The Thibaults (20 page)

They were going down towards the wistaria arbour; Jacques halted at the bottom of the steps beside a sphinx in mottled pink marble, and began stroking pensively the sleek, cool forehead gleaming in the sunlight. Was he thinking of Gise and Mademoiselle? Had a sudden picture risen before him of the old hall table, with its fringed cloth and silver platter full of visiting-cards? So Antoine thought, and went on cheerfully.

“Heaven only knows where she gets all her ideas from. Our home can’t be much fun for a kid, can it? Mademoiselle adores her, but you know what she’s like; she’s always in a flutter, she won’t let the poor child do anything, never leaves her in peace for a moment.”

Laughing, he tried to catch his brother’s eye, feeling that these little details of their family life were like a secret treasury to which they alone had the key—something unique and irreplaceable, the memories of childhood spent in common. But Jacques vouchsafed only a fleeting, artificial smile.

Antoine, however, was not to be silenced now.

“Meals aren’t much fun nowadays, I can tell you. Father doesn’t open his mouth, or else serves up to Mademoiselle a sort of rehash of his latest public speeches, or tells her how he spent the day, down to the least detail. By the way, his election for the Institute is going very well, I hear.”

“Yes?” A hint of tenderness crept over Jacques’s face. After musing for a moment, he smiled. “So much the better!”

“All his friends are putting their backs into it,” Antoine went on. “The Abbé’s a pillar of strength; he has friends in every camp, you know. The election is in three weeks.” He had stopped laughing, and added in a lower voice: “You may say what you like, but to be a member of the Institute means something. And Father really deserves it, don’t you agree?”

“Rather!” the boy cried enthusiastically. “He’s awfully good, really —a really good man at heart.” He stopped; then, obviously eager to continue, could not bring himself to do so. He was blushing.

“I’m waiting till Father’s comfortably ensconced beneath that august dome before springing a great surprise on him.” Antoine was obviously carried away by his subject. “I’m really awfully cramped in my room at the end of the hall; I’ve no room for my books, for one thing. Did you know Gise has been put in your old room? I’d like to persuade Father to rent the little flat on the ground floor, where that old chap we called ‘the gay old spark’ is now; he’s leaving on the fifteenth. There are three rooms and I could have a proper study where I could see patients, and perhaps a sort of laboratory—I could fix it up in the kitchen.”

Suddenly he realized how tactless he was being in thus depicting the freedom he enjoyed and his preoccupations with his personal comfort, to this unhappy boy cut off from the world. And he realized, too, that he had just spoken of Jacques’s room as if he were never to come back to it. He stopped abruptly. Jacques had resumed his air of indifference.

“Well, now,” Antoine said, to clear the air, “how about something to eat? What do you say to it? I expect you’re feeling peckish.”

He had lost all hope of establishing easy fraternal relations between Jacques and himself.

They went back to the town. The streets were still crowded, and buzzing like a beehive. The tea-shops were overflowing with customers. Brought to a full stop by the crowd, Jacques stood unmoving in front of a confectioner’s window resplendent with gaudy rows of cakes in sugar icing and exuding cream, the sight of which seemed to fascinate him.

“Right! Let’s go in here,” Antoine smiled.

Jacques’s hands were trembling as he took the plate Antoine handed him. They sat down at the far end of the shop, in front of a pyramid of mixed cakes. Rich wafts of vanilla and warm pastry came up through a service hatch. Unspeaking, slumped in his chair, his eyes swollen as if with unshed tears, Jacques wolfed his food down, stopping after each cake and waiting for Antoine to hand him another, which he began at once to eat voraciously. Antoine ordered two ports. Jacques’s fingers were still trembling as he took up his glass. The first sip of the wine seemed to burn him, and he coughed. Antoine drank his wine slowly, feigning not to notice his brother. Taking courage, Jacques gulped down a mouthful, felt it tingling in his gullet like liquid fire; after another gulp he drained his glass to the dregs. When Antoine began to pour him out a second glass, he pretended not to notice and, only when the glass was nearly full, made a vague gesture of refusal… .

When they left the shop the sun was nearing the horizon and the temperature had dropped. But Jacques was unconscious of the change. His cheeks were burning and his whole body tingled with a feeling of well-being so unaccustomed that it was almost painful.

