I would go to the salon and confront him. But when I arrived the salon was empty. I went up to the studio. He was not there and I realized he had left with Mimi. I felt uncertain. Waiting had always been trying for me. I wanted to strike quickly. I wanted to be on my way. Where to? That was the question.
I rehearsed what I would say to him. I was ready and waiting, but still he did not come back.
He did not return that night. Was he with Mimi? It seemed possible. Perhaps there was someone else. But surely he was staying away to show he cared nothing for my feelings.
It was early afternoon of the next day when he came into the house.
I waited for him in the salon. When he came I said with the utmost restraint, tinged only slightly with sarcasm, “You have had a pleasant time?”
“Very, thank you.”
“With Mimi, the model?”
“Is that your affair?”
“I imagine it is yours.”
He lifted his shoulders and smiled at me benignly.
“Are you telling me she is your mistress?”
“I did not speak of it,” he said.
“Listen, Jacques …”
He continued to smile. “I listen,” he said.
“You can’t expect me to accept this.”
He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
This was maddening. He was behaving as though it were perfectly natural for me to find him in the company of a semi-clad woman and then go off to spend the night with her. I could be calm no longer.
“This is unacceptable!” I cried.
“Unacceptable?” He repeated the word as though puzzled. “Why so?”
“How dare you treat me like this?”
“Treat? What is this treat?”
He was seeking refuge behind an imperfect knowledge of the language. I had seen him do this before. But I knew he understood.
“I left home,” I said, “to come here … and now …”
“You left your home because you no longer wanted to stay there.”
“I gave up everything … for you.”
“You are being very … provincial.”
“And you are so worldly, so sophisticated.”
“I thought you had grown up, too.”
“How can you do this … right under my nose?”
“Your nose?” he said, puzzled again.
“You know exactly what I mean. You make no secret of what is going on.”
“Secret? What is this secret?”
“She is your mistress.”
“So?”
I could not go on. I would burst into recriminations if I did, and that would not help me.
“I hate you,” I said.
He lifted his shoulders and regarded me with that benevolent tolerance an adult might show towards a recalcitrant child.
I could bear no more. I ran out of the room, took a coat and left the house.
There was only one place I could go. Janet Bailey had said: “You know where we are, dear. You can always come to us and we shall be glad to see you.”
I was so relieved to find she was at home.
“I am so glad you came,” she said at once. “Geoff and I are getting ready to leave.”
I stared at her in dismay. This was another blow. What should I do now?
“Come in,” she went on. “And I’ll tell you all about it.”
I sat down in a daze.
“Cup of tea?” she asked.
“Tell me about your going first,” I said.
“It’s on company advice … well, orders, more like. It’s the way things are going. They’re sure there’ll be war. They think it’s better for us to get home. All the English staff will be leaving and the office will be run by French employees. Heaven knows what will happen! Anyway, we’ll be leaving.”
“When?” I stammered.
“In a few days. Just time to get ourselves together.”
“Oh,” I said blankly. Then she noticed something was wrong.
“What is it?” she said, and I blurted out what had happened.
“You can’t stay with him!”
“No … but what can I do?”
“You’ll have to go home. Why not come with us? We’ll talk to Geoff about it. He should be home in a couple of hours. Things are in a whirl at the office. They’re all saying Hitler won’t stop at Poland and then the balloon will go up. It will be a stampede getting back once it’s started.”
I was seeing a way out. I could go with them. They would help me.
Janet went on as though reading my thoughts.
“Yes, you must come with us. I am sure that will be the best for you.”
“How can I go home?”
“You’ll have to make a clean breast of it, dear. There’s no help for it.”
“Oh … I couldn’t do that.”
“What then? Stay here? Have you any money?”
“I haven’t bothered much about money. I have a little at the moment. Jacques always seemed to have plenty and he was quite generous. He liked me to buy clothes and things. I still have most of the last lot he gave me. I think he had a private income. I don’t believe he earned much with his paintings. That was one of the reasons I found life in the Latin Quarter so different from what I expected it to be. I’ve spent hardly anything recently. I suppose it was due to this growing resentment against him. Perhaps I had some notion of getting home. I am not sure. My plans are so vague.”
I could not remember how much I had, but I thought it would pay my fare home.
“Never mind,” said Janet. “We’d help, of course. You will, of course, have to leave with us, dear. It’s the only way. You will have to go back to your husband. Perhaps he will forgive you.”
“I couldn’t,” I said.
“But what will you do? You can’t stay with that man. I don’t suppose he’ll want you now he’s got this other one. Then you’ve always got that nice sister of yours—and your mother and father, too. They’ll look after you. I know it’s not nice having to eat humble pie, but sometimes it’s the only way.”
I could see that she was right, and I was wondering where I could work something out.
“Besides,” she went on, “what work could you do here? I can see something terrible happening to you if you stayed. No, you’ve got to come home with us. If you can’t go back to your husband, there are your sister and your parents.”
She was right, of course. The more I thought about it, the more I could see that I would go home with her and Geoffrey and in the meantime I would make a plan.
We talked in this strain until Geoffrey came home.
“We are leaving at the end of the week,” he said.
He listened to my tale of woe and said, of course I must go back with them. I embraced them warmly and said I did not deserve such good friends.
I stayed the night there and the next morning went back to Jacques’s house and packed my clothes. I was hoping to leave without seeing Jacques, but he arrived just as I was about to go.
“I’m leaving,” I said.
I fancied I saw a certain relief in his face.
“As you wish,” he replied.
“I am going home.”
“That will be wise.”
I felt a certain exultation because I felt no love for him now. I just wanted to forget the whole episode. If only he had never come to Cornwall! “The moving finger writes …”
But at least I would be free of him. I would find some way out of this. Violetta would help, as she always had.
“You’ll need money,” he said. “Your fare …”
“I can manage, thank you.”
He looked surprised. Then, characteristically, he made that gesture of lifting his shoulders, which had begun to irritate me.
“I would most happily …”
“No, thank you. Goodbye.”
“Bon voyage.”
And so I left Jacques.