Mrs. Vanderstein's jewels — Themes and Context

anderstein had not herself met the lady at closer quarters.

"The poor young man was not near enough to observe my wrinkles and my double chin, Madame Justine!"

"Bah! You will have forgotten the word wrinkle, which is not _d'ailleurs_ a pretty one, by the time I have finished giving you my course of treatment. And as for a double chin, look at me, madame! I assure you that, in my time, I have developed no less than five double chins. And I have rubbed them all away. Do you suppose, then, that I shall allow you to have one?"

Mrs. Vanderstein looked as she was bidden. Indeed she lost no opportunity of studying the countenance of the little Frenchwoman, who, on her own admission, was at least ten years older than herself, but whose face was as smooth and unlined as that of a girl, though there was an indefinable something in the expression, an experienced glimmer, perhaps, in the eyes, that prevented her appearance from being entirely youthful.

Still, she might very well have been taken for Mrs. Vanderstein's junior, even for her younger sister, possibly, if she had been as well dressed, for there was a certain resemblance between the two women. Both were short and plump, both had long oval faces and brown eyes set rather near together beneath arched, well-marked eyebrows, and, though Madame Querterot had not a drop of Jewish blood in her veins and her nose did not assume the Hebraic droop that in Mrs. Vanderstein betrayed her race, yet it was distinctly of the hooked variety and gave her a family likeness to the children of Israel, on which fact her relations and friends had frequently considered it entertaining to dwell. Her hair, however, was golden and fluffy, curling about her head with a juvenile abandon; while Mrs. Vanderstein's dark, straight locks were simply and severely dressed at the back, and concealed on her forehead by a large, flat curled fringe in the manner affected by the English Royal ladies.

Mrs. Vanderstein at all events was sincere in her admirations.

"If you can make me look as young as you do," she said now, "I ask nothing better. But indeed London in this hot weather is very wearing, and I see myself grow older every morning. To-day it was oppressive to drive even in an open motor."

To drive? Ah! Madame Querterot was not imaginative, but a vision of the crowded bus in which she went about her business floated before her, side by side with one of a rushing motor car; and she paused in her work for a minute and looked around her.

An electric fan revolved tirelessly above the window, and on a table at the foot of the bed was placed a large block of ice, half hidden in flowers and ferns. She raised herself, inhaling the cool air in long, deep breaths.

"It has been hot, very hot, these last days," she admitted. "It reminds me of our beautiful Paris, and of much in my young days that I would be content to forget," she added, with a laugh. "Ah, the room in that city, in which as a girl I used to work; the little dark room where I learnt my trade! It was hot in that room in the summer. But, madame, I could not tell you how hot it was. I remember one of the girls who used to pray quite seriously to die, because, she explained to us, wherever she went in another world it could not fail to be more cool. It was over a baker's kitchen and had no window except one which gave on to a sort of shaft that ran up the middle of the house, so that we had the gas always burning. Oh, la, la!"

"How dreadful!" murmured Mrs. Vanderstein comfortably. "I wonder it was allowed."

"Allowed? Ah, madame, there are plenty of worse workrooms than that in Paris. I wonder what you would say if you could see your dresses made! We liked it very well in the winter, for there were no stairs, and it was agreeable then to shut the window and profit by the warmth from the kitchen. That was all long ago, before I married that poor Eugène and came to live in London. They were, all the same, not so bad, those days. Ah, la jeunesse, la belle jeunesse, which one does not know how to enjoy when one has it."

Madame Querterot crossed over to the table and laid her hands on the block of ice, casting a glance over her shoulder to the window where Barbara sat at her sentry post. The motionless, silent figure annoyed Madame Querterot. To be conscious that all her chatter was overheard by that quiet listener got on her nerves and sometimes made her, as she said, feel as if her own words would suffocate her. There was so much she could have said to Mrs. Vanderstein from time to time if they had been alone--much that she instinctively felt would have been very acceptable to that lady--but in the presence of Miss Turner, even though nothing of her were visible except the back of her head, there were, it appeared, lengths of flattery to which Madame Querterot found herself incapable of proceeding. Thus did a feeling of awkwardness, some sense of restraint, cast a certain gloom over hours that should have been the brightest in the day.

