The Derelict (Bottome, Century Magazine, 1917)/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
At St. Ives, Marcel Dupin made a charming second impression. He took the story of Fanny from half a word, and prevented Emily from feeling any awkwardness in telling it.
"You have touched me profoundly," he assured her. "Englishwomen are a race apart; they trust the men they love and are kind to other women. It is an astonishing combination. I shall never forget it."
To Geoffrey he was a trifle less sympathetic.
"I hear," he said, "that I am to treat a young lady who is not innocent as though she were innocent. When am I to begin?"
"You won't find her in the least like that," said Geoffrey, but he omitted to say how Marcel would find her. Marcel was not long in discovering Fanny's portraits.
"Now, mon vieux," he said, "you have consoled me for the sharpness of the blow you gave me in London. After all, I was right when I said in Paris, 'There is a certain little Englishman who will make our cleverness look like an old shoe.' I do homage to these pictures; but again you are careless. You do not take advantage of opportunity. You should have let that model drown. Then no one else could have touched her; and who knows but what would have been good for your art might not also be of use in your life? I have, as you know, received the interesting confidence of mademoiselle your betrothed upon the history of Fanny. Certainly I should have let her drown. You have spoiled your situation, which was superb. Now you must beware of an anticlimax."
Geoffrey frowned. He did not like to talk of Fanny as a model or as an anticlimax, and he did not wish to talk of his situation at all. He did not want to think he had a situation.
He could not understand his feelings about Fanny, for it still seemed to him as if he were guilty of drowning Fanny instead of the hero he was held to be for having saved her life.
There was only one thing which really gave him any satisfaction: Fanny had never thanked him. He felt that no one understood Fanny except himself, and as if he wanted to forget how well he understood her. There was no room whatever in his new life for the Fanny he had understood.
Emily would no doubt make room for her, but it would be Emily's Fanny she would make room for, not the Fanny Geoffrey had known.
The Fanny he knew had not survived Emily, and he had taken part in killing her, the coward's part of standing aside and simply letting her die. It was true that she had made it easy for him to stand aside; she had allowed herself to be killed without a gesture and without a sound. He did not blame Emily, of course, for this transformation. It would have been impossible to keep Fanny in his life as she had been in it before, but it took the taste out of his happiness.
"Yes, your pictures are delightful," Dupin continued. "They give me a feeling that I should like to show you what could be done with her in other ways. Come, since we have Mademoiselle Emily's permission, let us proceed to the original."
"I dare say we shall find her," Geoffrey admitted a trifle grudgingly, "in Miss Loomis's studio. Miss Loomis is an American sculptor with a great deal of conversation and some talent."
"In that case," agreed Marcel, "let us hope she will give us the conversation rather than the talent. Talents, I know, speak for themselves; but I can do without that type of conversation, and the speech of the American always delights me. They have so much to say, those charming people, and no background at all from which to say it. They must have been brought up in paradise, with an enormous quantity of fig-leaves and no knowledge of good and evil."
Marcel slipped his arm into Geoffrey's and took him rapidly in the direction of Miss Loomis's studio.
Miss Loomis's studio was close to the sea. It looked out on the smallest of the beaches, a low, gray hutch with a silvery roof. She welcomed both young men with enthusiasm.
"Well, Mr. Amberley," she said, "it's the oddest thing how you 've been keeping away from me; any one would think you were jealous of my model. Not that I'd blame you if you had lost her, for I never knew any one who led one on so; there does n't seem any end to what you can do with her. And this is Monsieur Dupin, the famous young Parisian sculptor! I am delighted to receive you, Monsieur Dupin. I adore Paris. There is n't a thing I don't know about it, and there is n't a thing I don't love. There's a confession for you. When people ask what my country is, I just say, 'I live in Paris.' That's my address, and in a sense it's my nation."
"Madame," said Dupin, "let me congratulate Paris upon your nativity. You have some beautiful things here. May I ask which of them are your own creations?"
"Yes, indeed," Miss Loomis replied cordially. "I am always proud to show a fellow-artist my work. I don't carry my things round with me, but that child's head over there is mine, and I'm working on a young Englishwoman just now from the nude. I spoke to your fiancée about it, Mr. Amberley. She seemed to feel so responsible for Fanny, and I understand this is the first time she has sat for the figure. Miss Dering felt just as I do about it, and just the way all artists' wives should feel: she accepts the sanctity of the nude. I know all Americans don't feel that way, and I'm very sorry, but we 'll come to it in time. We 're a new country, and the moral sense has got to get used to itself before it takes on tags. I don't want to speak as if I had a low estimate of art. Monsieur Dupin, but compared with the Puritan conscience, and as looked upon from the point of view of America, I guess art is a tag, all the same. Now, in Paris, it's the other way round, Mr. Amberley. Art comes first, and as far as possible nothing else after it."
