THE TERRACES OF NIGHT Read online

  The young man’s glowing eyes were like stars as he answered, eagerly, joyously:

  ‘I have a studio at number 18, Rue des Pins . . . I am here tonight with a little party from there. Permit me—Monsieur and Madame Jules Lespinasse—Madame la Comtesse de Château d’Yves!’

  My Louise bowed, stiffly as a dummy, her flushed cheeks hot; as for me, I scowled a moment, thinking Gilles meant to poke fun, as you call it, at our humble little party before this haughty, lovely creature in the sable and diamonds . . . but he did not. And she? Her smile of greeting was charming enough to make one forget the tiny flicker of mockery in her eyes as she regarded my new boots, Germaine’s red frock, the feathered hat, so proudly bought, of my good Louise?.

  ‘Ah! Madame, you forgive my interrupting your party, I trust? Monsieur here is a very old friend that I meet new for the first time for many years. . . .’

  She had already turned away again towards the young man, and Louise looked at me, her eyes eloquent. Bundling Germaine and Alphonse off the seat together, despite their whines of protest, and clutching her bag, she arose with a dignity that matched even that of Madame la Comtesse.

  ‘Madame, we go. It is time already, and you will doubtless have much to say to your friend. Monsieur Rousselier, I thank you for a charming soirée. We shall meet tomorrow, I trust. Come, Jules!’

  She sailed out. Ah, but I was proud than of my fat Louise! As I followed I could not but see that the two had taken their seats at our deserted table, and were already deep in conversation. . . .

  I sighed, disturbed. But my disturbance was nothing to Louise’s, for she raged and stormed at the lady, at her insolent air, her flaunting jewels, her beauty, even at her ruddy hair, which, woman-like, she swore was dyed. Indeed, Louise was a little sore at this finish of the evening that had been so gay and so completely hers, and though she forgave the man his share in it readily enough, she was not so ready to forgive the woman. Though at first she declared Monsieur Gilles could fend for himself in future, her good heart, as usual, won the battle against her bad temper, and she went up to our strange tenant’s room the next day to find him, as she sourly said afterwards, like a creature drunk, drugged, utterly mad with happiness; wandering about the studio, picking up his work, putting it down again, talking at random, laughing, singing, in his eyes, brilliant, his cheeks dashed with a flame of scarlet . . . and all because that woman, fair and cruel, had once more come into his life! In an outburst of confidence he told Louise the story.

  It appears that they had sworn their faith to each other; he had trusted in her even when his family turned him out, but, alas, she had been forced to wed an elderly count the year after his departure; a mariage de convenance, arranged by her parents, of course, but as my Louise said dryly enough, we had no proof that the lady herself offered any very strenuous opposition to the scheme! At all events, her marriage had seemed the very end of all things to young Rousselier, who had clung to her faith like a drowning man to a rope. It had parted, and he had flung all prudence overboard, drunk, diced, played the fool with his life till one day, reduced to utter penury, he had wandered down the Rue des Pins and found shelter with us in battered dark old Number 18.

  And now they met again so strangely. . . . True, he was still poor, very poor, but he had his art, the future he hoped for, and she was free now. Widowed this twelve months, lovelier than ever—and still more wondrous, she was coming to sit to him! To let him make a picture of her that should hang in the salon, bring him fame and fortune and riches in a day, and with time her hand . . . and he would live down the old sins and follies in her arms!

  Kindling into an ecstasy of happiness, he hugged Louise, glumly blackleading the battered grate, round the neck, and calling down the banisters, demanded that Germaine or Alphonse should go and buy flowers to deck the shabby studio, sweet cakes for my lady’s dainty taste, a cushion for her to sit on. . . .

  It was certainly madness, but madness of a sane human sort that I personally preferred greatly to the exhibition of that other sort of madness he had given at the Lampe Rouge. So the flowers were bought, and my lady came that very day, punctual to the minute, swathed in priceless furs, her narrow eyes alight under their kohl-laden lashes, her ruddy copper hair glowing beneath the curled brim of her velvet hat. . . .

