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Clark's Field, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Chapter 16 |
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_ CHAPTER XVI Some years ago Prince Ponitowski had built in Neuilly, near the gate of the Bois, what contemporary novelists described as a "nest" for his mistress--a famous Parisian lady. It was a fascinating little villa with a demure brick and stone facade, a terrace, and a few shady trees in a tiny, high-walled garden. The prince died, and the lady having made other arrangements, the smart little villa came into the hands of Miss Catherine Comstock, who took a long lease of the premises and established there her family of "select" American girls. It might seem that the tradition of the Villa Ponitowski (as the place continued to be called) was hardly suitable for her purposes, but the robust common sense of our age rarely hesitates over such intangible considerations, and least of all the sophisticated Miss Comstock. At the Villa Ponitowski the young women enjoyed the healthful freedom of a suburb with the open fields of the Bois directly at their door, and yet were within easy reach of Paris, "with its galleries and many cultural opportunities"--according to the familiar phrasing of Miss Comstock's letters to inquiring parents. (She had no circulars.) Miss Catherine Comstock herself was, in the last analysis, from Toledo, Ohio, of an excellent family that had its roots in the soil of Muskingum. When her father died, there being no immediate prospect of marriage, she had taken to teaching in a girls' private school. It was not long before the routine of an American private school became irksome to her venturous spirit, and she conceived the idea of touring Europe with rich girls who had nothing else to do. From this developed the Neuilly scheme, which provided for the needs of that increasing number of Americans with daughters who for one reason or another do not live in America, and also for those American girls who could afford to experiment in the fine arts "carefully shielded from undesirable associates"--another favorite Comstock phrase. At first the art and education idea had been much to the fore, and Miss Comstock had fortified herself with one or two teachers and hired other assistants occasionally. But the life of Paris had proved so congenial and its "opportunities" so abundant that Miss Comstock had come to rely more and more upon the "privilege of European residence" and dispensed altogether with formal instruction. She soon found that that was what the girls who came to her really wanted, even if their parents had vague thoughts of other things. In short, the Neuilly school was nothing else than a superior sort of select pension for eight or ten girls, with facilities for travel and more or less "society." Miss Comstock herself--affectionately known to "her girls" as "Pussy" Comstock--had been rather angular and plain in the Toledo days, but under the congenial air of Paris and good dressmakers had developed into a smart specimen of the free-lance, middle-aged woman, with the sophistication of a thorough acquaintance with the world and much prudence garnered from a varied experience. She made an excellent impression upon the sort of parents she dealt with as a "woman who really knows life," and the girls always liked her, found her "a good chum." They called her "Pussy"! Miss Comstock kept with her a dumpy little American woman with glasses, who did what educational work was attempted, and the more tedious chaperonage. The Villa Ponitowski, in a word, was one of the modern adjustments between the ignorance and selfishness of parents and the selfishness and folly of children. The parents handed over their daughters for a season to Miss Comstock with a sigh of relief, believing that their girls would be perfectly "safe" in her care and might possibly improve themselves in language and knowledge of art and the world. And the daughters rejoiced, knowing from the reports of other girls that they would have "a perfectly bully time," freed from the annoying prejudices of parents, and might pick up an adventure or two of a sentimental nature.... Into this final varnishing bath our heroine was plunged with her three friends, in the autumn of 1902, when she was eighteen years old. The girls arrived at the Villa from a motoring trip across Europe, during which they had scurried over the surface of five countries and put up in thirty-eight different hotels as the labels on their bags triumphantly proclaimed. Miss Comstock received the party in her own little salon in the rear of the Villa, where, after the elder Glynns had withdrawn, liqueurs and cigarettes were served. Miss Comstock lit a cigarette, perched her well-shod feet on a stool, and listened with sympathetic amusement to the adventures of the trio as vivaciously related by Eveline Glynn. The California sisters, it developed, had the cigarette habit, too, and Eveline tried one of "Pussy's" special kind. When the girls went to their rooms, to which they were conducted by Miss Comstock with an arm around the waist of Adelle and another about Irene Paul, the girls agreed that "Pussy" was "all right" and congratulated themselves upon the perspicacity of their choice. At Herndon Hall there had been at least the pretense of discipline and study, but all such childish notions were laughed at in the Villa Ponitowski. Eveline Glynn thought she had a voice and a teacher was engaged for her. Irene Paul devoted herself to the art of whistling, while her sister "went in for posters." Another girl was supposed to be studying painting and resorted a few afternoons each week to a studio, well chaperoned. Miss Comstock promised to find something for Adelle to do in an art way. But there was nothing pedantic or professional about the Villa Ponitowski. Miss Comstock prided herself upon her outlook. She knew that her girls would marry in all likelihood, and she endeavored to give them something of the horizon of broad boulevards and watering-places