THE EYES OF INNOCENCE
[Illustration: There was a faint sound behind her.
(Page 159)]
THE
EYES OF INNOCENCE
BY
MAURICE LEBLANC
Author of “Arsène Lupin,” “The Golden Triangle,”
“The Woman of Mystery,” “The
Secret of Sarek,” etc.
TRANSLATED BY
ALEXANDER TEIXEIRA DE MATTOS
NEW YORK
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
1920
Copyright, 1920, by
THE MACAULAY COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I GILBERTE 11
II THE SOLITARY 24
III THE UNKNOWN 39
IV AN EVENING AT MME. DE LA VAUDRAYE’S 52
V THE SUITORS 68
VI A NEW FRIEND 85
VII GILBERTE’S TWO FRIENDS 103
VIII THE APPOINTMENT 119
IX AFFIANCED 137
X THE DESERTED HOUSE 150
XI GILBERTE’S NAME 165
THE EYES OF INNOCENCE
I
GILBERTE
“Would you please give your name, madam?” asked the waiter.
And he handed the elder of the two travellers a sheet of paper headed,
“_Villa-pension des Deux Mondes, Dieppe_.”
“Write down the name, Gilberte,” she said. “I am so tired.”
Gilberte took the pen and wrote:
“Mme. Armand and daughter, from London, bound for.... Now that I think
of it, where are we going next, mother?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” said the waiter.
And he took the paper and left the room.
“Yes, Mr. Waiter,” cried the young girl, with a laugh. “Mme. Armand and
her daughter, arriving from England, from Germany, from Russia, coming
to France and delighted, especially Mlle. Armand, who does not yet know
her own country!”
“Will you find happiness here?” murmured her mother, sadly, drawing her
daughter to her. “There is none left for me, since your poor father is
dead; but you, my pet, my dear, loving Gilberte, what has the future in
store for you?”
“Why, joys, mother darling, nothing but the greatest joys: haven’t I you
with me?”
They exchanged a long embrace. Then Mme. Armand said:
“Gilberte, the crossing has upset me; I feel I must lie down for a
while. Go and sit on the terrace and come back in an hour. Then we will
unpack our trunks and go to the post-office.”
“Are you expecting a letter?”
“Yes.”
“From whom?”
“How inquisitive you are!”
“Oh, mummy, you’re always saying that! But are you sure that it’s not
you who are a little--what shall I say--mysterious? You never answer
even my simplest questions.”
“I shall answer them one day, child, but not before I have to ... not
before I have to.”
Gilberte saw her mother’s face wrung with such anguish that she was
silent and fondly kissed her hand. Mme. Armand went on:
“Yes, you are right. I am a little mysterious, very mysterious even; but
if you only know how it hurts me to be so! Still, I will answer you this
time, dear: the letter I am expecting is from your nurse.”
“From my nurse? Then I was brought up in France? But where?”
Mme. Armand was silent. Gilberte waited a few moments, then put on her
hat and cloak and said:
“Go and lie down, mother. You poor dear, you look as you do on your bad
days.... There, I’ll leave you in peace.”
“You won’t go out, will you, dear?”
“Go out? I, who have never left your side? Why, I should be afraid to
walk down the street all by myself! I shall be back soon, dearest.”
She opened the door and went downstairs. Above the reception-rooms,
which occupied a wing consisting of a single floor, to the right of the
garden, was a terrace covered with tents and wicker chairs. She sat down
there.
It was a mild and balmy October day. The wide, deserted beach was bright
with sunshine. The sea was very calm and edged with a narrow fringe of
foam.
An hour passed.
“I will go in,” she said, “when that little boat disappears behind the
jetty.”
The boat disappeared and she rose to her feet. As she went up the
stairs, a childish idea came into her head, an idea which she was
destined long to remember, together with the smallest details of that
terrible minute:
“If mother is still asleep,” she thought, “I will blow on her forehead
to wake her.”
She listened at the door. Not a sound. She laughed roguishly. Then,
slowly, cautiously, she opened the door. Mme. Armand lay stretched on
the bed. Gilberte went up to her. For some indefinable reason, she
forgot her intended joke and simply kissed her mother on the forehead.
A cry escaped her lips. Terror-stricken, she flung herself upon her
mother, caught her desperately in her arms and fell fainting beside the
bed.
Mme. Armand was dead.
* * * * *
A room in which she sobs for hours on end, heedless of all things,
huddled in a little chair, or on her knees before a white-curtained bed;
people who come and go; a doctor who certifies the cause of death;
aneurism of the heart, beyond a doubt; the lady of the house, who tries
to comfort her; a commissary of police who puts questions which she is
unable to answer and who makes her look in her mother’s trunks for
papers that are not there: these are Gilberte’s lasting memories of
those two dreadful days.
Then came the singing in the church, a long road between bare,
wind-stripped trees, the graveyard and the final and irrevocable parting
from her who, until now, was all her life, her soul, her light....
Oh, the first night spent in solitude and those first meals taken with
no one opposite her and those long interminable days during which she
never stopped weeping the big tears that come welling up from the heart
as from a spring which nothing can dry up! Alone, knowing nobody, what
was she to do? Where could she go? To whom could she turn?
“The important thing,” insisted the lady of the house, who sometimes
came to see her in her room, “the most important thing is that you
should have a solicitor. Mine is prepared to come whenever you please. I
spoke to him about you; and it seems that there are formalities.
