The Thibaults (58 page)

“I’m awfully sorry,” Jacques stammered nervously; “only, you see, I take these things so dreadfully to heart.”

Taking a path that closely followed, like a sentinel’s beat, each zigzag of the old-time fosse, they came to the further gate between the forest and the park; its iron grille bristled with spikes and the lock creaked like a dungeon bolt.

The sun was high, and it was only four o’clock; there was no necessity to end their walk so soon. What prompted them to choose a path that brought them home at once?

There were people strolling in the park and, though Jacques and Jenny had walked along the selfsame avenue on the previous day without the least self-consciousness, they both felt bashful now at the thought of being seen walking together by themselves.

“Listen,” Jacques ventured when they came to a crossroads, “hadn’t I better leave you now? What do you think?”

Her answer came promptly. “Oh, yes. I’m practically home now.”

He stood before her, feeling—though he ignored the reason for it —rather ill at ease, forgetting even to raise his hat. Embarrassment brought back to his face the sullen, uncouth look that he so often wore but, during their walk, she had not once observed. He did not hold out his hand to her, but tried to smile and, just as he was turning away, ventured a timid glance in her direction.

“Oh, why,” he murmured in a voice shaken by emotion, “why can’t I always be … like this … with you?”

Jenny did not seem to hear, but walked straight on, without one look behind, across the grass. That last remark of his—was it not almost word for word what, since yesterday, she had been saying to herself time and time again? But suddenly a surmise that she hardly dared put into words flashed into thought; supposing Jacques had meant: “Why shouldn’t I spend all my life with you beside me, as you’ve been today?” and the thought seared her mind like wildfire. She quickened her pace and fled for refuge to her bedroom; her limbs were trembling, her cheeks aflame, and she forbade herself to think.

The rest of her afternoon was spent in feverish bursts of energy; she reorganized her bedroom, changing the position of the furniture, tidied out the linen-cupboard on the landing, and replenished the flower-vases throughout the house. Now and again she picked up her little dog, hugged it to her breast and lavished caresses on it. When for the last time she glanced at the clock and it was certain Daniel would not be back for dinner, a mood of despair came over her. Unable to face the empty dining-room, she dined off a plate of strawberries on the terrace and, to escape the tedious agony of the dying day, took refuge in the drawing-room, where she lit all the lamps. She picked up a Beethoven album but, changing her mind, set it back on the shelf and ran to the piano with Chopin’s
Etudes
under her arm… .

That evening daylight seemed exceptionally long in dying, for the moon had risen unseen behind the trees and, little by little, moonlight had effaced the last gleams of the sunset.

Without any definite plan in mind, Jacques slipped into his pocket the book of modern poems he had mentioned to Jenny. On such a night as this the tedium of the domestic scene was past endurance and he went out for a stroll into the park. He could not keep his wandering wits on any subject. In less than half an hour he found himself hurrying along the path between the acacias, with only one thought in his mind: Let’s hope the gate hasn’t been locked for the night!

It was not locked. When the bell tinkled he started like a trespasser caught red-handed. A warm, resinous fragrance, mingled with the acrid fume of anthills, drifted towards him from the shadow of the firs. Only the muted throb of a piano ruffled the stillness of the garden with faint sounds of life. Jenny and Daniel, he supposed, were having a musical evening together. The drawing-room lay on the far side of the house; all the windows facing Jacques were closed and the house seemed asleep. But, to his surprise, the roof was flooded with a ghostly light. Looking round, he saw the moon had risen above the tree-tops, spreading the tiles with a pale sheen and striking white fire from the dormer-windows. His heart beat faster as he neared the house; the thought of coming on them unawares abashed him, and he was relieved when Puce rushed up to him, barking. But there was no pause in the music; the sound of the piano must have drowned Puce’s noisy greeting. Stooping, he took the little dog in his arms and lightly touched her silken forehead with his lips. Walking round a wing of the house, he reached the terrace onto which the tall French windows of the drawing-room opened. He moved towards the light, trying to recognize the piece that Jenny was playing. The melody seemed to hesitate, poised in mid-air between smiles and tears, to soar at last into an empyrean where joy and pain alike were meaningless.

