Cloudless May (33 page)

“Obedient servant?” Lucien repeated. “Is that really the right ending? It sounds a little—official.”

“So—when you are writing a formal letter for the Prefect—you sign it Yours ever?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then——”

“Oh, well,” Lucien said hurriedly, “the fact is, it sounds servile. I have a right to be in the army!”

“You have the right!” Catherine mocked. “Very well, if you have so much right, why aren't you commanding a battalion? The war isn't going so brilliantly. We can't afford to neglect a military genius.”

Lucien turned on her. “You have an abominable tongue.”

She was delighted by her success—and his words hurt her.

“I was trying to help you; you asked me,” she said, with false meekness.

“I was a fool!”

She pricked him again. “But you needn't be, you're quite intelligent.”

Lucien's expression changed. This time she had gone too far, he saw what she was up to. In the same moment—he was not vain—he knew that she liked him, she was better than interested in him. An extraordinary sense of danger and exultance seized him. He blinked, and looked directly at her.

“Your letter is the right one,” he said calmly. “I shall write it—this evening as soon as I get back.”

“And do you think he'll help you?” she asked timidly. In an instant she had lost all her self-confidence. She was confused,
and tried not to seem it. A bat could flutter into her hair at this moment and she would not even shudder.

“I don't know. If not, I shall have to speak to
him
again.”

He meant the Prefect. After a silence, Catherine said,

“I wanted to nurse. When I ask her, my mother won't even listen.”

“Why not?”

“I don't know.”

This was a lie. In her first week at home she had guessed what it was her mother hoped. That she would make a good marriage and bring into the family a son-in-law of whom Mme de Freppel could be proud, and who would flatter her and give her social security. Under her mother's careless talk and seeming indifference, Catherine had divined a snob. What she had not guessed, and never would, was the excuse of this poor snob. She knew nothing about her mother's fearful struggle out of the mud; she did not know that Mme de Freppel had had to cure herself of habits learned when she was a hungry child and practised in sordid rooms which had become in her memory one room; that she had taught her voice the assurance, if necessary the insolence, of those who expect to be obeyed. That for an hour before she walked into Mme Huet's drawing-room she went through an agony of nervousness. That she longed, and was afraid, to be invited by the Duchesse de Seuilly and other ladies of the provincial families who, so far, had ignored her existence. If she could enter their world by way of her daughter's marriage, what a relief! . . . Of this Catherine understood nothing. Her mother's snobbery amused her. She did not even take it seriously. And she had not the least intention of letting it dictate her marriage or way of life.

She looked at Lucien, who was looking at her. Both turned away at once, losing courage. They walked quickly, oppressed by a feeling of guilt and failure, past the commons to the other side of the house. Lucien set off on his motor-cycle, weaving from side to side of the drive. Catherine hollowed her hands to shout, “Take care.” He caught her voice without the words, and turned his head. The machine lurched madly.

“Go away,” she yelled, waving him on. He accelerated and was out of sight. The noises of his engine became less erratic
as they came from farther and farther off, until she could hear nothing but a firm, scarcely noticeable vibration. A jay screaming over her head drowned it. Afterwards she listened in vain. Her ear had lost the pitch.

She went in. Mme de Freppel was in the library, and Catherine saw at once that she had seen her talking to Lucien. Smiling amiably, she picked up her book. Perhaps if I keep quiet. .. But her mother was not willing to let it pass.

“Were you,” she asked, “talking to Émile's secretary?”

“Yes,” Catherine said. She did not look up.

She knew her mother was afraid of her. Afraid of vexing or boring her. She had no idea why. She could not guess that her mother felt guilty. Because she had wanted to be rid of her when she was a child. And now, because this guilt was setting its teeth in her, a little deeper each day, her courage to give orders had gone. All the girl knew was that somehow she was in a strong position. With the irresponsibility of the young who have been sheltered she made good use of it. But her mother did not try to use her authority. It was too late. She was too drily aware of the desert between her and this friendly uninterested daughter. She thought: I have lost her. She recalled, with anguish, the day when Catherine was a little girl and wept because she was going away. Her anguish became a torment. How could I, she thought, have been so cruel, so selfish, so blind? There was nothing to be done. For a mother to know her child she has to pay in advance with full devotion, full interest, a full honesty. And be prepared to be cheated. Animal love on the one side and on the other a friendly indifference do not bridge the abyss between the generations. Mme de Freppel's only hope now was that Catherine would want the same things her mother wanted for her. Worldly brilliance, and marriage into a good family. Then she could use all her wits to help her. They would be allies. . . . How I shall like to say casually to Andrée Huet, “My daughter the Comtesse de Saint-Jouin,” or “de Nivernois.” . . . Was it for Catherine she wanted safety? Or for herself? Why not for both? Her vanity, if Catherine made a bad marriage, would be mortally hurt. Her poor vanity. There you have her. Yes, yes, but the mothers who hope a virtuous rather than a brilliant marriage for their child are shockingly rare.

“He's a nice boy but terribly clumsy,” she said.

“I hadn't noticed it,” Catherine said briefly.

“I believe his father is a sort of farmer. That would account for it.”

Catherine looked up from her book with a vague bright smile. It said plainly: I'm attending to you out of politeness, but I want to read. Mme de Freppel hesitated. The telephone in the next room rang, and she went to it. Catherine stretched herself in her chair. Keeping her book open, she let herself slide into a dream. . . . Lucien was in uniform, a private soldier. His uniform of course did not fit him. It touched him at points, and wherever it touched she laid her hand lightly. What incredible happiness! But he had tears in his eyes. It was the last time, the last of all last times. With an unmoved face she heard that he had been killed. . . . As soon as her mother came back she got up and went out of the room. A young widow ought to be left to her grief.

Bergeot's secretary had just told him that two people were waiting to see him—Colonel Rienne and M. Mathieu. “Ask them to excuse me for two minutes,” he said. “I'll ring.”

He felt bored and at the end of his strength. At this moment he would rather have seen two enemies than two of his friends; you know where you have an enemy. He had always known. Since his first year at the Law School. Since earlier, since his first year at school in Seuilly. Since his first day there—the morning he walked into the playground and glanced from the corner of his eyes at the group of boys chattering under the big elm. Since that instant he had known how to handle an enemy. He knew what to say to induce a given emotion. He knew to a smile how much to pretend to give away as he talked, when to show himself experienced and agile, when to be the crude provincial. By a sort of second hearing, he reconnoitred the country behind his opponent's mind and blunted the attack. He knew by feel what sort of flattery to apply. He must have been born with his skill in the art of arriving by a confident use
of people. . . . He had two grave weaknesses—also no doubt born with him.

He never gave a promise without trying, even at loss to himself, to keep it—a moral weakness which would make a career as a Minister very difficult. And, with a pen in his hand, he could not resist telling the truth. This Calvinism, this honesty, went hand in hand with a tortuous dishonesty. He would flatter a friend without conscience, flatter and if possible injure a rival; but he had a loyalty to ideas which was almost beyond his control, almost involuntary. Because of it, he did not draw all the benefits due to him for his manoeuvring of persons. He had no idea himself that his two monographs, both on obscure points of legal practice, and his few articles in legal and political quarterlies, gave him away in every line.

He had a feeling of guilt towards his friends. They gave him, he thought, credit for an honesty he did not possess. They knew what his beliefs were; they heard him, when he had written his speech beforehand, speak boldly; they did not imagine the personal perjuries and flinchings of his life. They did not imagine how often he held his tongue, how often he trembled in his provincial skin in the fear of being laughed at by a powerful journalist or an experienced politician. His friends, he thought, must be fools not to see it. He felt a contempt for them. Sometimes even for Rienne.

And with all this—he was vain. He kept at the back of his mind a generous, stubborn, recklessly honest Émile Bergeot, not valued at his worth by a vulgar world. . . . Admirable image. Brave solitary little figure. All good things come, they say, in small packets. One day, the rest of the world will recognise you. . . . When he was beginning to dislike himself, when he felt humiliated, this good little image protected him. It was as far as he ever reached in knowing himself. He took care never to go beyond it.

