“My dear Gilberte,
“Guillaume and I are going for a stroll in the Forest of Andaine. It is such a fine evening: do come with us.”
Should she go? To do so meant a break in sweet custom that had lent such charm to the most oppressive hours of her life, meant throwing over the constant friendship of the bad days.
She wavered and, wavering, went up to her room, put on her things, went out and knocked at the La Vaudrayes’ door.
Whatever regrets may have lingered in her conscientious mind were very soon dispelled by the pleasure which the walk gave her from the start. Spring was trying her hand, at the tips of the branches, with tiny pale-green leaves and, along the roadsides and ditches, with those charming early flowers which are so dear to us: anemones, periwinkles, primroses, wild hyacinths, lilies of the valley.... Arched lanes sped into the depths of the woods. Sweet scents, songs and colours played and mingled in all the gladness of new-born nature.
They walked without speaking. Sometimes, Guillaume and Gilberte would point out to each other, with a glance, a corner of the landscape, or the outline of a tree, or the glint of a ray of sunshine, both wishing the other to share their delight and admiration.
They sat down on the edge of a pool whose waters slumbered amidst a circle of old pines that joined their arms around them as though to dance a moveless measure. It was one of those abodes of silence that open only in the hearts of old forests. Those who are brought there by chance and who grasp the fitness of things are themselves silent.
Mme. de la Vaudraye exclaimed:
“On the first fine Sunday, we must make up a party and come here. It is a lovely spot for a picnic. What do you say?”
They did not reply. She continued:
“Every one will bring his own provisions. Of course, Mme. Charmeron will make her famous spiced beef and Mlle. du Bocage her prune-tart. And, at dessert, everybody must come out with a set of verses!”
Guillaume hurled a pebble violently into the mirror of the water.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye.
He sprang up and confronted her, angrily, impatiently, with tense wrists. But, as he was about to speak, he met Gilberte’s eyes, sad and full of entreaty. He seemed quite dazed, his lips trembled and suddenly he took Mme. de la Vaudraye in his arms and began to kiss her with all his might, with all his fervent soul. And he blurted out:
“It’s quite right ... you’re my mother ... you’re my mother ... you’re entitled to say what you please.... What you say is right.... It’s my business to understand.... Oh, mother, if you only knew ...!”
Gilberte did not go to the summer-house again. A feeling of delicacy kept her away. Nevertheless, each day, at the accustomed hour, something like a light cloud passed over her mind; and she was not far from accusing herself of ingratitude.
What was but a vague remorse towards a friend whom she had never known took a more definite shape, in another sense, with regard to him whom she now saw almost daily. She would so much have liked to offer him a brand-new friendship and to feel the excitement of it for the first time! True, there was no struggle between two sentiments, since one was so far-off and vague, the other so vivid and distinct. And yet....
There are childish conflicts which would not even ripple the most scrupulous soul, but which form the mighty storms of peaceful and innocent consciences such as Gilberte’s.
But all this took place deep down within herself, unconsciously, so to speak, and could not diminish her magical delight in living. For magic it was, something that approached a miracle, when she compared the gloom of the past with the dazzling life of the present. Whence did she derive the joy with which she thrilled at her awakening; the enthusiasm that swept her at the sight of a flower, of a landscape, of any spectacle a hundred times witnessed and never fully seen; that exaltation of thought, those sudden blushes, that inexplicable torpor of her whole being and, at the same time, that unchangeable serenity which doubled the uncertainty of her life with strength, faith, patience and certainty?
There was no allusion to the incident in the Forest of Andaine. But, from that time onward, Mme. de la Vaudraye looked upon her son in a different fashion; and, in the same way, in her conduct towards Gilberte, there was something that had hitherto been lacking: a touch of respect.
Guillaume said to Gilberte:
“You are a regular fairy, no, more than a fairy, for you exercise your power without knowing or trying. To do good, to disarm hatred, to heal wounds, to make others want to be indulgent and kind, you have no need even to wish. You have only to be as you are; and everything around you grows nobler and better.”
She listened and smiled. From him she accepted praise without blushing. He could have praised her beauty and enumerated all her charms without causing her to lower her eyes. He could not wound her maidenly modesty.
One morning, following upon a day when Gilberte had not been to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, Adèle came back from the town all out of breath:
“Oh, ma’am, here’s a nice to do! Yesterday, at Mme. de la Vaudraye’s evening, young M. Simare....”
