“I knew it was you!” she exclaimed as soon as she saw their faces. She hastened towards them with brisk, glad steps, holding out her hands and smiling her greetings. “We were ever so pleased this morning when Daniel’s wire came.” Jacques did not flinch. “But I knew you would pass,” she continued, looking earnestly at Jacques. “Something told me so that Sunday in June when you came here with Daniel. Dear Daniel, how delighted, how proud he must feel! Jenny was delighted, too.”
“So Daniel isn’t here tonight?” Antoine remarked.
As they neared the circle of chairs, they heard a sound of gay voices. Jacques singled out at once a certain voice with a distinctive quality of its own, vibrant yet subdued: Jenny’s voice. She was seated beside another girl, her cousin Nicole, and a man some thirty years of age towards whom Antoine advanced with an air of surprise—a young surgeon who had been his colleague at the Necker Hospital. The two men shook hands cordially.
Mme. de Fontanin beamed. “So you know each other. Antoine and Jacques Thibault are great friends of Daniel’s,” she explained to Dr. Hequét. “So you won’t mind letting them into the secret, will you?” She turned to Antoine. “I’m sure my little Nicole will let me tell you about her engagement—won’t you, darling? It’s not really quite official yet, but, as you see, Nicole’s already brought her fiance here to meet her aunt, and you need only look at them to guess their secret.”
Jenny had not gone to meet the brothers and did not rise till they were actually standing before her; she shook hands with them coldly.
“Nico dear, come and see my pigeons,” she said to Nicole before they had time to sit down again. “I’ve eight baby pigeons who are …”
“Still on the bottle,” Jacques broke in; his voice, which he meant to sound insolent, was merely ill-mannered and out of place. This he realized at once, and clenched his teeth.
Jenny did not seem to hear.
“… who are just learning to fly,” she continued smoothly.
“But they’re all in bed by now,” Mme. de Fontanin protested, to keep her from going.
“So much the better. You can’t get near them in the daytime. Will you come too, Felix?”
Dr. Hequét, who was talking to Antoine, hastened to follow the two girls.
As soon as the engaged couple was out of earshot Mme. de Fontanin bent towards Antoine and Jacques.
“It’s a most fascinating little match, you know. Our little Nicole has no means of her own and she was quite set against being on anyone’s hands. So for three years she’s been earning her living as a nurse. And now, just see how she has been rewarded! Dr. Hequét met her at the bedside of a patient and was so impressed by her devotion and intelligence, and the plucky way she was facing life, that he fell in love with her. There’s the whole story. Now don’t you think it’s perfectly charming?”
The romantic glamour of her tale, where virtue triumphed and every sentiment was lofty, enchanted her simple soul, and the light of faith shone in her eyes. Most of her remarks were addressed to Antoine and she spoke to him in a cordial manner that seemed to imply they saw eye to eye in everything. She liked his forehead and keen gaze, never reflecting that he was sixteen years her junior; that she might, or almost might, have been his mother. She was overjoyed when he assured her Felix Hequét was a first-rate surgeon with a great future before him.
Jacques took no part in the conversation. “On the bottle”! He was furious with himself. Everything, even Mme. de Fontanin’s effusive amiability, had been ruffling his nerves ever since he came. He had not been able to hear her congratulations out, but turned away, feeling ashamed on her account—that she should seem to attach any importance to his success, the news of which, however, he had been at pains to telegraph to her. “Jenny at least spared me her compliments,” he murmured to himself. “Did she realize that I am capable of better things? I wonder. No. Just indifference. Better things! ‘Still on the bottle’! I wonder if she even knows what the Ecole Normale means. Anyhow, what does she care about my future? She hardly said ‘Good evening’ to me. But how about me? Why did I make that idiotic remark?” He blushed, gritting his teeth again. “And while she said ‘Good evening’ she went on listening to her cousin. Her eyes—inscrutable, they are. The rest of her face is almost childish, but her eyes …!” At every moment painful twinges were reminding him of his boil, but he resented still more the bandage that all of them— not only Mademoiselle but Gisèle too—had foisted on him. A hideous sight he must be looking!
