The Marquise lay on her chaise longue on the balcony of the hotel. She wore only a wrapper, and her sleek gold hair, newly set in pins, was bound close to her head in a turquoise bandeau that matched her eyes. Beside her chair stood a little table, and on it were three bottles of nail varnish all of a different shade.
She had dabbed a touch of color onto three separate fingernails, and now she held her hand in front of her to see the effect. No, the varnish on the thumb was too red, too vivid, giving a heated look to her slim olive hand, almost as if a spot of blood had fallen there from a fresh-cut wound.
In contrast, her forefinger was a striking pink, and this too seemed to her false, not true to her present mood. It was the elegant rich pink of drawing rooms, of ballgowns, of herself standing at some reception, slowly moving to and fro her ostrich feather fan, and in the distance the sound of violins.
The middle finger was touched with a sheen of silk neither crimson nor vermilion, but somehow softer, subtler; the sheen of a peony in bud, not yet opened to the heat of the day but with the dew of the morning upon it still. A peony, cool and close, looking down upon lush grass from some terraced border, and later, at high noon, the petals unfolding to the sun.
Yes, that was the color. She reached for cotton wool and wiped away the offending varnish from her other fingernails, and then slowly, carefully, she dipped the little brush into the chosen varnish and, like an artist, worked with swift, deft strokes.
When she had finished she leaned back in her chaise longue, exhausted, waving her hands before her in the air to let the varnish harden—a strange gesture, like that of a priestess. She looked down at her toes, appearing from her sandals, and decided that presently, in a few moments, she would paint them too; olive hands, olive feet, subdued and quiet, surprised into sudden life.
Not yet, though. She must rest, relax. It was too hot to move from the supporting back of the chaise longue and lean forward, crouching, Eastern fashion, for the adorning of her feet. There was plenty of time. Time, in fact, stretched before her in an unwinding pattern through the whole long, languorous day.
She closed her eyes.
The distant sound of hotel life came to her as in a dream, and the sounds were hazy, pleasant, because she was part of that life yet free as well, bound no longer to the tyranny of home. Someone on a balcony above scraped back a chair. Below, on the terrace, the waiters set up the gay striped umbrellas over the little luncheon tables; she could hear the maître d’hôtel call directions from the dining room. The femme de chambre was doing the rooms in the adjoining suite. Furniture was moved, a bed creaked, the valet de chambre came out onto the next balcony and swept the boards with a straw brush. Their voices murmured, grumbled. Then they went away. Silence again. Nothing but the lazy splash of the sea, as effortlessly it licked the burning sand; and somewhere, far away, too distant to make an irritation, the laughter of children playing, her own among them.
A guest ordered coffee on the terrace below. The smoke of his cigar came floating upwards to the balcony. The Marquise sighed, and her lovely hands dropped down like lilies on either side of the chaise longue. This was peace, this was contentment. If she could hold the moment thus for one more hour… But something warned her, when the hour was past, the old demon of dissatisfaction, of tedium, would return, even here where she was free at last, on holiday.
A bumblebee flew onto the balcony, hovered over the bottle of nail varnish and entered the open flower, picked by one of the children, lying beside it. His humming ceased when he was inside the flower. The Marquise opened her eyes and saw the bee crawl forth, intoxicated. Then dizzily once more he took the air and hummed his way. The spell was broken. The Marquise picked up the letter from Édouard, her husband, that had fallen onto the floor of the balcony: “… And so, my dearest, I find it impossible to get to you and the children after all. There is so much business to attend to, here at home, and you know I can rely on no one but myself. I shall, of course, make every effort to come and fetch you at the end of the month. Meanwhile, enjoy yourself, bathing and resting. I know the sea air will do you good. I went to see Maman yesterday, and Madeleine, and it seems the old curé…”
The Marquise let the letter fall back again onto the balcony floor. The little droop at the corner of her mouth, the one telltale sign that spoiled the smooth lovely face, intensified. It had happened again. Always his work. The estate, the farms, the forests, the businessmen that he must see, the sudden journeys that he must take, so that in spite of his devotion for her he had no time to spare, Édouard, her husband.
They had told her, before her marriage, how it would be. “C’est un homme très sérieux, Monsieur le Marquis, vous comprenez.” How little she had minded, how gladly she had agreed, for what could be better in life than a Marquis who was also un homme sérieux? What more lovely than that château and those vast estates? What more imposing than the house in Paris, the retinue of servants, humble, bowing, calling her Madame la Marquise? A fairy-tale world to someone like herself, brought up in Lyon, the daughter of a hardworking surgeon, an ailing mother. But for the sudden arrival of Monsieur le Marquis she might have found herself married to her father’s young assistant, and that same day-by-day in Lyon continuing forever.
A romantic match, surely. Frowned on at first by his relatives, most certainly. But Monsieur le Marquis, homme sérieux, was past forty. He knew his own mind. And she was beautiful. There was no further argument. They married. They had two little girls. They were happy. Yet sometimes… The Marquise rose from the chaise longue and, going into the bedroom, sat down before the dressing table and removed the pins from her hair. Even this effort exhausted her. She threw off her wrapper and sat naked before her mirror. Sometimes she found herself regretting that day-by-day in Lyon. She remembered the laughter, the joking with other girls, the stifled giggles when a passing man looked at them in the street, the confidences, the exchange of letters, the whispering in bedrooms when her friends came to tea.
Now, as Madame la Marquise, she had no one with whom to share confidences, laughter. Everyone about her was middle-aged, dull, rooted to a life long-lived that never changed. Those interminable visits of Édouard’s relatives to the château. His mother, his sisters, his brothers, his sisters-in-law. In the winter, in Paris, it was just the same. Never a new face, never the arrival of a stranger. The only excitement was the appearance, perhaps, to luncheon of one of Édouard’s business friends, who, surprised at her beauty when she entered the salon, flickered a daring glance of admiration, then bowed, and kissed her hand.
Watching such a one, during luncheon, she would make a fantasy to herself of how they would meet in secret, how a taxi would take her to his apartment, and entering a small, dark ascenseur she would ring a bell and vanish into a strange unknown room. But, the long luncheon over, the business friend would bow and go his way. And afterwards, she would think to herself, he was not even passably good-looking; even his teeth were false. But the glance of admiration, swiftly suppressed—she wanted that.
Now she combed her hair before the mirror, and parting it on one side tried a new effect; a ribbon, the color of her fingernails, threaded through the gold. Yes, yes… And the white frock, later, and that chiffon scarf, thrown carelessly over the shoulders, so that when she went out onto the terrace, followed by the children and the English governess, and the maître d’hôtel, bowing, led the way to the little table at the corner, under the striped umbrella, people would stare, would whisper, and the eyes would follow her, as deliberately she would stoop to one of the children, pat its curls in a fond maternal gesture, a thing of grace, of beauty.
But now, before the mirror, only the naked body and the sad sulky mouth. Other women would have lovers. Whispers or scandal came to her ears, even during those long heavy dinners, with Édouard at the far end of the table. Not only in the smart riff-raff society to which she never penetrated, but even among the old noblesse to which she now belonged. “On dit, vous savez…” and the suggestion, the murmur, passed from one to the other, with a lifted eyebrow, a shrug of the shoulder.
Sometimes, after a tea party, a guest would leave early, before six o’clock, giving as an excuse that she was expected elsewhere, and the Marquise, echoing regrets, bidding the guest au revoir, would wonder—is she going to a rendezvous? Could it be that in twenty minutes, less perhaps, that dark, rather ordinary little comtesse would be shivering, smiling secretly, as she let her clothes slip to the floor?
Even Élise, her friend of lycée days in Lyons, married now six years, had a lover. She never wrote of him by name. She always called him “mon ami.” Yet they managed to meet twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. He had a car and drove her into the country, even in winter. And Élise would write to the Marquise and say, “But how plebeian my little affair must seem to you, in high society. How many admirers you must have, and what adventures! Tell me of Paris, and the parties, and who is the man of your choice this winter.” The Marquise would reply, hinting, suggesting, laughing off the question, and launch into a description of her frock, worn at some reception. But she did not say that the reception ended at midnight, that it was formal, dull and that all she, the Marquise, knew of Paris was the drives she took in the car with the children, and the drives to the couturier to be fitted for yet another frock, and the drives to the coiffeur to have her hair rearranged and set to perhaps a different style. As to life at the château, she would describe the rooms, yes, the many guests, the solemn long avenue of trees, the acres of woodland; but not the rain in spring, day after day, nor the parching heat of early summer, when silence fell upon the place like a great white pall.
“Ah! Pardon, je croyais que madame était sortie…” He had come in without knocking, the valet de chambre, his straw brush in his hand, and now he backed out of the room again, discreetly, but not before he had seen her there, naked before the mirror. And surely he must have known she had not gone out, when only a few moments before she had been lying on the balcony? Was it compassion she saw in his eyes as well as admiration, before he left the room? As though to say, “So beautiful, and all alone? We are not used to that in this hotel, where people come for pleasure…”
Heavens, it was hot. No breeze even from the sea. Trickles of perspiration ran down from her arms to her body.
She dressed languidly, putting on the cool white dress, and then, strolling out onto the balcony once more, pulled up the sun-blind, let the full heat of the day fall upon her. Dark glasses hid her eyes. The only touch of color lay on her mouth, her feet, her hands, and in the scarf, thrown about her shoulders. The dark lenses gave a deep tone to the day. The sea, by natural eye a periwinkle blue, had turned to purple, and the white sands to olive brown. The gaudy flowers in their tubs upon the terrace had a tropical texture. As the Marquise leaned upon the balcony the heat of the wooden rail burned her hands. Once again the smell of a cigar floated upwards from some source unknown. There was a tinkle of glasses as a waiter brought apéritifs to a table on the terrace. Somewhere a woman spoke, and a man’s voice joined with the woman’s, laughing.
