The Thibaults (12 page)

Looking up, Daniel saw his mother. The landing lamp, just above her head, made her hair snow-white, and plunged her face in shadow, yet it seemed to him he had seen her every feature. With lowered eyes he continued on his way up the stairs, intuitively conscious that she was coming down to meet him. Suddenly he felt incapable of making another step, and, just as he was taking off his hat, still not daring to raise his head and hardly daring to breathe, he found himself clasped in her arms, his forehead on her breast. Yet he felt little of the joy he had expected. He had longed so intensely for this moment that when it came he had no more feeling left, and when at last he freed himself from her embrace, his face was shamefast, tearless. It was Jacques, with his back against the staircase wall, who burst out sobbing.

Mme. de Fontanin took her son’s face between her hands, and drew it to her lips. Not a word of reproach; a long kiss. But the agony of mind she had endured during that terrible week made her voice tremble when she spoke to Antoine.

“Have the poor children had any dinner?”

Before Antoine could reply, Daniel had murmured: “Jenny? How is she?”

“She’s out of danger now; she’s in bed and you shall see her; she is waiting for you.” Daniel freed himself at once and ran into the flat. She called after him: “Gently, dear! Don’t forget she’s been very ill. You mustn’t excite her.”

Jacques’s tears were quickly dried, and now he could not refrain from casting a curious glance around him. So this was Daniel’s home, this was the staircase he climbed each day when he came back from school; that was the hall he entered and this the lady he called “Mother” with that strange tenderness in his voice.

“What about you, Jacques?” she smiled. “Will you kiss me, too?” “Speak up, Jacques!” Antoine laughed, giving his brother a slight push.

She extended her arms towards him. Jacques slipped between them, pillowing his head where Daniel’s had lain a little while before. Pensively Mme. de Fontanin stroked the boy’s red hair; then, turning towards the elder brother, she tried to smile. As Antoine remained standing by the door, evidently anxious to leave, she held out to him, over the head of the boy whose arms were round her now, both her hands in token of her gratitude, and said to Jacques:

“Go, my dear; your father, too, must be longing to see you.”

Jenny’s door stood open.

Kneeling at the bedside on one knee, his head resting on the sheets, Daniel was pressing his lips to his sister’s hands, clasped within his own. Jenny had been crying; to reach out towards him she had twisted herself sideways on the pillow, and the strain showed on her face. It was so emaciated as to seem expressionless, but for the eyes. In their look there still was something morbid, and a trace of hardness, almost obstinacy; they were almost the eyes of a grown woman, and they had a dark inscrutability, wise beyond her years, as if the light-heartedness of youth had long forsaken her.

Mme. de Fontanin went up to the bed. On the point of bending down and gathering the two children in her arms she remembered that she must take care not to tire Jenny. She made Daniel get up and come with her to her own room.

The room was brightly lit and cheerful. In front of the fireplace Mme. de Fontanin had set out the tea-table, with toast and butter and honey. Kept hot under a napkin was a mound of boiled chestnuts, one of Daniel’s favourite dishes. The kettle was purring; the room was very warm and the air so stuffy that Daniel felt almost nauseated. He waved away the plate his mother held out to him. A look of disappointment settled on her face.

“What is it, dear? I hope you’re not going to deprive me of the pleasure of a cup of tea with you this evening?”

Daniel gazed at her. Something about her had changed; what was it? She was drinking her tea as she always did, in little scalding sips, and he could see her face with the light behind it smiling through the vapour rising from her cup. Yes, for all its traces of exhaustion, it was the face that he had always known. But there was something in the smile, the lingering gaze—no, he could not bear its too-much-sweetness! Lowering his eyes, he helped himself to buttered toast and, to keep himself in countenance, pretended to be eating it. She smiled all the more, lost in her wordless happiness, and found an outlet for her rush of emotion in gently stroking the head of the little dog, which was nestling in the folds of her dress.

Daniel put down his toast. Without raising his eyes, he asked: “What did they tell you at the lycée?” His cheeks had gone pale.

“I told them—it wasn’t true.”

At last Daniel’s brows relaxed. Raising his eyes, he met his mother’s gaze; there was trust in it but, none the less, a silent question, as if she sought for confirmation of her trust. And happily Daniel’s candid eyes confirmed it beyond all manner of doubt. Her face was shining with joy as she went up to him.

