II
Jane had no time to read La Dame aux Camellias that night. Her homework was very long. She looked it over, translating a line here and there, hoping in vain for pictures, before she went to bed. She left it on her table next morning when she started out for school.
André had the copy of Le Théâtre under his arm when she met him under the Water Works Tower. They sat down on a green bench in the little public park to inspect it. Flora and Muriel went on ahead. There were four pictures of Bernhardt. Three of her as Camille and one in a play called Phèdre. In Phèdre, she wore a Greek costume and a chiffon veil was over her frizzy hair. But in Camille Jane could see clearly just how lovely it was. There was one of her dying, on a kind of sofa, with her curls straying out all over the pillows. No wonder that André thought it was beautiful. Jane thought she could copy the costumes. André remembered all the colours.
She told Agnes about the play at recess and Agnes was very much thrilled. She took special pains with her French that morning and learned one extra irregular verb. She hoped it would appear in Camille, in one of its most unusual tenses. She decided, quite firmly, to work hard on the grammar that winter and really learn to speak the language. Perhaps when she and André had done Camille he might ask her to do Phèdre, too. She talked about that possibility very seriously with Agnes after school. So long and so seriously that she was just a little late in getting home for luncheon.
Her mother and Isabel were already seated at the dining-room table. The homely odour of fried ham greeted her nostrils as soon as she entered the room. She flung her books on a chair. She was pleasantly hungry.
“Gosh, I had fun in school today,” she said.
Then she noticed that something was wrong. She would have noticed it sooner if she hadn’t been thinking so intently of the joys in store for her.
“You’re very late,” said Isabel.
Jane sat down and unfolded her napkin. Minnie passed the ham. No one said anything more for a moment. The silence was very forbidding.
“Jane,” said her mother presently, “where did you get the book that I found on your table this morning?”
Jane dropped her knife and fork. She was extremely surprised.
“Wha—what book?” she asked, instinctively playing for time.
“That French book,” said her mother, and her tone spoke volumes.
Jane stared at her in silence.
“Where on earth did you find it?” asked Isabel.
Jane’s great brown eyes turned on her sister.
“Answer Mother, Jane.” The tone brooked no delay. Jane’s eyes returned to the head of the table.
“From—from André,” she said. Her voice, in her own ears, sounded strangely husky.
“André!” said her mother, staring at Isabel. “That explains it.”
“You don’t mean to say,” said Isabel, “that André gave you that book?”
“Yes,” said Jane with difficulty.
“What for?” said her mother. The last word was really almost a shriek.
“To—to read,” said Jane.
Isabel and her mother exchanged a glance of horror.
“Well—honestly—” said Isabel.
“Have you read it?” asked her mother.
“No,” said Jane. Her ear caught their little gasps of relief. She didn’t understand at all. She only knew that she and André and their perfect plan were in some dreadful danger. She must try to explain.
“He’s going to give it in his theatre. Mamma,” she went on hurriedly. “He wants me to help him. He wants me to make the costumes. We’re going—”
Her mother and Isabel exchanged another glance of horror.
“What’s the matter?” cried Jane, her nerves breaking under the strain. “What’s happened?”
Her mother smiled at her very kindly.
“Nothing has happened, Jane. I’m very glad you haven’t read the book. It’s not at all a nice book for a child to read. But we’ll just return it to André today. You needn’t think anything more about it.”
“But Mamma!” cried Jane. “You—you can’t do that! Why—why we’ve made all our plans—I was going over there this afternoon—we’ve almost finished the first set—he—”
“It doesn’t make any difference what you’ve done, Jane,” said her mother firmly, “or what you’ve planned. It’s not a nice book for a little girl to read and—”
“Have you read it?” asked Jane rudely. And she meant to be rude. She knew her mother couldn’t read French. Isabel herself couldn’t read it, half as well as Jane could.
“You don’t have to read books, Jane,” said her mother with dignity, “to know that they shouldn’t be read. This book is very unpleasant.”
“Why, it’s notorious!” said Isabel.
“Isabel!” said her mother.
Jane felt very confused.
“If you haven’t read it, Mamma,” she said reasonably, “don’t you think that perhaps you’ve made a mistake? André’s mother saw him give it to me. She’s going to help us with the play.”
She saw at once that she hadn’t helped her cause at all.
“Honestly!” said Isabel again. “Those frogs!”
“French people,” said her mother, once more with dignity, “don’t feel about these things the way we do. They have very different ideas of right and wrong.”