as a preparation. All the girls had their own maids, who brought them the morning cup of coffee whenever they rang--usually not before noon. The European day, Adelle learned, began about one o'clock with a variety of expeditions and errands, and frequently ended well after midnight at opera or play, or dancing party at the home of some American resident to whom Miss Comstock introduced her charges. This was during the season. Then there were, of course, expeditions to Rome and Vienna and Madrid, tours of cathedral towns, inspection of watering-places, etc. Behold, thus, the sole descendant of the hard-grubbing, bucolic Clarks waking from her final nap at eleven in the morning, imbibing her coffee from a delicate china cup, and nibbling at her brioche, while her maid opened the shutters, started a fire in the grate, and laid out her dresses, chattering all the time in charming French about delectable nothings. Addie Clark, surely, would have felt that she had not lived in vain if she could have beheld her only child at this time, and overheard the serious debate as to which "robe" Mademoiselle Adelle would adorn herself with for the afternoon, and have seen her, finally equipped, descending to the salon to join Miss Comstock, who was usually engaged with her correspondence at this hour. Adelle, it is perhaps needless to say, had quickly perceived the enlarged opportunity for the use of her magic lamp. She at once ordered a very comfortable limousine, which was driven by an experienced chauffeur, and thus transported herself, Miss Comstock, and any of the girls she chose to invite to the exhibition at the Georges Petit Gallery, thence to a concert, or perhaps merely to tea at the new hotel in the Champs Elysees. If any reader has perhaps considered Adelle backward or stupid, he must quickly revise that opinion at this point. For it was truly extraordinary the rapidity with which the pale, passive young heiress caught the pace of Paris. The note of the world about her was the spending note, and the drafts she made through her French bankers upon the Washington Trust Company caused a certain uneasiness even among those sophisticated officials, used to the expenditures of the rich. Of course, Miss Comstock introduced her charges to the best dressmakers and dispensers of lingerie and millinery (for which service she obtained free of charge all her own clothes). Adelle soon found her own way into the shops of the Rue de la Paix and developed a genuine passion--the first one of her life--for precious stones. It may be remembered that when she was taken as a little girl for the first time into the new home of the trust company, she had been much impressed by the gorgeousness of colored marble and glass there profusely used. For a long time the great banking-room with its dim violet light had remained in her memory as a source of sensuous delight, and as her opportunities had increased she had turned instinctively to things of color and warmth, especially in stones and fabrics. In those public and private exhibitions to which she was constantly conducted as part of her education in art she hung over the cases that contained specimens of new designs in metal and stone. Miss Comstock, perceiving her interest in these toys, encouraged Adelle to try her own hand at the manufacture of jewelry, and engaged a needy woman worker to give her the necessary lessons in the lapidary art. Adelle had acquired considerable sloth from her desultory way of living; nevertheless, when the chance was forced into her hands, she took to the new work with ardor and produced some bungling imitations of the new art, which were much admired at the Villa Ponitowski. Eveline, not to be outdone, took up bookbinding, though she scarcely knew the inside of one book from another. The art of tooling leather was then cultivated by women of fashion in New York: it gave them something to talk about and a chance to play in a studio. I should like to record that Adelle developed a latent talent for making beautiful things in the art she had inadvertently chosen to practice. But that would be straining the truth. It requires imagination to produce original and pleasing objects in small jewelry, and of imagination Adelle had not betrayed a spark. Moreover, it takes patience, application, and a skillful hand to become a good craftsman in any art, and these virtues had no encouragement in the life that Adelle had led since leaving the Church Street house. So in spite of the admiration aroused by her bijoux when she gave them to the inmates of the Villa, it must be admitted that they were more like the efforts of a school child who has prepared its handiwork for presents to admiring relatives than anything else. But at least it was a real interest, and it raised Adelle in her own estimation. Some of the happiest days she had known were spent in the studio of Miss Cornelia Baxter, on the Rue de l'Universite. She would have spent more time there if her other engagements or distractions had not constantly interrupted her pursuit of art. Her position of practical independence and unlimited means gave her a prestige in "Pussy" Comstock's household that exhausted most of her time and energy. Her car and herself were in constant demand. And in the Easter holidays "the family" went to Rome for a month, and to London at the opening of the season there in June. So not much time was left for the pursuit of art. Yet this effort to make jewelry on Adelle's part is important, as the first sign of promise of individuality. It betrayed the possibility of a taste. She loved color, richness of substance, and Europe was satisfying this instinct. Pale and colorless herself, mentally perhaps anaemic or at least lethargic, she discovered in herself a passion for color and richness. Certain formless dreams about life began to haunt her mind--vague desires of warmth and color and emotion. Thus Paris was developing the latent possibilities of sensuousness in this pale offshoot of Puritanism. _ |
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