Anna (46 page)

“Did you once wear them on your dress on some happy occasion?” he asked. “Was it a party where you enjoyed yourself?”

It was on the following day when she was in the garden reading in the shadow of a gay sun umbrella, that Father Ignatius was announced. She had been aware of a strange premonition, a vague, uneasy, foreboding as she saw the man-servant approaching from the house. It was as though she knew what he was going to say.

And when he spoke, an immediate shiver ran through her. But she was careful in front of him to appear deliberate and unconcerned.

“Father Ignatius?” she said absently, as though she scarcely remembered the name. “No, Henri, tell him that I cannot see him. Tell him that I am not at home.”

She bent down to pick up her book but, finding that her hands were trembling, she set it down again and sat motionless until the man had departed.

“What does it mean?” she began asking herself. “How can he have discovered where I am? What has he come to say to me?” She regretted anew, now that it was too late, that she had ever gone to him. “It is all different now,” she continued. “Quite different. I have made my decision. It's too late to go back on it. If I saw him now he would only tell me how wicked I am. He would never understand.” And she began comforting herself by remembering how she had tried to speak to M. Moritz, and how he had refused to listen. “There is nothing more that I could have done with such a man,” she went on.

She shrugged her shoulders, not because she really felt at ease or indifferent, but because she needed the sense of assurance that such a gesture alone could give.

Her trembling had ceased now and she reached out for the book that she had earlier been afraid to hold. As she did so, she glanced idly down the cypress walk in front of her. And what she saw made her utter a little cry.

At the end of the walk Father Ignatius was standing. He was silhouetted, pitch-black, against the skyline. His broad-brimmed hat and long skirt had the inhuman quality of garments draped upon a scarecrow. And it was a particularly sinister and menacing kind of scarecrow. As Anna watched, it began to advance towards her.

Her first instinct was to run. But she realised that it was impossible. She could not be seen running from someone in her own garden. She would have to remain there; remain there and be calm.
All that was left for her was to see him, get rid of him somehow, sending him off as silently as he had come.

“There is the other gate, the little one that leads straight on to the road,” she remembered suddenly. “He can leave by that: I will take him there myself.”

She was aware, however, of the beating of her heart as he approached; his footsteps on the stone path were heavy and inevitable.

“But why should I be afraid of him?” she asked herself. “What power has he over me? There is nothing that he can do to harm me here.”

And raising her head she waited for him. He was still three or four paces distant but already his eyes were fixed upon her. His face, under the wide brim, was pale.

“Why did you not come to me?” he asked.

She did not answer immediately, and dropped her eyes. It was at his rough boots under the black soutane that she was now looking. They were heavy and clumsily patched. The white dust of the road was thick on them.

But he was repeating the question: in his manner there was the quiet, unquestionable persistence of someone in authority.

“Why did you not come to me?”

“I had no further need, Father,” she answered.

Father Ignatius did not move. He remained there, stubborn and dominating, in front of her.

“You were never in greater need,” he said. “Never in greater need.”

She turned away from him, still avoiding his eyes. Her heart was racing, and she started when he spoke again.

“Don't turn away from me like that,” he said. “I'm your friend. I've come to help you.”

His voice had become gentler, and the note of authority had gone from it. At the change she found herself for some reason wanting suddenly to cry.

She faced him again.

“It is no use,” she said. “You can't help me any more. I've made my decision. I know what it means.”

“Even on the very edge of the precipice there is still time to turn back …” Father Ignatius began saying; and then checked himself. He passed his hand over his eyes and sat down wearily on the seat opposite to her. It was obvious that he was very near the point of complete exhaustion. The sweat that had been forming on his forehead had now begun to trickle down his temples. He removed his hat and rubbed a handkerchief across his forehead.

“I've failed,” he said simply. “It's my own fault. I can see that. But God didn't send you to me for nothing. One day, I believe, I shall still be able to save you.”

He brushed some of the dust out of the folds of his skirt and got to his feet again.

“I shall go now,” he said. “But later you will come to me.”

Anna got hurriedly to her feet.

“Not that way. Not past the house,” she said. “This path leads straight down to the other gate. It's nearer. I'll take you there.”

“But why should gentleman go so soon in any case?” M. Moritz's voice inquired from just behind her. “You see so few of your friends. And there is nothing to prevent a priest's taking a glass of wine when he is out visiting.”

When they turned, M. Moritz was smiling. His hands were in the pockets of his jacket and he was see-sawing backwards and forwards on his little feet. There was an almost terrifying affability in his manner. He stretched out his hand towards Anna.

“We live so quietly at the villa, don't we, my dear?” he remarked. “Just like an old married couple.”

He studied Father Ignatius's face as he said it, and his smile broadened a trifle.

“Just like an old married couple,” he repeated.

Father Ignatius had not yet spoken. He was standing there tightlipped and unbending. With his right hand he was playing with the tassel of his girdle, clasping it and unclasping it with monotonous regularity. He was endeavouring to stare M. Moritz out of countenance.

But M. Moritz would have none of it.

“But, my dear Father,” he said, laying his hand upon his arm, “you must sit down. You must really join us. I'm afraid you've been treated very badly. At first my wife tells you that she won't see you and then when you persuade her to change her mind she keeps you standing.”

There was a chair immediately behind Father Ignatius, and as he was speaking M. Moritz was carefully edging him towards it. When at last the hard wooden edge of the seat was against the back of Father Ignatius's knees he gave just the least little extra push. Father Ignatius's balance was abruptly overthrown and he found himself sitting.

M. Moritz released his grip and rubbed his hands delightedly.

“That's far more sociable,” he said. “I felt sure you'd stop if we asked you.”

He looked up and then nodded his head in approval.

