …”
Anna also wrote at some length to her daughter. And wonder of wonders, from Violet Peacock there arrived an embarrassingly gushing epistle. She would look Stephen up when next she was in Paris; she was longing, so she said, to renew their old friendship—after all, they two had been children together.
Gazing at Mary with very bright eyes, Stephen’s thoughts must rush forward into the future. Puddle had been right, it was work that counted—clever, hardheaded, understanding old Puddle!
Then putting an arm round Mary’s shoulder: “Nothing shall ever hurt you,” she would promise, feeling wonderfully self-sufficient and strong, wonderfully capable of protecting.
II
That summer they drove into Italy with David sitting up proudly beside Burton. David barked at the peasants and challenged the dogs and generally assumed a grand air of importance. They decided to spend two months on Lake Como, and went to the Hotel Florence at Bellagio. The hotel gardens ran down to the lake—it was all very sunny and soothing and peaceful. Their days were passed in making excursions, their evenings in drifting about on the water in a little boat with a gaily striped awning, which latter seemed a strange form of pleasure to David. Many of the guests at the Florence were English, and not a few scraped an acquaintance with Stephen, since nothing appears to succeed like success in a world that is principally made up of failure. The sight of her book left about in the lounge, or being devoured by some engrossed reader, would make Stephen feel almost childishly happy; she would point the phenomenon out to Mary.
“Look,” she would whisper, “that man’s reading my book!” For the child is never far to seek in the author.
Some of their acquaintances were country folk and she found that she was in sympathy with them. Their quiet and painstaking outlook on life, their love of the soil, their care for their homes, their traditions were after all a part of herself, bequeathed to her by the founders of Morton. It gave her a very deep sense of pleasure to see Mary accepted and made to feel welcome by these grey-haired women and gentlemanly men; very seemly and fitting it appeared to Stephen.
And now, since to each of us come moments of respite when the mind refuses to face its problems, she resolutely thrust aside her
