Chapter NINE

Hermione Cushing inhabited a small apartment high up in the rue de la Bienfaisance, on the edge of the quarter known as that of Europe. It is for the most part a typically French neighbourhood, which explains why long ago Miss Cushing chose it, experience having taught her that in the sections of Paris given over to Americans one pays through the nose for everything, from rents to cabbages. In short, Miss Cushing was canny, knowing how to make ten centimes do the work of fifty.

She had lived here for twenty years, and everyone knew her. Moreover, in spite of petty bickerings, she was in excellent repute with the concierge and tradespeople, and for practical purposes one need say no more. She possessed, indeed, certain attributes revered by the French. She was _une dame sérieuse_, spent not a sou on display, and was well connected into the bargain. Did one not frequently see the imposing motors of la Baronne de Grèves and the Princess Guiccioli ranged in front of the entrance, positive proof that the Faubourg St. Germain had toiled up four flights of stairs to pay its respect to the singer? The fact spoke for itself.

None of this was known to Catherine, but her eye noted the respect in the concierge’s mien when she spoke the name of Cushing.

“_Au cinquième, à gauche mademoiselle_,” instructed the woman promptly, and came forth like a mole out of a burrow to point the way, adding the further direction, “_C’est le deuxième escalier, en face_.”

There were two staircases, it seemed, one wide and grand, the other narrow and dingy. It was the latter, at the back of the small court, which led to the singer’s abode.

The upward journey was steep, the day unexpectedly mild. Catherine took the first three flights in a rush, so that at the turn of the fourth she was obliged to pause before a window and take breath before finishing the climb. Gazing out on the mansard roofs and blackened chimney-pots, she took stock of her recent impressions and prepared herself for the coming interview, which for some reason made her slightly nervous.

The morning’s experiences had been disturbing. The hour she had spent with Mme. Bender had failed to clear up the uncertainty in her mind, and she had gained nothing except a strengthened conviction that her cousin was frightened about something. How or why, she could not say. Again and again she had sought to probe the mystery of that quick, recurring gleam of positive terror in the grey eyes, but she had come away without reaching any satisfactory conclusion. Was the poor creature’s fear merely a symptom of disordered intelligence, or had it some positive, external cause? That, as she had said to Geoffrey Macadam last night, was what she was anxious to ascertain.

Following her visit to the ill woman had come a disagreeable shock. Jeanne, not without a trace of malice, had informed her that the concierge’s wife had sent a message to say she wished to hold converse with the young American lady staying with Mme. Bender. Catherine could not guess what she wanted, but on descending for a walk her ignorance was brusquely removed. The feminine half of the _ménage_ which held sway over the tenants’ lives accosted her with sour disapproval, and chid her severely for the fault she had committed in allowing her escort to accompany her upstairs after the house was shut for the night. Apparently it was a heinous offence against propriety. No _jeune fille bien élevée_ would dream of doing _une chose pareille_, and while mademoiselle’s youth and professed ignorance of national customs might excuse her this once, no similar escapade could possibly be tolerated. She would give the house a bad name.

Catherine had stared in stupefaction. At first the veiled implications had escaped her, for though she was no fool she had always regarded her motives as above reproach. However, the pinched face with its evil leer forced her to see that in this quarter at least she was an object of suspicion.

The revelation infuriated her. It seemed to her that not only her own decency was attacked, but that of all her countrywomen as well, and in the heat of the moment it was difficult to hold her tongue and refrain from telling the old harpy what she thought of her. She could still picture the woman’s twisted smile as she withdrew into her lair, still feel the blood tingling in her own cheeks as bit by bit the full infamy of the suggestion sank into her mind. At last out of the flames of her wrath had risen the determination never again, if she could avoid it, to encounter the guardians of the loge. There was a way out which she meant to take.

Accordingly, at lunch-time, she had asked Jeanne for a latch-key to the private door, only to be met with a chill refusal. There was but one key, it seemed, which the maid and butler were in the habit of using. However, Catherine was undaunted. Her antagonism was roused by this and similar rebuffs, and she knew by now that Jeanne’s autocratic ways must be met with equal firmness.

“Never mind,” she had returned intrepidly; “if you won’t give me the key, I shall have a spare one made.”

She had won her point, though against a grudging displeasure only too apparent. The key now lay in her bag, giving her a sense of independence and triumph. Let the concierge do her damnedest, her gun was spiked.

How little could she guess the _rôle_ this same key was to play in future events, or to what extent it was to shape her entire destiny! Thus lightly do we forge the links in the chain which will bind us prisoners, arrange the noose to encircle our unconscious necks. But for that insignificant shape of metal reposing beneath her powder-puff, handkerchief and lipstick--but the matter can wait. In peaceful ignorance she ascended to the top floor, and thinking only of the person she was about to meet, rang a jangling bell at the left-hand door.

The summons was answered by a gaunt grenadier of a servant in a starched apron and brown knitted jersey, too short in the sleeves. Behind steel-rimmed spectacles a pair of searching eyes regarded her with mingled goodness and severity, while a deep voice bade her enter. Simultaneously she was aware of a piano, close at hand, played in a florid and sketchy manner.

“Mademoiselle,” announced the stalwart domestic, throwing open the door of the small salon, “here is the young lady you are expecting.” Whereupon, without ceremony she pushed Catherine forward with a brawny hand. “_Entrez, mademoiselle_,” she commanded, and stalked away.

The music ceased. Miss Cushing rose from the tiny stool which she had completely obliterated with her bulk and billowed forward with a swishing of skirts. Catherine perceived that she was blonde, middle-aged, and of a shape and movement which made her think forcibly of a whale plunging in mid-seas.

“_Ma chère Mademoiselle West_,” cried a voice, tempestuous with welcome. “Come in, come in! You find me busy arranging a programme with the help of some dear friends, but you won’t mind, I’m sure, if I go on and finish. Let me present you to the Baronne de Grèves and Madame Strakosch.”

Two plain-featured, elderly ladies in sombre black nodded ceremoniously from a sofa at the end of the room. Both wore old fashioned head-gear and soft, high, buttoned boots such as old women affect. One held an ear-trumpet glued to her ear; the other, wizened and with quick, hawk-like gestures, darted little sharp but not unkindly glances at the new-comer.

“This dear child,” explained the singer, detaining Catherine’s hand in her cushioned palm, “is a young cousin of poor dear Harry Bender’s. She is staying now with my darling Germaine--_dont je vous ai parlé cet instant_.”

This clause she shouted down the ear-trumpet, and as a sign that it had registered the two ladies turned and gazed at Catherine with various nods of understanding.

“_Et comment va madame votre cousine?_” inquired the deaf lady in a sepulchral baritone, shifting the instrument to receive the girl’s reply.

Catherine telephoned the opinion that her relative was far from well and extremely nervous, whereupon both listeners murmured, “_Neurasthènique_. Ah-h-h!” and exchanged glances of solemn meaning.

“_Vous voyez?_” demanded Miss Cushing with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “_C’est comme je vous ai dit_,”--and forthwith she returned to her seat at the piano.

Catherine thought she had never seen anyone who so completely filled the room as did Miss Cushing. She trembled for the insecure easel in her path, and eyed nervously a tottering vase of furry palm which stood precariously upon a fragile stand. Yet the singer was not shapeless. On the contrary, her vast bulk curved in at the waist and out again at the hips after the fashion of an enormous hour-glass, a resemblance heightened by her costume. She was dressed in black taffeta with tiny ruffles, a wide skirt and a bolero jacket, from the arm holes of which bulged white muslin sleeves covering arms as large in girth as Catherine’s body. Her feet, in shabby bronze pumps, were by contrast quite ridiculously small, and her face, unlined and pink like a baby’s, rested upon a series of chins undulating into well-cushioned shoulders. Her eyes were the faint blue of a winter sky, and her scanty, neutral hair was arranged anyhow in a twist, from which vagrant wisps strayed and clung to the creases of her neck.

“And now, _chères amies_, I shall give you the Sibelius. No one in France understands Sibelius as I do. I am without doubt his chief interpreter here.”

Herewith she began a slap-dash prelude and proceeded to vocalize, in a voice piercingly thin, uncertain as to registers and now and then grazing from the key. Catherine set her teeth. The other listeners preserved expressionless faces, and it seemed to her she alone was marvelling at the temerity and verdant hope which could prompt an artist to appear in public with so vanished an equipment. She had yet to learn what Paris can stand in the way of music.

To distract her thoughts from the embarrassing performance, she let her eyes stray round the little drab salon, taking account of its fussy detail. Everything which could be draped was draped, from the upright piano to the shelves in the corners, and all the drapes had bobbles on them, while in some cases they were rucked into puffs between anchoring ornaments of silver and Dresden china. The chairs in particular arrested her attention, since she had never seen any like them before. Endowed with gilt cabriole legs, they were like little squat sofas, too wide for one, yet not wide enough for two. They were in fact precisely right for their owner, for whose use they might have been specially designed.