“Why,” she whispered, “oh, why didn’t you come and tell me about it, my big boy, instead of …?”

She left the question unended, and stood up. There was the jingle of a bunch of keys in the hall. She stood unmoving, looking towards the opening door. The dog began wagging its tail and ran, without barking, to meet the old friend who had entered.

It was Jerome.

He was smiling.

Wearing neither overcoat nor hat, he came in so naturally that one could have sworn he had just walked across from his own room. He glanced at Daniel, but went up at once to his wife and kissed her extended hand. A faint perfume of verbena and lavender hovered round him.

“Well, darling, here I am! What’s been happening? Really, I’ve been dreadfully worried.”

Daniel went up to him delightedly. Little by little he had come to love his father, though in early childhood he had for many years displayed an exclusive, jealous affection for his mother. Even now he accepted with unconscious satisfaction the fact that his father was so often away and left them to themselves.

“So you’re back, Daniel, after all? What’s all this they’ve been telling me about you?” Jerome was holding his son’s chin and observing him frowningly.

Mme. de Fontanin had remained standing. “When he returns,” she had said to herself, “I shall refuse to let him stay.” Her resentment had not weakened, nor her resolve; but he had caught her unawares, had taken everything for granted with such airy unconcern that she was at a loss. She could not take her eyes off him; she would not admit to herself how profoundly she was affected by his presence, how touched she still was by the winning charm of his look, his smile, his gestures; would not admit that he was the one love of her life. The money problem had just crossed her mind, and she fell back on it to justify her weakness. That morning she had had to broach the remnants of her savings, and now was practically at her last penny. Jerome, of course, knew it; probably he was bringing the money needed to tide over the month.

At a loss how to answer, Daniel had turned to his mother, and just then he saw a look flitting across the calm, maternal face, a look of something—he could not have put it into words—something so significant, so intimate, that he turned away with a feeling of bashfulness. At Marseille he had lost even the innocence of the eye.

“Ought I to scold him, sweetheart?” Jerome’s lips parted in an insinuating smile that showed his flashing teeth. “Must I play the stern father?”

She did not reply at once. Then, with an undertone of bitterness, of a desire to punish him, she blurted out: “Do you realize that Jenny very nearly died?”

He let go his son and took a step towards her, and such was the consternation on his face that she was ready to forgive him on the spot, if only to wipe out the distress that she had deliberately caused him.

“But she’s much better now. The danger’s past!” she exclaimed.

She forced herself to smile, so as to reassure him the sooner, and the smile was tantamount to a capitulation. She was aware of it. Everything seemed to be conspiring against her dignity.

“Go and see her,” she added, noticing that Jerome’s hands were shaking. “But please don’t wake her.”

Some minutes passed. Mme. de Fontanin sat down. Jerome came back on tip-toe, shutting the door very carefully. His face was radiant with affection; no trace of apprehension remained. He was laughing again, and his eyes twinkled.

“Ah, if you’d seen her just now! Charming! She’s lying on her side, her cheek resting on her hand.” His fingers sketched in air the graceful outlines. “She has grown thinner, but that’s almost a good thing, really; it makes her all the prettier, don’t you think so?”

She did not answer. He was staring at her with a puzzled air.

“Why, Thérèse, you’ve gone quite white!”

She rose, and almost ran to the mirror above the mantelpiece. It was true; in those two days of anxiety her hair, which till then had been fair, with a light silver sheen, had turned completely white over the temples. And now Daniel understood what had seemed to him different, inexplicable since his homecoming. Mme. de Fontanin scanned her reflected self, uncertain of her feelings but unable to stifle a regret. Then, in the mirror, she saw Jerome’s face smiling towards her and unwittingly she found a consolation in his smile. He seemed amused, and lightly touched a vagrant silver lock that floated in the lamplight.

“Nothing could suit you better, sweetheart; nothing could better set off—what shall I call it?—the youngness of your eyes.”

When she answered, the words, seemingly an excuse, served to mask her secret pleasure.

“Oh, Jerome, I’ve been through some awful days and nights! On Wednesday we’d tried everything, and we’d lost hope. I was all alone. I was so frightened!”

“Poor darling!” he cried impulsively. “I’m dreadfully sorry; I could so easily have come back. I was at Lyon on that business you know about.” He spoke with such assurance that for a moment she began to search her memory. “I’d completely forgotten that you hadn’t my address. And besides, I’d only gone away for twenty-four hours; I’ve even wasted my return ticket.”

Just then it flashed across his mind that he had given Thérèse no money for a long while. Annoying! He had no money coming in for another three weeks. He reckoned up what he had on him and unthinkingly made a grimace which, however, he promptly explained away.

“And to think that all my trouble was practically wasted—I just couldn’t put that deal through! I went on hoping till the last day, but here I am back again, with empty pockets! Those fat Lyon bankers are infernally hard to deal with, an unbelieving lot.” He launched into a story of his experiences, letting his fertile imagination run away with him, without a trace of embarrassment; he had the born story-teller’s delight in his inventions.

Daniel, as he listened, felt for the first time a sort of shame for his father. Then, for no reason, without any apparent relevance, he thought of the man the woman at Marseille had told him about, her “old boy” as she had called him—a married man, in business, who always came in the afternoon, she had explained, because he never went out in the evening without “his missus.” In the face of his mother, who was listening too, there was something that baffled him. Their eyes met. What did the mother read in her son’s eyes? Did she see far within, into thoughts to which as yet Daniel himself had given no definite form? When she spoke there was an abruptness in her tone that betrayed her annoyance.

“Now run away to bed, my dear; you’re absolutely tired out.”

He obeyed. But just as he stooped to kiss her, a picture rose before him of his mother so cruelly forsaken while Jenny was on her deathbed. And his affection was enhanced by a realization of the distress he had caused her. He embraced her tenderly, murmuring in her ear:

“Forgive me.”

She had been waiting for those words since his return, and now she could not feel the happiness she would have felt, had he uttered them sooner. Daniel was conscious of this, and inwardly blamed his father for it. Mme. de Fontanin, however, could not help feeling a grievance against her son; why had he not spoken sooner, while they were alone together?

Half in boyish playfulness, half out of mere gluttony, Jerome had gone up to the tray and was examining the “spread” with comically pursed lips.

“My word, and who are all these nice things for?”

His laughter never sounded quite natural; he would throw back his head, slewing round his pupils into the corners of his eyes, and then emit in quick succession three rather theatrical Ha’s: “Hal Ha! Ha!”

He had drawn up a stool to the table and was already busy with the tea-pot.

“Don’t drink that tea, it’s almost cold,” Mme. de Fontanin said, and lit the spirit-lamp under the kettle. When he protested, she added, but unsmilingly: “No—I insist!”

They were alone. To attend to the tea, she had come up to the table, and the bitter-sweet perfume of the lavender and verbena scent he used came to her nostrils. He looked up at her with a half-smile; his look conveyed at once affection and repentance. Keeping his slice of buttered toast in one hand, like a hungry schoolboy, he slipped an arm round his wife’s waist with a free-and-easy deftness that showed long experience in the amorous art. Mme. de Fontanin freed herself abruptly; she knew her weakness, and dreaded it. When he withdrew his arm she came back to finish making the tea, then moved away once more.

She wore a look of dignity and sadness, but somehow his complete insouciance had taken the sting out of her resentment. She studied his appearance, surreptitiously, in the mirror. His amber-coloured skin, his almond eyes, the graceful poise of his body, the slightly exotic refinement of his dress, and his languid airs gave him an oriental charm. She remembered having written in her diary, during their engagement:
My Beloved is beautiful as an Indian Prince
. And even tonight she was seeing him through the same eyes as in those far-off days. He was sitting slantwise on a stool that was too low for him, and stretching his legs towards the fire. Daintily his fingers, tipped by well-manicured nails, were taking up slices of toast, one after another, and gilding them with honey. As, bending above the plate, he ate them, his white teeth flashed. When he had finished eating, he drank his tea at a gulp, rose with a dancer’s suppleness, and ensconced himself in an arm-chair. He behaved exactly as if nothing had happened and he were living here now just as he had always done. The dog jumped onto his knee and he began patting it. His left ring-finger bore a large sardonyx ring left him by his mother, an ancient cameo on which the milk-white figure of a Ganymede rose from a deep black background. The gold had worn down with the years and the ring kept on slipping to and fro as he moved his hand. His wife watched all his gestures intently.