  She was a wonderful-looking creature, Madame la Comtesse d’Yves. Slender and lithe and, white-skinned, with a trick of sitting motionless, watchful, that was for all the world like a cat awaiting a chance to spring. She made a marvellous sitter, and the picture, eagerly begun, seemed to grow under his fingers like a magic thing. Monsieur Gilles worked feverishly, ceaselessly, almost as though his whole life depended on this picture, and indeed I could not but see, as it progressed, how greatly in advance it was of anything else he had done. It was his—what do you call it?—his swan-song, his last work, and despite the clumsiness in parts of the execution, it was a real portrait, a living, breathing presentment of the lovely woman who had sat for it.

  Well, the day of the great exhibition came—the ‘Salon des Modernes’, most talked-of show of the year. Poor fellow, he was in ferment, a fever of excitement when he heard the picture was accepted. Madame had bade him order a handsome frame, even sent her manservant to carry the great canvas to the door of the exhibition on Hanging Day. But he would not go himself. He could not face the fashionable throngs that would be there—moreover, I think, he feared to meet someone who would recognise him, someone from the old world he had left behind—but he besought me to go! Me, grubby old Jules Lespinasse, the concierge—to hang about the picture, hear what the critics said, tell him whether the thing was a success . . . well, well! I did not like the idea at first, yet our Paris is not like your London, Monsieur, where one must wear a shining hat and spats on the feet before going in to mingle with the haut monde at a picture show. Here in Paris, if one has money to pay, one goes where one wills—as one will! So I went, brushed and clean and as smart as I could muster, and soon I found it, in a far corner, with a big crowd of people staring. . . . I was so excited, I forgot my shyness and my shabbiness, and elbowed my way close to hear what they said—yes, yes, the picture had made its hit. Even I could see that. There was ever a crowd near it, discussing it, wondering, questioning who the artist was. . . .

  I pretended to stare very hard at a little picture nearby while I listened, when lo, a charming voice spoke near me . . . it was Madame herself!

  Lovelier than ever, in her favourite black, hung with pearls like strung tears, a great feather curling low to caress her pale pure cheek—she was talking to a gentleman, tall, elegant, I could not but hear their conversation as he bent over her hand.

  ‘Hélène? Well met, ma chère! You are a clever woman to have discovered the young genius who did this!’

  He indicated the picture with a wave of his gloved hand. She laughed, well pleased.

  ‘It is excellent, n’est-ce-pas? Painted with understanding. . . .’

  ‘Painted with love, you mean!’ said the gentleman dryly. ‘The poor fool who painted this must needs have been in love with you, fair Belle Dame Sans Merci, like the rest of us!’

  She laughed, but not in denial, rather in faint triumph, as he went on.

  ‘Your last flame, though, I think, ma mie! De Mouraye will see to it that you are kept in better order after your marriage to him! Tell me, is it true you marry soon?’

  I strained my ears for the answer—it came loud and clear enough.

  ‘Oh yes—in a few weeks’ time! I have told few people as yet. Yes, you are right about my little artist. A Bohemian flame—but they are easily dropped, my friend, when one wearies as quickly as I do!’

  They moved away in the crowd and I, my ears burning, furious, wended my way as fast as I could out of the room to the Rue des Pins and my faithful wife.

  Over our supper at soupe maigre and omelette I told Louise, and she sat simmering with fury, vowing revenge, heaven knows what . . . one thing she insisted on, that I tell M. G
illes what I had overhead at once and expose Madame for what she was?.

  It is true, Hélène de Château d’Yves, had done a bitterly cruel thing! Just to satisfy her vanity she had taken up this poor cast-off toy of hers from the gutter where she found it, to play with again for a while; then, to bring still further incense to the shrine of her greedy vanity, she had forced him to work on this portrait, bribing him with honeyed words and false promises till the work was done, the picture hung, bringing her the notice, the interest, the praise and admiration she lived for. And all the time the poor fool was building his brittle fool’s paradise, his dreams of a rose-garlanded future with her . . . but there was no use in delaying. Tonight she had promised to sup with him, Louise said—but would she come, now that she had had out of him all she wanted to get?

  I climbed the stairs heavily and tapped on the door—it was the more difficult to begin, since he turned on me so radiant a face.

  The studio was ablaze with light, tall red candles stuck in reckless profusion all about the room; a spray of vermilion roses awaiting her in her favourite chair, and huge chrysanthemums, red and golden as her hair, nodding their tufted heads in every corner. The table was spread for a feast, with fresh butter and bread, salad, little delicate slices of raw ham and sausage, cream cheese, and a gallant flask of red Chianti . . . ah me! So sure of his love, of his success, he had prepared their betrothal supper, and it was I who had to break his dream!

  His face grew of a sudden, sober, anxious, as he saw my downcast eyes, and he motioned me to a chair. . . . I told him all. That his picture was a success. The world stood round it to applaud, but that she—she had already turned away, and with another man!

  He listened dazed, blank, at first, then smiled suddenly—and I saw that even now, he did not believe!

  ‘My little Jules, my good kind Jules, you do not understand! My lovely Hélène lives alone in a hard cold world, where she is forced to wear its mask, and speak its cynic tongue . . . marry another? Fie for shame, my little Jules . . . so she may speak for a moment, to deceive her haughty friends, lest they scoff at her for plighting her truth to a penniless painter . . . but I trust her. I know her, my own lady. She has promised to come tonight—to celebrate our betrothal—see the feast laid ready, the lover waiting! Break faith with me? Ha, ha, I would as soon believe the Virgin should break faith with her worshippers!’ Then, because still he saw the doubt in my eyes, he laid his hands on my shoulders and shook me gently to and fro, laughing, secure in his love and faith.

  ‘See here, my Jules—I will wager my lady comes tonight, or I have lost faith in women, in the world, in God Himself!’

  ‘Heaven grant your faith is justified!’ I blurted . . . but I did not take the wager. I knew. . . .

  She did not come. For hours Louise and I sat each side of the cosy fire in our room at the foot of the stairs, watching the entrance through the glass of our door, but no smooth-running car drew up to deliver a fair slender woman with a white skin and narrow green eyes. . . .

  The lights burnt long in the studio, but Gilles was silent, we heard no sound. In the morning, bright-eyed and hard-looking, his mouth that could laugh so gaily set in a thin, bitter line, he wrote a note to Madame’s hotel and begged me to deliver it.

  It was answered with a brief scrawl on scented paper, but she did not come. The fame of the ‘Portrait of Comtesse X.’ waxed daily, and many were the reporters that now toiled up the narrow stairs to the studio to see ‘M. Gilles’, the obscure painter who had leapt into fame in a day.

  Now, indeed, he could have had commissions and to spare, yet he worked no more, though he sold many of his old pictures at once, and generously paid and overpaid his debt to us, notwithstanding Louise’s tearful protests that she was no Jew and had not worked for francs . . . but the Gilles Rousselier of these days was not the merry scape-grace artist we knew, but a strange and lowering man with hollow dark eyes from which little Germaine shrank in fear, and a hard brooding silence in place of the old gay songs and stories. He seemed to eat nothing, to sleep scarcely at all, and nightly we heard him tread the boards of the studio, walking, walking.

  Then of a sudden, at the height of its success, Gilles Rousselier withdrew the ‘Portrait of Comtesse X.’ from the ‘Salon des Modernes’! The papers raised an outcry, the authorities begged him to reinstate the picture that had been the clou of the year’s show, but he was adamant. At last Madame la Comtesse herself sent him a curt little not, which he answered with another yet more curt.

  If you will come and ask me to send it back, Hélène . . . then we shall see!

  She came. It was a cold raw day in late December, and I was alone in Number 18.

  I looked through my little window and saw her alighting, and rushed to open the door of the car, for it was raining and growing dark; but she was too quick. She ran past me up the stairs, her face set in an ugly expression of hard rage. I stared after her flying figure, mechanically noting the rich chinchilla fur cloak, the little silver heels to her slippers, as they clapped the steep stairs. She had obviously come on her way to some great evening party.

  Hesitatingly I stood at the foot of the stairs, and I admit, at last, driven by curiosity, followed her up to the studio.

  In her haste she had left the door ajar, and from where I stood in the shelter of a heavy green baize portière that Louise had hung there to keep out the draught, I could see most of the great bare room, the fireplace, the window.

