The Thibaults (56 page)

“No, Daniel,” Jacques broke in, unable to master his annoyance. “You mustn’t judge me by that. To begin with, the style’s abominable. Flatulent, lumpy, long-winded!” And to himself he added, raging inwardly: “Heredity, no doubt!”

“The theme, too,” Jacques continued, “is still far too conventional, too made-to-order. A man’s mental underworld… . Oh, I see quite well what’s wanted, only …” He broke off abruptly.

“What are you working at now? Have you started on something else?”

“Yes.” Jacques felt a blush rising to his cheeks, though he knew no reason for it. “But I’m mostly resting; I was more run down than I suspected, after a year’s cramming. And then I’ve only just come back from attending poor old Battaincourt’s wedding—that’s one for you, you slacker!”

“Yes, Jenny told me about it.”

Jacques blushed again. At first he felt a brief annoyance—that yesterday’s talk had ceased to be a secret shared by Jenny and himself alone; but then he was agreeably thrilled to learn that she set store by what he said and it had so impressed her that she had spoken of it that very evening to her brother.

“Shall we take a stroll as far as the bank of the Seine?” he suggested, linking his arm in Daniel’s. “We can talk on the way.”

“Can’t be done, old man. I’m off to Paris by the 1:20. I’m prepared to play the watchdog at night, you see; but in the daytime—” His smile conveyed the nature of the appointment that called him back to Paris; Jacques was displeased by it, and withdrew his arm.

“Look here,” Daniel hastily suggested, anxious to ease the tension, “you’d better lunch with us. Jenny’ll be delighted.”

Jacques lowered his eyes to hide a new emotion and feigned some indecision. As his father was not back, there would be no bother about his missing a meal. He was dumbfounded by the rapture that swept over him, but mastered it enough to answer his friend.

“Thanks very much. I’ll just drop in to warn them at home. You go on ahead. I’ll meet you in the Castle Square.”

Some minutes later he rejoined his friend, who was waiting for him, lying on the grass in front of the château.

“Isn’t it fine here!” Daniel exclaimed, stretching his legs out in the sunshine. “The park’s at its best this morning. You’re a lucky fellow to live in such surroundings.”

“And so could you,” Jacques observed, “if you chose to.”

Daniel stood up.

“Yes, no doubt I could,” he admitted musingly but with a twinkle in his eye. “But I—well, it’s not my style! Look here, old man!” He moved towards Jacques and a change came over his voice. “I think I’m in for a perfectly marvellous adventure.”

“The green-eyed girl?”

“Green-eyed? I don’t …”

“At Packmell’s, you know.”

Daniel stopped short and stared for a few seconds at the grass. Then a curious smile crossed his face.

“Ah, Rinette, you mean. No, someone new—miles ahead of her.” He paused a while, lost in thought, before he spoke again. “Rinette! Yes, that was a queer girl, all right! Just imagine, it was she who dropped me after a day or two!” He laughed—the laugh of one whose way such an experience had never come before. “As a novelist, you’d have thought her thrilling, very likely. Personally, I found her boring. I’ve never known a woman one could make so little of. Why, even now I’ve no idea whether she was ever keen on me for ten consecutive minutes; but, when the loving mood was on her, well …! A bit queer, I should say. She must have had a pretty shady past and couldn’t shake it off. I shouldn’t be in the least surprised to learn thar she belonged to some secret society or other.”

“So you’ve quite lost touch with her?”

“Absolutely. I don’t even know what’s become of her; she never showed up at Packmell’s again. Sometimes I rather miss her,” he added after a pause. “Anyhow it would have had to end pretty soon; I couldn’t have stood her very long. You’ve no idea how tactless she could be. Always asking questions about my private life, yes— damn it!—about my family, my mother and sister . , . my father, even!”

He walked on in silence.

“Still, when all’s said and done, I’m indebted to her for a priceless experience—that evening at Packmell’s when I handed one to Ludwigson right in the eye.”

“And, with the same shot, brought down your prospects, I suppose?”

“Meaning, I got the sack?” Daniel’s eyes twinkled and a wide grin displayed his teeth. “I’d never had such an opportunity of taking friend Ludwigson’s measure; well, he pretended not to remember a thing about it. You may think what you like about him; what I say is, he’s a great boy in his own way.”

