Chapter III: Part 3

And she did this not designedly, because it was Guillaume’s mother whom she was conciliating, but from an undefined and all-powerful instinct that compelled her to be kind to this humiliated and disappointed woman.

It was the same instinct which had guided her hitherto and which made her still more attentive and affectionate in the days that followed, notwithstanding a certain sense of constraint which she felt in Mme. de la Vaudraye’s presence. She knew no greater pleasure than to smooth the wrinkles from those sullen features at the moment when they were most firmly set; and to do this she employed all sorts of childish rogueries:

“Come, try hard and laugh.... There, you have laughed!”

Mme. de la Vaudraye was touched by all this charm of manner. It made her neglect the artificial plan of conduct which she had arranged to captivate the girl: she forgot to conceal her faults, she even became natural and spontaneous.

One day, after something that Gilberte had said, with a sudden movement she drew the girl to her:

“Oh, my darling, what a treasure of a wife you would make!”

Gilberte smiled:

“Indeed! How do I know that you would have me for a daughter!... However, we shall soon see ... perhaps to-morrow....”

“To-morrow?”

“Why, of course! Isn’t this the day when Guillaume is coming to the trysting-place where I wait for him every day?”

“Guillaume? I had a letter from him this morning from Paris. Besides, I know him; when he has made up his mind....”

Gilberte looked at her watch:

“Five o’clock. Suppose he were there now!... Ah, I have a feeling that he is there to-day, that I shall see him!... Good-bye till to-morrow.”

She hastened away swiftly, leaving her companion speechless. Hope filled her breast, a hope each time disappointed, but never discouraged.

“Mme. Armand is coming back alone this afternoon,” said the people at Domfront. “What a hurry she’s in!”

She crossed the threshold of the Logis without stopping and went straight to the summer-house. Her eyes longed to pierce the screen of foliage that hid the hill from sight. She had not a doubt that he was there; and, at the same time, she felt the madness of her certainty.

She arrived. Her glance at once swept the rocks. He was there.

She was on the point of throwing him handfuls of kisses, or else of kneeling down and stretching out her arms to him across space, but she saw him running down the slope and she herself started running towards him, as fast as she could.

She arrived all out of breath at the bottom of the garden, broke down the little wooden gate, which was slow in opening, and sprang into the road at the moment when Guillaume crossed the bridge:

“Gilberte!”

“Guillaume!”

They assured themselves with a glance that nothing was changed in either of them and then silently followed the road that skirts the Varenne. They dared not speak, overcome with the importance of the words which they were about to pronounce. Besides, excitement gripped them by the throat.

Thus they arrived at Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau, the old Norman chapel which is so prettily situated on the river-bank.

Leaning on the balustrade above the water flowing through the arches of the bridge, they revelled in the delight of dreaming side by side. Then Guillaume said:

“It was more than I could bear. I wanted to see you, if only for a few minutes ... and to gather fresh courage....”

She asked, in a voice that did not sound like her own:

“Then ... you are going back?...”

“I intended to ... but I can’t now.... I can’t now....”

He continued, almost in a whisper:

“It’s not weakness. But I am seeing you; and to see you is to see things and ideas as they are. You flood them with the light which is in you and which springs from you. Yes, I tried to escape the temptation and I had a wild desire to work in solitude, so as to achieve the wealth and fame that would have permitted me to marry you. And now ... and now I see that it is all madness. Why suffer uselessly? Let us struggle together, Gilberte. I can do nothing without you ... I am too much in love with you.”

“And your scruples?” she asked, maliciously.

“What do wealth and poverty matter? They are words to which I was able to attach a certain value when away from you in writing to you. But, when I am near you, it seems to me that they mean nothing. A man has no right to order his life by such empty phrases.... Oh, Gilberte, you put everything in its right proportion, you are truth itself, your love gives certainty and peace! Such as I am, I am worthy of you, because you love me....”

She gave him her hand. He asked:

“You are not angry with me?”

“For going away, Guillaume? No, I was so sure that you would come back!”

IX

AFFIANCED

On the next afternoon, Adèle burst into the room where Gilberte was sitting after lunch:

“M’am, there’s Mme. de la Vaudraye and her son turning into the square. Am I to let them in?”

“Yes, certainly, I am expecting them.”

“Then it’s true what Mme. Duval says, that you’re going to marry M. Guillaume, ma’am?”

“Well, suppose I am?”

“Oh, as far as M. Guillaume’s concerned, I’ve nothing to say! But Mme. de la Vaudraye as your mother-in-law! If you want to know, ma’am, I’d rather....”

The front-bell rang; and she went to the door looking very cross.

Gilberte shot a glance at the glass over the mantel-piece, pushed a curl into place and nervously made a change in the flowers in the vases, bunches of roses which she had gathered herself. Adèle showed in the mother and son.

