Thalia

by Frances Faviell

  I said I would leave such a delicate matter to him—but affirmed that I did not want anything for it.

  ‘I will tell Monsieur Tréfours,’ he said firmly, ‘that the price is two thousand five hundred francs.’

  I was shocked. The franc was worth about twopence, to ask twenty guineas for such a sketch seemed robbery. I was only a student, how could I ask such a price?

  ‘Mademoiselle,’ said the dealer laughing, ‘you have a great deal to learn, and not only about painting. A picture is worth what it will fetch, what anyone will pay for it.’

  ‘But why does he want to buy my sketch when he can paint so much better himself?’

  ‘There is something he likes in it, Mademoiselle—and he is always glad to encourage young painters.’

  Suddenly the thought came to me that he was buying the picture out of kindness—or out of curiosity. He had surely been told that I was painting Catherine Tracey’s portrait. My spirits went down as in a lift, and again I was struck by the fact that these Tréfours were always cropping up somewhere.

  There was the father, the son and the uncles. Madeleine had talked of this uncle, he had wanted her to pose for the nude and she had been outraged. There was Thérèse, Thalia was always talking about Armand’s young sister. It seemed impossible to get away from them.

  ‘Do you know Monsieur Philippe Tréfours?’ I asked the gallery owner.

  ‘Mademoiselle, I ought to know him, it was he who set me up in this gallery,’ he said simply. He assured me that Xavier Tréfours’s only reason for wanting the painting was that he liked it.

  I ran home with wings on my feet. I would work and work. I would never have to ask anyone for anything again. No more reminders that my training was expensive, that my painting materials cost too much, that I had a large and healthy appetite. I would work—and sell my work. Running up the rue de la Pionnière I bumped into Judy. She was delighted at my news. ‘But I’m sorry he’s bought it,’ she said. ‘I was going to make you an offer for it. I love it. How about you doing me a sketch of my Mimi? I should so like one of her in this fat bundly stage. Will you try?’

  I couldn’t think of anything I would like better than to give pleasure to Judy, and said that of course I would try.

  Cynthia opened her eyes when I told her about the picture being sold.

  ‘You’re lucky to be able to earn money so easily,’ she said enviously. ‘What are they going to pay you for Mrs. Tracey’s portrait?’

  I didn’t know, because we had never discussed it.

  ‘If you’re painting her for nothing you might do one of me,’ she said. ‘Tom would love it. I shall wear my ice-blue dress, of course. The new chiffon one from Paris.’

  I wondered how she had paid for it. How horrible money was! It was only now that its power was beginning to dawn on me. Somehow one took it all for granted until it concerned oneself. Cynthia was constantly borrowing money from me, and I was getting a little worried as to where it would end. Mademoiselle Caron had to be paid; and it was I who found Thalia’s share of both the Italian and ballet classes, and for this reason the money for the picture would be doubly welcome.

  Armand had spoken to his parents, and I was to be introduced to his mother on the following Sunday. Cynthia looked at me askance when I told her.

  ‘He’s quite unsuitable for you. His father is a common, vulgar sort of person. He grows apples and tomatoes and such things.’

  ‘And what’s the matter with apples and tomatoes?’ I shouted rudely. ‘You enjoy eating them.’

  She reproved me, and said quietly, ‘That’s not all. There are other objections. Rachel, give this young man up before you’re made unhappy by him.’ There was real feeling in her voice, and she caught me impulsively by the arm. ‘I tell you, Rachel, Armand Tréfours is not for you.’

  ‘He’s asked me to marry him,’ I said. ‘And I’ve written to Father about it.’

  ‘It’s impossible, utterly impossible. He’s a Catholic, in the first place. Bretons are fanatically religious—as you’ve seen. His family will never accept you.’

  ‘Cynthia,’ I said desperately, ‘I love Armand. I must marry him.’

  She looked consideringly at me. I was almost in tears now. ‘It’s your first affair, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. But I’ll never love anyone else. I know it.’

  ‘There’ll be others,’ she said quietly. ‘And what about your career? Just now you were excited about becoming a painter. Your father is set on it.’

  ‘You’re either a painter or you’re not,’ I retorted stubbornly. ‘You can’t be a painter just to please others.’

