The Thibaults (26 page)

She had told her story hastily, with lowered eyes. When she raised her head and saw the look of profound disgust and indignation on Mme. de Fontanin’s face, she clasped her hands imploringly.

“Oh, Aunt Thérèse, please don’t think unkindly of Mamma; it really wasn’t her fault at all. I’m not always nice and I’m really a dreadful nuisance to her; you understand, don’t you? But I’m grown up now, and I don’t want to go on with that life any more. I couldn’t bear it!” Her mouth set in a look of firm resolve. “I want to work, to earn my living, and not be a drag on anyone. That’s why I’ve come, Aunt Thérèse. There’s no one else but you. Please tell me how to set about it, please, Auntie. You won’t mind looking after me, will you? Just for a few days.”

Mme. de Fontanin was too deeply moved to reply at once. Could she ever have believed this child would one day become so dear to her? There was a world of tenderness in her eyes as she gazed at Nicole, an affection that warmed her own heart, too, and allayed her distress. The little girl was not so pretty as she used to be; those feverish days had left their mark, and an ugly rash blemished the young lips—but her deep blue eyes were lovelier than ever. Just now they seemed dilated, unnaturally large, yet what courage and what steadfastness shone in their limpid depths! … At last, smiling, she leaned towards the little girl.

“Darling, I quite understand. I respect your decision and I promise to help you. But for the present you’re going to live here, with us; it’s rest you need.” She said “rest,” but her eyes implied “affection.” Nicole read their meaning, but she still refused to soften.

“I want to work; I don’t want to be a charge on anyone, any longer.”

“What if your mother comes back to fetch you?”

Her clear gaze grew misted; then suddenly an unbelievable hardness came over it.

“I’ll never go back to her. Never!” Her voice was harsh with bitter resolution.

Mme. de Fontanin made as if she had not heard, and merely said:

“I—I’d very much like to keep you with us—for always!”

The girl rose unsteadily, then suddenly sank onto the floor and laid her head on her aunt’s knees. As Mme. de Fontanin stroked the child’s cheek, her mind was busy with a delicate problem which she felt it her duty to settle once for all.

“My dear, you’ve seen a great many things that a girl of your age oughtn’t to have seen,” she began.

Nicole tried to rise, but Mme. de Fontanin prevented her. She did not want the child to see her blushing. As she held the girl’s forehead to her knee, unthinkingly she was winding a strand of golden hair round her finger, groping in her mind for the right words to say. “And you must have guessed a number of things, things which, I think, had better remain a secret. You understand me, don’t you?” Nicole had moved her head and was looking up at her. A sudden light came into the child’s eyes.

“Oh, Aunt Thérèse, you can be sure of that. I won’t breathe a word to anyone. They wouldn’t understand; they’d say Mamma was to blame.”

She was as bent on concealing her mother’s weakness as Mme. de Fontanin was on concealing Jerome’s. The strange complicity that was springing up between the little girl and Mme. de Fontanin was sealed by Nicole’s next remark. She was standing, her face lit up with eagerness.

“Listen, Aunt Thérèse. This is what you must tell them: that Mamma has been obliged to earn her living and has found a situation abroad— in England, let’s say. A situation that has prevented her from taking me with her. As French teacher in a school, we might tell them.” A childish smile hovered on her lips as she added: “And, as Mamma’s away, there’ll be nothing surprising if I seem rather sad, will there?”

THE “gay old spark” on the ground floor moved out on the fifteenth of April.

On the next morning Mile, de Waize, preceded by two maids, by Mme. Friihling the concierge, and a handy man, went to take possession of the little bachelor flat. The reputation of its previous occupant had been anything but savoury and Mademoiselle, drawing her black merino mantle round her shoulders, waited until all the windows had been opened before crossing the threshold. Then only did she risk entering the little hall of the flat and making a thorough inspection of the rooms. Though somewhat reassured by the immaculate bareness of the walls, she directed the rite of cleansing in the spirit of an exorcist.

Much to Antoine’s surprise the worthy spinster had agreed almost without protest to the idea of the two brothers’ being installed outside the parental walls, though such a project must have run counter to all her notions of home-life as it should be lived, and played havoc with her views of the Family and Education. Antoine accounted for Mademoiselle’s attitude by the pleasure she felt at Jacques’s return, and the respect in which she held the decisions of M. Thibault, above all when they had the commendation of the Abbé Vécard.

As a matter of fact there was another reason for Mademoiselle’s almost enthusiastic acquiescence: the relief she felt at seeing Antoine leave the flat. Ever since she had taken Gise under her wing the poor old lady had lived in constant terror of infectious diseases. One spring she had actually kept Gise imprisoned in her room for six weeks, not daring to let her take the air elsewhere than on the balcony and delaying the departure of the whole family to their summer residence, because little Lisbeth Friihling, the concierge’s niece, had whooping-cough and, to leave the house, it would have been necessary to pass in front of the concierge’s premises on the ground floor. Naturally Antoine, with his clothes redolent of the hospital, his medical books and instruments, seemed to her a source of daily peril in their midst. She had begged him never to take Gise on his knee. If, on coming home, by some unlucky chance he dropped his overcoat across a chair in the hall instead of taking it to his room, or if he arrived late and came to table without washing his hands—though she knew he did not wear an overcoat when seeing patients, and never left the hospital without first visiting the lavatory—she was too terrified, too obsessed by fears of “germs,” to eat, and, the moment dessert came on the table, would sweep Gise away with her to her room and inflict on her a fiercely antiseptic washing of throat and nostrils. To install Antoine on the ground floor meant creating a protective zone of two stories between Gisèle and him, and diminishing to that extent the peril of infection. Thus she displayed particular zest in preparing for the bearer of contagions this remote quarantine. In three days the rooms were scraped clean, washed, carpeted, and equipped with curtains and furniture.

All was ready now for Jacques’s return.

Every time she thought of him, her activity redoubled; or else she would indulge in a sentimental breathing-space, conjuring up before her melting eyes the well-loved face. Her affection for Gise had by no means ousted Jacques from his priority in her regard. She had doted on him since he was born; indeed she had loved him even longer than that, for she had loved and brought up, before him, the mother whom he had never known, whose place she had taken from the cradle. It was between her outstretched arms that one evening, tottering along the carpet in the hall, Jacques had taken, towards her, his first step; and for fourteen successive years she had trembled for him as now she trembled for Gisèle. And with boundless love went total incomprehension. The boy, from whom she scarcely ever took her eyes, remained a mystery to her. There were days when she gave up hope—so “inhuman” did she find the child—and then she would weep, recalling Mme. Thibault’s childhood, for Jacques’s mother had been as meek and mild as an angel out of heaven. She never tried to puzzle out from whom Jacques had inherited his propensity for violence, and could blame only the Devil. And yet there were days when one of those sudden, impulsive gestures in which the child’s heart suddenly flowered forth would quicken her emotion, making her weep again, but now with joy.

She had never been able to get used to Jacques’s absence nor had she ever been able to understand the reasons for his exile. Now she wanted his return to be a festive occasion and his new room to contain everything he loved. Antoine had to put his foot down or she would have crammed the cupboards full of his old toys. She had brought down from her own room his favourite arm-chair, the chair in which he had always used to sit when a black mood was on him; and, on Antoine’s advice, she had replaced Jacques’s old bed by a brand-new sofa-bed which, folded up in the day, gave the room the dignity of a study.

Meanwhile Gisèle had been left to her own devices for two days, but with plenty of work to keep her out of mischief. Try as she might, she could not fix her attention on her lesson-books. She was dying of curiosity to see what was happening down below. She knew her Jacquot was going to return, that all this commotion was on his account, and, to calm her nerves, kept pacing up and down the room, which seemed to her a prison-cell.

On the third morning she could bear it no longer, and the temptation was so strong that at noon, noticing that her aunt had not come up again, she ran out of her room without more ado and raced down the stairs, four steps at a time. Antoine was just coming in. She burst out laughing. Antoine had a special way of looking at her—a stolid, concentrated glare he had invented for their mutual amusement— that never failed to send her off into peals of uncontrollable laughter, which lasted as long as Antoine could retain his gravity. Mademoiselle used to scold them both for it. But just now they were alone, and the occasion was too good to miss.

“What are you laughing at?” he said at last, catching hold of her wrists. She struggled, laughing all the more. Suddenly she stopped.

“I really must get out of this habit of laughing. If I don’t, you know, nobody will ever want to marry me.”

“So you want to get married, do you?”

