The Lonely Lady of Dulwich by Maurice Baring

Author:Maurice Baring
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: House of Stratus

CHAPTER VIII

Zita left Paris the next morning with Robert Harmer, and before starting she wrote two letters; one to Jean and one to Amelia Legge. To Amelia she said that they had been obliged to start a day earlier than they had expected, and she begged her to make her excuses where it was necessary.

To Jean she wrote that she had found at the last moment she could not leave her husband; she had not changed, and did not think she would change, but she knew she would only make him, Jean, unhappy if she left Robert.

A few days later Amelia Legge heard from Zita, who said that she had arrived safely in London. About a fortnight later still Madeleine burst in on Amelia one morning and said she had things of importance to tell her. Jean was ill. At one moment his life had been despaired of. His mother was nursing him in his apartment. She, Madeleine Laurent, had been away during the last fortnight at Fontainebleau, and had only just heard the news. Madame de Bosis had been to see her. It had been brain fever, apparently. Now he was out of danger.

“Was it because of Zita?” Amelia asked.

“His mother says so,” said Madeleine. “He seems to have been stunned by her departure, then demented, then ill.”

“But how extraordinary!” said Amelia, “he had stopped going near her.”

“He had probably given it up as hopeless, but that did not prevent him feeling what he felt. Madame de Bosis says he was in love with Zita, and that she led him on and then left him. She is furious with her, of course. And she says that is how all Englishwomen behave, that she is a cold-hearted flirt: cold-hearted and hot-blooded. We had a long discussion, and I tried to make her admit that Zita’s going away was the best thing that could have happened. But all she said was: ‘You don’t know Jean. He’s not like the others. He will never get over it.’ I said they would have been equally unhappy whatever else had happened. Suppose she had run away with Jean, I said. ‘God forbid,’ Madame de Bosis had answered. ‘Well, then, what?’ I asked, ‘an ordinary liaison?’… ‘Whatever they did, the mischief was done,’ she said. ‘My son has been poisoned by that woman.’ ”

“And what do you think, Madeleine?” asked Amelia.

“I think,” said Madeleine, “that she did not love him and that she never did love him. I think Jean loved her and saw it was hopeless. That he left off seeing her, thought he was cured, and found when she went away that he was not cured at all. Of course, I do not pretend to understand vous autres.”

“But it is just as difficult for me,” said Amelia plaintively. “I don’t pretend to understand Zita; and the more I see of her, and the longer I know her, the less I feel I understand her.”

“And Harmer?” asked Madeleine, “did he perhaps play a part?”

“I wonder,” said Amelia, “Robert is by no means a fool.

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