A Chair on the Boulevard Part 23

The cab stopped before a dilapidated house in an unsavoury street. I knew that the aspect of her home went to his heart. "Mademoiselle Laurent has won no prize in her profession," he observed, "and she is an honest girl." Well said!

In the dim pa.s.sage a neglected child directed us to the fourth floor.

On the fourth floor a slattern, who replied at last to our persistent tapping, told us shortly that mademoiselle was out. I realised that we had committed the error of being before our time; and the woman, evidently unprepared for our visit, did not suggest our going in. It seemed bad stage-management.

"Will it be long before mademoiselle is back?" I inquired, annoyed.

"Mais non."

"We will wait," I said, and we were admitted sulkily to a room, of which the conspicuous features were a malodorous lamp, and a brandy- bottle. I had taken the old drab for a landlady rather the worse for liquor, but, more amiably, she remarked now: "It's a pity Jeanne didn't know you were coming."

At the familiar "Jeanne" I saw Georges start.

"Mademoiselle is a friend of yours?" I asked, dismayed.

"A friend? She is my daughter." She sat down.

By design the girl was out! The thought flashed on me. It flashed on me that she had plotted for her lover to learn what a mother-in-law he would have. The revelation must appal him. I stole a look--his face was blanched. The General drew a deep breath, and nodded to himself. The nod said plainly, "He is saved. Thank G.o.d!"

"Will you take a little drop while you are waiting, gentlemen?"

"Nothing for us, thank you."

She drank alone, and seemed to forget that we were present. None of us spoke. I began to wonder if we need remain. Then, drinking, she grew garrulous. It was of Jeanne she talked. She gave us her maternal views, and incidentally betrayed infamies of her own career. I am a man of the world, but I shuddered at that woman. The suitor who could have risked making her child his wife would have been demented, or sublime. And while she maundered on, gulping from her gla.s.s, and chuckling at her jests, the ghastliness of it was that, in the gutter face before us, I could trace a likeness to Jeanne; I think Georges must have traced it, too. The menace of heredity was horrible. We were listening to Jeanne wrecked, Jeanne thirty years older--Jeanne as she might become!

Ciel! To choose a bride with this blood in her--a bride from the dregs!

"Let us go, Georges," I murmured. "Courage! You will forget her. We'll be off."

He was livid. I saw that he could bear no more.

But the creature overheard, and in those bleary eyes intelligence awoke.

"What? Hold on!" she stammered. "Is one of you the toff that wants to marry her? Ah!... I've been letting on finely, haven't I? It was a plant, was it? You've come here ferreting and spying?" She turned towards me in a fury: "You!"

Certainly I had made a comment from time to time, but I could not see why she should single me out for her attack. She lurched towards me savagely. Her face was thrust into mine. And then, so low that only I could hear, and like another woman, she breathed a question:

"Can I act?"

Jeanne herself! Every nerve in me jumped. The next instant she was back in her part, railing at Georges.

I took a card from my case, and scribbled six words.

"When your daughter comes in, give her that!" I said. I had scribbled: "I write you a star role!"

She gathered the message at a glance, and I swear that the moroseness of her gaze was not lightened by so much as a gleam. She was representing a character; the actress sustained the character even while she read words that were to raise her from privation to renown.

"Not that I care if I _have_ queered her chance," she snarled. "A good job, too, the selfish cat! I've got nothing to thank her for.

Serve her right if you do give her the go-by, my Jackanapes, _I_ don't blame you!"

"Madame Laurent," Georges answered sternly, and his answer vibrated through the room, "I have never admired, pitied, or loved Jeanne so much as now that I know that she has been--motherless."

All three of us stood stone-still. The first to move was she. I saw what was going to happen. She burst out crying.

"It's I, Jeanne!--I love you! I thought I loved the theatre best--I was wrong." Instinctively she let my card fall to the ground. "Forgive me-- I did it for your sake, too. It was cruel, I am ashamed. Oh, my own, if my love will not disgrace you, take me for your wife! In all the world there is no woman who will love you better--in all my heart there is no room for anything but you!"

They were in each other's arms. De Lavardens, whom the proclamation of ident.i.ty had electrified, dragged me outside. The big fool was blubbering with sentiment.

"This is frightful," he grunted.

"Atrocious!" said I.

"But she is a woman in a million."

"She is a great actress," I said reverently.

"I could never approve the marriage," he faltered. "What do you think?"

"Out of the question! I have no sympathy with either of them."

"You humbug! Why, there is a tear running down your nose!"

"There are two running down yours," I snapped; "a General should know better."

And why has the doll in the pink silk dress recalled this to me? Well, you see, to-morrow will be New Year's Day and the doll is a gift for my G.o.dchild--and the name of my G.o.dchild's mother is "Jeanne de Lavardens." Oh, I have nothing to say against her as a mother, the children idolise her! I admit that she has conquered the General, and that Georges is the proudest husband in France. But when I think of the parts I could have written for her, of the l.u.s.tre the stage has lost, when I reflect that, just to be divinely happy, the woman deliberately declined a worldwide fame--Morbleu! I can never forgive her for it, never--the darling!

THE LAST EFFECT

Jean Bourjac was old and lazy. Why should he work any more? In his little cottage he was content enough. If the place was not precisely gay, could he not reach Paris for a small sum? And if he had no neighbours to chat with across the wall, weren't there his flowers to tend in the garden? Occasionally--because one cannot shake off the interests of a lifetime--he indulged in an evening at the Folies- Bergere, or Olympia, curious to witness some Illusion that had made a hit.

At such times old Bourjac would chuckle and wag his head sagely, for he saw no Illusions now to compare with those invented by himself when he was in the business.

And there were many persons who admitted that he had been supreme in his line. At the Folies-Bergere he was often recognised and addressed as "Maitre."

One summer evening, when old Bourjac sat reading _Le Journal_, Margot, the housekeeper, who had grown deaf and ancient in his service, announced a stranger.

She was a girl with a delicate oval face, and eyes like an angel's.

"Monsieur Bourjac," she began, as if reciting a speech that she had studied, "I have come out here to beg a favour of you. I thirst for a career behind the footlights. Alas! I cannot sing, or dance, or act.

There is only one chance for me--to possess an Illusion that shall take Paris by storm. I am told that there is nothing produced to-day fit to hold a candle to the former 'Miracles Bourjac.' Will you help me? Will you design for me the most wonderful Illusion of your life?"

"Mademoiselle," said Bourjac, with a shrug, "I have retired."

"I implore you!" she urged. "But I have not finished; I am poor, I am employed at a milliner's, I could not pay down a single franc. My offer is a share of my salary as a star. I am mad for the stage. It is not the money that I crave for, but the applause. I would not grudge you even half my salary! Oh, monsieur, it is in your power to lift me from despair into paradise. Say you consent."

Bourjac mused. Her offer was very funny; if she had been of the ordinary type, he would have sent her packing, with a few commercial home-truths. Excitement had brought a flush to the oval face, her glorious eyes awoke in him emotions which he had believed extinct. She was so captivating that he cast about him for phrases to prolong the interview. Though he could not agree, he didn't want her to go yet.