Jenny had stayed at home all morning. When Daniel proposed escorting her to the tennis-club she had emphatically declined, professing to be busy. But she felt listless, at a loose end, and the time hung heavy on her hands.

When, from her window, she saw the two young men crossing the garden, her first feeling was one of vexation. She had looked forward to having her brother to herself, and here was Jacques spoiling everything! Still her ill-humour was not proof against Daniel’s exuberance, as he cried to her through the half-open window:

“Guess whom I’ve brought back to lunch!”

I’ve time to change my dress, she thought.

Jacques was strolling to and fro in the garden; never as today had he appreciated the quiet beauty of Jenny’s home. After the park, studded with villas, it had all the charm of an old-world farmhouse secluded on the margin of the forest. The central portion with its tall windows had evidently been a hunting-lodge, many times restored; more or less incongruous annexes had been built onto it at different periods. A flight of wooden steps, like the open ladders clamped to barns, led under a penthouse to the more lofty of the two wings. Jenny’s pigeons scudded to and fro along the shelving tiles and the walls were rough-coated with a bright pink distemper which drank up the sunlight like an Italian stucco. A tangled conclave of tall fir-trees cast dry, cool shadows on the house and sunburnt grass, and the air beneath them had a brisk tang of resin.

Daniel was in great form at lunch and his gaiety was contagious; he had had an exhilarating morning and the afternoon promised well. He congratulated Jenny on her blue frock and pinned a white rose in her blouse, calling her “sister mine.” He was amused by everyone and everything, even his own high spirits.

He insisted on being escorted to the station and seen into his train by Jacques and Jenny.

“Will you be back for dinner?” she inquired. Sometimes, Jacques noticed with a vague distress, a jarring undertone—which certainly was not intentional—crept into Jenny’s voice, contrasting with her gentle, unassuming ways.

“It’s quite in the cards,” Daniel replied. “Anyhow I’ll do my level best to catch the seven-o’clock train. In any case I shall be back before dark, as I promised Mamma in my letter.” The small-boyish voice in which Daniel spoke the last words and his mature appearance were so charmingly incongruous that Jacques could not help laughing and even Jenny, as she stooped to clip the leash on her little dog’s collar, looked up with a smile of amusement.

When the train came in Daniel noticed that the front cars were empty and ran towards them; from where they stood they saw him leaning out of the window and waving with his handkerchief a frivolous farewell.

Now they were alone, and the situation found them unprepared to deal with it; Daniel’s high spirits had carried them off their feet. They managed, however, to keep up a tone of easy intimacy, as if Daniel still were serving as a link between them; and this new truce was such a relief to both that they were careful not to break its amity.

Rather depressed to see her brother leave, Jenny recalled his all too frequent absences from home.

“Couldn’t you get Daniel to stop spending his vacation running backwards and forwards like this? He doesn’t realize how sad it makes Mother, seeing so little of him this summer. But, of course, you’ll stick up for him,” she added, though without the least aggressiveness.

“No, I’ve not the least wish to do so,” he replied. “Do you imagine I approve of the life he’s leading?”

“Well, do you let him know that, anyhow?”

“Of course I do.”

“And he won’t listen to you?”

“He listens all right. But it goes deeper than that. I rather think he doesn’t understand me.”

“You mean, that he has
ceased
to understand you?”

“Very likely… . Yes.”

From the outset their conversation had taken a serious turn. With Daniel as their theme there was a mutual understanding between them, which since yesterday was no new thing, but it had never before been given such free play. And, when they were about to turn into the park, it was from her that the suggestion came:

“How about going by the highroad? Then you could see me home through the forest. It’s quite early, and such a lovely day!”

He made no effort to conceal the happiness that flooded his heart, but dared not let it master him. Fearing to snap the golden thread of sympathy between them, he hastily reverted to their common interest.

“Daniel has such a zest for living.”

“Yes,” she said, “I know it only too well. For living without control. But a life that’s uncontrolled is very—very dangerous.” Averting her eyes, she added: “And … impure.”

“Impure,” he repeated gravely. “Yes, I agree with you, Jenny.”

