The Eyes of Innocence/X
X
THE DESERTED HOUSE
Next day, Gilberte received the following letter from Maître Dufornéril, her solicitor at Dieppe:
"Mademoiselle,
"I have just received your telegram asking me where we stand in the matter of our enquiries. I have already given you the information which I obtained regarding your life and that of your parents at Liverpool, although this, unfortunately, told us nothing new. M. Kellner, which was the name under which your father made his fortune at Liverpool, left none but pleasant memories behind him in the commercial world of that city. On the other hand, no one knew anything of his private life or of his antecedents. It was not even known that he was married; and this fully bears out what you told me of the retired existence which your mother and yourself used to lead.
"I was therefore obliged to pursue our investigations to Berlin, which takes us six years further back. Your father at that time called himself M. Dumas. And here we have evidence that a fire broke out on the 15th of October 18 in the warehouse of M. Dumas, a bonder of Anjou wines, in the Frischwasserstrasse. Among the rooms completely destroyed was that which M. Dumas, who was at the same time a general agent, used as an office in which to see his clients, most of whom were countrymen of his own. M. Dumas made an affidavit from which it appears that all his papers were burnt.
"On this side, consequently, we arrive at a very unfortunate certainty: your family-papers are no longer in existence; that is clear. We have therefore to trace your parents back to the time of their departure from France. Once we have done this and discovered the town in which they used to live, it will be easy, by advertising, to find out who you really are.
"Your father had in his employment, in Berlin, a Frenchman of the name of Renaudeau, whom he appears to have trusted absolutely and to have treated, according to the neighbours, as a friend of long standing. When he left Berlin, he made over his business to Renaudeau. Next year, Renaudeau went bankrupt. But he is believed to be at Hamburg. I have written to the French consul there; and I will let you know as soon as I hear from him."
Day after day went by, days like those which followed on her arrival at Domfront. Gilberte once more became the recluse to whom none had access save the poor and destitute of the countryside; and, though they still spoke of her as la Bonne Demoiselle of the Logis and blessed her for her charity, it might well be that they no longer took away with them that impression of comfort which they welcomed no less than the alms. How could she have consoled them, she who herself was yearning for consolation?
However, she did not give up all hope. Gilberte had one of those rather passive natures which, in happy hours, overflow with generous gladness, but which, at times of trial, fall back upon themselves and live in that kind of quiet contemplation which is as it were a patient expectation. Mastering her sorrow and checking any signs of rebellion or distress, she appeared less sensitive than others to the most cruel blows with which fate overwhelmed her and, through every obstacle and every vicissitude, she pursued her inward dream, sad or joyous, bright or gloomy, but always built up of love and kindness.
The most appalling time was the close of day. Night fell late at that time of the year; and it would have been sweet indeed to go down to the summer-house after dinner. She had not a doubt but that Guillaume was regular in his attendance at their former trysting-place. He must be stretching out his arms to her now, calling her, entreating her, reproaching her: oh, the torture of not being able to go to him!
She never ceased thinking of him. The memories of their common past formed the only charm of the present; and, by one of love's illusions, she made her own memories begin on the very day on which Guillaume's began. And so she remembered the minute when he had caught her raising her mourning-veil in the garden by the ruins. She remembered the moment when, hiding behind a curtain, he had come near to her for the first time. Had she not always loved him? Why had she, from the first and despite Guillaume's deliberate rebuffs, sought to tame him, as Mme. de la Vaudraye called it, and to win his liking? Why also her impulse of friendship towards the mysterious unknown?
Gilberte took little or no heed of what the town said of all these happenings, having asked Adèle not to tell her: an order which the unfortunate servant found great difficulty in obeying! Domfront was bubbling and seething with comments! For, after all, there was this undeniable fact: in the sight of the whole world, as everybody could bear witness, a formal proposal had been made for Gilberte's hand in marriage; and it resulted in a breach between the La Vaudrayes and Mme. Armand. A complete breach! For they no longer even saw one another. And the inexplicable thing was that, since that famous afternoon, Mme. Armand had not once left the Logis.
What was underneath it all? From which side did the breach come? A score of contradictory versions went the round of the town, but none of them bore the marks of indisputable authenticity upon which the ever-scrupulous world insists before accepting a piece of gossip as fact. As for Mme. Duval, she was in a desperate plight. Pressed with questions, she was reluctantly compelled to admit that she knew nothing.
After the first fortnight, Gilberte, who dared not walk in her garden, ventured to go out once or twice, but only at times and in directions where she ran no risk of meeting people. Generally in the early morning, she would slip out by a side-door and make her way down to the river by the most shady and roundabout paths of the wood skirting the Logis.
Her almost daily destination was the little chapel of Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau. It was here that she had had her last interview with Guillaume. It was a peaceful spot, where she loved to dream. One day, when she was coming back by a rambling way, she passed the house which was once tenanted by those Despriols who had brought about M. and Mme. de la Vaudrayes' ruin. The rusty bars of the gate seemed crumbling to pieces. A tangle of weeds and brambles overran the garden. The front of the house was cracking; the slates of the roof were green; the windows were full of swallows' nests. Everything spoke of desertion and neglect. Nevertheless, Gilberte felt drawn to it.
The gate resisted her efforts and she walked round the garden-wall, feeling sure that she would find a door near a corner which she saw a little way off. She did find one; and it was open, as was the door at the top of the steps leading up to the house.