“We’ve got those two miles to cover,” Antoine said. “I suppose we’d better start back at once.”

Jacques was on the verge of tears. Clenching his fists in his pocket, he set his jaw and bent his head. Antoine, who was secretly watching him, was alarmed by the change that had come over the boy’s face.

“Sure the walk hasn’t tired you?” he asked.

It seemed to Jacques that there was a new note of affection in his brother’s-voice. But he could not find a word to say, and the face he turned towards Antoine was grief-stricken, the eyes were full of tears.

Greatly amazed, Antoine followed him in silence. After they had crossed the bridge and left the town behind, and were once more on the towpath, he moved closer to Jacques, and took his arm.

“Not too sorry to have missed your usual walk?” he asked with a smile.

Jacques made no reply. Then suddenly it all came over him with a rush—the after-effect of this first heady taste of freedom, of the strong wine, and now the soft, sad dusk falling from the bright air. His emotions were too strong for him; he burst out sobbing. Antoine put his arm around him, steadying him, then sat down on the embankment and drew his brother to his side. He was no longer bent on prying into the intimacies of his young brother’s life. He was conscious only of a vast relief that at last the blank wall of apathy against which he had been coming all day long seemed to be giving way.

They were alone on the deserted river bank, alone with the dark recession of the water, under a misty sky dappled with the fires of sunset. In front of them a punt, chained to the bank, was swaying on the eddies, making the dry reeds rustle.

They had still a good way to go, Antoine was thinking, and they could not stay here for ever. Above all, he wanted to make the boy raise his head.

“What’s come over you, Jacques? Why are you crying?”

Jacques pressed tighter against him.

“Was it thinking about your usual walk that made you cry?”

Jacques felt he must say something. “Yes,” he answered.

“Why should it? Where do you usually go on Sundays?”

No answer.

“So you don’t like going out with Arthur?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you say so? If you’d rather have old Léon, it’s easy to fix up, you know.”

“No! No!” The change in his voice from apathy to rage was startling. Jacques had straightened up, and Antoine was dumbfounded by the look of bitter hatred on his face.

It seemed as if Jacques could not bear staying still; he began hurrying along the path, dragging his brother after him.

“So you didn’t like going out with Léon, either?”

Jacques went on walking, his eyes wide open, gritting his teeth, and obstinately silent.

“Still, he behaved quite nicely to you, didn’t he?” Antoine went on.

Again no answer. He was afraid Jacques was going to shrink back into his shell once more, and tried to take his arm. The boy shook it off, and-hurried on. Antoine followed, uncertain how to continue, anxiously wondering how to-regain his confidence. Then, unexpectedly, Jacques slowed down, with a sudden sob. Tears were running down his cheeks; he did’ not look at his brother.

“Antoine, please promise not to tell, never to tell any one. I didn’t go walking with Léon, scarcely at all… .”

He stopped. Antoine was on the brink of asking a question, but instinct warned him not to utter a sound. And presently Jacques spoke again in a voice that sounded uncertain, a little hoarse.

“On the first days, yes. As a matter of fact it was on our walks that he began to—to tell me things. And he lent me books; I didn’t believe such books existed! Afterwards he said he’d post letters for me, if I wanted. It was then I wrote to Daniel. But I hadn’t any money for stamps. Then something happened. Léon had noticed I could draw a bit. Then—but you can guess, can’t you? It was he who told me what was wanted. Then, in exchange, he paid for the stamp on my letter. In the evening he showed .the drawings round to the guards, and they kept on asking for others, more and more elaborate ones. From that moment Léon did just as he liked, he stopped our walks altogether. Instead of going into the country, he used to take me round the back of the buildings, through the village. The children used to run after us. We always went by a side-street to get into the tavern through the back yard. Then he’d go off to drink and play cards or whatever he wanted to do, and while he was at it I was kept hidden in a wash-house, with an old blanket over me.”

“What? They kept you in hiding?”

“Yes, I used to ‘have to stay two hours locked up in the wash-house like that.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. Well, of course the people who kept the place felt anxious… . One day there was some washing to be dried in there, so I was kept in a passage instead. The woman there said—she said …” His voice was broken by sobs.

