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Fleur Ange:
Marjorie Bowen:
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Fleur Ange
by
Marjorie Bowen
Cover based on a detail from an antique painting
First published in The Windsor Magazine, April 1925
Reprinted in MacLean's, 1 May 1926
This e-book edition: Project Gutenberg Australia, 2023
And there across the windows from which she and Quentin for six years, and the
babies for all their lives, had looked out, were placards with the words "To Let."
SHE remembered that her too pretty name was
supposed to have come from a cookery book—an old,
aristocratic cookery book filled with recipes for luxurious
sweets to be made by the idle hands of great ladies. "Fleur ange"
had been a queen of delicacies—frothed cream, fragrant
fruit, jewel-like jelly and a garnish of fresh flower buds. It
had been an exquisite amusing name for a delicious baby, a
charming name for a gay and lovely girl; it was not, the owner of
it thought, quite such an appropriate name for a young woman, in
a faded apron, making a suet pudding, the background being a
homely kitchen.
The suet pudding represented the facts of life, the solid
stratum to which whipped cream is only the merest decoration.
Fleur Ange had married a poor man and was living as a poor man's
wife; it was an experiment of which she had often read, and
always as gilded by a beautiful sentiment that concealed all
sordidness.
And Fleur Ange had begun with the most genuine and beautiful
sentiment; there had not been much in her pleasant little life,
but all there had been she had sacrificed, and so gladly with
such an exultation of self-abnegation.
She had even, in her love for Quentin Fairfax, done a very
fantastic thing, something that people had rather laughed at. She
possessed in her own right a little fortune that had come from
her mother; it amounted to an income of nearly two thousand a
year, and Fleur Ange, at her lover's stern insistence, had left
this money untouched; he had refused to marry her on any other
terms.
"I can't make good struggling against your income," he had
said. "I've got to feel the burden is on me. We shan't be
paupers. I make five hundred a year; it will be a good life. Put
your money by in case I fail you, but don't use it while I live
and can work."
And Fleur Ange had promised. Only twice since had the money
been mentioned between them. Once, when the first child was born,
he had said: "You can tie your money up for him, Fleur Ange."
And again, some time after the second child was born, She had
said: "Why not take some of my money and buy a business of your
own?"
But he had declined almost curtly. "I don't want a business of
my own. I'm learning more the other way."
For the first time Fleur Ange had thought him unreasonable. He
was an engineer in a big firm of motor makers, and now earning
seven hundred a year; but it wasn't enough—Fleur Ange had
to live rigidly. "It will be a good life," he had said, but now
she questioned that.
There had been six years of it. Absurd as it seemed, she was
thirty. Her people, her friends, were good-humoured and kind, but
she knew their opinion of her, and this knowledge began to sting
as it had never stung at first.
In their early days Quentin, with shy enthusiasm, had talked
of a possible invention of his which would bring fame and money;
but now it was a long time since he had mentioned
it—failure, no doubt, lay behind the silence.
It was not very likely, thought Fleur Ange as she rolled her
pudding in the scalded, floured cloth, that Quentin would ever
earn much more than he earned now. No doubt he was, as she had
heard other men call him, "one of the lucky ones," but seven
hundred a year, minus income tax and life insurance, was a very
meagre allowance to a girl educated among riches.
Fleur Ange had to cook, sew, nurse, dust, mend, worst of all,
"contrive." She had easily learnt to do all these things quite
well, but she was becoming tired—ah, tired!
The small flat in the quiet dull suburb, the third-rate
streets, the cheap shops, the lonely walks with the children on
the common, broken only by visits, more and more rare, from
people who were slowly "dropping" her, the short perfunctory
holiday in the most crowded, banal season each year, all these
things began to pall. It seemed foolish to endure them when she
had the means to alter everything to her hand.
And, deepest grievance of all, Quentin did not seem to
appreciate her sacrifice. He was himself from a home of stern
though decent poverty, the arid grind of a clergyman's family's
existence in a small town, and he honestly thought he was earning
a lot of money, and that they were living quite comfortably.
Fleur Ange had a woman for the hardest work, and it seemed to her
husband only natural that she should occupy herself with the
other duties.
