The Apple Tree (27 page)

Finally, a day breaking when quite a cold breeze blew in from the sea, and she did not go to the rendezvous as usual but rested on her balcony reading a novel, the change in the routine came as a real relief.

The following day was fine and she decided to go to the headland, and for the first time since they had encountered one another in the cool dark cellar below the shop he upbraided her, his voice sharp with anxiety.

"I waited for you all yesterday afternoon," he said. "What happened?"

She stared at him in astonishment.

"It was an unpleasant day," she replied. "I preferred to read on my balcony in the hotel."

"I was afraid you might have been taken ill," he went on. "I very nearly called at the hotel to enquire for you. I hardly slept last night, I was so upset."

He followed her to the hiding-place in the bracken, his eyes still anxious, lines of worry on his brow, and though in a sense it was a stimulation to the Marquise to witness his distress, at the same time it irritated her that he should so forget himself to find fault in her conduct. It was as though her coiffeur in Paris, or her masseur, expressed anger when she broke an appointment fixed for a certain day.

"If you think I feel myself bound to come here every afternoon you are very much mistaken," she said. "I have plenty of other things to do."

At once he apologised, he was abject. He begged her to forgive him.

"You cannot understand what this means to me," he said. "Since I have known you, everything in my life is changed. I live only for these afternoons."

His subjection pleased her, whipping her to a renewal of interest, and pity came to her too, as he lay by her side, pity that this creature should be so utterly devoted, depending on her like a child. She touched his hair, feeling for a moment quite compassionate, almost maternal. Poor fellow, limping all this way because of her, and then sitting in the biting wind of yesterday, alone and wretched. She imagined the letter she would write to her friend Elise.

"I am very much afraid I have broken Paul's heart. He has taken this little affaire de vacance au sérieux. But what am I to do? After all, these things must have an end. I cannot possibly alter my life because of him. Enfin, he is a man, he will get over it." Elise would picture the beautiful blonde American play-boy climbing wearily into his Packard, setting off in despair to the unknown.

The photographer did not leave her today, when the afternoon session had ended. He sat up in the bracken and stared out towards the great rock jutting out into the sea. "I have made up my mind about the future," he said quietly.

The Marquise sensed the drama in the air. Did he mean he was going to kill himself? How very terrible. He would wait, of course, until she had left the hotel and had returned home. She need never know.

"Tell me," she said gently.

"My sister will look after the shop," he said. "I will make it all over to her. She is very capable. For myself, I shall follow you, wherever you go, whether it is to Paris, or to the country. I shall be close at hand; whenever you want me, I shall be there."

The Marquise swallowed. Her heart went still.

"You can't possibly do that," she said. "How would you live?"

"I am not proud," he said. "I know, in the goodness of your heart, you would allow me something. My needs would be very small. But I know that it is impossible to live without you, therefore the only thing to do is to follow you, always. I will find a room close to your house in Paris, and in the country too. We will find ways and means of being together. When love is as strong as this there are no difficulties."

He spoke with his usual humility, but there was a force behind his words that was unexpected, and she knew that for him this was no false drama, ill-timed to the day, but true sincerity. He meant every word. He would in truth give up the shop, follow her to Paris, follow her also to the chateau in the country.

"You are mad," she said violently, sitting up, careless of her appearance and her dishevelled hair. "Once I have left here I am no longer free. I cannot possibly meet you anywhere, the danger of discovery would be too great. You realise my position? What it would mean to me?"

He nodded his head. His face was sad, but quite determined. "I have thought of everything," he answered, "but as you know, I am very discreet. You need never be apprehensive on that score. It has occurred to me that it might be possible to obtain a place in your service as footman. It would not matter to me, the loss of personal dignity. I am not proud. But in such a capacity our life together could continue much as it does now. Your husband, the Marquis, must be a very busy man, often out during the day, and your children and the English miss no doubt go walking in the country in the afternoon. You see, everything would be very simple if we had the courage.

