The Closed Harbour (10 page)

"And now," she said to herself, "I shall split myself clean in halves, I shall be opened up at last."

Madeleine handed out the coffee. Madame Marius got up and drew down the blinds.

"It's like this most days, no shade anywhere, one goes to bed to keep cool. The light can be bitter on the eyes," she had noticed the priest's sudden discomfort.

Madeleine's hand touched his own as he took the cup from her, and he was struck by its coolness.

"Thank-you."

"You despise your son?" he asked.

There seemed hardly any need for her to answer, her expression was enough.

"For one so despised you seem to have followed him a long way," he went on, as he slowly sipped his coffee.

"I shall come to that," she said.

"Then I can only ask you Madame Marius, to come to it soon, for I must be off, I have much work to do, and mine is a large parish as you may know."

"I know nothing whatever about your parish, Father," she replied.

He was aware of a continuous grudging note in the old woman's voice.

"Well!" he asked.

"He came here," said Madame Marius, "and we followed him, that is but natural. In any case we could not remain where we were."

"Why not?

"The disgrace of it."

"Of what?"

The old woman had shifted her glance from Father Nollet to Madeleine, and she said slowly, and with some effort.

"Madeleine, that letter for Father Gerard, I did want it to catch the early post."

At once her daughter got up and left them, and later they heard the door close, a latch fall, and then there was silence again.

Madeleine had understood, it was only another way of saying, "you are not wanted here."

"He had taken a ship out to sea and he had returned without it, but worse than that he had returned alone. I shall not soon forget that terrible night, for believe well that the whole place was in flames, even now I often feel myself turning slowly in the hall of my home, it was filled with a most unnatural light, and my daughter hearing voices walked into it. One might have felled an ox. He stood there silent—and when he spoke—the crudity—the sheer clumsiness of his explanation—it made me want to shriek. He had taken with him on his third trip a certain person and he had not brought him back. Worse still,
he
had survived, imagine it, a Captain saving himself, I thank God this day my husband was not there to see it, he at least was honourable and went down with his ship—"

"Your husband was a sailor, too, Madame Marius?" Father Nollet put back the cup on the tray.

She was silent for a moment or two.

"He was a naval Commander Father Nollet, and he was
French
, he went down with his ship in the First war. He was a good man. To-day that sort of thing does not exist. There is no more pride anywhere—"

"Pride is not all, Madame Marius."

"The world might be a better place for a little more of it, Father."

"You were saying," Father Nollet leaned forward in his chair, Madame Marius had got off the track, "you were saying —about the night he returned—"

With a sudden weariness she exclaimed, "oh I don't know, Father, I really don't know—there is something on his mind, something he can tell us, that's why we're here, something he can tell that poor child who has just gone out to the post."

"Perhaps I should come again, Madame Marius," said Father Nollet, "you are somewhat distressed," and he half rose from the chair, and quickly she flung out a detaining arm, and he remembered it as her first violent movement.

"He is not like us, Father, he is different, he believes in nothing but himself, it was a shock to my husband, who often said that his real place was the gutter, I do not know—still—a reckless man, a wandering man, and yet I suppose there was something there, a sort of affection for his nephew—for his sister—an intelligent man, but he could not help being that, we have that at least—"

The priest looked at his watch again.

"They were landed some miles down the coast, he and another man—"

"What other man?"

There was a slight note of irritation in Father Nollet's voice, he felt the old woman was unequal to it, she kept moving away from the facts he was waiting for.

"I presume your son reported to the required authority?"

"Authority? There was no authority, it had ceased to exist. And consider he was the only one arriving, it was the time of great departures, everybody was flying. I remember a train flying through the station, the roar it made sounded like the end of the world. They say there was a driver but no guard, a single passenger in the end compartment, a frightened child, it never stopped they say, but went tearing through station after station. The whole of France might have been packed inside it, that's how it was."

"Who was the other man, Madame Marius?"

