Edith Wharton - Novel 14 (13 page)

 
          
He
slipped his arm through hers. “This crowd terrifies me. I’m glad you waited for
me,” he said.

 
          
He
saw her pleasure, but she merely answered: “I’m dying of thirst, aren’t you?”

 
          
“Yes—or hunger, or something.
Could we find a laiterie?”

 
          
They
found one, and sat down among early clerks and shop-girls, and a few
dishevelled women with swollen faces whom Campton had noticed in the station.
One of them, who sat opposite an elderly man, had drawn out a pocket mirror and
was powdering her nose.

 
          
Campton
hated to see women powder their noses—one of the few merits with which he
credited Julia Brant was that of never having adopted these dirty modern
fashions, of continuing to make her toilet in private “like a lady,” as people
used to say when he was young. But now the gesture charmed him, for he had
recognized the girl who had been sobbing in the station.

 
          
“How
game she is! I like that. But why is she so frightened?” he wondered. For he
saw that her chocolate was untouched, and that the smile had stiffened on her
lips.

 
          
Since
his talk with Adamson he could not bring himself to be seriously alarmed. Fear
had taken him by the throat for a moment in the station, at the sound of the
girl’s sobs; but already he had thrown it off. Everybody agreed that the war
was sure to be over in a few weeks; even Dastrey had come round to that view;
and with Fortin’s protection, and the influences Anderson Brant could put in
motion, George was surely safe—as safe at his depot as anywhere else in the
precarious world. Campton poured out Adele’s coffee, and drank off his own as
if it had been champagne.

 
          
“Do
you know anything about the people George was dining with last night?” he
enquired abruptly.

 
          
Miss
Anthony knew everything and everybody in the American circle in
Paris
; she was a clearing-house of
Franco-American gossip, and it was likely enough that if George had special reasons
for wishing to spend his last evening away from his family she would know why.
But the chance of her knowing what had been kept from him made Campton’s
question, as soon as it was put, seem indiscreet, and he added hastily: “Not
that I want”

 
          
She
looked surprised.
“No: he didn’t tell me.
Some young
man’s affair, I suppose…” She smirked absurdly, her lashless eyes blinking
under the pushed-back veil.

 
          
Campton’s
mind had already strayed from the question. Nothing bored him more than Adele
doing the “sad dog,” and he was vexed at having given her such a chance to be
silly. What he wanted to know was whether George had spoken to his old friend
about his future—about his own idea of his situation, and his intentions and
wishes in view of the grim chance which people, with propitiatory vagueness,
call “anything happening.” Had the boy left any word, any message with her for
any one? But it was useless to speculate, for if he had, the old goose, true as
steel, would never betray it by as much as a twitch of her lids. She could
look, when it was a question of keeping a secret, like such an impenetrable
idiot that one could not imagine any one’s having trusted a secret to her.

 
          
Campton
had no wish to surprise George’s secrets, if the boy had any. But their parting
had been so hopelessly Anglo-Saxon, so curt and casual, that he would have
liked to think his son had left, somewhere, a message for him, a word, a
letter, in case … in case there was anything premonitory in the sobbing of that
girl at the next table.

 
          
But
Adele’s pink nose confronted him, as guileless as a rabbit’s, and he went out
with her unsatisfied. They parted at the door of the restaurant, and Campton
went to the studio to see if there
were
any news of
his maid-servant Mariette. He meant to return to sleep there that night, and
even his simple housekeeping was likely to be troublesome if Mariette should
not arrive.

 
          
On
the way it occurred to him that he had not yet seen the morning papers, and he
stopped and bought a handful.

 
          
Negotiations,
hopes, fears, conjectures—but nothing new or definite, except the insolent fact
of
Germany
’s aggression, and the almost-certainty of
England
’s intervention.
When he
reached the studio he found Mme. Lebel in her usual place, paler than usual,
but with firm lips and bright eyes.
Her three grandsons had left for
their depots the day before: one was in the Chasseurs Alpins, and probably
already on his way to
Alsace
, another in the infantry, the third in the heavy artillery; she did not
know where the two latter were likely to be sent. Her eldest son, their father,
was dead; the second, a man of fifty, and a cabinetmaker by trade, was in the
territorials, and was not to report for another week. He hoped, before leaving,
to see the return of his wife and little girl, who were in the
Ardennes
with the wife’s people. Mme. Lebel’s mind
was made up and her philosophy ready for immediate application.

 
          
“It’s
terribly hard for the younger people; but it had to be. I come from Nancy,
Monsieur: I remember the German occupation. I understand better than my
daughter-in-law. .

 
          
There
was no news of Mariette, and small chance of having any for some days, much
less of seeing her. No one could tell how long civilian travel would be
interrupted. Mme. Lebel, moved by her lodger’s plight, promised to “find some
one”; and Campton mounted to the studio.

