Martha in Paris (10 page)

“Honey, you certainly take your duties seriously!” giggled Sally.

“It's you who know what Swedes are,” pointed out Martha.

If she wasn't financially delicate, she was financially conscientious. (Sometimes she'd drawn Mr. Punshon's trade-cards three times over, to get the boot-laces right.)—She made Sally change places and pushed herself. But even under Martha's weight the door held firm.

Below, next to the kitchen where the stove was, a tiny parlour was made over altogether to Madame Paule's guests, for them to eat their meals in, also sit in when they wanted to be indoors. It contained an upright piano, a round rosewood table, six black-horsehair-seated chairs, but no sofa. About the walls hung, as upon the piano stood, various enlarged photographs of Madame Paule's relations, with in pride of place Madame Paule's diploma certifying her a registered
sage-femme
, or midwife. In all, as Sally and Nils agreed, it was hardly a rumpus-room; but they both seemed to find something very amusing indeed about the diploma.—So did Martha find something amusing, when Sally translated it for her. Martha's sense of humour was extremely crude, she thought nothing funnier than to make Angèle jib like a startled horse, in the Luxembourg—unless it was to lure an undraped model to sit on a cane chair; but in this case her amusement was subtler—Madame Paule the certified midwife being obviously no more observant of her own, Martha's, interesting condition than was Sally. (“My, but you're getting stout!” observed Sally, the first night they undressed together. “I've always been stout,” said Martha. “I don't mind.” “Aren't you lucky!” said Sally idly. “
I
have to diet …”) Of the two young females beneath her roof it was slender Sally, not portly Martha, upon whom Madame Paule directed a watchful eye, suspicious of scandal. Madame. Paule was outspokenly glad that Sally had brought with her such a serious friend, and let Martha have the run of the kitchen.

Another reason why Madame Paule approved of Martha was the latter's taciturnity. Madame Paule had housed so many Anglo-Saxon students before, she was herself almost bilingual, and greatly objected to their practising French on her—as something they hadn't paid for. In this respect she found Martha a striking example of honesty.

As the days passed, however, it wasn't Madame Paule Sally scandalized, but Martha.

2

Each morning forth set Sally and Nils (Sally each morning in a fresh dirndl-type blouse and fresh dirndl skirt), with their easels and their canvasses and their paint-boxes, into the sunny, springing fields; and each evening returned with no more to show than such casual blockings-in, such casual smears of colour, as would have disgraced a couple of amateurs. Martha, herself having toiled all day to coordinate essential saucepan with essential stove, sat down to supper opposite the delinquents emanating disapproval—not because of what they might have been doing, but because of what they obviously hadn't.

“Nils is just wasting his time,” pointed out Martha censoriously—she and Sally undressing for bed.

“
He
doesn't think so!” smiled Sally. “Nils thinks he's on the make—poor lamb!”

Martha enveloped herself in a large white cotton nightgown; Sally wriggled out of peach-coloured silk into black.

“Then you're just playing him up,” said Martha.

“And why not?” countered Sally. “Isn't he here at his own risks and perils? Haven't you ever heard of the sex-game, Mother Bunch?”

“No,” said Martha.

“Well, I dare say not,” agreed Sally, “but it's quite enjoyable, if you know the rules!”

The bed-springs creaked under Martha's weight. (There was already a noticeable depression, on her side of the mattress.)

“I don't think Nils is enjoying it,” persisted Martha. “And anyway he ought to be working.”

“Goodness, can't a person take a vacation?” cried Sally—to a slighter, an almost musical twang.

“Not if they're serious,” said Martha stubbornly. It was always difficult for her to express herself in words; only a sort of evangelism, such as might feel a Salvation Army officer before a brand to be plucked from the burning (in this case Nils), led her to make the unusual effort. “If you're serious you've got to work all the time,” said Martha, “and Nils
is
serious, so you shouldn't mix him up. With sex.”

“Tell that to Nils!” exclaimed Sally indignantly. “It's he who's mixing
me
up—with sex!”

“Only you aren't serious,” said Martha. “So you don't matter.”

It was the last effort she made. She wasn't foolishly altruistic; also Sally was staking her. After this single attempt to rouse the latter's artistic conscience, Martha gave up.

It never occurred to her that the sex-game was precisely what she herself had been playing with Eric Taylor. In any case, he didn't matter either.

3

Daily Sally and Nils set out with their easels and their canvasses and their paint-boxes. Martha scarcely quitted the house. However brightly shone the spring sun, however soft blew the spring breezes, Martha camped in the kitchen drawing the kitchen-stove. She didn't attempt to paint it. She was taking a sort of vacation herself.

Nils gave up too—though not without a struggle. There was no light on the upper landing: nightly, after how many half-promises, on Sally's part, in the springing fields (her dirndl-type blouses slipping ever lower and lower down her pretty shoulders), Nils' door stood ajar ready for her to mistake it for her own and innocently, with face-saving innocence, blunder in. But Sally could see in the dark, and ever homed accurately to the double-bed she shared with Martha.—Once in desperation he tried the attic door; but the chair-back under its latch held firm …

“Poor Nils!” giggled Sally—rousing and sitting up in a seductive froth of black silk frills. “Don't you think we ought just to see if he's sick or something?”

“No,” said Martha firmly—sitting up too, in her white cotton pup-tent. “If he wants an Alka-Seltzer it's on the mantelpiece.—If you want the Alka-Seltzer,” called Martha rather loudly, “it's on the mantelpiece downstairs.”

Nils mumblingly withdrew. His idea had been to persuade both girls out to hear non-existent nightingales, and then separate them, and then subsequently, ideally, leave Martha his own narrow couch to spend the rest of the night on. The suggestion of Alka-Seltzer quenched his ardour as effectively as though the imaged fizzing glass had been a douche of holy-water: the transition from Alka-Seltzer to nightingales was beyond his powers to achieve—particularly as he heard, at that moment, Madame Paule stirring also. Madame Paule in fact caught up with him on the landing. “Is one suffering?” enquired Madame Paule rather nastily. “Or does one merely walk in one's sleep?”—Loyal even to a
paysagiste
, Martha shouted that Nils just wanted the Alka-Seltzer for an upset stomach. “I will give him something better than that!” cried Madame Paule, at once reassured and interested. “Descend, descend, Monsieur Nils!”

Evidently Nils descended.

“D'you suppose she's holding his nose?” whispered Sally.

“I hope so,” said Martha grimly, “and I hope it keeps him quiet.” If there was one thing she needed, it was her sleep.

Nils appeared peculiarly pale next morning. He looked purged. Whether his nose had been held or not, he recognized Martha and Madame Paule between them too much for him; and gave up.

4

Thus Sally was deposited back in Paris her virginity still intact: her finger still apt, if she chose to wear one, for an engagement-ring. Nils looked like a rag. (Martha's eye rested on him contemptuously. Though it was undoubtedly her own presence that had so reduced him, all Martha felt for Nils was contempt. He should have been more serious.)

She herself brought back one drawing that almost satisfied her. It was in fact masterly, and some years later to fetch a surprising price. But the most important thing she brought back, from that Easter excursion, was the reassurance that she'd done rightly in jettisoning Eric Taylor. However little he mattered, it was just possible that as his child quickened in her womb Martha might have turned to him again; but having observed how even a lightly-played sex-game threw even a
paysagiste
off his stride—caused Nils to waste day after day of good painting-weather—Martha returned fortified against any such weakness. Upon sex triumphant and entrenched in domesticity she knew she must forever turn her back.

“Mother Bunch,” cajoled Sally, as Nils halted the car in the rue de Vaugirard, “tell me you're glad you came?”

“Yes, I am,” said Martha, “and thank you very much.”

It never occurred to her that Sally's father was so rich he could have subsidized a show in New York for his daughter's friend. Certain obvious short-cuts to fame never were to occur to Martha. She just turned over the one drawing that almost satisfied her to
le maître
, and when he looked at it in silence—digging his large, big-knuckled, freckled hand ever more and more heavily into her scruff—merely felt that at least she hadn't been wasting her time.