Everywhere were mementoes, signed photographs and faded knots of flowers under glass, while the room abounded in likenesses of the singer, of every possible description. Over the mantel hung a full-length portrait of Miss Cushing as _Marguerite_, with pendant braids and a daisy between her fingers; on the easel was a chalk drawing of the lady in the dress of the nineties; from the walnut commode beamed a marble bust, the head thrown back with artless coquetry, butterflies poised on the plump shoulders. Never, reflected Catherine, had the original not been endowed with a generous amplitude of form. Had she at any remote period possessed the semblance of a voice?

“And now, what about a little du Parc? One must give them something French.”

Wheeling on the stool, the performer began thumbing over a pile of tattered sheet-music.

“Hah!” she exclaimed distractedly, “_ou se trouve ce chanson là?_”--then impatiently elevating her voice, she shouted towards the kitchen, “_Yvonne! Yvonne! Venez m’aider!_”

The servant appeared, a woollen stocking on one hand, a coarse darning-needle in the other.

“Mademoiselle?”

“Find me that du Parc song--you know the one I mean,” and she thrust the jumble of music into the unwilling arms.

Yvonne shook her head with wooden disapproval.

“Mademoiselle should not attempt the du Parc to-day,” she advised severely. “Mademoiselle must not forget she had _moules marinières_ for _déjeuner_. Better try something lower.”

“Oh, well, then, find me another,” returned her mistress petulantly. “Reynaldo Hahn, or Debussy. It doesn’t much matter.”

Muttering darkly, Yvonne departed, and through the open door Catherine, inwardly convulsed, could see her seated in the kitchen, going solemnly through the pile with grunts and sniffs of disparagement. Meanwhile Miss Cushing, unruffled, launched full steam upon the elaborate “Les Filles de Cadiz,” swooping and curveting like a spirited Percheron.

The audition was over. The elderly couple, after discussing practical matters of _affiches_ and subscription tickets, rose and made a ceremonious departure. Catherine was alone with her hostess.

“_Enfin!_” cried Miss Cushing with a gusty sigh. “Now, my child, we can talk. Only we must have tea. _Yvonne! Du thé, tout de suite! Je suis epuisée, moi--complètement finie!_”--and throwing her weight upon the creaking sofa she pressed her hand to the region of her heart.

For a second she remained thus, eyes closed, with an air of exhaustion. Then she roused herself and fixed upon her guest a gaze of intensity.

“Tell me at once, dear Miss West, just what your impression is of that unfortunate household. Don’t leave anything out. It may be important.”

Was this melodrama or farce? Catherine could not decide. However, sure that Hermione Cushing was ignorant of the recent crisis, she set out to enlighten her, watching closely to observe the effect of her news. She saw the pink face turn pale, the blue eyes start with unmistakable horror, while one hand trembled forward as though to ward off a blow.

“_La pauvre petite! Elle a fait ça?_” whispered the singer in an awed tone. “But no--it is not true! It can’t be true!” she protested vehemently.

“I assure you it is,” Catherine declared.

“_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_ Then if it is so--if she did try to take her life”--she paused impressively, then bent forward to hiss in Catherine’s ear--“then you may take my word for it, it was that demon who drove her to it! I have said that she would. That fiend of a Jeanne!”

“_Jeanne?_” repeated the girl, hardly able to believe her ears.

For a moment she was speechless over the arrant absurdity. Was Miss Cushing serious?

“I knew it, I knew it,” her hostess murmured, half to herself. “It is what I have been expecting. Oh! that such a tyranny can continue, unchecked, in an age like this! It is infamous, it is----”

“Tyranny?” echoed Catherine again, then thinking it time to play her trump card, made an earnest bid for attention. “Forgive me, Miss Cushing,” she began seriously. “But there is something I feel you ought to know. You see, Jeanne declares that after you left the other afternoon Mme. Bender was terribly depressed. She thinks it was something you said to her which threw her into that morbid state and made her--made her----” It was difficult to complete the sentence.

She was unprepared for the phenomenon which greeted her statement. The huge body swelled, appeared on the point of bursting. The round face turned a turkey-red hue.

“That creature said such a thing?” she gasped in a stifled voice. “_Impossible! Menteuse! Menteuse!_”

For half a minute she trembled on the verge of apoplexy, while the girl looked on in positive alarm.