Remember what the commissary said about the papers....”
Gilberte remembered nothing, for she had listened to nothing.
Nevertheless, the persistency of this advice, repeated daily and with
such conviction, ended by persuading her; and, one morning, she sent to
ask Maître Dufornéril to be good enough to call on her.
Maître Dufornéril had one of those placid and good-natured faces the
sight of which seems to soothe you at once. He gave the impression of
attaching so much importance to the business in hand that it would have
been impossible not to take at least some interest in it one’s self.
Gilberte, therefore, was obliged to reflect, to tax her memory, in
short, to reply.
“From what I have learnt, mademoiselle, it is evident that no papers
have been found enabling us to establish your mother’s identity and
your own. The commissary, however, told me of an envelope containing
securities which he advised you to lock up carefully. Is it still in
your possession?”
“I don’t know.... Mother never told me.... Is this what you mean?” she
asked.
The solicitor took two fat, leather portfolios from the mantelpiece and
opened them. He was astounded at what he saw:
“And do you leave this lying about?... Bonds payable to bearer?”
Gilberte blushed, feeling as if she had committed some enormous crime.
He counted the sheets, made a rapid addition and said:
“You are very well off, mademoiselle.”
“Really?” she said, absent-mindedly. “Yes ... mother said something....”
After a peace during which he watched her with increasing surprise, he
asked:
“And have you your mother’s papers, your father’s papers?”
“What papers?”
“Why, their birth-certificates, your own, their marriage-certificate, in
fact, everything that established their position and now establishes
yours.”
“I haven’t them.”
“But they must be somewhere.... Can you give me no clue as to where they
are?”
“No.... But I seem to remember once hearing them talk of papers that had
been lost ... or rather burnt in a fire ... or else ... in fact, I can’t
say for certain.” ...
“Come, come!” cried Maître Dufornéril. “We are on the wrong track
altogether! Let us start from the beginning. Where were you born?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you mean, you don’t know?”
“Mother would never tell me exactly.”
“But where was she born? And your father?”
“I don’t know that either.”
The solicitor looked up. Was she laughing at him? But, at the sight of
her sad face and candid eyes, he was silent for a moment and then went
on:
“You have come from London?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have friends over there, acquaintances?”
“No, we lived quite alone.”
“Never mind: if you give me the address of the house you lived in, we
shall easily find traces of Mme. Armand.”
“Mother was not called Mme. Armand in London; she was called Aubert.”
“But Armand is your real name?”
“I don’t think so. At Liverpool, where we lived for three years and
where father died, last year, after making such a lot of money, we were
known by the name of Killner. Before that, at Berlin, it was Dumas....
And, at Moscow.” ...
“You don’t know the reason why your parents used to change their name
like that?”
“No, I do not.”
“You saw nothing in your parents’ character to explain it?”
“No, nothing.”
“Were they on good terms?”
“Oh, yes! They were so fond of each other! And mother was so happy!”
So happy! How positively Gilberte was able to say that! Happy indeed
beside her husband, under his eyes, with her hand in his. But why was
she so often caught crying? Why those hours of gloomy melancholy, of
inexplicable depression? Why had she one day drawn her daughter to her,
stammering:
“Ah, my child; my child! Never do anything that you have to hide: it is
too painful!”
Gilberte was on the point of speaking. A vague sense of shame prevented
her. Besides, Maître Dufornéril, who had taken down a few notes in his
pocket-book, was beginning again:
“Give me all the particulars that can help us, mademoiselle. The
smallest details are of importance.”
She mentioned the towns in which they had lived: Vienna, Trieste, Milan,
with their memories of a secluded life, easy of late, but so hard and
difficult at first; and then, further back, Barcelona, where they had
been very unhappy; and then came memories, more and more indistinct, of
poverty, hunger, cold....
“We shall find out, mademoiselle,” declared the solicitor. “It won’t be
an easy business, for we have to do with a combination of abnormal
circumstances which baffle me a little, I admit. But, after all, it is
inconceivable that we should not find out. You have to know, you must
know who you are and what name you are entitled to bear. Will you trust
your interests to me?”
“Yes.”
“Well, first of all, you must leave this bundle of securities in my
hands: I will give you a receipt for it. I will cash the coupons as they
fall due and send you the proceeds when you need money. Where were you
going with your mother?”
“She was expecting a letter.”
“A letter? That is one clue.”
“But the letter was addressed to the _pôste restante_; and I don’t know
in what name or initials.”
“True.... Then what do you intend to do?”
“I intend to go somewhere at random. I have heard mother speak of
Chartres, Saumer, Domfront. I shall choose one of those towns, the
quietest ... no matter where ... as long as I can weep undisturbed.”
“Poor child!” murmured Maître Dufornéril.
II
THE SOLITARY
“Of the fortress built, in 1011, by Guillaume de Bellême, on the summit
of the rock at Domfront, at 300 feet above the little River Varenne, all
that is now left standing is two great strips of wall, flanked by
picturesque buttresses and pierced with wide arches, the remains of the
ancient keep. Round about are a few traces of ramparts and remnants of
underground passages, all arranged in the form of a square and in a
perfect state of preservation.”
