“You see what we are, my wife and I,” he broke out suddenly. “We
are rough people, we are peasants. But my daughter, sir”—he put his
hand on my knee, and looked earnestly into my face—“my daughter was
as fine as satin, as fine as lace.”
He turned back to his horse, and again drove for a minute or two in
silence. At last, always with his eyes on the horse’s ears, “There
was not a lady in this country finer than my daughter,” he went on,
speaking rapidly, in a thick voice, almost as if to himself. “She was
beautiful, she had the sweetest character, she had the best education.
She was educated at the convent, in Rouen, at the Sacré Cour. Six
years—from twelve to eighteen—she studied at the convent. She knew
English, sir—your language. She took prizes for history. And the
piano! Nobody living can touch the piano as my daughter could. Well,”
he demanded abruptly, with a kind of fierceness, “was a rough
farm-house good enough for her?” He answered his own question. “No,
Monsieur. You would not soil fine lace by putting it in a dirty box. My
daughter was finer than lace. Her hands were softer than Lyons velvet.
And oh,” he cried, “the sweet smell they had, her hands! It was good
to smell her hands. I used to kiss them and smell them, as you would
smell a rose.” His voice died away at the reminiscence, and there was
another interval of silence. By-and-by he began again, “I had plenty
of money. I was the richest farmer of this neighbourhood. I sent to
Rouen for the best architect they have there. Monsieur Clermont, the
best architect of Rouen, laureate of the Fine Arts School of Paris, he
built that house for my daughter; he built it and furnished it, to make
it fit for a countess, so that when she came home for good from the
convent she should have a home worthy of her. Look at this, Monsieur.
Would the grandest palace in the world be too good for her?”
He had drawn a worn red leather case from his pocket, and taken out a
small photograph, which he handed to me. It was the portrait of a girl,
a delicate-looking girl, of about seventeen. Her face was pretty, with
the irregular prettiness not uncommon in France, and very sweet and
gentle. The old man almost held his breath while I was examining the
photograph. “Est-elle gentille? Est-elle belle, Monsieur?” he
besought me, with a very hunger for sympathy, as I returned it. One
answered, of course, what one could, as best one could. He, with shaking
fingers, replaced the photograph in its case. “Here, Monsieur,” he
said, extracting from an opposite compartment a little white card. It
was the usual French memorial of mourning: an engraving of the Cross and
Dove, under which was printed: “Eulalie-Joséphine-Marie Leroux. Born
the 16th May, 1874. Died the 12th August, 1892. Pray for her.”
“The good God knows what He does. I built that house for my daughter,
and when it was built the good God took her away. We were mad with
grief, my wife and I; but that could not save her. Perhaps we are still
mad with grief,” the poor old man said simply. “We can think of
nothing else. We never wish to speak of anything else. We could not live
in the house—her house, without her. We never thought to let it. I
built that house for my daughter, I furnished it for her, and when it
was ready for her—she died. Was it not hard, Monsieur? How could I let
the house to strangers? But lately I have had losses. I am compelled
to let it, to pay my debts. I would not let it to everybody. You are an
Englishman. Well, if I did not like you, I would not let it to you for
a million English pounds. But I am glad I have let it to you. You will
respect her memory. And you will allow us to keep that room—her room.
We shall be able to keep it as it was, with her things in it. Yes, that
room which you thought was occupied—that was my daughter’s room.”
Madame Leroux was waiting for us in the garden of the chalet. She looked
anxiously up at her husband as we arrived. He nodded his head, and
called out, “It is all right. Monsieur agrees.”
The old woman took my hands, wringing them hysterically almost. “Ah,
Monsieur, you are very good,” she said. She raised her eyes to mine.
But I could not look into her eyes. There was a sorrow in them, an
awfulness, a sacredness of sorrow, which, I felt, it would be like
sacrilege for me to look at.
