It was a pretty little house, in very charming country—in an
untravelled corner of Normandy, near the sea; a country of orchards and
colza fields, of soft green meadows where cattle browsed, and of deep
elm-shaded lanes.
One was rather surprised to see this little house just here, for all the
other houses in the neighbourhood were rude farm-houses or labourers’
cottages; and this was a coquettish little chalet, white-walled, with
slim French windows, and balconies of twisted ironwork, and Venetian
blinds: a gay little pleasure-house, standing in a bright little garden,
among rosebushes, and parterres of geraniums, and smooth stretches of
greensward. Beyond the garden there was an orchard—rows and couples
of old gnarled apple-trees, bending towards one another like fantastic
figures arrested in the middle of a dance. Then, turning round, you
looked over feathery colza fields and yellow corn fields, a mile away,
to the sea, and to a winding perspective of white cliffs, which the sea
bathed in transparent greens and purples, luminous shadows of its own
nameless hues.
A board attached to the wall confirmed, in roughly painted characters,
the information I had had from an agent in Dieppe. The house was to let;
and I had driven out—a drive of two long hours—to inspect it. Now I
stood on the doorstep and rang the bell. It was a big bell, hung in the
porch, with a pendent handle of bronze, wrought in the semblance of a
rope and tassel. Its voice would carry far on that still country air.
It carried, at any rate, as far as a low thatched farm-house, a hundred
yards down the road. Presently a man and a woman came out of the
farm-house, gazed for an instant in my direction, and then moved towards
me: an old brown man, an old grey woman, the man in corduroys, the woman
wearing a neat white cotton cap and a blue apron, both moving with the
burdened gait of peasants.
“You are Monsieur and Madame Leroux?” I asked, when we had
accomplished our preliminary good-days; and I explained that I had come
from the agent in Dieppe to look over their house. For the rest, they
must have been expecting me; the agent had said that he would let them
know.
But, to my perplexity, this business-like announcement seemed somehow
to embarrass them; even, I might have thought, to agitate, to distress
them. They lifted up their worn old faces, and eyed me anxiously. They
exchanged anxious glances with each other. The woman clasped her hands,
nervously working her fingers. The man hesitated and stammered a little,
before he was able to repeat vaguely, “You have come to look over the
house, Monsieur?”
“Surely,” I said, “the agent has written to you? I understood from
him that you would expect me at this hour to-day.”
“Oh yes,” the man admitted, “we were expecting you.” But he made
no motion to advance matters. He exchanged another anxious glance with
his wife. She gave her head a sort of helpless nod, and looked down.
“You see, Monsieur,” the man began, as if he were about to elucidate
the situation, “you see—” But then he faltered, frowning at the
air, as one at a loss for words.
“The house is already let, perhaps?” suggested I.
“No, the house is not let,” said he.
“You had better go and fetch the key,” his wife said at last, in a
dreary way, still looking down.
He trudged heavily back to the farm-house. While he was gone we stood by
the door in silence, the woman always nervously working the fingers of
her clasped hands. I tried, indeed, to make a little conversation: I
ventured something about the excellence of the site, the beauty of the
view. She replied with a murmur of assent, civilly but wearily; and I
did not feel encouraged to persist.
By-and-by her husband rejoined us, with the key; and they began silently
to lead me through the house.
There were two pretty drawing-rooms on the ground floor, a pretty
dining-room, and a delightful kitchen, with a broad hearth of polished
red bricks, a tiled chimney, and shining copper pots and pans. The
drawing-rooms and the dining-room were pleasantly furnished in a light
French fashion, and their windows opened to the sun and to the fragrance
and greenery of the garden. I expressed a good deal of admiration;
whereupon, little by little, the manner of my conductors changed.
From constrained, depressed, it became responsive; even, in the end,
effusive. They met my exclamations with smiles, my inquiries with
voluble eager answers. But it remained an agitated manner, the manner of
people who were shaken by an emotion. Their old hands trembled as they
opened the doors for me or drew up the blinds; their voices trembled.
There was something painful in their very smiles, as if these were but
momentary ripples on the surface of a trouble.
“Ah,” I said to myself, “they are hard-pressed for money. They
have put their whole capital into this house, very likely. They are
excited by the prospect of securing a tenant.”
“Now, if you please, Monsieur, we will go upstairs, and see the
bedrooms,” the old man said.
The bedrooms were airy, cheerful rooms, gaily papered, with chintz
curtains and the usual French bedroom furniture. One of them exhibited
signs of being actually lived in; there were things about it, personal
things, a woman’s things. It was the last room we visited, a front
room, looking off to the sea. There were combs and brushes on the
toilet-table; there were pens, an inkstand, and a portfolio on the
writing-desk; there were books in the bookcase. Framed photographs stood
on the mantelpiece. In the closet dresses were suspended, and shoes and
slippers were primly ranged on the floor. The bed was covered with a
counterpane of blue silk; a crucifix hung on the wall above it; beside
it there was a prie-dieu, with a little porcelain holy-water vase.
“Oh,” I exclaimed, turning to Monsieur and Madame Leroux, “this
room is occupied?”
Madame Leroux did not appear to hear me. Her eyes were fixed in a dull
stare before her, her lips were parted slightly. She looked tired, as if
she would be glad when our tour through the house was finished. Monsieur
Leroux threw his hand up towards the ceiling in an odd gesture, and
said, “No, the room is not occupied at present.”
We went back downstairs, and concluded an agreement. I was to take the
house for the summer. Madame Leroux would cook for me. Monsieur Leroux
would drive into Dieppe on Wednesday to fetch me and my luggage out.
On Wednesday we had been driving for something like half an hour without
speaking, when all at once Leroux said to me, “That room, Monsieur,
the room you thought was occupied——”
“Yes?” I questioned, as he paused.
“I have a proposition to make,” said he. He spoke, as it seemed
to me, half shyly, half doggedly, gazing the while at the ears of his
horse.
“What is it?” I asked.
“If you will leave that room as it is, with the things in it, we will
make a reduction in the rent. If you will let us keep it as it is?” he
repeated, with a curious pleading intensity. “You are alone. The house
will be big enough for you without that room, will it not, Monsieur?”
Of course, I consented at once. If they wished to keep the room as it
was, they were to do so, by all means.
“Thank you, thank you very much. My wife will be grateful to you,”
he said.
For a little while longer we drove on without speaking. Presently,
“You are our first tenant. We have never let the house before,” he
volunteered.
“Ah? Have you had it long?” I asked.
“I built it. I built it, five, six, years ago,” said he. Then, after
a pause, he added, “I built it for my daughter.”
His voice sank, as he said this. But one felt that it was only the
beginning of something he wished to say.