The guide-books, however, for some reason, fail to mention the
manor-house built, in the seventeenth century, by Pierre de Donnadieu,
Governor of Anjou, on the site and with the materials of the
outbuildings of the old fortress. The _logis_, as this sort of dwelling
is called in Lower Normandy, is intact and wholly charming. Four
slender, tapering turrets grace the corners. An enormous roof, decked
with two monumental chimneys, seems to top it with a fool’s cap, too
large for its little granite forehead lined with two rows of bricks. The
entrance is through the square, but the main front overlooks the
precipice and a garden staggers down the steep slope to the river that
winds through the pretty Valdes Rochers.
Fourteen years earlier, M. and Mme. de la Vaudraye, one of the leading
families of the neighborhood, had ruined themselves in unfortunate
speculations. M. de la Vaudraye died of grief and shame. His widow, in
order to pay for the education of her ten-year-old son, let the
manor-house, which formed part of her dowry and which had been in the
possession of her family for nearly two hundred years. It was taken, for
a time, by one of the garrison officers, but was now once more
untenanted.
Here Gilberte sought refuge like a poor wounded animal. The very
sleepiness of Domfront had attracted her, its look as of some vanquished
city, wearied of a valorous past and taking its just and honourable
repose. Strolling through the ruins, she saw, on the door of the Logis,
a notice, “TO LET.” She went in search of the owner.
Mme. de la Vaudraye, a tall, thin, hard-eyed woman, expressed herself in
affected sentences of which her lips formed the syllables carefully, one
by one, as though they were things of price that must be carried to the
highest pitch of perfection.
“I can see from your attitude, madame,” she said, “that you have been
struck by the unimpeachable condition of my house. Woodwork, mirrors,
curtains, furniture: everything is in perfect repair. And yet the Logis
is one of the most historic abodes in the district.” ...
Gilberte was no longer listening. She had been called, “Madame.” It had
seemed natural then to address her like that? If so, could she pass as
married, in spite of her age? The thought surprised her. And yet, she
reflected, how could any one suppose that a young girl would come by
herself to treat for the manor-house and live in it by herself?
She remembered a piece of advice which the solicitor had given her:
“If you wish to lead a quiet life, not a word about the past before we
have shed a full light upon it.”
Yes, but how much easier it would be to veil the past under that name of
“madame”! And how much better that title would protect her! As a girl,
living alone, she must needs be the object of curiosity, the victim of
any amount of gossip. As a married woman, she would be in a normal
position; her solitary existence would cause no surprise; she could keep
off intruders, go about as she pleased, or stay indoors and weep, with
none to spy upon the secret of her tears.
“In what name shall I make out the agreement?” asked Mme. de la
Vaudraye, when everything was settled: settled to the great advantage of
the owner, who had increased her rent by one-half.
“Why, in my own name: Mme. Armand!” said Gilberte, without foreseeing
the consequences which this decision involved.
Mme. de la Vaudraye hesitated:
“But ... perhaps we shall want ... M. Armand’s signature.” ...
“I am a widow.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I ought to have known. I see you are in
mourning.” ...
Mme. Armand moved into the Logis that same evening. At Mme. de la
Vaudraye’s express recommendation, she engaged as a servant the wife of
the keeper of the ruins, Adèle, a big, fat, talkative woman, with hair
on her upper lip, a stealthy eye and quick, blunt manners. Bouquetot,
her husband, was to sleep at the manor-house; and their son, Antoine,
who had just left his regiment, would do the heavy work and attend to
the garden.
* * * * *
And life began, the hard, cruel, despairing life of those who have no
one to love them and no one whom they can love.
There was no consolation for Gilberte, after her mother’s death. What
saved her was the necessity to act, to act continually, to make
decisions, to give orders, in short, to exercise her will. She had to
shake off her natural inclination for dreaming and listlessness, to
break herself of the passive habits due to the existence which she had
led till then. Things went so badly at the manor-house until she
realized the task that lay before her, the domestic duties were so
irregularly performed, there was so much fuss and disorder, that she was
compelled to look after her own housekeeping.
She found it difficult indeed to word the first reprimand:
“Adèle, I do wish you would serve lunch punctually!”
And she added, immediately:
“Of course, I mean, when possible.”
As ill-luck would have it, it was not “possible” for three days running;
and Gilberte had to resolve to speak seriously. On the fourth day, she
went down to the kitchen, very quickly, so as not to let her indignation
cool on the stairs:
“Adèle! It’s one o’clock and”....
“Well, what of it?” the fat woman broke in.
Gilberte stopped short, hesitated, blushed and stammered:
“I should so much like to have luncheon served at half-past twelve
exactly!”
From that day forward, the meals were punctually prepared.
Her victory gave her self-assurance. She had the accounts brought to her
daily, although her inspection was confined to ascertaining the cost of
things and checking the additions.
With Gilberte’s affection and open nature, however, it was difficult for
her to live absolutely cut off from her fellow-creatures, as she had
first intended. True, she refused to make acquaintances; and her shyness
was such that, after three months, she had not yet set foot in the
streets of Domfront. But those who have been stricken by fate have a
natural company of friends in the poor, the wretched, the destitute, the
outcast; and her heart could not avoid the sort of friendship built upon
adversity.
Between Gilberte and the first beggar who crossed the threshold of the
Logis there was more than an alms and a thank-you: there was the delight
of giving on one side and, on the other, gratitude for the smile and the
good grace of her who gave. Nor could it be otherwise. Even if Gilberte
had not had that pretty, fair hair which frolicked around her face like
little flickering flames, nor those gentle lips, nor those pink cheeks
which gave her face the freshness of a flower, she would still have been
bewitchingly beautiful, thanks to her blue eyes, which were always a
little dewy, as though tears were playing in them, and always smiling,
even at the times of her deepest sadness. And her look, her figure, all
her delicate and attractive personality breathed such touching purity
that the most indifferent were lapped in it as in the soft caresses of a
balmy breeze.
