The Little French Girl
PART III

CHAPTER VI

Under pressure from Giles, who wrote that of course she must stay on, Alix’s visit to Cresswell Abbey lengthened itself over the whole remaining fortnight of the holidays. She went to the Fairlies’ ball, where she wore her white and crystal dress, and to another, where she wore her pink with the wreath of rosebuds. She danced and danced. In the mornings she rode with Jerry.

How strange Heathside seemed to her when she at last returned to it, as strange as when she had first come to it from France. Life at Cresswell Abbey was so much more like life at Maman’s than anything at Heathside. Always, at Maman’s, there was that same sense of mental grace; always the people, the varying people, coming and going, who displayed it. The people at Cresswell were not so graceful or so interested in mental things; but, from the mere fact that there were so many of them and of so many varieties, they reminded her of the life in Paris with Maman. And besides the young men and the young girls who danced and played together, there were pleasant, sagacious women, all so beautifully dressed, and their political husbands. At Cresswell one had whom one chose to amuse or instruct one; at Heathside one had to take what the neighbourhood or the High School provided.

Oddly enough, however, she found herself, on her return, liking not only Rosemary, her daily companion, more than she had ever liked her, but the High School girls, too. It was, she knew, because she had seen so much of Marigold Hamble and because they were so different from Marigold. Marigold had not attempted to molest her in any way; she had, indeed, attempted to attach her; but Alix, in regard to Marigold, had never for a moment relaxed her circumspection, though, in regard to Lady Mary, it was impossible not often to relax it. She could match Marigold at empty affability, but she could not display Marigold’s empty affectionateness, and the more it was displayed, the more she disliked her. If she disliked Marigold, Marigold hated her; she knew that unerringly with her growing power of womanly divination. Marigold hated her because Jerry liked her so much and because she never made an effort to attach him; while Marigold made every effort compatible with graceful concealment.

By the time she went away it was as if she had become almost as much a part of the life at Cresswell as she was part of the life at Heathside. Lady Mary was so fond of her and depended, strangely, Alix thought, on her taste and judgment about so many things;—and that was like Maman, too. And Mr. Hamble was fond of her, teaching her billiards and cracking many cheerful jests with her at the expense of France. It was natural, it was inevitable, that she should come back again, and for almost all the winter week-ends she did come back. There was always a party for the week-ends, and sometimes Jerry motored down from Oxford for the day, and once he stayed the night for a dance, and Marigold, on this occasion, adopted a new and surprising attitude towards Alix, behaving as if she had never seen her before. She also gave scant attention to Jerry, and Alix remarked that though Jerry did not really like Marigold he was perturbed by her neglect; so perturbed that he even forgot to dance with Alix and stood watching Marigold fox-trotting with another man, his radiance all dimmed by resentful gloom.

“Poor darling; isn’t he foolish?” Lady Mary commented to her young friend, and Alix, in no need of partners, said calmly that he was, telling herself that she did not in the least mind what Jerry did. But she did mind. Since the moment that she had seen his eyes fixed upon her from the stairs she had minded, not because she cared for Jerry, but because she cared, intensely, that he should care for her. Was she, then, another Marigold? She asked herself this question fiercely, lying awake in her firelit room, her immature young heart strained by the sense of contest between herself and the crafty woman. Why should she mind Jerry’s gloom? What was Jerry to her? Nothing; nothing; the answer came to her irrefutably from the depths of her heart where anger and pride could not penetrate to blur the truth; Jerry was nothing more than the charming comrade, unless Marigold was there to take him from her. Her delight in Jerry, apart from their comradeship, was only her delight in his delight. She could not understand, she could not see what it was she wanted nor what was this fire that burned within her, but, feeling hot tears rising in her eyes, she remembered what the old priest had said about the wickedness of the human heart and knew again that he was right.

It was always a relief to get back to Rosemary. Rosemary had not a purr in her composition, and that was a defect; but she had not a scratch either. Even in the High School girls, whose virtues she had felt to be so negative, she appreciated now the positive quality of straightness.