Yvonne strode into the room, bearing on a tray the tiniest glass Catherine had ever seen filled with cognac.

“Drink this, mademoiselle, and calm yourself!” she commanded brusquely, and thrust the glass to her mistress’s lips.

The artist swallowed, coughed and recovered her balance.

“Yvonne!”--and she stretched forth a detaining hand. “Did you hear that infamy? That devil, Jeanne, is saying that I--I--am responsible for Mme. Bender’s trying to take her life!”

“_Ah! Incroyable!_”

The staid Yvonne scowled from one face to the other, muttering such expressions as “_folle!_,” “_C’est un peu trop, ça!_” and “_C’est le comble!_” Finally, casting her arms with an irate gesture, she withdrew with a last, “_Elle est méchante, cette femme là_,” hurled into space.

“Listen,” cried Miss Cushing, “now you shall hear the truth! On Tuesday afternoon my poor Germaine was almost happy. She was rejoiced over the thought of your coming. I said to myself that there was really going to be an improvement, now she would not be left alone to mope and brood. She kissed me and said, ‘My darling Lili’--that is her name for me--‘promise you will come again, very soon. You put new life into me.’--So! You see?”

“And you saw no sign of any delusions?”

“Delusions, indeed! I may say I have never seen anything of the sort. With me she has always been--well, not normal; that is a strong word; but absolutely sane. Why, the other day she was so much her usual self that I actually ventured to advise her upon a matter I had felt I ought to mention for some time past. I mean, of course,”--here she paused and moistened her lips--“the question of drawing up her will.”

Catherine experienced a slight shock.

“Oh!” she exclaimed a little blankly. “So you spoke of that?”

“I thought it my duty,” replied her hostess firmly. “You see, Catherine--I may call you that, _n’est-ce pas?_--Germaine has never made her will. It is a business she is unwilling to face. In consequence, if the poor darling were to pass away suddenly all Harry’s entire fortune would go--who knows where? To the State, perhaps. It is appalling to think of such waste!”

Catherine sat quite still, struggling with the confusion of her thoughts.

“But surely Mme. Bender has heirs?” she suggested at last.

“Not one. Amazing, isn’t it? But surely you must have been told that?”

Catherine shook her head.

“I know almost nothing about her before she married Cousin Harry.”

“You didn’t know, then, that it was I who introduced Harry to Germaine Dieulefit when she and I were studying together for the Opera?”

“Dieulefit? What an odd name!”

“Yes, most unusual. There are no others, the family is extinct. Her mother was a singer, coloratura, and illegitimate--probably the child of some minor royalty and an Italian peasant. No one knew. Old Jérome Dieulefit was a wine-grower from the south, the last of a bourgeois line. So you see there is no one to whom this money can go, by law, unless Germaine leaves a will. In her present state of health it is madness not to think of such things.”

Catherine fingered her gloves.

“Have you any idea who would benefit if she did make a will?” she asked presently.

Miss Cushing grew suddenly warm. She seized a worn copy of _Ouvre tes Yeux Bleus_ and fanned herself vigorously.

“Not the slightest,” she declared a little consciously. “All I can say is that there is a certain string of pearls, quite valuable, which she has promised to leave to me. I helped her choose them. ‘Lili,’ she said at the time, ‘one day these will be yours, so be sure you approve of them!’ Always she referred to them as Lili’s pearls. She seldom wore then, only sometimes the copy she had made. The pearls themselves are insured for three million francs.”

Three million francs! Catherine glanced about her. All the small evidences of gentility struggling against poverty which had been apparent to her since she entered the tiny flat took on a new meaning. Three million francs would represent security and dignity in old age to this woman who was striving against difficult odds to gain a decent livelihood. No wonder Hermione was worried lest her friend should die without putting her bequest into legal form.

Suddenly she thought of the Bender apartment, given over to servants. One of the latter was a stranger of whose morals she knew nothing. Eduardo himself was behaving so abominably he all but invited suspicion, and last night there had been some outside person, possibly the little man she had seen with Jeanne, prowling about the place.

“By the way, where does Mme. Bender keep her pearls?” she inquired casually. “I hope they’re well locked up.”

“Ah, yes, they, at least, are perfectly safe. She keeps them with all her most valuable jewels, at the bank in the Place Vendôme.”

An indefinable qualm shot through the listener. What precisely did Miss Cushing mean by saying that the pearls _at least_ were safe?