“What did she say?”

“She said: ‘One never knows with these beastly little …’ ” He was sobbing so violently that he could not go on.

“ ‘These beastly little …’?” Antoine prompted.

“ ‘. . little jailbirds’!’ ” He brought out the word with an effort, then burst into a storm of weeping.

Antoine waited; just then his keen curiosity ^blunted the edge of his compassion.

“And what else?” he asked. “Tell me what else they did to you.”

“Antoine, Antoine-!” he cried. “Swear to me you won’t tell anyone. Swear! If ever-Papa suspected anything, he’d … Papa, is so good, you know; it would upset him terribly. It’s not his fault if he doesn’t see things as we do.” His voice-grew appealing. “Antoine, please, Antoine—don’t leave me now! Please!”

“Of course not, Jacques; I’m here and I’ll .stand by you. I won’t breathe a word, I’ll do exactly what you want. Only—tell me the truth.” Seeing Jacques could not bring himself to speak, he added: “Did he beat you?”

“Who?”

“Why, Léon.”

“Of course not!” Jacques was so surprised that he could not help smiling through his tears.

“They don’t beat you there?”

“Never.”

“Really and truly, never?”

“Never, Antoine.”

“Well—what else?”

Jacques was silent.

“This new man, Arthur? He’s not a nice chap, eh?”

Jacques shook his head.

“What’s wrong with him? Does he go to the tavern, too?”

“No.”

“Ah! So you do go out for real walks with him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what have you got against him? Is he harsh with you?”

“No.”

“Then what is it? You don’t like him?”

“No.”

“Why? There must be some reason… .”

“Because …” Jacques turned his eyes away.

Antoine was silent for a moment, then he broke out: “But, damn it all, why don’t you complain? Why don’t you tell the superintendent about it?”

Carried away by nervous excitement, Jacques pressed his body feverishly against his brother’s.

“Oh, Antoine,” he begged, “you mustn’t! You swore you wouldn’t tell anyone about it. You know you did.”

“Yes, yes, that’s understood. But what I’m asking is, why didn’t you complain of Léon to M. Faîsme?”

Jacques merely shook his head, without a word.

“Do you suspect that the superintendent knows what’s going on, and connives at it?” he suggested.

“Oh, no!”

“What do you think of the superintendent?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you think he gives the other boys a bad time?”

“No. Why?”

“Well, he looks decent enough, but now I feel all at sea. Old Léon, too, looked a good chap. Have you heard anything against the superintendent?”

“No.”

“Are the staff afraid of him? Old Léon and Arthur, for instance?”

“Yes, a bit.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Because he’s the superintendent.”

“How about you? When he’s with you have you noticed anything?”

“What do you mean?”

“So you don’t dare to speak freely to him?”

“No.”

“Supposing you’d told him that Léon went to the tavern instead of taking you for walks, and that you were kept locked up in a wash-house, what do you think he’d have done?”

“He’d have had Léon sent away.” Jacques sounded terrified at the thought.

“So something prevented you from telling him. What was it?”

“That, of course!”

Antoine could make nothing of the answer, but he had a feeling that his brother was trapped in a network of complicities. Nevertheless, at all costs, he was determined to get at the truth.

“Look here! Is it that you don’t want to tell me what it really was? Or don’t you know, yourself?”

“There were some drawings that—that they forced me to sign.” Jacques lowered his eyes. Then, after a moment’s hesitation, he added: “But it’s not only that. One can’t say anything to M. Faîsme, you understand, because—well, because he is the superintendent. You see what I mean, don’t you?”

His tone was weary, but sincere, and Antoine did not insist; he mistrusted himself, knowing how apt he was to jump to over-hasty conclusions.

“Anyhow,” he said, “are you working well?”

The sluice-gates were in sight; behind the little windows in the barges lamps were already being lit. Jacques walked ahead, his eyes fixed on the ground.

Antoine repeated his question.

“So you’re not going ahead with your work, either?”

Jacques shook his head, without looking up.

“But the superintendent told me your tutor was pleased with you.”

Jacques seemed to have difficulty in keeping up with his brother’s cross-examination.