Mme. de la Vaudraye was radiant. A moment before, in the main street, the mere sight of her silk dress, her ceremonious walk and her triumphant expression must have told the inhabitants of Domfront the exact nature of her errand.

She entered with the ease of one who is quite at home. Her way of sitting down showed that she was definitely and blissfully taking possession. There was none of the stiffness, none of the preliminary commonplaces that usually mark this sort of interview. Mme. de la Vaudraye was much too eager to come to the point:

“My dear Gilberte, I wish to ask your hand for my son Guillaume.”

All their love, all the unspeakable happiness of their souls, all their gratitude, all their faith in the future was contained in the glance exchanged by Guillaume and Gilberte. Nothing remained of the irritation which his mother’s air of victory caused him, nothing remained of the anxiety which the other felt at this solemn hour.

Mme. de la Vaudraye did not even wait to hear the answer.

“First of all, my dear child, let me speak to you as a friend and as a woman of experience, who knows only too well, by what she herself has been through, that happiness in married life is based upon material prosperity. You know, don’t you, how Guillaume and I are placed as regards money? On the death of my poor husband....”

Guillaume rose and walked to the open window, as though bored beforehand by what was coming. Gilberte felt very much inclined to join him and to leave Mme. de la Vaudraye to fight out with herself the question of the material prosperity on which married bliss is based. But the older woman’s imperious eye nailed her to her chair; and, nodding her head at intervals, by way of assent, she had to listen to a long speech in which strange phrases like separate and common property, joint estate and settlements kept on recurring.

“That will do nicely,” she said, with an air of deliberation, though she did not understand a single word of what was said.

“Are we agreed?”

“Quite, madame.”

“Well, children, kiss each other and bless you!”

Guillaume stepped forward and his outstretched arms closed round Gilberte. He kissed her forehead, kissed her eyes. She released herself, blushing, and said:

“It is my first kiss, Guillaume.”

He felt a momentary bitterness:

“Your first ... from me.”

She smiled:

“A girl must not receive a kiss from any but the man she is engaged to ... and are you not the first, the only one?”

“What do you mean, Gilberte?”

“I mean, Guillaume,” she said, in accents throbbing with her heart’s gladness, “I mean that I am not a widow, that I have never been married, that I called myself a married woman in the hope of escaping attention and that no such person as Mme. Armand exists.”

Guillaume was trembling with emotion. He understood, yet refused to admit the truth, so great would have been the anguish of a mistake:

“No, no, I dare not believe it ... you, a girl, unmarried!”

“What is there so extraordinary in that?”

“Oh, Gilberte!”

He had seized her hands and stood gazing at her in ecstasy.

She whispered:

“I was sure that you would be delighted.”

“It is something more than delight. You seem to me even more beautiful and even more innocent and sacred. I do not love you any better, but I love you differently.”

And he continued:

“Is it really possible? Is there no one in your past? Is there not even that shadow on my happiness?”

“My whole past is you, Guillaume.”

Mme. de la Vaudraye came up to them. They had forgotten all about her; and her appearance gave them an impression that was all the more painful inasmuch as the sudden gravity of her features was in direct contrast with their own rapture. She said to Gilberte:

“If Mme. Armand does not exist, then whom is my son marrying?”

“Well, Gilberte....”

“Gilberte whom?”

“Gilberte Me,” replied the girl, trying to speak playfully, but half-uneasy at heart.

“Come, child, that’s not enough. You must have a surname?...”

“I suppose so....”

“What was your father’s name? Your mother’s?”

“I don’t know.”

Mme. de la Vaudraye drew herself up to the full length of her angular figure. It was as though she were learning some terrible event, a catastrophe. Gilberte caught sight of Guillaume’s pallor and suddenly understood what she had never even half-realized, the danger of her irregular position where a woman like Mme. de la Vaudraye was concerned. She shook with terror.

Guillaume interposed gently:

“Don’t upset yourself, Gilberte. I need not say how little importance I attach to all this; but mother does not look at things from my point of view. Let us hear the facts.”

Gilberte, without entering into details, told of the death of her mother, the loss of the family-papers and the whole chapter of accidents which had prevented her from penetrating the mystery that surrounded her. As she went on, her voice lost its assurance. All this story, which, until then, she had simply regarded as a source of petty worries, now, under Mme. de la Vaudraye’s stern eye, appeared to her the abominable story of a worthless creature. To be without a name! She felt as much ashamed of herself as though they had made the unexpected discovery that she had an ear missing, or a piece of one cheek. And yet, in the silence that followed on her recital she sought in vain for the crime which she had committed, for the crime of which she was held guilty.

“Well, mother,” said Guillaume, “there’s nothing serious in that.”

“Nothing serious!” sneered Mme. de la Vaudraye.

All her little middle-class, provincial feelings were outraged by this unforeseen revelation. The pride of the La Vaudrayes cried aloud within her. What would people say at Domfront if a La Vaudraye married a girl without a name, a foundling, an adventuress, in fact! She pictured the tittletattle, the sidelong allusions, the condolences with which she would be overwhelmed.

“My poor friend, how very unpleasant for you!... Of course, I knew there was something suspicious about her, for, after all....”

And they would say, among themselves:

“No name? Nonsense! When people haven’t a name, it’s because it’s to their interest not to have one, because they are hiding their real name.”

She did not take the trouble to put it politely. Bluntly, she declared:

“The marriage is out of the question. It will not take place.”

Guillaume protested indignantly:

“Out of the question! And why, pray?”

“Can’t you see that for yourself? I’m surprised at your asking!”

“I insist on knowing, as Gilberte’s affianced husband.”

“Gilberte’s husband! People don’t marry....”

“Silence, mother!”

He was standing before her, with his features convulsed. Another word and he would have closed her lips by mean force. She was afraid of him. He went on, dropping his voice:

“You are right, we had better not continue this explanation in her presence. Any words other than words of veneration I look upon as an insult to the girl I love.”

He pushed her towards the door sternly. But Gilberte barred their road:

“No, Guillaume, not like that.... If we must part, let it not be with angry words.... I love both of you too well, yes, both of you, madame,” she declared, in the voice that no one could resist.

Her gentleness was stronger than Guillaume’s violence. He made no further movement. Mme. de la Vaudraye allowed herself to be led back into the room. Gilberte made her sit down and knelt beside her:

“Act as your conscience tells you, but, please, without any bitterness against me.... Whatever you decide to do, do not let me lose your affection.”

There may have been a sort of revenge on Gilberte in Mme. de la Vaudraye’s unbending attitude. She rejoiced to see this child, who had always dominated her by her goodness and candour, on her knees before her, while she, the judge, looked down from her moral pedestal and put her to confusion from the heights of her respectability.

She did not reply. Gilberte continued:

“You remember our walk, a little while ago, when you showed me the former boundaries of your property.... Well, I bought it all up ... in order to give it back to you. I hoped to bring you back here, to this house which belongs to you. Everything is yours, you would have managed and disposed of everything, you would have been the absolute mistress, answerable to no one, you would have resumed your proper place at Domfront, the Logis would have become what it used to be....”

A gleam flashed through Mme. de la Vaudraye’s eyes, but she restrained herself. The same inflexible will contracted her face into a hard and stiff mask. Coldly, she said:

“I am exceedingly sorry that all these fine plans cannot be realized, but it is not my fault.... Make enquiries.... Who knows ...? Perhaps you will succeed in finding out the indispensable truth.”

Gilberte, in her despair, was nearly flinging her arms round her neck and saying:

“Stay here, please.... Be to me the mother whom I have lost.... I will love you like a daughter....”

But Guillaume prevented her:

“Why humiliate yourself, Gilberte?... If my mother will not consent....”

“Well?”

“Well, are we not free?”

“No, Guillaume,” she answered, firmly, “I will not marry you except with your mother’s entire approval.”

He turned pale and murmured:

“But ... we shall see each other....”

“We shall not see each other. We can only see each other by stealth; and that is unworthy of us.”

“Suppose I meet you....”

“I shall not leave the Logis.”

“But....”

“We will wait, Guillaume. Am I not your promised bride?”

He bowed. His mother went out. He followed her.

And Gilberte felt as though she had never been so lonely in her life.

X

THE DESERTED HOUSE

Next day, Gilberte received the following letter from Maître Dufornéril, her solicitor at Dieppe:

“MADEMOISELLE,

“I have just received your telegram asking me where we stand in the
matter of our enquiries. I have already given you the information
which I obtained regarding your life and that of your parents at
Liverpool, although this, unfortunately, told us nothing new. M.
Kellner, which was the name under which your father made his
fortune at Liverpool, left none but pleasant memories behind him in
the commercial world of that city. On the other hand, no one knew
anything of his private life or of his antecedents. It was not
even known that he was married; and this fully bears out what you
told me of the retired existence which your mother and yourself
used to lead.

“I was therefore obliged to pursue our investigations to Berlin,
which takes us six years further back. Your father at that time
called himself M. Dumas. And here we have evidence that a fire
broke out on the 15th of October 18--in the warehouse of M. Dumas,
a bonder of Anjou wines, in the Frischwasserstrasse. Among the
rooms completely destroyed was that which M. Dumas, who was at the
same time a general agent, used as an office in which to see his
clients, most of whom were countrymen of his own. M. Dumas made an
affidavit from which it appears that all his papers were burnt.

“On this side, consequently, we arrive at a very unfortunate
certainty: your family-papers are no longer in existence; that is
clear. We have therefore to trace your parents back to the time of
their departure from France. Once we have done this and discovered
the town in which they used to live, it will be easy, by
advertising, to find out who you really are.

“Your father had in his employment, in Berlin, a Frenchman of the
name of Renaudeau, whom he appears to have trusted absolutely and
to have treated, according to the neighbours, as a friend of long
standing. When he left Berlin, he made over his business to
Renaudeau. Next year, Renaudeau went bankrupt. But he is believed
to be at Hamburg. I have written to the French consul there; and I
will let you know as soon as I hear from him.”

Day after day went by, days like those which followed on her arrival at Domfront. Gilberte once more became the recluse to whom none had access save the poor and destitute of the countryside; and, though they still spoke of her as _la Bonne Demoiselle_ of the Logis and blessed her for her charity, it might well be that they no longer took away with them that impression of comfort which they welcomed no less than the alms. How could she have consoled them, she who herself was yearning for consolation?

However, she did not give up all hope. Gilberte had one of those rather passive natures which, in happy hours, overflow with generous gladness, but which, at times of trial, fall back upon themselves and live in that kind of quiet contemplation which is as it were a patient expectation. Mastering her sorrow and checking any signs of rebellion or distress, she appeared less sensitive than others to the most cruel blows with which fate overwhelmed her and, through every obstacle and every vicissitude, she pursued her inward dream, sad or joyous, bright or gloomy, but always built up of love and kindness.

The most appalling time was the close of day. Night fell late at that time of the year; and it would have been sweet indeed to go down to the summer-house after dinner. She had not a doubt but that Guillaume was regular in his attendance at their former trysting-place. He must be stretching out his arms to her now, calling her, entreating her, reproaching her: oh, the torture of not being able to go to him!

She never ceased thinking of him. The memories of their common past formed the only charm of the present; and, by one of love’s illusions, she made her own memories begin on the very day on which Guillaume’s began. And so she remembered the minute when he had caught her raising her mourning-veil in the garden by the ruins. She remembered the moment when, hiding behind a curtain, he had come near to her for the first time. Had she not always loved him? Why had she, from the first and despite Guillaume’s deliberate rebuffs, sought to tame him, as Mme. de la Vaudraye called it, and to win his liking? Why also her impulse of friendship towards the mysterious unknown?

Gilberte took little or no heed of what the town said of all these happenings, having asked Adèle not to tell her: an order which the unfortunate servant found great difficulty in obeying! Domfront was bubbling and seething with comments! For, after all, there was this undeniable fact: in the sight of the whole world, as everybody could bear witness, a formal proposal had been made for Gilberte’s hand in marriage; and it resulted in a breach between the La Vaudrayes and Mme. Armand. A complete breach! For they no longer even saw one another. And the inexplicable thing was that, since that famous afternoon, Mme. Armand had not once left the Logis.

What was underneath it all? From which side did the breach come? A score of contradictory versions went the round of the town, but none of them bore the marks of indisputable authenticity upon which the ever-scrupulous world insists before accepting a piece of gossip as fact. As for Mme. Duval, she was in a desperate plight. Pressed with questions, she was reluctantly compelled to admit that she knew nothing.

After the first fortnight, Gilberte, who dared not walk in her garden, ventured to go out once or twice, but only at times and in directions where she ran no risk of meeting people. Generally in the early morning, she would slip out by a side-door and make her way down to the river by the most shady and roundabout paths of the wood skirting the Logis.

Her almost daily destination was the little chapel of Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau. It was here that she had had her last interview with Guillaume. It was a peaceful spot, where she loved to dream. One day, when she was coming back by a rambling way, she passed the house which was once tenanted by those Despriols who had brought about M. and Mme. de la Vaudrayes’ ruin. The rusty bars of the gate seemed crumbling to pieces. A tangle of weeds and brambles overran the garden. The front of the house was cracking; the slates of the roof were green; the windows were full of swallows’ nests. Everything spoke of desertion and neglect. Nevertheless, Gilberte felt drawn to it.

The gate resisted her efforts and she walked round the garden-wall, feeling sure that she would find a door near a corner which she saw a little way off. She did find one; and it was open, as was the door at the top of the steps leading up to the house.

She had no sooner gone inside than the impression which the old house had made upon her became so distinct as to awaken recognition. It was that curious impression which we sometimes receive in the presence of scenes which we are sure that we have never looked upon and which nevertheless we seem to have always known. It is impossible that we should ever have visited a certain town; and yet the street in which we are is quite familiar to us: we have seen this shop before, that sign-board, this gable, that turning. Where and when? In what bygone existence? Or is it only an illusion awakened in our brain by a series of similar pictures?

“This is the drawing-room,” said Gilberte, before opening the door.

And she amused herself by likewise pointing out, with absolute conviction, the kitchen and the dining-room.

But her astonishment was great indeed when, on the first floor, she entered a large room hung with grey wall-paper, on which birds and butterflies flitted amongst blue flowers. Where had she seen those flowers, those butterflies, those birds before?

She gave a start: in a corner, on the dusty floor, lay a doll, the last stranded relic of all that had once filled the house. And Gilberte knew that doll, knew it beyond a doubt.

She picked it up and, at the first touch of it, was seized with an extraordinary emotion, as though it had been a doll of her childhood, a doll with which she had played at the age of three or four, one of those dolls which little girls treat as babies, lavishing on them all the devotion, the infinite care, the tenderness, the pride and the anxiety of the future mother. And she saw this one, this poor, wretched rag of a doll, with no clothes and only half a head, she saw it, or rather recalled it, clad in a dress of orange silk and a green shawl, with bronze shoes on its feet, a silver chain round its neck and the most wonderful mop of yellow hair upon its head.

She held it for a long time; and it seemed to her that her hands were used to that clumsy body and to the badly-jointed arms and legs. Nothing about the doll disgusted her. She felt as if she could kiss the little porcelain forehead, the prim, painted eyebrows, the chubby cheeks.

There was a faint sound behind her. She turned round and saw a dirty-looking woman with curiously staring eyes and great wisps of white hair all round her head. She was showing her teeth in a fixed and silent laugh. On the linen rag that did duty as a neckerchief hung a queer necklace made of chips of glass, pebbles, corks and twisted grass.

Suddenly the face became contracted with rage: its owner had caught sight of the doll. She ran up to Gilberte, snatched it from her hands and brandished it as though she would have struck the girl with it. But the doll fell to the ground, the threatening gesture ended in an attitude of hesitation and the old woman, with her body bent forward and her eyes staring, gazed at Gilberte.

Gilberte was frightened at first, but became gradually reassured under this steady gaze in which she seemed to feel an ardent and curious affection. She smiled at the old woman, who gave a silent laugh, picked up the doll and handed it to her humbly and gently. Gilberte refused to take it and the old woman grasped her hand and led her to the second floor, to a cupboard crammed with child’s shoes, rattles, broken toys, a little cradle, a chair on wheels and showed them to her with an air of saying:

“Pick where you like, take what you like; I give them to you.”

But none of these things tempted Gilberte. Then the old woman took her down to the garden, led her to an acacia-tree, to a wooden bench, to what remained of a dovecote and, at each halt, questioned her with her eager eyes.

At last, Gilberte felt weary; little by little, since the woman’s arrival, the deserted house had lost its mysterious charm for her; and she began to think of going. Thereupon the old crone, anticipating her wishes, took a key from her pocket and opened the rusty gate. She stooped, as Gilberte went out, and kissed the hem of her dress.

Turning round, a few minutes after, Gilberte saw her standing in the middle of the road, making signs to her.

When she returned to the Logis, she told her adventure to Adèle, who exclaimed:

“Why, it must have been Désirée, the Despriols’ old nurse! She is a poor old madwoman, but quite harmless, and lives near Notre-Dame-sur-l’Eau. She does nothing but wander round the house where she was a servant. She has been mad for quite two years, ever since the death of her husband and her three sons. It came upon her all of a sudden....”

“But had the Despriols a child?” asked Gilberte.

“I should think so! A little girl who might have been three or four years old at the time when they went away: a dear little duck; and her nurse adored her. It broke the poor thing’s heart to part with her. Since she went mad, she thinks oftener of the baby than of her own three sons. They did say that she heard about the child and that Mme. Despriol used to write to her.”

“Did you know this Mme. Despriol, Adèle?”

“That I did, at Mme. de la Vaudraye’s, when they lived here.... She was a very nice lady, so cheerful and pleasant; good-looking, too, but, worse luck, so weak with her husband that he did as he liked with her.”

“Mme. de la Vaudraye told me something about some jewels....”

“Oh, that was quite true! There’s no denying it: a thief she was ... and Mme. de la Vaudraye has good reason not to love her. And how she does detest her! And then she was jealous of M. de la Vaudraye, who ventured to flirt just the least bit with Mme. Despriol. You can imagine how mad Mme. de la Vaudraye was! She turns pale to this day, if you mention Henriette Despriol’s name....”

A few days later, Gilberte received another letter from Maître Dufornéril:

“MADEMOISELLE,

“We are making headway with our enquiries and I hope soon to send
you the news of our success. This Renaudeau who took over M. Dumas’
business in Berlin is, as we thought, at Hamburg. He has seen the
consul and declares that he knew your father for many years, going
back to the date when he was still living in France. He refuses,
for the present, to reveal M. Dumas’ real name and antecedents; but
I have no doubt that this Renaudeau, who is in a state of the
greatest poverty, will yield to certain arguments.

“I think I may safely say, therefore, that my next letter will
inform you of the name of your parents and the place at which you
were born....”

XI

GILBERTE’S NAME

Gilberte, who was less proof against joy than sorrow, awaited her solicitor’s promised letter with feverish impatience. Another four or five days, a week perhaps; and the mystery would be cleared up and the only obstacle to her marriage swept away.

She kept more and more indoors. What was the use of short, stealthy walks, when her imagination, which was now unfettered, took her across the immensity of the world, on Guillaume’s arm, under Guillaume’s eyes? She tried to read novels, to calm her excitement. But what are fictitious adventures worth at a time when our own destiny is on the point of fulfilment and when it is to be fulfilled in cloudless happiness? The one and only adventure was that which was leading her towards Guillaume. The story began and ended with Guillaume. Guillaume was its sole hero.

“It will come to-morrow,” she said, each day, with the fixed intention of sending the letter, the moment she received it, to Mme. de la Vaudraye.

The morning came and the afternoon and brought no letter. She felt not the least disappointment:

“It will come to-morrow,” she thought, all a-quiver with hope.

The postman became a person of importance in her eyes, a gentleman worth considering. She shot her prettiest smiles at him, as though she were trying to win his confidence and to persuade him that he must have a letter for her in his bag.

Adèle was enraptured:

“Oh, ma’am, you’re becoming as you used to be! And high time too! Yes, I was growing uneasy at seeing you always sad, taking no interest in things and looking so pale. But, there, you’re right: there’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it!”

Released from her silence, Adèle was at last able to repeat all that Domfront had said about the breach and all that was happening now. And Gilberte learnt that Mme. de la Vaudraye’s _salon_, after closing for three weeks, had reopened. M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx had been invited. Mme. Duval even predicted an approaching reconciliation with the younger Simare, whose father had never ceased pleading in his favour. At the last reception, the duet from _Mireille_, as sung by M. Lartiste the elder and Mle. du Bocage, both of whom were making great progress, had been vigorously applauded. But the chief thing was the transformation undergone by Guillaume, whom everybody considered changed for the better.

“They can’t get over it,” said Adèle. “I hear that he is the life and soul of the party and so amiable and so polite: just like a proper young man. He seems on the best of terms with his mother. The young ladies are all gone on him. Bless my soul, he’s a good-looking lad ... and it won’t take long before he’s turned all their heads....”

Gilberte reflected:

“He’s quite right to make himself amiable. It’s the only way to get round his mother.”

Nevertheless, she had to make a certain effort to look upon this as the only explanation of Guillaume’s conduct.

Two more days followed without a letter. Then, one morning, Adèle came back from her shopping:

“Here’s a bit of news!” she said. “There’s no harm in telling you, now that you’ve got over things. M. Guillaume is engaged to the eldest Charmeron girl.”

Gilberte burst out laughing:

“It’s one of Mme. Duval’s matches!”

“No, no, I hear it from others as well: the Bottentuits’ servant told me; so did M. Beaufrelant’s gardener. Mme. de la Vaudraye announced it last night when every one was there.”

Not for a moment did Gilberte admit the possibility of so great a perfidy. Nothing evil could ever come from within her: no suspicions, no doubts, no base thoughts; and whatever came from without broke against her love like impotent waves. How could she have pictured treachery, who did not know that treachery existed?

She was therefore very cheerful all day long. Nevertheless, at sunset, an irresistible force drew her to the ruined summer-house. Guillaume was not among the rocks in the valley.

Nor did she see him the next day. That night, she had a touch of fever and her mind wandered a little, mingling the picture of Guillaume with that of Mlle. Charmeron.

She laughed merrily at all this on waking. Nothing could touch her faith in her lover. She was as sure of him as of herself.

She rose in good spirits, resolved to be happy came what might. And she was happy: a plucky creature judging others by her own lofty standards, whose nerves and woman’s instinct may be alarmed for a moment, without allowing a breath to disturb the serenity of her soul.

She played and sang until lunch-time. After lunch, she strolled in her garden and picked some flowers. When she went in, she found Guillaume waiting for her in the drawing-room:

“You ... you ...!” she murmured, half-swooning with emotion.

She was obliged to sit down and they remained at some distance from each other, not daring to raise their eyes. It seemed to Gilberte as though her whole life would not be enough to take in all the joy that wrapped her round. How right had she been to be happy in spite of all things and to prepare herself for this greater happiness, which she could never have borne, had she been sad and suspicious.

Guillaume asked:

“Did you not meet my mother? She is looking for you in the garden.”

“Is your mother here?”

“Oh, Gilberte, would I have come without her, when I would not even go over there, among the rocks, for fear of displeasing you?”

She recalled her disappointment of the last evening and the evening before and was on the point of accusing herself ... but of what? Had she lent a willing ear to the calumnies of the town? She said, simply:

“I am glad of what you have done for Mme. de la Vaudraye.”

“What have I done?”

“Was it not a sacrifice to be at her parties?”

He went up to Gilberte:

“A sacrifice? Not at all.... Ah, that’s because you don’t know what has happened during the last few days!... Why, I am prepared to do all that she wishes and to take an interest in all that interests her and to like everything that she likes!... If you only knew, Gilberte.... Listen ... or rather, no, I prefer that she should tell you....”

“Oh,” cried Gilberte, “if they are hopeful words, precious words, why not say them yourself, Guillaume? Will they not be sweeter if I hear them from your lips? Speak, Guillaume ... I want them to be associated in my memory with the sound of your voice ... please, please....”

She besought him with her gentle, loving smile. He at once said:

“Very well, Gilberte, I will.”

He was interrupted by Adèle, bringing in a letter on a tray. Gilberte took the letter and, while the servant was leaving the room, mechanically cast her eyes upon the postmark. A cry escaped her:

“Guillaume!”

Her fingers trembled. She could only whisper:

“A letter from Dieppe ... from my solicitor.... Oh, I was waiting for it so anxiously!... Think, Guillaume: it brings me a name ... nothing can separate us now....”

The excitement was too much for her. She felt herself small and feeble in the grip of an over-great happiness. And, covering her face with her crossed hands, as was her wont at moments of perturbation, she wept tears of delight.

Some minutes passed in silence. She heard Guillaume open the garden-door. Steps approached, some one sat down beside her, a hand unlocked her fingers: it was Mme. de la Vaudraye.

She shrank back imperceptibly. But Mme. de la Vaudraye said:

“Gilberte, are you afraid of me?”

And the voice was so gentle that Gilberte was quite stirred. She looked at her through her tears and hardly recognized her. Her features had lost their customary hardness, her countenance the expression of implacable pride that deprived it of all its charm. And this charm now showed itself in the eyes, which had lost their severity, in the pathetic wrinkles of the forehead, in all that sad and withered face.

“Gilberte, you wished to be my daughter: do you wish it still?”

She had no time to reply. Guillaume had rushed up to both of them and was kissing them by turns. And he said, fervently:

“Let us love her, Gilberte. We owe her the greatest gratitude for what she is doing. It means the sacrifice of her most cherished ideas and she has consented to that sacrifice of her own accord.”

“Come, Guillaume, don’t make me out better than I am!” protested Mme. de la Vaudraye, in a playful tone. “Are you quite sure that I have not merely yielded to sordid motives? If Gilberte had been a poor girl, without any money....”

“Oh, madame,” said Gilberte, “that counts for so little!”

“Yes, with you and Guillaume, who are young and think only of your happiness, but not with me, who have suffered so much from the change in my fortunes. I can’t help it: one cannot alter at my age; I have a name of which I am very vain; and my dream has always been to restore it to all its brilliancy.”

She playfully stroked Gilberte’s hair:

“And think of all my blandishments, from the very beginning, Mme. Armand! You can’t say that I wasn’t clever in getting round you and making you do what I wanted! Well, then, one day, you tell me that you have bought up my family estates and you offer to reinstate me as mistress of the Logis. How could I have the courage to refuse?”

She displayed a sort of unspoken wish to make amends to Gilberte, a wish which her pride prevented her from revealing as openly as her heart would have prompted her, but which, nevertheless, appeared in her manner of confessing, as though in fun, the shabby side of her behaviour. Gilberte had too much delicacy of mind to take pleasure in this admission and replied:

“It’s your son’s happiness which you have not had the courage to reject. It is so easy to tell that all your ambitions and all your hopes are only for him.”

But Guillaume was less indulgent and exclaimed:

“Really, mother, one would think that you were trying to cheapen your consent! Come, tell her of our talks of the past fortnight, tell her that you know the whole story of our love and that you understand Gilberte, as she deserves, and that that is why you agree.”

Mme. de la Vaudraye made a last stand. It was the final effort of her vanity. She seemed undecided, bewildered, staggering, like one trying to keep her footing before falling; and then, suddenly vanquished, she took Gilberte in her arms:

“Yes, child, yes, it was you who conquered me ... I have come to you not because you are rich and generous, but because you are good and sincere and the noblest creature that ever lived.... Yes, I have thought of the future, from the start, and I think of it still; but, also from the start, your goodness has been working on me as on every one else. I loved you apart from any sort of calculation. And, after refusing my consent, it was no use my heaping up reasons to confirm me in my resolve: I could only remember your dear gentleness, your innocence, your childlike simplicity.”

“Oh,” whispered Gilberte, “how happy you make me!”

“You shall always be happy, child, where it depends on me: that I promise you.... As for Guillaume, oh, if you knew how he speaks of his sweetheart! I know you now as well as he does. But did I need his words in order to know you? What he feels in you, that delicate bloom and innocence, I have always felt. And I know all the power of your eyes: they bring purity and peace ... one is better for looking at them ... one sees more clearly....”

Gilberte, in her confusion, nestled her head against the friendly shoulder. She was delaying, as a joy in reserve, the news of her recovered name; and the thought of the pleasure which she held in store gave her tiny thrills of impatience. She said, in a whisper:

“Then ... my name ... my past....”

“Rubbish!” cried Mme. de la Vaudraye. “What did all that matter where you were concerned, my innocent Gilberte? Those prejudices fade away into nothing when we look at them with your eyes and judge them with your candour.”

“Do you mean that?” asked the girl, releasing herself and looking at her with a radiant air. “Have you no regrets?”

“None at all.”

“Then read this letter, which has just come: it will tell you the secret ... I too have a family.... Ah, madame, you will have no need to blush for me!”

Mme. de la Vaudraye did not at first understand; then, when Gilberte had told her of the search conducted by the solicitor, she could not conceal her satisfaction:

“So you have succeeded? Oh, I am glad!... Why should I deny it? I was bothered in advance about what other people would say: pardon my weakness, I can confess it now that I have accepted you as a daughter before knowing that your parents were worthy of you. The fear that they might not be was the only obstacle; and that was irrevocable. But I overcame that fear. Something to boast of, was it not? As though it were difficult to know them, when one knows you!”

She took the letter, felt it and said:

“We shall soon learn the name of two good people. Your father must have had your fascination, Gilberte; and your mother: I picture your mother as an exquisite, charming creature like yourself.... Did you love her very much?”

“More than my life, madame.”

“Here, Guillaume, read it out.”

Guillaume took and opened the envelope. As he was unfolding the letter which it contained, he had a momentary hesitation.

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Mme. de la Vaudraye.

“Nothing,” he said, presently.

And he unfolded the letter.

They were there, all three of them, affected in different ways, but anxious and even a little timorous, as we are at the approach of the solemn events of our lives, even when we expect nothing from them but pleasure and satisfaction.

“Well?” asked Gilberte, who was certainly the least excited of the three.

Guillaume made up his mind and read, aloud:

“MADEMOISELLE,

“As I expected, our friend Renaudeau did not persist in his silence
very long and, without further procrastination, has told us as much
of your father’s story as interests you. We now know that, at the
time when he was living in France....”

Guillaume stopped. He hesitated once more and the letter fell from his hands to his knees.

Mme. de la Vaudraye grew impatient:

“What are you thinking of, my boy?”

He replied, in a dreamy voice:

“I am thinking that we are about to violate the secret of two persons who must surely have had their reasons for keeping it so carefully. They may have been the offspring of two rival families, or a pair of lovers who were kept apart by convention, but whose hearts drew them together. Who can tell? In any case, don’t you think that their secret belongs to them and that there is no reason that authorizes us to violate it?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, mother, tell me what reasons you can have, tell me before that angel who is listening to us! You treated them as rubbish just now: have they become graver reasons since? State them: express your fear of public opinion, your dread of evil tongues, your horror of comment; and, as you do so, look into that pair of child-eyes and ask yourself if they understand what you are saying.”

She protested feebly:

“What a strange wish, Guillaume! There is something which you are keeping back.”

“Yes,” he cried, rising from his chair, “there is something else which I do not see clearly.... It is my love that objects.... I don’t want to lift the veil that shrouds Gilberte.... I prefer her so.... She is more mine like this....”

He was walking up and down excitedly. Gilberte held out her arms to him. He flung himself on his knees before her:

“Gilberte, I beseech you, remain for me the dear unknown whom I loved from the first day that I saw her. I do not know what prompts me to beg this of you, but I want you to give me the intense joy of feeling that you exist only through me, that you are commencing your life with me, that you are heaping still more darkness upon your past so that your eyes may be obliged to turn still more towards the future. Be the unknown lady of the Logis. Be the unknown who mingled her dreams with mine, the dear unknown who came from I know not where, but who came to me, of that I am certain.”

She hung on his words. He stammered, incoherently:

“Oh, you will do it ... I feel it!... And yet, Gilberte, listen ... the secret is yours ... you yourself have the right to know....”

She answered, with a smile that lifted him into the seventh heaven:

“Guillaume, I do not want to know what you will not know.... Besides, it matters so little! I was only happy for your mother’s sake.”

He bent his head and kissed her hands. Presently, they heard Mme. de la Vaudraye tearing up the letter. She said, simply:

“It shall be as you wish, my dear children. But don’t you think, Guillaume, that there will be difficulties, that the law requires ...?

“Never mind the difficulties!” he cried. “We shall see to that later. Everything will be settled as we intend, I am sure of it.”

A long silence followed, full of grave sweetness. At the end of it, however, Guillaume, smitten with a vague remorse, murmured:

“And so, dearest, you will never know your name?”

She smiled:

“But I know my name: is it not Gilberte de la Vaudraye?”

“But your mother?”

“Oh, my mother!” she said, with shining eyes. “Mother’s name was mamma!”

THE END

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

all this preamable=> all this preamble {pg 64}

brillant talker=> brilliant talker {pg 86}