“André’s mother is English,” said Jane sullenly.
“She married a Frenchman,” said Isabel, as if that settled it.
“We won’t discuss it further,” said Jane’s mother. “Eat your lunch.”
“Mamma!” cried Jane in desperation. “You don’t understand. I—I can’t go back on André! I can’t—”
“Jane,” said her mother. “You will eat your lunch. And then you will call up André and tell him that you can’t have anything to do with the play and that you can’t go over there this afternoon. I’ll send Minnie over with the book. I don’t want you to go over to André’s any more at all. You’ve been seeing far too much of him lately. Any boy that would give a little girl a book like that—”
But Jane had sprung to her feet.
“I won’t eat my lunch!” she cried. “And I won’t call up André! I think you’re too mean! You don’t understand! You don’t understand anything!” Her voice was breaking. She wouldn’t cry before them! She rushed from the room.
“It’s a long time,” she heard her mother say, as she reached the door, “since Jane has had a tantrum.”
She stumbled up the stairs. She gained the refuge of her bedroom and banged the door. The book was gone. She couldn’t go to André’s. She couldn’t help him with that play. She flung herself on her bed in stormy tears.
It wasn’t very long before the door opened and Isabel entered, without a knock. Jane lay very still and tried to hush her sobs.
“Don’t be silly, kid,” said Isabel. She sat down on the bed.
“Don’t talk to me,” said Jane.
“Stop crying,” said Isabel reasonably, “and be sensible.”
There was a little pause.
“That’s a dreadful play, Jane,” said Isabel.
Jane didn’t reply.
“Sarah Bernhardt does it,” said Isabel. “She’s an awful woman.”
Jane lay very still.
“When she was here,” said Isabel, “none of us girls were allowed to see her. She’s not nice.”
Jane sat up. André’s reverent accents still rang in her ears.
“She has beautiful hair,” thought Jane. “Golden brown—and frizzy.”
“What do you mean by ‘not nice’?” she inquired indignantly.
Isabel’s face looked a little queer. She was watching her younger sister rather curiously.
“Immoral,” said Isabel finally.
“I don’t believe it,” said Jane, after a moment.
“Oh, yes, she is,” said Isabel easily. “Everyone knows that.”
Jane stared, unconvinced. Isabel was still looking at her in that funny way.
“Don’t you know what I mean?” said Isabel.
There was an awful pause. Jane wasn’t sure that she did. But it sounded dreadful.
“I—don’t—believe—it,” said Jane slowly. “André said—”
“French people are different,” said Isabel. “They don’t mind things like that.”
“They’re not different!” said Jane. But of course she knew that they were. Not different like that, though. Whatever it was, if it were true, André couldn’t know it.
“Now, don’t be silly, Jane,” said Isabel once more. “Minnie’s keeping your lunch. Go down and eat it and then telephone André and tell him.”
“I can’t tell him!” wailed Jane.
“Well—you can tell him something,” said Isabel plausibly. “You can tell him that Mamma doesn’t want you to stay indoors on such a bright afternoon.”
“Do you want me to lie to him?” said Jane.
“Well, Jane!” Isabel was actually laughing. “You wouldn’t tell him the truth, would you?”
“I won’t lie to André,” said Jane. “Besides, Mamma—”
“Oh, Mamma’ll get over it. She won’t care what you say as long as you don’t go.”
The door opened again. Jane’s mother stood on the threshold.
“Don’t be silly, Jane,” she said.
Jane wiped her eyes.
“Go down and eat your lunch!” She patted Jane very nicely on the shoulder. They all turned toward the door.
“Isabel,” said her mother, halfway down the hall, “I can’t find that book anywhere. I left it on my desk.”
“Oh!” said Isabel, and her voice sounded a bit confused. “It’s in my room. I started to bring it downstairs for you.”
Jane looked through Isabel’s door. There was the little yellow volume on the sofa, with Jane’s own French dictionary beside it. Jane despised Isabel, for a moment. Her mother picked up the volume gingerly as if it burned her fingers.
“I never expected to see,” she said, “a paper-covered French book in this house.”
“All French books have paper covers,” Jane began. André had told her that. But of course it was no use. She didn’t go on with it. Instead she went downstairs and tried to eat her lunch at the pantry table beneath the telephone, thinking of what she had better say to André.
