The Closed Harbour (7 page)

The church had become strangely silent. Madame Marius knew that at any moment now, the altar boys would come out through the little dark door, preceding Father Nollet. She took her daughter's hand and pressed it.

"Don't imagine I do not understand" she said, pressing more tightly, "I do. I
am
old. And you will not re-marry. Some things are always too late."

"Ssh!" Madeleine said.

The little procession came through the door and they both knelt down.

"Did you hear what I said?" whispered the old woman.

Madeleine fixed her eyes on the statue of St Joseph. She had heard, but would not answer. Some things were not discussed in the house of God. Later, Father Nollet was in the pulpit, speaking, but they did not hear him.

"What is that?" asked Madeleine, she glanced shyly about her.

"I said we've been here too long. That is all. I'll be glad to be out of it."

Madeleine was suddenly very close to her mother.

"You had a letter this morning. I saw it, I mean the postmark. From home?"

She never mentioned Nantes by name, simply referred to it as 'home'.

"From Father Gerard."

"What does he say?"

"I haven't read it."

They were suddenly silent for the blessing. Father Nollet followed the boys out, people were rising to their feet.

"Let us go."

"I'll just speak to the priest before I go," Madeleine said, and suddenly was gone.

Madame Marius knelt down again. "Help us now, Mighty God."

As she prayed she stared about the church, and behind her heard the steady, deep tick of the clock below the choir stall.

"I follow him because there is something he must tell us."

"And he can't hold it in much longer, it is too dreadful for that, he knows—and when he speaks I shall be satisfied. But what of her?"

She did not kneel long, her knees hurt, she rose and sat back in the seat.

"At the end one is always asking for help."

The rosary came alive in her hands, the beads moved through her fingers, she kneaded them, bead on bead, and stared at the Tabernacle.

"I shall be glad to get home, my back is aching a little, I hope she won't be too long."

She suddenly saw her daughter, she was at the breast, she saw her for the first time.

"Nature plays tricks, how plain she really is. Unlike the Marius lot, how handsome they were," and she felt again the full rigour of that initial shock.

"To-day she is as plain as a pancake."

She struggled to her feet, her sharp ear had already heard approaching footsteps. She put an arm through that of her daughter and they left the church.

"You have everything?"

"Everything."

"Then we will go back to that house" Madame Marius said.

There was something hesitant, uncertain in their very steps, as though this were a task, a duty to be done, the heart pulled another way.

On occasions the old woman would cry "stop" and the daughter stopped.

Madame Marius regained her breath, and as she stood she held on tightly to her daughter's arm.

"It's a terrible place, so huge, like a big melting pot, if one falls into it, well, you never know how you come out. Ah, I shall be glad to go."

"Are you ready?"

"I'm ready."

They walked on, Madame Marius erect, her head slightly forward, on her shoulders, Madeleine held tight to her arm.

"I wonder if he'll be out?"

"Is he ever in?"

A silence fell between them and they did not speak again until they were safe inside the house. Madame Marius freed herself from the clutching arm. She stared about the kitchen.

"Well at least he has taken his peasant's suit" she said. "You know there is something terribly stupid in his stubbornness, I'll bet he is cringing around the Heros again. My God, if
I
could get in to see that Follet gentleman—You had better bring in the coffee. I am going into the other room," and she left her daughter standing in the centre of the kitchen. When she brought in the bread and coffee her mother had already resumed her seat in the window.

"This morning I had half a mind to go into his room," Madame Marius said, as she took the mug from her daughter. "Sometimes I think one may know what that person has been thinking."

"What are you staring at?" she asked suddenly, and Madeleine replied quickly, "nothing," but she was.

To-day, this very evening she seemed to be looking at her mother as for the first time. How big she was, how strong, how determined, and yet withal, how suddenly calm. In the night something had risen in her, a resolve, a decision.

"Then what she said in the church is true," thought Madeleine.

