CHAPTER IX
“Oh, Maman!—What have I done to you!” It was her own voice now that Alix heard. She was out again upon the common and she had been running. But suddenly she was walking very slowly among the gorse bushes in the bright sunlight, and she could hardly drag herself along. Her head ached as if it would break in two; her limbs were of lead; and now that she went so slowly she could no longer escape Maman. She saw her there, moving beside her, with the intent look; silent; without a word of blame.
“What have I done to you!” Alix muttered.
Maman went beside her, in her white dress, with the heelless shoes such as she wore at Vaudettes, and bare-headed. It was not blame. Maman's look had passed beyond all thought of blame; it had passed even beyond pity. Alix saw suddenly that what it meant was that she was waiting to see what Alix would now say to her.
“I must think. I must think,” Alix muttered to herself. But she did not need to think. It was as if in a kaleidoscope, turned in her hands, memories, till now unrelated, fell suddenly into a pattern. “La belle madame Vervier. Divorcée, vous savez.”—Grand-père's eyes. Giles's silence, when they had met. That strange, deep blush that had dyed Giles's face when, in the study, they had spoken of Captain Owen's leaves in Paris; André de Valenbois. Maman's lie to André about Toppie. All the things she had read in poetry, in novels, of beautiful guilty women who had lovers. And, creeping through her young heart like a slow surreptitious flame—falling into place, curving with darts of ardent colour into the pattern—most recent, most intimate intuitions of what a woman's love might mean. “Maman!” she moaned. She fell at Maman's feet in supplication. Yet, while she implored her forgiveness, she was sheltering her, too. She was putting her arms around her to protect her from the world's cruel scrutiny. She was promising her—oh, with what a passion of fidelity—that their love, the love of mother and child, was unharmed, set apart, firmly fixed and sacred for ever.
When she reached Heathside she heard that the little boys had returned. They were shouting in the garden with the dogs, and Alix retraced her steps, skirting the kitchen-garden wall, going softly in by the little gate, creeping along the back passages past kitchen and scullery unobserved. Here was Giles's study. She turned the handle and went in.
Giles was there, sitting at his desk and writing. He had a sick, dogged look; but he had recovered his composure. He even, as he turned his head and looked at her, tried to summon a smile of welcome and she knew that he felt ashamed for having broken down before her.
Alix shut the door and stood against it. “Giles, I have done a dreadful thing,” she said. Only when she leaned against the door did she know that she was almost fainting. She felt that all that she desired was sleep. To tell Giles and then to fall into oblivion. Far away, in France, she saw where she and Maman, in a sunny garden, walked hand in hand. They both seemed very old. They were very sad. Yet they smiled at each other. But this vision was far away. The black ordeal was before her. “I have done a dreadful thing,” she repeated. “Perhaps you will not forgive me.”
Giles had risen to his feet and stood, over against the window, tall and dark with his ruffled head. He was looking at her and his eyes were frightened.
“I have been to Toppie,” said Alix. “I have told her everything.”
He did not find a word to say.
“It was for your sake I did it, Giles,” said Alix in a dry, unappealing voice. “I told her so that she might know it was you who loved her; not he. Perhaps you will not forgive me.”
Giles spoke. “You told her about Owen?”
“About Owen. That he was Maman's lover.”
Giles put his hand up and pushed it through his hair. “You told her that for my sake?”
“Yes, Giles. So that she should not leave you to be nearer him.”
“Did you know what you were saying, Alix?” said Giles, after another moment; and after yet another moment Alix answered him.
“Not when I told her. But afterwards. After what she said. She said that Maman was a wicked woman. She said that Maman was a woman who had lovers. She said that for a woman there is no greater sin. And now, I think, I understand. Giles—Is it true?”
“My darling little Alix,” said Giles in a strange, stern voice, “it is true. But she's not wicked. She's wrong; but not wicked. She's lovely, and unfortunate, and wrong, and she needs your love more than ever.”
As Giles spoke these words, Alix suddenly stumbled forward. She put out her hands blindly—for as she heard him her tears rushed down from under shut lids—and Giles's arms received her. She was sobbing against his breast. “Oh, Giles, thank you! Oh, Giles, do you forgive me?”
“My darling child—my darling little Alix—I understand it all,” said Giles.