III
THE UNKNOWN
Every day, when her household duties were done, Gilberte walked in her garden. This was her hour of recreation. But a sweeter hour followed, which she allotted to dreaming.
High up, on the left, on a jutting promontory, was a clearing where stood the ruins of a little summer-house. The view from here extended, over undulating plains, to the dark heights of Mortain. On the right, the other side of the valley was a wall of red rocks, clad in broom and fir-trees. It was a landscape of illimitable distances and, at the same time, tender and familiar through the homeliness of this little glen, a landscape which had all the wild and rugged poetry of a Breton moor. ...
The daylight waned early in those winter months. Gilberte waited until the veil of night smothered its last glimmers. Sometimes, the sun's reflections would linger on the motionless clouds. Then the darkness seemed to come from every side, to rise from the river, to fall from the overcast sky, to ooze from the earth in thick mists. Then Gilberte would go indoors.
But, one evening, at that murky moment of twilight, she saw, on the opposite slope, a human form issuing from a hollow among the rocks and vanishing behind a tree.
She would hardly have paid attention to it, if, on the next day, when her eyes turned in that direction on returning from her walk, she had not perceived, in the same place, the same form as on the day before: a man's figure, obviously, but so well hidden that it was impossible for her to distinguish the least detail of his face or dress.
On the day after that, he was not there; but he was there on the following day and almost every day afterwards.
Gilberte soon noticed that he slipped through the fir-trees a little before her arrival and went away soon after she was gone.
Then was he there for her? She did not ask herself this question, but, all unwittingly, she was pleased at the fact that some one was there, dreaming doubtless like herself, some one whom she did not know, who was not seeking to know her and of whom she thought only as an invisible companion, a more or less real ghost, a freak of her imagination. She had not the least curiosity concerning others and would never have supposed that any one could have the least curiosity concerning her. He was there for the same reasons that brought her there, because it is good to see night blend with day and because that twilight hour is full of charm and peace.
And so she had a friend, a distant and inaccessible friend, from whom she would have hidden herself for ever, if he had dared to show himself or even let her see by a movement that he was there for her, but who did not frighten her, for the sole reason that he seemed to have no actual existence.
"Are you not afraid of catching cold, dear madame?"
It was Mme. de la Vaudraye, who took her by surprise one evening, at the summer-house and at once continued, in her affected voice:
"I owe you a thousand apologies. The merest politeness demanded that I should pay you a visit, but what shall I say? I have so many duties, so many cares! I am the president of a number of charitable committees which take up all my time. Besides, I confess, I was afraid of appearing indiscreet. I so much dread to push myself forward! Still, I thought it was time to try and bring some diversion into the nun's life which you are leading."
"You are too kind," said Gilberte, touched by this solicitude.
"I felt, dear madame, that your days must be so dull. Your evenings especially must seem endless. How do you manage to fill them?"
They had returned to the Logis. A good fire warmed the boudoir in which Gilberte liked best to sit. The lamp was lighted. There was some music on the piano. The table was heaped with books and papers.
"You see, madame, I play and read: I read a great deal."
"Novels, I expect!" said the visitor, with a titter. "May I look? ... What have we here? An atlas ... manuals of history ... and literature ... selected essays ... memoirs! Are you superintending somebody's education?"
"My own," said Gilberte, laughing. "It has been a little neglected; and, as I have plenty of time ..."
"But many of the books are in English ... in German even ..."
"I know English and German."
"Quite a learned person! But how well you would get on with my son! He is so studious and cultured! He writes for the Paris papers. ... Not under his own name, of course: he would never consent to commit the name of La Vaudraye to an occupation which, after all, is only an amusement. He quite agrees with me on that question ... as on every other. ... Why don't you come to us one evening? We have a few friends who are pleased to make my drawing-room their daily meeting-place. ... Everybody is dying to see you, Guillaume most of all. ..."
His mother's description of young Guillaume de la Vaudraye was hardly of a nature to charm Gilberte from her isolation. She found an excuse.
"You are making a mistake," cried Mme. de la Vaudraye, who was irritated by her refusal. "Good friends are a necessity: they protect you against evil tongues."
"Evil tongues?"
"Yes, yes, you can understand that one can't live as you do without attracting comment in a small town. People ask themselves—and not without some justice, as you must admit—the reason of your voluntary imprisonment. All the more so because, as I hear, your servant, Adèle, keeps a silent tongue in her head; and that sets public opinion against you. Lastly, they say ..."
"What?"
"Well, they say that you are leading such a secret existence because ..."
"Because what?"
Mme. de la Vaudraye hesitated, or rather seemed to hesitate, and then blurted out:
"Because you do not live alone."
She rose, thinking that Gilberte must be crushed under this accusation. But Gilberte, casting about ingenuously for what her visitor could have meant, repeated:
"Not alone! Well, of course not, as Adèle is here, with her husband and her son!"
"There, don't be alarmed, child," concluded Mme. de la Vaudraye, in a patronizing little way. "That is only so much talk and gossip, which I shall know how to put down, if you will help me. It only wants a small sacrifice. For instance, I shall be making the collection at High Mass, on Sunday: promise me to come. It's a promise, isn't it?" she said, as she went away.
Gilberte would much rather have stayed quietly at home; but, as she had been told that that was impossible, she gave up the idea:
"It seems to hurt people," she said to herself.
And, on the Sunday morning, when the bells rang for mass, she left the Logis for the first time.
She felt, in the crowded high-street, as though she were awaking from a dream of peace and silence, so intense was her dislike of bustle and noise. There were people at the windows, people at the shop-doors, people in the church-porch; and all those people were watching her, staring at her and whispering as she passed.
The church was a refuge, despite the crowd that filled it and despite the excitement provoked by her presence. Every one was astounded at her youthfulness, dazzled by her beauty. When she walked down the nave again, a murmur of admiration rippled through the rows of worshippers. But, when she reached the holy-water basin, an incident occurred that delayed her for a few seconds. Three men had rushed forward. And, with one movement, three hands were dipped into the marble basin and held out to her. She lowered her veil and went on.
Outside the church, the crowd stood waiting for her. Gilberte hurried along, feeling her shyness returning in the sunlight. Her one idea was to get back to the Logis, back into the shade. But there was a pastry-cook's shop at the end of the high-street; she caught sight of the window crammed with dainty custards and many-coloured cakes; and, as she was not prepared for such a temptation, she succumbed.
Slowly and hesitatingly, she made her choice. The shop-woman did up the parcel; Gilberte took it and moved away. But at the door she stopped, timidly. A group of street-boys was standing outside.
There they were, with their hands in their pockets, like loafers feasting their eyes on an unusual sight. She went out. They ran on either side of her, making a great din with their wooden shoes. Gilberte suffered tortures.
Suddenly, she heard cries and laughter behind her. She turned round. A young man, whom she recognized as one of the three who offered her the holy water, had darted into the midst of her escort and was dispersing it with uplifted cane. She bowed her head, in sign of thanks, and continued on her way.
An hour later, as she was finishing lunch, Adèle brought her an enormous sheaf of flowers: roses, white lilac and camellias. A peasant had handed them to the servant without a word of explanation.
"But I know who sent them," said Adèle. "It can only be M. Beaufrelant. He has the finest hot-houses in the district; he is mad on flowers. Madame must have seen him in church: a tall, thin man, with whiskers."
Bouquetot, Adèle's husband, entered:
"An old woman has brought this letter for madame."
Gilberte opened the envelope. It contained a thousand-franc note and a few words written in a copper-plate hand on pink note-paper:
"A bank-note! It must be that moneybags of a M. le Hourteulx. Let me see the hand-writing. ... Yes, that's right; I was in service with him. ... Oh, my fine fellow, if you think that, because you possess hundreds and thousands! ... Not a word. ... I know what's what!"
Bouquetot said to his wife:
"I met Mme. Duval, the chair-attendant, in the town just now. She told me that M. Beaufrelant and M. le Hourteulx were standing by the holy-water basin in church this morning; and young Simare as well. And then the barber told me that young Simare followed madame and drove away the street-boys who ran after her."
Gilberte thought for a moment and said:
"Go to Mme. de la Vaudraye, Adèle, tell her how this money and these flowers came into my hands and ask her to oblige me by returning them to the senders. But the poor must not be the losers; and here is another thousand-franc note which I beg that she will distribute as she thinks best."
That afternoon, Gilberte remained pensive. Those two presents surprised her. Her ignorance of social usages did not allow her to see any indelicacy or indiscretion in the way in which they were offered; and yet she felt that there was something that should not have been done.
"What does it mean?" she wondered, with a vague anxiety. "What do they want with me?"
It was the outside world trying to insinuate itself into her peaceful home, into her independent life: the world with its sordid calculations, its intrigues, its vanities, its stealthy encroachments upon those who seek solitude, its instinctive jealousy of those who are able to do without it.
At nightfall, she walked to the ruined summer-house. The stranger was there, among the rocks opposite. She recovered all her serenity. And not for a second did the idea cross her mind that he might be one of the three who had forced their attentions upon her.