All Our Wordly Goods (17 page)

The young people sat on stiff chairs, talking quietly. Rose was saying she’d be coming to Paris in the spring.

‘You must come and see us,’ said Guy, sounding so eager that his sister was surprised. ‘Will you be staying long?’

‘Oh, as long as possible,’ she replied.

‘Poor girl,’ thought Guy. ‘Her life can’t be much fun.’

She was dressed rather badly, in a fabric that was too
sumptuous and too dark, and made her look old; her full mouth and thick eyebrows gave her an almost harsh look, but there was something about her that Guy liked. He couldn’t say exactly what … the way she moved her lips when she spoke or laughed, a glimmer of intelligence and daring in her eyes. He looked over at the young Renaudin girls, who secretly glanced at him tenderly, languorously. Their voices had risen slightly: when a young man is with an innocent young girl, she shows her emotions this way, in spite of herself, just as a pussycat miaows more shrilly than usual when she spots a tomcat. Rose didn’t say very much; she lowered her eyes but Guy could sense that she was watching him and it pleased him.

The clock struck eleven. Madame Burgères folded away her knitting. Colette and Guy said goodbye. Madame Burgères offered to drive them home, but no, they wanted to walk. They knew very well that people from good families never set foot outside after dark in Saint-Elme and they got illicit pleasure from breaking these sacrosanct rules.

Guy shook Rose’s hand.

She looked up at him. ‘Will I see you again?’ she asked.

She had spoken quickly and quietly. Nothing was more attractive to Guy than a courageous young woman, and he understood how brave she must be to ask him that with her mother listening. ‘They must keep a close eye on her,’ he thought to himself, ‘she’s the heiress.’

He liked her more and more. He smiled. ‘Come and see Colette tomorrow,’ he said. ‘We can talk about it some more then. Will you come?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have to go to Saint-Omer with me tomorrow, Rose,’ Madame Burgères said suddenly from her chair.

‘Tomorrow? But you said Saturday.’

‘It’s tomorrow.’

‘Come in the morning,’ Colette whispered in her friend’s ear.

The young people left. Soft, light snow was falling from the dark skies. Saint-Elme was asleep. All the shutters were closed, the doors locked. In Jault’s Inn, the workers drank beer, and music rose from a player piano. Colette and Guy walked past their old house; it still had a ‘For Sale’ sign on the balcony.

‘Nothing in the world would make me come back here,’ said Colette. ‘What about you?’

Guy didn’t reply.

Everyone waited for the war to start the way people wait for death: knowing it is inevitable, asking only for a little more time. ‘I’m aware you can’t be avoided, Death, but wait a bit, wait until I’ve finished building my house, planting this tree, seen my son married, wait until I no longer want to live.’ It was the same with the war: they asked for no more than time. A few more months of peace, another year, one more sweet, carefree summer … Nothing more. They wanted tomorrow to be just like today, with soup on the table, the family all together, amusements, work, love, just a bit more time, just a few more moments. Then … It was like in old paintings where Death walks beside a labourer pushing his plough, Death drinks from a rich man’s cup, sleeps on a poor man’s thin mattress, sings with musicians at feasts, holds court at church, in humble cottages, in palaces: so, in 1938, people sensed the constant presence of war, invisible
yet all around them. Death took them by the hand and led them where it pleased; it made their food horribly bitter, poisoned their pleasures; Death stood at their side as they leaned over the cradles of newborn children.

And still people carried on living as they always had. They hosted grand dinners where black-suited Jeremiahs carved the pheasant, sliced the truffled foie gras and imagined future wars as if they were right in the middle of them. ‘A sudden invasion, one day, at dawn, the airfields bombed … civilians machine-gunned down along the roads …’ The women shook their heads and murmured, ‘Awful, just awful …’ while thinking, ‘I should have worn my pink dress. How annoying … I’m underdressed.’ They were predicting the Cabinet would collapse on Monday. The maids served the ice cream on crystal dishes with little gold-plated spoons. Someone announced that a trustworthy source had told him that Hitler would be sending his troops to the Ukraine in the spring. There was fighting in Spain. People got married, died, brought children into the world. In the Hardelot and Burgères households great confusion reigned, for Guy wanted to marry Rose.

