Robert’s face grew suddenly earnest. “It’s a promise, sir.”
While Antoine was seeing the boy out into the hall, he heard M. Chasle’s voice in the kitchen.
“Someone else who wants to talk to me,” he muttered testily. “Oh, damn it! Better get it over!” He bade the little secretary enter his study.
M. Chasle trotted across the room, and perched himself on the furthest chair; a knowing smile flickered on his lips, though his eyes held a profound distress.
“What have you to say to me, M. Chasle?” Antoine inquired. His tone was friendly, but he remained standing, and began opening his letters.
“What have I to say?” M. Chasle looked startled.
Antoine folded the letter he had been reading. “Yes,” he murmured to himself, “I’ll try and get there tomorrow morning, after the hospital.”
M. Chasle was staring at his dangling feet. In a solemn voice he declared:
“Things like that, M. Antoine, shouldn’t be allowed.”
“What?” Antoine was opening another envelope.
“What?” M. Chasle parroted.
“What,” Antoine asked in exasperation, “what is it that shouldn’t be allowed?”
“Death.”
Somewhat startled by the answer, Antoine looked up and saw M. Chasle’s eyes blurred with tears. The little man took off his glasses, unfolded his handkerchief, and wiped his eyes.
“I’ve been to see the gentlemen at Saint Roch’s,” he began, pausing to sigh between each phrase. “I’ve asked them to say masses—to satisfy my conscience, M. Antoine, no more than that. Because, speaking for myself, till further … further evidence is forthcoming …” His tears continued flowing, but sparingly, in little spurts; now and again he carefully wiped his eyes, then spread his handkerchief on his knees, folded it up along the creases, and slipped it flat into an inner pocket, like a wallet.
Abruptly he swerved to a new subject. “I’d saved up ten thousand francs …”
“Aha!” Antoine smiled to himself. “Now we’re coming to it!” Then he said aloud: “I don’t know, M. Chasle, if my father had time to make provision for you in his will, but have no anxiety; my brother and myself will guarantee to you, for the rest of your days, the monthly salary you were drawing here.”
This was the first time Antoine had been called upon to settle a money matter in the capacity of his father’s heir. It seemed to him that, all things considered, he was dealing generously with M. Chasle in pledging himself thus to support him till his death. And it was pleasant to feel himself in a position to make such generous gestures. Despite himself, his thoughts strayed to the financial aspect of the situation: what would his father’s estate amount to, and what would be his share? But he had nothing definite to go on.
M. Chasle had gone scarlet. To keep himself in countenance, presumably, he had produced a penknife and begun trimming his nails.
“Not an annuity!” He spoke with an effort, emphatically, his eyes still fixed on his nails. In the same tone he added: “A lump sum, yes; not an annuity.” His voice grew sentimental. “Because of Dédette, M. Antoine; the little girl you operated on. You remember her, don’t you? You see, it’s just the same as if I had a daughter of my own. So an annuity’s no earthly use; there wouldn’t be a sou for me to leave the little pet.”
It all came back to Antoine: Dédette, the operation, Rachel, the sunlit bedroom, her body glowing golden in the shadowy alcove, the perfume of the amber necklace. With a faraway smile on his lips— he had dropped his letters on the table—he listened vaguely to the old man rambling on, following his movements with a casual eye. Suddenly he spun round on his heel; M. Chasle had nicked his penknife into his thumb-nail and calmly, like a man tapering off a cork, was slicing off at one stroke a crescent-shaped shred that rasped along the blade.
“Oh, stop it, M. Chasle!” Antoine exclaimed, his teeth on edge.
M. Chasle hopped off his chair.
“Yes, yes… . I’m wasting your time, of course. So sorry!”
But the issue at stake was so vitally important to him that he ventured on a last offensive.