When he reached the threshold it seemed as though the room were empty. At first he could see only the Persian shawl that draped the piano, and the knick-knacks standing on it. Then, in the gap between two vases, he made out a face, wraithlike in the misty candlelight— Jenny’s face convulsed by the stresses of her inward vision. Her expression was so unstudied, so bare of all disguise, that he recoiled instinctively; it was as if he had surprised her naked.

Pressing the little dog to his shoulder and trembling like a thief, he waited outside the house Under cover of the shadows till she had finished playing. Then he called loudly to Puce to make it seem that he had just entered the garden.

Jenny started when she recognized his voice and stood up hurriedly. Her face still bore traces of the emotion felt in solitude, and her startled eyes parried Jacques’s gaze, as though to keep inviolate their secret.

“I hope I didn’t startle you,” he said.

She frowned, but could not utter a word.

“Isn’t Daniel back yet?” he asked, adding, after a pause: “Here’s the anthology I spoke about this afternoon.”

He fumbled in his pocket and produced the book. Taking it, she fluttered the pages mechanically, without sitting down or asking him to do so. Jacques realized that he had better go, and retreated to the terrace. Jenny followed.

“Please don’t bother to see me to the gate,” he stammered nervously.

But she persisted in accompanying him, for she fancied this the quickest, way to have done with it, and somehow did not dare hold out her hand and break off then and there. Once they were clear of the trees the moonlight was so bright that, when he turned to Jenny, he could see her eyelashes fluttering. The blue dress seemed unreal, spectral pale.

They crossed the garden in silence. Jacques opened the postern gate and stepped outside. Jenny followed him unthinkingly and stood in the middle of the narrow road, haloed with moonlight. Then, on the whitely gleaming wall, he saw a graceful shadow, Jenny’s profile, neck, and chin, her plaited hair, even the set of her lips—like a silhouette cut in black velvet, exact in every detail. He pointed to it. Suddenly a fantastic notion stirred in his mind and, without giving himself time to reflect, ardent with the temerity that visits only timid natures, he bent towards the wall and kissed the shadow of the beloved face.

Jenny stepped back hastily, as though to wrest her shadow from his lips, and vanished through the doorway. The moonlit vista of the garden faded as the gate swung to. Jacques listened to her flying steps along the gravelled path and then he too launched himself into the darkness.

He was laughing.

Jenny ran and ran as though all the phantoms, black and white, haunting the eerie silence of the garden, were at her heels. She fled into the house, ran upstairs to her room, flung herself on the bed. She was shivering, in’ a cold sweat, there was a pain at her heart, and she pressed her trembling hands against her bosom, crushing her forehead against the pillow. Her whole will was bent on one aim only: to forget. A sense of shame oppressed her, checking her rising tears. A feeling till then unknown had mastered her: fear of herself.

Downstairs Puce was barking; Daniel had come home.

Jenny heard him climb the stairs, humming a tune, and pause a moment at her door. No light showed through the chinks; thinking his sister was asleep, he dared not knock. But then—why were the drawing-room lamps alight? Jenny did not move; she wanted to be left alone, in the darkness. But, when she heard her brother’s steps recede, an anguish gripped her heart and she jumped down from the bed.

“Daniel!”

The light of the lamp he was holding revealed her haggard face and staring eyes. It struck him that his late return must have alarmed his sister and he fumbled for excuses. She cut him short.

“No. I’m all nerves tonight.” Her voice was shrill. “That friend of yours! I couldn’t get rid of him, he kept following me, he stuck to me like a leech.” White with rage, she rapped out every syllable. Then a sudden flush spread on her cheeks and she began to sob. Worn out by her emotion, she sank onto the edge of the bed. “Daniel, I beg you, tell him …! Send him away! I can’t, no, I simply can’t …!”

He stared at her perplexedly, struggling to guess what might have passed between them.

“But—what is it?” he murmured. A suspicion flitted across his mind, but he hardly dared give words to it. He screwed his lips into a forced smile. “Poor old Jacques!” he suggested tentatively. “Why, I shouldn’t wonder if he’s …”

He had no need to end the sentence; the tone conveyed his meaning well enough. To his surprise, Jenny betrayed no emotion; her eyes were lowered and she seemed indifferent. She was pulling herself together. When her silence had lasted so long that he had ceased to expect an answer, she spoke.