The telephone was very new. It had only been put in that autumn and Jane usually thought it was lots of fun to use it. But she didn’t think so now. When she had eaten her ham and one preserved peach she stood before it quite a little time in silence before she gave André’s number.
He answered the call himself. She knew his voice immediately. His funny telephone voice, trickling so miraculously into her ear, when he was four long city blocks away.
“Hello, Jane,” he said.
She didn’t waste any time on preliminaries.
“I can’t come over,” she said miserably.
“Why not?” said André.
Jane gulped a little before she could reply.
“Mamma—Mamma—” she began weakly. How could she tell him?
“I don’t hear you,” said André.
“Mamma,” said Jane desperately. She couldn’t tell him. “Mamma wants me to play out of doors—it’s such a nice day.”
“Oh,” said André. He sounded very sorry. “Well—perhaps we could take a walk by the lake.”
Jane fell a prey to panic. This was what always happened when you lied.
“I—I can’t,” she said very quickly. “I—I’m going over to Flora’s.”
“Oh,” said André. And his voice sounded just a little queer.
“We—are going to play in her yard,” said Jane.
“I see,” said André.
“I—I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Jane.
He didn’t answer.
“Won’t I?” asked Jane pitifully.
“Oh, yes,” said André. “Yes. I—I’ll be waiting.”
“Well, goodbye,” said Jane.
“Goodbye,” said André. “I’m awfully sorry.”
Jane hung up the receiver. She felt perfectly miserable. She had lied to André. She despised Isabel, yet she’d taken her advice. And he hadn’t believed her. He hadn’t believed her at all. He had known she was lying. Jane was plunged in despair. Well—at least she could go over to Flora’s. She could make that lie come true.
Flora’s front door was opened by Flora’s butler. Jane always felt a little uneasy with butlers but she knew this one very well. He had been with the Furnesses for years. Not like Muriel’s butlers who changed every month or so. He smiled reassuringly down at Jane.
“Miss Flora is upstairs,” he said. All Flora’s servants called her “Miss Flora.” It was very impressive. At home everyone said just “Jane.”
Jane walked very softly down Flora’s hall, skirting the black walnut furniture with care. The floor was very slippery and the tiger skin rug before the fireplace snarled with its papier-mâché jaws and glared with its yellow glass eyes in a very realistic manner.
At the foot of the stairs she met Flora’s mother. She was beautifully dressed in a dark green velvet gown, with leg-of-mutton sleeves of lighter green taffeta, and her little blond head was held very high and topped with a tortoiseshell comb, tipped sideways in her hair. She was running down the stairs very quickly, with her little tan pug behind her, and her cheeks were very pink and her eyes were very bright, and when she saw Jane she stopped and laughed as if she were just so happy she had to laugh at everyone.
“Hello, little Jane!” she said.
At the sound of her voice someone came out of the drawing-room. It was Mr. Bert Lancaster. He looked very tall and handsome, Jane thought. She didn’t wonder that Isabel liked to dance with him. His moustache was beautiful and he had a black pearl in his necktie. He walked at once up to Flora’s mother. He took her hand as if he liked to hold it. Flora’s mother looked happier than ever.
“This is little Jane Ward,” she said.
“Hello, little Jane Ward,” laughed Mr. Bert Lancaster. He, too, looked as if he were so happy that he had to laugh at everyone.
Flora’s mother stooped over and kissed Jane’s cheek. Her face felt very smooth and soft and it smelled of flowers. Mr. Bert Lancaster was watching her. Then she picked up the pug and held it tenderly in her arms and kissed the top of its little tan head and looked up at Mr. Lancaster over its black muzzle. They turned away from Jane toward the drawing-room door.
“I told you not to come ’til four,” said Flora’s mother, still smiling up at Mr. Lancaster over the pug. Jane couldn’t hear his reply.
“Silly!” said Flora’s mother, as he held the brocade portieres aside for her at the drawing-room door. She passed through them, looking over her shoulder at Mr. Lancaster. He followed her rustling train. Jane ran upstairs to Flora’s bedroom.
Flora’s bedroom was beautiful. All blue and white, with white-painted furniture and a little brass bed and real silver brushes and mirrors on her little dressing-table. Jane had no dressing-table. She kept a wooden brush and a celluloid comb and a steel nail file in her upper bureau drawer. Flora had two heart-shaped silver picture frames, too. In one was her mother, smiling over a feather fan in a lovely light evening gown, with pearls on her throat and long white gloves running up her arms to her great puffy sleeves. In the other frame was Flora’s father. He looked a little silly in that silver heart. Fat-faced and bald-headed and solemn. It was a very good picture, though. That was just the way he always looked, on the rare occasions when Jane ran into him in Flora’s hall.
