A Virgin Heart (de Gourmont, 1921)/5
CHAPTER V
THEIR rapid intimacy did not leave off growing during the following days. M. Des Boys never left the workmen who were making the new paths and from moment to moment he would call his daughter or M. Hervart soliciting their approval.
In the afternoons they would go and look at one of the castles in the neighborhood.
They saw Martinvast, towers, chapel, Gothic arches, ingeniously adapted so as to cover, without spoiling their lines, the flimsy luxury of modern times. Tourlaville, though less old, looked more decayed under its cloak of ivy. M. Hervart admired the great octagonal tower, the bold lines of the inward-curving roofs. They saw Pepinvast, a thing of lacework and turrets, florid with trefoils and pinnacles. They saw Chiflevast, a Janus, Gothic on one side and Louis XIV on the other.
Nacqueville is old in parts; the main block seems to be contemporary with Richelieu; as a whole, it is imposing, a building to which each generation has added its own life without hiding the distant origins.
Vast, which looks quite modern, occupies a pleasing site by the falls of the Saire. It seemed more human than the others, whose hugeness and splendour they had admired without a wish to possess. Here one could give play to one's desire.
"All the same," said M. Hervart, "it looks too much like a big cottage."
M. Des Boys resolved to have a cascade at Robinvast. It was a pity that he had nothing better than a stream at his disposal.
They returned by La Pernelle, from which one can see all the eastern part of the Hague, from Gatteville to St Marcouf, a great sheet of emerald green, bordered, far away, by a ribbon of blue sea.
They made a halt. Rose picked some heather, with which she filled M. Hervart's arms. The eagerness of the air lit up her eyes, fired her cheeks.
"Isn't it lovely, my country?"
A cloud hid the sun. Colour paled away from the scene; a shadow walked across the sea, quenching its brilliance; but southward, towards the isles of St Marcouf, it was still bright.
"A sad thought crossing the brow of the sea," said M. Hervart. "But look..."
Everything had suddenly lit up once again.
Rose blew kisses into space.
They had to go back towards St. Vast, where they had hired the carriage. Thence, travelling by the little railway which follows the sea for a space before it turns inland under the apple trees, they arrived at Valognes.
They dined at the St. Michel hotel. M. Des Boys was bored; he had begun to find the excursion rather too long. But there were still a lot of fine buildings to be looked at, Fontenay, Flamanville... However, those didn't mean such long journeys.
"We have still got to go," said he, "to Barnavast, Richemont, the Hermitage and Pannelier. That can be done in one afternoon."
They did not get back to Robinvast till very late. The darkness in the carriage gave M. Hervart his opportunity; his leg came into contact with Rose's; under pretext of steadying the bundle of heather which Rose was balancing on her knee, their hands met for an instant.
Mme Des Boys was waiting for them, rather anxiously. She kissed her daughter almost frenziedly. Enervated, Rose burst out laughing, said she wanted something to drink and, having drunk, expressed a wish for food.
"That's it," said M. Hervart. "Let's have supper."
He checked himself:
"I was only joking; I'm not in the least hungry."
But Rose found the idea amusing; she went in search of food, bringing into the drawing-room every kind of object, down to a bottle of sparkling cider she had discovered in a cupboard.
"Hervart's a boy of twenty-five," said M. Des Boys, as he watched his friend helping Rose in her preparations. "I shall go to bed."
"At twenty-five," said Hervart, "one doesn't know what to do with one's life. One has all the trumps in one's hand, but one plays one's cards at haphazard, and one loses."
"Does he talk of playing, now?" said M. Des Boys, who was half asleep. Rose burst out laughing.
"Are you really going to bed?" asked Mme Des Boys; she looked tired. "I suppose I must stay here."
But she was soon bored. It was half past twelve. She tried to get her daughter to come.
"Ten minutes more, mother."
"All right, I'll leave you. I shall expect you in ten minutes."
M. Hervart got up.
"I give you ten minutes. Be indulgent with the child. All this fresh air has gone to her head."
M. Hervart felt embarrassed. A week ago such a tete-a-tete would have seemed the most innocent and perhaps, too, the most tedious of things.
"I really don't know what may happen. I must be serious, cold; I must try and look tired and antique...."
As soon as she heard her mother's footsteps in the room above the drawing-room, Rose came and sat down close to M. Hervart, put her hands on the arm of his chair. He looked at her, and there was something of madness in his eyes. He turned completely and laid his hands upon the girl's hands. They moved, took his and pressed them, gently. Then, without having had the time to think of what they were doing, they woke up a second later mouth against mouth. This kiss exhausted their emotion. With the same instinctive movement both drew back, but they went on looking at one another.
Decidedly, she was very pretty. She, for her part, found him admirable, thinking:
"I belong to him. I have given him my lips. I am his. What will he do? What shall I do? ...."
That was just what M. Hervart was wondering—what ought he to do?
"What caresses are possible, what won't she object to? I should like to kiss her lips again .... Her eyes? Her neck? Which of the Italian poets was it who said: 'Kiss the arms, the neck, the breasts of your beloved, they will not give you back your kisses. The lips alone.' But I shall have to say something. Of course, I ought to say: 'Je vous aime.' But I don't love her. If I did, I should have said: 'Je t'aime!' and I should have said it without thinking, without knowing.
"Rose, I love you."
She shut her eyes, laid her head on the arm of the chair; for she was sitting on a low stool.
It was the ear that presented itself. M. Hervart kissed her ear slowly, savouring it, kiss by kiss, like an epicure over some choice shell-fish.
"She lets me do what I like. It's amusing...."
He kissed his way round her ear and halted next to the eye, which was shut.
"How soft her eyelid is!"
His lips travelled down her nose and settled at the corner of her mouth. Tickled by their touch, she smiled.
When he had thoroughly kissed the right side, she offered him the left; then, giving her lips to him frankly, she received his passionate kiss, returned it with all her heart, and got up.
She smiled without any embarrassment. She was happy and very little disturbed.
"There," she said to herself. "Now I'm married."