The Little French Girl/Part 2/Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII
The tennis-players returned at tea-time, bringing monsieur Claussel with them. He was a young man with shy, soft, prominent dark eyes and the smallest dot of a dark moustache on either side of a nervous upper lip, and, when tennis was not in progress to absorb his attention, it was excessively directed to the social exigencies of the occasion. Giles imagined, as he watched him spring from his chair to offer it, stand back to let a lady pass, bow with heels together, and tentatively resume his seat only again to leave it, that he was perhaps less at home in the jungle than André, and felt, in his introduction to it, a doubled need for every amenity. It was his first appearance at the Chardonnerets tea-table, and in his presence, the presence of mademoiselle Fontaine, her mother and grandmother, madame Vervier may have felt a convenience. If she found it at all difficult to face Alix and André and Giles after the interview from which she had just come, her guests, and monsieur Claussel in particular, gave her an excuse for looking at them rather than at her intimates. And Giles felt sure that she avoided her daughter's eyes.
They were on her, those remote blue eyes of Alix's, with no insistence, no appeal. They dwelt in a wide contemplativeness that recalled to him madame Vervier's own, were it not that proud patience rather than security lay behind it; and Giles had the fancy, as he looked at her, that, in the gaze of Alix, the Mouverays, beneath the threshold of the child's consciousness, were judging Hélène Vervier. Whatever the verdict, Alix's tenderness for her mother would not waver; but he watched the Mouverays imparting to her need a further reënforcement of pride and courage.
Tea was prolonged. Madame Dumont, in a great crested bonnet, sat enthroned, receiving cakes and homage. She was rather silent, rather, in her black draperies, the sunken old raven, its feathers ruffled high. Yet Giles caught more than once the piercing glint of an avid eye, turning in conjectures that he could too well imagine upon madame Vervier and André; upon himself and Alix; and once, in the glance of mademoiselle Blanche, he seemed to see a stealthy hereditary surmise, and Alix rather than madame Vervier was its object.
Monsieur Jules was persuaded to bring out his canvases and range them for monsieur Claussel's admiration. The painful, vivid patterns and colours still distressed Giles, but, his eyes already acclimatized to their strangeness, began to exercise a charm. “Quel horreur!” madame Dumont cried, but was fondly checked by mademoiselle Blanche, who murmured to her, smiling over her head at Giles: “We are no longer in the days of Bouguereau and Meissonnier, Grand'mère!”
She confided to him, as they stood side by side, that monsieur Claussel was a devout admirer of modern art and that his admiration, since he was the heir to a fortune princière—faite dans les pâtes—might be of much significance to poor Jules. “She arranged it all, you may be sure,” said mademoiselle Blanche, casting a fond glance upon their hostess. “It is always she who thinks of such opportunities for her friends.—What a heart, what a mind it is!—Whatever her own perplexities and anxieties—and I can assure you that her life does not lack them—she never fails in resource and kindness when it is a question of her friends' interests.—She is looking pale—very weary, is it not so?—You take mademoiselle Alix back to England with you?” And since Giles, disconcerted, remained silent, mademoiselle Blanche added: “She is ready always to sacrifice herself.”
“Mais oui, c'est très bizarre,” little madame Collet murmured, craning her neck to see the pictures, while Giles wondered over mademoiselle Blanche.
André, meanwhile, smiling in a happy confidence, pointed out planes and stresses to the heir of les pâtes, who stood with his little shoulders screwed up, his elbows in his hands, rapt away from shyness and self-consciousness by his sincere delight. Monsieur Jules remained morose; but it was evident that he had found a munificent patron.
And when they were all gone and an evening of dusky rose began, after the hot day, to drop softly from the sky, madame Vervier said to André that she must take the air. She would go with him for a little turn in his car.
She was not yet ready for a meeting with her child. If she was to think things over and decide how she should put them to Alix, she must get away to do it. Giles understood; but how could Alix understand such necessities? He guessed at the grief and perplexity that must strive within her.
“And now, indefatigable as you are, ma chère enfant,” said monsieur de Maubert when he and Giles and Alix were left alone, “framed of steel and india-rubber as I sometimes feel you to be when I watch your day, you will doubtless wish to go for a walk with monsieur Giles. Do not hesitate to leave me. I shall, I think, have a siesta here with my head in the shade and my feet in the sunset; even in the details of life, monsieur Giles, I am, you see, the Epicurean.”