His best moments were the first stages of a fight. The first brush with the enemy called out all his guile, courage, lucidity. His mind blazed with energy. But there were days when to have to see his friends and supporters filled him with bored anxiety—he had to bore himself to be what they thought he was. Merely to think of seeing Rienne and Mathieu made him feel tired.

The second door of his room opened. It was Marguerite who came in, with her half-defiant, half-coaxing air. Why had he never noticed before that she had a touch of his malady, the same, the very same? He saw it, and forgot it at once.

“Forgive me a few minutes,” he said, “I have people waiting to see me.”

“Who?”

“Bonamy. Louis Mathieu.”

“I'll stay and see them.”

“I'd rather you didn't,” he said, smiling at her.

She hesitated. He saw that she was vexed and a little mortified. It was too much trouble to cajole her.

“Why have they come?” she asked.

“I don't know until I see them.”

“Don't let them talk you into something rash,” she said, frowning.

She went back into the room she used as her own when she came to see him. It was separated from his by a space crammed with old files, and had its own door on the staircase.

He rang the bell. When the two men came in, he was all smiles and eager warmth. He saw at a glance that Bonamy had come to encourage him and Mathieu to criticise.

“The two people I most needed to see. Did you come together? Is it a plot?” The prospect of having to outwit Mathieu sent his spirits leaping up.

“In fact, no,” Mathieu said. “But I'm not sorry to let Rienne hear what I have to say. I shan't keep you five minutes.”

Bergeot turned to him an air of eager interest. You've come, he thought, to denounce a traitor of some sort; nothing gives you so much pleasure as to be justly ruthless—you minor prophet, you.

Mathieu had a trick of lifting his hand, palm turned down, rigid, as though both edges were sharp enough to cut. The edge rose or fell as he denounced or was, moderately, content. Just now he held it level with his throat.

“Do you know—obviously you don't—that Labenne was closely involved with Edgar Vayrac, not only politically but in other ways? I can rely on my information. It comes from the police. I'm not able to give you any names.”

Bergeot did not answer. He was impatient and uninterested.
Of course Labenne had a dubious side to his character. It was no shock to find him associating with a man in gaol, known to have owned brothels, and probably an agent in Italian—which was bad enough—or—less excusable—German pay. But he felt no eagerness to expose Labenne, at any time; especially now. What a bore a Savonarola is, he thought.

“You don't surprise me,” he said at last.

“I didn't expect to,” Mathieu said coldly. “What I want is to put you on your guard. Do you feel comfortable about discussing your civil defence plans with a Mayor who may discuss them with a pro-German? In the end he'll do you down. You personally.”

“That doesn't alarm me.”

“Only,” Mathieu said, “because you don't believe it. As you like. But the man is a traitor.”

Bergeot raised his eyebrows.

“I'm not given to exaggeration,” Mathieu retorted.

“No,” Bergeot said. He pretended not to have any suspicion that he was on trial. “I know you too well. But what's your advice? Do you advise me to begin now on the appalling job of investigating Labenne? With all that will mean—you know what it will mean—in intrigue and counter-intrigue, between the police and the Police? It's too much. And surely it's a stroke of luck that Vayrac is locked up? Labenne isn't likely to run himself into trouble for a crook who has been blown on. He's reasonable, after all!”

He had only convinced Mathieu that he was shirking an unpleasant task. He saw that. Such singleness of mind exasperated him madly. If a guillotine thinks, it must think exactly like Louis, he groaned. And if you begin guillotining traitors, you're forced to go on, to guillotine half-traitors, quarter-traitors; you've begun a purge. Bergeot's heart—or was it only his will?—shrank from the effort. He seized the excuse pushed forward by his assiduous mind.

“My dear Louis, I know that so far as frivolity and corruption are concerned, there's no difference between our little politics here and the ball game between Ministers, bankers, generals. They're both politics. But I'm an overworked Prefect, not a Minister. I can't both run a purge and cope with the war as it affects Seuilly. Two wars. It's madness.”