Antoine was talking cheerfully, paying no heed to Jacques.
“… and from the moral point of view …” he was saying.
When Antoine talks, Jacques thought, there’s no room for anybody else. Then suddenly his brother’s easy manners in society and that “moral point of view,” following as it did avowals of a very different order, disgusted him as a piece of unforgivable hypocrisy. How different from him his brother was! Rushing to extremes, Jacques decided that he had not a single thing in common with Antoine. Sooner or later their ways would part, inevitably; their different bents were incompatible and had no point of contact. A mood of utter hopelessness came over him; even their five years of close communion, he realized, had failed to make them proof against this coming estrangement, could not prevent them from growing indifferent to each other, strangers, or even enemies! He all but rose, snatching at any pretext for escape. Ah, could he but wander away alone into the darkness, out into the forest, anywhere! One human being had smiled her way into his heart: little Gisèle. Yesterday’s success—how gladly would he forgo it, could he but be with her again at this very moment, lying on the grass, watching her face and eyes—so unmysterious, hers!—and hear her cry: “You will, won’t you?” with that cooing laugh of hers! Now that he thought of it, never had he seen Jenny laugh; even her smile seemed disillusioned. What ever has come over me? he wondered and tried to pull himself together. But the dark mood was stronger than his will, a bitter nausea filling him with loathing for everything and everybody, for Mme. de Fontanin’s remarks, Antoine’s degradation, people in general, his own wasted youth, the world at large—yes, and for Jenny too, who seemed so much at home in a world of futility.
“What are your plans for the vacation?” Mme. de Fontanin inquired. “Couldn’t you induce Daniel to spend a few weeks away from Paris? It would be so nice for you both and would benefit you in other ways.” She was discovering with some dismay that the brilliant career on which she had hoped to see her son embark was slow to shape itself and, for all her reluctance to linger on such thoughts, she was sometimes worried by the life he led; it was too free, too easy-going and—though she shirked the thought—too dissipated.
When Jacques told her that he intended to stay at Maisons, she was delighted.
“That’s splendid! I hope you’ll persuade Daniel to go out a bit; he never will take a holiday and I’m so afraid he will make himself ill. Jenny!” She had noticed the girl returning with her friends. “Good news! Jacques will be here all summer. That will mean some good tennis, won’t it? Jenny’s simply mad about tennis this summer; she spends all her mornings at the club. Our local tennis-club is quite famous in its way,” she explained to Dr. Hequét, who had taken the chair beside her. “Such nice young people! They all turn up there every morning. The courts are excellent and they’re always arranging matches, tournaments, and that sort of thing. I don’t know much about it,” she added with a smile, “but it’s terribly exciting, they tell me. And they’re always grumbling about the shortage of men. Are you still a member, Jacques?”
“Yes.”
“That’s good. Nicole, you must bring Dr. Hequét and stay a week or ten days with us this summer. That will be nice, won’t it, Jenny? I’m sure Dr. Hequét is a good player, too.”
Jacques turned towards Hequét. The drawing-room lamp shone through the open window, showing up the young surgeon’s lean, austere face, his close-cropped brown beard and temples prematurely streaked with silver. He certainly looked t
en years older than Nicole. The lamplight, glinting on his glasses, masked the expression of his eyes, but his thoughtful air was decidedly engaging. Yes, thought Jacques, there is a man—and I am only a child! A man who can inspire love. Whereas I …
Antoine had risen from his chair. He felt tired and did not want to miss his train. Jacques cast him an angry look. Though a few minutes before he himself had been in half a mind to snatch at any pretext for departure, now he could not bring himself to end the evening thus. Still, he would have to leave at the same time as his brother.
He moved towards Jenny.
“Whom are you playing tennis with at the club this summer?”
She looked at him, and the slender line of her eyebrows knitted a little.
“With anyone who happens to be there,” she replied.
“Meaning the two Casins, and Fauquet, and the Perigault crowd?”
“Naturally.”
“They’re just the same, I suppose, and as witty as ever?”
“What about it? We can’t all be shining lights at the Ecole Normale!”
“Yes, I dare say one has to be a bit of a fool to play tennis properly.”
“Very likely.” She threw him an aggressive look. “Anyhow, you should know about that; you used to be pretty good at tennis once.” Then, ostentatiously breaking off their conversation, she turned to her cousin. “You’re not going yet, Nicole darling, I hope.”
“Ask Felix.”
“What’s this you’re to ask Felix?” said Dr. Hequét, who had approached the two girls.
Antoine’s eyes were fixed on Nicole; yes, he mused, the girl certainly has a dazzling complexion. But, beside Rachel’s …! And suddenly his heart beat faster.
“So, Jacques, we’ll be seeing you again quite soon?” said Mme. de Fontanin. “Are you going to play tomorrow, Jenny?”
“I don’t know, Mamma—I hardly think so.”
“Well, if it isn’t tomorrow, you’re bound to meet there one morning,” Mme. de Fontanin continued in a conciliatory tone. And, despite Antoine’s protest, she insisted on escorting the two young men to the gate.
“I must say, darling, you weren’t very nice to your friends!” Nicole exclaimed as soon as the Thibaults were out of earshot.
“To begin with, they’re not my friends,” Jenny replied.
“I’ve worked with Thibault,” Hequét observed. “He’s a first-rate man and has already made his mark. I’ve no ideas about his brother but”—behind the glasses his grey eyes twinkled quizzingly, for he had overheard the short passage between Jacques and Jenny—”it’s rather rare for a duffer to get through the Normale exam at his first shot, and take a high place, too.”
A deep blush mantled Jenny’s cheeks, and Nicole came to her rescue. She had lived with the Fontanins long enough to learn the kinks in Jenny’s character, one of which was her shyness always at issue with her pride, and sometimes lapsing into a morbid readiness to take offence.
“The poor boy had a boil on his neck,” she put in good-naturedly, “and that doesn’t help a man to be his social best.”
Jenny made no comment, and Hequét did not insist. He turned to Nicole.
“We must be getting ready now, dear.” His tone was that of a man who always runs his life by clockwork.
Mme. de Fontanin’s return was the signal for a general move. Jenny went with her cousin to the bedroom where she had left her coat. Some minutes passed before she spoke.
“So there’s my summer spoilt, absolutely ruined!”
Seated before the mirror, Nicole was tidying her hair for the sole benefit of her fiance. She felt that she was looking her best, wondered what he was saying to her aunt downstairs, and pictured the long drive home in her lover’s car across the silent night. So she paid little heed to Jenny’s ill-humour. Noticing the sullen look on her friend’s face, she merely smiled.
“What an infant you are!”
She did not see the look that Jenny flung her.
A motor-horn sounded and Nicole swung round gaily and darted towards her cousin to embrace her, with the mixture of affection, innocence, and coquetry that made her so attractive. But Jenny, uttering an involuntary cry, swerved out of her reach. She shrank from being touched by anybody and had always refused to learn to dance, so physically repugnant to her was the contact of another’s arm. Once, in early childhood, she had sprained her ankle in the Luxembourg and had to be taken home in a carriage; she had preferred to climb the stairs, trailing an injured limb, to letting the concierge carry her in his arms up to their landing.
“What a touch-me-not you are!” laughed Nicole. Then, with a cheerful glance at her cousin, she changed the subject, returning to their conversation before dinner in the rose-alley. “I’m ever so glad to have had my talk with you, darling. Some days I’m positively oppressed by my happiness. With you of course I’m always perfectly sincere—just myself, my real self, exactly as I am. Oh, how I hope, darling, it won’t be long before you, too …”
Under the headlights the garden had the glamour of a stage, set for a gala night. Hequét had raised the hood of his car and was tightening a plug with the measured gestures of a skilled surgeon. Nicole suggested keeping her coat folded on her knees, but he insisted on her wearing it. He treated her like a little girl for whom he was responsible. Did he treat all women thus—like children? But Nicole gave in with a good grace that startled Jenny and roused in her a vague resentment towards the engaged couple. “No,” she said to herself, with a shake of her head; “that sort of happiness … not for me, thanks!”
For a long while her eyes followed the flail of light that swept the trees before the receding car. Leaning against the garden wall, with Puce clasped in her arms, she felt such hopeless hope, such bitterness against she knew not what, that, lifting her eyes towards the star-strewn spaces, she wished for an instant or two that she might die thus, before attempting life’s adventure.
VI
GISÈLE was wondering why for some days past the daylight hours had seemed so short, summer so glorious, and why each morning as she dressed before her open window she could not help singing, smiling at everything—her mirror, the cloudless sky, the garden, the sweet peas she watered on her windowsill, the orange trees on the terrace, which seemed to be curling themselves into balls, like hedgehogs, the better to screen themselves from the far-darting sun.
M. Thibault rarely spent more than two or three days at Maisons-Laffitte without making a business trip to Paris, where he stayed overnight. When he was away, a brisker air seemed to pervade the house. Meals came and went like games, and Jacques and Gisèle once more gave free vent to their bursts of childish glee. Mademoiselle, in gayer mood, pattered from pantry to linen-closet, from kitchen to drying-room, lilting antiquated hyms that sounded like bygone music-hall refrains. On such occasions Jacques felt unconstrained, his brain alert and full of warring projects, and gave himself wholeheartedly to his vocation. He spent the afternoons in a corner of the garden, getting up, sitting down again, scribbling in his note-book. Gisèle, too, infected by a desire to turn her leisure hours to good account, posted herself on a landing whence she could watch Jacques coming and going beneath the trees and, immersed in Dickens’s Great Expectations—Mademoiselle, on Jacques’s suggestion, had sanctioned its perusal as being “good for Gisèle’s English”—wept ecstatically for having guessed from the outset that Pip would give poor Biddy up for the exotic charms of cruel Miss Estella.
Jacques’s brief absence in the second week of August to attend Battaincourt’s wedding in Touraine—he had not dared to stand out against his friend’s request—sufficed to break the spell.
The day after his return to Maisons he awoke too early after a restless night; shaving warily, he noticed that his cheeks were innocent of rash and the boil had given place to an invisible scar, and now the prospect of resuming this too uniform existence seemed so exasperating that he suddenly stopped dressing and threw himself upon his bed. The weeks are passing, passing, he tho
ught. Could this be the vacation to which he had looked forward so? He sprang up from the bed. “Exercise is what I need,” he murmured in a cool voice that assorted ill with his fevered gestures. He took a tennis-shirt from the wardrobe, saw that his white shoes and racket were in order, and a few minutes later jumped on his bicycle and was off post-haste to the tennis-club.
Two courts were in play; Jenny was one of the players. She did not seem to notice Jacques’s arrival and he made no haste to greet her. A new toss-up brought them into the same four; first against each other, then as partners. As players, there was little to choose between them.
No sooner were they together than they dropped back into their old-time unmannerliness. True, Jacques paid ample attention to Jenny, but always in an irritating, not to say offensive way; he jeered at her bad shots and obviously enjoyed contradicting her. Jenny gave him tit for tat, in a shrill voice that was quite unlike her. She could easily have replaced him by a less churlish partner, but apparently did not want to do so; on the contrary she seemed set on having the last word. When it was lunch-time and the players began to disperse she challenged Jacques in a voice that had lost nothing of its hostility:
“Play four up with me!”
The energy she put into her play was so intense, so combative, that she beat Jacques four-love.
The victory made her generous.
“There’s nothing in it, you know; you’re out of training. One of these days you’ll have your revenge.”
Her voice had once again the soft, brooding tone that was natural to her. We’re just two kids, Jacques thought. It pleased him that they shared a failing and he seemed to see a gleam of hope. A wave of shame traversed his mind when he recalled his attitude to Jenny, but when he asked himself what other to adopt he found no answer. There was no one with whom he longed so keenly to be natural; yet in her company he found it utterly impossible.
Noon was striking when they left the club together, wheeling their bicycles.
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