“I thought he was away,” said Gilberte, interrupting her.
“He is back; and, last evening, he and M. Guillaume, during the duet from Mireille, had some words in a corner ... they were heard quarrelling.... It seems that the elder M. Simare told a story that wasn’t quite proper and M. Guillaume went for the son about it.”
“Oh, it’s all my fault!” said Gilberte to herself, feeling certain that Guillaume had taken the first opportunity to bring about a rupture.
And she asked:
“Is that all?”
“Yes. Mme. Duval saw two officers ringing at the Simares’ house just now and she says that M. Guillaume has ordered the landau from the hotel for presently ... but that has nothing to do with it.”
Though she did not foresee the possible consequences of an altercation between the two young men, Gilberte was convinced that no interference on her part would settle things, as it had done with M. le Hourteulx and M. Beaufrelant. Guillaume would not consent to have M. Simare admitted to the house again. The father would side with his son. Mme. de la Vaudraye would be furious at losing two of her regular visitors. In short, it meant a whole series of bothers and quarrels, of which Gilberte would have been the real cause.
She was very low-spirited at lunch. A presentiment of danger depressed her, but she could not have said of what sort it was nor whom it threatened.
Her suffering must have been genuine to induce her to rise suddenly, go out and turn her steps towards the La Vaudrayes’ house. But what she was doing must also have seemed to her very useless and very serious to make her stop suddenly, with frightened hesitation. How was she to act? Whom was she to influence? What events was she to avert?
The church was near and she went in. But she was unable to pray; and her anxiety became all the more painful inasmuch as she did not know its reason. Then, rather than return to the Logis, where inactivity would have been intolerable, she went along the high-road to the bottom of the valley, followed the Varenne for a short distance and then climbed up towards the Haute-Chapelle.
At three o’clock, feeling a little tired, she made for the shade on the skirt of a little wood and sat down. She had hardly left the road when the hotel landau passed and turned down the forest-lane. Was Guillaume in it?
A sound of harness-bells, the crack of a whip told her that another carriage was on its way. A break came dashing along, carrying Simare and a couple of officers, and disappeared down the same lane.
For a second, Gilberte stood breathless at a horrible thought. She would not, no, she would not have it! Then, suddenly, she began to run at full speed. A cross-roads brought her to a stop forthwith. Which of the three roads should she take?
She chose the one on the right, but, after running fifty yards, went back to the middle one and then to the one on the left. After that, she roamed at random, beating the copses, hunting on the grass for the marks of carriage-wheels, flinging herself among the ferns, listening and looking with all her nerves on edge....
A shot ... and a second, at almost the same moment ... close by....
She gave a scream and fell to the ground.
A few minutes passed. As though in a dream, she saw, through the branches, the two carriages driving by. Then voices sounded:
“I assure you, doctor, I am not mistaken. It was a woman screaming.”
She had not the strength to raise her eyelids or speak; but she felt that two men were coming towards her. One of them bent over her and took her hand:
“It’s nothing. She has only fainted.”
“In that case, doctor, don’t wait,” said the other voice. “I will see her home.”
The mist in which she was struggling lifted slowly. She perceived the smell of the earth on which she lay. She made an effort to throw off the feeling of sleep that numbed her and she opened her eyes. Guillaume was standing before her.
“You, you?” she whispered. “Oh, how glad I am! And M. Simare?”
“He’s not hurt either.”
“That’s a good thing.”
There was a pause; and then she asked:
“Why did you do it? It was not right.”
“I lost my head, when he spoke to me last night, and I yielded to an irresistible impulse of hatred. I did not know what I was doing.”
“But your mother?”
“I have managed to hide the truth from her so far. One of my seconds said that he would tell her.”
“Go to her, run as fast as you can.... She will be so anxious until she sees you.... Go at once....”
“No.”
He was so firm that she despaired of persuading him. And yet she wanted him to go. Then she looked at him and smiled:
“To please me,” she said.
“Very well,” he said, “but you must come too.”
She at once summoned her pluck and rose to her feet; and, when she expressed her wish to get back without delay he led her through the short cuts where there was hardly room to walk side by side. But their pace slackened at once; and they stopped three times to rest on the road. Gilberte no longer displayed any hurry. What did they say? Nothing but insignificant words, which they did not remember afterwards. Nevertheless, when uttering them, they felt that they had never been interested in weightier matters. What importance could suddenly have attached, in the course of a walk, to the sight of two initials interlaced on the bark of a tree, or to the flight of a bird, or to a stone rolling down a slope! Whereas, to them, these were so many astounding incidents that deserved a stop and the interchange of a few ecstatic words.
