The Thibaults (60 page)

“Lulu dear … come back and sleep a bit,” he murmured lazily.

“No more bye-bye today! Closing time!” She slipped into her wrap.

She ran to her desk, unlocked it, and pulled out a drawer full of photographs. Then she came back and sat on the edge of the bed, resting the drawer on her knees.

“I love looking over old photos. Some nights I take the whole collection to bed with me and spend hour after hour turning them over, thinking. Don’t move! Have a look at them too, if it won’t bore you.”

Antoine, who had been lying curled up on the bed behind her, sat up at once; his interest was aroused and, resting his arms on the mattress, he settled into a comfortable position. As Rachel pored over her photographs he saw her in profile; her face had grown earnest and her drooping lashes showed like a faint filigree in pale gamboge along her slotted eyes. She had hastily put up her hair; against the light it shone like a chain-helmet woven of finespun silk, and almost orange-red; at every movement sparks seemed to flicker round her neck and at the corners of her temples.

“Here’s the one I was hunting for. See that little ballet-girl? It’s me! I got a rare telling-off that day, as a matter of fact, for spoiling the flounces of my ballet-skirt, crushing them against the wall like that. Aren’t I weird with my elbows like pinpoints, my hair all over my shoulders, and that flat, high-cut bodice? I don’t look over-cheerful, do I? Look here, that’s me in my third year; my calves were filling out a bit. Here’s the dancing-class, the bunch of us lined up along the practice-bar. Can you spot me amongst them? Yes, that’s me. That’s Louise over there—the name doesn’t mean anything to you, eh? Well, you’re looking at the famous Phytie Bella; we went through the school together and in those days she was just plain Louise to us. Louis, for short. We ran neck and neck for the first place. Yes, I might have been their star dancer today, only for my phlebitis… . Like to have a look at Hirsch? Ah, now you’re interested, I can see. Here he is. What do you think of him? I’m sure you didn’t guess he was so old. But, for all that he’s fifty, there’s lots of kick in the old dog yet, you may take my word for it. Loathsome creature! Look at that neck, that bull’s neck of his wedged between his shoulders; when he turns his head all the rest goes round with it. At first sight you might take him for almost anything—a horse-trader, or a trainer, perhaps—don’t you think so? His daughter was always saying to him: ‘Your Royal Highness reminds me of a slave-dealer!’ That used to start him laughing every time, with that fat belly-laugh of his. But they’re worth looking at—his skull and that hook nose like a hawk’s, the curve of his lips. Ugly, I grant you, but he’s got
style
, all right. Just look at his eyes; he’d seem even more of a brute if it wasn’t for that—well, the kind of eyes he has; I don’t know how to describe them. And doesn’t he look self-confident, a real tough customer, hot-tempered, too? What? Hot-tempered and sensual as they’re made. How that man loves life! For all my loathing of him I can’t help saying what one says of some kinds of bulldog: ‘He’s so ugly that he’s a beauty!’ Don’t you agree? Look, that’s Papa! Papa with his work-girls round him. That’s how he always was: in his shirt-sleeves, with his little white beard and scissors dangling. He’d build you a fancy dress with a couple of dish-rags and half a dozen pins. That was taken in the workroom. Do you see the draped manikins at the end of the room, and the designs on the walls? He’d been appointed costumier at the Opera and given up working for private customers. Just go and ask the Opera people what they thought of old man Goepfert in those days! When my mother had to be put away and he and I were left alone, he wanted to take me on as his partner, poor old fellow; he meant to leave the business to me. A good paying business it was; it’s thanks to it that I can get along now without working. But you know how it would affect a kid— seeing actresses about the place all day. I had only one ambition: to be a dancer. He let me have my way; what’s more, he got old Mme. Staub to take me under her wing, and it was a real joy to him to see me getting on so well at it. He was always harping on my career. Well, it’s a good thing the poor old boy can’t see how I’ve gone downhill since those days. I cried, you know, when I had to give up dancing. Women as a rule haven’t much ambition; they take things as they come. But on the stage we’re at it all the time—struggling to make good; and one soon gets to enjoy the struggle as much as one’s actual successes. So it seems the end of the world when one has to say goodbye to all that and live a humdrum life with nothing to look forward to. Look, here are my travel photos! All in a jumble, of course! There we’re having lunch; I’m not sure where—in the Carpathians, I think. Hirsch was on a shooting-trip. He sported a long, drooping moustache in those days; rather like a Sultan, isn’t he? The Prince always addressed him as ‘Mahomed.’ Do you see that sunburnt fellow standing behind me? It’s Prince Peter, who became King of Servia. He gave me the two white whippets lying down in front; see the way they’re curled up—just like you! That man there who’s laughing, don’t you think he’s very like me? Look hard! No? Well, it’s my brother all the same. He was dark, like Papa, while I take after Mother—fair; well, it’s auburn, if you like. Don’t be so absurd! Oh, well, have it your own way; carroty! But I’ve inherited my father’s character, and my brother took after Mother. Look, he comes out better in this one… . I’ve no photo of Mother, not one; Papa destroyed the lot. He never spoke of her to me, or took me to Saint Anne’s. But all the same he used to go and see her there, himself, twice a week; year in, year out, he never missed a visit. The attendants told me about it later. He used to sit there in front of her for an hour—sometimes longer. Quite futile it was, as she didn’t recognize him or anyone else. But he simply adored her. He was much older than she. He never got over the worry she gave him. One evening, I remember it so well, Papa was sent for, at the workroom, as Mother’d been arrested. She had been caught stealing from a counter at the Louvre Stores. What a to-do! Mme. Goepfert, the costume-maker at. the Opera—just think! They found a child’s jersey and a pair of socks in her muff. She was released at once; a fit of kleptomania, they said. You know all about that of course. That was the beginning of her breakdown. Well, my brother took after her in many ways. He got into dreadful trouble with a bank. Hirsch helped him out. But he’d have gone Mother’s way sooner or later, if there hadn’t been that accident. No, leave that one alone! Drop it, there’s a good man! I tell you, it’s not a photo of me; it’s … it’s a little godchild, who died. Look at this one instead. It’s … it was taken … just outside Tangiers. No, don’t take any notice, Toine dear, it’s over now; I’ve stopped crying, can’t you see I’ve stopped? The Bubana plain, our camp by the Si Guebbas caravanserai. That’s me; beside the Marabout of Sidi-Bel-Abbés. Do you see Marrakesh in the background? What do you think of this one? It was taken near Missum-Missum, or it might be Dongo; I can’t remember. Those are two Dzem chiefs, and a rare job I had taking ‘em! They’re cannibals; oh, yes, they still exist, all right! Now that’s a ghastly one! Look, don’t you see? Just there, that little heap of stones. Got it? Well, there’s a woman beneath that heap. Stoned to death. Horrible, isn’t it? Try to imagine it—a decentish sort of woman whom her husband had deserted for no earthly reason three years before. He’d vanished and, as she thought he was dead, she’d married again. Two years later he came back. Bigamy in those tribes is reckoned the crime of crimes. So they stoned her. Hirsch made me come to Meched just to see it, but I took to my heels and stayed half a mile away. I’d seen the woman dragged through the village the morning before the execution, and that was sickening enough, I assure you. But he saw it out; yes, he pushed his way to the front. Listen! It seems they dug a hole, a very deep hole, and led the woman to it. She lay down in it of her own accord, without saying a word. Would you believe it? She didn’t utter a sound, but the crowd were yelling for her death so loudly that I could hear them, even at that distance away. Their high priest gave the lead. First of all he read out the sentence. Then he picked up a huge boulder and hurled it with all his force into the hole. Hirsch told me she didn’t utter a cry. That started the crowd off. They’d big piles of stones stacked up ready, and each of them took what he wanted there and flung his quota into the hole. Hirsch swore to me that, for his part, he didn’t throw any. When the hole was full— brimming over, as you can see—they stamped it down, yelling all the time, and then they all decamped. Hirsch insisted on my coming back to take a snapshot, as it was I who had the camera. I had to give in. Why, even now the mere thought of it sets my heart palpitating—don’t you feel it? There she lay, under those stones. Dead, most likely… . No, not that one! Hands off!”

Antoine, craning his neck over Rachel’s shoulder, had just time to catch a glimpse of tangled, naked limbs before Rachel deftly clapped her hands over his eyes. The warmth of her palms upon his eyelids brought back to him, with less of feverish insistence but in all else the same, her gesture at the climax of her ecstasy, to veil from her lover’s eyes the passion on her face. He made a playful effort to free himself. Suddenly she sprang down from the bed, pressing to her dressing-gown a sheaf of photographs tied up together. Laughing, she ran to the desk, slipped the package into a drawer, and turned the key.

“For one thing,” she explained, “they aren’t mine. I’ve no rights over them at all.”