An Alsatian dog, his tongue dripping moisture, padded along the terrace towards the wall, searching for a cold stone slab on which to lie. A group of young people, bare and bronzed, the salt from the warm sea scarce dried upon their bodies, came running up from the sands, calling for Martinis. Americans, of course. They flung their towels upon the chairs. One of them whistled to the Alsatian, who did not move. The Marquise looked down upon them with disdain, yet merged with her disdain was a kind of envy. They were free to come and go, to climb into a car, to move onward to some other place. They lived in a state of blank, ferocious gaiety. Always in groups. Six or eight of them. They paired off, of course, they pawed each other, forming into couples. But—and here she gave full play to her contempt—their gaiety held no mystery. In their open lives there could be no moment of suspense. No one waited, in secret, behind a half-closed door.
The savor of a love affair should be quite otherwise, thought the Marquise, and breaking off a rose that climbed the trellis of the balcony, she placed it in the opening of her dress, below her neck. A love affair should be a thing of silence, soft, unspoken. No raucous voice, no burst of sudden laughter, but the kind of stealthy curiosity that comes with fear, and when the fear has gone, a brazen confidence. Never the give-and-take between good friends, but passion between strangers…
One by one they came back from the sands, the visitors to the hotel. The tables began to fill up. The terrace, hot and deserted all the morning, became alive once more. And guests, arriving by car for luncheon only, mingled with the more familiar figures belonging to the hotel. A party of six in the right-hand corner. A party of three below. And now more bustle, more chatter, more tinkling of glasses and clatter of plates, so that the splash of the sea, which had been the foremost sound since early morning, now seemed secondary, remote. The tide was going out, the water rippling away across the sands.
Here came the children with their governess, Miss Clay. They prinked their way like little dolls across the terrace, followed by Miss Clay in her striped cotton dress, her crimped hair straggling from her bathe, and suddenly they looked up to the balcony, they waved their hands, “Maman… maman…” She leaned down, smiling at them; and then, as usual, the little clamor brought distraction. Somebody glanced up with the children, smiling, some man, at a left-hand table, laughed and pointed to his companion, and it began, the first wave of admiration that would come again in full measure when she descended, the Marquise, the beautiful Marquise and her cherubic children, whispers wafting towards her in the air like the smoke from the cigarettes, like the conversation the guests at the other tables shared with one another. This, then, was all that déjeuner on the terrace would bring to her, day after day, the ripple of admiration, respect, and then oblivion. Each and all went his way, to swim, to golf, to tennis, to drive, and she was left, beautiful, unruffled, with the children and Miss Clay.
“Look, maman, I found a little starfish on the beach, I am going to take him home with me when we go.”
“No, no, that isn’t fair, it’s mine. I saw it first.”
The little girls, with flushed faces, fell out with one another.
“Hush, Céleste and Hélène: you make my head ache.”
“Madame is tired? You must rest after lunch. It will do you good, in such heat.” Miss Clay, tactful, bent down to scold the children. “Everyone is tired. It will do us all good to rest,” she said.
Rest… But, thought the Marquise, I never do anything else. My life is one long rest. Il faut reposer. Repose-toi, ma chérie, tu as mauvaise mine. Winter and summer, those were the words she heard. From her husband, from the governess, from sisters-in-law, from all those aged, tedious friends. Life was one long sequence of resting, of getting up, and of resting again. Because with her pallor, with her reserve, they thought her delicate.
Heavens above, the hours of her married life she had spent resting, the bed turned down, the shutters closed. In the house in Paris, in the château in the country. Two to four, resting, always resting.
“I’m not in the least tired,” she said to Miss Clay, and for once her voice, usually melodious and soft, was sharp, high-pitched. “I shall go walking after lunch. I shall go into the town.”
The children stared at her, round-eyed, and Miss Clay, her goat face startled to surprise, opened her mouth in protest.
“You’ll kill yourself, in the heat. Besides, the few shops always close between one and three. Why not wait until after tea? Surely it would be wiser to wait until after tea? The children could go with you and I could do some ironing.”
The Marquise did not answer. She rose from the table, and now, because the children had lingered over déjeuner—Céleste was always slow with her food—the terrace was almost deserted. No one of any importance would watch the progress back to the hotel.
The Marquise went upstairs and once again touched her face with powder, circled her mouth, dipped her forefinger in scent. Next door she could hear the droning of the children as Miss Clay settled them to rest and closed the shutters. The Marquise took her handbag, made of plaited straw, put in her purse a roll of film, a few odds and ends, and tiptoeing past the children’s room went downstairs again, and out of the hotel grounds into the dusty road.
The gravel forced its way at once into her open sandals and the glare of the sun beat down upon her head, and at once what had seemed to her, on the spur of the moment, an unusual thing to do struck her now, in the doing of it, as foolish, pointless. The road was deserted, the sands were deserted, the visitors who had played and walked all morning, while she had lain idle on her balcony, were now taking their ease in their rooms, like Miss Clay and the children. Only the Marquise trod the sun-baked road into the little town.
And here it was even as Miss Clay had warned her. The shops were closed, the sun-blinds were all down, the hour of siesta, inviolate, unbroken, held sway over the shops and their inhabitants.
The Marquise strolled along the street, her straw handbag swinging from her hand, the one walker in a sleeping, yawning world. Even the café at the corner was deserted, and a sand-colored dog, his face between his paws, snapped with closed eyes at the flies that bothered him. Flies were everywhere. They buzzed at the window of the pharmacie, where dark bottles, filled with mysterious medicine, rubbed glass shoulders with skin tonic, sponges, and cosmetics. Flies danced behind the panes of the shop filled with sun-shades, spades, pink dolls, and rope-soled shoes. They crawled upon the empty blood-stained slab of the butcher’s shop, behind the iron shutter. From above the shop came the jarring sound of the radio, suddenly switched off, and the heavy sigh of someone who would sleep and would not be disturbed. Even the bureau de poste was shut. The Marquise, who had thought to buy stamps, rattled the door to no purpose.
Now she could feel the sweat trickling under her dress, and her feet, in the thin sandals, ached from the short distance she had walked. The sun was too strong, too fierce, and as she looked up and down the empty street, and at the houses, with the shops between, every one of them closed from her, withdrawn into the blessed peace of their siesta, she felt a sudden longing for any place that might be cool, that might be dark—a cellar, perhaps, where there was dripping water from a tap. The sound of water, falling to a stone floor, would soothe her nerves, now jagged from the sun.
Frustrated, almost crying, she turned into an alleyway between two shops. She came to steps, leading down to a little court where there was no sun, and paused there a moment, her hand against the wall, so cold and firm. Beside her there was a window, shuttered, against which she leaned her head, and suddenly, to her confusion, the shutter was withdrawn and a face looked out upon her from some dark room within.
“Je regrette…” she began, swept to absurdity that she should be discovered here, intruding, like one peering into the privacy and squalor of life below a shop. And then her voice dwindled and died away, foolishly, for the face that looked out upon her from the open window was so unusual, so gentle, that it might have come straight from a stained-glass saint in a cathedral. His face was framed in a cloud of dark curled hair, his nose was small and straight, his mouth a sculptured mouth, and his eyes, so solemn, brown and tender, were like the eyes of a gazelle.
“Vous désirez, Madame la Marquise,” he said, in answer to her unfinished words.
He knows me, she thought in wonder, he has seen me before, but even this was not so unexpected as the quality of his voice, not rough, not harsh, not the voice of someone in a cellar under a shop, but cultivated, liquid, a voice that matched the eyes of the gazelle.
“It was so hot up in the street,” she said. “The shops were closed and I felt faint. I came down the steps. I am very sorry, it is private, of course.”
The face disappeared from the window. He opened a door somewhere that she had not seen, and suddenly she found a chair beneath her and she was sitting down, inside the doorway, and it was dark and cool inside the room, even like the cellar she had imagined, and he was giving her water from an earthenware cup.
“Thank you,” she said, “thank you very much.” Looking up, she saw that he was watching her, with humility, with reverence, the pitcher of water in his hand; and he said to her in his soft, gentle voice, “Is there anything else I can get for you, Madame la Marquise?”
She shook her head, but within her stirred the feeling she knew so well, the sense of secret pleasure that came with admiration, and, conscious of herself for the first time since he had opened the window, she drew her scarf closer about her shoulders, the gesture deliberate, and she saw the gazelle eyes fall to the rose, tucked in the bodice of her dress.
She said, “How do you know who I am?”
He answered, “You came into my shop three days ago. You had your children with you. You bought a film for your camera.”
She stared at him, puzzled. She remembered buying the film from the little shop that advertised Kodaks in the window, and she remembered too the ugly, shuffling crippled woman who had served her behind the counter. The woman had walked with a limp, and afraid that the children would notice and laugh, and that she herself, from nervousness, would be betrayed to equally heartless laughter, she had ordered some things to be sent to the hotel, and then departed.
“My sister served you,” he said, in explanation. “I saw you from the inner room. I do not often go behind the counter. I take photographs of people, of the countryside, and then they are sold to the visitors who come here in the summer.”
“Yes,” she said, “I see, I understand.”