  ‘And you’re willing to throw up everything to marry this young Breton?’

  Was I? I did not know. I wanted to be a painter—but I wanted Armand. I wanted him desperately, besides that everything else paled. ‘I can marry him and still become a painter,’ I said. ‘Lots of artists are married.’

  ‘Rachel,’ she said entreatingly. ‘You’re making Thalia terribly unhappy. She’s devoted to you and she doesn’t like Armand; and after all you came here to be with her.’

  So she had noticed Thalia’s violent jealousy. I had not thought that she observed anything about Thalia. Since her return from Paris she had paid but the briefest visit to her daughter, who was still in bed.

  ‘Thalia is too fond of me. . . .’ I was suddenly embarrassed. ‘It’s not good for her. She ought to be more with younger girls—with Clodagh.’

  ‘You know how I feel about that friendship, Rachel.

  ‘If she were she wouldn’t be so jealous of Armand.

  ‘Love is always jealous—you’ll discover that. Give him up, Rachel, before you’re badly hurt.’

  I looked at her composed beauty. What did she know of being hurt? And yet something in her vague, distrait manner since her return made me wonder. Was she really as cold and composed as she appeared?

  ‘I can’t,’ I said woodenly. ‘On Sunday, Armand is taking me to his mother.’

  ‘We’ll see what your father says,’ she said calmly.

  I had written a long letter to Father telling him all about Armand and my feelings for him, and asking permission to become engaged. His reply was prompt and typical. He hated writing letters and never did so unless compelled. He got out of his aversion by sending telegrams; and this he did now. I opened mine apprehensively, fearing bad news—a refusal.

  ‘BRAVO STOP VIVE L’ENTENTE CORDIALE LOVE FATHER’.

  Dear, unpredictable Father. How funny he was. He was always urging me to take a less serious view of myself. ‘If you could only see yourself objectively you’d enjoy a good laugh!’ he had told me when discussing the affair of the vicar’s portrait. ‘It’s got its funny side.’

  I took the telegram to Cynthia. She read it in the salon. Even against the hideous blue and red stripes of the wallpaper I could not but be fascinated by her loveliness. She read it in silence, then she said: ‘Your aunt told me that your father was eccentric. I see what she means. Well! I suppose you’re determined to go to the family to-morrow?’

  ‘Armand is fetching me after church, if that is all right with you.’

  ‘Rachel,’ she said, taking both my hands, ‘won’t you believe me when I tell you that the whole thing’s hopeless? It can never work out.’

  I really liked her at that moment but perhaps that was because I was so happy. Father did not object—and to-morrow Armand was taking me to his mother.

  Thalia came into my room that night. I was reading Paul Verlaine. She stood against the door in her old darned dressing-gown and I thought how selfish Cynthia was to make her wear such shabby old garments when her own négligées were exquisite.

  I can’t sleep,’ Thalia began. ‘There’s something on my mind. It’s something I must tell you, Rachel.’ Her eyes were intent and steady.

  ‘Listen,’ I interrupted. ‘Listen, d’you remember this? Do you remember the concert in the Casino and the song we both loved?’ And I began to read the lovely line
s of Verlaine’s Sagesse.

  ‘Le ciel est par-dessus le toit,

  Si bleu, si calme!

  Un arbre, par-dessus le toit,

  Berce sa palme.’

  But before I had got any further she had taken up the lines so beautifully, so perfectly, that I dropped the book and stared at her. She stood now by the window and the lovely words fell one by one into the murmur of the sea. The moon shone in on her from my open shutters as she stood there with her hands at her throat and her face stretched up to its light. She was etherealized, transformed by the witchery of the night and the words she was quoting. We had heard a diseuse sing them to a modern setting at the concert in the Casino. She had had one of the low husky voices coming into fashion and had recited rather than sung. It had delighted me—and because it had delighted me, Thalia, unknown to me, had learned the words, and was now reciting them in exactly the same way as the diseuse had done.

  I stared stupidly at her. She was quite lovely as she leaned there. ‘She could be a great actress,’ I thought. ‘Beauty is not necessary for the stage. It’s enough, perhaps better, to give the illusion of beauty.’ This was the second time she had astounded and stirred me to admiration. I was again captivated by the charm of her voice and some absorbed, withdrawn quality in her. And then she turned—the miracle was gone. Her face as she approached me was the old mouse-like one with nervous flitting eyes. ‘I learned it by heart, because you liked it so much. Are you pleased?’

  I was very moved, more than I eared to be. ‘Let’s try and get the piano accompaniment and see if you could sing it, I suggested. ‘You have a lovely voice. Perhaps you’ll become an actress, Thalia.’

  ‘No. I shan’t,’ she said abruptly. ‘I’m too ugly. I’d rather write things—poems and plays for others to act. Rachel, there’s something I must tell you.’

  Her face was ominous with disaster.

  ‘What is it?’ I said resignedly. ‘What do you want to tell me?’

  ‘It’s Armand, Rachel . . . you’re not the only one. . . .’

  I stared at her again, this time horrified. Was she going to tell me that she was in love with Armand too? Had she carried her imitation of me to this extent?

  ‘You love him too?’ I asked faintly.

  ‘Love him? No. I don’t love him. He loves someone else.’

  I jumped out of bed, knocking the books on to the floor, and took her by the shoulders. Forgetting that she had been ill I shook her roughly. ‘How dare you? How dare you say such a wicked thing! You’re jealous.’

  She bore the shaking in silence and when I let her go she said unsteadily, ‘No. I was jealous. But now I’m not. Because there’s someone else. He loves someone else besides you. You’ll never stand for that—you’re too proud.’

  ‘There may have been someone else,’ I retorted angrily. ‘But now there’s only me! He’s going to marry me. Tomorrow he’s taking me to his mother. Now go to bed and leave me alone. I’m sick of you and your vile insinuation.’

  She turned and went. I leaned down and picked up the books which had fallen. On the top was Alfred de Musset. I opened it. ‘A Rachel, Souvenir de Vicomté—Armand.’

  I put it under my pillow with Father’s telegram, but now it was I who could not sleep. The lighthouse flashing across my bed irritated me to-night. I got up and pulled the curtain across the open shutters but before I did so I looked out again at the moon on the water and it seemed to me suddenly that all beauty was an effect of light. The image of Thalia as she had leaned against the window-sill was still with me. I had deliberately shut out the one of her with bowed head and shoulders as she obediently left the room. But her words wouldn’t be banished. ‘He loves someone else. He loves someone else.’ ‘No! No!’ I cried violently, burying my head in the pillows. ‘She’s wicked. Wicked. She wants to upset it all.’

  That Sunday we sat under the window donated by the British and American children with their Sunday school pennies. St. Bartholomew’s, the Anglo-American church, was, as usual, crowded. Thalia and Claude were on either side of me. Cynthia, who usually came, had stayed at home. I didn’t hear a word of the chaplain’s sermon nor did I heed Claude’s fidgeting. My mind was filled with apprehension of the coming ordeal. The sun caught the brass tablets of two names which would be famous in history—Captain Constantin Fitzgibbon who had raised the Iraq Levy and died commanding it in battle, Colonel Monteith of the famous VI Bombay Cavalry—and then on the plaque to the young nurse who had been drowned while bathing at St. Lunaire. And this last one captured my imagination. Perhaps she was in love, I thought, and hadn’t been alert enough for the treacherous currents and so had drifted away until she was too far out.

  And so I dreamed on and only awoke to my whereabouts when I saw Claude putting a tiddly-wink in the collection bag. Thalia saw it too and no sooner had we stepped into the bright sunshine under the palms and the flower-filled church garden than she attacked her small brother.

  ‘Where’s the penny Mother gave you? Fancy keeping a penny given you for church. That’s stealing from God. . . .’

  Claude’s mouth turned down, Thalia’s words sounded so ominous. ‘It isn’t stealing,’ he said stoutly. ‘It was my penny before I gave it. If I didn’t give it at all it couldn’t be stealing, could it, Rachel?’

  I didn’t want to argue on this point. ‘Go back and give your penny to Mr. Clarke the verger,’ I said.

  ‘Only if you come with me.’

  When the penny was handed over and the tiddly-wink handed back we emerged again. Everyone was standing about chatting and greeting each other in the sun, and news of absent husbands and sons was being exchanged. Several acquaintances inquired for Cynthia. And suddenly Terence Mourne was standing by us.

  ‘What about seeing something of me this week?’ he asked. What stopped me from telling him that I was about to become engaged? I said that I was occupied by my studies in the evening.

  It’s your education I’m thinking of . . .’ he said laughing. ‘You mustn’t neglect the social graces. . . . I’ll telephone you and we’ll go dancing. . . .’

  Judy came up then: ‘Come back to lunch with me, Rachel. We’ll drop the children on the way.’

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I’m going to the Tréfours for lunch.’

  A curious, rather startled look came into her delightful monkey face. ‘You mean the Philippe Tréfours?’

  ‘Yes. Armand is going to introduce me to his mother to-day.’

  ‘You’re friendly with the son?’

  Now why did I tell Judy what I didn’t tell Terence?

  ‘We’re to be engaged,’ I said, ‘as soon as his mother has consented.’

  Judy seemed taken aback. ‘But, Rachel . . . have you thought this over seriously?’ She seemed so curiously perturbed that I was astonished. It wasn’t like her at all. She was always so gay, so impulsively kind and reassuring to me. ‘Aren’t you going to congratulate me?’ I asked, hurt.

  ‘No,’ she said crisply. ‘I’m going to congratulate him.’

  She kissed me warmly and impetuously. ‘Get in, all of you, and I’ll drop you at the villa.’

  ‘How strange Judy was about Armand,’ I said to Thalia as we walked up the long path to the house.

  ‘It’s not surprising,’ she replied with another of those secret, delighted smiles.

  Armand was waiting in the salon with Cynthia, looking terribly ill at ease. Cynthia hadn’t bothered to learn any French except the names of vegetables and a conversation consisting of these must have been difficult. He jumped up immediately we went in and said that we had a long drive and must hurry.

  ‘You’ll be back to put Claude to bed for me? I’m going to a cocktail party,’ said Cynthia as we were leaving.

  I was annoyed. I’d had to stay in the house the whole of last week-end because Thalia had been ill. And now she was making me be nursemaid again. ‘I’ll be back,’ I said shortly.

  We drove in silence until we were well on the St. Brieuc Road and then Arm
and looked at his watch and turned the car down a side track. We kissed—not once but again and again; then he said: ‘Rachel, darling, be patient with my mother, won’t you? So much depends on this first meeting. . . .’

  ‘I’m not patient—and I don’t seem to be tactful,’ I said ruefully. ‘I’m always upsetting Cynthia and now I seem to have upset Judy.

  ‘Judy?’ he said sharply. ‘Do you mean Mrs. van Klaveren?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I used to go there with a friend. She’s lived here for some time. Her husband was a friend of mine. We used to go tunny fishing together. He taught me, in fact I’ve bought his boat with the special revolving seat. . . .’

  ‘She’s a darling,’ I said, ‘she’s been so good to me but just now when I told her that you and I are to be engaged she was quite queer.’

  ‘You told her that?’

  There was faint displeasure in his voice.

  ‘Yes. She’s my best friend here.’

  ‘Women are funny about such things,’ he said soothingly. ‘You probably blurted it out suddenly.’

  I didn’t see what difference that made but I couldn’t tell Armand that Judy hadn’t seemed pleased. He cut the conversation short by kissing me with passion. The leaves were late on the trees and a few brilliant coloured creepers on the high stone wall above us were shedding their last ones. They fell into the car—some of them on to my face as he kissed me.

  ‘Tu m’aimes?’ he asked me, stroking my hair back from my forehead and looking gravely at me.

  ‘I am so happy that I’d like to die now—like that nurse at St. Lunaire,’ I said. For the strangest foreboding had come over me that it could never be as perfect for us as it was now—before our engagement was official.

  ‘Morbid little idiot!’ said Armand, starting up the car. ‘I adore your nonsense . . . but now we must hurry. Maman will be annoyed if we’re late.’

  The Tréfours’ home lay far back from the road down a long winding drive through orchards. I was astonished to see the trees still heavily laden with apples of a curiously deep mulberry colour. They were bent down groaning under their burden and, almost stripped of their leaves, looking curiously exotic. They were of a shape unlike any other apple I’d seen and had almost a silken sheen. To the left of the drive lay the glass-houses where the tomatoes and grapes were grown.