The Thibaults (33 page)

He was silent. His face was lit up with that look of all-enveloping compassion which is a trait of those who look on themselves as chosen vessels of the Truth. He fancied he detected something like a gleam of hope in Mme. de Fontanin’s eyes. It was not that sort of forgiveness Christ desired of her. He turned away his eyes, with a disapproving snort.

Taking him by the arm, she tried to impart a note of affection to their leave-taking.

“Thank you, James, thank you. Please tell him my answer is no.”

He was not listening; he was praying for her.

“May Christ reign in your heart,” he murmured as he went out, without a backward glance.

When she came back, Antoine was gazing round the drawing-room, his mind full of the last occasion when he had seen it. She had to make an effort to steady her ruffled nerves.

“How nice of you to have come with your brother!” Her voice sounded a little artificial, exaggerating the pleasure she genuinely felt at seeing him again. “Do sit down.” She motioned Antoine to the chair beside hers. “Today we’ll do better not to count on the young people’s company.”

While she was speaking, Daniel had slipped his arm through Jacques’s and was taking him off to his own room. They were of the same height now. Daniel had not expected to find his friend so changed. His affection was all the stronger, and his desire to confide in him more urgent. No sooner were they alone than his face grew animated and took on an air of mystery.

“Look here, you’d better know at once—you’ll be seeing her presently. She’s a cousin of mine, who’s living with us. She’s absolutely ravishing!” He stopped abruptly, whether it was he noticed a hint of embarrassment in Jacques’s attitude, or a belated scruple checked his revelations. “But let’s hear about you, Jacques,” he went on with a friendly smile. Even with his most intimate friend Daniel maintained a slightly ceremonious courtesy. “Why, it’s ages, a whole year, since we saw each other.” Jacques made no remark, so he went on: “Oh, there’s nothing as yet,” and added, bending confidentially towards his friend: “But I’ve high hopes!”

The insistence of his gaze and the tone in which he spoke were making Jacques feel ill at ease. And then it dawned on him that Daniel was not quite the same as before, though he could not have said exactly where the difference lay. Perhaps the oval face had lengthened out a little, but the features looked much the same; the upper lip formed still the same Cupid’s bow, but now its curves were emphasized by the dark line of a moustache, and he had still the trick of smiling with one side only of his face—which marred its symmetry, showing on the left side of his mouth the white flash of his upper teeth. Something perhaps of their former purity had gone out of his eyes, and the tendency of the eyebrows to lift towards the temples was more pronounced, giving an almost feline charm to his gaze. In his voice, too, and manner were traces of a nonchalance which formerly he would not have ventured to display.

Jacques was so busy observing Daniel that he did not think of answering. Then—was it because of that casual manner of his friend, which at once irritated and attracted him?—he suddenly felt a rush of the passionate affection of his schooldays coming over him, and tears rose to his eyes.

“Think of it!” Daniel was exclaiming. “A whole year! Lots of things must have happened to you. Tell me all about them.” He had been moving restlessly about the room; now he sat down, so as to fix his attention on his friend.

Daniel’s attitude conveyed the sincerest affection, but Jacques thought he discerned in it a conscious effort, and became tongue-tied. Still, feeling he must speak, he began telling about the time he had spent in the reformatory. Once again, without actually intending to do so, he dropped into the same literary clichés that he had tried on Lisbeth; a sort of bashfulness prevented him from giving a bald, unvarnished account of the life he had led there.

“But why did you write to me so seldom?”

Jacques shirked the real reason: his reluctance to expose his father to hostile criticism—which, incidentally, did not prevent him, deep within his heart, from totally disapproving of M. Thibault.

“Being all alone like that changes one, you know,” he explained after a pause. The mere fact of recalling it had made his face go apathetic, blank. “You come to feel that nothing really matters. And there’s a sort of formless fear that never leaves you. You do things, but without thinking. After a while you hardly know who you are, you hardly know, even, if you exist. In the long run that life would kill one, or else drive one mad.” He was staring into vacancy, a bemused look on his face. He shuddered slightly; then, changing his tone, fell to describing Antoine’s visit to Crouy.

Daniel listened without interrupting. But once he saw that Jacques’s narrative was coming to an end, his face lit up again.