The Hardelots thought it was a godsend, yet, in spite of that, they were not happy about it; they didn’t like the idea that their son might want Rose’s dowry. Madame Burgères declared she would never consent to the marriage. Rose had spent nearly three months in Paris and had seen Guy every day. She had returned to Saint-Elme and announced she was engaged. It was a harsh blow to Simone. Those Hardelots again! Now Agnès’s
son would one day be the owner of the factory. Rose was only eighteen, fortunately. Her mother still controlled her. But it was no longer a time when a girl was locked up, forced to get married. Yes, Simone controlled the fortune, of course, but she also feared a scandal more than almost anything else. Her good reputation in Saint-Elme meant a lot to her. She did not wish to be accused of depriving her daughter of her money, or of being a bad mother. And all the old gossip she thought had been forgotten resurfaced. People were talking about her broken engagement, so long ago. They said she had never forgiven Pierre and Agnès their happiness, their love, that she had got her revenge by ruining them, that she hated Rose. There were even whispers that she had encouraged Burgères to seduce Guy’s mistress, to make the young man desperate. So it was that Saint-Elme invented the darkest of plots, its inhabitants trying to guess what was going on in the Burgères household. Its comings and goings were even discussed in the workers’ cottages, having first been recounted to the female cousins of the Renaudins, who then passed the information on to old Monsieur Hardelot-Demestre. The elderly Madame Florent felt young again, going from one house to another with her black umbrella (it was the rainy season) and her large bulging handbag containing two pairs of glasses, her keys and a handkerchief with a black border (she wore mourning for all those who had died in the Hardelot family, just as in England the shopkeepers dress in black
whenever a member of the royal family dies). She insinuated that Simone Burgères was keeping her daughter shut away. She spread the rumour, vague and imprecise, that there would be a scandal, and whenever she came across Rose on the streets of Saint-Elme she would go up to her, look at her, tears in her eyes and whisper, ‘You poor thing, you poor girl …’ Then she would kiss her on both cheeks and walk away, pretending to wipe her tears. Despite Simone expressly forbidding it, Rose often went to see the elderly Madame Florent, who told her (in her own way) about Pierre’s and Agnès’s marriage.

‘In those days,’ she said, ‘young women weren’t free, the way they are now. Marriages were arranged by the parents in good families (and the Florents are an excellent family) and the young people simply had to accept it. Agnès was engaged to a very rich, handsome and distinguished gentleman. But she was in love with Pierre Hardelot. Fortunately, she adored me, so she hid nothing from me. “Darling Mama,” she said to me one day, “you are so intelligent, you understand everything … You are my very best friend. Give me your advice. What should I do? Should I ignore my heart and marry the man you have chosen for me?” — “No,” I told her, “no, my darling child, I have lived for you alone and I want you to be happy. A marriage where the heart is silenced is a caricature of conjugal love. Money, the frivolous things in life are meaningless without deep, reciprocal love. If you love Pierre Hardelot, you must marry him.” And so she asked
to meet him in the Coudre Woods. “Listen,” she told him, “I have both my mother and my conscience on my side. I have broken my engagement. I will follow you to the ends of the earth.” The young couple were determined to run away together, just like in
The Beautiful Love Affair
, a charming play, my dear Rose; haven’t you heard of it? When I learned what they intended to do, my heart missed a beat. I wasted not a moment. I went to see Pierre Hardelot’s parents (his mother was an excellent creature, not terribly intelligent, but a homemaker, with a good heart). “So, we’re going to sort this out, aren’t we?” I said. “Let his grandfather scream and shout; he’ll come round to it once their first child is born! Let us make these children happy.” I spoke with great authority, which won these good people over and, upon my word, Pierre and Agnès were married two months later. But it takes a strong will, determination, you can’t let yourself be led along like a child, damn it. Sometimes you must risk everything in life. You have to fight for your happiness,’ she said and pushed her tapestry needle into her embroidery with a look of triumph.

It was the beginning of August. Anxious people everywhere turned their attention towards Spain, or China, or Czechoslovakia. But Czechoslovakia seemed the least threatening. Lord Runciman was in Prague where everything had been arranged for him to work, to enjoy himself and to act as mediator in the conflict over the Sudetenland. ‘That will buy time until the autumn,’ people said, ‘so we can get the harvest in; wars never start in autumn;
everybody knows that.’ ‘Indeed,’ said the elderly Hardelot-Demestre, ‘in ’14 it started a month too late.’ It was unanimous; spring was the dangerous time. Come now, they thought, 1938 would carry on and finish its course without terror becoming a reality.

