Read Ebook: The Little French Girl by Sedgwick Anne Douglas

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Ebook has 2022 lines and 128803 words, and 41 pages

"I do not think so," Alix smiled. "Nor in a country with such fogs."

"That's a good idea! Eh, Aunt Bella? People must see each other clearly in order to hate each other sufficiently.--What?"

"That is just it," Alix nodded, laughing. "And you are all so kind. Kinder, I am sure, than we are."

"And does your grandfather really expect to get the Bourbons back?" Aunt Bella inquired. "You are a Roman, I suppose, my dear child."

"A Roman?" Alix, for all her English, was perplexed. "I have no Italian blood."

"She means your church," said Giles. "And Catholics, in France, do really all want back a king, don't they?"

"I am a Catholic," said Alix, "and so, of course, was Grand-p?re, and he certainly did not like the Republic. We had a very unscrupulous, intriguing mayor at Montarel and perhaps that was one reason. But I do not think that Grand-p?re expected anything any more or thought at all about kings."

"A very strange people, the French," Aunt Bella remarked, as if the fact were so patent that one of them, being present, could not object to its statement. "A very strange people, indeed. And where do you say your grandfather lives, my dear?"

"He is dead," said Alix. "It was at Montarel he lived; near the Alps."

"You may have noticed the water-colours of Avignon that I did some years ago, hanging in your bedroom," said Aunt Bella. "Parts of France are very picturesque. But I prefer our scenery."

"And now," said Giles, looking at his watch, "we must be thinking about our train. Are you packed up, Alix?"

"Tell your mother," said Aunt Bella, "that I expect her on Thursday for the two committees. She'll spend the night, of course." And when Alix's box and bag had been brought and a taxi summoned, Aunt Bella said to her very kindly, as they stood for farewells in the hall: "You must come again and see me, my dear, when you are in London. I could take you to the National Gallery and Westminster Abbey, and, if you care about Social Work, you might be interested in my Infant Welfare Centre and Working Girls' Gymnasium."

"Is she an official, your aunt?" Alix inquired as she and Giles drove off to the station.

"An unofficial official," Giles explained. "She runs more things than most officials. She sits on councils and governs hospitals and makes speeches. There can't be a busier woman in London and she's a splendid old girl;--though I do enjoy pulling her leg." And then, since Alix was startled by this expression, also new to her, he had again to explain.

The third-class carriage was not foul and wooden as it would have been in France, and they had it to themselves; but the cushions smelt of fog, and Alix thought she had never seen anything so ugly as the view from the window. It had been too dark to see the suburbs of London the night before, on the way up from Newhaven; but they lay all mean and low and toad-coloured this morning, wet under the lifted fog, and for as far as the eye could follow there was nothing to be seen but squatting roofs and gaunt factory chimneys.

"Bad, isn't it?" said Giles. He sat opposite her, looking out with his face so young and so worn. She liked him so much and felt so safe with him, and yet it frightened her a little to look at him, just--strange association--as it had frightened her to look at Grand-p?re. Only Giles was kinder, far, than Grand-p?re. "But worse, do you think," he went on, "than the suburbs of Paris?"

Alix did not quite like to say how much worse she thought it; it did not seem polite. "There, at least, one has the sky to look at," she suggested. "It is happier, I think."

"We're not always in a fog, you know," said Giles. "And Aunt Bella is very keen on Smoke Abatement. Perhaps we'll look happier some day."

"I am very glad your family does not live in London," said Alix. She felt more shy of Giles this morning, shut up with him in the intimacy of the chill, smoky carriage, than she had last night in the station dining-room. And it was as if she felt him more shy, too. They were making talk a little.

"Wouldn't you have come, if we'd lived in London?" he inquired.

"Maman would have sent me just the same, I think," said Alix. "She wanted me to know England. And your family, specially, of course. Captain Owen always said I must know his family."

"Oh, yes. Of course," said Giles. He got up then and looked at the heat regulator and said it was cold, did she mind? There seemed no heat. Then he sat down again and fell into a silence, his arms folded, his long legs stretched as best they could, before him, and they both, again, looked out of the window.

On it went, the dreadful city; but at last furtive squares and triangles of green were stealing into it and sparsely placed trees edged streets that adventured forth, at random, it seemed, to end, almost with a stare of forlorn astonishment, in fields ravaged of every trace of beauty. But the green spread and widened like a kindly tide, and though the brick and slate was encrusted at intervals, like an eruption, upon the land, there were copses and rises of meditative meadow and the white sky was melting here and there to a timid blue above little hamlets that seemed to have a heart and to be breathing with a life of their own. Beside a brook a girl was strolling with scarf and stick, two joyous dogs racing ahead of her; a cock-pheasant ran, startled, through a wood sprinkled with gold and russet, and presently there was a deeper echo of the blue overhead in the blue of quiet hills on the horizon.

