by Colette
‘Never mind, Gaston; don’t worry about her. Have a good time, Gaston.’
Once alone, Madame Alvarez mopped her forehead. and went to open the door of Gilberte’s room.
‘You were listening at the door, Gigi!’
‘No, Grandmamma.’
‘Yes, you had your ear to the key-hole. You must never listen at key-holes. You don’t hear properly and so you get things all wrong. Monsieur Lachaille has gone.’
‘So I can see,’ said Gilberte.
‘Now you must rub the new potatoes in a cloth; I’ll sauté them when I come in.’
‘Are you going out, Grandmamma?’
‘I’m going round to see Alicia.’
‘Again?’
‘Is it your place to object?’ said Madame Alvarez severely. ‘You had better bathe your eyes in cold water, since you have been silly enough to cry.’
‘Grandmamma!’
‘What?’
‘What difference could it make to you, if you’d let me go out with Tonton Gaston in my new dress?’
‘Silence! If you can’t understand anything about anything, at least let those who are capable of using their reason do so for you. And put on my rubber gloves before you touch the potatoes!’
Throughout the whole of the following week, silence reigned over the Alvarez household, except for a surprise visit, one day, from Aunt Alicia. She arrived in a hired brougham, all black lace and dull silk with a rose at her shoulder, and carried on an anxious conversation, strictly between themselves, with her younger sister. As she was leaving, she bestowed only a moment’s attention on Gilberte, pecked at her cheek with a fleeting kiss, and was gone.
‘What did she want?’ Gilberte asked Madame Alvarez.
‘Oh, nothing . . . the address of the heart specialist who treated Madame Buffetery.’
Gilberte reflected for a moment.
‘It was a lengthy one,’ she said.
‘What was lengthy?’
‘The address of the heart specialist. Grandmamma, I should like a cachet. I have a headache.’
‘But you had one yesterday. A headache doesn’t last forty-eight hours!’
‘Presumably my headaches are different from other people’s,’ said Gilberte, offended.
She was losing some of her sweetness, and, on her return from school, would make some such remark as ‘My teacher has got his knife into me!’ or complain of not being able to sleep. She was gradually slipping into a state of idleness, which her grandmother noticed, but did nothing to overcome.
One day Gigi was busy applying liquid chalk to her white canvas button boots, when Gaston Lachaille put in an appearance without ringing the bell. His hair was too long, his complexion sun-tanned, and he was wearing a broad check summer suit. He stopped short in front of Gilberte, who was perched high on a kitchen stool, her left hand shod with a boot.
‘Oh! Grandmamma left the key in the door. That’s just like her!’
As Gaston Lachaille looked at her without saying a word, she began to blush, put down the boot on the table and pulled her skirt down over her knees.
‘So, Tonton, you slip in like a burglar! I believe you’re thinner. Aren’t you fed properly by that famous chef of yours who used to be with the Prince of Wales? Being thinner makes your eyes look larger, and at the same time makes your nose longer, and –’
‘I have something to say to your grandmother,’ interrupted Gaston Lachaille. ‘Run into you room, Gigi!’
For a moment she remained open-mouthed; then she jumped off her stool. The strong column of her neck, like an archangel’s, swelled with anger as she advanced upon Lachaille.
‘Run into your room! Run into your room! And suppose I said the same to you? Who do you think you are here, ordering me to run into my room? All right, I’m going to my room! And I can tell you one thing; so long as you’re in the house, I shan’t come out of it!’
She slammed the door behind her, and there was a dramatic click of the bolt.
‘Gaston,’ breathed Madame Alvarez. ‘I shall insist on the child apologizing. Yes, I shall insist. If necessary, I’ll . . .’
Gaston was not listening to her, and stood staring at the closed door.
‘Now, Mamita,’ said he, ‘let us talk briefly and to the point.’
‘Let us go over it all once again,’ said Aunt Alicia. ‘To begin with, you are quite sure he said, “She shall be spoiled, more than –”’
‘Than any woman before her!’
‘Yes, but that’s the sort of vague phrase that every man comes out with. I like things cut and dried.’