“Whose are they?”

“They belong to Hirsch.”

She returned and sat at Antoine’s side.

“Now will you promise to be sensible? I’ll carry on, then. Sure you’re not bored? Look here; that’s another travel picture of sorts. A donkey-ride in the Saint-Cloud woods. As you can see, those kimono sleeves were just coming in. That was a fetching little dress I had on, wasn’t it now?”

ALWAYS, Mme. de Fontanin mused, I am lying to myself; were I to face the facts, I’d give up hope.

Standing at a window of the drawing-room, she observed across the silk-net curtain the trio in the garden—Jerome, Daniel, and Jenny—pacing to and fro.

“How easily even the most honest of us can make themselves at home in a world of lies!” she murmured. But, just as she so often failed to hold in check a rising smile, so now she could not stem the tide of happiness that, wave on wave, came surging through her heart.

Leaving the window she went out to the terrace. It was the hour when eyes grow tired of trying to discern the forms of things; on an iridescent sky some pale and early stars were glimmering. Mme. de Fontanin sat down, letting her eyes linger for a moment on the familiar scene. Then she sighed. Only too well she knew Jerome would not continue living at her side as for the past fortnight he had done; that this renewal of their home-life would prove short-lived as ever. For did she not discern, with mingled joy and apprehension, in his whole attitude towards her, yes, even in his sedulous affection, the selfsame Jerome whom she had always known? Did it not prove that he had never changed and soon would leave her once again? Already the crestfallen, ageing Jerome whom she had brought back home with her from Holland, the husband who had clung to her for succour like a drowning man, was changed out of recognition. Even now, though in her presence he might affect the manner of a contrite child, and despite the seemly sighs of resignation that escaped him when he remembered his bereavement—even now he had unpacked a summer suit, and (though he was unaware of it) was looking vastly younger. “Why not call for Jenny at the club this morning? That will give you a nice walk,” she had suggested. True, he had feigned indifference; yet he had risen without demur, and presently she had seen him walking briskly away, in white flannel trousers and a light coat, holding himself erect. Yes, she had even caught him picking a sprig of jessamine for his buttonhole!

Just then Daniel, who had noticed that his mother was alone, came up to her. Since Jerome’s return Mme. de Fontanin had felt rather ill at ease in her relations with her son. Daniel had noticed this and, as a result, was coming oftener to Maisons and doing his utmost to show himself more attentive than ever to his mother. He wished to make it clear to her that he quite grasped the situation, and blamed her not at all.

Stretching himself full length in a low deck-chair, his favourite seat, he lit a cigarette and smiled towards his mother… . How like his father’s are his hands and gestures! she thought.

“Will you be leaving us again tonight, dear boy?”

“Yes, Mother, I must. I’ve an appointment early tomorrow morning.”

He fell to talking of his work—a thing he rarely did; he was preparing for the autumn season a special number of Progressive Art, devoted to the newest schools of European painting, and found the choice of the abundant illustrations that would accompany the text a thrilling task. But the theme was soon talked out.

The silence was murmurous with the vague sounds of evening, and the shrill chorus of the crickets in the forest fosse below the terrace dominated all the rest. Now and again a vagrant breeze wafted towards them from the firs a tang of toasted spices, rustled the fibrous plane-leaves and shreds of bark across the sand. Swiftly, on flaccid wings, a bat swooped down and lightly brushed Mme. de Fontanin’s hair; she could not repress a cry of alarm.

“Will you be here on Sunday?” she asked.

“Yes, I’ll come back tomorrow and stay two days.”

“You should ask your friend to lunch. I met him, by the by, in the village, yesterday.” And, partly because she really thought it, partly because she credited Jacques with all the qualities she thought to see in Antoine, and—last, but not least—wishing to please her son, she added: “What a sincere, noble-minded fellow he is! We had quite a long walk together.”

Daniel’s face fell, for he remembered Jenny’s outburst the evening after her walk with Jacques across the forest.

What an ill-developed, ill-starred, ill-balanced mind Jenny has! he mused regretfully; old beyond her years with thought and solitude and reading! Yet she knows nothing, nothing at all of life. But what can I do? She doesn’t trust me now, as she used to. If only she had a solid constitution! But she’s all nerves, like a little girl. And full of romantic ideas! She refuses to explain herself, prefers to fancy she’s “misunderstood.” A sort of uncommunicative pride it is, that’s poisoning her life; or is it only a hang-over from the awkward age?