And she drank again from the earthenware cup, and drank too the adoration in his eyes.
“I have brought a film to be developed,” she said. “I have it here in my bag. Would you do that for me?”
“Of course, Madame la Marquise,” he said. “I will do anything for you, whatever you ask. Since that day you came into my shop I…” Then he stopped, a flush came over his face, and he looked away from her, deeply embarrassed.
The Marquise repressed a desire to laugh. It was quite absurd, his admiration. Yet, funny… it gave her a sense of power.
“Since I came into your shop, what?” she asked.
He looked at her again. “I have thought of nothing else, but nothing,” he said to her, and with such intensity that it almost frightened her.
She smiled, she handed back the cup of water. “I am quite an ordinary woman,” she said. “If you knew me better, I should disappoint you.” How odd it is, she thought to herself, that I am so much mistress of this situation, I am not at all outraged or shocked. Here I am, in the cellar of a shop, talking to a photographer who has just expressed his admiration for me. It is really most amusing, and yet he, poor man, is in earnest, he really means what he says.
“Well,” she said, “are you going to take my film?”
It was as though he could not drag his eyes away from her, and boldly she stared him out of face, so that his eyes fell and he flushed again.
“If you will go back the way you came,” he said, “I will open up the shop for you.” And now it was she who let her eyes linger upon him; the open vest, no shirt, the bare arms, the throat, the head of curling hair, and she said, “Why cannot I give you the film here?”
“It would not be correct, Madame la Marquise,” he said to her.
She turned, laughing, and went back up the steps to the hot street. She stood on the pavement, she heard the rattle of the key in the door behind, she heard the door open. And then presently, in her own time, having deliberately stood outside to keep him waiting, she went into the shop which was stuffy now, and close, unlike the cool quiet cellar.
He was behind the counter and she saw, with disappointment, that he had put on his coat, a gray cheap coat worn by any man serving in a shop, and his shirt was much too stiff, and much too blue. He was ordinary, a shopkeeper, reaching across the counter for the film.
“When will you have them ready?” she said.
“Tomorrow,” he answered, and once again he looked at her with his dumb brown eyes. And she forgot the common coat and the blue stiff shirt, and saw the vest under the coat, and the bare arms.
“If you are a photographer,” she said, “why don’t you come to the hotel and take some photographs of me and my children?”
“You would like me to do that?” he asked.
“Why not?” she answered.
A secret look came into his eyes and went again, and he bent below the counter, pretending to search for string. But she thought, smiling to herself, this is exciting to him, his hands are trembling; and for the same reason her heart beat faster than before.
“Very well, Madame la Marquise,” he said, “I will come to the hotel at whatever time is convenient to you.”
“The morning, perhaps, is best,” she said, “at eleven o’clock.”
Casually she strolled away. She did not even say goodbye.
She walked across the street, and looking for nothing in the window of a shop opposite she saw, through the glass, that he had come to the door of his own shop and was watching her. He had taken off his jacket and his shirt. The shop would be closed again, the siesta was not yet over. Then she noticed, for the first time, that he too was crippled, like his sister. His right foot was encased in a high-fitted boot. Yet, curiously, the sight of this did not repel her nor bring her to nervous laughter, as it had done before when she had seen the sister. His high boot had a fascination, strange, unknown.
The Marquise walked back to the hotel along the dusty road.
At eleven o’clock the next morning the concierge of the hotel sent up word that Monsieur Paul, the photographer, was below in the hall, and awaited the instructions of Madame la Marquise. The instructions were sent back that Madame la Marquise would be pleased if Monsieur Paul would go upstairs to the suite. Presently she heard the knock on the door, hesitant, timid.
“Entrez,” she called, and standing, as she did, on the balcony, her arms around the two children, she made a tableau, ready set, for him to gaze upon.
Today she was dressed in silk shantung the color of chartreuse, and her hair was not the little-girl hair of yesterday, with the ribbon, but parted in the center and drawn back to show her ears, with the gold clips upon them.
He stood in the entrance of the doorway, he did not move. The children, shy, gazed with wonder at the high boot, but they said nothing. Their mother had warned them not to mention it.
“These are my babies,” said the Marquise. “And now you must tell us how to pose, and where you want us placed.”
The children did not make their usual curtsey, as they did to guests. Their mother had told them it would not be necessary. Monsieur Paul was a photographer, from the shop in the little town.
“If it would be possible, Madame la Marquise,” he said, “to have one pose just as you are standing now. It is quite beautiful. So very natural, so full of grace.”
“Why, yes, if you like. Stand still, Hélène.”
“Pardon. It will take a few moments to fix the camera.”
His nervousness had gone. He was busy with the mechanical tricks of his trade. And as she watched him set up the tripod, fix the velvet cloth, make the adjustments to his camera, she noticed his hands, deft and efficient, and they were not the hands of an artisan, of a shopkeeper, but the hands of an artist.
Her eyes fell to the boot. His limp was not so pronounced as the sister’s, he did not walk with that lurching, jerky step that produced stifled hysteria in the watcher. His step was slow, more dragging, and the Marquise felt a kind of compassion for his deformity, for surely the misshapen foot beneath the boot must pain him constantly, and the high boot, especially in hot weather, crush and sear his flesh.
“Now, Madame la Marquise,” he said, and guiltily she raised her eyes from the boot and struck her pose, smiling gracefully, her arms embracing the children.
“Yes,” he said, “just so. It is very lovely.”
The dumb brown eyes held hers. His voice was low, gentle. The sense of pleasure came upon her just as it had done in the shop the day before. He pressed the bulb. There was a little clicking sound.
“Once more,” he said.
She went on posing, the smile on her lips; and she knew that the reason he paused this time before pressing the bulb was not from professional necessity, because she or the children had moved, but because it delighted him to gaze upon her.
“There,” she said, and breaking the pose, and the spell, she moved towards the balcony, humming a little song.
After half an hour the children became tired, restless.
The Marquise apologized. “It’s so very hot,” she said, “you must excuse them. Céleste, Hélène, get your toys and play on the other corner of the balcony.”
They ran chattering to their own room. The Marquise turned her back upon the photographer. He was putting fresh plates into his camera.
“You know what it is with children,” she said. “For a few minutes it is a novelty, then they are sick of it, they want something else. You have been very patient, Monsieur Paul.”
She broke off a rose from the balcony, and cupping it in her hands bent her lips to it.
“Please,” he said with urgency, “if you would permit me, I scarcely like to ask you…”
“What?” she said.
“Would it be possible for me to take one or two photographs of you alone, without the children?”
She laughed. She tossed the rose over the balcony to the terrace below.
“But of course,” she said, “I am at your disposal. I have nothing else to do.”
She sat down on the edge of the chaise longue, and leaning back against the cushion rested her head against her arm. “Like this?” she said.
He disappeared behind the velvet cloth, and then, after an adjustment to the camera, came limping forward.
“If you will permit me,” he said, “the hand should be raised a little, so… And the head, just slightly on one side.”
He took her hand and placed it to his liking; and then gently, with hesitation, put his hand under her chin, lifting it. She closed her eyes. He did not take his hand away. Almost imperceptibly his thumb moved, lingering, over the long line of her neck, and his fingers followed the movement of the thumb. The sensation was featherweight, like the brushing of a bird’s wing against her skin.
“Just so,” he said, “that is perfection.”
She opened her eyes. He limped back to his camera.
The Marquise did not tire as the children had done. She permitted Monsieur Paul to take one photograph, then another, then another. The children returned, as she had bidden them, and played together at the far end of the balcony, and their chatter made a background to the business of the photography, so that, both smiling at the prattle of the children, a kind of adult intimacy developed between the Marquise and the photographer, and the atmosphere was not so tense as it had been.
He became bolder, more confident of himself. He suggested poses and she acquiesced, and once or twice she placed herself badly and he told her of it.
“No, Madame la Marquise. Not like that. Like this.”
Then he would come over to the chair, kneel beside her, move her foot perhaps, or turn her shoulder, and each time he did so his touch became more certain, became stronger. Yet when she forced him to meet her eyes he looked away, humble and diffident, as though he was ashamed of what he did, and his gentle eyes, mirroring his nature, would deny the impulse of his hands. She sensed a struggle within him, and it gave her pleasure.
At last, after he had rearranged her dress the second time, she noticed that he had gone quite white and there was perspiration on his forehead.
“It is very hot,” she said, “perhaps we have done enough for today.”
“If you please, Madame la Marquise,” he answered, “it is indeed very warm. I think it is best that we should stop now.”
She rose from the chair, cool and at her ease. She was not tired, nor was she troubled. Rather was she invigorated, full of a new energy. When he had gone she would walk down to the sea and swim. It was very different for the photographer. She saw him wipe his face with his handkerchief, and as he packed up his camera and his tripod, and put them in the case, he looked exhausted and dragged his high boot more heavily than before.
She made a pretense of glancing through the snapshots he had developed for her from her own film.
“These are very poor,” she said lightly. “I don’t think I handle my camera correctly. I should take lessons from you.”
“It is just a little practice that you need, Madame la Marquise,” he said. “When I first started I had a camera much the same as yours. Even now, when I take exteriors, I wander out on the cliffs above the sea, with a small camera, and the effects are just as good as with the larger one.”
She put the snapshots down on the table. He was ready to go. He carried the case in his hand.
“You must be very busy in the season,” she said. “How do you get time to take exteriors?”
“I make time, Madame la Marquise,” he said. “I prefer it, actually, to taking studio portraits. It is only occasionally that I find true satisfaction in photographing people. Like, for instance, today.”