"These roses, madame, how fine they are," she murmured, bending towards a bowl that stood on the table, and unconsciously her voice took on a note of defiance as she faced the window. "They are as beautiful as if they were artificial. One would say they were made of silk!"

Mrs. Vanderstein laughed tolerantly, but Barbara, her face turned to the street, made a naughty face.

Madame Querterot, with hands ice cool, went back to her massage, and for a little while again no one spoke.

Suddenly Barbara turned.

"Here comes a Royal carriage," she said. "I think it is Prince Felipe of Targona and his mother."

"Oh I must see them," cried Mrs. Vanderstein, jumping up, and brushing Madame Querterot unceremoniously aside. "Where are they?" She ran to the window.

The masseuse followed more slowly, and three heads were thrust out over the street.

A carriage was driving up to the steps of Fianti's.

To allow it to approach, a waiting motor was obliged to move away, and in the short interval that elapsed while this was being wound up and started off the carriage paused almost immediately opposite the window of Mrs. Vanderstein's bedroom; she had thus a better view of its occupants than it had ever previously been her fortune to obtain.

On the right of the barouche sat an elderly lady, with grey hair piled high under a very small black hat. She sat very upright and stiff, giving a little nervous start when the horses moved forward impatiently and were drawn up with a jerk by the coachman.

"That is the Princess," said Barbara, whose head was touching Mrs. Vanderstein's.

Prince Felipe sat beside his mother, a middle-aged young man of forty with a black upturned moustache and an eyeglass. He had a cigarette in his hand and, as they looked, he turned round and gazed after a smartly dressed woman who was driving by.

On the back seat of the carriage sat two other men--gentlemen in waiting, no doubt.

Mrs. Vanderstein's eyes were, however, fully occupied with the Princess and her son.

"Isn't he handsome?" she whispered to Barbara, as if there were a danger of being overheard above the rattle and din of the busy roadway.

But it almost seemed as if the words reached the ears of the man she was watching, for, the motor in the portico having at last got under way and left the road clear for Their Highnesses, the Prince threw back his head as the carriage moved on, and looking up met Mrs. Vanderstein's eyes fixed admiringly on him.

She drew back her head in some confusion, but the Prince was still looking up when the barouche disappeared in the shade of the portico.

"Madame! Son Altesse vous a reconnue!" cried Madame Querterot, her face wreathed in smiles.

"He never saw me before," replied Mrs. Vanderstein, retreating into the room. "How odd that he should have looked up just then! What a charming face he has." And she subsided once more on the sofa, her own face aglow with excitement and pleasure.

"Don't move from the window, Barbara, whatever you do," she said. "Just think if we had missed them!"

As Madame Querterot resumed her rubbing, a knock came at the door, and Mrs. Vanderstein's maid entered bearing the jewels her mistress intended wearing that night at the opera. As she set the cases down on the dressing-table and busied herself in laying out the various garments of her mistress' evening toilet, she cast from time to time disapproving glances in the direction of Madame Querterot, whom, although a compatriot, she disliked very heartily, considering that in the privacy of Mrs. Vanderstein's chamber any ministrations besides her own were unnecessary, and having altogether a strong tendency to look upon her countrywoman as an interloper, who had possibly an eye to a share in various perquisites for which Amélie preferred to see no other candidate in the field.

She took an elaborate gown from the wardrobe and spread it out upon the bed together with divers other articles of attire. She placed a jug of hot water in the basin and a jar of aromatic salts beside it.

She straightened several objects on the dressing-table, which had no need of being made straight; tilted the looking-glass forward and tilted it back again; lifted up a chair and set it down with a thud; and finally, despairing of ever witnessing the departure of her dreaded rival, was about to leave the room when her mistress' voice called her back.

"Amélie," she said, "just show me what necklace you have brought up for me to-night. Is it the one with the flower pendants or the stone drops?"

