'You don't wish me to go on reading any more, I suppose, Maman,' she said, her voice dead, expressionless. I knew from what the servant had told me that she was the Mademoiselle Blanche in whose bedroom I had just trespassed, and guessed that she must therefore be an elder sister to my masquerading self. The countess turned to the cure.
'Since Jean has come home, Monsieur le cure,' she said, her voice altered from the chuckle in my ear when she embraced me to one of courtesy and respect, 'would you think it very rude of me if I asked to be excused this evening from our usual little session? He will have so much to tell me.'
'Naturally, Madame la Comtesse,' said the cure, the smile and the nodding head giving him so great an appearance of benevolent acquiescence that surely a refusal or a denial, coming from his lips, would never bring conviction. 'I know very well how much you have missed him, even for so short a time, and it must be a great relief for you to have him back again. I hope,' he went on, turning to me, 'all went well for you in Paris? They tell me the traffic nowadays is quite impossible, and that it takes an hour to get to Notre-Dame from la Concorde. I should not care for it at all, but that does not worry you young people.'
'It depends,' I said, 'whether one is in Paris for business or for pleasure.' To engage him in conversation meant safety. I did not want to be left trapped with my supposed mother, who surely, instinctively, would know that something was amiss.
'That is true,' said the cure, 'and I expect for you it was a little of both. Well, I won't keep you any longer ...'And without warning he slipped from his chair on to his knees, closed his eyes, folded his hands and began to pray with great rapidity, followed by Mademoiselle Blanche, while the mother, clasping her hands likewise, bowed her massive head upon her chest. I knelt also, shielding my eyes with my hands, and the two fox-terriers came sniffing and pawing at my pockets. I glanced out of the corner of my eye and saw that the servant who had brought me to the room was also kneeling, eyes fast shut, echoing in sing-song fashion the responses to the cure's prayers. He came to the end of his intercession, and, lifting his hands, made the sign of the Cross upon us all and scrambled to his feet.
'Bonsoir, Madame la Comtesse, bonsoir, Monsieur le Comte, bonsoir, Mademoiselle Blanche, bonsoir, Charlotte,' he said, bowing and nodding in turn, his pink face wreathed in smiles. There was a little commotion by the door as he and the daughter of the house each held back for the other, neither yielding in courtesy, until finally the cure passed first, closely followed by Mademoiselle Blanche, head bent low like an acolyte.
The servant Charlotte began mixing something from a bottle in the corner of the room, and as she came towards us with a medicine glass she said, 'Monsieur le Comte will have a tray up here as well?'
'Naturally, idiot,' said the comtesse, 'and I'm not going to take any of that stuff. Throw it away. Go and fetch the trays. Get out!' Impatiently she gestured with her hand to the door, the flesh on her face puckering to annoyance. 'Come here, come close,' she said, beckoning me to sit beside her, while the two fox-terriers leapt upon her lap and settled there. 'Well now, did you do it, did you settle with Carvalet?'
It was the first direct question put to me since I had come to the chateau which I could not evade with some jest or careless remark.
I swallowed. 'Did I do what?' I asked.
'Renew the contract,' she said.
Jean de Gue had gone to Paris, then, on business. I remembered there had been envelopes and folders in the writing-case in the valise. His friend outside the station had suggested the visit was wasted. The matter was evidently important, and the expression in her eyes brought back to me once again those words of Jean de Gue about human greed. 'Minister to it ... give people what they want ...' This being his creed, doubtless he would satisfy his mother now. 'Don't worry,' I told her, 'everything is arranged.'
'Ah!' She gave a little grunt of satisfaction. 'You actually came to terms with them after all?'
'I did.'
'Paul is such a fool,' she said, relaxing in her chair, 'always grumbling, always looking upon the worst. Anyone would think we were completely ruined from the way he talks, and obliged to close down tomorrow. You have seen him already?'
'He was just going out,' I said, 'when I arrived home.'
'But you told him your news?'
'No. No, there wasn't time.'
'I should have thought he would have waited long enough to hear that at least,' she said. 'What's the matter with you? You look ill.'