She looked at him and she saw again the devotion, the humility, in his eyes. She stared at him until he dropped his eyes, abashed.
“The scenery is very beautiful along the coast,” he said. “You must have noticed it, when walking. Most afternoons I take my small camera and go out onto the cliffs, above the big rock that stands there so prominent, to the right of the bathing beach.”
He pointed from the balcony and she followed the direction of his hand. The green headland shimmered hazily in the intense heat.
“It was only by chance that you found me at home yesterday,” he said. “I was in the cellar, developing prints that had been promised for visitors who were to leave today. But usually I go walking on the cliff at that time.”
“It must be very hot,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he answered. “But above the sea there is a little breeze. And best of all, between one and four there are so few people. They are all taking their siesta in the afternoon. I have all that beautiful scenery to myself.”
“Yes,” said the Marquise, “I understand.”
For a moment they both stood silent. It was as though something unspoken passed between them. The Marquise played with her chiffon handkerchief, then tied it loosely round her wrist, a casual, lazy gesture.
“Some time I must try it for myself,” she said at last, “walking in the heat of the day.”
Miss Clay came onto the balcony, calling the children to come and be washed before déjeuner. The photographer stepped to one side, deferential, apologizing. And the Marquise, glancing at her watch, saw that it was already midi, and that the tables below on the terrace were filled with people and the usual bustle and chatter was going on, the tinkle of glasses, the rattle of plates, and she had noticed none of it.
She turned her shoulder to the photographer, dismissing him, deliberately cool and indifferent now that the session was over and Miss Clay had come to fetch the children.
“Thank you,” she said. “I shall call in at the shop to see the proofs in a few days’ time. Good morning.”
He bowed, he went away, an employee who had fulfilled his orders.
“I hope he has taken some good photographs,” said Miss Clay. “The Marquis will be very pleased to see the results.”
The Marquise did not answer. She was taking off the gold clips from her ears that now, for some reason, no longer matched her mood. She would go down to déjeuner without jewelry, without rings; she felt, for today, her own beauty would suffice.
Three days passed, and the Marquise did not once descend into the little town. The first day she swam, she watched the tennis in the afternoon. The second day she spent with the children, giving Miss Clay leave of absence to take a tour by charabanc to visit the old walled cities, further inland, along the coast. The third day, she sent Miss Clay and the children into the town to inquire for the proofs, and they returned with them wrapped in a neat package. The Marquise examined them. They were very good indeed, and the studies of herself the best she had ever had taken.
Miss Clay was in raptures. She begged for copies to send home to England. “Who would believe it,” she exclaimed, “that a little photographer, by the sea like this, could take such splendid pictures? And then you go and pay heaven knows what to real professionals in Paris.”
“They are not bad,” said the Marquise, yawning. “He certainly took a lot of trouble. They are better of me than they are of the children.” She folded the package and put it away in a drawer. “Did Monsieur Paul seem pleased with them himself?” she asked the governess.
“He did not say,” replied Miss Clay. “He seemed disappointed that you had not gone down for them yourself; he said they had been ready since yesterday. He asked if you were well, and the children told him maman had been swimming. They were quite friendly with him.”
“It’s much too hot and dusty, down in the town,” said the Marquise.
The next afternoon, when Miss Clay and the children were resting and the hotel itself seemed asleep under the glare of the sun, the Marquise changed into a short sleeveless frock, very simple and plain, and softly, so as not to disturb the children, went downstairs, her small box camera slung over her arm, and walking through the hotel grounds onto the sands she followed a narrow path that led upwards, to the greensward above. The sun was merciless. Yet she did not mind. Here on the springing grass there was no dust, and presently, by the cliff’s edge, the bracken, growing thicker, brushed her bare legs.
The little path wound in and out among the bracken, at times coming so close to the cliff’s edge that a false step, bringing a stumble, would spell danger. But the Marquise, walking slowly, with the lazy swing of the hips peculiar to her, felt neither frightened nor exhausted. She was merely intent on reaching a spot that overlooked the great rock, standing out from the coast in the middle of the bay. She was quite alone on the headland. No one was in sight. Away behind her, far below, the white walls of the hotel, and the rows of bathing cabins on the beach, looked like bricks, played with by children. The sea was very smooth and still. Even where it washed upon the rock in the bay it left no ripple.
Suddenly the Marquise saw something flash in the bracken ahead of her. It was the lens of a camera. She took no notice. Turning her back, she pretended to examine her own camera, and took up a position as though to photograph the view. She took one, took another, and then she heard the swish of someone walking towards her through the bracken.
She turned, surprised. “Why, good afternoon, Monsieur Paul,” she said.
He had discarded the cheap stiff jacket and the bright blue shirt. He was not on business. It was the hour of the siesta, when he walked, as it were, incognito. He wore only the vest and a pair of dark blue trousers, and the gray squash hat, which she had noticed with dismay the morning he had come to the hotel, was also absent. His thick dark hair made a frame to his gentle face. His eyes had such a rapturous expression at the sight of her that she was forced to turn away to hide her smile.
“You see,” she said lightly, “I have taken your advice, and strolled up here to look at the view. But I am sure I don’t hold my camera correctly. Show me how.”
He stood beside her and, taking her camera, steadied her hands, moving them to the correct position.
“Yes, of course,” she said, and then moved away from him, laughing a little, for it had seemed to her that when he stood beside her and guided her hands she had heard his heart beating and the sound brought excitement, which she wished to conceal from him.
“Have you your own camera?” she said.
“Yes, Madame la Marquise,” he answered, “I left it over in the bracken there, with my coat. It is a favorite spot of mine, close to the edge of the cliff. In spring I come here to watch the birds and take photographs of them.”
“Show me,” she said.
He led the way, murmuring “Pardon,” and the path he had made for himself took them to a little clearing, like a nest, hidden on all sides by bracken that was now waist-high. Only the front of the clearing was open, and this was wide to the cliff face, and the sea.
“But how lovely,” she said, and passing through the bracken into the hiding place she looked about her, smiling, and sitting down, gracefully, naturally, like a child at a picnic, she picked up the book that was lying on top of his coat beside his camera.
“You read much?” she said.
“Yes, Madame la Marquise,” he answered. “I am very fond of reading.” She glanced at the cover, and read the title. It was a cheap romance, the sort of book she and her friends had smuggled into their satchels at the lycée, in old days. She had not read that sort of stuff for years. Once again she had to hide her smile. She put the book back on the coat.
“Is it a good story?” she asked him.
He looked down at her solemnly, with his great eyes like a gazelle’s.
“It is very tender, Madame la Marquise,” he said.
Tender… What an odd expression. She began to talk about the proofs of the photographs, and how she preferred one to another, and all the while she was conscious of an inner triumph that she was in such command of the situation. She knew exactly what to do, what to say, when to smile, when to look serious. It reminded her strangely of childhood days, when she and her young friends would dress up in their mothers’ hats and say, “Let’s pretend to be ladies.” She was pretending now; not to be a lady, as then, but to be—what? She was not sure. But something other than the self who now, for so long, was in truth a real lady, sipping tea in the salon at the château, surrounded by so many ancient things and people that each one of them had the mustiness of death.
The photographer did not talk much. He listened to the Marquise. He agreed, nodded his head, or simply remained silent, and she heard her own voice trilling on in a sort of wonder. He was merely a witness she could ignore, a lay figure, while she listened to the brilliant, charming woman that had suddenly become herself.
At last there came a pause in the one-sided conversation, and he said to her, shyly, “May I dare to ask you something?”
“Of course,” she said.
“Could I photograph you here, alone, with this background?”
Was that all? How timid he was, and how reluctant. She laughed.
“Take as many as you want,” she said, “it is very pleasant sitting here. I may even go to sleep.”
“La belle au bois dormant,” he said quickly, and then, as if ashamed of his familiarity, he murmured “Pardon” once more and reached for the camera behind her.
This time he did not ask her to pose, to change position. He photographed her as she sat, lazily nibbling at a stem of grass, and it was he who moved, now here, now there, so that he had shots of her from every angle, full-face, profile, three-quarter.
She began to feel sleepy. The sun beat down upon her uncovered head, and the dragonflies, gaudy and green and gold, swung and hovered before her eyes. She yawned and leaned back against the bracken.
“Would you care for my coat as a pillow for your head, Madame la Marquise?” he asked her.
Before she could reply he had taken his coat, folded it neatly, and placed it in a little roll against the bracken. She leaned back against it, and the despised gray coat made a softness to her head, easy and comfortable.
He knelt beside her, intent upon his camera, doing something to the film, and she watched him, yawning, between half-closed eyes, and noticed that as he knelt he kept his weight upon one knee only, thrusting the deformed foot in the high boot to one side. Idly, she wondered if it hurt to lean upon it. The boot was highly polished, much brighter than the leather shoe upon the left foot, and she had a sudden vision of him taking great pains with the boot every morning when he dressed, polishing it, rubbing it, perhaps, with a wash-leather cloth.
A dragonfly settled on her hand. It crouched, waiting, a sheen upon its wings. What was it waiting for? She blew upon it and it flew away. Then it came back again, hovering, insistent.
Monsieur Paul had put aside his camera but he was still kneeling in the bracken beside her. She was aware of him, watching her, and she thought to herself, “If I move he will get up, and it will all be over.”
She went on staring at the glittering, shivering dragonfly, but she knew that in a moment or two she must look somewhere else, or the dragonfly would go, or the present silence would become so tense and so strained that she would break it with a laugh and so spoil everything. Reluctantly, against her will, she turned to the photographer, and his large eyes, humble and devoted, were fixed upon her with all the deep abasement of a slave.