A month and a half later, when everyone was waiting with bated breath for the results of Chamberlain’s talks with Hitler, Madame Florent was leaning out of her window, trying to catch a glimpse of the gate into the Burgères’s grounds. She had sent a little note to Rose. ‘I must speak to you, my darling. Be brave and trust me.’ The whiff of danger excites the elderly, imbues them with strength; except when it doesn’t have the opposite effect of killing them with anxiety. Perhaps this is because they do not feel that they alone are threatened by death: a sense of equality is re-established between them and the rest of the world. Madame Florent, hearing the distant rumble of the cannons heading towards the border, quivered with warrior-like passion. The current situation brought undreamed-of opportunities to arrange a marriage between Guy and Rose. Rose was a determined girl, with a lively, fighting spirit, but she was still so young … Would she dare stand up to her mother, to society? And yet, so much was at stake. ‘The happiness of a lifetime,’ thought the elderly woman: the factory won back and she herself, Madame Florent, in her twilight years, recovering the respect, the envy and the admiration of Saint-Elme. Nostalgically she recalled the happy days gone by (the ones after the reconciliation of
grandfather Hardelot and his grandson). There wasn’t a wedding between Calais and Arras that Madame Florent hadn’t been invited to after that. And so many visits at New Year, from really the most respected people in the area. She sighed. Finally, she saw Rose walking towards her along the road. She waved to her from the window and let her in, welcoming her with open arms.

‘Well, my dear girl, is there to be a war?’ she asked as they went into the sitting room.

Rose stood next to her, tight lipped, eyes sparkling. ‘I received a letter from …’ she whispered finally. She couldn’t bring herself to say Guy’s name. She burst into tears, fell sobbing on to a chair, biting its grey slipcover to muffle the sound of her crying.

The elderly Madame Florent raised her eyes towards heaven; she had a way of rolling them upwards beneath her heavy, ageing eyelids that gave her a fleeting resemblance to a bulldog.

‘My poor darling …’ she said. ‘There’s nothing to be done. But it’s awful. To be separated like this, in the prime of youth, and for how long? Alas, the war will be long, the war will be harsh. But in one way it’s perhaps better that this is happening now, while you’re still only engaged. For just imagine how painful it would be for a young wife …’

Rose broke in. ‘Oh, don’t say that, Madame. If we could live together just for one day, for one hour! And then … there would be memories, just think of it, memories that would last a lifetime. But this way, to lose
him before I’ve had the joy of being his wife. I love him so much, Madame, I do love him. He told me he’ll be among the first to go, he’s said goodbye to me. Oh, I want to see him again, I’m begging you, what should I do? If he comes to Saint-Elme, Mama would keep me locked away. Listen, Madame …’

She dried her eyes.

‘I want to leave. I want to get away from here,’ she said, her voice trembling and breaking with emotion. ‘Yes, I’ll go to Paris. After that my mother will be forced to give her consent. That’s what you would tell me to do, isn’t it, Madame? Listen, there’s a train leaving at three fifty-five. I’ll go straight from here to the station. Only, the thing is, I have no money. My mother has refused to give me my allowance this month, so I can’t even buy a stamp without her knowing. But you’ll lend me enough money for a ticket to Paris, won’t you? Oh, Madame, I’m coming to you as your daughter Agnès did before, begging … begging you, “You are so intelligent; you understand everything!” ’

Madame Florent hesitated only a second. ‘I was born to be a great leader,’ she thought with pride.

‘You have to risk your all,’ she said, ‘that’s my advice. You should go.’

She gave her the money she needed, walked her to the garden gate, watched her run towards the station. Then she put on her hat and went to tell all of Saint-Elme what had just happened.

As soon as morning came that day, all the sensible people began leaving Paris. The rain continued to fall. Everywhere, women came out of their houses, arms full of packages and children. They looked up at the sky with questioning eyes, either trying to find a glimmer of hope from above, or spot the first enemy plane, it was difficult to say which. Those who couldn’t make up their minds telephoned each other: ‘What are you going to do? Are you leaving?’ and faltering voices replied with feigned indifference: ‘Oh, if it were up to me, you know … if I were the only one to consider … the idea wouldn’t even cross my mind, my dear friend. But there are the children (or my sick mother, my father, my younger sister …).’ On all the roads leading away from Paris, cars headed for the peaceful regions of central France. They didn’t drive overly fast: panic had not yet set in; they weren’t actually very afraid.
It was caution that led them far from the threatened capital. The roofs of powerful luxury automobiles were piled high with luggage; old family cars had birdcages hanging from the window and two or three babies asleep in the back. The men who had been called up to fight carried small suitcases and made their way to the train stations. On the Boulevard de Courcelles, where the Hardelots lived, the shops were locking up; women, eyes red from crying, hung notices on the metal shutters: ‘Closed due to mobilisation’. Agnès was packing for Pierre and Guy; Guy was joining his regiment; Pierre had decided to go to Saint-Elme, to try to talk things through with Simone and convince her to agree to an official engagement between Guy and her daughter.