'I drank too much in Le Mans.'
'In Le Mans? Why drink in Le Mans? Couldn't you have stayed in Paris if you wanted to celebrate?'
'I did the same in Paris.'
'Ah ...!' This time the exclamation was not a grunt, but a sigh of sympathy. 'Poor boy,' she said. 'It's difficult for you, isn't it? You should have stayed longer for your fun. Come, kiss me again.' She pulled me to her, and once more I was buried in the massive folds of her flesh. 'You amused yourself well, I hope,' she murmured. 'Did you, did you?'
The insinuation in her voice was unmistakable. Instead of being repelled I found myself amused, intrigued even, that this great creature, with her monstrous likeness to myself, who had just been praying with the cure, should wish to share the secrets of her son.
'Naturally I amused myself, Maman,' I said, realizing, as I drew away from her, that I had called her maman without effort. Oddly, this shocked me more than anything that she herself had said.
'Then you brought me the little present you promised?' Her eyes went small, her body stiff with expectation. The atmosphere suddenly became taut and strange. I did not know how to answer her.
'Did I promise you a present?' I asked.
Her great mouth sagged. Her eyes pleaded with a tense, frightened look I would not have believed possible a moment ago.
'You didn't forget?' she said.
I was spared the impossibility of replying by the reappearance of Blanche. A change of expression came like a mask over the mother's face. She bent to the terriers on her lap and began to pet them. 'There, there, Jou-Jou, stop biting your tail, will you, and behave. Give him some room, Fifi, you take up the whole of my lap. Here, go to your uncle.' She forced the dog, which I did not want, into my hands, and it wriggled and squirmed until it was free, and then ran and hid under her chair. 'What is the matter with Fifi?' she said, astonished. 'She has never run away from you before. Has she gone mad?'
'Let her alone,' I said. 'She smells the train on me.'
The animal was not deceived. The point was interesting. In what did my physical difference from Jean de Gue lie? His mother had sunk back in her chair, and was staring morosely at her daughter. Blanche stood stiff and straight, her hands resting on the back of a chair, her eyes fixed upon her mother.
'Am I to understand there will be two trays here for dinner?' she asked.
'Yes,' rapped the mother. 'It is more amusing for Jean to dine upstairs with me.'
'Don't you think you have had enough excitement as it is?'
'I am not excited. I am perfectly calm, as you can see for yourself. You only say that because you want to spoil our fun.'
'I don't wish to spoil anything. I'm thinking of your good. If you become too excited you won't sleep, and then you will have one of your bad days tomorrow.'
'I shall have a worse day, and a worse night, if Jean does not stay with me now.'
'Very well.' The acceptance was calm, the matter shelved. The daughter proceeded to tidy books and papers about the room, and I was struck by the complete tonelessness and absence of emotion in her voice, and by the fact that she never looked in my direction. I might not have been there, for all the notice that she took of me. I guessed her age to be about forty-two or three, yet she could have been older or younger. The cross and chain which she wore over the dark jumper and skirt were her only concession to adornment. She brought a table beside her mother's chair in preparation for dinner.
'Has Charlotte given you your medicine?' she asked.
'Ye
s,' replied her mother.
The daughter sat down some distance from the roaring stove and took up knitting from a table. I could see a missal on the table, leather-bound prayer-books, and a Bible.
'Why don't you leave us?' said her mother in sudden savagery.
'I am waiting until Charlotte brings the trays,' was the reply.
The passage of words between them had the immediate effect of making me a partisan of the mother. Why, I could not tell. Her manner was deplorable, and yet I found her sympathetic and the daughter the reverse. I wondered if I was drawn to the mother merely because of her likeness to myself.
'Marie-Noel has been seeing visions again,' said the comtesse.
Marie-Noel ... Someone below had talked of Marie-Noel having a fever. Was she another religious sister? I felt some comment was required of me.
'It's probably due to her fever,' I said.
'She hasn't a fever. There's nothing wrong with her,' said the comtesse. 'She likes everyone to notice her, that's all. What did you say to her before you went to Paris that upset her?'
'I didn't say anything,' I answered.
'You must have done. She kept telling Francoise and Renee that you were not coming back. It was not only you who told her, but the Sainte Vierge as well. Isn't that so, Blanche?'
I glanced at the uncommunicative sister. She raised her pale eyes from the clicking needles, but to her mother, not to me.
'If Marie-Noel has visions,' she said, 'and I for one believe her, then it is time that somebody in this house took them seriously. I have said so for a long time. The cure agrees with me.'
'Nonsense,' retorted the mother. 'I was speaking to the cure about it this evening. He says it is a very common thing, especially among the poor. Marie-Noel has probably got ideas from Germaine. I will ask Charlotte. Charlotte knows everything.'
No emotion showed itself on Blanche's face, but I saw her lips tighten. 'We have to remember that the cure is getting old,' she said. 'He becomes forgetful when too many people talk to him at once. If these visions continue, I shall write to the bishop. He will know the best thing to advise, and I am very sure what his advice will be.'
'What then?' asked her mother.
'That Marie-Noel should live amongst people where she cannot possibly be corrupted,' came the answer, 'and where she can offer her gifts to the greater glory of God.'
I expected an outburst from the comtesse, but instead she patted the dog on her knee, and fumbling at her side for a paper packet took a chocolate-coated sweet and thrust it between the dog's teeth.
'There,' she said, 'it's good, isn't it? Where's Fifi? Fifi, do you want one too?'The other terrier scrambled from under the chair and leapt on to her lap, nosing at the paper-bag. 'You are a fool, Blanche,' she continued. 'If we are to have a saint in the family, let us keep her at home. There are possibilities in the idea. We might turn St Gilles into a place of pilgrimage. Naturally, it would have to be done with the approval of the bishop and the Church, but it would be worth considering. Money might be found at last to repair the roof of the church. The Beaux-Arts will never do anything.'
'Marie-Noel's soul is of greater importance than the roof of the church,' said Blanche. 'If I had my way she would leave the chateau tomorrow.'
'You're jealous, that's your trouble,' said her mother, 'jealous of her pretty face and her big eyes. One of these days Marie-Noel won't bother about visions any more - she'll want a husband.' She dug her elbow in my side. I was not surprised that her daughter made no answer. 'Isn't that so, Jean?' the mother persisted.
'Probably,' I said.
'Pray God I live long enough to see the wedding. He'll have to be rich ...'
Charlotte came in with a tray, closely followed by a little red-cheeked femme de chambre of about eighteen, who at sight of me blushed and giggled and said, 'Bonsoir, Monsieur le Comte.' I wished her good evening, and she arranged a tray for me on another table. Blanche rose to her feet and put aside her knitting.
'Do you want to see Francoise or Renee before you settle for the night?' she asked.
'No,' replied her mother. 'I saw them both for tea. I shall sleep well tonight, now that Jean is home, and I don't want to be bothered by anyone else, least of all by you.'
Blanche crossed to her chair and kissed her mother, bidding her good night. Then she left the room, without having once spoken to me or looked at me. I wondered what Jean de Gue had done to offend her. I uncovered the bowl of soup on the tray beside me. It smelt good and I was hungry. The little femme de chambre, whom Charlotte addressed as Germaine, followed Blanche from the room, but Charlotte still hovered in the background, watching us eat.
Curiosity made me venture a question to the mother. 'What was the matter with Blanche?' I asked.
'Nothing particular,' she answered. 'If anything, she's irritated me less than usual. Did you notice, she didn't jump on me when I said that having a saint in the family opened up possibilities?'
'She was shocked, wasn't she?' I asked.
'Shocked? You mean delighted. You watch - she'll work on the idea. If Marie-Noel seeing visions could bring some reflected glory to herself and to St Gilles, no one would be better pleased than Blanche. She'd have something to live for. Charlotte, are you there? Take this away, I've had enough. And give Monsieur Jean his wine. Why don't you tell me more about Paris? You have told me nothing yet.'