Fleur Ange looked round the tidy kitchen; it was the glance of
a captive seeking vainly some outlet for escape.
A lazy September sunshine fell through the high windows; there
was languor and tedium in the air. The common on which the block
of flats looked was burnt bistre colour by an arid summer; a few
rusty crackling leaves were all that remained on the sparse
trees; the pale blue sky was veiled by a dust-coloured haze.
Fleur Ange frowned as she slowly washed her hands at the stone
sink. She hungered for either the gay pulse of the city or the
calm fragrance of the country; this No Man's Land of straggling
streets and worn fields was hateful.
There was nothing more to do; she would leave Mrs. Green in
charge now, and take the children for a walk. No, she couldn't
take John for a walk—he had a cold and was languid. She
didn't believe that John was strong; for all her care, she had
not been able to make him a really healthy child. Resentment
against Quentin smouldered hotly in her heart, and side by side
with this resentment was a queer sense of a way of escape.
That afternoon she went down to the public telephone and asked
the doctor to come. "I don't think John is strong," she said
dully, when he arrived.
But he answered: "Nonsense!"
Fleur Ange looked at the two beautiful children in the shabby
little nursery. How odious to see such broken toys, such worn
clothes, such battered furniture!
"Don't you think, doctor," she asked wistfully, "that John
would be the better for a change of air?"
But he answered her that both were in splendid condition. "The
air round here is excellent, you know, Mrs. Fairfax."
"But what do these local men know?" thought Fleur Ange
restlessly.
She took Polly for a walk that afternoon, leaving John with
Mrs. Green. Never had the common seemed so dreary, the sprawling
bushes and scant trailing brambles, dulled with soot, more of a
graceless parody of the country, the passers-by, with their
baskets and prams, more commonplace, never the encroaching masses
of masonry, the shoddy "villas" and cramped "flats," so blank and
dismal. How detestable was Polly's turned serge, her own
"ready-made" costume! And she had it in her power to change
everything.
But was it still in her power? After six years of subjection
to Quentin, happy subjection, but still subjection, she doubted
if she still possessed a volition of her own; she wondered if any
emergency could ever arrive in which she would have the necessary
courage to break her promise and touch her own money. And this
realisation of her own helplessness increased her furtive anger
against her husband.
He came home that evening in a state of unusual complacency,
and accepted her rather exaggerated remarks about little John
with slightly more than ordinary masculine indifference.
This was quite sufficient to inflame the secret smouldering
discontent and irritation of Fleur Ange. For months that bugbear
of the happy wife, "he is taking me for granted," had been
tormenting her, and now the horrid sentence seemed
underscored.
As she watched him seated peacefully in his old armchair with
his old pipe, while she cleared away their meal, her desire to
rouse him amounted to a feeling of cruelty.
"Little John isn't at all well," she said. "I don't think he
is very strong."
Quentin glanced at her in an ingenuous alarm that further
exasperated Fleur Ange. "Did Doctor Pollock say so?" he
asked.
"Oh, Doctor Pollock—he knows nothing! John isn't well. I
should like a good opinion. I am sure he wants a long
change."
"But he has only got a cold," replied the man, bewildered.
Fleur Ange persisted in her point of view. "You don't observe
him as I do. We all want a change; we never go away except for
that one fortnight. I don't like John's cough. I should like to
take him to Town to see a really first-class man."
"I'll see what Pollock has to say," frowned Quentin.
Fleur Ange smiled sweetly. "Oh, you won't take my word for it,
I suppose?"
"Well, I've noticed nothing wrong with the little chap myself,
and I don't want to waste money."
She caught at the last word, the word that had been uppermost
in her mind for so long now. "It is a pity that it should have to
be a question of money, Quentin."
"I know. But I like to put by what I can—there's
schooling to think of. I hope things will be all right with me by
then, but it's best to be prudent."
Fleur Ange glanced, half in compunction, half in vexation, at
his kind blond face, which lately had looked a little tired, a
little fine-drawn. How much they were denying themselves for a
chimerical whim of pride and honour!
"There is my money," she said timidly.
"I thought we had agreed not to talk of that," he replied,
instantly alert.