“Possibly.” Her voice had regained its usual intonation.

So she’s in love with him! Daniel thought, and so amazing was the discovery that it left him speechless, dumbfounded. But at that moment Jenny’s eyes met his and read his thought. It spurred her to revolt; an angry light flashed into her blue eyes, her look grew challenging. She did not raise her voice, but her eyes bored into Daniel’s and she shook her head peremptorily.

“Never! Never! Never!”

Daniel seemed unconvinced, and his face wore a look of affection and elder-brotherly concern that stung her like an insult; she went up to him, settled a vagrant lock of hair upon his forehead, and patted his cheek.

“Anyhow tell me, you old silly, have you had dinner yet?”

STANDING in front of the fireplace, in pyjamas, Antoine was chopping up a slab of plum-cake with a Malayan creese.

Rachel yawned.

“A thick one for me, Toine dear,” she murmured lazily. She was lying on the bed, naked, her hands behind her head.

The window stood wide open but, mellowed by the drawn blind, the light inside the room was golden, like the warm twilight of a tent under the sun. Paris was sweltering in the blaze of an August Sunday. No sound came from the streets below and the house, too, was silent, empty perhaps but for the flat above; there, no doubt, Aline was reading the newspaper aloud for the benefit of Mme! Chasle and the little invalid who, though convalescent, had to lie flat for some weeks yet.

“I’m starving!” Rachel murmured, exhibiting an open mouth, pink as a cat’s.

“The water can’t have boiled yet.”

“Doesn’t matter. Give me one!”

He tipped a thick slice of cake onto the plate and placed it on the edge of the bed. Slowly, without rising, she slewed her head and shoulders round and, leaning on her elbow, with her head thrown back, began to eat, rolling pellets of cake between her fingers and letting them drop into her open mouth.

“How about you, dear?”

“Oh, I’ll wait till the tea’s ready,” he replied, sinking among the cushions on the easy chair.

“Tired?”

He answered her with a smile.

The bed was low and open on all sides, and the alcove hung with curtains of pink silk, setting off Rachel’s nakedness in all its splendour; she might have been some fabled daughter of the sea, ensconced within a glimmering shell.

“If I were a painter …” Antoine murmured.

“That settles it; you
must
be tired.” A smile came and went on Rachel’s face. “When you start being artistic, it always means you’re tired.”

She flung her head back, and her face, framed in the fiery halo of her hair, was lost in shadows. A pearly lustre emanated from her body. Her right leg lay in an easy, flowing curve upon the mattress, sinking a-little into it; the other, flexed and drawn up in the opposite direction, displayed the graceful outline of her thigh, lifting an ivory knee towards the sunlight.

“I’m hungry,” she whimpered. But, when he went to the bed to fetch her empty plate, she flung her strong arms round his neck and drew his face towards her.

“Oh, that beard of yours!” she exclaimed, but did not let him go. “When shall we abate the nuisance?”

He stood up, cast an anxious look at the glass, and brought her another slice of cake.

“Yes, it’s just that I like so much in you,” he declared, watching her teeth close on an ample mouthful.

“My appetite?”

“No, your fitness. Your body with its splendid circulation. You’re bracing, like a tonic… . I’m pretty well built, too,” he added, and, turning to the mirror, viewed his reflected self. Squaring his shoulders, he straightened up his chest and puffed it out, but failed to realize how undersized his limbs appeared in proportion to his head; he always persuaded himself that his physique as a whole had the same look of vigour as the facial expression he had cultivated. During the past two weeks his sense of power and plenitude had been stimulated beyond all measure by the emotions love engendered. “Do you know,” he concluded, “you and I are built to see a century through?”

“Together?” she whispered, with half-shut, tender eyes. And then a passing shadow dimmed her happiness: the dread that one day his appeal for her, the source of so much present joy, might lose its power.

Opening her eyes, she lightly stroked her legs, running her palms over the lissom skin.

“Personally,” she declared, “if no one murders me, I’m certain to die old. Father was seventy-two when I lost him and he was hale as a man of fifty. He died quite by accident, really—the after-effects of a sunstroke. As a matter of fact it runs in our family, death by misadventure, I mean. My brother was drowned. I shan’t die in my bed, either; a revolver-shot will be the end of me, I feel it in my bones.”