A Life (32 page)

During the following week it was discovered that over the past three months he had run up debts amounting to fifteen thousand francs. The creditors had not come forward at once, knowing that he would soon be of age.

There were no angry scenes. They wanted to win him over by kindness. They gave him special dishes to eat, they pampered him, they spoilt him. This was in the spring: they hired a boat at Yport, despite Jeanne's terrified misgivings, so that he could go sailing as he pleased.

They did not allow him to have a horse in case he should ride to Le Havre.

He lived an aimless existence, and was irritable, sometimes even rude. The Baron was concerned at his unfinished studies. Jeanne, appalled at the thought of a separation, did nevertheless wonder what they were to do with him.

One evening he failed to return home. They learnt that he had gone out in a boat with two sailors. His distraught mother rushed down to Yport in the dark, not even stopping to put her hat on.

A few men were waiting on the beach for the craft to return.

A small light appeared out at sea; it was coming nearer, swaying to and fro. Paul was no longer on board. He must have had himself taken to Le Havre.

The police searched for him, but in vain. The girl who had hidden him the first time had also disappeared, without trace, having sold her furniture and paid her rent. In Paul's room at Les Peuples they discovered two letters from this creature, who seemed to be madly in love with him. She talked about travelling to England, having raised the necessary funds.

And for the three inhabitants of the chateau life went on in sombre silence, a gloomy, hell of mental torment. Jeanne's hair, already grey, had now turned white. She wondered innocently why fate continued to strike at her in this manner.

She received a letter from the Abbé Tolbiac:

'Madame, God has laid His hand upon you. You refused Him your son; now He has taken him from you and cast him into the arms of a prostitute. Will this lesson from on high not open your eyes? The Lord is infinite in His mercy. Perhaps He will pardon you if you return and kneel before Him. I am His humble servant: knock and it shall be opened unto you.'

She sat for a long time with this letter on her lap. Perhaps what the priest said was true. And every possible religious uncertainty began to gnaw at her conscience. Could God be vindictive and jealous like men? But if He didn't show Himself to be jealous, no one would fear Him, no one would worship Him any more. That we might know Him better, presumably, He chose to manifest himself to human beings in terms of human feelings. And her soul having filled with the craven doubt that sends the troubled in heart and those of little faith scurrying off to church, she hurried secretly to the presbytery one evening at dusk and knelt at the feet of the gaunt Abbé to beg for absolution.

He promised her half a pardon, God being unable to lavish all His grace upon a house which continued to harbour a man like the Baron.

'You will soon', he assured her, 'know the effects of His Divine Compassion.'

And indeed, two days later she received a letter from her son; and in her panic and distress she regarded it as the first stage in the relief which the Abbé had promised.

'My dear Mama, do not worry about me. I am in London, in good health, but I have great need of money. We haven't a penny left, and some days we have nothing to eat. My companion, whom I love with all my soul, has spent everything she had so as not to leave me: five thousand francs; and, as you will understand, I have given my word of honour that she shall first be reimbursed this sum. It would be very kind if you would advance me fifteen thousand francs of the money left to me by Papa, since I shall soon be of age. You would be assisting me out of a very difficult situation.

Adieu, my dear Mama, I embrace you with all my heart, as I do Grandfather and Aunt Lison. I hope to see you again soon.

Your son,
Viscount Paul de Lamare'

He had written to her! So he had not forgotten her. She did not give a thought to the fact that he was asking for money. If he had none, they would send him some. What did money matter! He had written to her!

And she rushed off in tears to show the letter to the Baron. Aunt Lison was summoned; and word by word they went over it again, discussing every syllable of this piece of paper that had brought them news of him.

Jeanne, having gone in an instant from being in a state of complete despair to being almost intoxicated with hope, defended Paul:

'He'll come back. He's written to us, and that means he'll come back.'

The Baron, more composed, declared:

'That's immaterial. He's left us for this creature. Clearly he loves her more than us, since he didn't hesitate to go.'