"I know. But in an emergency—"
"This isn't an emergency. We are quite comfortable. I can pull
my own weight. I shall do better soon. You don't want your money
till I'm dead."
"John isn't well," she persisted. "After all, they are brought
up pretty roughly—"
He caught her up; there was a flush in his weary face.
"Roughly? It's luxury compared to the way I was brought up. What
do you want for them that I can't give you?"
"I might think of the way I was brought up," she retorted with
a pale smile, conscious of the unfairness of the reply, but
unable, in her jaded mood, to resist the taunt.
"What is the matter with you, Fleur Ange?" asked her husband
sharply.
She was ashamed of herself; she could not but recall her
desperate protestations, her passionate vows, her ardent
pleadings when she had forced—yes, forced—on him her
sacrifices, which he had almost refused to accept.
"I love you, but I'd rather let you go than have you throw
your unhappiness in my face some day. And I won't live on your
money," he had said.
Now she remembered that, and forced herself to say, though it
was sullenly: "I'm worried about little John."
Without a word he rose and left her; she could hear his heavy
but hushed footsteps in the children's room, then the shutting of
the flat door.
A throb of compassion shook Fleur Ange. He had been so tired,
and at the same time no happy in his quiet way. How happy they
had both been in this mean room!
When he returned she was prepared to conquer her secret
discontents, but he was again in his complacent mood. "I've
talked to Pollock on the telephone; he says the children are
simply splendid. If you are nervy about them, he thinks you ought
to get away a bit yourself."
"I'm not a nervous woman," retorted Fleur Ange, the horrid
sting of the truth lashing her. "How strange that you should
listen to what Doctor Pollock says of me!"
Quentin picked up the evening paper. "Well, there is no need
to worry about John."
"I dare say the doctor told him I am hysterical," thought
Fleur Ange bitterly. Aloud she said: "I don't agree. I intend to
have other advice."
"Whose?" He scented challenge and put down the paper.
"The best I can get. I'll take them both up to Town. I'll give
them a long holiday, and—lots of things they need."
"You are trying to provoke me," he answered coldly. "You know
I can't afford any of this."
"I can."
He rose at that and faced her. "Are you sick of it?" he asked
sternly. "If you want to quit, say so, and don't try to sneak
away under cover of maternal affection."
This was an outrage, the more so as it came so near the odious
truth. Shown herself in these harsh words, Fleur Ange blenched
into a fervent anger.
She made no reply, allowing him, with feminine guile, to
believe her conquered, and the next morning her demeanour gave no
hint of the blow she contemplated dealing him. When he had gone,
conscious of her displeasure, but ignorant of the deadly depth of
it, or from what long silent rebellion it sprang, she hastily
dressed the children, packed a few of their things and her own in
a handbag, and left the flat.
Once out of sight of possible prying neighbours, she hurried
the excited children into a taxicab and gave the address of her
lawyer in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
It was a long time since Fleur Ange had been in a taxicab; the
sight of the shillings ticking up on the meter gave her both a
thrill and a shudder. She had hardly enough to pay the fare in
her purse, but when she came out of the dingy, stately office she
had rather more money than Quentin had given her in the last
year. If the remembrance of an ironic smile under the lawyer's
gravity rankled, she was exalted with a daring excitement, and
clasped the two shabby children in a passion of tenderness.
"I won't spend it on anything but them. Quentin can't really
mind that."
For already she was unnerved by thought of the forsaken
husband and rather frightened by the magnitude and the loneliness
of her adventure.
The possession of a large sum of money was bewildering,
disconcerting; it seemed like stolen money. It was the price of
Quentin's pride, Quentin's honour, Quentin's manhood, that she
had in her modest handbag; but she had to act, and soon the
habits of a lifetime asserted themselves over the habits of six
years.
She knew how to spend money, how to get what she wanted from
the resources of a big town. By lunch time she was installed in a
delightful little hotel well known to her own youth, and an
appointment arranged for little John with a very big man indeed.
An exclusive agency had provided a temporary nurse who was a
model of pleasant efficiency, and a West End shop had sent round
a selection of delicious clothes. Fleur Ange was known to all
these places, and the smiling readiness with which she was
recognised seemed to strip away six years from her life.
