by Colette
‘Poor lamb, I wonder what she’ll make of her life. She’s quite capable of ending up as a mannequin or a saleswoman. She’s so backward. At her age, I –’
There was no indulgence in the glance Madame Alvarez bestowed on her daughter.
‘Don’t boast too much about what you were doing when you were her age. If I remember rightly, at her age you were snapping your fingers at Monsieur Mennesson and all his flour-mills, though he was perfectly ready to make you your fortune. Instead, you must needs bolt with a wretched music-master.’
Andrée Alvar kissed her mother’s lustrous plaits.
‘My darling Mother, don’t curse me at this hour. I’m so sleepy. Good night, Mother. I’ve a rehearsal tomorrow at a quarter to one. I’ll eat at the tea-shop during the interval; don’t bother about me.’
She yawned and walked in the dark through the little room where her daughter was asleep. All she could see of Gilberte in the obscurity was a brush of hair and the Russian braid of her nightdress. She locked herself into the exiguous bathroom and, late though it was, lit the gas under a kettle. Madame Alvarez had instilled into her progeny, among other virtues, a respect for certain rites. One of her maxims was, ‘You can, at a pinch, leave the face till the morning, when travelling or pressed for time. For a woman, attention to the lower parts is the first law of self-respect.’
The last to go to bed, Madame Alvarez was the first to rise, and allowed the daily woman no hand in preparing the breakfast coffee. She slept in the dining-sitting-room, on a divan-bed, and, at the stroke of half-past seven, she opened the door to the papers, the quart of milk, and the daily woman – who was carrying the others. By eight o’clock she had taken out her curling-pins, and her beautiful coils were dressed and smooth. At ten minutes to nine Gilberte left for school, clean and tidy, her hair well-brushed. At ten o’clock Madame Alvarez was ‘thinking about’ the midday meal, that is, she got into her mackintosh, slipped her arm through the handle of her shopping net, and set off to market.
On that day, as on all other days, she made sure that her granddaughter would not be late; she placed the coffee-pot and the jug of milk piping hot on the table, and unfolded the newspaper while waiting for her. Gilberte came in fresh as a flower, smelling of lavender-water, with some vestiges of sleep still clinging to her. A cry from Madame Alvarez made her fully wide awake.
‘Call your mother, Gigi! Liane d’Exelmans has committed suicide.’
The child replied with a long drawn-out ‘Oooh!’ and asked, ‘Is she dead?’
‘Of course not. She knows what she’s about.’
‘How did she do it, Grandmamma? A revolver?’
Madame Alvarez looked pityingly at her granddaughter.
‘The idea! Laudanum, as usual. “Doctors Morèze and Pelledoux, who have never left the heart-broken beauty’s bedside, cannot yet answer for her life, but their diagnosis is reassuring . . .” My own diagnosis is that if Madame d’Exelmans goes on playing that game, she’ll end by ruining her stomach.’
‘The last time she killed herself, Grandmamma, was for the sake of Prince Georgevitch, wasn’t it?’
‘Where are your brains, my darling? It was for Count Berthou de Sauveterre.’
‘Oh, so it was. And what will Tonton do now, do you think?’
A dreamy look passed across the huge eyes of Madame Alvarez.
‘It’s a toss-up, my child. We shall know everything in good time, even if he starts by refusing to give an interview to anybody. You must always start by refusing to give an interview to anybody. Then later you can fill the front page. Tell the concierge, by the way, to get us the evening papers. Have you had enough to eat? Did you have your second cup of milk, and your two pieces of bread and butter? Put on your gloves before you go out. Don’t dawdle on the way. I’m going to call your mother. What a story! Andrée, are you asleep? Oh, so you’re out of bed! Andrée, Liane has committed suicide!’
‘That’s a nice change!’ muttered Andrée. ‘She’s only the one idea in her head, that woman, but she sticks to it.’
‘You’ve not taken out your curlers yet, Andrée?’
‘And have my hair go limp in the middle of rehearsal? No thank you!’
Madame Alvarez ran her eyes over her daughter, from the spiky tips of her curlers to the felt slippers. ‘It’s plain that there’s no man here for you to bother about, my child! A man in the house soon cures a woman of traipsing about in dressing-gown and slippers. What an excitement, this suicide! Unsuccessful, of course.’
Andrée’s pallid lips parted in a contemptuous smile: ‘It’s getting too boring – the way she takes laudanum as if it was castor oil!’
‘Anyhow, who cares about her? It’s the Lachaille heir who matters. This is the first time such a thing has happened to him. He’s already had, let me see. He’s had Gentiane, who stole certain papers; then that foreigner, who tried to force him into marriage; but Liane is his first suicide. In such circumstances, a man so much in the public eye has to be extremely careful about what line he takes.’
‘Him! He’ll be bursting with pride, you may be sure.’
‘And with good reason, too,’ said Madame Alvarez. ‘We shall be seeing great things before very long. I wonder what Alicia will have to say about the situation.’
‘She’ll do her best to make a mountain out of a molehill.’
‘Alicia is no angel. But I must confess that she is far-sighted. And that without ever leaving her room!’
‘She’s no need to, since she has the telephone. Mother, won’t you have one put in here?’
‘It’s expensive,’ said Madame Alvarez, thoughtfully. ‘We only just manage to make both ends meet, as it is. The telephone is of real use only to important businessmen, or to women who have something to hide. Now, if you were to change your mode of life – and I’m only putting it forward as a supposition – and if Gigi were to start on a life of her own, I should be the first to say, “We’ll have the telephone put in.” But we haven’t reached that point yet, unfortunately.’
She allowed herself a single sigh, pulled on her rubber gloves, and coolly set about her household chores. Thanks to her care, the oldest flat was growing old without too many signs of deterioration. She retained, from her past life, the honourable habits of women who have lost their honour, and these she taught to her daughter and her daughter’s daughter. Sheets never stayed on the beds longer than ten days, and the char-cum-washerwoman told everyone that the chemises and drawers of the ladies of Madame Alvarez’ household were changed more often than she could count, and so were the table napkins. At any moment, at the cry of ‘Gigi, take off your shoes!’ Gilberte had to remove shoes and stockings, exhibit white feet to the closest inspection, and announce the least suspicion of a corn.
During the week following Madame d’Exelman’s suicide, Lachaille’s reactions were somewhat incoherent. He engaged the stars of the National Musical Academy to dance at a midnight fête held at his own house, and, wishing to give a supper party at the Pré-Catalan, he arranged for that restaurant to open a fortnight earlier than was their custom. The clowns, Footit et Chocolat, did a turn: Rita del Erido caracoled on horseback between the supper tables, wearing a divided skirt of white lace flounces, a white hat on her black hair with white ostrich feathers frothing round the relentless beauty of her face. Indeed, Paris mistakenly proclaimed, such was her beauty, that Gaston Lachaille was about to hoist her (astride) upon a throne of sugar. Twenty-four hours later, Paris remedied the mistake. For, owing to the false prophecies it had published, Gil Blas nearly lost the subsidy it received from Gaston Lachaille. A specialized weekly, Paris en amour, provided another red herring, under the headline: ‘Young Yankee millionairess makes no secret of weakness for French sugar’.
Madame Alvarez’ ample bust shook with incredulous laughter when she read the daily papers: she had received her information from none other than Gaston Lachaille in person. Twice in ten days, he had found time to drop in for a cup of camomile, to sink into the
depths of the now sagging conch-shaped armchair, and there forget his business worries and his dislike of being unattached. He even brought Gigi an absurd Russian leather music-case with a silver-gilt clasp, and twenty boxes of liquorice. Madame Alvarez was given a pâté de foie gras and six bottles of champagne, and of these bounties Tonton Lachaille partook by inviting himself to dinner. Throughout the meal, Gilberte regaled them rather tipsily with tittle-tattle about her school, and later won Gaston’s gold pencil at piquet. He lost with good grace, recovered his spirits, laughed and, pointing to the child, said to Madame Alvarez, ‘There’s my best pal!’ Madame Alvarez’ Spanish eyes moved with slow watchfulness from Gigi’s reddened cheeks and white teeth to Lachaille, who was pulling her hair by the fistful. ‘You little devil, you’d the fourth king up your sleeve all the time!’
It was at this moment that Andrée, returning from the Opéra-Comique, looked at Gigi’s dishevelled head rolling against Lachaille’s sleeve and saw the tears of excited laughter in her lovely slate-blue eyes. She said nothing, and accepted a glass of champagne, then another, and yet another. After her third glass, Gaston Lachaille was threatened with the Bell Song from Lakmé, at which point her mother led her away to bed.
The following day, no one spoke of this family party except Gilberte, who exclaimed, ‘Never, never in all my life, have I laughed so much! And the pencil-case is real gold!’ Her unreserved chatter met with a strange silence, or rather with ‘Now then, Gigi, try to be a little more serious!’ thrown out almost absent-mindedly.
After that, Gaston Lachaille let a fortnight go by without giving any sign of life, and the Alvarez family gathered its information from the papers only.
‘Did you see, Andrée? In the Gossip Column it says that Monsieur Gaston Lachaille has left for Monte Carlo. The reason for this seems to be of a sentimental nature – a secret that we respect. What next!’
‘Would you believe it, Grandmamma. Lydia Poret was saying at the dancing class that Liane travelled on the same train as Tonton, but in another compartment! Grandmamma, do you think it can be true?’
Madame Alvarez shrugged her shoulders.
‘If it was true, how on earth would those Porets know? Have they become friends with Monsieur Lachaille all of a sudden?’
‘No, but Lydia Poret heard the story in her aunt’s dressing-room at the Comédie Française.’
Madame Alvarez exchanged looks with her daughter.
‘In her dressing-room! That explains everything!’ she exclaimed, for she held the theatrical profession in contempt, although Andrée worked so hard. When Madame Emilienne d’Alençon had decided to present performing rabbits, and Madame de Pougy – shyer on the stage than any young girl – had amused herself by miming the part of Columbine in spangled black tulle, Madame Alvarez had stigmatized them both in a single phrase. ‘What! have they sunk to that?’
‘Grandmamma, tell me, Grandmamma, do you know him, this Prince Radziwill?’ Gilberte went on again.
‘What’s come over the child today? Has she been bitten by a flea? Which Prince Radziwill, to begin with? There’s more than one.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Gigi. ‘The one who’s getting married. Among the list of presents, it says here, “are three writing-sets in malachite”. What is malachite?’
‘Oh, you’re being tiresome, child. If he’s getting married, he’s no longer interesting.’
‘But if Tonton got married, wouldn’t he be interesting either?’
‘It all depends. It would be interesting if he were to marry his mistress. When Prince Cheniaguine married Valérie d’Aigreville, it was obvious that the life she had led for him for the past fifteen years was all he wanted; scenes, plates flung across the room, and reconciliations in the middle of the Restaurant Durand, Place de la Madeleine. Clearly, she was a woman who knew how to make herself valued. But all that is too complicated for you, my poor Gigi.’
‘And do you think it’s to marry Liane that they’ve gone away together?’
Madame Alvarez pressed her forehead against the window-pane, and seemed to be consulting the spring sunshine, which bestowed upon the street a bright side and a shady one.
‘No,’ she said, ‘not if I know anything about anything. I must have a word with Alicia. Gigi, come with me as far as her house; you can leave me there and find your way back along the quais. It will give you some fresh air, since, it would seem, one must have fresh air nowadays. I have never been in the habit of taking the air more than twice a year, myself, at Cabourg and at Monte Carlo. And I am none the worse for that.’
That evening Madame Alvarez came in so late that the family dined off tepid soup, cold meat, and some cakes sent round by Aunt Alicia. To Gilberte’s ‘Well, what did she have to say?’ she presented an icy front, and replied in clarion tones:
‘She says she is going to teach you how to eat ortolans.’
‘Scrumptious!’ cried Gilberte. ‘And what did she say about the summer frock she promised me?’
‘She said she would see. And that’s no reason why you should be displeased with the result.’
‘Oh!’ said Gilberte gloomily.
‘She also wants you to go to luncheon with her on Thursday, sharp at twelve.’
‘With you, too, Grandmamma?’
Madame Alvarez looked at the willowy slip of a girl facing her across the table, at her high, rosy cheekbones beneath eyes as blue as an evening sky, at her strong even teeth biting a fresh-coloured but slightly chapped lip, and at the primitive splendour of her ash-gold hair.
‘No,’ she said at last. ‘Without me.’
Gilberte got up and wound an arm about her grandmother’s neck.
‘The way you said that, Grandmamma, surely doesn’t mean that your going to send me to live with Aunt Alicia? I don’t want to leave here, Grandmamma!’
Madame Alvarez cleared her throat, gave a little cough and smiled.
‘Goodness gracious, what a foolish creature you are! Leave here! Why, my poor Gigi, I’m not scolding you, but you’ve not reached the first stage towards leaving.’
For a bell-pull, Aunt Alicia had hung from her front door a length of bead-embroidered braid on a background of twining green vine-leaves and purple grapes. The door itself, varnished and revarnished till it glistened, shone with the glow of a dark-brown caramel. From the very threshold, where she was admitted by a ‘man-servant’, Gilberte enjoyed in her undiscriminating way an atmosphere of discreet luxury. The carpet, spread with Persian rugs, seemed to lend her wings. After hearing Madame Alvarez pronounce her sister’s Louis XV little drawing-room to be ‘boredom itself’, Gilberte echoed her words by saying: ‘Aunt Alicia’s drawing-room is very pretty, but it’s boredom itself!’ reserving her admiration for the dining room, furnished in pale almost golden lemon wood dating from the Directoire, quite plain but for the grain of a wood as transparent as wax. ‘I shall buy myself a set like that one day,’ Gigi had once said in all innocence.
‘In the Faubourg Antoine, I dare say,’ Aunt Alicia had answered teasingly, with a smile of her cupid’s bow mouth and a flash of small teeth.
She was seventy years old. Her fastidious taste was everywhere apparent; in her silver-grey bedroom with its red Chinese vases, in her narrow white bathroom as warm as a hot-house, and in her robust health, concealed by a pretence of delicacy. The men of her generation, when trying to describe Alicia de Saint-Efflam, fumbled for words and could only exclaim, ‘Oh, my dear fellow!’ or ‘Nothing could give you the faintest ideah!’ Those who had known her intimately produced photographs which younger men found ordinary enough. ‘Was she really so lovely? You wouldn’t think so from her photographs!’ Looking at portraits of her, old admirers would pause for an instant, recollecting the turn of a wrist like a swan’s neck, the tiny ear, the profile revealing a delicious kinship between the heart-shaped mouth and the wide-cut eyelids with their long lashes.
Gilberte kissed the pretty old lady, who was wearing a peak of black Chantilly lace on her white hair,
and, on her slightly dumpy figure, a tea-gown of shot taffeta.
‘You have one of your headaches, Aunt Alicia?’
‘I’m not sure yet,’ replied Aunt Alicia; ‘it depends on the luncheon. Come quickly; the eggs are ready! Take off your coat! What on earth is that dress?’
‘One of Mamma’s, altered to fit me. Are they difficult eggs today?’
‘Not at all. Œufs brouillés aux croutons. The ortolans are not difficult, either. And you shall have chocolate cream. So shall I.’
With her young voice, a touch of pink on her amiable wrinkles, and lace on her white hair. Aunt Alicia was the perfect stage marquise. Gilberte had the greatest reverence for her aunt. In sitting down to table in her presence, she would pull her skirt up behind, join her knees, hold her elbows close to her sides, straighten her shoulder-blades, and to all appearances become the perfect young lady. She would remember what she had been taught, break her bread quietly, eat with her mouth shut, and take care, when cutting her meat, not to let her forefinger reach the blade of her knife.
Today her hair, severely tied back in a heavy knot at the nape of her neck, disclosed the fresh line of her forehead and ears, and a very powerful throat, rising from the rather ill-cut opening of her altered dress. This was a dingy blue, the bodice pleated about a let-in piece and, to cheer up this patchwork, three rows of mohair braid had been sewn round the hem of the skirt, and three times three rows of mohair braid round the sleeves, between the wrist and the elbow.
Aunt Alicia, sitting opposite her niece and examining her through fine dark eyes, could find no fault.
‘How old are you?’ she asked suddenly.
‘The same as I was the other day, Aunt. Fifteen and a half. Aunt, what do you really think of this business of Tonton Gaston?’
‘Why? Does it interest you?’
‘Of course, Aunt. It worries me. If Tonton takes up with another lady, he won’t come and play piquet with us any more or drink camomile tea – at least not for some time. That would be a shame.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it, certainly.’