Jeanne felt a sudden, terrible pang in her heart, and all at once she was filled with burning hatred against this mistress who was stealing her son from her; a savage, unswerving hatred, the hatred of a jealous mother. Until then her thoughts had been only for Paul. It had scarcely occurred to her that some strange woman or other was the cause of his misdemeanours. But suddenly the Baron's remark had called this rival to mind and revealed her fatal power; and she sensed that a fierce struggle was now beginning between this woman and her, and felt too that she would rather lose her son than share with this other person.

And all her joy vanished.

They sent the fifteen thousand francs and heard nothing further for five months.

Then one day a lawyer called to discuss the details of Julien's will. Jeanne and the Baron accepted his proposed figures without discussion, even forgoing the life interest in the estate which was due to the mother. And when he returned to Paris, Paul came into one hundred and twenty thousand francs. After that he wrote to them four times in six months, providing terse news of himself and ending in perfunctory protestations of affection: 'I'm working now,' he assured them; 'I have found a position on the Bourse. I hope, my dear family, to be able to come and see you some day at Les Peuples.'

He said not a word about his mistress; and this silence meant more than if he had written whole pages about her. In these  cold letters Jeanne could sense the woman lying in ambush, implacably, the eternal enemy of mothers, the harlot.

The three lonely people debated what they could do to save Paul; and they could think of nothing. A journey to Paris? What for?

'We must let his passion burn itself out,' the Baron would say. 'He'll come back to us of his own accord.'

And life was wretched.

Jeanne and Lison went to church together, concealing the fact from the Baron.

A quite considerable time elapsed without further news, and then one morning a desperate letter struck terror into their hearts:

'My poor Mama, I am ruined. I may as well blow my brains out if you do not come to my rescue. An investment which had every chance of success has just failed; and I owe 85,000 francs. I shall be disgraced if I do not pay up, bankrupted, and barred from all further dealing. I am ruined. I tell you again, I shall blow my brains out rather than live with the shame of it. I should probably have done so already without the support of a woman of whom I never speak and yet who is my guardian angel.

I embrace you, my dear Mama, from the bottom of my heart; and perhaps for the last time. Farewell.

Paul'

Some bundles of paper enclosed with the letter gave detailed explanations of how the disaster had come about.

The Baron replied by return that they were considering how best to proceed. Then he left for Le Havre to see what could be done; and he mortgaged some land in order to realize the money, which was sent to Paul.

The young man replied with three letters of effusive gratitude and fondest affection, announcing that he would come immediately to embrace his dear family.

He did not come.

A whole year went by.

Jeanne and the Baron were on the point of leaving for Paris to try and find him and make one last effort to save him when he sent a brief message to say that he was once more in London,  setting up a steamship company called: 'Paul Delamare and Co.' He wrote:

'I stand to make money out of this, perhaps a great deal of money. And there is no risk attached. You will see at once what a wonderful opportunity it is. When we meet again, I shall have a fine position in the world. There is only one thing for it these days: business!'

Three months later the steamship company had gone into receivership, and its managing director was being pursued for irregularities in the accounts. Jeanne had an attack of nerves which lasted several hours; then she took to her bed.

The Baron went back to Le Havre, sought information, consulted barristers, solicitors, commercial lawyers, bailiffs ,and established that the Delamare Company owed two hundred and thirty-five thousand francs; and once more he borrowed on his estates. The chateau at Les Peuples and the two adjacent farms were mortgaged for an enormous sum.

One evening, as he was sorting out the final formalities in a lawyer's office, he collapsed on the floor in a fit of apoplexy.

Jeanne was informed by dispatch rider. When she arrived, he was dead.

She brought the body back to Les Peuples, so numb with grief that her sorrow was more like paralysis than despair.

The Abbé Tolbiac refused to allow the body into his church, despite the desperate entreaties of the two women. The Baron was buried at nightfall, with no ceremony whatsoever.

