The Thibaults (67 page)

“Hirsch!” he exclaimed, propping himself on his elbow. “Hirsch was with them, was he? Then—weren’t you there, too?”

“Please don’t let’s talk about it today,” she begged, returning to her seat. “Hand me my bag, please. Feeling hungry?” She unwrapped a bar of chocolate and, holding one end between her teeth, proffered the other end to Antoine, who gaily joined in the game.

“It tastes better that way,” she observed with a greedy flicker of her eyelashes. Then a sudden, almost startling change came over her voice. “Clara was Hirsch’s daughter. Got it straight, now? I came to know Hirsch through his daughter. Haven’t I told you about it?”

He shook his head, but refrained from putting further questions; he was trying to make these latest details tally with what he had already gleaned from her. Anyhow it was not long before Rachel launched forth again—as she never failed to do when he ceased questioning her.

“You’ve never seen Clara’s photo, have you? I’ll hunt it up for you. She was a great pal of mine; I got to know her in the beginners’ class. But she only stayed a year at the Opera; didn’t have the stamina for it. And I suppose Hirsch preferred keeping her at home; that’s more than likely, in fact. She and I were thick as thieves, and I used to go to see her every Sunday at the Neuilly riding-school. That’s how I started learning riding, along with her. We got intc the way of going out for rides together, the three of us, and kept it up afterwards.”

“Whom do you mean by ‘the three of us’?”

“Why, Clara, Hirsch, and I, of course. From Easter on I used to join them at six o’clock sharp, three mornings a week. I had to be back at eight sharp at the Opera. We had the Bois de Boulogne to ourselves at that hour—and it was heavenly!” She paused a moment, and he gazed up at her, propping his elbows on the seat, and stayed thus without moving. Rachel harked back to her memories of the past. “A queer girl and no mistake! Full of grit and good-hearted as you make ‘em. Lots of charm—with a spice of the gutter in it, and now and then you’d catch that terrifying expression of her father’s on her face. Yes, Clara was the best friend I had in those days. Aaron had been keen on her for years; that was all he worked for, really —to marry her some day. But she wouldn’t consent; no more would Hirsch, needless to say. Then one day she made up her mind all of a sudden; at the time I couldn’t think why she did it. Why, even when the engagement was announced, I had no idea what was at the back of her mind. When I knew—it was too late to say anything.” She paused again. “Then, three weeks after their marriage, Hirsch wired to me to come to Pallanza. I didn’t know that he had gone off to join them, and the moment I heard he was there I knew something dreadful had happened… . Anyhow, there’s no secret about it; everyone could see the bruises round Clara’s neck. He must have strangled her.”

“ ‘He’? Whom do you mean?”

“Aaron. Her husband. He had engaged a boat that evening for a trip on the lake—all by himself. Hirsch didn’t try to stop him, it suited his book too well. He knew what he was about, I suppose, and guessed that Aaron meant to kill himself. Only Clara had an inkling of it, too; she picked a moment when Hirsch wasn’t watching her and sprang into the boat, just as Aaron was starting to row away. Anyhow that’s how I’ve pieced it together, bit by bit, for Hirsch …” She shuddered, then continued: “You never know what Hirsch has in his head.”

Antoine broke the silence that ensued.

“But why should he have killed himself?” - “Aaron was always talking about suicide. He had it on the brain, even as a child. That’s just why I didn’t dare say anything to him, and let the marriage take place. Oh,” she exclaimed in a tone of deep distress, “how I’ve reproached myself for it, since! Perhaps if I’d spoken out in time—” She gazed at Antoine, as though it lay with him to justify her to her conscience. “I’d found out their secret, you see. But was that a reason for letting Aaron know about it? What could I do? He had told me several times that he’d kill himself if Clara didn’t marry him. And it’s sure he’d have done it, if I’d told him what I had discovered—quite by accident, too. Don’t you think so?”

Antoine could not answer; he repeated her words.

“By accident?”

“Yes, quite by accident. I’d gone to join Clara and Hirsch for a morning ride. I went straight upstairs to Clara’s room; when I was near it I heard a scuffle going on and started to run. The door was ajar. Clara had no blouse on, her arms were bare and her riding skirt hampered her movements; then, just as I flung the door wide open, I saw her snatch up her riding-whip from a chair and slash him across the face with it as hard as she could. Hirsch felt it all right!”

“What? Her own father …?”