“Why don’t you kiss me?” she said, and her own words startled her, shocked her into sudden apprehension.
He said nothing. He did not move. He went on gazing at her. She closed her eyes, and the dragonfly went from her hand.
Presently, when the photographer bent to touch her, it was not what she expected. There was no sudden crude embrace. It was just as though the dragonfly had returned, and now with silken wings brushed and stroked the smooth surface of her skin.
When he went away it was with tact and delicacy. He left her to herself so that there should be no aftermath of awkwardness, of embarrassment, no sudden strain of conversation.
The Marquise lay back in the bracken, her hands over her eyes, thinking about what had happened to her, and she had no sense of shame. She was clear-headed and quite calm. She began to plan how she would walk back to the hotel in a little while, giving him good time to gain the sands before her, so that if by chance people from the hotel should see him they would not connect him with her, who would follow after, say, in half an hour.
She got up, rearranged her dress, took out her powder compact from her pocket, with her lipstick, and, having no mirror, judged carefully how much powder to put upon her face. The sun had lost its power, and a cool breeze blew inland from the sea.
“If the weather holds,” thought the Marquise as she combed her hair, “I can come out here every day, at the same time. No one will ever know. Miss Clay and the children always rest in the afternoon. If we walk separately and go back separately, as we have done today, and come to this same place, hidden by the bracken, we cannot possibly be discovered. There are over three weeks still to the holiday. The great thing is to pray for this hot weather to continue. If it should rain…”
As she walked back to the hotel she wondered how they would manage, should the weather break. She could not very well set out to walk the cliffs in a mackintosh, and then lie down while the rain and the wind beat the bracken. There was of course the cellar, beneath the shop. But she might be seen in the village. That would be dangerous. No, unless it rained in torrents the cliff was safest.
That evening she sat down and wrote a letter to her friend Élise. “… This is a wonderful place,” she wrote, “and I am amusing myself as usual, and without my husband, bien entendu!” But she gave no details of her conquest, though she mentioned the bracken and the hot afternoon. She felt that if she left it vague Élise would picture to herself some rich American, traveling for pleasure, alone, without his wife.
The next morning, dressing herself with great care—she stood for a long while before her wardrobe, finally choosing a frock rather more elaborate than was usual for the seaside, but this was deliberate on her part—she went down into the little town, accompanied by Miss Clay and the children. It was market day, and the cobbled streets and the square were full of people. Many came from the countryside around, but there were quantities of visitors, English and American, who strolled to see the sights, to buy souvenirs and picture postcards, or to sit down at the café at the corner and look about them.
The Marquise made a striking figure, walking in her indolent way in her lovely dress, hatless, carrying a sunshade, with the two little girls prancing beside her. Many people turned to look at her, or even stepped aside to let her pass, in unconscious homage to her beauty. She dawdled in the marketplace and made a few purchases, which Miss Clay put into the shopping bag she carried, and then still casual, still answering with gay, lazy humor the questions of the children, she turned into the shop which displayed Kodaks and photographs in the window.
It was full of visitors waiting their turn to be served, and the Marquise, who was in no hurry, pretended to examine a book of local views, while at the same time she could see what was happening in the shop. They were both there, Monsieur Paul and his sister, he in his stiff shirt, an ugly pink this time, worse even than the blue, and the cheap gray coat, while the sister, like all women who served behind a counter, was in drab black, a shawl over her shoulders.
He must have seen her come into the shop, because almost at once he came forward from the counter, leaving the queue of visitors to the care of his sister, and was by her side, humble, polite, anxious to know in what manner he could serve her. There was no trace of familiarity, no look of knowledge in his eyes, and she took care to assure herself of this by staring directly at him. Then deliberately, bringing the children and Miss Clay into the conversation, asking Miss Clay to make her choice of the proofs which were to be sent to England, she kept him there by her side, treating him with condescension, with a sort of hauteur, even finding fault with certain of the proofs, which, so she told him, did not do the children justice, and which she could not possibly send to her husband, the Marquis. The photographer apologized. Most certainly the proofs mentioned did not do the children justice. He would be willing to come again to the hotel and try again, at no extra charge, of course. Perhaps on the terrace or in the gardens the effect would be better.
One or two people turned to look at the Marquise as she stood there. She could feel their eyes upon her, absorbing her beauty, and still in a tone of condescension, coldly, almost curtly, she told the photographer to show her various articles in his shop, which he hastened to do in his anxiety to please.
The other visitors were becoming restive, they shuffled their feet waiting for the sister to serve them, and she, hemmed about with customers, limped wretchedly from one end of the counter to the other, now and again raising her head, peering to see if her brother, who had so suddenly deserted her, would come to the rescue.
At last the Marquise relented. She had had her fill. The delicious furtive sense of excitement that had risen in her since her entrance to the shop died down and was appeased.
“One of these mornings I will let you know,” she said to Monsieur Paul, “and then you can come out and photograph the children again. Meanwhile, let me pay what I owe. Miss Clay, attend to it, will you?”
And she strolled from the shop, not bidding him good morning, putting out her hands to the two children.
She did not change for déjeuner. She wore the same enchanting frock, and the hotel terrace, more crowded than ever because of the many visitors who had come on an excursion, seemed to her to buzz and hum with a murmur of conversation, directed at her and her beauty, and at the effect she made, sitting there at the table in the corner. The maître d’hôtel, the waiters, even the manager himself, were drawn towards her, obsequious, smiling, and she could hear her name pass from one to the other.
All things combined to her triumph; the proximity of people, the smell of food and wine and cigarettes, the scent of the gaudy flowers in their tubs, the feel of the hot sun beating down, the close sound of the splashing sea. When she rose at last with the children and went upstairs, she had a sense of happiness that she felt must only come to a prima donna after the clamor of long applause.
The children, with Miss Clay, went to their rooms to rest; and swiftly, hurriedly, the Marquise changed her frock and her shoes and tiptoed down the stairs and out of the hotel, across the burning sands to the path and the bracken headland.
He was waiting for her, as she expected, and neither of them made any reference to her visit in the morning, or to what brought her there on the cliff this afternoon. They made at once for the little clearing by the cliff’s edge and sat down of one accord, and the Marquise, in a tone of banter, described the crowd at lunch, and the fearful bustle and fatigue of the terrace with so many people, and how delicious it was to get away from them all to the fresh clean air of the headland, above the sea.
He agreed with her humbly, watching her as she spoke of such mundane matters as though the wit of the world flowed in her speech, and then, exactly as on the previous day, he begged to take a few photographs of her, and she consented, and presently she lay back in the bracken and closed her eyes.
There was no sense of time to the long, languorous afternoon. Just as before the dragonflies winged about her in the bracken, and the sun beat down upon her body, and with her sense of deep enjoyment of all that happened went the curiously satisfying knowledge that what she did was without emotion of any sort. Her mind and her affections were quite untouched. She might almost have been relaxing in a beauty parlor, back in Paris, having the first telltale lines smoothed from her face and her hair shampooed, although these things brought only a lazy contentment and no pleasure.
Once again he departed, leaving her without a word, tactful and discreet, so that she could arrange herself in privacy. And once again, when she judged him out of sight, she rose to her feet and began the long walk back to the hotel.
Her good luck held and the weather did not break. Every afternoon, as soon as déjeuner was over and the children had gone to rest, the Marquise went for her promenade, returning about half past four, in time for tea. Miss Clay, at first exclaiming at her energy, came to accept the walk as a matter of routine. If the Marquise chose to walk in the heat of the day, it was her own affair; certainly it seemed to do her good. She was more human towards her, Miss Clay, and less nagging to the children. The constant headaches and attacks of migraine were forgotten, and it seemed that the Marquise was really enjoying this simple seaside holiday alone with Miss Clay and the two little girls.
When a fortnight had passed, the Marquise discovered that the first delight and bliss of her experience were slowly fading. It was not that Monsieur Paul failed her in any way, but that she herself was becoming used to the daily ritual. Like an inoculation that “took” at the first with very great success, on constant repetition the effect lessened, dulled, and the Marquise found that to recapture her enjoyment she was obliged to treat the photographer no longer as a lay figure, or as she would a coiffeur who had set her hair, but as a person whose feelings she could wound. She would find fault with his appearance, complain that he wore his hair too long, that his clothes were cheap, ill-cut, or even that he ran his little shop in the town with inefficiency, that the material and paper he used for his prints were shoddy.
She would watch his face when she told him this, and she would see anxiety and pain come into his large eyes, pallor to his skin, a look of dejection fall upon his whole person as he realized how unworthy he was of her, how inferior in every way, and only when she saw him thus did the original excitement kindle in her again.
Deliberately she began to cut down the hours of the afternoon. She would arrive late at the rendezvous in the bracken and find him waiting for her with that same look of anxiety on his face, and if her mood was not sufficiently ripe for what should happen she would get through the business quickly, with an ill grace, and then dispatch him hastily on his return journey, picturing him limping back, tired and unhappy, to the shop in the little town.
She permitted him to take photographs of her still. This was all part of the experience, and she knew that it troubled him to do this, to see her to perfection, so she delighted in taking advantage of it, and would sometimes tell him to come to the hotel during the morning, and then she would pose in the grounds, exquisitely dressed, the children beside her, Miss Clay an admiring witness, the visitors watching from their rooms or from the terrace.