When the Easter holidays came, Alix found that there was no reason why she should not go to Cresswell for the fancy-dress ball. Giles was to be away for a fortnight. She would not miss him in going. There were other reasons for accepting with a mind at ease. Marigold was safely in the Riviera and Jerry’s letter, telling her of the fact, was very naughty, breathing as it did an evident relief. Jerry, too, was young and his heart, too, had been strained by the sense of pointless contest. Eager comradeship and an assurance of peace infused every line of his pretty dashing pages.

So Lady Mary’s car came for her and she went off, Rosemary teasing her from the steps and declaring that they would all be on the lookout for her picture in the “Daily Mail” dressed as the Blue Boy. Rosemary was a dear, thought Alix, leaning out to smile and have a last glance at her.

Then came ten days at Cresswell; days that altered all her life.

She must at once tell Giles about it; that was the thought that filled her mind as she sat with him in the study, on the April morning after his return and hers. But there was so much to tell that she did not know how she should begin, and what made it more difficult was that Giles was very sad.

Toppie was in Bournemouth with her father and it was evident from her letters that Mr. Westmacott was dying. Although Giles had not seen her for such a long time, it was natural that he should be thinking of Toppie rather than of her, so that she said nothing, and it was Giles himself who introduced her theme.

“Why didn’t you stay on at Cresswell?” he asked her. “I saw Jerry in Oxford just before I came down, and he evidently thought they were to keep you for a month.”

“Oh, but I never intended that,” said Alix. “I said I must be back here for your time at home.”

“That was awfully sweet of you, my dear child,” said Giles, who walked about, looking very tall in his new grey tweeds. “I’m awfully glad to find you here, of course; but you know what I feel about cake and bread-and-butter, and I should like you to eat the full slice. How was the Blue Boy costume? Jerry told me about that.”

“It was very pretty. I looked well in it,” said Alix. “Our photographs were all taken. You shall see how I looked, Giles.”

“And you and Jerry rode a lot?”

“Yes. We rode almost every morning. I love riding, Giles. Even more than dancing.”

“Yes. Of course you do,” said Giles rather absently. “Why shouldn’t you love it? You like Jerry as much as ever, don’t you? You and he are great pals?”

Alix almost had to smile a little at this, it was so transparent of Giles, though, a fortnight ago, she would, perhaps, not have seen how transparent it was. It made it easier for her, however, and as she answered:—“Yes. Great pals. Yes; I like him as much as ever,”—she raised her eyes to his and saw that he continued to look at her as though aware of approaching confidences. It would not be at all difficult to make confidences to Giles. She felt him very, very much older than herself and, if that were possible, even kinder than before. How strange, the thought passed through her mind;—it was easier to tell Giles than it would have been to tell Maman. The moment had come and, keeping her eyes on her friend, she said: “He wants me to marry him.”

She sat there on the sofa in her blue fritillary jumper and her dark beads, her hands lightly clasped around one of the old leather cushions, a little as she might have sat, in her early convent days, giving an account of herself in the parloir—where the lives of the saints, heavily gilded, lay symmetrically on the centre table—to the relative who had come to pay her a weekly visit. Decorum was in her voice and attitude; and though she knew a sense of trembling beneath her calm words she was sustained by her assurance of suitability. It was suitable that she should tell Giles of her offer of marriage.

And he did not seem at all surprised. He turned to get his pipe and filled and lighted it, first pressing down the tobacco with his finger in the way she liked to watch, and all this was done very deliberately before he spoke. Then he said—could anything be easier than to tell things to Giles—“And what do you want, Alix?”

He was very much older than she was, and very much older than Jerry. She almost wished that Jerry were there with her to take counsel of Giles. “You like him, too, Giles, do you not?” she said.

“Well, that hasn’t much to do with it, has it?” Giles returned, looking down at her with his smile. “What’s to the point is that you do.”

“I should not care to like, very much, anyone you did not like,” said Alix. “Jerry has faults. But we all have faults. I wish you knew him better. Then you could judge.”

Giles was looking at her with a sort of astonishment, at once tender and amused. “But I’m not your father, Alix,” he said.