A contest between some insect and a squad of five ants that were trying to drag it away kept them for quite a long time. Who would be the victor? Gilberte took pity on the insect and saved it when it was on the point of falling in the fray. Guillaume exclaimed, in accents of profound conviction:
“You are the most generous-hearted creature I have ever met.”
Guillaume compared the moss at the foot of an oak to velvet; and Gilberte became aware that all the poetry in the world was summed up in her companion.
Having exhausted their original reflexions, their brilliant remarks and their mutual admiration, they were silent until they emerged from the wood. A lane of apple-trees led them past furze and rocks. At the foot of the slope ran the Varenne. After they had taken a turn, Gilberte cried:
“Look, that might be my garden, on the other side.... Why, so it is!... There’s the Logis.... Where are we?”
She walked on. They came to a cluster of small fir-trees. When they had passed them, they were just opposite the ruined summer-house, with only the width of the valley in between.
Gilberte gave a start. That spur of the hill, that circle of red rocks surrounding it, that cluster of firs: was this not the spot where the unknown stranger, for months ...?
A flood of contradictory feelings welled up within her: feelings of gratitude towards the invisible friend, feelings of confusion towards the actual friend, memories of the dear past and visions of the present. How she wished that she had not come to this place with Guillaume! She felt inclined to exclaim:
“Go away! Go away!”
But, on turning her head, she was stupefied at the sight of his pallor and the change in his face:
“What’s the matter? Why don’t you say something? Speak to me!”
She broke off. A sudden thought struck her, an improbable, but madly delightful idea. She fixed her eyes on his, looked down into his very soul; and the truth appeared to her so clearly that, leaning against the side of the rock, she gasped:
“It was you all the time!... It was you!...”
Not for a moment did the shadow of a fear that she was mistaken, cross her. Holding her head between her hands and closing her eyes, she took refuge in her happiness as in an inaccessible dwelling from which not even he could have driven her.
He was speaking now, kneeling before her; and it seemed to Gilberte as though two voices were joined in that one voice of entreaty, as though the unknown friend were joining his prayer to Guillaume’s, blending his image with Guillaume’s, mingling with him and beseeching her with the same hands, adoring her with the same heart:
“Gilberte, it was the day on which you arrived at Domfront, You were in the public gardens, near the ruins, and I saw you raise your mourning-veil. Since that day, my life has been wrapped up in yours. When you went over the Logis with my mother, I was there, hiding behind a curtain. You stopped close by me, I was able to take you in my eyes, to lock you in my breast like a treasure; I heard your voice, I breathed your fragrance and I lived on that memory for weeks, seeking you, calling you, hovering round the Logis, hoping for a chance meeting. Oh, the delight of it when I saw you from here, one afternoon, and when you came back next day and every day, every day! I was not sure, but it appeared to me that you saw me ... and then ... that it was just a little because of me that you came back.”
“I saw you, yes, I saw you,” said Gilberte, without removing her clasped hands from her face.
He asked:
“Are you crying?”
“I am so happy!”
“Happy?”
“Yes, happy because it was you.”
“Gilberte,” he begged, “I would give worlds to see your tears.”
She showed her dear face all wet with tears, all smiling with tears. He whispered:
“I love you.”
She seemed surprised and repeated, gravely:
“You love me ... you love me....”
He watched her anxiously. But the bright features lit up anew and she said to Guillaume, gaily and blithely, as though she had made the most wonderful and unexpected of discoveries:
“But, you know, Guillaume, I love you too.”
She had the look of a delighted child. She could have clapped her hands, so great was the enchantment of that magnificent vision of love, so sweet was it to know that she loved and was loved.
She leant over to him prettily:
“Then you are the one I was loving all the time and it is you that I love, Guillaume?”
“Gilberte ... please....”
“What do you want? Tell me what you want, Guillaume.”
“Your eyes, Gilberte, to kiss your innocent eyes, your eyes which are like the eyes of a little girl.”
Closing the lids, she offered her eyes, as though it were a quite natural thing. He took her in his arms and drew her to him. But a shiver passed through her at once. She made an instinctive movement of resistance and moaned:
“No ... no ... oh, please don’t!...”