The contrast of these mornings, when as an employee he limped back and forth at her bidding, moving the tripod first here, first there, while she gave him orders, with the sudden intimacy of the afternoons in the bracken under the hot sun, proved, during the third week, to be her only stimulation.
Finally, a day breaking when quite a cold breeze blew in from the sea, and she did not go to the rendezvous as usual but rested on her balcony reading a novel, the change in the routine came as a real relief.
The following day was fine and she decided to go to the headland, and for the first time since they had encountered one another in the cool dark cellar below the shop he upbraided her, his voice sharp with anxiety.
“I waited for you all yesterday afternoon,” he said. “What happened?”
She stared at him in astonishment.
“It was an unpleasant day,” she replied. “I preferred to read on my balcony in the hotel.”
“I was afraid you might have been taken ill,” he went on. “I very nearly called at the hotel to inquire for you. I hardly slept last night, I was so upset.”
He followed her to the hiding place in the bracken, his eyes still anxious, lines of worry on his brow, and though in a sense it was a stimulation to the Marquise to witness his distress, at the same time it irritated her that he should so forget himself as to find fault in her conduct. It was a though her coiffeur in Paris, or her masseur, expressed anger when she broke an appointment fixed for a certain day.
“If you think I feel myself bound to come here every afternoon you are very much mistaken,” she said. “I have plenty of other things to do.”
At once he apologized, he was abject. He begged her to forgive him.
“You cannot understand what this means to me,” he said. “Since I have known you, everything in my life is changed. I live only for these afternoons.”
His subjection pleased her, whipping her to a renewal of interest, and pity came to her too, as he lay by her side, pity that this creature should be so utterly devoted, depending on her like a child. She touched his hair, feeling for a moment quite compassionate, almost maternal. Poor fellow, limping all this way because of her, and then sitting in the biting wind of yesterday, alone and wretched. She imagined the letter she would write to her friend Élise.
“I am very much afraid I have broken Paul’s heart. He has taken this little affaire de vacance au sérieux. But what am I to do? After all, these things must have an end. I cannot possibly alter my life because of him. Enfin, he is a man, he will get over it.” Élise would picture the beautiful blond American playboy climbing wearily into his Packard, setting off in despair to the unknown.
The photographer did not leave her today, when the afternoon session had ended. He sat up in the bracken and stared out towards the great rock jutting out into the sea.
“I have made up my mind about the future,” he said quietly.
The Marquise sensed the drama in the air. Did he mean he was going to kill himself? How very terrible. He would wait, of course, until she had left the hotel and had returned home. She need never know.
“Tell me,” she said gently.
“My sister will look after the shop,” he said. “I will make it all over to her. She is very capable. For myself, I shall follow you, wherever you go, whether it is to Paris, or to the country. I shall be close at hand; whenever you want me, I shall be there.”
The Marquise swallowed. Her heart went still.
“You can’t possibly do that,” she said. “How would you live?”
“I am not proud,” he said. “I know, in the goodness of your heart, you would allow me something. My needs would be very small. But I know that it is impossible to live without you, therefore the only thing to do is to follow you, always. I will find a room close to your house in Paris, and in the country too. We will find ways and means of being together. When love is as strong as this there are no difficulties.”
He spoke with his usual humility, but there was a force behind his words that was unexpected, and she knew that for him this was no false drama, ill-timed to the day, but true sincerity. He meant every word. He would in truth give up the shop, follow her to Paris, follow her also to the château in the country.
“You are mad,” she said violently, sitting up, careless of her appearance and her disheveled hair. “Once I have left here I am no longer free. I cannot possibly meet you anywhere, the danger of discovery would be too great. You realize my position? What it would mean to me?”
He nodded his head. His face was sad, but quite determined. “I have thought of everything,” he answered, “but as you know, I am very discreet. You need never be apprehensive on that score. It has occurred to me that it might be possible to obtain a place in your service as footman. It would not matter to me, the loss of personal dignity. I am not proud. But in such a capacity our life together could continue much as it does now. Your husband, the Marquis, must be a very busy man, often out during the day, and your children and the English miss no doubt go walking in the country in the afternoon. You see, everything would be very simple if we had the courage.”
The Marquise was so shocked that she could not answer. She could not imagine anything more terrible, more disastrous, than that the photographer should take a place in the house as footman. Quite apart from his disability—she shuddered to think of him limping round the table in the great salle à manger—what misery she would suffer knowing that he was there, in the house, that he was waiting for her to go up to her room in the afternoon, and then, timidly, the knock upon the door, the hushed whisper. The degradation of this—this creature, there was really no other word for him—in the house, always waiting, always hoping.
“I am afraid,” she said firmly, “that what you are suggesting is utterly impossible. Not only the idea of coming to my house as a servant, but of our ever being able to meet again once I return home. Your own common sense must tell you so. These afternoons have been—have been pleasant, but my holiday is very nearly over. In a few days’ time my husband will be coming to fetch me and the children, and that finishes everything.”
To show finality she got up, brushed her crumpled frock, combed her hair, powdered her nose, and reaching for her bag fumbled inside it for her notecase.
She drew out several ten-thousand-franc notes.
“This is for the shop,” she said, “any little fittings it may require. And buy something for your sister. And remember, I shall always think of you with great tenderness.”
To her consternation his face went dead white, then his mouth began to work violently and he rose to his feet.
“No, no,” he said, “I will never take them. You are cruel, wicked to suggest it.” And suddenly he began to sob, burying his face in his hands, his shoulders heaving with emotion.
The Marquise watched him helplessly, uncertain whether to go or to stay. His sobs were so violent that she was afraid of hysteria, and she did not know what might happen. She was sorry for him, deeply sorry, but even more sorry for herself, because now, on parting, he cut such a ridiculous figure in her eyes. A man who gave way to emotion was pitiable. And it seemed to her that the clearing in the bracken took on a sordid, shameful appearance, which once had seemed so secret and so warm. His shirt, lying on a stem of bracken, looked like old linen spread by washerwomen in the sun to dry. Beside it lay his tie and the cheap trilby hat. It needed only orange peel and silver paper from a chocolate carton to complete the picture.
“Stop that noise,” she said, in sudden fury. “For God’s sake pull yourself together.”
The crying ceased. He took his hands away from his ravaged face. He stared at her, trembling, his brown eyes blind with pain. “I have been mistaken in you,” he said. “I know you now for what you are. You are a wicked woman and you go about ruining the lives of innocent men like myself. I shall tell your husband everything.”
The Marquise said nothing. He was unbalanced, mad…
“Yes,” said the photographer, still catching at his breath, “that is what I shall do. As soon as your husband comes to fetch you I will tell him everything. I will show him the photographs I have taken, here on the headland. I will prove to him without a doubt that you are false to him, that you are bad. And he will believe me. He cannot help but believe me. What he does to me does not matter. I cannot suffer more than I suffer now. But your life, that will be finished, I promise you. He will know, the English miss will know, the manager of the hotel will know, I will tell everybody how you have been spending your afternoons.”
He reached for his coat, he reached for his hat, he slung his camera around his shoulder, and panic seized the Marquise, rose from her heart to her throat. He would do all that he threatened to do, he would wait there, in the hall of the hotel by the reception desk, he would wait for Édouard to come.
“Listen to me,” she began, “we will think of something, we can perhaps come to some arrangement…”
But he ignored her. His face was set and pale. He stooped, by the opening at the cliff’s edge, to pick up his stick, and as he did so the terrible impulse was born in her, and flooded her whole being, and would not be denied. Leaning forward, her hands outstretched, she pushed his stooping body. He did not utter a single cry. He fell, and was gone.
The Marquise sank back on her knees. She did not move. She waited. She felt the sweat trickle down her face, to her throat, to her body. Her hands were also wet. She waited there in the clearing, upon her knees, and presently, when she was cooler, she took her handkerchief and wiped away the sweat from her forehead, and her face, and her hands.
It seemed suddenly cold. She shivered. She stood up and her legs were firm; they did not give way, as she feared. She looked about her, over the bracken, and no one was in sight. As always, she was alone upon the headland. Five minutes passed, and then she forced herself to the brink of the cliff and looked down. The tide was in. The sea was washing the base of the cliff below. It surged, and swept the rocks, and sank, and surged again. There was no sign of his body on the cliff face, nor could there be, because the cliff was sheer. No sign of his body in the water and had he fallen and floated it would have shown there, on the surface of the still blue sea. When he fell he must have sunk immediately.
The Marquise turned back from the opening. She gathered her things together. She tried to pull the flattened bracken to its original height, and so smooth out the signs of habitation, but the hiding place had been made so long that this was impossible. Perhaps it did not matter. Perhaps it would be taken for granted that people came out upon the cliff and took their ease.
Suddenly her knees began to tremble and she sat down. She waited a few moments, then glanced at her watch. She knew that it might be important to remember the time. A few minutes after half past three. If she was asked, she could say, “Yes, I was out on the headland at about half past three, but I heard nothing.” That would be the truth. She would not be lying. It would be the truth.
She remembered with relief that today she had brought her mirror in her bag. She glanced at it, fearfully. Her face was chalk white, blotched and strange. She powdered, carefully, gently; it seemed to make no difference. Miss Clay would notice something was wrong. She dabbed dry rouge onto her cheeks, but this stood out, like the painted spots on a clown’s face.
“There is only one thing to do,” she thought, “and that is to go straight to the bathing cabin on the beach, and undress, and put on my swimming suit, and bathe. Then if I return to the hotel with my hair wet, and my face wet too, it will seem natural, and I shall have been swimming, and that also will be true.”