 
          
He
had left it only two days before, on the day when he had vainly waited for
Fortin and his dancer; and an abyss already divided him from that vanished
time. Then his little world still hung like a straw above an eddy; now it was
spinning about in the central vortex.

 
          
The
pictures stood about untidily, and he looked curiously at all those faces which
belonged to the other life. Each bore the mark of its own immediate passions
and interests; not one betrayed the least consciousness of coming disaster
except the face of poor Madame de Dolmetsch, whose love had enlightened her.
Campton began to think of the future from the painter’s point of view. What a
modeller of faces a great war must be! What
would the people
who came through it
look like, he wondered.

 
          
His
bell tinkled, and he turned to answer it. Dastrey, he supposed … he had caught
a glimpse of his friend across the crowd at the Gare de l’Est, seeing off his
nephew, but had purposely made no sign. He still wanted to be alone, and above
all not to hear war-talk. Mme. Lebel, however, had no doubt revealed his
presence in the studio, and he could not risk offending Dastrey.

 
          
When
he opened the door it was a surprise to see there, instead of Dastrey’s anxious
face, the round rosy countenance of a well-dressed youth with a shock of fair
hair above eyes of childish candour.

 
          
“Oh—come
in,” Campton said, surprised, but divining a compatriot in a difficulty.

 
          
The
youth obeyed,
blushing
his apologies.

 
          
“I’m
Benny Upsher, sir,” he said, in a tone modest yet confident, as if the name
were an introduction.

 
          
“Oh”
Campton stammered, cursing his absentmindedness and his unfailing faculty for
forgetting names.

 
          
“You’re
a friend of George’s, aren’t you?” he risked.

 
          
“Yes—tremendous.
We were at Harvard together—he was two years ahead of me.”

 
          
“Ah—then
you’re still there?”

 
          
Mr.
Upsher’s blush became a mask of crimson. “Well—I thought I was, till this thing
happened.”

 
          
“What
thing?”

 
          
The
youth stared at the older man with a look of celestial wonder.

 
          
“This
war.—George has started already, hasn’t he?”

 
          
“Yes.
Two hours ago.”

 
          
“So
they said—I looked him up at the Crillon. I wanted most awfully to see him; if
I had, of course I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

 
          
“My
dear young man, you’re not bothering me. But what can I do?”

 
          
Mr.
Upsher’s composure seemed to be returning as the necessary preliminaries were
cleared away. “Thanks a lot,” he said. “Of course what I’d like best is to join
his regiment.”

 
          
“Join
his regiment—you!” Campton exclaimed.

 
          
“Oh,
I know it’s difficult; I raced up from
Biarritz
quick as I could to catch him.” He seemed
still to be panting with the effort. “I want to be in this,” he concluded.

 
          
Campton
contemplated him with helpless perplexity. “But I don’t understand—there’s no
reason, in your case. With George it was obligatory—on account of his being
born here. But I suppose you were born in
America
?”

 
          
“Well,
I guess so: in
Utica
. My mother was Madeline Mayhew. I think we’re a sort of cousins, sir,
aren’t we?”

 
          
“Of course—of course.
Excuse my not recalling it—just at
first. But, my dear boy, I still don’t see”

 
          
Mr.
Upsher’s powers of stating his case were plainly limited. He pushed back his
rumpled hair, looked hard again at his cousin, and repeated doggedly: “I want
to be in this.”

 
          
“This war?”

 
          
He
nodded.

 
          
Campton
groaned. What did the boy mean, and why come to him with such tomfoolery? At
that moment he felt even more unfitted than usual to deal with practical
problems, and in spite of the forgotten cousinship it was no affair of his what
Madeline Mayhew’s son wanted to be in.

 
          
But there was the boy himself, stolid, immovable, impenetrable to
hints, and with something in his wide blue eyes like George—and yet so childishly
different.

 
          
“Sit
down—have a cigarette, won’t you?—
You
know, of
course,” Campton began, “that what you propose is almost insuperably
difficult?”

 
          
“Getting
into George’s regiment?”

 
          
“Getting
into the French army at all—for a foreigner, a neutral… I’m afraid there’s
really nothing I can do.”

 
          
Benny
Upsher smiled indulgently. “I can fix that up all right; getting into the army,
I mean. The only thing that might be hard would be getting into his regiment.”

 
          
“Oh,
as to that—out of the question, I should think.” Campton was conscious of
speaking curtly: the boy’s bland determination was beginning to get on his
nerves.

 
          
“Thank
you no end,” said Benny Upsher, getting up. “Sorry to have butted in,” he
added, holding out a large brown hand.

 
          
Campton
followed him to the door perplexedly. He knew that something ought to be
done—but what? On the threshold he laid his hand impulsively on the youth’s
shoulder. “Look here, my boy, we’re cousins, as you say, and if you’re Madeline
Mayhew’s boy you’re an only son. Moreover you’re George’s friend—which matters
still more to me. I can’t let you go like this. Just let me say a word to you
before”