She was not laughing now. A blush covered her cheeks and forehead. She no longer dared look at him; and Guillaume’s eyes almost hurt her. This time, it was the real, perturbing, mysterious revelation of love. Shaken with emotion, she faltered:
“Go away ... please go away....”
He kissed the hem of her skirt, picked some leaves, some blades of grass that Gilberte’s feet had trodden and went away.
“Gilberte:
“I must not see you again. When you read these lines, I shall have left Domfront. You are rich and I am poor: you need look for no other explanation of my departure and of my conduct in the past. I loved you from the first; and from the first I swore that I would shun you and for ever conceal the feeling with which you inspire me.
“Do you now understand why I behaved so coldly to you from the beginning, though my heart throbbed at the mere sound of your voice; why I was so hard to my mother, whose plans were obvious to all and drove me to exasperation: I was afraid lest you should think that I was privy to them; why I kept in the background, hiding among those rocks, looking at you from a distance as at a goal which I knew was, and wished it to be, inaccessible?
“But you came to me, Gilberte: that is all my excuse. You came to me out of kindness to my mother, perhaps also prompted by that instinct which makes us conscious of love where it lies deepest. What could I do against your fascination? I did not even struggle. I closed my eyes to all that was not you, you and your beauty and your smile and your charming grace and the colour of your hair and the freshness of your cheeks and the rhythm of your footsteps; and, with not a further thought of my oath or the inevitable consequences of my weakness, I accepted the infinite joy that came to me. Oh, Gilberte, those few weeks!... But there was something which I had never imagined in my boldest dreams: you loved me, you also loved me.
“You love me, which means that happiness is within my reach to-morrow, the next day, every day. It is there, I have but to take it; a word from me and you are my wife. For I know you, my beloved: the gift of your heart is the gift of your entire life.
“And so I must go, if I would not be overcome by temptation....
“Oh, Gilberte, you do not know what I am feeling and suffering, you who do not know what you are, you who are all that is most human and most divine, most noble and most simple, a miracle of harmony, attractiveness and light. But you know nothing of yourself and will never know anything. One could tell you and your mirror could teach you all the perfections of your face and form; and yet you would not know them. Were you a child of ten, wearing the white frock of your first communion, I should proclaim my admiration with the same frankness and with no greater fear of hurting your modesty. The whole world might be at your feet, chanting your praises; and you would be none the less humble. That is the marvel of your ingenuous nature. All is merged in your purity, as in a great, limpid sea in which every impurity would vanish. It is impossible to think of you without evoking images of whiteness, of transparency, of crystal water. By what mystery has it come that the trials of life, the realities of marriage have not soiled the freshness of your innocent eyes?
“And so I shall never see your eyes again: your eyes of the dawn, your eyes fresh as the dew, your kind, ignorant, gentle eyes, so fond, so gay, so sad....”
She lowered her head, overcome with emotion. Mme. de la Vaudraye, who had brought her this letter from her son and who waited for her to finish reading it, said, rather aggressively:
“I should be glad of a word of explanation, Gilberte. Yesterday, my son fights a duel without any adequate cause. To-day, he leaves me, without giving me any reason. Have these two incidents anything to do with you? You must admit their seriousness to a mother.”
Gilberte handed her the letter. Mme. de la Vaudraye read it and shrugged her shoulders:
“Are you so very rich?”
The girl gave her another letter, received that morning, in which the Dieppe solicitor furnished her with her quarterly statement. Mme. de la Vaudraye started:
“Impossible! Oh, my child, you must never let Guillaume know!”
“How can I? He has gone away!”
“And you sit there and say that so quietly! Doesn’t his going distress you? Don’t you love him?”
“Yes, I love him.”
“Then write to him.”
“Write to him?”
“Yes, tell him to come back ... tell him that his position makes no difference to you....”
She spoke with a certain embarrassment: and this made Gilberte feel awkward. However, she said:
“I can’t write. Guillaume alone can solve the question that lies between him and his conscience.”
Mme. de la Vaudraye gave an impatient gesture and cried:
“You can’t write! What a ridiculous scruple! Is it any worse to write to a young man than to go walking about the country with him, as I hear you did yesterday? What! My son fights a duel because of you, he leaves me because of you; and, when I, his mother, ask you ...! Well, what’s the matter? What are you looking at me like that for?”