"I've reason to believe it was a man named Royat, a deck hand under my son. He has never been seen since, they say he's in America—"

"A long way from here."

"A long long way, away," she said. "But who cares about that," she went on, "I have my daughter to think about. You have seen her. I believe something dreadful happened aboard that ship, and I have the feeling, and it is strong, Father Nollet, that he has lost the right to exist—"

"Be plain, Madame Marius,
who?"

"My own son," she said.

"He committed some crime?"

She did not answer.

"Please go on, Madame Marius," said the priest. She suddenly realized that he was lying far back in his chair, and his eyes were closed. "I'm listening," he said quietly.

Yes, she said, they had spent their lifetime there, their hearts were in that place, and as she said this she gave him the impression of a person lost under a wave, who if he will but use some giant endeavour of will and bone may yet rise above it. For a moment he seemed to sense a sudden leap of the heart, out of this squalid room, back to where she belonged, where the roots were deep, the genius of being embedded in the solid rock.

No, she said, after her son had joined the Marine, he was not fit to join his father's service, after he had joined the Marine they had seen little of him in the following years. He roamed a lot, the vagabond in him was something new to the Marius family, and somehow he had the knack of finding the dross of the shipping world, questionable ships, questionable owners, hard dealings in dark corners and some dirty ones, that kind of person. Yes, mostly tramp ships.

He had sailed much in the Mediterranean waters, in many kinds of ships, but never a decent one, never a proud or stately one. No, he had never married, but she added, tartly, he did not lack experience.

Sightless, he seemed to see this woman more clearly, the great body anchored in the chair, motionless, only the eyes alive there, watching, watching. He noted a change in the voice, as though the inner fount of her strength was beginning to dry up, the mountain beginning to wilt, something was breaking.

Yes, she had sold up. That was the sensible thing to do. And when he had cleared out, they had cleared out, too.

But always at her side, like a wound, a cry in her ear, her defeated daughter,

"God's simpleton," she said.

But to return like that, on such a night, as though he had fallen out of the sky. If things had been normal, one might have paused, tried to understand, but the world was quite mad and France was taking blows, everywhere flames, and everywhere running people.

"I dared not ask him how he arrived, what had truly happened, where that child was. Even that doorway through which he came, even that very door had heightened, become huge because there was not behind him the one he had taken away. Where was he? Gone, he said. And the others: Gone, too, everything gone, ship and all. As easily as that, like dropping your scissors, closing your bedroom door."

In the momentary silence both heard the hurried, rasping tick of the little clock. He heard her sigh. His own hands were raised, the fingers spread out to meet each other, tip to tip, the elbows hard down upon the chair's wooden arms.

"Sometimes I am lying flat on my back beside her. For hours together nothing passes between us except a great understanding. Then we may fall asleep, but I am never deaf to her weeping, silent though it is. Many blows can be struck, but I can only think of the one she received. Poor creature. Every day I'm close to it, every night. Sometimes she goes quietly away and shuts herself in the bedroom."

Her voice had dropped, it came over to the priest as a whisper, as a tremble of words, like leaves under wind.

"She has her pitiful little dreams, I know, and son and brother are often in them. It is not for myself that I wish to go, Father Nollet, but for her also. She is not like me, she has no resources. A simple heart and that is all. Home to such creatures is all."

"Yet in your own pride you drove her from her own," he said, sitting up abruptly.

"Some people may have happiness but the once, and they know this, and she is one of them and she knows it, too. Her husband was as herself, a simple man, who was lost years ago with the fishing fleet. His name was Madeau. There was one Madeau only, there will never be two, she knows that too, she has told me so, not in tears, but in a great calmness. She is all I have got now."

At that very moment the door opened and Madeleine came in. She gave a quick, shy smile to the priest, then seated herself.

Father Nollet declined another coffee, gave himself a rude shake, adjusted his vest, then glanced towards the door.