"Why don't you sit down?"

"I am," sitting down.

Her mother made coarse noises as she ate, she dropped lumps of bread into her coffee and sucked at the sodden mass.

"I expect he was thinking what you were thinking," Madeleine said.

"What was that?" Madame Marius spoke sharply, "give me more coffee."

"Your pride," she said.

"Since you had none, it cannot affect you very much."

"Where is the letter of Father Gerard?"

"I have it here. Read it to me."

"Give it here."

Holding it in her hand, Madeleine felt for a moment as though all Nantes were there, all her life, the grace of her days, she heard laughter, saw her heart-happy man.

"Then read it," Madame Marius said.

"Yes," Madeleine said, faltering, the break in her voice.

"Spare me, please, I thought we had done with that. Read the letter."

She opened out the sheet of paper and began to read.

"Dear Madame
Marius,

I am glad that you have written me. This morning I was on my way to see our old friend, Jules Cordon, you will remember him. And as you know my way lies past your house, and coming by it I chanced to see bursting over the wall the white lilac, heavily in flower. And I thought then that perhaps, as I passed, I would hear you call to me from behind it, as in the old days. But there was only the strong light and the whiteness and silence, and I knew you had gone. But at the same time I wondered too, if you would not come back
—"

"Will you go on, or must I read it myself?"

"I am reading it," Madeleine said.

"It has always seemed to me a foolish decision to have made, to have turned your back on your home, there was so much spirit there, so much bone and heart. It is your place. It is yet empty because there is a feeling abroad that you will still come back, to where you belong, to where your place is, since there is no other. Nobody thinks any the less of you because your son has erred, and as for the rumour, the disgrace, surely you place far too high a price upon this. A man may sink a hundred ships, and yet not be disgraced, your son has erred and you think it is the end of France. My dear Madame
Marius,
if I may say so, I fear your pride is strangling you
—"

"I said go on reading didn't I?"

"I am reading," Madeleine said, and was in that house, hard by the river, in a room opening on the garden, and this was cool. There was a man stood there, and he was looking at her, she at him, and she said, "where is Jean?"

"Gone," and she heard the word again, and felt it and saw it, dropping as stone into the sea, and into that room where the sea was, flowed there, carrying this man.

"Where is my son?"

"I said he is gone. Poor, poor lad."

With her clenched fists she hammered at his breast, and this was iron.

"Where is he, where is Jean? Christ Jesus," she cried at him, "you saved yourself," and struck, and went on striking, and he was as rock, immovable, taller than she by a foot, and as she looked up at him, taller, as high as heaven in his silence. Something like steel held her, she was caught, tight in his arms.

"Madeleine."

And she remembered it was he who cried, and not she.

"Don't touch me," she screamed, and ran, and left him, in the sea and silence.

"Will you give me that letter?" Madame Marius said, "what has come over you, cannot you read? Or is it that awful weakness in you, come again, after last night, after this morning, what we said, the resolution was made—"

"How far you have travelled since that morning. I often think of you, and your good daughter, God help her in her wretchedness. I have had the mind to come to you, to see you, and to talk to you. How is your son?
Has he yet been lucky, and maybe gone, or is he still hoping as we all must hope. Every day people are asking about you, and let me tell you consternation is still with us, as real and rising as a tree. You seem to have decided when end was without perhaps realizing what end means. I do beg of you, my dear Madame
Marius,
for the sake of your family, and of your name, to return to us and live again. On the other hand I tell myself how devoted you are to that son, to have broken up your home and followed him, and no less with her, who has suffered so much. Nothing will ever erase from my mind the dignity of this simple woman in her worst hours. Poor child
...
"

"I should never have let him go," Madeleine said, the letter was limp in her hand, her hand fell to her side, she stared stupidly at her mother.

"And I could have said that of your father, God have mercy on his soul, I could have said, 'why did I let you go?'
Perhaps because the sea is blue. Give me that letter at once."