Paul heard of what had happened from one of the receivers. He was still in hiding in England. He wrote to apologize for not having come, having learnt too late of the unhappy event. 'Besides, now that you have got me out of my difficulties, my dear Mama, I shall be returning to France, and soon I shall be there to embrace you in person.'

Jeanne was now living in a state of such mental collapse that she did not seem to take anything in any more.

And towards the end of the winter Aunt Lison, now sixty-eight, developed bronchitis which turned into pneumonia; and she died peacefully, murmuring:

'My poor little Jeanne. I shall ask God to have mercy on you.'

Jeanne followed her to the cemetery, saw the earth falling on her coffin, and was on the point of sinking to the ground, wishing in her heart that she, too, could die, could cease to suffer, could cease to think, when a robust peasant woman caught her in her arms and carried her home like a small child.

On her return to the chateau Jeanne, who had spent the previous five nights at the old maid's bedside, allowed herself to be put to bed by this unknown rustic who handled her with gentleness and authority; and she fell at once into a deep sleep, overcome by exhaustion and grief.

She woke up in the middle of the night. There was a night-light burning on the mantelpiece. A woman was asleep in the armchair. But who was this woman? She did not recognize her, and she leaned out of bed trying to study her face in the flickering light of the wick floating in oil in a kitchen glass.

She felt as though she had seen this face before. But when? And where? The woman was sleeping peacefully, her head to one side, her bonnet on the floor. She was perhaps forty, forty-five. She had a strong, powerful build, with square shoulders and a high complexion. Her large hands hung down on either side of the chair. Her hair was turning grey. Jeanne stared at her fixedly, her mind in that confused state which follows on waking from the feverish sleep induced by great misfortune.

Certainly she had seen this face before! Long ago? More recently? She could not tell, and her obstinate desire to find out began to make her agitated and cross. Quietly she got out of bed to rake a closer look at the sleeping figure, and tiptoed over to her. It was the woman who had picked her up in the cemetery and subsequently put her to bed. That much she could vaguely remember.

But had she met her somewhere else, at some other period in her life? Or else did she think she recognized her simply because of her dim recollection of the previous day? And then how did she come to be here, in her bedroom? And why?

The woman opened an eye, saw Jeanne looking at her, and shot  up out of the chair. They found themselves standing face to face, their chests lightly touching.

'What are you doing out of bed?' the stranger scolded. 'You'll catch your death at this time of night. You just get back into bed.'

'Who are you?' asked Jeanne.

But the woman threw her arms wide, seized hold of her, picked her up once again, and carried her back to the bed with the strength of a man. And as she laid her gently between the sheets, bending over her, almost lying on top of her, she burst into tears and began to kiss her wildly on the cheeks, on the hair, on the eyes, wetting her face with her tears and stammering:

'My poor mistress, mamz'elle Jeanne, my poor mistress, don't you even recognize me?' And Jeanne exclaimed: 'Rosalie! My maid?; and throwing her arms round her neck, she hugged her and kissed her; and they were both sobbing, holding each other in a tight embrace, mingling their tears, unable to let go of each other.

Rosalie was the first to recover herself.

'Come now, you must be sensible,' she said, 'or you'll catch cold.'

And she picked up the blankets, remade the bed, and replaced the pillow under the head of her former mistress who was continuing to sob, stirred by all the old memories which had come flooding back.

Eventually she asked:

'But my poor Rosalie, what are you doing back here?'

'Bless me,' Rosalie replied, 'as if I was just going to leave you here, now that you're all on your own.'

'Light a candle,' Jeanne said, 'and let me get a proper look at you.'

And when the light had been brought to the bedside table, they looked at each other for a long time without saying a word. Then Jeanne, stretched out a hand towards her former maid and said softly:

'I should never have recognized you, my dear. You have changed a lot, you know. But even so, not as much as I have.'

And Rosalie gazed at the gaunt, faded features of this white-  haired woman whom she had last seen young, beautiful, and fresh-cheeked, and replied: