The Little French Girl
PART II
CHAPTER XII
The tennis-players returned at tea-time, bringing monsieur
Claussel with them. He was a young man with
shy, soft, prominent dark eyes and the smallest dot of
a dark moustache on either side of a nervous upper lip,
and, when tennis was not in progress to absorb his attention,
it was excessively directed to the social exigencies
of the occasion. Giles imagined, as he watched him
spring from his chair to offer it, stand back to let a lady
pass, bow with heels together, and tentatively resume
his seat only again to leave it, that he was perhaps less
at home in the jungle than André, and felt, in his introduction
to it, a doubled need for every amenity. It was
his first appearance at the Chardonnerets tea-table,
and in his presence, the presence of mademoiselle Fontaine,
her mother and grandmother, madame Vervier
may have felt a convenience. If she found it at all
difficult to face Alix and André and Giles after the
interview from which she had just come, her guests,
and monsieur Claussel in particular, gave her an excuse
for looking at them rather than at her intimates.
And Giles felt sure that she avoided her daughter’s
eyes.
They were on her, those remote blue eyes of Alix’s,
with no insistence, no appeal. They dwelt in a wide
contemplativeness that recalled to him madame Vervier’s
own, were it not that proud patience rather than
security lay behind it; and Giles had the fancy, as he
looked at her, that, in the gaze of Alix, the Mouverays,
beneath the threshold of the child’s consciousness,
were judging Hélène Vervier. Whatever the verdict,
Alix’s tenderness for her mother would not waver; but
he watched the Mouverays imparting to her need a
further reënforcement of pride and courage.
Tea was prolonged. Madame Dumont, in a great
crested bonnet, sat enthroned, receiving cakes and
homage. She was rather silent, rather, in her black
draperies, the sunken old raven, its feathers ruffled
high. Yet Giles caught more than once the piercing
glint of an avid eye, turning in conjectures that he
could too well imagine upon madame Vervier and
André; upon himself and Alix; and once, in the glance
of mademoiselle Blanche, he seemed to see a stealthy
hereditary surmise, and Alix rather than madame
Vervier was its object.
Monsieur Jules was persuaded to bring out his canvases
and range them for monsieur Claussel’s admiration.
The painful, vivid patterns and colours still distressed
Giles, but, his eyes already acclimatized to
their strangeness, began to exercise a charm. “Quel
horreur!” madame Dumont cried, but was fondly
checked by mademoiselle Blanche, who murmured to
her, smiling over her head at Giles: “We are no longer
in the days of Bouguereau and Meissonnier, Grand’mère!”
She confided to him, as they stood side by side, that
monsieur Claussel was a devout admirer of modern art
and that his admiration, since he was the heir to a
fortune princière—faite dans les pâtes—might be of
much significance to poor Jules. “She arranged it all,
you may be sure,” said mademoiselle Blanche, casting
a fond glance upon their hostess. “It is always she who
thinks of such opportunities for her friends.—What
a heart, what a mind it is!—Whatever her own perplexities
and anxieties—and I can assure you that her
life does not lack them—she never fails in resource
and kindness when it is a question of her friends’ interests.—She
is looking pale—very weary, is it not
so?—You take mademoiselle Alix back to England
with you?” And since Giles, disconcerted, remained
silent, mademoiselle Blanche added: “She is ready always
to sacrifice herself.”
“Mais oui, c’est très bizarre,” little madame Collet
murmured, craning her neck to see the pictures, while
Giles wondered over mademoiselle Blanche.
André, meanwhile, smiling in a happy confidence,
pointed out planes and stresses to the heir of les pâtes,
who stood with his little shoulders screwed up, his elbows
in his hands, rapt away from shyness and self-consciousness
by his sincere delight. Monsieur Jules
remained morose; but it was evident that he had found
a munificent patron.
And when they were all gone and an evening of
dusky rose began, after the hot day, to drop softly
from the sky, madame Vervier said to André that
she must take the air. She would go with him for
a little turn in his car.
She was not yet ready for a meeting with her child.
If she was to think things over and decide how she
should put them to Alix, she must get away to do it.
Giles understood; but how could Alix understand such
necessities? He guessed at the grief and perplexity
that must strive within her.
“And now, indefatigable as you are, ma chère enfant,”
said monsieur de Maubert when he and Giles
and Alix were left alone, “framed of steel and india-rubber
as I sometimes feel you to be when I watch
your day, you will doubtless wish to go for a walk with
monsieur Giles. Do not hesitate to leave me. I shall,
I think, have a siesta here with my head in the shade
and my feet in the sunset; even in the details of life,
monsieur Giles, I am, you see, the Epicurean.”