Though her time, in another and older sense, was obviously approaching, Martha re-entered the studio for the summer term rather high-stomached.—Again, how apposite the old phrase!

Chapter Thirteen

Healthy as a milkmaid, untroubled by guilt, Martha carried her child with off-hand ease. Her smocks disguised her increasing girth, and a slight pugginess of feature marred no beauty where none had been: as for the old dictum of eating enough for two, Martha always had. Madame Dubois noticed no change in her, nor Angèle; to her fellow-students, wasn't she already Mother Bunch? Both physically and socially Martha was in fact so fortunately circumstanced, she could and did give all her mind to the new term's work.

Her palette was still drab, but she employed a slightly fuller brush. “
Continuez!
” said
le maître
.

After the day a new life quickened within her body, however, even Martha had to pause and consider her immediate, non-professional prospects.

Working the dates out as nearly as she could, she thought it would be about the end of August.

Which again was fortunate: not in mid-term. On the other hand, if she gave birth at Richmond during the summer vacation there was the shot-gun angle, while if she gave birth in the rue de Vaugirard Angèle would undoubtedly make a nuisance of herself and possibly want to be godmother. Martha for once directed all her attention to a purely, physically, personal problem; and in the end wrote a second longish letter home.

D
EAR
A
UNT
D
OLORES
[wrote Martha]:

I have the opportunity to spend the summer holiday with that very good sketching-party at that village I told you about. It is such a very good opportunity I feel I ought not to miss it. If you tell Mr. Joyce I am sure he will agree. The cost this time will be about sixty pounds, but saving my keep at home, also the fare. Of course I shall be very sorry not to see you all, but it really is a very good opportunity
.

Yours affec
.,

M
ARTHA

Martha read it through and thought again—now looking even further into the future; and after a full half-hour's consideration added the postscript that was to bring her kind Aunt Dolores so much joy.

P.S.
, scrawled Martha,
after that I am coming home for good, because
—

Here she stopped to consider afresh—though this time for no longer than it took the ink to dry.

—
because I am missing you so much
, finished Martha, I
don't want another year in Paris
.

2

“Darling, read this!” cried Dolores, over the Richmond breakfast-table. “It's from Martha! And—oh, Harry!—she's coming home!”

Harry Gibson, in the act of cracking an egg, paused.

“She always was coming home,” he pointed out.

“For the summer—but now she means
for good!
” cried Dolores joyfully. “For the summer she wants to join that sketching-party again; she means afterwards. Instead of another year in Paris! Isn't it wonderful?”

Now in the act of buttering a roll, Harry paused again; his brow rather darkened. If Dolores was the most important person in his life, so that anything that made her happy made him happy too, Mr. Joyce was the second most important; and what would Mr. Joyce say, to this casual sabotaging of his two-year plan? Friendship apart, Mr. Joyce was the Gibsons' economic mainstay; Harry had every reason in the world not to risk biting, even vicariously, the hand that fed him …

“Harry! Don't you
want
Martha back?” cried Dolores reproachfully.

“Of course I want her back. I'm very fond of Martha,” said Harry loyally. “But old Joyce meant her to stay a couple of years, and I don't know how he'll like it.”

“You know as well as I do she can twist him round her finger.
We
just don't have to interfere!” countered Dolores.

The rider was unnecesary. In any direct encounter between Martha and her patron Harry would as soon have thought of interfering as he'd have thought of interfering between the horns of locked buffaloes; also his money would be on Martha.

“She'll make it all right with Mr. Joyce, I'm sure she will!” promised Dolores confidently. “Oh, Harry, do be pleased!”

“If you're pleased, that's enough for me,” said loyal Harry.

3

All through that day, however—in the intervals of selling one musquash coat, undertaking repairs to another and the remodelling of a fox-fur stole—Harry Gibson continued to feel uneasy. He didn't know exactly why; it was after all Martha's funeral, and as has been said he had every confidence in her ability to handle it. But at luncheon as again at dinner he found it hard to match his wife's happy smiles with any appropriately joyful expression. Nor was it only the thought of Mr. Joyce's possible displeasure that bothered him; there was something more.