Her charm was made up of goodness, simplicity and, above all, innocence,
that innocence which is unaware of its own existence, which knows
nothing of life, which suspects no evil and which does not see the traps
laid for it, nor the hypocrisy that surrounds it, nor the envy which it
inspires.
_La Bonne Demoiselle_ was the name by which the poor called her, thus
correcting, by a sort of common instinct, the style which circumstances
had compelled her to adopt. And, in all the garrets of Domfront, in all
the cabins and cottages of the neighbourhood, people spoke of _la Bonne
Demoiselle_ of the Logis, of _la Bonne Demoiselle_ who mourned her
husband’s memory and smiled upon the poor.
Her gentle smile worked many a miracle in that little world, dispelled
many a hatred, stifled many a rebellious impulse, healed many a sore.
Men and women consulted her, inexperienced girl that she was, and, what
was more, followed her advice.
A mother came one day, with her baby in her arms. She told the tragedy
of her life, spoke of an elopement, a desertion. Gilberte understood
nothing of her story. Yet the mother, in an hour, went away consoled.
Young girls came and asked her opinion about getting married; women came
and enlarged upon their domestic quarrels; others came and told her
things that bewildered her. All these problems, all these cases of
conscience Mme. Armand, _la Bonne Demoiselle_, solved with her
innocence, the innocence of a child that, knowing nothing, knows more
than they who know everything.
One evening, Adèle brought her housekeeping-book. Gilberte gravely added
the column and initialed it.
“But madame is not even looking to see what I bought and how much I
paid.”
Gilberte blushed:
“You see.... I don’t know much about it.... So I leave it to you....
Besides, I have no reason to suspect you....”
There must have been something in the tone of her words, something
special in her air and attitude; at any rate, the old woman was seized
with extraordinary excitement, and, flinging herself on her knees before
her mistress, cried:
“Oh, it’s a shame to cheat a person like you, ma’am! I can have no heart
at all, nor my great rascal of a Bouquetot either!... Why, you must be
an angel from Heaven not to see that everybody’s robbing you: the
grocer, the baker, the butcher, and I most of all!... Just look at my
book: a bunch of carrots, thirty sous; a wretched chicken, six francs
fifteen sous....”
She emptied her purse on the table:
“There! Fifty or sixty francs I’ve done you out of, all in one month!...
But I stopped the other day, I couldn’t do it, it broke my heart to see
you like that, so trusting....”
“My poor Adèle,” whispered Gilberte, greatly moved.
“And then ... and then,” continued the woman, in a low voice, with bent
head, “I have something else to confess.... But I dare not: it’s so
shameful.... Listen.... Mme. de la Vaudraye ... well, she put me here to
tell her all about you: what you did; if you received any letters; if
you talked to gentlemen.... And, in the morning, when I went to do my
shopping, I used to go to her ... and tell her what I saw.... Oh, there
was nothing wrong to tell, for you are a real saint!... But, all the
same.... Forgive me!”
The old servant’s confusion was touching. Gilberte gently raised her
from the floor and said:
“There, we’ll say no more about it. But why is Mme. de la Vaudraye
interested in me and my doings?”
“Goodness knows! She’s always poking her nose in everywhere and wants to
manage everything at Domfront and every one to obey her. And you don’t
know how they talk about you here! There’s no lack of gossip, I can tell
you!”
“About me?”
“Yes. They want to know where you come from, who M. Armand was, all
sorts of things! Then Mme. de la Vaudraye speechifies about you in her
drawing-room. Just think, you’re her tenant; and she’s the only one who
has spoken to you!... And then I’ve guessed something else....”
“What’s that, Adèle?”
“Well, you are rich and a widow; I’m sure she’s after you as a
daughter-in-law.... That I’d take my oath on!... Oh, she has her head
screwed on her shoulders! A fine lady like you for her penniless beggar
of a son, a good-for-nothing who can’t put his hand to anything!...”
Gilberte listened to her in utter confusion. Wasn’t it possible to
remain hidden and unknown? Were there really people who spied on others,
who tried to fathom the mystery of their lives and actually plotted
against them?
But Adèle said, in a big, fond voice:
“Don’t you worry yourself, _ma Bonne Demoiselle_. I’m here and I’ll look
after you and look after your money. Oh, the grocer and the butcher and
the rest had best mind what they’re about!... You let me be: you won’t
be overcharged any more.... And then Bouquetot is there and my son
Antoine: they’re decent fellows both ... and fell in love with you at
once ... because ... because there’s something different about you ...
something that makes people love you ... in spite of themselves ...
with all their hearts....”
III
THE UNKNOWN
Every day, when her household duties were done, Gilberte walked in her
garden. This was her hour of recreation. But a sweeter hour followed,
which she allotted to dreaming.
High up, on the left, on a jutting promontory, was a clearing where
stood the ruins of a little summer-house. The view from here extended,
over undulating plains, to the dark heights of Mortain. On the right,
the other side of the valley was a wall of red rocks, clad in broom and
fir-trees. It was a landscape of illimitable distances and, at the same
time, tender and familiar through the homeliness of this little glen, a
landscape which had all the wild and rugged poetry of a Breton moor....
