She started at a sound; rapid yet measured footsteps: Antoine’s steps. He entered the room and stood before her, smiling. He looked rather tired, but his brow was calm, his eyes were gay and sparkling. Gise, who had been feeling herself adrift, pulled herself together at once; Antoine’s presence always had that effect on others, it seemed to emanate a vibrant energy.
“Hallo, Blackie!” he hailed her with a smile. (“Blackie” was a nickname which M. Thibault, in a burst of good humour, had bestowed on her. It dated from those far-off days when circumstances had compelled Mile, de Waize to adopt her little orphan niece and, taking the child under her wing, had introduced into the staid Thibault household what at the time had seemed to them an untamed little savage.)
“I suppose you have a crowd of patients this afternoon,” Gise remarked, to make conversation. .
“All in the day’s work,” he cheerfully replied. “Will you come to the consulting-room? Or shall we stay here?” Without waiting for her answer he sat down beside her. “How are you getting on? We hardly ever seem to see each other nowadays. That’s a pretty shawl… . Give me your hand.” He took the little, unresisting hand without more ado, laid it flat upon his fist, and held it up to his eyes. “Not so plump as it used to be, your little hand.” Gise smiled good-humouredly and Antoine saw two little dimples form in her brown cheeks. She made no effort to withdraw her arm, but Antoine felt that she was on her guard, ready to shrink from him. He all but murmured: “You’re not so nice as you used to be before you went away,” but thought better of it, and lapsed into a moody silence.
“Your father insisted on going back to bed, on account of his leg,” she said evasively.
Antoine made no comment. What an age it was since he was last alone with Gise! He riveted his gaze on the small, dark hand, and his eyes followed the blue tracery of veins along the slender, well-knit wrist; then, examining the fingers one by one, he tried to laugh it off. “Do you know what they remind me of? Dainty little half-coronas!” But all the while, across a shimmering haze that seemed to rise before them, his eyes were lingering in an insidious caress on all the sinuous curves of her lithe, bent body, from the soft roundness of her shoulder to the angle of her knee under the silk shawl. It made his senses tingle, that languid grace of hers, so naive … and so near. Sudden and catastrophic, like a rush of blood to tbe head or a pent-up torrent chafing at the flood-gates, came a flood of desire. He almost yielded to an impulse to slip an arm around her, draw the young, lithe body closely to his side. But then … he only bowed his head and lightly pressed his cheek against the little hand. “How soft your skin is, Blackie!” he murmured. He lifted his eyes slowly towards her face and when she saw the look in them, a look of famished, almost insensate craving, instinctively Gise turned aside, withdrew her hand.
“What did you want to tell me?” she asked in a level tone.
Antoine pulled himself together.
“I’ve some terrible news to give you, my dear.”
Terrible news? A dreadful fear leapt into her mind. Supposing …? Was this the bitter end of all her hopes? Her terror-stricken eyes swept round the room, lingering for an agonizing moment on each familiar landmark of her love.
“Father is dangerously ill, you know,” Antoine went on.
At first it seemed she had not heard him; her thoughts had been so far away.
Then, “Dangerously ill?” she repeated and, as she spoke, grew suddenly aware that she had known it all’ the time. Her brows lifted and her eyes showed an anxiety that was partly feigned.
“Do you mean that he will …?”
Antoine nodded. When he spoke again his tone implied that he had long foreseen that it would come to this.
“The operation last winter, the excision of the right kidney, served only one purpose, really: it prevented us from nursing any more illusions as to the nature of the tumour. The other kidney became infected almost immediately after. But since then the disease has taken a new turn, it’s become generalized, and that’s just as well, in a way. It helps us to keep the truth from the patient; he has no suspicions, no idea that it’s a hopeless case.”
There was a brief silence before Gise spoke again.
“How long do you think …?”
He observed her with satisfaction. She would make a good wife for a doctor. She knew how to face the inevitable; she had not shed a single tear. Those months she passed abroad had formed her character. And he regretted his habit of always regarding her as more of a child than she really was.
“Two or three months at the most,” he replied in the same tone. Then added, rather hastily: “Very much less, perhaps.”
Though inclined to be slow in the uptake, Gise guessed that Antoine’s last remark had some special application to her, and was relieved when he went on to explain himself at once.
“Look here, Gise, now that you know the truth, can you really leave me all by myself? Must you go away again?”
She did not reply, but gazed sedately at the wall in front with bright and steady eyes. Her round little face seemed quite composed but for a tiny wrinkle that came and went incessantly between her brows, the only outward sign of her inward struggle. Her first response had been a thrill of affection; his appeal had touched her. It had come as a surprise that anyone should appeal to her for support—Antoine most of all, whom the whole family looked up to as a tower of strength.
No! She had seen through his ruse, guessed why he wanted to detain her at Paris; and all her being rebelled against it. Only by going to England could she carry out her great project, the one thing in the world for which she lived. If only she could have told Antoine all about it! No, that would be a betrayal of her heart’s secret; more, a betrayal of it to the last person on earth to welcome such a confidence! Later on, perhaps … in a letter. But not now.
Her eyes remained obdurately focused on the middle distance. A bad sign, Antoine thought, but nevertheless persisted.
“Why won’t you answer?”
A tremor shook her body, but her look was as determined as ever.
“But surely, Antoine, it’s just the other way round. There’s all the more reason for me to hurry up and get my English certificate. I shall have to start earning my living much sooner than I expected.”
Antoine cut her short with a gesture of annoyance. On her tight mouth and in her eyes he was surprised to see what seemed the shadow of a despondency past all redress, and, at the same time, a rapture, a passion of wild, unreasoning hope. Obviously, there was no place for him in such feelings as those. In a spasm of vexation he tossed back his head. Vexation or despair? Rather despair; a lump rose in his throat, tears to his eyes. For once he did not try to check them or conceal them; they might help him yet to break down her incomprehensible resistance.
Gise was deeply touched; she had never seen Antoine cry, had never even dreamt he could do so. She avoided looking at him. Her affection for him was tender and profound, and she never thought of him without a quickening of the heart, a thrill of enthusiasm. For three years he had been her only comforter, a tried and stalwart comrade whose nearness was the one bright spot in her life. And now—why should he seem to want of her more than her trust, her loyal admiration? Why must she now conceal her sisterly regard?
A bell tinkled in the hall. Instinctively Antoine pricked up his ears. A sound of closing doors; then, once again, silence.
They sat there side by side, unmoving, unspeaking, while their thoughts raced on and on along divergent paths… .
At last the telephone rang. There was a footstep in the hall, and Léon appeared at the door.
“It’s a call from upstairs, Miss. Dr. Thérivier has come to see M. Thibault.”
Gise got up at once. Antoine called Léon back and asked in a weary voice:
“How many people in the waiting-room?”
“Four, sir.”
Then he, too, rose; life took charge again. “And there’s Rumelles expecting me at ten minutes to the hour!” he said to h
imself.
“I must go upstairs at once,” she said, without coming near him. “Goodbye, Antoine.”
He gave a slight shrug and his lips parted in a forced smile.
“All right, then, off you go … Blackie!” In the sound of his own voice he seemed to hear an echo of his father’s “All right then, off you go, my boy!” earlier in the day—and the reminder galled him. He added in a different tone: “Please tell Thérivier that I can’t get away just now. If he has anything to say he can drop in here on his way out. Got it?”
She nodded and opened the door; then, as if she had come to a sudden decision, she turned back to Antoine. No, it was useless. What could she say to him? Since she couldn’t tell him everything, what would be the good? Wrapping her shawl more closely round her, she went out, her eyes still fixed on the ground.
“The elevator’s just coming down,” Léon pointed out. “Won’t you wait for it, Miss?”
Shaking her head, she began to walk up the stairs, slowly, broodingly. All her will was bent on that one obsession: London! Yes, she must leave at the earliest moment, must not even wait till the end of her holiday. Oh, if only Antoine could guess all that it meant to her—to be over there, across the Channel!
It had happened two years ago, ten months after Jacques’s disappearance. One morning in September Gise had chanced to meet the postman coming up the garden-path at Maisons-Laffitte, and he had handed her a hamper bearing the label of a London flower-shop and addressed to her. Puzzled, but with a sudden intuition that somehow it concerned her deeply, she contrived to reach her room without being seen, cut the string, tore off the lid, and all but fainted with emotion when she saw, lying on a bed of damp moss, a simple bunch of roses. Her thoughts flew to Jacques. Their roses! Crimson roses with tiny dusky hearts; exactly, yes, exactly the same. And September: the anniversary! The meaning of the nameless gift was as clear to her as a code-telegram, worded in a familiar code. Jacques was not dead, M. Thibault was wrong, Jacques was living in England, and—Jacques loved her! Her first impulse was to open the door wide, call out for all to hear: “Jacques is alive!” Just in time, she pulled herself together. Fortunately. How could she have explained just why it was these crimson roses conveyed so wonderful a meaning? They would badger her with questions and—anything, anything rather than betray her secret! Closing the door, she prayed to God for strength to hold her peace, till the evening, anyhow; for she knew that Antoine was expected back at Maisons for dinner.
That evening she led him aside and spoke to him of a mysterious present, a box of flowers sent her from London, where she knew no one; mightn’t it be Jacques? In any case the clue should be followed up without delay. Antoine’s interest was aroused, though a series of failures during the past year had made him sceptical, and lost no time in setting an inquiry on foot in London-The florist supplied a detailed description of the customer who had sent the flowers, but the man in question was not in the least like Jacques. So this line of inquiry also had been dropped.
But not by Gise. She alone had certain knowledge. But she said no more about it. With a power of self-control extraordinary for her seventeen years, she kept her secret. But she was determined to go to England and, cost what it might, to follow up Jacques’s trail herself The plan seemed doomed to fail. But, for two long years, with the subtle, silent assiduity of the dark jungle-folk from whom she sprang, she had paved the way for her departure, and plotted it out, step by step. And what a struggle it had been! She recalled each gradual advance. She had needed all her patience, every artifice, to instill certain ideas into her aunt’s reluctant mind. First, she had needed to convince her that a penniless young girl, even though she came of a good family, should be able to earn her living; then she had had to bring her round to the idea that her niece, like herself, had a vocation for educating young children, and furthermore that, considering the keen competition for such posts, it was essential nowadays for any would-be teacher to have a good command of English. Next, she had to inveigle her aunt into meeting a local woman-teacher who had just finished a course at an English training-school, established in the neighbourhood of London by a group of Catholic nuns. As good luck would have it, M. Thibault was moved to make inquiries and received a favourable report on the institution. In the previous spring, after a thousand and one delays, Mile, de Waize had at last been won over to her niece’s view, and Gise had spent the summer in England. But those four months had not given the results she hoped for; she had been victimized by shady detective-agencies, and nothing but disappointment had come of her attempts. Now at last she would be able to take action and pull the necessary strings. She had just sold some jewellery and collected her savings. Moreover, she had at last got into touch with honest agencies. Best of all, she had managed to interest the daughter of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner in her romantic quest; she had been invited to lunch with the Commissioner on her return to England, and he well might prove a very useful friend in need. How then could she do otherwise than hope?
Gise had to ring at the door of the Thibaults’ flat; her aunt had never let her have a latch-key.
“Yes, how can I do otherwise than hope?” she asked herself, and suddenly the certainty that she would find Jacques again came back with overwhelming force, sweeping all doubt before it. Antoine had said “it” might last three months. “Three months?” she murmured. “Why, in less than that I shall have succeeded!”
Meanwhile, downstairs, Antoine was standing where she had left him in Jacques’s room, facing the closed door with a steadfast gaze that seemed to beat in vain against its dark, impenetrable barrier. He felt his life had reached a turning-point. Often in the past he had pitted his will against the most formidable difficulties, and overcome them, but never had he vainly grappled with a sheer impossibility. And, just now, something was being wrenched from his existence; it was not Antoine’s way to persevere in a hopeless struggle.
He took two hesitating steps, glanced into the mirror, then, leaning on the mantelpiece, with his face thrust forward, gazed intently for some seconds at his reflected self. “And supposing she’d said it, like that: ‘Yes, marry me’?” A thrill of retrospective apprehension ran through his body. “Playing with fire—a fool’s game!” He turned on his heel. “Good Lord! It’s five o’clock! And … how about Queen Elisabeth?”
As he hurried to the surgery Léon met him, his lips impassive as ever, a whimsical smile flickering on his lips.
“M. Rumelles has left. He’s made an appointment for the same time tomorrow.”
“Good,” said Antoine, much relieved. And for the moment this small relief sufficed to blunt the edge of his chagrin.
He went back to the consulting-room, crossed it diagonally, and, slipping back the curtain with the familiar gesture which, every time he made it, gave him a vague satisfaction, opened the door of the waiting-room.
“Hallo!” he exclaimed, with a friendly pinch of the cheek for a pale-faced little boy who came towards him, looking thoroughly scared. “So you’ve come all by yourself, like a big boy! How are your father and mother?”
Taking the child’s arm, he led him to the window and, seated on a stool with his back to the light, pressed back the docile little head gently but firmly, so as to have a clear view of the throat. “Well, well,” he murmured without raising his eyes, “there’s no mistaking them this time, those tonsils of yours!” His voice had automatically regained the brisk and sonorous, almost astringent, quality which acted like a tonic on his patients.
As he bent forwards, gazing intently at the little boy, a sudden twinge of wounded pride fretted his mind and he could not repress the thought: “Anyhow, if I think fit, we can always wire for her to come back.”
VIII
AS HE was seeing the boy off, Antoine was not a little surprised to discover Mary, the English girl with the peach-bloom complexion, sitting in the hall. When he went up to her she rose and bestowed on him a leisurely, bewitching smile; then, silently but with a resolute ai
r, she handed him a pale blue envelope.
Her present attitude, so changed from her aloofness of two hours ago, and her bold, if enigmatic, look convinced Antoine—though he could have given no reason for his belief—that there was something abnormal about her errand.
Much mystified, he remained standing in the hall and was hastily opening the envelope, when he observed the English girl deliberately making for the consulting-room, the door of which stood open. He followed her, unfolding the letter as he went.
My Dear Doctor,
I have two small requests to make of you and, to ensure they won’t be frowned on, I send them by the least forbidding messenger I can find.
Firstly, my scatter-brained little Mary was silly enough to wait till she had left your place before telling me that she’d been feeling out of sorts for some days past, and couldn’t sleep for coughing the last few nights. Would you be so good as to give her a thorough going-over, and also your advice?
Nextly, we have an old fellow, a retired keeper, living on the estate, who suffers most terribly from arthritis; the poor old chap goes through agonies at this time of the year. Simon has taken compassion on him and gives him injections to ease the pain. We usually keep some morphine in the house, but his last attacks have quite used up our little reserve and Simon has asked me to be sure and bring some back—which I can’t do without a doctor’s prescription. I quite forgot to tell you about it this afternoon. Now will you be terribly nice and give the charming bearer of this note a prescription—one which can be used again, if possible—so that I can get five or six dozen tubes at once?
The Thibaults Page 61