Amélie carried all the cases over to the sofa; and Madame Querterot left off rubbing while Mrs. Vanderstein sat up and opened them one by one.

In the largest a magnificent diamond necklace, imitating a garland of wild roses and their leaves, glistened against its blue velvet background. The other cases, when opened, displayed bracelets and a diamond tiara, as well as rings and a pair of ear-rings formed of immense single stones.

Mrs. Vanderstein shut them all up again and handed them back to Amélie.

"Take them down again to Blake," she said, "and tell him I have changed my mind and will wear the emeralds instead. They go better with that dress."

"Ah, madame," sighed Madame Querterot, as Amélie departed with the jewels, "what marvellous diamonds! Wherever one goes one hears the jewels of Mrs. Vanderstein spoken of."

"It is true," said Mrs. Vanderstein, "that my jewels are very good. My dear husband had a passion for them and collected stones as another man collects bric-à-brac. He never made a mistake, they say, and my ornaments are rather out of the way in consequence. For myself I feel it an extravagance to lock up such a vast amount of capital in mere gewgaws."

"My poor Eugène," said Madame Querterot, "had also this same enthusiasm for precious stones. He loved so to adorn his wife with diamonds, that dear soul! But with him it was, alas, more than an extravagance. It was our ruin; for he was not a connoisseur, like monsieur votre mari, and when the crisis came and we would have turned my jewellery back into money, behold, we were told that we had been cheated in our purchases, and that, for the most part, the stones were without value. Ah, the sad day! As you know, madame, bankruptcy followed, and we had to give up our beautiful _établissement_ in Bond Street. It broke the heart of that poor Eugène. He never recovered from the blow and soon left me, I trust for a happier world, by way, it goes without saying, of purgatory," added the masseuse, crossing herself like a good Catholic. "Since that day I have faced the troubles of this life alone, without friendship, without sympathy."

Here her emotion overcame Madame Querterot, and she turned away for a moment with a display of her handkerchief. She had omitted from her affecting narrative the fact that "that poor Eugène" had perished by his own hand, on discovering the state of his affairs; and she slightly trifled with the truth when she asserted that it was his unfortunate craze for covering his wife with jewels which had brought about such a disastrous state of things. It was Madame Querterot's own passion for the adornment of her person that had resulted in the dissipation of Eugène's savings, and brought him, at the last, to see with despair the total disappearance of the business, which she had neglected and ruined.

Mrs. Vanderstein's kind heart was touched.

She had heard vaguely the reason of the Querterots' removal from their gorgeous Bond Street rooms after the death of Eugène, the incomparable hairdresser, and it was from a creditable desire not to desert the unfortunate that she continued to employ the little Frenchwoman since the day of the catastrophe. But no details of the affair had reached her, and she now heard for the first time, and not without being sincerely moved, the sad story of a man who, having spent his all in lavishing tokens of affection on his wife, had in the end reduced her to a state of poverty bordering on want, and even left her to confront this terror in solitude, as a result of his misdirected tenderness.

Considerably affected, she tried to speak words of comfort to the poor woman.

"It is dreadfully sad," she murmured. "Poor Madame Justine, how sorry I am. Your poor husband, I see well how he must have adored you and that what he did was all for the best. But you are not absolutely alone in the world, are you? Have you not a daughter?"

"Yes, it is true, madame, that I have a daughter," replied Madame Querterot, wiping her eyes and resuming her work.

"And she is no doubt a great comfort to you?"

"Children, madame, are at once a joy and a trouble," returned the masseuse evasively.

"I hope your daughter has not caused you much trouble."

"She has given me nothing but worry since the day she was born. Her childhood, her education, her illnesses! Measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, mumps, scarlet fever; she has had them all one after the other."

"But not while you have been coming to see me!" cried Mrs. Vanderstein, alarmed.

"Ah no, madame, all that is long finished," replied Madame Querterot, "but since then I have been obliged to provide for her education, and every year she has become more expensive. Now she is eighteen, and you would imagine her anxious to repay some of the expense and _ennuis_ she has caused me during all these years."