“Ah, here he comes,” he said. “I was afraid that he was going to keep us waiting.”

Coming down the path towards them was Henri. On the tray that he was carrying three glasses were set out.

Father Ignatius had still not spoken; and, for a moment M. Moritz addressed himself to Anna.

“And is this the good Father you went to visit so late one evening while I was away?” he asked. “Remember I haven't even been introduced to him.”

Before Anna could answer, he had faced round again, and was addressing Father Ignatius once more.

“Such a beautiful little church,” he said. “So secluded. Like this villa. Tucked away where you would not expect a stranger to find it—almost as if it were hiding from someone.”

The bottle of champagne that Henri had brought had been uncorked and he was filling the glasses. M. Moritz watched him pass the first glass to Anna, but she merely shook her head. Then he took the second glass himself and offered it to Father Ignatius. At first the priest tried to refuse. But if he had not taken the glass, it would have spilled. In self-defence he took it just at the moment when M. Moritz was about to let it go. And having taken he held it at arm's length resentfully.

M. Moritz made it clear, however, that he had not noticed any reluctance upon the part of his guest; and he continued as charmingly as ever.

“It's an interesting wine, this,” he said. “I would like to see my cellar full of it.”

He broke off and turned suddenly to Anna.

“But, my dear,” he said. “You're very silent. I believe I'm embarrassing you. Perhaps you'd rather see the good Father alone?”

Before Anna could reply, M. Moritz had addressed himself to Father Ignatius again. He had dropped his voice a little.

“My wife is a very devout Catholic at heart,” he said. Positively a
religieuse.
I often think that religion is her true vocation. That is what makes her present situation so painful to her.”

While he was speaking, Father Ignatius had risen. He was frowning. His untasted glass stood on the table beside him.

M. Moritz went up to him and took him by the arm.

“If you really have to go so soon,” he said. “I'll ask if I might walk a little of the way with you. I want your advice. I want to consult you as a man of the world. Tell me, Father, with your
experience in dealing with people, what
would
you recommend my poor wife to do?”

He began moving away as he was speaking, still holding Father Ignatius by the arm; and Anna could catch only one sentence of the conversation.

“You see,” M. Moritz was saying, “with my dear first wife still living it is difficult to go through any of the ordinary forms of marriage. Besides, it is so embarrassing for the present Madame Moritz. Though we've never discussed it, I understand that she has a husband already.”

Then they turned into the path that ran at right angles to the cypress walk, and Anna could hear no more.

The Nurse was installed by now: she had arrived from Nice three days before in her own magnificence of veil, white starch and a false fringe. Her luggage was in two parts, a brass-bound box containing her uniforms and a small leather case, scarcely larger than a hat box, holding the secrets of her profession.

Anna disliked the woman, but obeyed her. She was strict and efficient. She kept Anna indoors a great deal to protect her from the treacherous effects of the
brise
; told her to avoid even the slightest exertion and unnecessary exercise; over-fed her; and was careful to gratify her slightest whim, examining and cross-examining her to make sure that there was no rare or unusual food for which she was secretly hankering.

She was nearly sixty, this nurse, and she left nothing to chance. A devotee of hygiene in its most modern forms, she even insisted on having the wet nurse brought to her so that she could satisfy herself as to her condition. Within ten minutes she had entirely rearranged the poor woman's diet.

The doctor, too, was calling almost daily. He was the most expensive on the Riviera. He specialised in the ailments of women and had cultivated a manner of infinite charm and solicitude. A large man with a dense forked beard, he was like a tender bear in the bedroom. He carried a separate pair of pure white kid gloves which he put on before touching his patients.

The months had passed quickly. It seemed now to Anna that it was only a matter of weeks since she had known that she was with child. But she had grown so completely to accept it that she could
not remember what her life had been like before the child had been the centre of it. Its coming had magically transformed and altered everything.

Because of the child her mind was now focused upon the present and the future; the past grew fainter every day. Rhinehausen was now a dream and her father and Berthe and the Baron—Charles even —misty figures in it. M. Duvivier was someone who did not belong in this life at all; and it was only Captain Picard who still appeared suddenly and without warning before her eyes. In death he alone still had the embodiment of life.

As for Father Ignatius, he no longer troubled her. After his brief show of authority he had done nothing: his first visit to the villa had been his last. M. Moritz had even commented upon his absence, had asked Anna when she was expecting the confessor to call again. And he had been innocently astonished when she had told him that she did not know.

M. Moritz himself had grown more loving and concerned than ever. His business still took him often to Geneva, but he telegraphed constantly and returned often by inconvenient trains, always bearing presents. The new nurseries had been completed under his personal supervision and thoughts of the child filled nearly every moment of his waking day. He still did not question that it would be a boy, and his latest enthusiasm was for Hégésippe.

He was indulgent too, and raised no objection when Anna placed on the table of her boudoir a small Virgin and child that she had bought. It was only the workmanship of which he disapproved. He picked it up and examined it as he would examine any other
objet d'art
that might have been set before him; and when he had finished handling it he flicked the base contemptuously with his finger nail and pushed the little figure away from him.

“I shall get you a good Virgin,” he said. “Something that you'll be glad to look at.”

And on his return from his next trip to Geneva he brought with him a costly fragile little doll in ivory with a child miraculously carved into its arms. It was mounted on an onyx base and there was a case of domed glass to protect it from the world. M. Moritz removed the glass tenderly and respectfully and held the figure at arm's length.

“There's something that any one might be proud to worship,” he said. “You could search half the museums of Europe and not find a better one.”

Then, content that he had done what he had promised, he picked up the plaster Madonna and, holding it between two fingers as if it
were something distasteful, crossed the room and dropped it into the waste basket.