A chair suddenly pushed aside, an overturned flower-vase bore evidence to Mme. de la Vaudraye’s burst of irritation. She flew out again:
“Oh, yes, it’s all very well, but one can’t stand that eternal gentleness of yours! Here am I, telling you how wrong you are, and you listen in such a queer way that I end by putting myself in the wrong. One always feels with you as though one were in front of an indulgent judge, who graciously forgives one’s faults. And yet it’s you who are at fault!”
“Why, of course!” said Gilberte, all confusion.
“Then why do I look like a prisoner being judged?”
“Oh, but you don’t!”
“Yes, I do. It’s all very well for you to bend your head and all very well for me to rave and yell: any one would think that I was to blame and that you were making allowances. You must admit, it is enough to make one lose all patience.”
Presumably, Mme. de la Vaudraye was afraid of growing still more impatient, for she went away without another word.
Gilberte called on her, next day, and kissed her affectionately. There was not a word said about their difference of the day before.
They saw each other every day. According to the weather, they walked in the town or walked about the neighbourhood, leaning on each other’s arm and heedless of any but themselves. But they invariably returned at the same hour.
“Ah, it’s five o’clock: here are the ladies coming back!” people said.
This regularity was due to Gilberte. As soon as she was free, she went to the ruined summer-house and sat there until dinnertime.
“But why this hurry?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye. “You never give me a minute over.”
“And what about my daily appointment?” said Gilberte, laughing.
“Your appointment?”
“Why, yes, with your son: what would he think of me if I were not punctual?”
In the course of a longer excursion than usual, Mme. de la Vaudraye, who was fond of turning the conversation on her past greatness, pointed out the limits of the property once possessed by her ancestors. They extended along both banks of the Varenne, as far as the spot where it joined the Andainette.
“To say nothing of what we owned on the forest side: the Revolution robbed us of that. Why, on the death of my father, the whole of the valley still belonged to us! My marriage-portion included everything down to the Bas-Moulin. And you should have seen the Logis in those days! Such furniture! Such works of art!”
Gilberte, to humour her, asked:
“And how did you lose it?”
“Oh, it’s a long story, a heap of mysterious business-schemes in which my poor husband, a decent man, if ever there was one, allowed himself to be robbed by a company-promoter called Despriol. You remember that empty house, near Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, which took your fancy yesterday, I don’t quite know why? Well, that’s where Despriol and his wife lived, up to fifteen years ago. Henriette Despriol was a charming woman; she and I were great friends; and she used to come to the Logis when she liked ... so did her husband, for M. de la Vaudraye was never happy out of his sight; and I did not dream of suspecting him, for he struck me as a good-natured, honest man and M. de la Vaudraye was careful to hide from me the dangerous speculations into which his evil genius was dragging him. Everything was discovered in an hour. Despriol took to flight, after losing, or rather stealing, all that remained to us. We were ruined.”
She paused and then continued:
“There’s worse than that. On the same evening, my dear friend Henriette came and flung herself on her knees before me and implored me to give her money to join her husband, who was in concealment in the neighbourhood, and to enable them to leave the country and retrieve their fortunes. It was a piece of brazen impudence; and I showed her the door. Unfortunately, I left her alone, for a moment, in my bedroom. An hour after, I saw that a box containing all my jewels had disappeared. We rushed to her house: she was gone.”
“Did you prosecute them?”
“We notified the police, but they were never found. Five years ago, I received a letter from Henriette in which she said, ‘The ten thousand francs which my husband sent you this morning represent the value of the jewels. It is the first money which we have been able to put by. I am longing for the day when we shall be in a position to settle with you altogether and when I shall have the right to beg your forgiveness for all the harm that we have done you. Until that day comes there will be no rest for your repentant friend.”
“And since then ...?”
“Since then, I have received another letter, a few months ago, in which she told me that her husband was dead and that she was on her way to me with all the money she owed me.”
“Well?”
“Nothing but lies! Nobody came. Do people like that come and pay back the money they have stolen! No, they were a couple of thieves. You ask anybody at Domfront about M. and Mme. Despriol: a nice reputation they left behind them! If either of them thought of coming back here, they’d be stoned in the streets! Henriette indeed! Why, I should spit in her face, that I would, the sneak, the hypocrite!...”
She uttered those words with an accent of implacable hatred charged with all the rancour of those fifteen years of poverty and privation. Gilberte shuddered. The evil expression on that face filled her with a sort of repugnance. Nevertheless, she took Mme. de la Vaudraye’s hand and, raising it to her lips, murmured:
“You poor dear!”