“Why, I’ve not even told you her name!” he exclaimed. “It’s Nicole. Like it?”

“Very much,” Jacques said. For the first time he began to think of the charms of such a name as Lisbeth.

“Nicole! It suits her to a T. That’s my idea anyhow. Well, you’ll be seeing for yourself. She’s not pretty-pretty, so to speak. But more than pretty; vivid, full of life, and such eyes!” He paused. “Appetizing, if you see what I mean.”

Jacques would not meet his gaze. He, too, would have liked to open his heart to Daniel, tell him of his love; that, indeed, was why he had come here. But, from Daniel’s first remark on, he had been feeling ill at ease, and now he listened with downcast eyes, with a sense of constraint, almost of shame.

“This morning,” Daniel went on—he could hardly keep his exultation within bounds—”Mother and Jenny went out early, so we had our tea by ourselves, Nicole and I. We were alone in the flat. She hadn’t dressed yet. It was simply wonderful! I followed her into Jenny’s room; that’s where she sleeps. A young girl’s bedroom, there’s something about it—! Well, I caught her in my arms, just for a second. She struggled, but she was laughing. You’ve no idea how supple she is. Then she ran out and shut herself in Mother’s room, and wouldn’t open the door. I can’t think why I’m telling you all this—it’s‘ too silly for words, really.” He tried to smile, but his lips stayed tense.

“Do you want to marry her?” Jacques asked.

“To marry her?”

Jacques felt suddenly hurt, as if he had been insulted. Every minute his friend was growing more and more of a stranger to him. And he felt his heart turn to ice when he saw the expression of Daniel’s face—a look of faintly mocking curiosity.

“But what about you?” Daniel asked, coming closer. “In your letter you told me that you, too …?” He left the phrase unfinished.

But, without looking up, Jacques shook his head, as if to say: “No, that’s all over; you shan’t hear a word from me.” In any case, without waiting for an answer, Daniel had just got up. A sound of young voices came to their ears.

“You must tell me about it later on. They’ve just come. Hurry up!” He glanced at a mirror, threw up his head, and hurried out into the corridor.

“Well, children,” Mme. de Fontanin was calling, “aren’t you coming for tea?”

The tea was laid in the dining-room.

As Jacques crossed the threshold his heart beat faster; two girls were standing by the table. They had their hats and gloves still on, and their cheeks were glowing after their walk. Jenny ran up to Daniel and clung to his arm. Seeming to ignore her, he steered Jacques in the direction of Nicole, and introduced him with a breezy unself-consciousness that impressed the boy. He was aware of Nicole’s eyes giving him a curious, fleeting glance, of Jenny’s lingering on him with more attention. He looked back towards Mme. de Fontanin, who was standing beside Antoine at the drawing-room door, evidently concluding a remark.

“… to get children to understand,” she was saying with a melancholy smile, “that there is nothing more precious than life, and that it is so terribly short.”

It was long since Jacques had found himself amongst people he did not know, but he was so keenly interested in observing them that he lost all shyness. Nicole’s natural elegance and sparkle were such that, beside her, Jenny struck him as insignificant and almost plain. Just then Nicole was talking to Daniel; she was laughing. Jacques could not hear what they were talking about, but he could see her eyebrows lifting in merriment or wonder. Her grey-blue eyes, if rather shallow, set too far apart, and perhaps a shade too round, made up for these defects by their gaiety and brilliance, which gave the pale, fair features a vitality that seemed unquenchable. And her face, moulded on generous lines, was crowned by a thick, heavy plait of hair tightly coiled above her head. She had a way of holding herself slightly bending forward that gave her an air of always making haste to greet a friend, and lavishing on all who crossed her path the thoughtless vivacity of her smile. As he watched her, Jacques found himself reluctantly applying to her that word “appetizing,” which had so profoundly shocked him on Daniel’s lips. Just then she realized she was being looked at, exaggerated her spontaneity, and promptly lost it.