Giles knew, then, that madame Vervier's intentions, in regard to himself and Alix, had been imparted to monsieur de Maubert who thus took occasion for furthering them.
But Alix said: “No; the walk is not to be with Giles. I have promised Annette Laboulie to catch shrimps with her on the beach till supper-time.”
“And who,” monsieur de Maubert, kindly, yet with a certain austerity inquired, “is Annette Laboulie?”
“She came with my shoes her father had mended, the other afternoon. Do you remember? A dark, thin girl. She has not enough to eat.”
“You mean the sad young ragamuffin with the untidy hair? Not enough to eat? That must be seen to.”
“She is a ragamuffin; and untidy; I reproach her for that. But she is clean. And she is a clever girl in all sorts of ways. There are eight children, and Annette is a mother to them all. We are great friends. I used to play with her when I was little and Maman and I first came here.”
“Monsieur Giles, you are not flattered by this preference!” smiled monsieur de Maubert.
“And they don't even invite me to join them!” laughed Giles.
But he understood. After the longing to know what Maman had said to Giles must come the longing to know what Giles now felt about Maman; but Alix wanted none of his impressions until those of Maman had been vouchsafed to her. As if by some deep instinct she knew that her destiny had been in question that afternoon.
“But do come with us, Giles,” she now said, and he replied that he really had letters he ought to write. “Letters home. You see my time here is up.”
“Up? Indeed? Why up?” monsieur de Maubert inquired very kindly.
“Well, I've stayed already longer than I intended and they all expect me back in time to start next Monday on a walking tour around the coast of Cornwall.”
“Next Monday? But that means that you will leave us the day after to-morrow. You will miss our Sunday excursion to Caudebec.”
“I'm afraid I must.”
Alix was looking at him; wondering, he knew, whether his resolve was sudden.
After he had written his letter to his mother, he went out into the village to post it, and coming back by the cliff he was able to see that even if Annette had been an improvisation the drama of the shrimping was being carried out. The two girls were pushing their nets before them on the sands, bare-legged, in the shallow water. Their voices, bell-like, came to him through the evening air. Alix laughed.
Her faculty for fraternizing with the people seemed to him a charming gift. Neither Ruth nor Rosemary would have known what to do with Annette in tête-à-tête. They could have dealt with her coöperatively; in the Girl Guides or one of Aunt Bella's clubs; but not as an individual. And Toppie, full of still solicitude, would have dealt with her as a soul. The difference was that Alix was not dealing with her at all. She was enjoying Annette as much as Annette was enjoying her. They were simply two girls engaged in a pastime delightful to them both; and Giles surmised that such easy intercourse was perhaps only possible in a country where caste was a thing so impassable that intimacy lent itself to no misinterpretation. Caste in France, he was coming more and more to see, centred itself on the question of marriage. In a country where the romance of the mésalliance, so dear to English hearts, was nearly unknown, there was little likelihood of its disintegration. How little do those know France, thought Giles, who imagine her republican at heart!
Madame Vervier did not return from her drive till supper time, and after supper, during which she talked cheerfully, if with a certain languor, she established herself in the drawing-room with monsieur de Maubert. There was no moon to-night and the light streamed out over the verandah from the drawing-room window. Giles, from his place on the steps, could see that madame Vervier, beside the lamp, had her embroidery and that she spoke to monsieur de Maubert in low tones.
Alix brought out a saucer of milk for a stray kitten that she and Annette had found. “I shall take it to Paris with me,” she said, stroking the back of the little creature, while it drank, half choked with purrs and lapping.
“It is not a pretty kitten, mademoiselle Alix,” said André, who sat beside Giles smoking.
“No; it is not pretty; except as all kittens are pretty—the delicate little paws; the beautiful movements. In time it will look better; with brushing and good food,” said Alix. “And it has a charming little coral nose to match the coral beads under its feet.—Only hear it purr, Giles! Have you ever noticed the softness of a kitten's feet?—they are like raspberries to hold in one's hand.”
André watched her meditatively.
“It is time for your bed, mon enfant.” Madame Vervier's voice came from the drawing-room. “I will visit you before you sleep.—Ah, mais non! You must not have the kitten with you. You would be devoured by fleas. It will be quite happy shut into the kitchen.”