She could not resist some clothes for herself, she could not
resist telephoning to some old friends.
"I'm just up in Town for a few days, shopping. Taking little
John to see the doctor. Oh, nothing the matter—a mere
precaution..." and so on.
Her long telegram to Quentin was couched in the same terms; it
was "only for a few days" that she had left him, a justification
of her liberty of thought and action, a vindication, though this
she did not say, of her right to use her own money, a complete
violation of the letter and spirit of her promise, though this
she did not say either, poor Fleur Ange.
With an air of candour she gave the address of the hotel; her
secret hope was that he would follow her—at once.
But he did not come that night, not was there any answer to
her message. In the morning there was nothing from the shabby
little flat. Fleur Ange turned slightly sick at heart, but
defiance was still strong in her; she would send no appeal, no
further concession. He was behaving badly, spitefully, unkindly,
she thought, and into the background of her mind she thrust her
broken promise.
Yet when the great doctor told her that there was nothing
whatever the matter with little John, and she did not even feel a
pang of relief—because she had really been so sure the boy
was all right—she was conscious of a stab of utter
shame.
Quentin's harsh words had struck straightly through to the
truth—she had used the excuse of maternal solicitude to
break a bargain that had become hateful to her. But Fleur Ange
held her delicate head high; she was braced by the spurious sense
of power given by the possession of money, and by a sense of
injustice roused by Quentin's complacent acceptance of her long
sacrifice, for in her present mood she thought of her six years
of married life as a sacrifice.
It was, after all, very easy to slip back into the old groove,
to have what she wanted without pausing to count the cost, to
move among quiet, pleasant people who were not anxious about
pence. To be free of the noise and smells of the cheap flats and
the bleak desolation of the starved common was in itself a
delight, and it was from a firm entrenchment of rebellion that
Fleur Ange received a grim and cold Quentin that afternoon when
he arrived in the gay little hotel drawing-room.
"You will be glad to hear that John is all right," she greeted
him formally.
She looked very pretty and enchanting in her new
finery—prettier and younger than she had looked for a long
time in the drab flat, while Quentin seemed dusty and shabby in
these elegant, frivolous surroundings.
To him it was as if she had deliberately raised between them
the barriers that he, on their marriage, had so resolutely
destroyed.
"I knew that there was nothing the matter with the child," he
retorted harshly, "and so did you."
"Well," said Fleur Ange steadily, "perhaps there was something
the matter with me. Perhaps I felt I had to get away. I suppose
you had never thought of that, Quentin?"
"Why should I think of that? It was the life that you
deliberately chose."
His direct honesty and the simple truth of his words galled
her pride; she could not tell him that she wanted praise and
gratitude for what he considered her obvious duty.
She laughed nervously. "It is rather hopeless going into that,
isn't it? I thought you very unreasonable yesterday. I could see
no good reason for not—doing as I liked."
"Breaking your promise, you mean? This breakaway of yours has
cost a good deal; you mean to pay for it with your own money, no
doubt."
Fleur Ange fluttered her eyelids; she winced, but she was
still defiant. "The money is mine. Anyone would say that I was
crazy to go without things while it was there."
"So you're a quitter," he said curtly.
"Is that what you've got to say to me after six years of
sacrifice?"
She had not really meant to use that word, but it had been
much in her mind, and somehow it had leapt out. He fastened on it
angrily.
"So you've been thinking it a sacrifice all the time. The best
I could do for you was never good enough, and all the time you
were hankering after the money I thought you had forgotten!" He
half turned from her, and added sadly: "You might have waited a
bit longer."
Fleur Ange, torn between vexation and remorse, and with tears
shaking in her voice, answered desperately: "You need not make so
much of it. I am ready to come home."
"Home!" he repeated sternly. "It never was home to
you—that poor place. This was what you wanted, all this
ease and comforts and gewgaws, all the things that six years ago
you swore to me you despised and hated!"
"That isn't true," protested Fleur Ange.
"Your actions have proved it true," he said.﹃You've flung
back everything in my face, made a mock of me. I was warned,﹄he
added grimly, "what would happen if I married one of your
set."