She began to walk back along the cliff, but her legs were weak, as though she had been lying ill in bed for many days, and when she came to the beach at last she was trembling so much she thought she would fall. More than anything she longed to lie down on her bed, in the hotel bedroom, and close the shutters, even the windows, and hide there by herself in the darkness. Yet she must force herself to play the part she had decided.
She went to the bathing cabin and undressed. Already there were several people lying on the sands, reading or sleeping, the hour of siesta drawing to its close. She walked down to the water’s edge, kicked off her rope-soled shoes, drew on her cap, and as she swam to and fro in the still, tepid water, and dipped her face, she wondered how many of the people on the beach noticed her, watched her, and afterwards might say, “But don’t you remember, we saw a woman come down from the headland in the middle of the afternoon?”
She began to feel very cold, but she continued swimming, backwards and forwards, with stiff, mechanical strokes, until suddenly, seeing a little boy who was playing with a dog point out to sea, and the dog run in barking towards some dark object that might have been a piece of timber, nausea and terror combined to turn her faint, and she stumbled from the sea back to the bathing cabin and lay on the wooden floor, her face in her hands. It might be, she thought, that had she gone on swimming she would have touched him with her feet, as his body came floating in towards her on the water.
In five days’ time the Marquis was due to arrive by car and pick up his wife, the governess, and the children, and drive them home. The Marquise put a call through to him at the château, and asked if it would be possible for him to come sooner. Yes, the weather was still good, she said, but somehow she had become tired of the place. It was now getting too full of people, it was noisy, and the food had gone off. In fact she had turned against it. She longed to be back at home, she told her husband, among her own things, and the gardens would be looking lovely.
The Marquis regretted very much that she was bored, but surely she could stick it out for just the three days, he said. He had made all his arrangements, and he could not come sooner. He had to pass through Paris anyway for an important business meeting. He would promise to reach her by the morning of the Thursday, and then they could leave immediately after lunch.
“I had hoped,” he said, “that you would want to stay on for the weekend, so that I too could get some bathing. The rooms are held surely until the Monday?”
But no, she had told the manager, she said, that they would not require the rooms after Thursday, and he had already let them to someone else. The place was crowded. The charm of it had gone, she assured him. Édouard would not care for it at all, and at the weekend it became quite insupportable. So would he make every effort to arrive in good time on the Thursday, and then they could leave after an early lunch?
The Marquise put down the receiver and went out to the balcony to the chaise longue. She took up a book and pretended to read, but in reality she was listening, waiting for the sound of footsteps, voices, at the entrance to the hotel, and presently for her telephone to ring, and it would be the manager asking her, with many apologies, if she would mind descending to his office. The fact was, the matter was delicate… but the police were with him. They had some idea that she could help them. The telephone did not ring. There were no voices. No footsteps. Life continued as before. The long hours dragged through the interminable day. Lunch on the terrace, the waiters bustling, obsequious, the tables filled with the usual faces or with new visitors to take the place of old, the children chattering, Miss Clay reminding them of their manners. And all the while the Marquise listened, waited… She forced herself to eat, but the food she put in her mouth tasted of sawdust. Lunch over, she mounted to her room, and while the children rested she lay on the chaise longue on the balcony. They descended to the terrace again for tea, but when the children went to the beach for their second bathe of the day she did not go with them. She had a little chill, she told Miss Clay; she did not fancy the water. So she went on sitting there, on her balcony.
When she closed her eyes at night and tried to sleep, she felt his stooping shoulders against her hands once more, and the sensation that it had given her when she pushed them hard. The ease with which he fell and vanished, one moment there, and the next, nothing. No stumble, no cry.
In the daytime she used to strain her eyes towards the headland in search of figures walking there, among the bracken—would they be called “a cordon of police”? But the headland shimmered under the pitiless sun, and no one walked there in the bracken.
Twice Miss Clay suggested going down into the town in the mornings to make purchases, and each time the Marquise made an excuse.
“It’s always so crowded,” she said, “and so hot. I don’t think it’s good for the children. The gardens are more pleasant, the lawn at the back of the hotel is shady and quiet.”
She herself did not leave the hotel. The thought of the beach brought back the pain in her belly, and the nausea. Nor did she walk.
“I shall be quite all right,” she told Miss Clay, “when I have thrown off this tiresome chill.”
She lay there on the balcony, turning over the pages of the magazines she had read a dozen times.
On the morning of the third day, just before déjeuner, the children came running onto the balcony, waving little windmill flags.
“Look, maman,” said Hélène, “mine is red, and Céleste’s is blue. We are going to put them on our sand castles after tea.”
“Where did you get them?” asked the Marquise.
“In the marketplace,” said the child. “Miss Clay took us to the town this morning instead of playing in the garden. She wanted to pick up her snapshots that were to be ready today.”
A feeling of shock went through the Marquise. She sat very still.
“Run along,” she said, “and get ready for déjeuner.”
She could hear the children chattering to Miss Clay in the bathroom. In a moment or two Miss Clay came in. She closed the door behind her. The Marquise forced herself to look up at the governess. Miss Clay’s long, rather stupid face was grave and concerned.
“Such a dreadful thing has happened,” she said, her voice low. “I don’t want to speak of it in front of the children. I am sure you will be very distressed. It’s poor Monsieur Paul.”
“Monsieur Paul?” said the Marquise. Her voice was perfectly calm. But her tone had the right quality of interest.
“I went down to the shop to fetch my snapshots,” said Miss Clay, “and I found it shut. The door was locked and the shutters were up. I thought it rather odd, and I went into the pharmacie next door and asked if they knew whether the shop was likely to be open after tea. They said no, Mademoiselle Paul was too upset, she was being looked after by relatives. I asked what had happened, and they told me there had been an accident, that poor Monsieur Paul’s body had been found by some fishermen three miles up the coast, drowned.”
Miss Clay had quite lost color as she told her tale. She was obviously deeply shocked. The Marquise, at sight of her, gained courage.
“How perfectly terrible,” she said. “Does anybody know when it happened?”
“I couldn’t go into details at the pharmacie because of the children,” said Miss Clay, “but I think they found the body yesterday. Terribly injured, they said. He must have hit some rocks before falling into the sea. It’s so dreadful I can’t bear to think of it. And his poor sister, whatever will she do without him?”
The Marquise put up her hand for silence and made a warning face. The children were coming into the room.
They went down to the terrace for déjeuner and the Marquise ate better than she had done for three days. For some reason her appetite had returned. Why this should be so she could not tell. She wondered if it could possibly be that part of the burden of her secret was now lifted. He was dead. He had been found. These things were known. After déjeuner she told Miss Clay to ask the manager if he knew anything of the sad accident. Miss Clay was to say that the Marquise was most concerned and grieved. While Miss Clay went about this business the Marquise took the children upstairs.
Presently the telephone rang. The sound that she had dreaded. Her heart missed a beat. She took off the receiver and listened.
It was the manager. He said Miss Clay had just been to him. He said it was most gracious of Madame la Marquise to show concern at the unfortunate accident that had befallen Monsieur Paul. He would have spoken of it when the accident was discovered yesterday, but he did not wish to distress the clientèle. A drowning disaster was never very pleasant at a seaside resort, it made people feel uncomfortable. Yes, of course, the police had been called in directly the body was found. It was assumed that he had fallen from the cliffs somewhere along the coast. It seemed he was very fond of photographing the sea views. And of course, with his disability, he could easily slip. His sister had often warned him to be careful. It was very sad. He was such a good fellow. Everyone liked him. He had no enemies. And such an artist, too, in his way. Madame la Marquise had been pleased with the studies Monsieur Paul had done of herself and the children? The manager was so glad. He would make a point of letting Mademoiselle Paul know this, and also of the concern shown by Madame la Marquise. Yes, indeed, she would be deeply grateful for flowers, and for a note of sympathy. The poor woman was quite brokenhearted. No, the day of the funeral had not yet been decided…
When he had finished speaking, the Marquise called to Miss Clay, and told her she must order a taxi and drive to the town seven miles inland, where the shops were larger, and where she seemed to remember there was an excellent florist. Miss Clay was to order flowers, lilies for choice, and to spare no expense, and the Marquise would write a note to go with them; and then if Miss Clay gave them to the manager when she returned he would see that they reached Mademoiselle Paul.
The Marquise wrote the note for Miss Clay to take with her to pin on the flowers. “In deepest sympathy at your great loss.” She gave Miss Clay some money, and the governess went off to find a taxi.
Later the Marquise took the children to the beach.
“Is your chill better, maman?” asked Céleste.
“Yes, chérie, now maman can bathe again.”
And she entered the warm yielding water with the children, and splashed with them.
Tomorrow Édouard would arrive, tomorrow Édouard would come in his car and drive them away, and the white dusty roads would lengthen the distance between her and the hotel. She would not see it anymore, nor the headland, nor the town, and the holiday would be blotted out like something that had never been.
“When I die,” thought the Marquise, as she stared out across the sea, “I shall be punished. I don’t fool myself. I am guilty of taking life. When I die, God will accuse me. Until then, I will be a good wife to Édouard, and a good mother to Céleste and Hélène. I will try to be a good woman from now. I will try and atone for what I have done by being kinder to everyone, to relations, friends, servants.”
She slept well for the first time for four days.
Her husband arrived the next morning while she was still having her breakfast. She was so glad to see him that she sprang from her bed and flung her arms round his neck. The Marquis was touched at this reception.