And she did this not designedly, because it was Guillaume’s mother whom she was conciliating, but from an undefined and all-powerful instinct that compelled her to be kind to this humiliated and disappointed woman.
It was the same instinct which had guided her hitherto and which made her still more attentive and affectionate in the days that followed, notwithstanding a certain sense of constraint which she felt in Mme. de la Vaudraye’s presence. She knew no greater pleasure than to smooth the wrinkles from those sullen features at the moment when they were most firmly set; and to do this she employed all sorts of childish rogueries:
“Come, try hard and laugh.... There, you have laughed!”
Mme. de la Vaudraye was touched by all this charm of manner. It made her neglect the artificial plan of conduct which she had arranged to captivate the girl: she forgot to conceal her faults, she even became natural and spontaneous.
One day, after something that Gilberte had said, with a sudden movement she drew the girl to her:
“Oh, my darling, what a treasure of a wife you would make!”
Gilberte smiled:
“Indeed! How do I know that you would have me for a daughter!... However, we shall soon see ... perhaps to-morrow....”
“To-morrow?”
“Why, of course! Isn’t this the day when Guillaume is coming to the trysting-place where I wait for him every day?”
“Guillaume? I had a letter from him this morning from Paris. Besides, I know him; when he has made up his mind....”
Gilberte looked at her watch:
“Five o’clock. Suppose he were there now!... Ah, I have a feeling that he is there to-day, that I shall see him!... Good-bye till to-morrow.”
She hastened away swiftly, leaving her companion speechless. Hope filled her breast, a hope each time disappointed, but never discouraged.
“Mme. Armand is coming back alone this afternoon,” said the people at Domfront. “What a hurry she’s in!”
She crossed the threshold of the Logis without stopping and went straight to the summer-house. Her eyes longed to pierce the screen of foliage that hid the hill from sight. She had not a doubt that he was there; and, at the same time, she felt the madness of her certainty.
She arrived. Her glance at once swept the rocks. He was there.
She was on the point of throwing him handfuls of kisses, or else of kneeling down and stretching out her arms to him across space, but she saw him running down the slope and she herself started running towards him, as fast as she could.
She arrived all out of breath at the bottom of the garden, broke down the little wooden gate, which was slow in opening, and sprang into the road at the moment when Guillaume crossed the bridge:
“Gilberte!”
“Guillaume!”
They assured themselves with a glance that nothing was changed in either of them and then silently followed the road that skirts the Varenne. They dared not speak, overcome with the importance of the words which they were about to pronounce. Besides, excitement gripped them by the throat.
Thus they arrived at Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, the old Norman chapel which is so prettily situated on the river-bank.
Leaning on the balustrade above the water flowing through the arches of the bridge, they revelled in the delight of dreaming side by side. Then Guillaume said:
“It was more than I could bear. I wanted to see you, if only for a few minutes ... and to gather fresh courage....”
She asked, in a voice that did not sound like her own:
“Then ... you are going back?...”
“I intended to ... but I can’t now.... I can’t now....”
He continued, almost in a whisper:
“It’s not weakness. But I am seeing you; and to see you is to see things and ideas as they are. You flood them with the light which is in you and which springs from you. Yes, I tried to escape the temptation and I had a wild desire to work in solitude, so as to achieve the wealth and fame that would have permitted me to marry you. And now ... and now I see that it is all madness. Why suffer uselessly? Let us struggle together, Gilberte. I can do nothing without you ... I am too much in love with you.”
“And your scruples?” she asked, maliciously.
“What do wealth and poverty matter? They are words to which I was able to attach a certain value when away from you in writing to you. But, when I am near you, it seems to me that they mean nothing. A man has no right to order his life by such empty phrases.... Oh, Gilberte, you put everything in its right proportion, you are truth itself, your love gives certainty and peace! Such as I am, I am worthy of you, because you love me....”
She gave him her hand. He asked:
“You are not angry with me?”
“For going away, Guillaume? No, I was so sure that you would come back!”
On the next afternoon, Adèle burst into the room where Gilberte was sitting after lunch:
“M’am, there’s Mme. de la Vaudraye and her son turning into the square. Am I to let them in?”
“Yes, certainly, I am expecting them.”
“Then it’s true what Mme. Duval says, that you’re going to marry M. Guillaume, ma’am?”
“Well, suppose I am?”