“Yes, my dear. That was a scene if you like—I often think of it!” She chuckled with vindictive glee. “The sight he was that morning, I shan’t forget it in a hurry! His face went yellow, while the weal grew darker and darker. He was pretty free with his fists, himself, and, when he was at it, he hit hard. But that time it was his turn to get a cut across the face, for a change!”

“But … I don’t follow.”

“Well, I never knew exactly what had happened that morning. It struck me at once that, now she was engaged, Clara must have told him to … well, to leave her alone. Various details I’d already noticed, things that had puzzled me at the time, came back to me. In a flash I
understood
… . Hirsch marched out of the room with a high and mighty air, without saying a word to me. He seemed quite confident that I’d hold my tongue, and, as you know, he wasn’t far wrong there. I ferreted the whole story out of Clara. But she swore to me—I’m sure she meant it, too—all that was over and done with, and she was marrying just to get away from it. To get away from Hirsch? Or did she mean from her own infatuation? That’s what I should have asked myself that morning. I ought to have guessed it wasn’t done with, not by any means, if only from the way she talked of Hirsch.” After a pause, she went on in a brooding voice: “When you hear a woman say she hates a man as much as that, you may be sure she’s hankering after him all the time.”

Again she seemed lost in her musings and stayed a minute thus, with lowered forehead, eyes downcast. At last she spoke again:

“Yes, and it only shows how true that is, what I’ve just said; it was Clara herself, right in the middle of their honeymoon—would you ever believe it?—who asked Hirsch to come to Italy. I don’t know exactly what happened after that. Anyhow, Aaron must have caught them together; otherwise he wouldn’t have wanted to drown himself. The one thing I’ve never quite made out is just what Clara was after. Why did she jump into the boat alongside her husband? To stop him from killing himself? Or did she intend to die with him? Either theory would fit. Think of that last talk of theirs together, out on the lake in the middle of the night! What passed between them there? Over and over again I’ve put myself the question. Did she blurt out the whole truth in that cynical way she had? She was quite capable of doing so. Did Aaron decide to do away with her, just to make sure
that
could never happen again after he was dead? Their boat was recovered next day, empty; the bodies were found together several days later. But the queerest thing of all to my mind is that Hirsch should have sent for me to come quite early that evening, before the telegraph-office closed and before even the search party had gone out to look for them… . Anyhow,” she continued after some pensive moments, “you must have seen all about it in the papers—only you didn’t pay much attention, I suppose. The Italian police held an inquiry, and the French police took a hand in it too, They had searches made at my place and Aaron’s, but they never solved the mystery; I know more about it than they do.”

“And they never got on the tracks of your friend Hirsch?”

She drew herself up abruptly.

“No,” she coolly replied, “they did
not
get on the tracks of my friend Hirsch.”

There was a hint of truculence in her voice and in the glance she flung at Antoine, but he took no notice, for often, when she talked of her experiences, she affected a rather provocative tone; it seemed as if she took a delight in startling the man who, on the evening when first they met, had impressed her so profoundly.

“No, they didn’t get on his track,” she repeated with a chuckle, “but he thought it wiser not to come back to France that year.”

“Are you really quite sure it was she, his daughter, in the middle of her honeymoon, who …?”

“Pretty sure,” she replied, then, flinging her arms about him with the passion she always manifested when their conversation turned on Hirsch, she sealed his lips with an imperious kiss. “Ah,” she sighed, nestling to his breast, “you’re so different from everyone else. You’re generous and kind. You’re straight. Oh, how I love you, Toine dear!” When Antoine, his mind still haunted by her story, showed signs of questioning her further, she was firm in her refusal. “No, that’s enough on the subject. It works me up too much; I’d rather forget, forget everything—for as long as I can. Hold me tight, darling, and be nice to me … yes, hug me, like that … closer, still closer— and help me to forget!”

He clasped her in his arms; but then, from the depths of his unconscious self, a craving for adventure, like a new instinct, flared into sudden life. Ah, could he only swerve from the rut of a too orderly existence, make a new start, live dangerously and divert to free, spontaneous acts the energies which it had been his pride to lavish on laborious ends!

“Supposing we went right away, just you and I? Listen, why shouldn’t we start life together, far away from Paris? You’ve no idea what a success I’d make of it!”

“What? You!” she laughed, lifting her lips to his.

He sobered down at once and smiled, to make believe he had not been in earnest.

“How I love you!” she murmured, poring on his face with a look of anguish he was destined to recall in after-days.

Antoine knew Rouen well; his father’s family came of Norman stock, and some more or less near relatives of M. Thibault were still living there. Moreover, some eight years earlier, Antoine had been posted to Rouen for his military service.

He insisted on Rachel’s coming with him before dinner across the bridges to an outlying suburb, swarming with troops, and led her along beside a never-ending barrack wall.

“There’s the sick-ward!” Antoine announced delightedly, pointing to some lighted windows. “Do you see the second window there? That’s the medical office. What days and days I’ve wasted in that room with damn near nothing to. do—why, I couldn’t even read a book!—except keep an eye on a couple of malingerers and a few youngsters with a dose!” He laughed without a trace of rancour, then joyfully exclaimed: “What a change! Why, I’m the happiest man in the world today!”

She made no reply and slipped hastily in front of him; he did not notice she was on the brink of tears.

A picture-house announced
In Darkest Africa
. Antoine drew Rachel’s attention to the poster, but she shook her head and hurried him back to their hotel.

While they dined, all his efforts to make her laugh were unavailing and, remembering why they had come here, he felt a little ashamed of his high spirits.

But the moment they were in the bedroom, she flung her arms round his neck.

“Don’t be angry with me,” she pleaded.

“Angry? What for?”

“For spoiling our trip like this.”

He. was going to protest when she embraced him again.

“Oh, how I love you!” she repeated, almost as if she were talking to herself.

Early next morning they arrived at Caudebec. The heat was more oppressive than ever; a veil of scintillating mist hung over the wide river. A small hotel announced conveyances for hire and Antoine carried their luggage to it. The carriage they had ordered drew up, well before the appointed time, in front of the window near which they were breakfasting. Rachel hurried through the dessert and, refusing Antoine’s aid, piled all her parcels into the hood, then, after explaining to the driver the route she wanted him to take, sprang gaily into the ancient victoria.

The nearer came the melancholy climax of their expedition, the more her spirits seemed to rise. She grew ecstatic over the countryside, each hill and each declivity, the crosses by the roadside, each village market-place. Everything came as a surprise to her; she might have never roamed beyond the suburbs of some great city.

“Look at those hens! And that palsied old crone over there, toasting in the sun! And that grade-crossing barrier with a great chunk of stone to weigh it down. Aren’t they back numbers, the folk in these parts! Well, I warned you you were coming to the back of beyond, didn’t I? And I wasn’t far wrong.”

When she caught sight of the roofs down in the valley, clustering round the spire of the little church of Gu
é
-la-Rozi
è
re, she stood up in the carriage and her face lit up as if she were a wanderer returning to her native land.

“The graveyard’s over on the left, a long way from the town. Behind those poplars. You’ll see it in a minute… . Keep your horse at a trot through the village, please,” she told the driver, as they came to the first houses of Gu
é
.

Half hidden at the far end of grassy orchards, white house-fronts, striped with black and trimly capped with thatch, flashed back the sunlight through the apple-trees; the windows all were shuttered. They passed a slate-tiled building flanked by two sentinel yews.

“That’s the town hall,” Rachel cried delightedly. “Not a single thing has changed. That’s where they fixed up the certificates and so forth. See that house over there? That’s where baby’s nurse used to live. Nice folk they were. They’ve gone away, or else I’d look them up and give the old girl a kiss. Hallo, that’s where I stayed once. When I came, I put up where there happened to be a spare bed. I took my meals there; how I used to laugh at the funny way they talked! And they gaped at me as if I’d escaped from a menagerie. The old girls used to come and inspect me in bed—my pyjamas, you know. You’d never believe what back numbers they are in these parts. Nice people, for all that. They were terribly kind to me when baby died. After that I sent them heaps and heaps of things: candied fruit, ribbons for their bonnets, liqueurs for the cure.” She stood up again. “The graveyard’s there, just beyond that ridge. If you look well you’ll see the graves, down in the hollow. Put your hand there—do you know why my heart’s fluttering like that? I’m always in terror I shan’t be able to find her again, poor little thing. We didn’t care to take out a permanent lease, you see; everyone assured us that wasn’t the custom hereabouts. And, every time I come, I can’t help thinking to myself: ‘Suppose they’ve bundled her out of it!’ They’d have the right, you know, if they did so… . Pull up in front of the pathway, driver; we’ll walk to the gate… . Come along, be quick!”