The daylight waned early in those winter months. Gilberte waited until
the veil of night smothered its last glimmers. Sometimes, the sun’s
reflections would linger on the motionless clouds. Then the darkness
seemed to come from every side, to rise from the river, to fall from the
overcast sky, to ooze from the earth in thick mists. Then Gilberte would
go indoors.
But, one evening, at that murky moment of twilight, she saw, on the
opposite slope, a human form issuing from a hollow among the rocks and
vanishing behind a tree.
She would hardly have paid attention to it, if, on the next day, when
her eyes turned in that direction on returning from her walk, she had
not perceived, in the same place, the same form as on the day before: a
man’s figure, obviously, but so well hidden that it was impossible for
her to distinguish the least detail of his face or dress.
On the day after that, he was not there; but he was there on the
following day and almost every day afterwards.
Gilberte soon noticed that he slipped through the fir-trees a little
before her arrival and went away soon after she was gone.
Then was he there for her? She did not ask herself this question, but,
all unwittingly, she was pleased at the fact that some one was there,
dreaming doubtless like herself, some one whom she did not know, who was
not seeking to know her and of whom she thought only as an invisible
companion, a more or less real ghost, a freak of her imagination. She
had not the least curiosity concerning others and would never have
supposed that any one could have the least curiosity concerning her. He
was there for the same reasons that brought her there, because it is
good to see night blend with day and because that twilight hour is full
of charm and peace.
And so she had a friend, a distant and inaccessible friend, from whom
she would have hidden herself for ever, if he had dared to show himself
or even let her see by a movement that he was there for her, but who
did not frighten her, for the sole reason that he seemed to have no
actual existence.
“Are you not afraid of catching cold, dear madame?”
It was Mme. de la Vaudraye, who took her by surprise one evening, at the
summer-house and at once continued, in her affected voice:
“I owe you a thousand apologies. The merest politeness demanded that I
should pay you a visit, but what shall I say? I have so many duties, so
many cares! I am the president of a number of charitable committees
which take up all my time. Besides, I confess, I was afraid of appearing
indiscreet. I so much dread to push myself forward! Still, I thought it
was time to try and bring some diversion into the nun’s life which you
are leading.”
“You are too kind,” said Gilberte, touched by this solicitude.
“I felt, dear madame, that your days must be so dull. Your evenings
especially must seem endless. How do you manage to fill them?”
They had returned to the Logis. A good fire warmed the boudoir in which
Gilberte liked best to sit. The lamp was lighted. There was some music
on the piano. The table was heaped with books and papers.
“You see, madame, I play and read: I read a great deal.”
“Novels, I expect!” said the visitor, with a titter. “May I look?...
What have we here? An atlas ... manuals of history ... and literature
... selected essays ... memoirs! Are you superintending somebody’s
education?”
“My own,” said Gilberte, laughing. “It has been a little neglected; and,
as I have plenty of time....”
“But many of the books are in English ... in German even....”
“I know English and German.”
“Quite a learned person! But how well you would get on with my son! He
is so studious and cultured! He writes for the Paris papers.... Not
under his own name, of course: he would never consent to commit the name
of La Vaudraye to an occupation which, after all, is only an amusement.
He quite agrees with me on that question ... as on every other.... Why
don’t you come to us one evening? We have a few friends who are pleased
to make my drawing-room their daily meeting-place.... Everybody is dying
to see you, Guillaume most of all....”
His mother’s description of young Guillaume de la Vaudraye was hardly of
a nature to charm Gilberte from her isolation. She found an excuse.
“You are making a mistake,” cried Mme. de la Vaudraye, who was irritated
by her refusal. “Good friends are a necessity: they protect you against
evil tongues.”
“Evil tongues?”
“Yes, yes, you can understand that one can’t live as you do without
attracting comment in a small town. People ask themselves--and not
without some justice, as you must admit--the reason of your voluntary
imprisonment. All the more so because, as I hear, your servant, Adèle,
keeps a silent tongue in her head; and that sets public opinion against
you. Lastly, they say....”
“What?”
“Well, they say that you are leading such a secret existence
because....”
“Because what?”
Mme. de la Vaudraye hesitated, or rather seemed to hesitate, and then
blurted out:
“Because you do not live alone.”
She rose, thinking that Gilberte must be crushed under this accusation.
But Gilberte, casting about ingenuously for what her visitor could have
meant, repeated:
“Not alone! Well, of course not, as Adèle is here, with her husband and
her son!”
“There, don’t be alarmed, child,” concluded Mme. de la Vaudraye, in a
patronizing little way. “That is only so much talk and gossip, which I
shall know how to put down, if you will help me. It only wants a small
sacrifice. For instance, I shall be making the collection at High Mass,
on Sunday: promise me to come. It’s a promise, isn’t it?” she said, as
she went away.
Gilberte would much rather have stayed quietly at home; but, as she had
been told that that was impossible, she gave up the idea:
“It seems to hurt people,” she said to herself.
And, on the Sunday morning, when the bells rang for mass, she left the
Logis for the first time.
She felt, in the crowded high-street, as though she were awaking from a
dream of peace and silence, so intense was her dislike of bustle and
noise. There were people at the windows, people at the shop-doors,
people in the church-porch; and all those people were watching her,
staring at her and whispering as she passed.