“Oh, as far as M. Guillaume’s concerned, I’ve nothing to say! But Mme. de la Vaudraye as your mother-in-law! If you want to know, ma’am, I’d rather....”
The front-bell rang; and she went to the door looking very cross.
Gilberte shot a glance at the glass over the mantel-piece, pushed a curl into place and nervously made a change in the flowers in the vases, bunches of roses which she had gathered herself. Adèle showed in the mother and son.
Mme. de la Vaudraye was radiant. A moment before, in the main street, the mere sight of her silk dress, her ceremonious walk and her triumphant expression must have told the inhabitants of Domfront the exact nature of her errand.
She entered with the ease of one who is quite at home. Her way of sitting down showed that she was definitely and blissfully taking possession. There was none of the stiffness, none of the preliminary commonplaces that usually mark this sort of interview. Mme. de la Vaudraye was much too eager to come to the point:
“My dear Gilberte, I wish to ask your hand for my son Guillaume.”
All their love, all the unspeakable happiness of their souls, all their gratitude, all their faith in the future was contained in the glance exchanged by Guillaume and Gilberte. Nothing remained of the irritation which his mother’s air of victory caused him, nothing remained of the anxiety which the other felt at this solemn hour.
Mme. de la Vaudraye did not even wait to hear the answer.
“First of all, my dear child, let me speak to you as a friend and as a woman of experience, who knows only too well, by what she herself has been through, that happiness in married life is based upon material prosperity. You know, don’t you, how Guillaume and I are placed as regards money? On the death of my poor husband....”
Guillaume rose and walked to the open window, as though bored beforehand by what was coming. Gilberte felt very much inclined to join him and to leave Mme. de la Vaudraye to fight out with herself the question of the material prosperity on which married bliss is based. But the older woman’s imperious eye nailed her to her chair; and, nodding her head at intervals, by way of assent, she had to listen to a long speech in which strange phrases like separate and common property, joint estate and settlements kept on recurring.
“That will do nicely,” she said, with an air of deliberation, though she did not understand a single word of what was said.
“Are we agreed?”
“Quite, madame.”
“Well, children, kiss each other and bless you!”
Guillaume stepped forward and his outstretched arms closed round Gilberte. He kissed her forehead, kissed her eyes. She released herself, blushing, and said:
“It is my first kiss, Guillaume.”
He felt a momentary bitterness:
“Your first ... from me.”
She smiled:
“A girl must not receive a kiss from any but the man she is engaged to ... and are you not the first, the only one?”
“What do you mean, Gilberte?”
“I mean, Guillaume,” she said, in accents throbbing with her heart’s gladness, “I mean that I am not a widow, that I have never been married, that I called myself a married woman in the hope of escaping attention and that no such person as Mme. Armand exists.”
Guillaume was trembling with emotion. He understood, yet refused to admit the truth, so great would have been the anguish of a mistake:
“No, no, I dare not believe it ... you, a girl, unmarried!”
“What is there so extraordinary in that?”
“Oh, Gilberte!”
He had seized her hands and stood gazing at her in ecstasy.
She whispered:
“I was sure that you would be delighted.”
“It is something more than delight. You seem to me even more beautiful and even more innocent and sacred. I do not love you any better, but I love you differently.”
And he continued:
“Is it really possible? Is there no one in your past? Is there not even that shadow on my happiness?”
“My whole past is you, Guillaume.”
Mme. de la Vaudraye came up to them. They had forgotten all about her; and her appearance gave them an impression that was all the more painful inasmuch as the sudden gravity of her features was in direct contrast with their own rapture. She said to Gilberte:
“If Mme. Armand does not exist, then whom is my son marrying?”
“Well, Gilberte....”
“Gilberte whom?”
“Gilberte Me,” replied the girl, trying to speak playfully, but half-uneasy at heart.
“Come, child, that’s not enough. You must have a surname?...”
“I suppose so....”
“What was your father’s name? Your mother’s?”
“I don’t know.”
Mme. de la Vaudraye drew herself up to the full length of her angular figure. It was as though she were learning some terrible event, a catastrophe. Gilberte caught sight of Guillaume’s pallor and suddenly understood what she had never even half-realized, the danger of her irregular position where a woman like Mme. de la Vaudraye was concerned. She shook with terror.
Guillaume interposed gently:
“Don’t upset yourself, Gilberte. I need not say how little importance I attach to all this; but mother does not look at things from my point of view. Let us hear the facts.”