‘Just what they were, Alicia, for he said that he would guarantee Gigi against every imaginable mishap, even against himself, by an insurance policy; and that he regarded himself more or less as her godfather.’
‘Yes, yes. Not bad, not bad. But vague, vague as ever.’
She was still in her bed, her white hair arranged in curls against the pink pillow. She was absent-mindedly tying and untying the ribbon of her nightdress. Madame Alvarez, pale, and as wan under her mourning hat as the moon behind the passing clouds, was leaning cross-armed against the bedside.
‘And he added, “I don’t wish to rush anything. Above all, I am Gigi’s best pal. I shall give her all the time she wants to get used to me.” There were tears in his eyes. And he also said, “After all, she won’t have to deal with a savage.” A gentleman, in fact. A perfect gentleman.’
‘Yes, yes. Rather a vague gentleman. And the child, have you spoken frankly to her?’
‘As was my duty, Alicia. This is no time for us to be treating her like a child from whom the cakes have to be hidden. Yes, I spoke to her frankly. I referred to Gaston as a miracle, as a god, as –’
‘Tut, tut, tut,’ criticized Alicia. ‘I should have stressed the difficulties rather: the cards to be played, the fury of all those ladies, the conquest represented by so conspicuous a man.’
Madame Alvarez wrung her hands.
‘The difficulties! The cards to be played! Do you imagine she’s like you? Don’t you know her at all? She’s very far from calculating; she’s –’
‘Thank you.’
‘I mean she has no ambition. I was even struck by the fact that she did not react either one way or the other. No cries of joy, no tears of emotion! All I got from her was. “Oh, yes! Oh, it’s very considerate of him.” Then, only at the very end, did she lay down as her conditions –’
‘Conditions, indeed!’ murmured Alicia.
‘– that she would answer Monsieur Lachaille’s proposals herself, and discuss the matter alone with him. In other words, it was her business, and hers only.’
‘Let us be prepared for the worst! You’ve brought a halfwit into the world. She will ask for the moon and, if I know him, she won’t get it. He is coming at four o’clock?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hasn’t he sent anything? No flowers? No little present?’
‘Nothing. Do you think that’s a bad sign?’
‘No. It’s what one would expect. See that the child is nicely dressed. How is she looking?’
‘Not too well today. Poor little lamb –’
‘Come, come!’ said Alicia heartlessly. ‘You’ll have time for tears another day – when she’s succeeded in wrecking the whole affair.’
‘You’ve eaten scarcely anything, Gigi.’
‘I wasn’t too hungry, Grandmamma. May I have a little more coffee?’
‘Of course.’
‘And a drop of Combier?’
‘Why, yes. There’s nothing in the world better than Combier for settling the stomach.’
Through the open window rose the noise and heat from the street below. Gigi let the tip of her tongue lick round the bottom of her liqueur glass.
‘If Aunt Alicia could see you, Gigi!’ said Madame Alvarez lightheartedly.
Gigi’s only reply was a disillusioned little smile. Her old plaid dress was too tight across the breast, and under the table she stretched out her lo
ng legs well beyond the limits of her skirt.
‘What can Mamma be rehearsing today that’s kept her from coming back to eat with us, Grandmamma? Do you think there really is a rehearsal going on at her Opéra-Comique?’
‘She said so, didn’t she?’
‘Personally, I don’t think she wanted to eat here.’
‘What makes you think that?’
Without taking her eyes off the sunny window, Gigi simply shrugged her shoulders.
‘Oh, nothing, Grandmamma.’
When she had drained the last drop of her Combier, she rose and began to clear the table.
‘Leave all that, Gigi. I’ll do it.’
‘Why, Grandmamma? I do it as a rule.’
She looked Madame Alvarez straight in the face, with an expression the old lady could not meet.
‘We began our meal late, it’s almost three o’clock and you’re not dressed yet. Do pull yourself together, Gigi.’
‘It’s never before taken me a whole hour to change my clothes.’
‘Won’t you need my help? Are you satisfied your hair’s all right?’
‘It will do, Grandmamma. When the door-bell rings, don’t bother, I’ll go and open it.’