  She was standing beside the fire, one silver-shod foot on the kerb, one hand on her hip in her old attitude of haughty nonchalance. . . . Dieu, but she looked beautiful, and I understood the look in the eyes of the haggard man who faced her across the hearth!

  She wore a sheath-like gown of oyster-coloured sequins, slender and glittering as a Christmas candle, and her powdered arms bore bracelets of diamonds reaching almost to each elbow. Pearls roped her throat and studded her little ears, pearls pellucid as the cool clear skin they touched; only her painted lips and red-ochre hair struck sudden notes of colour against the white, those and the sharp green of her foot-long jade cigarette-holder . . . he was speaking as I listened, his voice level, hard.

  ‘So this time you come to ask me a favour, Hélène! Do you think it likely I shall grant it?’

  Her lips curled scornfully.

  ‘My dear Gilles—how can you refuse? Mon Dieu, you are not so rich, I take it, that you can decline good money! I tell you de Mouraye wants the picture—he will give you what you ask.’

  ‘De Mouraye—that man? The man for whom you left me?’ He barked out the words in an uncontrollable agony, but she answered him with contempt that bit deeper than a sword.

  ‘Left you? My good Gilles, be sensible! What is this foolishness? Will you say that because you pleased me a little—because for a little while I lent you my lips to kiss, my body to caress, that therefore, I am yours to keep as long as you will? Fie, for shame, my friend. You are an egoist!’

  The lovely voice was mocking, light as a flute, utterly heartless. The man winced as he heard and clenched his hands together in an involuntary spasm.

  ‘My God—then it meant nothing? Our precious hours here, your vows of love, your kisses, your promise to me that if this picture made me famous. . . .’

  She stirred uneasily, and her eyes flickered a little.

  ‘One says . . . what does one say? It was strange, romantic, to run across you in that little café with those quaint people! I wanted a fresh thrill, a new interest. You always fascinated me in our childish days with those strange powers you used sometimes, the knowledge I thought you possessed. To be honest, when I saw you there in the corner of the Lampe Rouge and watched you, as I thought, deliberately send that cat mad, I said to myself with a rush of excitement, “Here it is! The thrill I need, the man who can give it to me, the man I always secretly remembered?”’

  He was on his knees at her feet now, imploring, torn between hope and far as she went on, inexorably, her voice hard as her set li
ps.

  ‘To be honest, that alone is why I took up again the thread we broke. I hoped to find the magician, the strange mysterious boy I used to know, the wonder-worker, and I waited, eager, greedy . . . and I found, what? A lover! Faugh! What did I want with a lover, I who have so many? I grew so enraged I all but left you . . . then I thought at least this foolish picture of yours would make perhaps a little fame for me, and I waited still longer, hoping that at last you might show me something of your old strange powers—but no! Love, love, a maudlin yearning fool at my feet—so I went, as I always meant to do. I do not care one pin for you, nor ever did, Gilles de Rochouart!—so there is the truth for you, since you will not let me have my picture!’

  The vindictive voice died away, and the man rose silently to his feet, towering over the woman. For a second I paused, frightened, for there was something oddly menacing in his gaunt dark height, like a death-shadow beside her gay jewelled grace, but I need not have feared. He spoke quite quietly, yet there was something in his voice that sent a creeping trickle of water down my spine!

  ‘I see, I understand. I am a fool, ma chère Hélène, and you are a clever woman, that is all! It may be I will send you my picture—or rather, I will send it to your husband, after your marriage.’

  There was a curious, strained pause, and he went on, in a suddenly changed note. ‘But one thing you say hits me severely, my fair and false love—that you have lost your belief in my old powers. Ah, that bites deep, if truly you think so, you who believed in me so much in days of old!’

  Obviously she was a little disconcerted, alarmed, at his mocking tone. Huddling her grey furry wrap about her, she answered sulkily.

  ‘Bah, I was a young fool, and easily impressed by a few conjuring tricks. I admit, the cat . . . but I think that was a mere chance, my friend, a chance that caught my eye and brought me round to you. All that is folly. . . .’