“A little lump sum, M. Antoine, that’s the thing. What I need is capital. I’ve had a little scheme in mind for quite a while, you know. I’ll tell you about it,” he murmured in a faraway voice, “some other time. Later on.” Then, with a blank stare in the direction of the door, he added in a quite different tone: “Yes, it’s right and proper to say masses for him, I don’t deny it. But, if you ask my opinion, the deceased doesn’t need any help from us. A man like that leaves nothing to chance. No, in my opinion, it’s all fixed up. At this moment, M. Antoine, at this very moment …” With little rabbit-like skips he scurried to the door, nodding his grey head and repeating with an air of firm conviction: “At this very moment he—he has settled in already, in his Paradise.”
Hardly had M. Chasle left when Antoine had to face the tailor, to try on his mourning suit. His weariness had come back and this tiresome parade before the looking-glass was the last straw.
He had just decided for an hour’s rest when, as he was showing the tailor out, he found Mme. de Battaincourt at his door, her finger on the bell. She had rung up previously to make an appointment, and learned die sad news. So she had cancelled an engagement to come and see him.
Antoine greeted her politely, but did not invite her in. She squeezed his hand effusively, expressing her sympathy for his bereavement in a high-pitched voice and with a certain gusto. She showed no sign of leaving, and it seemed difficult to keep her standing there; the more so as she had contrived to make Antoine move back a step, and was now inside the flat.
Jacques had stayed the whole afternoon in his bedroom, the door of which was near by. It struck Antoine that his brother would hear this woman’s voice, recognize it, perhaps; and the notion was displeasing to him, though why, he could not have explained. Putting a good face on necessity, he opened his study door and slipped on his coat. He had been in his shirt-sleeves and the fact of having been caught thus unawares added to his annoyance.
During the past few weeks something of a change had come over his relations with his attractive patient. She had been coming to see him oftener, on the pretext of bringing news of her invalid daughter, who was spending the winter on the north coast, with her stepfather and the English nurse. For Simon de Battaincourt had cheerfully abandoned his country home and shooting, to settle down at Berck with the young girl and his wife—whereas the latter was always “having to run up” to Paris, on one pretext or another, and staying away several days each week.
She refused to sit down; bending lithely towards Antoine, her breast heaving with little sympathetic sighs, her eyes half closed, she was biding her time to squeeze his hand again. When looking at a man, she always kept her eyes fixed on his lips. Now, through her long lashes, she could see his gaze, too, hovering persistently upon her mouth—and her senses tingled. That evening Antoine struck her as downright handsome; there was more virility in his expression—it was as if the series of decisions he had had to make during the past few days had stamped his face with a look of self-reliance.
“You must be feeling it dreadfully, poor man!” She gave him a commiserating glance.
Antoine found nothing to reply. Ever since she had come, he had been keeping up a vaguely solemn air which, though it helped him through the interview, involved a certain strain. He continued watching her furtively; and suddenly, when his eyes fell on the breasts rising and falling under the light tissue, swift fire coursed through his veins. Looking up, he caught a glimpse of little, dancing lights flickering in her eyes; a project, tempting for all its rashness, was taking form behind the pretty forehead—but she was careful not to betray it.
“The hardest time,” she said in a soft, sentimental voice, “is—afterwards. When one’s caught up again by life, and finds nothing but emptiness everywhere. I hope you’ll lfet me come and see you sometimes—may I?”
He looked her up and d
own. Then with a sudden rush of hatred, he flung out brutally, his lips twisted in a mirthless smile:
“Your sympathy is wasted, Madame. I did not love my father.”
At once he bit his lip remorsefully. He was more shocked at having thought such a thing than at having said it. “And,” he reflected bitterly, “who knows if it wasn’t the truth she wrung from me then, the minx!”
For the moment Mme. de Battaincourt was too taken aback to reply; not so much startled by the words as cut to the quick by Antoine’s tone. She moved back a step, to collect her wits.
Then, “In that case …!” she exclaimed, and began laughing. After all the make-believe, that strident laugh at last rang true.
While she slipped on her gloves her lips were working oddly, whether with suppressed rage or an incipient smile it was impossible to tell. With truculent eyes Antoine watched the enigmatic, fluttering mouth, prolonged by a slim streak of colour vivid as a scratch. At that moment, had she indulged in a frankly brazen smile, very likely he would have been unable to keep himself from throwing her out, then and there.
Reluctantly he found himself inhaling the scent with which her lingerie was liberally sprinkled, and once more his eyes lingered on the amply moulded bosom heaving beneath the flimsy blouse. And as he crudely, unashamedly pictured her nakedness, a thrill ran through his body.
After buttoning her fur-coat she moved further away, and faced him coolly, with an air of asking: “Are you afraid?”
They confronted each other with the same cold fury, the same rancour—yet with more than these; with perhaps the same sense of disappointment, the vague impression of a lost opportunity. Then, as he still said nothing, she turned her back, opened the door for herself, and went out, paying no further heed to him.
The front door slammed behind her.
Antoine turned on his heel. But instead of re-entering his study, he stayed thus for a moment, unable to move. His hands were clammy, and his ears buzzing with the tumult of his blood; greedily he inhaled the insidious perfume that lingered like a living presence in the hall, playing havoc with his thoughts. For a brief moment only the notion flicked his mind like a whiplash, that, after so brutally wounding that ungovernable nature, it was going to be a perilous feat trying to win her back. His eyes fell on his hat and overcoat hanging on the wall; he snatched them off the hook and, with a furtive glance in the direction of Jacques’s room, hurried outside.
IX
GISE had not left her bed. Her body ached all over and the least movement hurt her. From where she lay half asleep, she could hear a muffled sound of footsteps in the passage on the far side of the wall, just behind her head—the steady stream of callers entering and leaving the flat. One thought shone bright and steadfast in the twilight of her mind: “He has come back. He’s here, quite close; at any moment I may see him. He’s sure to come.” She listened for his footstep. But all Friday, then all Saturday went by, and he did not come.
Not that Jacques had put Gise out of mind; the truth was that he was haunted, harassed by thoughts of her. But he dreaded this interview too much to go out of his way to bring it on; he was biding his time. Moreover, he had deliberately dug himself in, in the ground-floor flat, hardly going out at all, lest he should be recognized and spoken to. Only at nightfall had he gone upstairs, crept into the flat like a thief, and settled down again in a corner of the death-chamber, where he had stayed till dawn.
On Saturday evening, however, when Antoine casually asked him if he had seen Gise again, he brought himself, after dinner, to go and knock at her door.
Gise was recovering. Her temperature was almost normal, and Thérivier had told her she could get up next day. She was just dozing off when Jacques knocked.
“Well, how are you feeling?” he asked in a cheerful tone. “I must say you’re looking remarkably fit.” In the soft, golden light of the little bedside lamp her eyes shone large and lustrous, and indeed she looked the picture of health.
He had halted at some distance from the bed. After an embarrassed moment it was she who held out her hand. The loose sleeve fell back and he saw her bare arm glowing in the lamplight. Taking her hand, he played at being the doctor, and instead of clasping-it, patted the soft skin; it was burning hot.
“Still a touch of fever?”
“No, it’s gone down.”
She glanced towards the door, which he had left open as if to show that he had dropped in only for a moment.
“Feeling cold?” he asked. “Shall I shut it?”
“No. Well … if you don’t mind… .”
He acquiesced good-naturedly. Now, with the door closed, they were safe from intrusion.
She thanked him with a smile, then let her head sink back; her hair made a patch of velvety blackness upon the pillow. The rather low-cut nightdress yielded a glimpse of the young curve of her breast; she put her hand up to the collar to keep it closed. Jacques was struck by the graceful outline of the wrist and the colour of her dusky skin, which, against the whiteness, had the hue of moistened sand.
“What have you been doing all day?” she asked.
“Doing? Nothing at all. I’ve been lying low, dodging the callers.”
Then she remembered M. Thibault’s death, Jacques’s bereavement. She was vexed with herself for feeling so little grief. Was Jacques feeling sad? she wondered. She could not find the words of affection that perhaps she ought to have addressed to him. Her only thought was that, now the father was no more, the son was completely free. In that case, she reflected, there’ll be no need for him to leave home again.