“I believe my girl has missed me after all,” he said.
“Missed you? But of course I’ve missed you. That’s why I rang up. I wanted you to come so much.”
“And you are quite determined to leave today after lunch?”
“Oh, yes, yes… I couldn’t bear to stay. Our packing is done, there are only the last things to put in the suitcases.”
He sat on the balcony drinking coffee, laughing with the children, while she dressed and stripped the room of her personal possessions. The room that had been hers for a whole month became bare once more, and quite impersonal. In a fever of hurry she cleared the dressing table, mantelpiece, the table by her bed. It was finished with. The femme de chambre would come in presently with clean sheets and make all fresh for the next visitor. And she, the Marquise, would have gone.
“Listen, Édouard,” she said, “why must we stay for déjeuner? Wouldn’t it be more fun to lunch somewhere on the way? There is always something a little dreary in lunching at a hotel when one has already paid the bill. Tipping, everything, has been done. I cannot bear a sense of anticlimax.”
“Just as you like,” he said. She had given him such a welcome that he was prepared to gratify every whim. Poor little girl. She had been really lonely without him. He must make up to her for it.
The Marquise was making up her mouth in front of the mirror in the bathroom when the telephone rang.
“Answer it, will you?” she called to her husband. “It is probably the concierge about the luggage.”
The Marquis did so, and in a few moments he shouted through to his wife.
“It’s for you, dear. It’s a Mademoiselle Paul who has called to see you, and asks if she may thank you for her flowers before you go.”
The Marquise did not answer at once, and when his wife came into the bedroom it seemed to him that the lipstick had not enhanced her appearance. It made her look almost haggard, older. How very strange. She must have changed the color. It was not becoming.
“Well,” he asked, “what shall I say? You probably don’t want to be bothered with her now, whoever she is. Would you like me to go down and get rid of her?”
The Marquise seemed uncertain, troubled. “No,” she said, “no, I think I had better see her. The fact is, it’s a very tragic thing. She and her brother kept a little shop in the town—I had some photographs done of myself and the children—and then a dreadful thing happened, the brother was drowned. I thought it only right to send flowers.”
“How thoughtful of you,” said her husband, “a very kind gesture. But do you need to bother now? Why, we are ready to go.”
“Tell her that,” said his wife, “tell her that we are leaving almost immediately.”
The Marquis turned to the telephone again, and after a word or two put his hand over the receiver and whispered to his wife.
“She is very insistent,” he said. “She says she has some prints belonging to you that she wants to give to you personally.”
A feeling of panic came over the Marquise. Prints? What prints?
“But everything is paid for,” she whispered back. “I don’t know what she can mean.”
The Marquis shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, what am I to say? She sounds as if she is crying.”
The Marquise went back into the bathroom, dabbed more powder on her nose.
“Tell her to come up,” she said, “but repeat that we are leaving in five minutes. Meanwhile, you go down, take the children to the car. Take Miss Clay with you. I will see the woman alone.”
When he had gone she looked about the room. Nothing remained but her gloves, her handbag. One last effort, and then the closing door, the ascenseur, the farewell bow to the manager, and freedom.
There was a knock at the door. The Marquise waited by the entrance to the balcony, her hands clasped in front of her.
“Entrez,” she said.
Mademoiselle Paul opened the door. Her face was blotched and ravaged from weeping, her old-fashioned mourning dress was long, nearly touching the ground. She hesitated, then lurched forward, her limp grotesque, as though each movement must be agony.
“Madame la Marquise…” she began, then her mouth worked, she began to cry.
“Please don’t,” said the Marquise gently. “I am so dreadfully sorry for what has happened.”
Mademoiselle Paul took her handkerchief and blew her nose.
“He was all I had in the world,” she said. “He was so good to me. What am I to do now? How am I to live?”
“You have relatives?”
“They are poor folk, Madame la Marquise. I cannot expect them to support me. Nor can I keep the shop alone, without my brother. I haven’t the strength. My health has always been my trouble.”
The Marquise was fumbling in her bag. She took out a twenty-thousand-franc note.
“I know this is not much,” she said, “but perhaps it will help just a little. I am afraid my husband has not many contacts in this part of the country, but I will ask him, perhaps he will be able to make some suggestions.”
Mademoiselle Paul took the note. It was strange. She did not thank the Marquise. “This will keep me until the end of the month,” she said. “It will help to pay the funeral expenses.”
She opened her bag. She took out three prints.
“I have more, similar to these, back in the shop,” she said. “It seemed to me that perhaps, going away suddenly as you are doing, you had forgotten all about them. I found them among my poor brother’s other prints and negatives in the cellar, where he used to develop them.”
She handed the prints to the Marquise. The Marquise went cold when she saw them. Yes, she had forgotten. Or rather, she had not been aware of their existence. They were three views of her taken in the bracken. Careless, abandoned, half-sleeping, with her head against his coat for a pillow, she had heard the click-click of the camera, and it had added a sort of zest to the afternoon. Some he had shown her. But not these.
She took the photographs and put them in her bag.
“You say you have others?” she asked, her voice without expression.
“Yes, Madame la Marquise.”
She forced herself to meet the woman’s eyes. They were swollen still with weeping, but the glint was unmistakable.
“What do you want me to do?” asked the Marquise.
Mademoiselle Paul looked about her in the hotel bedroom. Tissue paper strewn on the floor, odds and ends thrown into the wastepaper basket, the tumbled, unmade bed.
“I have lost my brother,” she said, “my supporter, my reason for being alive. Madame la Marquise has had an enjoyable holiday and now returns home. I take it that Madame la Marquise would not desire her husband or her family to see these prints?”
“You are right,” said the Marquise, “I do not even wish to see them myself.”
“In which case,” said Mademoiselle Paul, “twenty thousand francs is really very little return for a holiday that Madame la Marquise so much enjoyed.”
The Marquise looked in her bag again. She had two mille notes and a few hundred francs.
“This is all I have,” she said, “you are welcome to these as well.”
Mademoiselle Paul blew her nose once more.
“I think it would be more satisfactory for both of us if we came to a more permanent arrangement,” she said. “Now my poor brother has gone the future is very uncertain. I might not even wish to live in a neighborhood that holds such sad memories. I cannot but ask myself how my brother met his death. The afternoon before he disappeared he went out to the headland and came back very distressed. I knew something had upset him, but I did not ask him what. Perhaps he had hoped to meet a friend, and the friend had not appeared. The next day he went again, and that night he did not return. The police were informed, and then three days later his body was found. I have said nothing of possible suicide to the police, but have accepted it, as they have done, as accidental. But my brother was a very sensitive soul, Madame la Marquise. Unhappy, he would have been capable of anything. If I make myself wretched thinking over these things, I might go to the police, I might suggest he did away with himself after an unhappy love affair. I might even give them leave to search through his effects for photographs.”
In agony the Marquise heard her husband’s footsteps outside the door.
“Are you coming, dearest?” he called, bursting it open and entering the room. “The luggage is all in, the children are clamoring to be off.”
He said good morning to Mademoiselle Paul. She curtseyed.
“I will give you my address,” said the Marquise, “both in Paris, and in the country.” She sought in her bag feverishly for cards. “I shall expect to hear from you in a few weeks’ time.”
“Possibly before that, Madame la Marquise,” said Mademoiselle Paul. “If I leave here, and find myself in your neighborhood, I would come and pay my humble respects to you and Miss, and the little children. I have friends not so very far away. I have friends in Paris too. I have always wanted to see Paris.”
The Marquise turned with a terrible bright smile to her husband.
“I have told Mademoiselle Paul,” she said, “that if there is anything I can do for her at any time she has only to let me know.”
“Of course,” said her husband. “I am so sorry to hear of your tragedy. The manager here has been telling me all about it.”
Mademoiselle Paul curtseyed again, looking from him back to the Marquise.
“He was all I had in the world, Monsieur le Marquis,” she said. “Madame la Marquise knows what he meant to me. It is good to know that I may write to her, and that she will write to me, and when that happens I shall not feel alone and isolated. Life can be very hard for someone who is alone in the world. May I wish you a pleasant journey, Madame la Marquise, and happy memories of your holidays, and above all no regrets?”
Once more Mademoiselle Paul curtseyed, then turned and limped from the room.
“Poor woman,” said the Marquis, “and what an appearance. I understand from the manager that the brother was crippled too?”
“Yes…” She fastened her handbag. Took her gloves. Reached for her dark glasses.
“Curious thing, but it often runs in families,” said the Marquis, as they walked along the corridor. He paused and rang the bell for the ascenseur. “You have never met Richard du Boulay, have you, an old friend of mine? He was crippled, much as this unfortunate little photographer seems to have been, but for all that a charming, perfectly normal girl fell in love with him, and they got married. A son was born, and he turned out to be a hopeless clubfoot like his father. You can’t fight that sort of thing. It’s a taint in the blood that passes on.”
They stepped into the ascenseur and the doors closed upon them.
“Sure you won’t change your mind and stay for lunch? You look pale. We’ve got a long drive before us, you know.”
“I’d rather go.”
They were waiting in the hall to see her off. The manager, the receptionist, the concierge, the maître d’hôtel.
“Come again, Madame la Marquise. There will always be a welcome for you here. It has been such a pleasure looking after you. The hotel will not be the same once you have gone.”
“Goodbye… Goodbye…”
The Marquise climbed into the car beside her husband. They turned out of the hotel grounds into the road. Behind her lay the headland, the hot sands, and the sea. Before her lay the long straight road to home and safety. Safety…?