Madeleine reached out and handed her the letter.

"Here, I will not read any more of it," said Madeleine, and went out, and upstairs to her room.

"Poor creature. It was a blow, and it will never cease to be one."

Slowly, with great deliberation she began to tear up the letter, the muscles of her face contracted—" we could never have stayed, never, my man was gone. And then she goes and marries this Madeau, so that we are forced to ask ourselves 'who in the name of God is this?'", tearing and tearing, into the tiniest fragments, "and then the son, a fine name he made for himself, drunk, they said, when he lost that first ship, as to the other——" and suddenly she had flung a hundred tiny fragments into the air, "that cannot be answered," she said, "I would never go back. Never. I should never have let her read it, it was silly of me, I could see her falling to pieces before my eyes. Her poor son. We may have heart, but sometimes I think there must be iron. Anyway our minds are made up. It is only for Father Nollet to speak his own. Poor child. She thinks she may be happy again. Rubbish. That is something you have only the once."

She turned away from the window, she called loudly, "Madeleine, Madeleine." There was no reply. She waited, listening.

"I thought all that was finished, these secret weepings, these regrets, these—Madeleine, cannot you hear me calling you?"

She went out and stood at the foot of the stairs. In her right hand she carried a stick, and with it she now struck sharply on the floor.

"I did not ask you to come," she shouted. And louder, "I say I did not ask you to follow me here. Go back then if that is what you wish." She began to climb the stairs.

IV

"W
HEN
I feel disgusted with myself" he said, "I always come to you."

"We can take anything," she said, "even disgust."

With a quick shake of her shoulder her hair fell loose.

"You haven't bought me a drink yet," Lucy said, making a face at him.

"I'll get one," Marius said and jumped up, but she pulled him back.

"Call Henri," she said, "that's what he's here for."

"Henri?"

"Madame's husband, he understands everything."

"He must be very clever indeed—"

"You're actually laughing, Captain, it's the first time. Call him in. He won't fail to come, he's a mongrel man and everybody's his master."

Marius went to the door, opened it and called loudly, "Henri."

They had not long to wait. There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," cried Lucy.

Henri had mousy grey hair and a cast in one eye. He stood there in vest and black trousers, carpet slippers, looking at them indifferently.

"What is it, Lucy?"

"I'd like a long, long Cinzano."

"Two long long Cinzano's," Marius said.

He seemed no sooner departed than he was back again, he did not knock this time, but walked right in and placed the drinks on the wicker table near the bed. His single good eye was focused on the couch.

"Two Cinzano's for Room 10," he stared at Marius, then at Lucy.

There was something in his eye that Marius did not like, and he shouted, "clear to hell out", and Henri, grinning, turned and went out.

"And when we've had this drink, Captain, the lights go out, they hurt my eyes."

"You're very beautiful, Lucy, did you know that?"

Lucy only laughed, she laughed at anything.

"How old are you, really?"

"Me. I'm twenty," she said.

"Ought I to envy you, I'm forty eight," and Lucy laughed again, because she always did, she couldn't help it.

"At least," he said, "you're happy—yes?"

"Of course I'm happy," she pulled his hair.

"And never sad?"

She noticed the Captain's quick change of expression, "and
never
sad?" he repeated.

"Why should I be sad?" she asked, she made a loud gurgling noise when she drank.

"Well consider," Marius said, he had noticed a sudden boldness in her voice.

"Well—consider," his mouth touched her ear, "consider," and then her hand was flat against his mouth.

"Please, no sermons—now you're being fatherly—are you married?"

He shook his head, "Never."

"Had she been married?"

"Twice," Lucy said, "it was no good, I'm not like that, Captain," her mouth widened to a smile and he looked admiringly at the firm white teeth.

"You're sloppy," she said.

"All the same you are beautiful," Marius said, his look was so intense that Lucy suddenly shut her eyes against it.

"Why d'you think I'm unhappy?"