I searched my imagination. I had not been to Paris during my past holiday, and what I knew and loved of it was too full of museums and historical buildings for her ear. I talked of eating, which she understood, and the expense, which pleased her even better, and with sudden inspiration invented visits to the theatre, a meeting with war-time friends - she even supplied their names for me, which helped. By the time we had finished eating - and we had eaten well - and the trays had been removed, I felt more at my ease with her than I had ever done with anyone in my life. The reason for this was simple: there was no reserve on her part. She accepted me, believed me, loved me, trusted me; I held a position that had never been mine before. Had she encountered me as a stranger we should have had nothing to say to one another. As her son I risked no disapproval in anything I said. I laughed, I joked, I chatted, and the unaccustomed ease was a delight to me - until suddenly, when Charlotte had left the room, and she said to me, 'Jean, you didn't really forget my little present, did you? You were joking.'
Once again the sagging mouth, the pleading eyes. The change in her was startling. Gone was the wicked humour, the twinkle in the eye, the rollicking impression of warmth and savagery combined. She had changed into a pitiable, trembling creature, hands clawing at mine. I did not know what to do or what to say. I rose and went to the door and called, 'Charlotte, are you there?' The terriers, wakened by my voice, jumped from her knee to the ground and barked furiously.
Charlotte came quickly from some room nearby, and I said, 'Madame le Comtesse is unwell. You had better go to her.' She looked at me and asked, 'Haven't you brought it?' 'Brought what?' I asked, and the woman stared at me, eyes narrowing. 'You know, Monsieur le Comte, what you promised to bring from Paris.'
I tried to think of the contents of the valise, and remembered the packages that looked like presents. What they were I did not know, nor where the things had been unpacked.
Charlotte said to me swiftly, 'Go and find it at once, Monsieur le Comte. She will suffer if you don't.'
I went down the corridor and the first flight of stairs, and then hesitated again, not knowing which way to turn. I heard bath water running from some room to the left of the first-floor corridor, and I went along it, uncertain, until I saw a half-open door next to the one which must be a bathroom. I paused in the doorway, but there was someone moving inside it, so I went on again past the bathroom to the room beyond. The door was wide open and the room empty. I threw a quick glance round it, and to my relief I had struck lucky. It was a small dressing-room, and I recognized the brushes on the table and a dressing-gown thrown over one of the chairs. Someone had
unpacked for me and the two valises had been removed, but there on the table were the packages I had seen in one of the valises, neatly piled alongside each other like presents on a Christmas tree. I remembered how there had been notes thrust through the string of each one, which had conveyed nothing when I looked at them in the hotel room, but now they made sense, with F, and R, and B, and P, and M-N, and, thank God, here was one addressed to 'Maman', with no fancy wrapping but in strong brown paper, sealed. I took it and went out of the room, and up the stairs again.
Charlotte was waiting for me at the head of the stairs. 'Have you got it?' she said.
'Yes,' I answered. 'Does she want me to give it to her?'
She stared at me and answered, 'No, no ...' as though shocked, outraged even. Taking the package from me, she said, 'Good night, Monsieur le Comte.' Then she walked quickly away along the corridor.
The dismissal must mean that I was not needed any more, and I went slowly down again to the dressing-room, wondering what to make of the abrupt end to the evening. It must have been some sort of seizure, some mental disturbance, understood by the femme de chambre and Jean de Gue but not necessarily by the rest of the family. I hoped that whatever was in the package from Paris would bring relief. She had seemed so sane, so perfectly in control, apart from temper. She had not given me the impression of someone mentally sick.
I went and stood in the dressing-room, suddenly tired and depressed. I could not forget the change in the mother's face. As I stood there, wondering what to do, I heard a voice calling to me from the bathroom, 'Have you said good night to Maman?'
I recognized it as the voice of Francoise, the fair, faded woman, and I noticed for the first time that leading into the bathroom was a door which had been screened from me by a large wardrobe. She must have heard me come into the dressing-room. A new thought struck me. There was no bed in the dressing-room. Where did Jean de Gue sleep?
'Are you there, Jean?' the voice called again. 'I thought you might want a bath, so I ran the water for you.' The voice sounded more distant now, as though she had passed into the further room.