All Kneeling/Chapter 10
Lady Dickery's motor car, with a coronet on the door and a footman beside the chauffeur, purred toward Knightsbridge, taking Christabel and Curtis to their hotel, from the dinner Lady Dickery had given in their honor.
"It's just like Caroline not to let us take a taxi," Curtis said. "She never can do enough for people. Even when she was a little girl she was always giving away everything. She took off some coral beads Aunt Ethel gave her, I remember once, and gave them to a little darky; they couldn't stop her. They never could make her mind, Ma'm'selle or Fräulein or any of them. I remember her sailing a new hat in a muddy brook, and she used to buy balloons just to sit on and pop, and hide under the table in her nightgown when Aunt Ethel was giving a dinner. The homeliest little mug, with spectacles and big front teeth, and language—boy! But everyone was crazy about her, just the way they are now. Well, you can see for yourself why they would be, she's always been so warm-hearted and generous."
Yes, so generous! Christabel thought, drawing away from him into her corner. All she wants is to give, give, give, to be the source of blessings, like God! Giving, and letting everybody know she's giving. Grabbing the center of the stage all evening!
"Don't you think she's nice?"
There was a little silence before Christabel answered, "Very nice." And after another silence, "But"
"But what?"
"Oh, nothing. Only it's strange, isn't it, that all these years in England haven't made her voice gentler?" She listened to her own voice, that sounded even more gentle and musical than usual, as she remembered hearing through the noise of the big dinner party how Caroline screamed at the sight of herself in a Watteau shepherdess hat, how Dickery was eating nothing but pineapples because of his fat stomach.
"Oh, well, she always did speak out. She wants us to come down to Clouds next week—did she ask you? You'll be crazy about it. There's a moat and a ghost and a secret passage, and gardens enough even for you. I told her what a gardener you were, and she's crazy to show you the gardens. There's some famous old clipped yew, too—I don't know much about it, but it's in all the books. And they're sure to have interesting people. I think it would be fun. Don't you?"
"Of course we'll go if you want to, Curtis."
"But don't you want to? You'd enjoy it, Christabel."
"I suppose I could look at the clipped yew while the interesting people amused each other."
"Why?"
"I've never in my life been treated the way I was tonight, Curtis! I wouldn't treat a criminal the way I was treated!"
"Why, I"
"I suppose it's fashionable not to introduce people and talk across them about things they can't possibly understand. Well, if it is, I don't want to be fashionable! I hate people who are so self-centered and conceited!"
"Why, darling! I thought you were having such a good time!"
She bit her lip and turned her head away.
"I thought you'd be crazy about Caroline! And she wants to do so much for us. She wants us to come to her later for the hunting. Wait till you see the way that woman rides! Gosh! I'd love to get some hunting!"
"The cruelty—little bright-eyed furry creatures—it's sickening!" Christabel shuddered, pulling her ermine wrap closer about her.
There was another silence before Curtis's anxious voice asked, "Is your head worse, darling?"
"My head?" she almost questioned, before she remembered that was the reason she had given for not going on to a dance with the others, as Curtis wanted to. She sighed, turned to him with a brave little smile, let a snowflake hand fall into his. But in their room, when Curtis began again about how he would like to go to Clouds, she burst into tears.
"Why, Christabel!"
She could have stopped, but she made herself go on, remembering shell-pink Lady Somebody or other, pointed out to her by Lord Dickery as the most beautiful woman in London, pug-nosed Princess de Something, who had everybody laughing. And that fat old duchess with her patronizing inflections, saying, when Christabel had finally made her understand that she was a writer: "Oh, indeed! A very pleasant hobby, no doubt." Above all, hideous loudvoiced Caroline, showing-off, dominating. I hate her, Christabel thought, not able now to stop her sobs. Oh, I'm so homesick, so homesick! They love me at home; they understand me. I want my own darling mother
She grew quieter at last, drinking the water that Curtis brought, and then lying exhausted in his arms. Her heart ached for herself, so sensitive and fragile.
"Darling, we won't go to Clouds. We won't do anything you don't want to do."
"We will go to Clouds! You must, to show you've forgiven me for being so silly—darling, dearest Curtis!" She pressed her tear-wet cheek against his as his arms tightened around her.
When she woke next morning Curtis had gone out. Her maid drew her bath and ordered her breakfast. A haystack of flowers had come from Caroline Dickery, with a note hoping that her head was better. Christabel made a face as she read it, and tore it into bits. On one bit a coronet was left intact, and she put it into her book as a marker. How childish the British were, with all their little symbols of this and that, dressing up and saying, now I am important. She pulled the paper out so the coronet showed, and looked thoughtfully at pearls and strawberry leaves.
"Ring for some vases, Minnie," she said. And when the hotel maid was bringing them in, and Minnie was shaking out the dewy tangle, she added: "They're so lovely and fresh, I suppose Lady Dickery has them sent up from her country place."
The hotel maid looked impressed by Lady Dickery's name. Amusing! Christabel thought. The English certainly are snobs.
She enjoyed a peach with a fluff of cotton wool still clinging to it, eggs, bacon, toast and jam, and although the coffee wasn't much, she managed three cups. Then she lay among her pillows, watching the lace slide back from her white lifted arms. She could see herself in two mirrors, and see repeated trunks, two other Minnies in small pleated black aprons, masses of flowers foaming and spraying. And suddenly she thought, if only Elliott could see me now!
Minnie went out with the gown Christabel had worn last night a crystal waterfall over her arm. She saw herself as she must have looked in it, coming down the marble staircase; she heard again the footmen echoing her name. Of all the affected ways of living!
Again she thought of Elliott. He would have really seen her in that gown, like a water-nymph in drops of bright water. Curtis had never even mentioned it.
In her mind she began to compose a letter to Elliott. Perhaps it would open old wounds too cruelly. But if she wrote to Boyd, she could depend on Elliott's seeing it. She got her portfolio.
"Curtis's cousin, Lady Dickery, gave a simply huge dinner for us last night," she wrote. "The guests were really nothing compared with the grandeur of the footmen, about a million of them, all with powdered hair, but they did the best they could for people who were only Dukes and Duchesses and Prime Ministers and such. Caroline Dickery is the kind of person you generally see pictures of in The Sketch or The Tatler, with a pull-on hat and large capable feet and a terrier, labeled 'Lady Dickery and Friend,' but last night she had diamonds every place but the tip of her nose, and so had all the other women, tiaras and everything—and diplomats all done up with blue ribbons—and—little me the center of it all!
"It's like a Fairy Tale. And it's hard work I have to keep the chuckles back when I think of myself in my old smock dining on an apple and a bun, with the coffee-pot bubbling on the gas ring, and then catch a glimpse of this new Christabel dressed in crystal and cloth of silver, going in to dinner on a Noble Arm, and I wonder, when Midnight strikes, will Cinderella be back in her old smock and go running out through rows of 'stonished flunkies? And then Cinderella's heart gives a leap as she thinks—if she could! But she can't. Her Rolls-Royce doesn't change into a pumpkin when Midnight strikes, her crystal gown doesn't change into the old smock, and it's only her Heart can come Home.
"I don't mean that, Boyd dear. I'm a very happy Child. But—but—I do get homesick, I do miss my friends.
"Do you ever see Elliott? I think of him so often.
"Caroline wants us to come to Clouds (their wonderful old country seat) for a house party, but I'm awfully afraid my Curtis isn't going to let me go, as I haven't been very well (I'm writing this in bed, surrounded by flowers and notes and invitations—if my head isn't turned forever it won't be the fault of all these kind, kind people). There's nothing really the matter with me, but my big boy is so strong himself that he seems to think I'm a Delicate Child made of Spun Glass and Thistledown, and spoils me accordingly. He's a Sweet Person, and it isn't his fault that he doesn't love to go adventuring, the way we do, so that I've had to steal off by my own little lonely self to"
Todo what? What were some of the things she was going to do as soon as she had a minute? Ride on a bus-top, have tea at an A. B. C. "—ride on a Bus, high up in the air over the Bobbies with their faces like scarlet peonies, and the costers' patient little gray donkeys, and have tea and Bath buns at an A. B. C.—such fun! Only—I do want some one to Play With!"
That would tell them she was still their Christabel, simple and unspoiled. And really, she could hardly wait to do those things.
Curtis had left a note saying he would be back at twelve, and it was quarter to. She finished her letter, got up, and drew the curtains close together. She was lying in the dark when he opened the door cautiously; and lifted a drooping hand to greet him.
"How are you, darling?"
"I'm all right, dearest. Kiss me."
"You're not all right, or you wouldn't have the room dark. Couldn't you eat something if I ordered it? A little soup? Some grapes?"
She shook her head.
"I'm going to get a doctor."
"Curtis, my darling, I'm all right! Just—lazy."
"You're a little liar, that's what you are. You sound as weak as a drowned kitten."
She powdered her nose and put on her pearls while Curtis was getting the doctor, a delightful man with spats and a monocle. She gave him one of Caroline's carnations for his buttonhole, and he agreed with her that she had better get out of London if she had felt ill and depressed ever since she arrived.
"Dear boy, you mustn't worry so!" she told Curtis, smoothing the lines from his forehead with gentle finger tips. "It's just that London doesn't suit me."
"Well, how about going down to Caroline's? The country, and quiet, and everything?"
"I asked him, but he was awfully down on the idea, the excitement of a big party and all. I'm so apologetic! But you go, darling! I'll be all right! I'll just go quietly somewhere. You go without me! Please!"
"Where does he think you ought to go? Where would you like to?"
"I don't care. Anywhere—anywhere, so long as it's with you! Somewhere where it will be just us alone, darling."
So they went to Paris.