The Marquise was so shocked that she could not answer. She could not imagine anything more terrible, more disastrous, than that the photographer should take a place in the house as footman. Quite apart from his disability—she shuddered to think of him limping round the table in the great salle à manger—what misery she would suffer knowing that he was there, in the house, that he was waiting for her to go up to her room in the afternoon, and then, timidly, the knock upon the door, the hushed whisper. The degradation of this—this creature, there was really no other word for him—in the house, always waiting, always hoping.

"I am afraid," she said firmly, "that what you are suggesting is utterly impossible. Not only the idea of coming to my house as a servant, but of our ever being able to meet again once I return home. Your own common sense must tell you so. These afternoons have been—have been pleasant, but my holiday is very nearly over. In a few days' time my husband will be coming to fetch me and the children, and that finishes everything."

To show finality she got up, brushed her crumpled frock, combed her hair, powdered her nose, and reaching for her bag fumbled inside it for her note-case.

She drew out several ten thousand franc notes.

"This is for the shop," she said, "any little fittings it may require. And buy something for your sister. And remember, I shall always think of you with great tenderness."

To her consternation his face went dead white, then his mouth began to work violently and he rose to his feet.

"No, no," he said, "I will never take them. You are cruel, wicked to suggest it." And suddenly he began to sob, burying his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving with emotion.

The Marquise watched him helplessly, uncertain whether to go or to stay. His sobs were so violent that she was afraid of hysteria, and she did not know what might happen. She was sorry for him, deeply sorry, but even more sorry for herself, because now, on parting, he cut such a ridiculous figure in her eyes. A man who gave way to emotion was pitiable. And it seemed to her that the clearing in the bracken took on a sordid, shameful appearance, which once had seemed so secret and so warm. His shirt, lying on a stem of bracken, looked like old linen spread by washerwomen in the sun to dry. Beside it lay his tie and the cheap trilby hat. It needed only orange peel and silver paper from a chocolate carton to complete the picture.

"Stop that noise," she said, in sudden fury. "For God's sake pull yourself together."

The crying ceased. He took his hands away from his ravaged face. He stared at her, trembling, his brown eyes blind with pain. "I have been mistaken in you," he said. "I know you now for what you are. You are a wicked woman and you go about ruining the lives of innocent men like myself. I shall tell your husband everything."

The Marquise said nothing. He was unbalanced, mad....

"Yes," said the photographer, still catching at his breath, "that is what I shall do. As soon as your husband comes to fetch you I will tell him everything. I will show him the photographs I have taken, here on the headland. I will prove to him without a doubt that you are false to him, that you are bad. And he will believe me. He cannot help but believe me. What he does to me does not matter. I cannot suffer more than I suffer now. But your life, that will be finished, I promise you. He will know, the English miss will know, the manager of the hotel will know, I will tell everybody how you have been spending your afternoons."

He reached for his coat, he reached for his hat, he slung his camera around his shoulder, and panic seized the Marquise, rose from her heart to her throat. He would do all that he threatened to do, he would wait there, in the hall of the hotel by the reception desk, he would wait for Edouard to come.

"Listen to me," she began, "we will think of something, we can perhaps come to some arrangement..."

But he ignored her. His face was set and pale. He stooped, by the opening at the cliff's edge, to pick up his stick, and as he did so the terrible impulse was born in her, and flooded her whole being, and would not be denied. Leaning forward, her hands outstretched, she pushed his stooping body. He did not utter a single cry. He fell, and was gone.

The Marquise sank back on her knees. She did not move. She waited. She felt the sweat trickle down her face, to her throat, to her body. Her hands were also wet. She waited there in the clearing, upon her knees, and presently, when she was cooler, she took her handkerchief and wiped away the sweat from her forehead, and her face, and her hands.