The church was a refuge, despite the crowd that filled it and despite
the excitement provoked by her presence. Every one was astounded at her
youthfulness, dazzled by her beauty. When she walked down the nave
again, a murmur of admiration rippled through the rows of worshippers.
But, when she reached the holy-water basin, an incident occurred that
delayed her for a few seconds. Three men had rushed forward. And, with
one movement, three hands were dipped into the marble basin and held out
to her. She lowered her veil and went on.
Outside the church, the crowd stood waiting for her. Gilberte hurried
along, feeling her shyness returning in the sunlight. Her one idea was
to get back to the Logis, back into the shade. But there was a
pastry-cook’s shop at the end of the high-street; she caught sight of
the window crammed with dainty custards and many-coloured cakes; and,
as she was not prepared for such a temptation, she succumbed.
Slowly and hesitatingly, she made her choice. The shop-woman did up the
parcel; Gilberte took it and moved away. But at the door she stopped,
timidly. A group of street-boys was standing outside.
There they were, with their hands in their pockets, like loafers
feasting their eyes on an unusual sight. She went out. They ran on
either side of her, making a great din with their wooden shoes. Gilberte
suffered tortures.
Suddenly, she heard cries and laughter behind her. She turned round. A
young man, whom she recognized as one of the three who offered her the
holy water, had darted into the midst of her escort and was dispersing
it with uplifted cane. She bowed her head, in sign of thanks, and
continued on her way.
An hour later, as she was finishing lunch, Adèle brought her an
enormous sheaf of flowers: roses, white lilac and camellias. A peasant
had handed them to the servant without a word of explanation.
“But I know who sent them,” said Adèle. “It can only be M. Beaufrelant.
He has the finest hot-houses in the district; he is mad on flowers.
Madame must have seen him in church: a tall, thin man, with whiskers.”
Bouquetot, Adèle’s husband, entered:
“An old woman has brought this letter for madame.”
Gilberte opened the envelope. It contained a thousand-franc note and a
few words written in a copper-plate hand on pink note-paper:
“To Mme. Armand, for her poor.”
“A bank-note! It must be that moneybags of a M. le Hourteulx. Let me see
the hand-writing.... Yes, that’s right; I was in service with him....
Oh, my fine fellow, if you think that, because you possess hundreds and
thousands!... Not a word.... I know what’s what!”
Bouquetot said to his wife:
“I met Mme. Duval, the chair-attendant, in the town just now. She told
me that M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx were standing by the
holy-water basin in church this morning; and young Simare as well. And
then the barber told me that young Simare followed madame and drove away
the street-boys who ran after her.”
Gilberte thought for a moment and said:
“Go to Mme. de la Vaudraye, Adèle, tell her how this money and these
flowers came into my hands and ask her to oblige me by returning them to
the senders. But the poor must not be the losers; and here is another
thousand-franc note which I beg that she will distribute as she thinks
best.”
That afternoon, Gilberte remained pensive. Those two presents surprised
her. Her ignorance of social usages did not allow her to see any
indelicacy or indiscretion in the way in which they were offered; and
yet she felt that there was something that should not have been done.
“What does it mean?” she wondered, with a vague anxiety. “What do they
want with me?”
It was the outside world trying to insinuate itself into her peaceful
home, into her independent life: the world with its sordid calculations,
its intrigues, its vanities, its stealthy encroachments upon those who
seek solitude, its instinctive jealousy of those who are able to do
without it.
At nightfall, she walked to the ruined summer-house. The stranger was
there, among the rocks opposite. She recovered all her serenity. And not
for a second did the idea cross her mind that he might be one of the
three who had forced their attentions upon her.
IV
AN EVENING AT MME. DE LA VAUDRAYE’S
It would be wearisome to describe the long series of moves and
machinations, the whole comedy of affectation and pretended solicitude
which Mme. de la Vaudraye employed to induce Gilberte to come and see
her. One day, at last, Gilberte promised, on the understanding that
there would be no one there but the regular visitors to the house.
And, in the evening, Adèle, carrying a lantern and muttering between her
teeth, accompanied her through the deserted streets.
It was a very modest house that was occupied by her who remained the
first lady of Domfront despite her shattered fortunes. No show, no
comfort, hardly room for the mother and son; but there was a _salon_, a
sumptuous _salon_, a _salon_, to which everything had been sacrificed, a
_salon_ that enabled Mme. de la Vaudraye to declare, with pride:
“I have a _salon_.”
And the townspeople nodded their heads in chorus:
“Mme. de la Vaudraye has a _salon_.”
In so saying, they had in mind not only the costly furniture heaped up
in that one room, but also the shining lights of the town who adorned it
with their presence. You were really nobody at Domfront if you did not
form part of the _salon_ of Mme. de la Vaudraye.
In its essence and as Gilberte saw it, the _salon_ consisted of an
old-oak chest and an Empire sideboard, of the Bottentuit and Charmeron
couples and their five young ladies, of M. and Mme. Lartiste and their
son, of Mlle. du Bocage, of M. Beaufrelant, M. Hourteulx and Messrs.
Simare, father and son, of a Louis XV clock, of a lacquered glass-case,
and of a set of chairs and armchairs upholstered in crimson silk.
A great silence, composed of eager curiosity, admiration and envy,
greeted Gilberte’s entrance. The hostess at once made the introductions,
or rather chiselled them out in elaborate phrases. Gilberte bowed.
