It was odd to see normal relations resumed next day at table.
Abnormally normal indeed, for we were all a little too much at our
ease, a trifle too friendly and natural. There was a chatting and a
smiling, and a veritable phrensy of cruet-courtesy. It was "Do have
another pancake, Mamma, they are so good today:" "now finish up the
gateau, Suzanne, I don't think Louise ever made a better."
On the Countess' part there was little dissimulation, for her anxieties
had calmed down with surprising ease. She had cornered me again, first
thing in the morning, for "just one word."
"They have been talking to you, I know. How late you stayed with Elise!
Not for the world would I try to learn their confidences, but one thing
as their mother it is my duty and right to know. Tell me that my worst
fears are without foundation."
"Absolutely." I looked her full in the face with a confidence-inspiring
false honesty. After all, it was the truth; her worst fears, she had
said plainly, were for Elise.
Elise alone could not dissimulate her yesterday. Red eyes no craft,
no cosmetics, can conjure away. Suzanne was boisterously at ease; de
Fouquier suave, unchanging. Suzanne's ease did not seem artificial.
There had been a fright and a fuss yesterday, and trouble would no
doubt break out again--one of these days. Meanwhile, she would eat,
drink and be merry. How I envied her "meanwhile" temperament.
I had a bewildering mass of new impressions to digest, all of one
day's serving. That mother and two daughters, from their different
angles, all saw menfolk in the same light was a testimony that
overbore my passionate resistance. Many men, at least, must be as
evil as they said. Frenchmen perhaps. I idealized my own men only the
more. Similarly, while the lack of all friendship between mother and
daughters sank into my mind as a fact that was probably general, I
idealized my own mother all the more. Perhaps the Fifth Commandment is
only ever perfectly obeyed by children whose parents are dead.
Above all, I could now visualize to my heart's content without any
breach of Resolution. I melo-dramatized the intrigues and troubles of
this family, casting myself (of course) for the leading part. I had a
friend to rescue from a villain, a family to rid of its foe; secrets
and papers with which this man threatened my friends to discover and to
use for his own dramatic undoing: here was a rôle I had been destined
for from birth....
And here for the first time in this record I shall deviate from the
plan of absolute completeness at which I have aimed, and shall pass by
much in silence. The whirlpool of petty melodramatic intrigues into
which I was now plunged--though no doubt more violent in my imagination
than in sober fact--might yet form the subject of an exciting tale.
But it has no place in this narrative, which deals with MARY LEE. The
person who took her full share in these doings, in absorbing (or, if
need be, in worming out) still more intimate confidences from the
three Frenchwomen, in gracefully raiding M. de Fouquier's quarters
and hunting among his papers, in discovering the prattlings and
preferences of the servants, in establishing that Gabrielle was for
_us_ and that François was for _him_, in discovering that while the
villainy and vileness of Fouquier had probably been exaggerated by
two of his friends his noble passionate character had certainly been
overstated by the third, in taking a leading part in all the plans and
jealousies and intrigues, which from Countess to Kitchen filled every
person and place in this Norman mansion--this person was not the Mary
I am chiefly concerned with, but that phantom-personality with brain
and with appetites but without fears and without hopes, without love
and without God, who, foisted upon me by the real Me's foolish plan of
self-effacement, for this year or two ruled within my body, while the
real Mary, lulled by the ease and emptiness of that time, lay dormant
and almost for dead.
Thus it is that although across forty years the Bear Lawn days are as
vivid in my heart as today's noontide, the years in France I can but
vaguely reconstruct. Only my brain's memory, the one thing that all
the Marys have shared in common, retains them; and what the brain but
not the heart remembers is lifeless bones, dimensionless phantoms, as
unreal as other people. Château Villebecq, the house, the park, the
people, stand before my eyes--now, as I strive to conjure them up--like
the cardboard scenes of a stage. When, years later, I first went to the
play, the resemblance at once assailed me.
Hardly at all during this period, except at moments in my friendship
with Elise, and except in prayer--and then I was no longer in
France--was my soul awake. Not until the series of events in which
voices from Tawborough and my soul's native surroundings spoke to me
again.
To be sure, some of the escapades of that other person are clearer in
my memory than others. The most foolish and fantastic is the one I
remember best. Diary, rather than my heart, supplies the silly details.
One day I took the opportunity offered by Monsieur de Fouquier's
absence on some distant farms to inspect the little downstairs office
where he kept his records, received tenants and did business; also his
bedroom, where the one object of interest--shades of Torribridge and
keyhole-spied green box!--was the safe Elise had told me of.
Its solid sides discouraged me. A fine rôle I had set myself, rescuer
of noble families from scheming villains. How fantastic we were, I and
my plans.
Then, by a stroke of luck, though at first sight it seemed the very
reverse, de Fouquier fell ill. It was a kind of hay-fever which, while
not serious enough (at any rate in France) for doctor's aid, kept him
confined to his bed. The Countess meanwhile was debating a day in Rouen
for purchases and visits.
"I ought to, you know. We may be away in Paris for months, and these
things must be done. It is all so tiresome: the train tries me so, and
I cannot travel alone. Oh, dear! And Elise and Suzanne both away, and
Gabrielle or Pelagie are worse than I am on a journey, so flurried and
silly. We have only a day or two left. I must go to Rouen tomorrow; but
alone--"
I refused to take the laboured hint.
"Wouldn't you like to come, dear Mademoiselle?" after a while,
pitifully.