Flora wasn’t doing much of anything. Jane explained that she had come to play in the yard. Flora said that was fine. Muriel was coming over and they could go out to the playhouse.
The playhouse was a tiny structure, out near the stable, the scene of all their childish frolics. They didn’t use it to play in now, of course, but Flora sometimes made candy on the little cooking-stove and she and Jane and Muriel always liked to talk there undisturbed.
“We’ll make fudge,” said Flora.
“Mamma wants me to be out-of-doors,” said Jane, still trying to make that lie come true.
“We’ll leave the windows open,” said Flora.
Jane decided that would be true enough. They ran down the back stairs and got some things from the cook and went out the side door by the lilac bushes. Muriel was just coming around the corner.
Jane began to feel much better as soon as she measured out the chocolate and sugar. She thought she could explain to André tomorrow morning. She thought he would understand. Mothers were mothers. You weren’t responsible for what they thought or what they made you do.
Flora’s fire began to burn almost immediately. The scent of cooking chocolate permeated the air. Muriel’s pink muslin had come from Hollander’s. It had real lace on the bertha. She was going to have some high-heeled slippers.
“Hello!” said Flora suddenly. “There’s André.”
There was André, indeed, loitering a little aimlessly by the iron fence. Muriel immediately began to giggle. Jane rushed to the playhouse door.
“Yoo-hoo, André!” she called ecstatically. “Come on over!”
He vaulted the fence at a bound. Jane ran out to meet him.
“Oh, André,” she said, “I’m terribly glad you came!”
He looked pleased, but he didn’t say anything.
“We’re making candy,” said Jane.
“André! Do you like fudge?” shrieked Flora from the doorway.
“You bet,” said André. Muriel went right on giggling. Jane walked with André into the playhouse. How good the chocolate smelled! Jane felt she liked fudge, as never before.
She told him all about it, an hour later. He was walking home with her down Erie Street, in the last red rays of the October sun. It was awfully hard to lead up to it. Suddenly she took the plunge.
“I—I’m afraid I can’t do Camille with you, André,” she said.
He stopped quite still on the pavement.
“Why not?” he asked.
Jane felt her cheeks growing very hot and red.
“Mamma—Mamma doesn’t want me to,” she said.
“Why not?” asked André again.
Jane looked miserably away from him.
“She—she doesn’t like the play.”
André looked extremely astonished.
“Why,” he said finally, “she—she must like it. Everyone likes Camille.”
“Mamma doesn’t,” said Jane. There it was. That was all there was to say.
“Do you mean to tell me,” said André hotly, “that she won’t let you do it?”
Jane nodded unhappily. André looked extremely puzzled.
“Well, then,” he said finally, “I guess you can’t.”
Jane’s heart leaped up with gratitude. He did understand. Mothers were mothers. But there was still the lie.
“André—” said Jane, and stopped.
“Yes?” said André. It was terribly difficult.
“André,” said Jane again and her voice was very low. She couldn’t look at him. “I—I didn’t tell you the truth, over the telephone.”
André didn’t say anything.
“Mamma didn’t say I had to play out-of-doors this afternoon. I—I was scared to tell you what she really said.”
“Why?” said André very seriously.
Jane felt her eyes fill with tears.
“Because,” said Jane, and her lips were trembling, “I didn’t know what you’d think of me.”
André saw the tears. He looked awfully embarrassed and terribly kind.
“That’s all right, Jane,” said André. She was smiling straight up at him through the tears. “I guess you know I’ll always think one thing of you.”
Jane was consumed in a flame of grateful happiness.
“Oh, André!” she breathed.
“Never mind Camille,” said André, as they began walking again. “We can do something else.”
Jane became suddenly conscious of the windows of her house. They stared down on Pine Street.
“Perhaps—perhaps,” she said guiltily, “you hadn’t better come any further.”
André flushed right up to the edge of his beret. But he never stopped smiling.
“Oh—all right,” he said.
“See you tomorrow!” said Jane.
He waved his cap at her. Jane ran across the street and up the block. At her front steps she paused to look after him. He waved again. She felt terribly happy. She didn’t mind about Camille, now. No one could help mothers. And they would do something else.