“And my son? Where is my dear Guillaume?”
He was extracted from a small side-room.
“Dear Mme. Armand, here is my Guillaume, who is so anxious to make your
acquaintance.”
Guillaume de la Vaudraye was not at all bad-looking, with a very good
figure; but he had a sullen expression and his manners seemed
constrained. He gave a bow and vanished.
There was an attempt at general conversation, which fell very flat.
People exchanged distressful looks and dared not raise their voices.
Gilberte did not utter a word.
Then, to break the ice, a rush was made for the principal person
present, the last resource of drawing-rooms. He always lords it in the
place of honour, displaying the expansive smile of his large yellow
teeth. He looks like a squatting Hindu idol; he is well-groomed, shiny
and pretentious. He is the centre of social life, the ever-ready
rescuer, the life and soul of the company, the master of ceremonies, the
master of the revels, the vanisher of intolerable silence. And none can
contest his supremacy, for he alone is capable of making so much noise
without becoming exhausted and of making more noise by himself than all
the rest put together. The specimen in Mme. de la Vaudraye’s
drawing-room was signed, “PLEYEL.”
It was as though the parts had been allotted beforehand. Two groups were
formed: the audience and the performers. Gilberte found herself seated
between Mme. Charmeron, who was famed for her persistent dumbness and
distinction, and M. Simare junior, the best-dressed and most dissipated
young man in the town. He went twice a year to Paris and was looked upon
as a master of wit and satire. As a matter of fact, he started chaffing
at once:
“Ah, the overture of _The Bronze Horse_ by a Demoiselle Charmeron and a
Demoiselle Bottentuit! That’s the invariable first piece here. Ten years
ago, it seems, it was played by Mme. Bottentuit and her sister, Mme.
Charmeron; to-day, their heiresses are following in their footsteps.
Observe how beautifully the two young ladies hold themselves. Their
ambition is to realize the back view of a pair of sticks. They practise
it for four hours every morning....”
When the last chords had been banged out, he continued:
“Now, the little Charmeron girl will move off on the right, taking her
stool with her, and the little Bottentuit girl will slide to the middle
of the key-board. From the performer that she was she will become the
accompanist of papa. There, what did I tell you? It’s all settled
beforehand! Look out! Maître Bottentuit, the attorney, the drawing-room
howler, is going off, going off, I say.... I defy you to make out a word
he sings.... People have been trying for ten years; and no one has ever
succeeded.... Excuse me ... got to stop ... can’t hear myself talk ...
the wretch is bawling too loud....”
After Maître Bottentuit, Mlle. du Bocage--a little old maid whose mouth
opened so wide that you could have dived down her throat--struck up the
duet in _Mireille_, supported by M. Lartiste the elder, an old man, with
a clean-shaven face, whose mouth, on the contrary, remained hermetically
closed, with the results that both parts of the duet--not only the
cooing roulades of the woman, but also the frenzied appeals of the man,
his prayers, his promises, his metamorphoses into a bird and a
butterfly--seemed to issue from the yawning throat of Mireille, that
gulf where you saw a host of little pieces of mechanism madly at work.
The loving couple had a great success.
“M. le Hourteulx next,” said young Simare. “Our millionaire is going to
sing for you, madame, for, you know, he has been smitten with a passion
since he saw you in church; a passion shared, of course, by his enemy
Beaufrelant, for the two men always form the same wishes, so as to have
the pleasure of thwarting each other. It’s a long-standing hatred: le
Hourteulx was married once; and it seems that Beaufrelant....”
Simare bent over towards Gilberte and whispered a few words in her ear.
Young Lartiste, who owed his fame as a great actor to his name and to
his name alone, was reserved for the end.
“No one recites like young Lartiste,” people said at Domfront.
And, from the first words that he spoke, everybody watched Gilberte, to
enjoy her amazement. Unfortunately, Simare was continuing his more or
less decorous reflexions; and Gilberte, although not always catching his
exact meaning, felt so uncomfortable that she did not listen to young
Lartiste at all and forgot to applaud at the striking passages, an
omission that was put down to her bad taste.
“Mme. de la Vaudraye is furious,” said Simare. “Her son’s gone. And I
expect she jolly well lectured him about making himself agreeable to
you. By Jove, when you’re a mother, you have to think of your son’s
future. But Guillaume making himself agreeable is a sight that was never
yet seen! Besides, he looks down upon us too much to remain in the
drawing-room. Just fancy, a writer like him!... Oh, I say, madame, look
at the eyes Beaufrelant’s making at you! Beaufrelant is the Don Juan of
Domfront. No one can resist him. They even say ... but I don’t know if I
ought.... Pooh, you have a fan ... if you want to blush....”
And he again leant over towards Gilberte.
She rose from her seat at the first words. Mme. de la Vaudraye came
running up to her:
“I am sure that that scapegrace of a Simare is saying all sorts of
things that he shouldn’t.”
She drew her aside:
“Be careful with him, my child,” she said. “I can see through his
designs: he is trying to compromise you. He is head over ears in debt
and hunting for a fortune.... But haven’t you seen Guillaume? Wait for
me here, I’ll bring him to you.”
Simare came up to Gilberte:
“I must apologize to you, madame; I shocked you just now.”
“No, no,” stammered Gilberte, driven to her wits’ end by this
persistency, “only I thought I ought not to....”