It seemed suddenly cold. She shivered. She stood up and her legs were firm; they did not give way, as she feared. She looked about her, over the bracken, and no one was in sight. As always, she was alone upon the headland. Five minutes passed, and then she forced herself to the brink of the cliff and looked down. The tide was in. The sea was washing the base of the cliff below. It surged, and swept the rocks, and sank, and surged again. There was no sign of his body on the cliff face, nor could there be, because the cliff was sheer. No sign of his body in the water and had he fallen and floated it would have shown there, on the surface of the still blue sea. When he fell he must have sunk immediately.

The Marquise turned back from the opening. She gathered her things together. She tried to pull the flattened bracken to its original height, and so smooth out the signs of habitation, but the hiding-place had been made so long that this was impossible. Perhaps it did not matter. Perhaps it would be taken for granted that people came out upon the cliff and took their ease.

Suddenly her knees began to tremble and she sat down. She waited a few moments, then glanced at her watch. She knew that it might be important to remember the time. A few minutes after half-past three. If she was asked, she could say, "Yes, I was out on the headland at about half-past three, but I heard nothing." That would be the truth. She would not be lying. It would be the truth.

She remembered with relief that today she had brought her mirror in her bag. She glanced at it, fearfully. Her face was chalk white, blotched and strange. She powdered, carefully, gently; it seemed to make no difference. Miss Clay would notice something was wrong. She dabbed dry rouge on to her cheeks, but this stood out, like the painted spots on a clown's face.

"There is only one thing to do," she thought, "and that is to go straight to the bathing-cabin on the beach, and undress, and put on my swimming-suit, and bathe. Then if I return to the hotel with my hair wet, and my face wet too, it will seem natural, and I shall have been swimming, and that also will be true."

She began to walk back along the cliff, but her legs were weak, as though she had been lying ill in bed for many days, and when she came to the beach at last she was trembling so much she thought she would fall. More than anything she longed to lie down on her bed, in the hotel bedroom, and close the shutters, even the windows, and hide there by herself in the darkness. Yet she must force herself to play the part she had decided.

She went to the bathing-cabin and undressed. Already there were several people lying on the sands, reading or sleeping, the hour of siesta drawing to its close. She walked down to the water's edge, kicked off her rope-soled shoes, drew on her cap, and as she swam to and fro in the still, tepid water, and dipped her face, she wondered how many of the people on the beach noticed her, watched her, and afterwards might say, "But don't you remember, we saw a woman come down from the headland in the middle of the afternoon?"

She began to feel very cold, but she continued swimming, backwards and forwards, with stiff, mechanical strokes, until suddenly, seeing a little boy who was playing with a dog point out to sea, and the dog run in barking towards some dark object that might have been a piece of timber, nausea and terror combined to turn her faint, and she stumbled from the sea back to the bathing-cabin and lay on the wooden floor, her face in her hands. It might be, she thought, that had she gone on swimming she would have touched him with her feet, as his body came floating in towards her on the water.

In five days' time the Marquis was due to arrive by car and pick up his wife, the governess and the children, and drive them home. The marquise put a call through to him at the château, and asked if it would be possible for him to come sooner. Yes, the weather was still good, she said, but somehow she had become tired of the place. It was now getting too full of people, it was noisy, and the food had gone off. In fact she had turned against it. She longed to be back at home, she told her husband, amongst her own things, and the gardens would be looking lovely.

The Marquis regretted very much that she was bored, but surely she could stick it out for just the three days, he said. He had made all his arrangements, and he could not come sooner. He had to pass through Paris anyway for an important business meeting. He would promise to reach her by the morning of the Thursday, and then they could leave immediately after lunch.

"I had hoped," he said, "that you would want to stay on for the weekend, so that I too could get some bathing. The rooms are held surely until the Monday?"

But no, she had told the manager, she said, that they would not require the rooms after Thursday, and he had already let them to someone else. The place was crowded. The charm of it had gone, she assured him. Edouard would not care for it at all, and at the weekend it became quite insupportable. So would he make every effort to arrive in good time on the Thursday, and then they could leave after an early lunch?