Giles knew, then, that madame Vervier’s intentions,
in regard to himself and Alix, had been imparted to
monsieur de Maubert who thus took occasion for furthering
them.
But Alix said: “No; the walk is not to be with Giles.
I have promised Annette Laboulie to catch shrimps
with her on the beach till supper-time.”
“And who,” monsieur de Maubert, kindly, yet with
a certain austerity inquired, “is Annette Laboulie?”
“She came with my shoes her father had mended,
the other afternoon. Do you remember? A dark, thin
girl. She has not enough to eat.”
“You mean the sad young ragamuffin with the untidy
hair? Not enough to eat? That must be seen to.”
“She is a ragamuffin; and untidy; I reproach her for
that. But she is clean. And she is a clever girl in all
sorts of ways. There are eight children, and Annette
is a mother to them all. We are great friends. I used
to play with her when I was little and Maman and I
first came here.”
“Monsieur Giles, you are not flattered by this preference!”
smiled monsieur de Maubert.
“And they don’t even invite me to join them!”
laughed Giles.
But he understood. After the longing to know what
Maman had said to Giles must come the longing to
know what Giles now felt about Maman; but Alix
wanted none of his impressions until those of Maman
had been vouchsafed to her. As if by some deep instinct
she knew that her destiny had been in question
that afternoon.
“But do come with us, Giles,” she now said, and he
replied that he really had letters he ought to write.
“Letters home. You see my time here is up.”
“Up? Indeed? Why up?” monsieur de Maubert inquired
very kindly.
“Well, I’ve stayed already longer than I intended
and they all expect me back in time to start next Monday
on a walking tour around the coast of Cornwall.”
“Next Monday? But that means that you will leave
us the day after to-morrow. You will miss our Sunday
excursion to Caudebec.”
“I’m afraid I must.”
Alix was looking at him; wondering, he knew,
whether his resolve was sudden.
After he had written his letter to his mother, he
went out into the village to post it, and coming back
by the cliff he was able to see that even if Annette had
been an improvisation the drama of the shrimping was
being carried out. The two girls were pushing their
nets before them on the sands, bare-legged, in the shallow
water. Their voices, bell-like, came to him through
the evening air. Alix laughed.
Her faculty for fraternizing with the people seemed
to him a charming gift. Neither Ruth nor Rosemary
would have known what to do with Annette in tête-à-tête.
They could have dealt with her coöperatively; in
the Girl Guides or one of Aunt Bella’s clubs; but not
as an individual. And Toppie, full of still solicitude,
would have dealt with her as a soul. The difference
was that Alix was not dealing with her at all. She was
enjoying Annette as much as Annette was enjoying
her. They were simply two girls engaged in a pastime
delightful to them both; and Giles surmised that such
easy intercourse was perhaps only possible in a country
where caste was a thing so impassable that intimacy
lent itself to no misinterpretation. Caste in France,
he was coming more and more to see, centred itself on
the question of marriage. In a country where the romance
of the mésalliance, so dear to English hearts,
was nearly unknown, there was little likelihood of
its disintegration. How little do those know France,
thought Giles, who imagine her republican at heart!
Madame Vervier did not return from her drive till
supper time, and after supper, during which she talked
cheerfully, if with a certain languor, she established
herself in the drawing-room with monsieur de Maubert.
There was no moon to-night and the light
streamed out over the verandah from the drawing-room
window. Giles, from his place on the steps,
could see that madame Vervier, beside the lamp, had
her embroidery and that she spoke to monsieur de
Maubert in low tones.
Alix brought out a saucer of milk for a stray kitten
that she and Annette had found. “I shall take it to
Paris with me,” she said, stroking the back of the little
creature, while it drank, half choked with purrs and
lapping.
“It is not a pretty kitten, mademoiselle Alix,” said
André, who sat beside Giles smoking.
“No; it is not pretty; except as all kittens are pretty—the
delicate little paws; the beautiful movements.
In time it will look better; with brushing and good
food,” said Alix. “And it has a charming little coral
nose to match the coral beads under its feet.—Only
hear it purr, Giles! Have you ever noticed the softness
of a kitten’s feet?—they are like raspberries to
hold in one’s hand.”
André watched her meditatively.
“It is time for your bed, mon enfant.” Madame
Vervier’s voice came from the drawing-room. “I will
visit you before you sleep.—Ah, mais non! You must
not have the kitten with you. You would be devoured
by fleas. It will be quite happy shut into the kitchen.”