He interrupted her:
“It was I who ought not. I couldn’t help it: I was talking, talking a
little at random, lest I should say what I have no right to say, what
lies deep down within myself, one of those involuntary sentiments....”
“I am so sorry, Mme. Armand,” cried the hostess, returning. “My son was
a little tired and has gone up to his room.”
The musical and literary evening was over. But the resources of the la
Vaudraye _salon_ did not end there. Its frequenters prided themselves on
knowing how to talk. And the conversation went by rule, of course, as
everything went by rule in this society which, by the almost daily
repetition of the same acts, had established habits as strong as
immutable laws.
The licensed talkers were M. Beaufrelant, who, they said, cultivated the
flowers of rhetoric with the same zeal and the same success as the
flowers of the soil; Mme. de la Vaudraye, who specialized in literary
discussions; M. Lartiste, who, as a printer, was naturally marked out
for the loftiest philosophical speculations; M. Simare the elder, a
remarkable spinner of anecdotes; and, lastly, M. Charmeron and his
sister-in-law, Mme. Bottentuit, who found, in their morbid need for
contradicting and disputing with each other, an inexhaustible source of
opinions, witticisms and banter. Outside these privileged and, so to
speak, official protagonists, it was very seldom that any one ventured
to open his mouth.
Gilberte, who was beginning to feel terribly bored, listened without a
word, which was taken for a sign of admiring deference. The truth is
that this oratorical joust surprised her greatly. All these people,
speaking turn and turn about, seemed to be pursuing so many different
conversations, each of them thinking only of shining in the department
that had devolved upon himself. M. Lartiste, who had talked his best on
capital punishment, the subject in which he excelled, was answered by
Mme. de la Vaudraye with a vigorous parallel between the respective
merits of Victor Hugo and Lamartine, which parallel was duly refuted in
a lyrical outburst from M. Beaufrelant on the bulbs of the double
dahlia.
And the utmost seriousness presided over all this incoherence, each
disputant confounding, with deadly earnestness, the interlocutor in whom
he saw such another indomitable as himself. And the dumb circle of
hearers listened with nods and grunts of approval, as though these
strange discussions had excited them to the highest pitch.
“Well ... and you?” said Mme. de la Vaudraye to M. Simare the elder, at
the exact moment when the ardour of the tourney seemed about to wane.
“Are you not in form to-day?”
M. Simare, the anecdotist, smiled. His strong point lay in saying
nothing until he was questioned; and his dry silence, rich in promise,
lent enormous value to the one anecdote to which he treated you each
evening, after carefully preparing, polishing, repolishing and chipping
it like a precious stone. Everybody burst out laughing before he even
opened his mouth: it was understood from his manner that the story would
be a little ... naughty.
He said:
“I do not know if I can speak. There are young ears present.”
A movement on the part of the mothers, a glance; and the five young
ladies disappeared “without seeming to.”
He insisted:
“All the same, I feel bound to warn you that it is a very risqué story.
I shall call a spade a spade: local colour demands it.”
“Go on, M. Simare!” said somebody. “We are all married people here!”
Gilberte was sitting in the front row of chairs, understanding nothing
of the departure of the young girls nor of all this preamble and in
absolute ignorance of what was looming ahead.
M. Simare walked up to her, bowed to her gallantly, like a bull-fighter
dedicating his next feat of prowess to the most prominent person present
and sat down four feet in front of her. And he began:
“The setting first, madame. Picture the skirt of a wood: _dramatis
personæ_, Fanchon and her friend Colin, who is whispering sweet nothings
in her ear, very much in her ear, and ... but wait! At no great
distance, in the middle of the wood, his reverence the rector is
strolling, reading his breviary; and his walk takes him in the direction
of our young rustics.... He comes.... He comes nearer and nearer.... Do
you see the picture, madame?”
“Yes, yes,” said Gilberte, earnestly, like a child who is interested in
a fairy-tale. “What next?”
“The sun darts his rays through the branches, from the patches of blue
sky....”
He continued his description at length, talked of the rector and the
birds and the flowers and the cool shade of the trees; and, strange to
say, there was not another word about Fanchon and Colin.
“M. Simare is a little discursive this evening,” whispered somebody. “He
is not coming to the point as quickly as usual.”
In fact, he was veering away from it, with his eyes fixed on Gilberte,
who listened eagerly and who repeated, at intervals:
“And then? What next?”
Thereupon, he got more and more entangled in the poetic stroll of the
rector, who kept on walking and never seemed to come as far as Fanchon
and Colin. And it was Gilberte who, at last, exclaimed:
“But what became of Colin and Fanchon?”
Then the old boy made a decisive gesture:
“I can’t, I can’t tell you.... No, I won’t tell you....”
Everybody rose. Everybody protested.
M. Simare took refuge in laughter:
“Well, no, I won’t tell you.”
“But why not?”
“Why not? I don’t know! It’s her eyes.... There are words one can’t
utter when one looks at her, there are things one can’t tell.”
He was no longer laughing. The others were silent. And he continued:
“Look at her eyes. They gaze at you so softly, so innocently.... All the
time that I was talking my nonsense, I wanted to invent something for
her, something about saints and angels and a good little girl who loves
her mother and only thinks of pleasing her and is happy from morning
till night....”
V
THE SUITORS
Gilberte went to more of Mme. de la Vaudraye’s evenings: not that she
liked them much; but she did not wish to have it thought that she
disliked them.