“You should go out a bit, you know,” she said.
“Yes? Well, as a matter of fact today, as I was feeling rather muzzy, I took a stroll.” He hesitated, then added: “Just to buy some papers.”
It had not been so simple, however, as he put it; at four, chafing against these empty hours of waiting, and prompted by obscure motives of which he was not aware till later, he had gone out to buy some Swiss newspapers, and then, without fully realizing where he was going …
“I suppose you were out of doors a lot over there, weren’t you?” she asked after another silence.
“Yes.”
Her “over there” had taken him by surprise and involuntarily he had answered in an ungracious, almost cutting tone—which he instantly regretted. And it struck him now that ever since he had set foot in this place everything he did and said, even his thoughts, rang false.
His eyes kept straying back to the bed on which the shaded lamp cast a pale lure of light, bringing out, under the white coverlet, every graceful line of the young body: the long lithe limbs, the full curve of the flanks, and the two small round knolls of the slightly parted knees. He was feeling more and more ill at ease, and in vain tried to assume a natural air and speak in casual tones.
She wanted to say: “Do sit down!” but could not catch his eye, and dared not speak.
To keep himself in countenance, he was examining the furniture, the tiny altar faceted with glints of gold, the little decorative objects in the room. He remembered the morning of his homecoming, when he had taken refuge in it.
“What a pretty room this is!” he said pleasantly. “You didn’t use to have that arm-chair, did you?”
“Your father gave it to me, for my eighteenth birthday. Don’t you remember it? It used to be on the top landing at Maisons-Laffitte, under the cuckoo-clock.”
Maisons! Suddenly it came back to him, that third-floor landing, the sunlight flooding through the dormer window, the flies that swarmed there all the summer and, when the sun was setting, filled the air with the buzz of a hive of angry bees. He remembered the cuckoo-clock with its dangling chains; he heard again along the silent staircase the little wooden bird cooing the quarter-hours. So, all the time he had been away, life for them had gone on just the same. And now he thought of it, was not he too “just the same,” or nearly so? Ever since he was back, had he not at every instant, in each spontaneous gesture, been acting as his old
self would have acted? The special way he had of rubbing his shoes on the doormat, for instance, then shutting the hall-door with a bang; his trick of hanging his overcoat on the same two pegs before switching on the light. And, when he walked up and down his room, was not each movement little more than a latent memory revived in action?
Meanwhile Gise was quietly taking stock of his appearance: his stubborn jaw, his sturdy neck, his hands, and his expression of alert unrest.
“How big and strong you’ve got!” she murmured.
He turned to her, smiling. Inwardly he was all the prouder of his robustness because, throughout childhood, his puniness had galled him. Suddenly, unthinkingly—yet another reflex!—to his own surprise he solemnly declaimed:
“ ‘Major Van der Cuyp was a man of exceptional strength.’ ”
Gise’s face lit up. How often had she and Jacques read those magic words together, poring over the picture underneath which they were printed! It was in their favourite adventure-book, a tale of the Sumatra jungle, and the picture showed a Dutch officer laying out, with the utmost ease, an immense gorilla.
“ ‘Major Van der Cuyp had been rash enough to go to sleep under the baobab-tree,’ ” she capped him merrily. Then throwing her head back, she closed her eyes and opened her mouth wide—for in the picture the rash Major was shown thus, snoring lustily.
Laughing, they watched each other laugh—forgetting all the present, as they delved in that quaint treasury of old memories, to which they alone had access.
“Do you remember the picture of the tiger?” she smiled. “And how you tore it up one day, when you were in a temper?”
“Yes … why was I?”
“Oh, because we’d had a laughing fit when Abbé Vécard was there.”
“What a memory you have, Gise!”
“I wanted later on, like the man in the book, to have a baby tiger of my own. When I went to sleep at night I used to fancy I was nursing it in my arms.”
There was a pause. Both were smiling at their childish fancies. Gise was the first to come back to seriousness.
The Thibaults Page 87