That further exasperated Fleur Ange.﹃You need not trouble
about me any more,﹄she said foolishly. "I'll leave you quite
free."
"I mean you shall. You've gone after the money; now you can
keep it—do what you like with it, give yourself and the
children a good time. I've got my work."
It seemed to Fleur Ange rather incredible that he should talk
to her like this. A woman is slow to believe that a man who has
loved her can ever be brought to deal harshly with her. Whatever
provocation she gives, to her the wrong seems all on his
side.
And Fleur Ange looked back on much that she considered Quentin
should have remembered—sweetness and sorrow shared, the
patience with which she had learnt unfamiliar and distasteful
tasks, the courage with which she had "borne" it until this fatal
break. She could scarcely realise that he could not see anything
to "bear," and she thought of other wives and what they exacted,
and what faults were forgiven them, and revolted against
Quentin's rigid ideals and stern code. Yet for these things she
had loved him.
"Yes, you have your work," she replied, turning to the window.
"And if you don't want me back—"
"No," he interrupted, "no more sacrifices."
"Very well." Fleur Ange kept her quivering face away from him.
"I won't thrust them on you. I'll take the children away for a
holiday."
"No," he interrupted, "no more sacrifices." "Very well." Fleur
Ange kept her quivering face away from him. "I won't thrust
them on you. I'll take the children away for a holiday."
"For as long as you please. Now you've asserted your
independence I shall make no effort to control you, of course.
You will do as you please with your money. Of course, also, when
the children are older they'll have to be brought up on my
level."
Fleur Ange foresaw devastating disputes anent the children.
"Please don't let us quarrel about that," she said nervously.
"Not now. I don't wish to deprive them of the advantages of
your money."
It still seemed incredible to Fleur Ange that he should not by
a look or gesture or word show some tenderness, some
appreciation, some regret for the past, but there was no trace of
any emotion save disgust and anger in his tired face.
He picked up his poor shabby hat from one of the silky gilt
chairs, and a pang of unutterable remorse shook Fleur Ange as she
recalled his careful penury in regard to himself.
"Oh, Quentin, don't go away unkindly!" she said, and turned to
him, ready to surrender at a word.
But he would not speak this word; he made a slight movement
that seemed to put her away from him.
"Oh, unkindly," he said, and smiled a little, then added
brusquely: "Well, good-bye. Let me know where you are."
He took up his hat and was really gone.
Fleur Ange felt the sting of harsh reality through her tender
incredulity. Of her gesture of rebellion he had made a gesture of
farewell; he had really gone.
Fleur Ange had to encourage herself by looking at herself in
the oval gilt mirror over the frivolous console, in assuring
herself of her admired prettiness and the charm that had once
before made Quentin forego his principles—his stern resolve
not to marry till he was a successful man, and not to marry a
woman with money.
She could not but think how bitterly now he must be regretting
his weakness in yielding to her promises, for had she not ended
by betraying him?
But Fleur Ange held her head high and trusted to time. With
outward calm she took her children away to the sea. Their delight
in the modest luxury of their surroundings was some solace to her
inward pain, but the little boy inquired with too insistent a
wistfulness after his father for Fleur Ange's perfect
comfort.
She wrote to Quentin, and Quentin did not reply. Strengthened
in her pride by this, which she regarded as a slap in the face of
supplication not to be forgiven—for her letter had been
meek—Fleur Ange did not write again.
And so the long weeks—long they seemed, more dreary than
the weeks in the little flat overlooking the parched
common—slipped by at last, and autumn was over, and it was
too cold by the sea.
Back to Town came Fleur Ange, still living in hotels, still
with the efficient nurse, still with nothing to do but spend
money and amuse herself.
By now she had bought everything she had longed for during
those six years, she had looked up all her old friends and
acquaintances, and was firmly established once more in the life
that she had lately looked back at with such passionate regret.
The breach between Quentin and herself she carefully covered up;
it was astonishing how easily people accepted her excuse of
"change for the children," and "Quentin working so hard; he is
almost always at the works."
And still he did not write.
And still Fleur Ange could not bring herself to write again.
But one day, unable to resist an overwhelming impulse of
yearning, she took the once-so-familiar omnibus and went out to
the distant suburb and the barren common, now grey under a winter
sky.