"Yes, no doubt," agreed Mrs. Vanderstein, "she will be a great help to you now."

"So one would think. But figure to yourself, madame, what this young girl proposes to me to do with her life. She desires to enter a convent and to spend her days in good works rather than be of assistance to her mother!" and Madame Querterot laughed bitterly.

"I think she ought not to take such a decisive step at present," said Mrs. Vanderstein; "at the age of eighteen she can hardly know if a religious life is really her vocation."

"She is obstinate like a donkey, madame. Just think of it, a young girl, healthy, not ugly; already she has had offers of marriage. There is a young man, very _bien_, very _comme il faut_, who demands her hand and who thinks of nothing but her. But will she take him? No. Not at all. We prefer to be a religious; and _voilà_!"

Madame Querterot, having finished her massaging, was repacking the brown bag in which she had brought her apparatus.

"I hope that you will amuse yourself at the opera, madame," she went on, folding her apron and laying it on top of the other things in the bag, the lock of which clicked as she shut it down with an impatient snap.

"A demain, mesdames," she concluded, taking up the bag by the handle and giving it a shake as if she only wished she could so shake her unsatisfactory child. "A cette heure-ci, n'est-ce pas?"

And with that she bowed herself from the room.

Mrs. Vanderstein and Barbara hurried over their dinner and were early in their places in Covent Garden. Mrs. Vanderstein always arrived before the orchestra had tuned up. She had, like many of her race, a great appreciation of music and did not like to miss a bar of the overture, even though she had already heard the opera that was being given so often that she knew it by heart.

She felt very much in a mood to enjoy herself that evening, and till the first act was over leant back in her chair with half-closed eyes, hardly moving at all, and absolutely absorbed in listening to the wonderful singers who were that night interpreting Puccini's melodious work. Even the Royal box opposite barely distracted her attention for more than a few moments.

Barbara Turner was not musical, but she, too, was always pleased to go to the opera. She liked the sensation of luxury, which enveloped her there even more than elsewhere; she liked the feeling that the entertainment offered them was costing a huge amount of money, and therefore could only be witnessed by a privileged few. Although she laughed at Mrs. Vanderstein's passion for Royalty, she shared her simple satisfaction in the knowledge that the box in which they were now sitting was sandwiched between that occupied by the Duke of Mellinborough on their left, and the one tenanted by Sir Ian Fyves, the sporting Scotch millionaire.

Barbara rejoiced in the exclusiveness obtainable by the rich, therein differing from some other people who depreciate the advantages of wealth on the grounds that the largest fortunes may be made and handled by the most vulgar, and that banking accounts are not in these days the exclusive property of the refined, or even of the intellectual.

Mrs. Vanderstein made no secret of the benefit to her health derived from hours spent in the closest proximity to the aristocracy, the air inhaled by a duchess being separated from that which filled her own lungs merely by the thinnest of partitions. She invariably occupied the chair on the left-hand side of the box, so that the space between her and her unseen neighbours might be thought of in terms of inches; and it cannot be denied that Barbara herself relished the thought of the company of the great who surrounded her, heedless though they might be of the pleasure they were providing. It was not really to be expected, besides, that the nearness of Sir Ian Fyves, whose horse had already so easily won the Derby the year before, and who was again the lucky owner of the favourite for the coming contest, should leave unmoved the daughter of Bill Turner, the trainer.

All Barbara's childhood had been passed at Newmarket, and the talk of the racing men with whom her father associated had been the first to fall on her infantile ears. The horses in his charge had grown to be her chief interest in life, as they were that of every one she was brought in contact with; and at the age of ten she knew as much about them--their points, prowess, value, and chances--as any stable boy on the place. On a small but truculent pony she followed her father and his friends to the heath in the early mornings and watched the morning gallops with a critical eye; with the same edifying companions she pottered about the stableyard during most of the rest of the day, and only when bed-time came--and it came at eight o'clock, for on that one point her father was firm--was she reluctantly torn away.

All Mr. Vanderstein's horses were trained by her father, and many a time the childish eyes followed them to victory.