On the stroke of four, Gaston Lachaille rang three times. A childish, wistful face looked out from the bed-room door, listening. After three more impatient rings, Gilberte advanced as far as the middle of the hall. She still had on her old plaid dress and cotton stockings. She rubbed her cheeks with both fists, then ran to open the door.
‘Good afternoon, Uncle Gaston.’
‘Didn’t you want to let me in, you bad girl?’
They bumped shoulders in passing through the door, said, ‘Oh, sorry!’ a little too self-consciously, then laughed awkwardly.
‘Please sit down, Tonton. D’you know, I didn’t have time to change. Not like you! That navy blue serge couldn’t look better!’
‘You don’t know what your talking about! It’s tweed.’
‘Of course. How silly of me!’
She sat down facing him, pulled her skirt over her knees, and they stared at each other. Gilberte’s tomboy assurance deserted her; a strange woebegone look made her blue eyes seem twice their natural size.
‘What’s the matter with you, Gigi?’ asked Lachaille softly. ‘Tell me something! Do you know why I’m here?’
She assented with an exaggerated nod.
‘Do you want to, or don’t you?’ he asked, lowering his voice.
She pushed a curl behind her ear, and swallowed bravely.
‘I don’t want to.’
Lachaille twirled the tips of his moustache between two fingers, and for a moment looked away from a pair of darkened blue eyes, a pink cheek with a single freckle, curved lashes, a mouth unaware of its power, a heavy mass of ash-gold hair, and a neck as straight as a column, strong, hardly feminine, all of a piece, innocent of jewellery.
‘I don’t want what you want,’ Gilberte began again. ‘You said to Grandmamma . . .’
He put out his hand to stop her. His mouth was slightly twisted to one side, as if he had the toothache.
‘I know what I said to your grandmother. It’s not worth repeating. Just tell me what it is you don’t want. You can then tell me what you do want. I shall give it to you.’
‘You mean that?’ cried Gilberte.
He nodded, letting his shoulders droop, as if tired out. She watched with surprise, these signs of exhaustion and torment.
‘Tonton, you told Grandmamma you wanted to make me my fortune.’
‘A very fine one,’ said Lachaille firmly.
‘It will be fine if I like it,’ said Gilberte, no less firmly. ‘They’ve drummed it into my ears that I am backward for my age, but all the same I know the meaning of words. “Make me my fortune”: that means I should go away from here with you, and that I should sleep in your bed.’
‘Gigi, I beg of you!’
She stopped because of the strong note of appeal in his voice.
‘But, Tonton, why should I mind speaking of it to you? You didn’t mind speaking of it to Grandmamma. Neither did Grandmamma mind speaking of it to me. Grandmamma wanted me to see nothing but the bright side. But I know more than she told me. I know very well that if you make me my fortune, then I must have my photograph in the papers, go to the Battle of Flowers and to the races at Deauville. When we quarrel, Gil Blas and Paris en amour will tell the whole story. When you throw me over once and for all, as you did Gentiane des Cevennes when you’d had enough of her –’
‘What! You’ve heard about that? They’ve bothered your head with all those old stories?’
She gave a solemn little nod.
‘Grandmamma and Aunt Alicia. They’ve taught me that you’re world-famous. I know too that Maryse Chuquet stole your letters, and you brought an action against her. I know that Countess Pariewsky was angry with you because you didn’t want to marry a divorcée, and she tried to shoot you. I know what all the world knows.’
Lachaille put his hand on Gilberte’s knee.
‘Those are not the things we have to talk about together, Gigi. All that’s in the past. All that’s over and done with.’
‘Of course, Tonton, until it begins again. It’s not your fault if you’re world-famous. But I haven’t got a world-famous sort of nature. So it won’t do for me.’
In pulling at the hem of her skirt, she caused Lachaille’s hand to slip off her knee.
‘Aunt Alicia and Grandmamma are on your side. But as it concerns me a little, after all, I think you must allow me to say a word on the subject. And my word is, that it won’t do for me.’