“But it is so young, Maman; so lonely. It must so miss its mother.” Alix stood supplicating, the kitten held to her cheek. “I do not mind the fleas.”
Madame Vervier was melted; or it was, perhaps, an evening on which she was inclined to indulgence. “Very well. If you do not mind the fleas! While it misses its mother, then. Too soon, alas, it will be a mother itself!”
“No; for it is a male cat, Maman,” said Alix with austere realism. “You need fear nothing on that score. There will be no more kittens to trouble you.”
“A la bonne heure!” laughed madame Vervier.
“But she returns to you, after her holiday with us here, the charming young creature,” André, when Alix had carried away her kitten, observed to Giles. It was remarkable, the sense they all gave Giles, that Alix was permanently his responsibility, and André's voice had almost the geniality of family affection. If not he, then another English husband. Alix's future had been, by those most concerned with it—by himself and by her mother—definitely agreed upon; that was the fact to which André's voice and smile bore witness; and madame Vervier was certainly imparting the same news to monsieur de Maubert as she now sat embroidering beside him in her Ingres dress and scarf.
Alix herself, meanwhile, remained in ignorance of her destiny.
“Rather a shame she shouldn't know it yet,” said Giles. “She thinks she's going back to Paris, you see.”
“Shame? Oh, no,” said André in gentle surprise. “It is much better that she should have her holiday unspoiled. We are to say nothing of it to her—as madame Vervier will tell you.—It would grieve her too much to hear it now. By degrees, as the time draws near, her mother will prepare her mind and bring her to see the wisdom of the decision.”
That, of course, would be André's point of view. He took it for granted that jeunes filles should be kept in ignorance of their destiny until such time as their elders thought fit to enlighten them.
Giles was aware of a confused anger that seemed to involve himself as well as André and madame Vervier. “Since she and her mother are so devoted, it's a pity, I think, to hoodwink her,” he said. “I hope her mother will tell her what she's decided on at once. I shall advise her to tell her.”
At this point, suddenly, a voice dropped to them through the darkness. “I am sorry. My room is above you. I can hear all that you say.” Alix's voice. Thrilling with bitterness.
The young men sat mute, eyeing each other.
“Dieu! Quelle gaffe ai-je commise!” whispered André, and—“How much has she heard?”
“As little as she could, you may be sure,” Giles muttered.
André found his resource. “Très bien! Très bien, mademoiselle Alix,” he called. “But this is a case where (Fr.) une écouteuse would hear only good of herself.”
Alix made no reply. The windows of her room, Giles now remembered, opened beside his, on the roof of the verandah. She must have heard all if she had stood near them.
“This is very unfortunate,” André murmured. “I have been stupid; very stupid. I must at once make my confession.”
“Yes. You'd better,” said Giles grimly. “It wouldn't do for her mother to go up now and pretend she'd made no plans at all.”
“Oh—our hostess would be able to meet even that contingency,” said André with, perhaps, the slightest flavour of irony. “A daughter, with us, knows too well that she may trust her mother to do the best for her happiness.”
But, as Giles remained sitting on, hearing in the drawing-room the low murmur of consultation and André's repeated “Je suis désolé,” it became disastrously clear to him that, more than Maman's intended accommodations of the truth, Alix would resent André's admission to Maman's confidence. How, indeed, could she interpret that?
The murmur in the drawing-room ceased, madame Vervier rose and went upstairs, and, before André could rejoin him, Giles had taken refuge in his own room. He could not face André; he could not face monsieur de Maubert, or madame Vervier herself, again that evening. None of them, not even madame Vervier, could see as he saw the disaster that had befallen his poor little friend. He leaned at his window feeling hot and sick, but even here, though the windows of Alix's room had been closed, the voices of mother and daughter came to him through the flimsy barrier of the wall. He could not hear the words, but in their sharp passionate rhythm he discerned what the words must be. “Why to him, Maman! What are his rights! He was a stranger to us when I left you!”
But madame Vervier would, indeed, never lack resource. Unready as she must feel herself to face this further predicament, Giles heard the muffled murmur of her voice, rising, falling, expostulating; urgent, tender, invulnerable. She would find answers to everything. Or was it that there were some questions her child would not ask of her? When, at last, she ceased, there was no reply. He heard that Alix was crying.