“You are the only father I have ever known,” Alix replied, and, looking down as she said this, she felt her eyes heavy with sudden tears.

“Well, then, dear little Alix,”—Giles must have seen the tears for he spoke very gently,—“since I’m to take a father’s place, may I ask you what you said to this young man,—this young man, whatever his faults, whom I thought eligible in every way. Highly eligible and altogether suitable.”

“I said I could not marry in England,” said Alix, and it was with difficulty now that she restrained her tears, remembering her proud words to Giles about an English marriage on the cliff-path last summer; remembering Jerry, so bright and beautiful, and France, brighter and more beautiful and with claims far deeper than any Jerry could put forward. What meaning could life have for any Frenchwoman out of France? Did not all one’s meaning come from her?

“And what did Jerry say to that?” Giles was inquiring.

“He said I was too young. He said he would wait. He said he could perhaps live in France for part of the time. He did not speak very reasonably.”

“It seems to me that he spoke very reasonably, indeed. He can wait. And you are very young. How old is it you are now, Alix?”

“I shall be eighteen in July. Not young enough to change as much as he expects,” said Alix. “No, he was not reasonable, for he contradicted himself a great deal. I am afraid he did not mean what he said. I don’t think that he means to wait. I don’t think that he really would live in France. Afterwards, when we had talked a little more and he had felt that I was not so young—he spoke very wildly.”

“How wildly?”

A faint flush rose in Alix’s cheeks. “He did not please me in the way he behaved. It could not have happened like that with us.—Our way, I think, is a better way.”

“How did he behave?” Giles, after a moment, inquired.

Alix’s flush was deepening. “He tried to embrace me. He tried to kiss me.—As if to be embraced and kissed would decide everything.”

In Giles’s gaze, bent upon her, she was aware of a growing wonder. “It does decide everything, sometimes, you know,” he offered her, as if, for the moment, it was all that he could find to say.

“But not for people of character, Giles,” Alix returned. She did not know from what deep tradition she spoke; but it was behind her, around her, in her very blood. She spoke for the order that was not there to protect her; for the sanctions that she lacked. Great events like marriage were approached with a certain austerity. So much more than oneself was involved. “It could only decide things for les gens sans mœurs,” she said. “It displeased me very much that he should seem to think of me as one.”

“But he didn’t think of you as one. We’re all like that, in England,” said Giles, gazing at her with his wonder. “We’re all sans mœurs when it comes to things like this. We think them so much more important than mœurs.—At least”—he stopped; he reddened:—“A man in love wants to find out, you see,” he finished.

“To find out what?”

“Why, if you care for him. If you’re in love with him.”

“Can it not be found out without kissing?”

“Well—if you don’t care enough for a man to kiss him—Oh, you’re right, perfectly right, Alix, dear; for yourself you’re perfectly right. I’m lost in admiration of your rightness. But didn’t his love touch you at all?”

Alix at this contemplated her friend in silence for some moments. It was not the effort to be frank with Giles that held her thoughts; she found no difficulty in being frank with Giles; it was the effort to read herself. And, finding the truth slowly, she said: “Yes; it did touch me. That was my difficulty. That has been my difficulty ever since, Giles; for I cannot feel it right. He troubled me,” said Alix, and she added to herself, in French, “Il m’a beaucoup troublée.”

Giles then turned away from her, putting his hands in his pockets and going to stare out of the window, as he had done on that long ago winter day of their first great encounter when she had felt, without knowing why it was, that he was thinking of her and not of Maman. She could not see what it was this time, either, that so moved him. Perhaps to find himself so trusted. Yet he must have taken that for granted. If she were not to trust Giles, who on earth was there to trust?