Gilberte, without entering into details, told of the death of her mother, the loss of the family-papers and the whole chapter of accidents which had prevented her from penetrating the mystery that surrounded her. As she went on, her voice lost its assurance. All this story, which, until then, she had simply regarded as a source of petty worries, now, under Mme. de la Vaudraye’s stern eye, appeared to her the abominable story of a worthless creature. To be without a name! She felt as much ashamed of herself as though they had made the unexpected discovery that she had an ear missing, or a piece of one cheek. And yet, in the silence that followed on her recital she sought in vain for the crime which she had committed, for the crime of which she was held guilty.
“Well, mother,” said Guillaume, “there’s nothing serious in that.”
“Nothing serious!” sneered Mme. de la Vaudraye.
All her little middle-class, provincial feelings were outraged by this unforeseen revelation. The pride of the La Vaudrayes cried aloud within her. What would people say at Domfront if a La Vaudraye married a girl without a name, a foundling, an adventuress, in fact! She pictured the tittletattle, the sidelong allusions, the condolences with which she would be overwhelmed.
“My poor friend, how very unpleasant for you!... Of course, I knew there was something suspicious about her, for, after all....”
And they would say, among themselves:
“No name? Nonsense! When people haven’t a name, it’s because it’s to their interest not to have one, because they are hiding their real name.”
She did not take the trouble to put it politely. Bluntly, she declared:
“The marriage is out of the question. It will not take place.”
Guillaume protested indignantly:
“Out of the question! And why, pray?”
“Can’t you see that for yourself? I’m surprised at your asking!”
“I insist on knowing, as Gilberte’s affianced husband.”
“Gilberte’s husband! People don’t marry....”
“Silence, mother!”
He was standing before her, with his features convulsed. Another word and he would have closed her lips by mean force. She was afraid of him. He went on, dropping his voice:
“You are right, we had better not continue this explanation in her presence. Any words other than words of veneration I look upon as an insult to the girl I love.”
He pushed her towards the door sternly. But Gilberte barred their road:
“No, Guillaume, not like that.... If we must part, let it not be with angry words.... I love both of you too well, yes, both of you, madame,” she declared, in the voice that no one could resist.
Her gentleness was stronger than Guillaume’s violence. He made no further movement. Mme. de la Vaudraye allowed herself to be led back into the room. Gilberte made her sit down and knelt beside her:
“Act as your conscience tells you, but, please, without any bitterness against me.... Whatever you decide to do, do not let me lose your affection.”
There may have been a sort of revenge on Gilberte in Mme. de la Vaudraye’s unbending attitude. She rejoiced to see this child, who had always dominated her by her goodness and candour, on her knees before her, while she, the judge, looked down from her moral pedestal and put her to confusion from the heights of her respectability.
She did not reply. Gilberte continued:
“You remember our walk, a little while ago, when you showed me the former boundaries of your property.... Well, I bought it all up ... in order to give it back to you. I hoped to bring you back here, to this house which belongs to you. Everything is yours, you would have managed and disposed of everything, you would have been the absolute mistress, answerable to no one, you would have resumed your proper place at Domfront, the Logis would have become what it used to be....”
A gleam flashed through Mme. de la Vaudraye’s eyes, but she restrained herself. The same inflexible will contracted her face into a hard and stiff mask. Coldly, she said:
“I am exceedingly sorry that all these fine plans cannot be realized, but it is not my fault.... Make enquiries.... Who knows ...? Perhaps you will succeed in finding out the indispensable truth.”
Gilberte, in her despair, was nearly flinging her arms round her neck and saying:
“Stay here, please.... Be to me the mother whom I have lost.... I will love you like a daughter....”
But Guillaume prevented her:
“Why humiliate yourself, Gilberte?... If my mother will not consent....”
“Well, are we not free?”
“No, Guillaume,” she answered, firmly, “I will not marry you except with your mother’s entire approval.”
He turned pale and murmured:
“But ... we shall see each other....”
“We shall not see each other. We can only see each other by stealth; and that is unworthy of us.”
“Suppose I meet you....”
“I shall not leave the Logis.”
“But....”
“We will wait, Guillaume. Am I not your promised bride?”
He bowed. His mother went out. He followed her.
And Gilberte felt as though she had never been so lonely in her life.
Next day, Gilberte received the following letter from Maître Dufornéril, her solicitor at Dieppe: