The Little French Girl
PART III
CHAPTER IX
“Oh, Maman!—What have I done to you!” It was
her own voice now that Alix heard. She was out again
upon the common and she had been running. But suddenly
she was walking very slowly among the gorse
bushes in the bright sunlight, and she could hardly drag
herself along. Her head ached as if it would break in
two; her limbs were of lead; and now that she went so
slowly she could no longer escape Maman. She saw
her there, moving beside her, with the intent look;
silent; without a word of blame.
“What have I done to you!” Alix muttered.
Maman went beside her, in her white dress, with the
heelless shoes such as she wore at Vaudettes, and bare-headed.
It was not blame. Maman’s look had passed
beyond all thought of blame; it had passed even beyond
pity. Alix saw suddenly that what it meant was
that she was waiting to see what Alix would now say to
her.
“I must think. I must think,” Alix muttered to herself.
But she did not need to think. It was as if in a
kaleidoscope, turned in her hands, memories, till now
unrelated, fell suddenly into a pattern. “La belle
madame Vervier. Divorcée, vous savez.”—Grand-père’s
eyes. Giles’s silence, when they had met. That strange,
deep blush that had dyed Giles’s face when, in the
study, they had spoken of Captain Owen’s leaves in
Paris; André de Valenbois. Maman’s lie to André
about Toppie. All the things she had read in poetry,
in novels, of beautiful guilty women who had lovers.
And, creeping through her young heart like a slow
surreptitious flame—falling into place, curving with
darts of ardent colour into the pattern—most recent,
most intimate intuitions of what a woman’s love might
mean. “Maman!” she moaned. She fell at Maman’s
feet in supplication. Yet, while she implored her forgiveness,
she was sheltering her, too. She was putting
her arms around her to protect her from the world’s
cruel scrutiny. She was promising her—oh, with
what a passion of fidelity—that their love, the love
of mother and child, was unharmed, set apart, firmly
fixed and sacred for ever.
When she reached Heathside she heard that the little
boys had returned. They were shouting in the garden
with the dogs, and Alix retraced her steps, skirting the
kitchen-garden wall, going softly in by the little gate,
creeping along the back passages past kitchen and
scullery unobserved. Here was Giles’s study. She
turned the handle and went in.
Giles was there, sitting at his desk and writing. He
had a sick, dogged look; but he had recovered his composure.
He even, as he turned his head and looked at
her, tried to summon a smile of welcome and she knew
that he felt ashamed for having broken down before
her.
Alix shut the door and stood against it. “Giles, I
have done a dreadful thing,” she said. Only when she
leaned against the door did she know that she was almost
fainting. She felt that all that she desired was
sleep. To tell Giles and then to fall into oblivion. Far
away, in France, she saw where she and Maman, in a
sunny garden, walked hand in hand. They both seemed
very old. They were very sad. Yet they smiled at each
other. But this vision was far away. The black ordeal
was before her. “I have done a dreadful thing,” she
repeated. “Perhaps you will not forgive me.”
Giles had risen to his feet and stood, over against
the window, tall and dark with his ruffled head. He
was looking at her and his eyes were frightened.
“I have been to Toppie,” said Alix. “I have told her
everything.”
He did not find a word to say.
“It was for your sake I did it, Giles,” said Alix in a
dry, unappealing voice. “I told her so that she might
know it was you who loved her; not he. Perhaps you
will not forgive me.”
Giles spoke. “You told her about Owen?”
“About Owen. That he was Maman’s lover.”
Giles put his hand up and pushed it through his hair.
“You told her that for my sake?”
“Yes, Giles. So that she should not leave you to be
nearer him.”
“Did you know what you were saying, Alix?” said
Giles, after another moment; and after yet another
moment Alix answered him.
“Not when I told her. But afterwards. After what
she said. She said that Maman was a wicked woman.
She said that Maman was a woman who had lovers.
She said that for a woman there is no greater sin. And
now, I think, I understand. Giles—Is it true?”
“My darling little Alix,” said Giles in a strange,
stern voice, “it is true. But she’s not wicked. She’s
wrong; but not wicked. She’s lovely, and unfortunate,
and wrong, and she needs your love more than ever.”
As Giles spoke these words, Alix suddenly stumbled
forward. She put out her hands blindly—for as she
heard him her tears rushed down from under shut lids—and
Giles’s arms received her. She was sobbing
against his breast. “Oh, Giles, thank you! Oh, Giles,
do you forgive me?”
“My darling child—my darling little Alix—I
understand it all,” said Giles.