She had no sooner gone inside than the impression which the old house had made upon her became so distinct as to awaken recognition. It was that curious impression which we sometimes receive in the presence of scenes which we are sure that we have never looked upon and which nevertheless we seem to have always known. It is impossible that we should ever have visited a certain town; and yet the street in which we are is quite familiar to us: we have seen this shop before, that sign-board, this gable, that turning. Where and when? In what bygone existence? Or is it only an illusion awakened in our brain by a series of similar pictures?
"This is the drawing-room," said Gilberte, before opening the door.
And she amused herself by likewise pointing out, with absolute conviction, the kitchen and the dining-room.
But her astonishment was great indeed when, on the first floor, she entered a large room hung with grey wall-paper, on which birds and butterflies flitted amongst blue flowers. Where had she seen those flowers, those butterflies, those birds before?
She gave a start: in a corner, on the dusty floor, lay a doll, the last stranded relic of all that had once filled the house. And Gilberte knew that doll, knew it beyond a doubt.
She picked it up and, at the first touch of it, was seized with an extraordinary emotion, as though it had been a doll of her childhood, a doll with which she had played at the age of three or four, one of those dolls which little girls treat as babies, lavishing on them all the devotion, the infinite care, the tenderness, the pride and the anxiety of the future mother. And she saw this one, this poor, wretched rag of a doll, with no clothes and only half a head, she saw it, or rather recalled it, clad in a dress of orange silk and a green shawl, with bronze shoes on its feet, a silver chain round its neck and the most wonderful mop of yellow hair upon its head.
She held it for a long time; and it seemed to her that her hands were used to that clumsy body and to the badly-jointed arms and legs. Nothing about the doll disgusted her. She felt as if she could kiss the little porcelain forehead, the prim, painted eyebrows, the chubby cheeks.
There was a faint sound behind her. She turned round and saw a dirty-looking woman with curiously staring eyes and great wisps of white hair all round her head. She was showing her teeth in a fixed and silent laugh. On the linen rag that did duty as a neckerchief hung a queer necklace made of chips of glass, pebbles, corks and twisted grass.
Suddenly the face became contracted with rage: its owner had caught sight of the doll. She ran up to Gilberte, snatched it from her hands and brandished it as though she would have struck the girl with it. But the doll fell to the ground, the threatening gesture ended in an attitude of hesitation and the old woman, with her body bent forward and her eyes staring, gazed at Gilberte.
Gilberte was frightened at first, but became gradually reassured under this steady gaze in which she seemed to feel an ardent and curious affection. She smiled at the old woman, who gave a silent laugh, picked up the doll and handed it to her humbly and gently. Gilberte refused to take it and the old woman grasped her hand and led her to the second floor, to a cupboard crammed with child's shoes, rattles, broken toys, a little cradle, a chair on wheels and showed them to her with an air of saying:
"Pick where you like, take what you like; I give them to you."
But none of these things tempted Gilberte. Then the old woman took her down to the garden, led her to an acacia-tree, to a wooden bench, to what remained of a dovecote and, at each halt, questioned her with her eager eyes.
At last, Gilberte felt weary; little by little, since the woman's arrival, the deserted house had lost its mysterious charm for her; and she began to think of going. Thereupon the old crone, anticipating her wishes, took a key from her pocket and opened the rusty gate. She stooped, as Gilberte went out, and kissed the hem of her dress.
Turning round, a few minutes after, Gilberte saw her standing in the middle of the road, making signs to her.
When she returned to the Logis, she told her adventure to Adèle, who exclaimed:
"Why, it must have been Désirée, the Despriols' old nurse! She is a poor old madwoman, but quite harmless, and lives near Notre-Dame-sur-l'Eau. She does nothing but wander round the house where she was a servant. She has been mad for quite two years, ever since the death of her husband and her three sons. It came upon her all of a sudden ..."
"But had the Despriols a child?" asked Gilberte.
"I should think so! A little girl who might have been three or four years old at the time when they went away: a dear little duck; and her nurse adored her. It broke the poor thing's heart to part with her. Since she went mad, she thinks oftener of the baby than of her own three sons. They did say that she heard about the child and that Mme. Despriol used to write to her."
"Did you know this Mme. Despriol, Adèle?"
"That I did, at Mme. de la Vaudraye's, when they lived here. ... She was a very nice lady, so cheerful and pleasant; good-looking, too, but, worse luck, so weak with her husband that he did as he liked with her."
"Mme. de la Vaudraye told me something about some jewels ..."
"Oh, that was quite true! There's no denying it: a thief she was ... and Mme. de la Vaudraye has good reason not to love her. And how she does detest her! And then she was jealous of M. de la Vaudraye, who ventured to flirt just the least bit with Mme. Despriol. You can imagine how mad Mme. de la Vaudraye was! She turns pale to this day, if you mention Henriette Despriol's name ..."
A few days later, Gilberte received another letter from Maître Dufornéril:
"Mademoiselle,
"We are making headway with our enquiries and I hope soon to send you the news of our success. This Renaudeau who took over M. Dumas' business in Berlin is, as we thought, at Hamburg. He has seen the consul and declares that he knew your father for many years, going back to the date when he was still living in France. He refuses, for the present, to reveal M. Dumas' real name and antecedents; but I have no doubt that this Renaudeau, who is in a state of the greatest poverty, will yield to certain arguments.
"I think I may safely say, therefore, that my next letter will inform you of the name of your parents and the place at which you were born. ..."