It took all the courage of Fleur Ange to skirt the half-made
road and look back up at the block of flats. And there across the
windows from which she and Quentin for six years, and the babies
for all their lives, had looked out, were placards with the words
To Let.
Fleur Ange had hardly realised that life held such a bitter
moment as this was. The full extent of her loss was borne in upon
her with devastating force.
She turned and hurried blindly away. As soon as she reached
the hotel, she was at the telephone talking to Quentin's beloved
"works," inquiring for Mr. Fairfax.
She was at once informed that Mr. Fairfax had left some weeks
ago; his address was not known.
This to Fleur Ange was the very worst. As a flash of lightning
will illuminate a sudden picture of desolation, she saw what had
happened in the light of this news.
Quentin, forsaken, wounded, had lost interest in his work and
been dismissed. She ought to have known—indeed, she had
known—that he was a man who existed through his affections
and responsibilities. She had simply pulled the whole fabric of
his life from under him, and he had gone down.
Her pitiful remorse knew no bounds. By the desperate expedient
of revealing her identity and something of her story, she wrung
Quentin's address out of a companion of his at the "works." It
was that of a cottage in a Sussex village.
Fleur Ange did not write—she felt that matters had gone
beyond the written word—but with bitter haste she made her
plans. Every scrap of anything that she had bought with her own
money she packed up and sent to a hospital; the efficient nurse
was returned to the exclusive registry office, and Fleur Ange, in
the dingy clothes in which she had made her escape, with the
children in their original shabby coats, went again to the
lawyers' offices in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
When she left she had put in train a ferocious document
whereby she tied up all her money for the children when they were
twenty-one, and made it impossible for her to touch either
interest or capital meanwhile.
She had left herself just enough money for the fare down to
the little Sussex village, and she kept saying to herself:
"He will be bound to take us in if we have nowhere else to
go—he will have to—"
And she was furiously calculating, during the journey, on how
little they could live. It would have to be on those piteous
"savings" of Quentin till he got more work. How she would have to
put heart and soul into inspiring him to get that work!
Her heart contracted at the thought of his dismissal. What a
terrible effect her desertion must have had on him, for Quentin,
the laborious, the eager, the excellent, the highly valued, to be
dismissed! The shame and misery of this were hers; she felt that
a lifetime of abnegation would not assuage her remorse.
It was like one of those vague but deadly important journeys
we all take in dreams to Fleur Ange—this drive through the
little village in the cold afternoon, the arrival at the lonely
cottage where "Mr. Fairfax" lived, the waiting in the wintry
garden, with the children either side of her, while her knock
echoed through the tiny house.
It was Quentin who opened the door, Quentin, after all these
weeks of absence, looking real and solid and breaking through the
dreamy fears, the vague imaginings that beset her.
Fleur Ange could not speak, but the children prevented any
awkwardness, any constraint. They were shouting and clinging to
their father in the mean but bright passage, and Quentin could
not, did not, try to resist them.
Seeing his smiles, it was easy for Fleur Ange to at last
falter: "Won't you ask me inside?"
"Have you come back to stay," he asked over the heads of the
children, "or is this just a visit, Fleur Ange?"
"I'll stay as long as you'll have me," she replied eagerly,
crossing his threshold with exultant joy. "As soon as I heard
you'd left the works I wanted to come and help. Quentin, you have
no idea how little I can manage on."
"What have you done with your money?" he demanded, but
gently.
"That is tied up for the children. I shan't be able to touch
it again. But I shan't want to; I've had my lesson."
He looked at her curiously. "Why do you think I left the
works?"
"Oh, poor Quentin, it was my fault, but I've come to make up,"
she faltered. "You'll find another, a better job—"
He stooped now and gathered her into one embrace with the
children.
"I don't need another job, Fleur Ange," he said. "My invention
came off at last, and I'm wealthy enough to buy you all the
pretty things you want. I just came here to think it all
over."
Fleur Ange sobbed on his shoulder: "Oh, I'm glad I didn't
know, or I should never have had the courage to come back!"
"Well," said Quentin tenderly, "I think I should have had the
courage to fetch you back, Fleur Ange."
THE END
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