She got up and walked about the room. Gaston Lachailles’ silence seemed to embarrass her. She punctuated her wanderings with ‘After all, it’s true, I suppose! No, it really won’t do!’
‘I should like to know,’ said Gaston at last, ‘whether you’re not just trying to hide from me the fact that you dislike me. If you dislike me, you had better say so at once.’
‘Oh no, Tonton, I don’t dislike you at all! I’m always delighted to see you! I’ll prove it by making a suggestion in my turn. You could go on coming here as usual, even more often. No one would see any harm in it, since you’re a friend of the family. You could go on bringing me liquorice, champagne on my birthdays, and on Sunday we should have an extra special game of piquet. Wouldn’t that be a pleasant little life? A life without all this business of sleeping in your bed and everybody knowing about it, losing strings of pearls, being photographed all the time and having to be so careful.’
She was absent-mindedly twisting a strand of her hair round her nose, and pulled it so tight that she snuffled and the tip of her nose turned purple.
‘A very pretty little life, as you say,’ interrupted Gaston Lachaille. ‘You’re forgetting one thing only, Gigi, and that is, I’m in love with you.’
‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘You never told me that.’
‘Well,’ he answered uneasily. ‘I’m telling you now.’
She remained standing before him, silent and breathing fast. There was no concealing her embarrassment; the rise and fall of her bosom under the tight bodice, the high colour on her cheeks, and the quivering of her close-pressed lips – albeit ready to open again and taste of life.
‘That’s quite another thing!’ she cried at last. ‘But then you are a terrible man! You’re in love with me, and you want to drag me into a life where I’ll have nothing but worries, where everyone gossips about everyone else, where the papers print nasty stories. You’re in love with me, and you don’t care a fig if you let me in for all sorts of horrible adventures, ending in separations, quarrels, Sandomirs, revolvers, and lau . . . and laudanum.’
She burst into violent sobs, which made as much noise as a fit of coughing. Gaston put his arms round her to bend her towards him like a branch, but she escaped and took refuge between the wall and the piano.
‘But listen, Gigi! Listen to me!’
‘Never! I never want to s
ee you again! I should never have believed it of you. You’re not in love with me, you’re a wicked man! Go away from here!’
She shut him out from sight by rubbing her eyes with closed fists. Gaston had moved over to her and was trying to discover some place on her well-guarded face where he could kiss her. But his lips found only the point of a small chin wet with tears. At the sound of sobbing, Madame Alvarez had hurried in. Pale and circumspect, she had stopped in hesitation at the door to the kitchen.
‘Good gracious, Gaston!’ she said. ‘What on earth’s the matter with her?’
‘The matter!’ said Lachaille. ‘The matter is that she doesn’t want to.’
‘She doesn’t want to!’ repeated Madame Alvarez. ‘What do you mean, she doesn’t want to?’
‘No, she doesn’t want to. I speak plainly enough, don’t I?’
‘No. I don’t want to,’ whimpered Gigi.
Madame Alvarez looked at her granddaughter in a sort of terror.
‘Gigi! It’s enough to drive one raving mad! But I told you, Gigi. Gaston, as God is my witness, I told her –’
‘You have told her too much!’ cried Lachaille.
He turned his face towards the child, looking just a poor, sad, lovesick creature, but all he saw of her was a slim back shaken by sobs and a dishevelled head of hair.
‘Oh!’ he exclaimed hoarsely. ‘I’ve had enough of this!’ And he went out, banging the door.
The next day, at three o’clock, Aunt Alicia, summoned by pneumatique, stepped out from her hired brougham. She climbed the stairs up to the Alvarez’ floor – pretending to the shortness of breath proper to someone with a weak heart – and noiselessly pushed open the door, which her sister had left on the latch.
‘Where’s the child?’
‘In her room. Do you want to see her?’
‘There’s plenty of time. How is she?’
‘Very calm.’
Alicia shook two angry little fists.
‘Very calm! She has pulled the roof down about our heads, and she is very calm! These young people of today!’
Once again she raised her spotted veil and withered her sister with a single glance.
‘And you, standing there, what do you propose doing?’