It never crossed Jacques’s mind to make an effort to conceal the interest other people inspired in him; on such occasions he had the ingenuousness of the child who stares open-mouthed—his face grew rigid, his gaze inert. Formerly, before his return from Crouy, he had not been thus, but used to treat those with whom he came in contact with such indifference that he never recognized anyone. Now, wherever he was, in crowded shop or street, his eyes observed the passers-by. He did not consciously analyse what he discovered in them; his mind worked on them unknowingly. It was enough for him to catch a glimpse of some peculiarity in a face, or in the demeanour of another, for his imagination to attribute to these strangers whom chance had brought his way a host of special traits of character.

Mme. de Fontanin cut short his musings; she had placed her hand on his arm.

“Come and have your tea beside me,” she said. “I want you to pay me a little visit now.” She handed him a cup and plate. “I’m so glad you’ve come to see us… . Jenny, my pet, please bring the cake… . Your brother’s been telling me about the life you lead in your little flat. I’m so happy about it. It’s so pleasant when two brothers understand each other like bosom friends, isn’t it? Daniel and Jenny, too, get on very well together, and it’s one of my greatest joys. Ah, that makes you smile, my big boy!” She had turned to Daniel, who was coming up with Antoine. “He’s always poking fun at his old Mamma! Now, as a punishment, you shall kiss me, in front of everybody.”

Daniel laughed, with perhaps a shade of embarrassment, but bent down and touched his mother’s forehead lightly with his lips. There was an easy elegance in his least movement.

From the other side of the table Jenny was watching the scene with a smile the charm of which delighted Antoine. Carried away once more by her feelings, she went up to Daniel and linked her arm in his. “There’s another,” Antoine thought, “who gives more than she gets.” When he had seen her for the first time, his interest had been quickened by the way the childish face looked wise beyond its years. He noticed now the graceful way her shoulders moved, as the young bosom gently rose and fell under the light blouse. She was not in the least like her mother, or Daniel either, but that was not surprising, for she seemed destined for a life quite other than the normal.

Mme. de Fontanin was sipping her tea, holding the cup very near her laughing face; through a fragrant mist she was making little amiable gestures towards Jacques. The brightness and the goodness of heart that shone in her eyes seemed to diffuse a gentle glow around her, and the white hair crowned like an incongruous diadem the noticeably youthful forehead. Jacques’s eyes strayed from mother to son. At that moment he loved both with such fervour that he wished with all his heart they might perceive it; for, more than most, he felt a craving not to be misunderstood. His interest in the minds of others was so keen that nothing would satisfy him but an intimate communion with their secret thoughts; almost he wished to merge his life into theirs.

Beside the window Nicole and Jenny had embarked on a discussion. Daniel went up to them and joined in. All three bent over the camera to discover whether or not another photograph could be taken on the roll.

“Do! Just to please me!” Daniel suddenly exclaimed in the warm, emotional tone which was something new with him; the gaze he cast at Nicole was at once imperious and caressing. “Yes! Just as you are now, with your hat on, and my friend Thibault beside you.”

“Jacques!” he called, then added in a lower tone: “Please do—I’m awfully keen on taking you two together.”

Jacques joined their group. Daniel dragged them all into the drawing-room, where the light, so he said, was better.

Antoine stayed on with Mme. de Fontanin in the dining-room. He was bringing to an end the explanation he had thought it best to give her, with the brusqueness which, to his thinking,, lent an accent of forthrightness to his manner. “And I’d have you know exactly the circumstances of this visit,” he was saying. “If Father knew Jacques was here, he’d take my brother from my keeping, and all the trouble would begin again.”

“Poor man,” Mme. de Fontanin murmured, in a tone that made Antoine smile.

“Do you really mean you’re sorry for him?” he asked.

“Yes, for having failed to win the trust of a son like you.”

“It’s not his fault, and it’s not mine either. My father is what is usually described as an eminent and worthy man. I respect him. But there’s no help for it; never, on any question, do we think—I won’t say ‘alike,’ but even on the same lines. Never, whatever the subject we are talking about, can we manage to see it from the same angle.”

“There are some who’ve not yet been touched by the great light.”

“If it’s religion you’re thinking of,” Antoine put in at once, “I may as well tell you Father’s fanatically religious.”

Mme. de Fontanin shook her head. “That’s nothing new,” she smiled. “Doesn’t the apostle Paul tell us that it isn’t those who only hearken to the Law who find favour in God’s eyes, but rather those who practise it in word and deed?”