"I should, Madame: very much! I love Rouen. But this headache"--I
half-closed my eyes in approved shammer's fashion--"I mean I feel that
if I don't take a little rest I shall be quite unfit for the journey
to Paris: I should be a burden to you rather than a help. Of course
tomorrow I _may_ feel better--stay, is it not François who sometimes
accompanies you?"
"At the worst he will have to do, though between ourselves I never
really trust him."
"Though"--martyr-like resignation now that my point was won--"if you
especially want me, Madame, of course--"
"Would not hear of it."
Thus I killed two birds with one lie, freeing the house for a whole day
of its nosy proprietor and its chief spy.
Next morning I waited impatiently for their departure. From my window I
watched the carriage out of sight, staring with superstitious zeal till
the last inch of the last wheel had disappeared round the turn in the
drive. Then I rang for Gabrielle.
"Mademoiselle requires?"
"To ask you a question. You would do anything for Mademoiselle Elise?"
"Anything, Mademoiselle. And for Mademoiselle also."
"Thank you, Gabrielle. In the matter I am going to talk about it is all
one: Whatever I ask, you may take it as from your mistress. She sleeps
badly, I think?"
"I don't see--"
"Wait. You take her up a _tisane_, a sleeping potion, sometimes at
night when she is in bed? How strong is it?"
"As strong as Mademoiselle Elise requires. It is not well for it to
be too strong. She sleeps half-an-hour later: with me it would be two
little minutes. Once I could not sleep, and I took a little cupful: I
slept for nine hours, and could not wake next morning. I was up late
and Madame the Countess scolded. Perhaps Mademoiselle remembers?"
"So I do. Now listen, Gabrielle. François is away today with Madame.
Who is taking Monsieur de Fouquier's meals to his bedroom?"
"I understand! It is I, Mademoiselle. I take him a tisane too, for his
headaches. How much does Mademoiselle desire me to give?"
"As strong and as sure as you can without his guessing or noticing any
after-effects. Ask me no questions. Let him have no suspicions. I want
you to give it him now, this morning."
"Good, Mademoiselle. I take him a little meal between ten and eleven,
and I will give it him soon after."
"Come and tell me the moment he has drunk it."
About eleven she returned. "Monsieur has drunk the tisane. I said it
was good for the headache."
"Now wait a few minutes, then go into his room again to see if he is
sleeping--you can pretend you left something--and come straight back
and tell me. On your way back make sure that none of the other servants
are about. I trust you. Mademoiselle Elise trusts you."
Ten minutes later. "He sleeps with open mouth: as soundly as a
dormouse."
My heart was beating high as I slipped through his bedroom door,
thoughtfully left ajar by Gabrielle. I had been hunting some pretext
for my presence if he should wake and find me: I could invent none, and
knew it would be useless if I could. For the first moment I dared not
look at him. I stared craftily at the lower end of the bedclothes, then
at the little mound made by his feet, then, very gradually, as though
my neck (and courage) were turning on a clockwork spring, up the shape
of his body under the quilt till at last I reached the open mouth of
Gabrielle's report. He was in a deep sleep: I gave way for a moment
to the curious pleasure of possessing another human being utterly
unconscious beneath my gaze. Small clever head, black eyebrows, sensual
lips, cruel little beard: I absorbed them all with a photographic
sureness not possible before. It was the first time I had seen a man
asleep in bed, and I added the fact with zest to my collections of
first-times: first Meeting, first marketing, first omelette, first
venison; first embrace, first Rapture.
But the quest, the keys. I had visualized all the probabilities, and
prepared my scheme of search. Dressing-table and chest-of-drawers-top
yielded nothing: I did not expect them to. I searched his clothes
next, hoping to succeed before I should reach the most dangerous
possibility: under the pillow. Coat was barren, waistcoat sterile.
Then to breeches: some wifely atavism must explain the lithe speed
with which I rummaged these, undeterred by a passing pang of modesty.
Tobacco, coins, knife, handkerchief: sorry yield. As I threw the
breeches back in disappointment on the chair, something metallic
clicked: not, I fancied, either knife or money. Was there another
pocket? Quickly I learnt a point in male sartorics, and the unsuspected
hip-pocket gave up--yes, keys! In fumbling feverish haste I tried each
one on the bunch; the safe was obdurate with all. Ill-success made
me desperate. Panic seized me. He was awake, staring at me, ready to
spring and strangle. He moved, he moved--yes, turned in his sleep, you
shivering fool! Thank God no one saw my face in that moment of beastly
fear.
Calm again, I tried the keys elsewhere. At last, in a little pink
soap-box in the cupboard of the dressing-table, I discovered what I
knew was the Treasure. One large key and one very fine and small.
It was hard breathing as the one opened the safe, then the other a
deed-box I found at the back within. Greedy trembling hands snatched
packets neatly tied with red tape and endorsed with a description in
Italian, with which I knew he was familiar and--God bless Miss de
Mesurier and Lord Tawborough her paymaster--I also.
Packets of letters, incriminating documents, tell-tale scrolls! It was
the trove, the triumph! What villainous secrets might they not hold?
But when Elise and I, with a rich sense of the historic importance of
the occasion, set to, behind locked doors, to investigate our treasure,
what did we discover? Long and affectionate letters from M. de
Fouquier's mother to her well-loved son, friendly letters from his dead
sister: what a meek, pathetic, uncriminal yield! I was moved almost to
tears. It was _we_ who were the criminals. And for a while our plots
wilted....
I shall pass by much of this kind, as well as the whole
diary-remembered general life of the Villebecq days: the excursions,
the games, the visits, the chatterings, the mighty meals; the
comfortable daily round in which we tasted everything--except
everything, except love and God.