“But it is so young, Maman; so lonely. It must so
miss its mother.” Alix stood supplicating, the kitten
held to her cheek. “I do not mind the fleas.”
Madame Vervier was melted; or it was, perhaps, an
evening on which she was inclined to indulgence.
“Very well. If you do not mind the fleas! While it
misses its mother, then. Too soon, alas, it will be a
mother itself!”
“No; for it is a male cat, Maman,” said Alix with
austere realism. “You need fear nothing on that
score. There will be no more kittens to trouble you.”
“A la bonne heure!” laughed madame Vervier.
“But she returns to you, after her holiday with us
here, the charming young creature,” André, when Alix
had carried away her kitten, observed to Giles. It was
remarkable, the sense they all gave Giles, that Alix was
permanently his responsibility, and André’s voice had
almost the geniality of family affection. If not he,
then another English husband. Alix’s future had been,
by those most concerned with it—by himself and by
her mother—definitely agreed upon; that was the
fact to which André’s voice and smile bore witness;
and madame Vervier was certainly imparting the
same news to monsieur de Maubert as she now sat embroidering
beside him in her Ingres dress and scarf.
Alix herself, meanwhile, remained in ignorance of
her destiny.
“Rather a shame she shouldn’t know it yet,” said
Giles. “She thinks she’s going back to Paris, you
see.”
“Shame? Oh, no,” said André in gentle surprise.
“It is much better that she should have her holiday
unspoiled. We are to say nothing of it to her—as madame
Vervier will tell you.—It would grieve her too
much to hear it now. By degrees, as the time draws
near, her mother will prepare her mind and bring her
to see the wisdom of the decision.”
That, of course, would be André’s point of view. He
took it for granted that jeunes filles should be kept in
ignorance of their destiny until such time as their elders
thought fit to enlighten them.
Giles was aware of a confused anger that seemed to
involve himself as well as André and madame Vervier.
“Since she and her mother are so devoted, it’s a pity,
I think, to hoodwink her,” he said. “I hope her mother
will tell her what she’s decided on at once. I shall advise
her to tell her.”
At this point, suddenly, a voice dropped to them
through the darkness. “I am sorry. My room is above
you. I can hear all that you say.” Alix’s voice. Thrilling
with bitterness.
The young men sat mute, eyeing each other.
“Dieu! Quelle gaffe ai-je commise!” whispered
André, and—“How much has she heard?”
“As little as she could, you may be sure,” Giles
muttered.
André found his resource. “Très bien! Très bien,
mademoiselle Alix,” he called. “But this is a case
where une écouteuse would hear only good of herself.”
Alix made no reply. The windows of her room,
Giles now remembered, opened beside his, on the roof
of the verandah. She must have heard all if she had
stood near them.
“This is very unfortunate,” André murmured. “I
have been stupid; very stupid. I must at once make
my confession.”
“Yes. You’d better,” said Giles grimly. “It wouldn’t
do for her mother to go up now and pretend she’d
made no plans at all.”
“Oh—our hostess would be able to meet even that
contingency,” said André with, perhaps, the slightest
flavour of irony. “A daughter, with us, knows too well
that she may trust her mother to do the best for her
happiness.”
But, as Giles remained sitting on, hearing in the
drawing-room the low murmur of consultation and
André’s repeated “Je suis désolé,” it became disastrously
clear to him that, more than Maman’s intended
accommodations of the truth, Alix would resent
André’s admission to Maman’s confidence. How, indeed,
could she interpret that?
The murmur in the drawing-room ceased, madame
Vervier rose and went upstairs, and, before André
could rejoin him, Giles had taken refuge in his own
room. He could not face André; he could not face
monsieur de Maubert, or madame Vervier herself,
again that evening. None of them, not even madame
Vervier, could see as he saw the disaster that had befallen
his poor little friend. He leaned at his window
feeling hot and sick, but even here, though the windows
of Alix’s room had been closed, the voices of
mother and daughter came to him through the flimsy
barrier of the wall. He could not hear the words, but
in their sharp passionate rhythm he discerned what the
words must be. “Why to him, Maman! What are
his rights! He was a stranger to us when I left you!”
But madame Vervier would, indeed, never lack resource.
Unready as she must feel herself to face this
further predicament, Giles heard the muffled murmur
of her voice, rising, falling, expostulating; urgent,
tender, invulnerable. She would find answers to everything.
Or was it that there were some questions her
child would not ask of her? When, at last, she ceased,
there was no reply. He heard that Alix was crying.