We became good friends, the Leroux and I, during the three months I
passed as their tenant. Madame, indeed, did for me and looked after me
with a zeal that was almost maternal. Both of them, as the old man had
said, loved above all things to talk of their daughter, and I hope I was
never loth to listen. Their passion, their grief, their constant thought
of her, appealed to one as very beautiful, as well as very touching. And
something like a pale spirit of the girl seemed gently, sweetly, always
to be present in the house, the house that Love had built for her, not
guessing that Death would come, as soon as it was finished, and call
her away. “Oh, but it is a joy, Monsieur, that you have left us her
room,” the old couple were never tired of repeating. One day Madame
took me up into the room, and showed me Eulalie’s pretty dresses,
her trinkets, her books, the handsomely bound books that she had won
as prizes at the convent. And on another day she showed me some of
Eulalie’s letters, asking me if she hadn’t a beautiful hand-writing,
if the letters were not beautifully expressed. She showed me photographs
of the girl at all ages; a lock of her hair; her baby clothes;
the priest’s certificate of her first communion; the bishop’s
certificate of her confirmation. And she showed me letters from the good
sisters of the Sacred Heart, at Rouen, telling of Eulalie’s progress
in her studies, praising her conduct and her character. “Oh, to think
that she is gone, that she is gone!” the old woman wailed, in a kind
of helpless incomprehension, incredulity, of loss. Then, in a moment,
she murmured, with what submissiveness she could, “Le bon Dieu sait ce
qu’il fait,” crossing herself.
On the 12th of August, the anniversary of her death, I went with them to
the parish church, where a mass was said for the repose of Eulalie’s
soul. And the kind old curé afterwards came round, and pressed their
hands, and spoke words of comfort to them.
In September I left them, returning to Dieppe. One afternoon I chanced
to meet that same old curé in the high street there. We stopped and
spoke together—naturally, of the Leroux, of what excellent people they
were, of how they grieved for their daughter. “Their love was more
than love. They adored the child, they idolised her. I have never
witnessed such affection,” the curé told me. “When she died, I
seriously feared they would lose their reason. They were dazed, they
were beside themselves; for a long while they were quite as if mad. But
God is merciful. They have learned to live with their affliction.”
“It is very beautiful,” said I, “the way they have sanctified
her memory, the way they worship it. You know, of course, they keep her
room, with her things in it, exactly as she left it. That seems to me
very beautiful.”
“Her room?” questioned the curé, looking vague. “What room?”
“Oh, didn’t you know?” I wondered. “Her bedroom in the chalet.
They keep it as she left it, with all her things about, her books, her
dresses.”
“I don’t think I follow you,” the curé said. “She never had a
bedroom in the chalet.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. One of the front rooms on the first floor was
her room,” I informed him.
But he shook his head. “There is some mistake. She never lived in the
chalet. She died in the old house. The chalet was only just finished
when she died. The workmen were hardly out of it.”
“No,” I said, “it is you who must be mistaken; you must forget.
I am quite sure. The Leroux have spoken of it to me times without
number.”
“But, my dear sir,” the curé insisted, “I am not merely sure; I
know. I attended the girl in her last agony. She died in the farm-house.
They had not moved into the chalet. The chalet was being furnished. The
last pieces of furniture were taken in the very day before her death.
The chalet was never lived in. You are the only person who has ever
lived in the chalet. I assure you of the fact.”
“Well,” I said, “that is very strange, that is very strange
indeed.” And for a minute I was bewildered, I did not know what to
think. But only for a minute. Suddenly I cried out, “Oh, I see—I
see. I understand.”
I saw, I understood. Suddenly I saw the pious, the beautiful deception
that these poor stricken souls had sought to practise on themselves; the
beautiful, the fond illusion they had created for themselves. They had
built the house for their daughter, and she had died just when it was
ready for her. But they could not bear—they could not bear—to think
that not for one little week even, not even for one poor little day
or hour, had she lived in the house, enjoyed the house. That was the
uttermost farthing of their sorrow, which they could not pay. They
could not acknowledge it to their own stricken hearts. So, piously,
reverently—with closed eyes as it were, that they might not know what
they were doing—they had carried the dead girl’s things to the room
they had meant for her, they had arranged them there, they had said,
“This was her room; this was her room.” They would not admit to
themselves, they would not let themselves stop to think, that she had
never, even for one poor night, slept in it, enjoyed it. They told a
beautiful pious falsehood to themselves. It was a beautiful pious game
of “make-believe,” which, like children, they could play together.
And—the curé had said it: God is merciful. In the end they had been
enabled to confuse their beautiful falsehood with reality, and to
find comfort in it; they had been enabled to forget that their
“make-believe” was a “make-believe,” and to mistake it for a
beautiful comforting truth. The uttermost farthing of their sorrow,
which they could not pay, was not exacted. They were suffered to keep
it; and it became their treasure, precious to them as fine gold.
Falsehood—truth? Nay, I think there are illusions that are not
falsehoods—that are Truth’s own smiles of pity for us.