“Yes,” she said, gazing up at him. There was a mildness in her gaze that brought to mind the eyes of a large, sentimental dog. Looking down at her plump little body, with its wild-flower grace, he reflected for the first time that this imp of eleven would one day become a woman, would marry. He let go her wrists.

“Where were you rushing off to like that, by yourself, without even a hat or a shawl on? Don’t you know it’s lunch-time?”

“I’m looking for Auntie. She’s given me a sum I can’t make out,” she added with a little giggle. Then, blushing, she pointed to the mystery-laden door from which a single ray of light was streaming. Her eyes were shining in the dimness of the vestibule.

“You’d like to have a look at it, eh?”

She made a “yes” with a flutter of her red lips, soundlessly.

“You’re in for a scolding, I warn you,” Antoine smiled.

She hesitated, eyed him boldly to see if he were joking. Then she made up her mind.

“No, why should I be scolded? It’s not a sin.”

Antoine laughed; he had recognized Mademoiselle’s phraseology for Right and Wrong. He fell to wondering what effect the old maid’s influence was having on the child. A glance at Gisèle reassured him; she was a healthy plant which would flourish in any soil and defy the gardener’s restraint.

Her eyes were still fixed on the half-opened door.

“Well, why don’t you go in and have a look round?” Antoine said.

As she slipped in like a scared mouse, she stifled a cry of joy.

Mademoiselle was alone. She had climbed onto the sofa-bed and, standing tip-toe, was straightening the crucifix she had just hung on the wall; it was the crucifix she had given Jacques for his first communion, and it was still to watch over her dear one’s sleep. She seemed gay, happy, young, and was singing as she worked. She had recognized Antoine’s step in the entrance-hall, and thought she must have forgotten the time. Meanwhile Gisèle had made an inspection of the other rooms and, unable to restrain her glee, had begun dancing and clapping her hands.

“Good heavens!” Mademoiselle exclaimed, jumping down from the bed. In a mirror she saw her niece, her hair streaming in the breeze from an open window, capering like a young fawn, and screaming at the top of her voice.

“Hurrah for lovely draughts! Hurrah!”

She did not understand, did not try to understand. The idea that an act of willful disobedience might account for the little girl’s presence here never crossed her mind; for sixty-six years she had been in the habit of bowing to the exigencies of fate. She made a dash at the child and, unhooking her cape, wrapped her hastily in its folds, and without a word of reproach hurried her out. And, after making Gisèle run up the stairs even quicker than she had run down them, she did not draw breath till she had put the child in bed under a warm blanket and made her drink a bowl of boiling-hot herb-tea.

It must be admitted her fears were not entirely groundless. Gisèle’s mother, a Madagascan whom Major de Waize had married in Tama-tave, where he was garrisoned, had died of tuberculosis, less than a year after the birth of the child; two years later the Major himself had succumbed to a slow, never fully diagnosed disease that was thought to have been transmitted to him by his wife. Ever since Mademoiselle, the orphan’s only relative, had had her sent home from Madagascar and taken charge of her, the dangers of hereditary disease had constantly obsessed her, though actually the child had never had a serious cold in her life, and the various doctors and specialists who examined her each year had never found the least flaw in her healthy constitution.

The election for the Institute was taking place in a fortnight, and M. Thibault seemed in a hurry to have Jacques back. It was arranged that M. Faisme should personally escort him to Paris on the following Sunday.

On the previous Saturday evening, Antoine left the hospital at seven o’clock, dined at a neighbouring restaurant so as to escape the family dinner, and, round about eight, alone and in high spirits, took possession of his new domain, where he was to sleep that night for the first time. He found a pleasure in the feel of his private key turning in the lock, in slamming his own door behind him, and, after switching on all the lights, began to walk slowly from room to room, with the zest of a conqueror exploring a new-won kingdom. He had reserved for himself the side looking out on the street: two big rooms and a dressing-room. The first large room had little furniture in it: only a few chairs of various shapes and sizes grouped round a small circular table. This was to serve as the waiting-room, when patients came to consult him. Into the second room, which was the larger of the two, he had moved the furniture belonging to him in his father’s flat, his big desk, his bookshelves, his two leather arm-chairs, and all the various accessories of his industrious hours. His bed was in the dressing-room, which also contained a washstand and wardrobe.