He rose and walked across at the room.

"If I may say so, Madame Marius, yours is a big decision to take, but it's hardly right that you should decide for your daughter also. She is not a child. At the same time she's not old, either. She may yet re-marry."

The old woman lowered her head, it seemed like a direct rebuff to the priest, for she did not answer him.

"I must go," he said and was on his feet instantly. He stood by the old woman, a hand on her shoulder.

"As to your intentions, Madame Marius, I must have more time to consider it. I would like to speak to your daughter—alone. Could she come and see me at the presbytery this evening, after supper, say about eight o'clock. I'm not at all satisfied with the motives, Madame Marius. To-morrow I may be the better able to tell you what I think—"

Madame Marius rose, towering over the priest, "you do not approve of our action. Father Nollet?"

It was impossible for him to avoid her eyes.

"You do not approve of our action?"

"Our action? Is it truly like that?" he asked, his little finger began to play with his watch-chain.

"As to that, you are free to talk to my daughter," she replied.

"Your son," he enquired, "where is your son? Could I see him?"

"We hardly see him ourselves, Father Nollet, but if you asked me what he is doing I would say that most of his days are spent going from one shipping office to another, begging for a job, on his knees to them all—behind his back they must surely smile. Poor man. He can never forget that he was once a Captain, he's got it on the brain, I think. Perhaps he thinks life a fairy-tale—"

The priest retreated as she moved, he felt she was slowly pushing him towards the door.

"He's gone about the place in his filthy old uniform until one got sick of the sight of it, and at last I found my opportunity and I took it away from him. He lies about in the wrong places, that Madame Lustigne's for instance, everybody knows what that harpy is—and when he's not there you may find him in his room, soaking in his misery. It's sad for me, but for
her
—
"

"Sometimes we may see dereliction for ourselves, Madame Marius," and he put out his hand, "good-bye, remember, I will see your daughter this evening," and then he felt the hand being slowly withdrawn from his own.

"Good-bye, Father Nollet," she said. "I will only say that you've not heard the half of it."

He smiled and turned away, and Madeleine preceded him through the kitchen that he would not forget, the clutter of things, the high smell, the dreadful hard light on everything, the picture on the wall, the resplendent figure looking down on the squalor.

He glanced at Madeleine.

"Why did you choose to come here?" he asked, and she said softly, looking behind her, as though she expected her mother was following them, "because he was here. Mother calls it being on his track, but I do not like it."

He grasped her hand, held it firmly.

"And I really believe you, Madame Madeau. This evening then. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, Father," Madeleine said, and saw him through the door.

She stood watching his quick, nervous walk until he had vanished round the corner.

"A man of the deep country," she thought, "like a jolly little apple man." She closed the door and returned to her mother.

VI

M
ARIUS
talked to Marius.

"You are a fool."

"You are a fool, and at fifty that is unpardonable."

"You are on the ice cap."

"You are on the ice cap and may stay there."

"I am scared."

"That is because last night you had a curious feeling that somebody was on your track."

"Last night I was at Madame Lustigne's and I talked too much."

"Lucy said I even cried, but I don't believe it. Never in my whole life have I cried. I can remember the first time my father struck me, and it was a hard blow, but I never even flinched. I think he always disliked me after that."

"That was one blow. This is another. But all the same you cried about it, you were drunk."

"Yes, I am weak there. I lay with Lucy and I positively stank, but she did not seem to mind."

"She said you said, 'I only came here because I am disgusted with myself. Even my own body disgusts me.'"

"I remember her laughing, she kicked off her dress, I can see the flash of her heel as she kicked shut the door. 'We can take anything,' she said, 'even disgust.'"

"Poor Lucy."

"But you must keep away from Lustigne's. There is that man Labiche, a horror, so respectable, so correct, reminded me of a certain kind of fish. I heard Madame enquiring after the health of his wife and daughters. Respectability held together with string."