"But what should come after it?" murmured Marcel Dupin, "but more and better art? Allow me, Madame." He stepped forward, and drew off the sheet which covered the half-finished figure. Geoffrey drew back. He was surprised to find himself angry. Why had Emily never told him Fanny was sitting for the figure? Of course there was no reason in the world why she should n't. If he had thought about it before, he would have known she would have to sit for it sooner or later. But he had n't thought about it before, and thinking about it in front of the statue, with Dupin's exclamations of delight sounding in his ears, was curiously annoying. It did not seem to him the way in which Fanny ought to be treated.
The statue was, on the whole, a clever piece of work, but it was not the work itself that so delighted Dupin. He could see from it that the model was one to inspire a great sculptor. Every line of the figure was gracious, and every curve of it was delicate and fine.
"I was right," Dupin murmured, "a thousand times I was right: we sculptors have an opportunity you painters miss—we have the roundness of life."
Geoffrey lifted his unwilling eyes and saw the statue, and beyond it, in the open doorway, stood Fanny.
She stood quite still, looking at Geoffrey. He never forgot her eyes. They did not judge him, but they were the eyes of some one who has been hurt by a friend. Geoffrey thought then, and he thought more strongly afterward, that he had never seen such unprotected eyes.
Miss Loomis gave an exclamation of annoyance; she pulled the cloth hastily over the figure again. It was an awkward moment. Dupin began:
"But why—" and then, looking up, he, too, saw Fanny. "La voilà—la petite!" he exclaimed softly.
Fanny was the first to recover herself. She said to Miss Loomis:
"I came to make the tea. I don't think there are enough cups."
"Well, you can give me a glass, Russian fashion," said Miss Loomis, good-humoredly, "and you must n't mind having your statue looked at, Fanny. This gentleman is a sculptor. As a matter of fact, he's a very famous French sculptor, and it 'll be a very good thing for you to meet him."
"I don't mind him looking at that statue," said Fanny, calmly. "Do they want cream with their tea?"
"Oh, that's all right, Fanny," said Geoffrey, quickly. "Don't bother about us; we 'll take anything you 've got."
Fanny neither met his eyes nor answered him.
"Well, I guess there is some, Fanny," said Miss Loomis, consideringly. "You go into the kitchen and see. I generally have some around. It's such wonderful stuff, Monsieur Dupin, this Cornish cream. You have no idea, but I dare n't take too much of it; there is n't any doubt it's a great flesh-producer. Now what do you think of my Fanny?"
"Ah, Madame," said Dupin, "if she is your Fanny, what would I not give to make her mine! She is a model in a century; yes, yes. Your statue,—I shall not forget it,—there is in it a—je ne sais quoi. You have, you Americans, a certain flair. I said to Amberley as we came along,—did I not, mon cher?—'Explain to me why are the Americans as clever as sin without the disadvantage of a drop from virtue. It is not the Venus of the Medici this one,—I have seen her on the boulevards,—nor ours of Milo. I mean no disrespect to her, but I can always imagine her in an English nursery. This one you have here, this Fanny, she is like the Venus of the Terme in Rome. You know her perhaps, headless, alas! but with an expression of the body as soft as a south wind. You remember her, Geoffrey?"
"Oh, yes, I remember her all right," said Geoffrey, crossly. "Let's leave the damned thing alone and come and have tea. I beg your pardon, Miss Loomis! It's not that I don't admire your work; it's—it's—"
"It's that you admire the work of nature more?" laughed Dupin. "Be careful, my good friend. Nature has already supplied you with what to admire."
Geoffrey gave him a glance so furious that Dupin stood still and stared; but Miss Loomis saved the situation by not seeing that there was any.
"Why, you can swear just as much as ever you like, Mr. Amberley," she said kindly. "I know just how you feel. He's got a St. Ives appetite, Monsieur Dupin, and he wants his tea. I never saw such people as the English are for their tea."
Fanny gave them their tea. There were plenty of cups because she did not take any herself. When she left, she said, "Good-by, Mr. Amberley." It was the only thing she did say to him, so that Geoffrey remembered it.