She sat, her hands clasped on her cushion, and looked into the gas-fire which creaked and crackled softly. The little saucepan of water standing on it sent up a thin haze of vapour and from the open window came the loud singing of a chaffinch. Alix, as she listened to the chaffinch, felt herself mastering with difficulty that sense of tears. She was not happy. Not at all happy. There was something delicious in the thought of Jerry and his love; but something that twisted, dislocated all her life. How strange was life. How near it brought you to people; how far apart it could carry you, with the mere speaking of a word. If she spoke the word that Jerry had implored of her, would it not carry her far away from Giles. Oh, there was a darker surmise. Would it not carry her far away from Maman? Could Maman remain near if she were to marry Jerry? Jerry promised, promised everything. He did not know himself at all. He was very young. He was weak; and she, too, was young and weak, though to Jerry she had shown only her strength. Yet she knew herself. She could see her own weakness. “Il m’a beaucoup troublée.” So much had Jerry troubled her that she had known for a moment, his ardent eyes upon her, the fear that she might forget Maman, France, Giles, what they might all demand, expect of her, for the mere joy of feeling his arms go round her.

Giles turned to her at last. “Well, then, Alix, how did it end?” he asked her, leaning against the window-sill and looking over at her with folded arms. “What was decided in your way, since you wouldn’t let anything be decided in his?”

“What was decided,” said Alix, glad to take up her tale, “was that he should tell his mother and father at once. He did not want that at all. He said his parents had nothing to do with it. He said that until he had my answer he would tell nobody. He said that they would think him too young, and that he would not bear interference. It was all so wild and foolish, Giles. Our way is so much better. But when I told him that unless they knew his feeling for me I could not return to Cresswell, he had to consent.”

“Well. And what then? What did they say?” Giles inquired as she paused.

“Mr. Hamble said nothing; I do not think he ever has much to say in the conseils de famille. It was Lady Mary who came to me,” said Alix.

“What did she say then? Had she expected it?”

Alix lifted her eyes to her friend. “That is what I find so strange, Giles. She had not expected it at all. Is that not a little naïf, do you not think? On the one hand to give perfect freedom, and on the other to imagine that nothing unforeseen shall happen. If one gives freedom, one must expect the unforeseen, must one not?—She was very kind. She said she had thought of me and Jerry as playmates, and that I was right to say to him that we were far, far too young. She was, I saw, much disturbed; but she was pleased with me, too, and kissed me and said I had been a good, wise child—much too good, she said, for her foolish Jerry. I saw that I surprised her. In all I had to say to her I surprised her. I do not know why.”

“What did you have to say to her?”

“All my difficulties, Giles. The difficulties about France; how I could not leave my country; and about Maman, how I must be near her always; that it is like that with us; that we do not leave our mothers when we marry. And I said that since I am a Catholic, the children, if I married, would have to be Catholics, too. It all surprised her very much. It pleased her, too, and reassured her; for though she is so fond of me she would much rather her son did not marry a French girl and a Catholic. And she is right in that.”

“I don’t know that she’s right,” Giles muttered. “You must have surprised her very much, indeed, Alix. It’s been left, then, as you intended to have it left?”

“Yes. For the present. I told Lady Mary that nothing could be done till she and Maman had met and I wrote to Maman and told her of the offer of marriage. I put only the difficulties before Maman. I am afraid Maman will see the advantages rather than the difficulties.”

“The difficulties being that you cannot give up France and cannot give up your religion?”

“Yes. And Lady Mary may have others quite of her own. Maman will have to face them all. But I think she and Lady Mary will understand one another.”

“And for yourself, which do you feel the greater difficulty, Alix;—your country or your religion? You never strike me as having any religion at all, you know. You always seem to me, as I told you long ago, just a little pagan.”

“Ah, if it were for myself,” said Alix, “I could give up my religion more easily than my country. Only my Church would not allow me to marry a heretic unless I promised about the children. It is simply not allowed with us, Giles.—Do you not know?”

“But why not turn heretic yourself, and settle the children like that?” Giles exclaimed, controlling, she saw, a strong inclination to laughter.

But Alix knew that though she was not dévote there were some things deeper even than France, or were they not the deepest things in France? They were there, to be taken or left, as one chose; but even if she left them they were still there, part of her heritage; like a great landscape on which one might not care to open one’s windows. And it was a heritage of which one could not deprive others, whatever use one made of it oneself.

“That I could never do,” she said, shaking her head. “I could not go against my Church. However much I cared, Giles, I could never be a Protestant.”

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