Impurity! A word he little cared to use, yet one which very often rose to his lips, and now on hers he heard it with a sudden thrill. Yes, all Daniel’s “affairs” were sullied by “impurity,” and so was Antoine’s passion. All carnal lusts were tainted in the same way. One thing, one only, in the world was pure—the nameless feeling which had been growing up within him for months and months and since yesterday unfolding, in gradual beauty, like a flower.

Steadying his voice, he continued:

“Sometimes I’m furious with him for the attitude he has taken up towards life, a sort of-“

“Perverseness,” she added ingenuously; it was a word that often crossed her thoughts, her name for all that seemed obnoxious to her innocence.

“Personally, I’d rather call it cynicism,” he amended, using in his turn an incorrect expression which he had twisted to his uses. But no sooner had he spoken than he felt he was not being wholly loyal to himself. “Don’t imagine,” he exclaimed hastily, “that I approve of a nature that is always fighting against itself. I prefer—” He paused, and Jenny hung on his words, eager to take his meaning—as though what he had just said were of exceptional importance in her eyes. “I prefer people who make a point of living according to their natures. All the same, they shouldn’t—” He broke off. Several instances he did not think fit for Jenny’s ears had crossed his mind.

“Yes,” she agreed. “And I’m so afraid that Daniel may end by losing—what should I call it?—the sense of sin. Do you see what I mean?”

He nodded approval and now he could not refrain, either, from gazing at her intently, for the earnestness of her look added significance to her words. How she betrayed herself unwittingly, he mused, in that last remark!

She had her features well under control, but her set lips and laboured breathing vouched for the effort she was making to fight down one of those gusts of wild emotion which so often swept across her, emotion which she always did her utmost to conceal.

What can it be, Jacques wondered, that makes her face so apt to wear that hard, aloof expression? Is it because the line of her eyebrows is rather narrow, too precise? No, I fancy it must be the two dark cavities her pupils form in the grey-blue of the iris, when they contract. And, from this moment on he forgot about Daniel; his thoughts were all for Jenny.

For some minutes they walked on without speaking, and to them the silent interval, though it lasted quite a while, seemed very short. But, when they wanted to pick up the fallen strand of conversation, they found their thoughts had wandered far afield, almost, it seemed, in opposite directions. Neither could find a word to break the silence.

It so happened that they were passing a garage; the road was lined with cars under repair and the noise of running engines gave little scope for conversation.

A decrepit, mangy old dog shambled across the grease-stains on the road towards Puce, and began to show an interest in her; Jenny picked up her little dog in her arms. No sooner had they passed the workshop entrance than they heard cries behind them. A skeleton chassis, driven by a youngster of fifteen, had clattered out of the repair-shop and swung round so sharply that, despite the lad’s belated cry of warning, the old dog had no time to get out of the way. Jacques and Jenny, who had turned round at the cry, saw the chassis catch the unfortunate animal in the side and two wheels pass over his body in quick succession.

Jenny gave a scream of horror:

“Oh, he’s killed! He’s killed!”

“No. He’s got up again.”

The dog had struggled up and fled in a blind panic, yelping and covered with blood. His shattered hindquarters trailed on the ground, making him move in zigzags, collapsing every few yards.

Jenny’s face was twitching and she went on crying monotonously:

“He’s killed! Oh, he’s killed!”

The dog turned into a courtyard, its cries grew less frequent, then ceased altogether. The garage hands, glad of an excuse for knocking off work, followed up the trail of blood. One of them went as far as the house with the courtyard and shouted:

“He’s dead! Not a kick left!”

With a gesture of relief, Jenny let her dog slip from her arms, and they set off again towards the forest. The emotion they had shared brought them still nearer to each other.

“I shall never forget,” said Jacques, “your face and your voice when you called out just now.”

“One loses one’s head—it’s silly. What did I say?”

“ ‘He’s killed!’ That’s an interesting point, isn’t it? You’d seen the dog run over by the car, pounded into a shapeless, bleeding mass— that was the really sickening part of it. And yet the real tragedy began only at the moment, the dreadful moment, when the poor beast who’d been alive a second earlier had to lie down and die. Don’t you agree? The most moving thing of all is the unknowable transition, the headlong fall from life into nothingness. It haunts us all, the terror of that moment; it’s a sort of—of mystical awe, always waiting on the threshold of our thoughts. Do you often think of death?”