"This is better, isn't it?" said Giles, bringing his eyes to her at last. "Don't you call this pretty?"

"Very pretty," said Alix. And it was pretty, though to her eyes it was also insignificant and confused, its lack of design or purpose teasing her mind with its contradiction of the instinct for order and shapeliness that dwelt there. "Is it because of the season and your mistiness that everything seems very near one? The horizon is so near, and even the sky comes quite close down."

"Like nice, kind arms, I always think," said Giles. "No, even in the Lake Country, even in Scotland, we don't get your splendid distances; or very rarely."

"But it is very pretty," Alix repeated. "I like the woods. Did you see the girl and the dogs a little while ago? I imagine that your sisters look like that."

"Our dogs look like that. Ruth and Rosemary aren't quite so grown up. We have three dogs. Are you fond of them?"

"Your half-year at Montarel?" Giles asked the question, but she saw that it was after a hesitation. She wondered how much Captain Owen had told them. She felt suddenly that she wanted to tell Giles everything there was to tell.

"I spent half the year with Grand-p?re at Montarel and half with Maman in Paris. Did you not know?" she said, looking him in the eyes. "My father and mother were parted. They were divorced. But it could not have been more Maman's error since the judge allowed her to have me for half the time. It is arranged like that, you know, as fairer. And since my father died when I was hardly more than a baby, it was Grand-p?re who had me for that side of the family.--I tell it to you as I imagine it to have been, for Maman has never spoken to me of it."

Giles was making it easy. He was looking at her with no sign of discomfort, looking, indeed, as if he knew it already. "Oh, yes," he said. And then he added: "And when your grandfather died? Was there no one else on his side of the family? Don't you go to Montarel any more?"

"No one at all," said Alix, shaking her head. "I am the last of the Mouverays. That was why the ch?teau was sold and why Maman has me now entirely. But though it was sad to lose my grandfather, I love my mother best of course."

"I hope you won't miss her too much," said Giles after a moment and in a kind voice. "We'll try to give you a happy life, you know."

"I am sure you will. But one must always miss one's mother and one's country. And then I always wonder if she is happy. Though I am only a child, she depends on me."

"You have the comfort of knowing that Paris is only a few hours away," said Giles, smiling.

"Ah, but Cannes isn't. She is to be at Cannes this winter."

"Oh, yes, I remember. She spends the winters at Cannes."

"She enjoys her life there. She plays tennis beautifully and has so many friends, as perhaps Captain Owen told you. But I know that she misses me. I have always been with her there before. I was with her, you know, when Captain Owen met us."

"I should rather say I did know," said Giles. "We heard all about your kindness to him, you may be sure. You may be sure we are a very grateful family." Giles spoke with heartiness, and though she felt something a little forced in it there was nothing forced in his evident kindness towards herself. They were talking happily. As they had talked last night at dinner.

"And you may be sure we heard all about you," said Alix, smiling across at him. "All about Ruth and Rosemary and Francis and Jack. What a large family you are. It must be very happy being so many."

"I say!" laughed Giles, "you have a good memory! To get us in our order, too."

"But how could I forget when he told us so much! We saw all your photographs so often. Only one does not get so clear an idea from photographs. I would not have known you from yours. And there was Toppie. After your mother, he talked most of all about Toppie. I shall see her, too, shall I not?"

It was as if she had struck him. The violent red that mounted to his face was echoed in Alix's cheeks. It was as if, with her innocent words, she had struck him, and in the silence that followed them, while he gazed at her, and she, helplessly, gazed back, she saw that what had underlain the confusion of yesterday had simply been suffering. She had laid it bare. She was looking at it now.

He tried to master it; to conceal it; in a moment he stammered: "Oh, he talked most about Toppie, did he?"

"Was she not his betrothed?" asked Alix in a feeble voice. She felt exhausted. He had struck her, too.

"Of course she was," said Giles, and his eyes now lifted from her face and fixed themselves over her head on Maman's dressing-case.

"And--is she not still living?"

"Toppie? Living?" His eyes came back to her. "I should rather say so. You see," he went on at once, though Alix could not see the relevance, "she was so horribly cut up by his death."

"Of course," Alix murmured. "I am so sorry. I should not have spoken of him at all, when you have lost him. I did not mean to be stupid; unfeeling."

"But, good Heavens! you're not stupid! Not a bit unfeeling!" cried Giles, and seeing her distress, his eyes actually filled with tears. "It's not Owen at all. We often speak of him. It's Toppie. And it's I who am such a dunderhead. You see, she's all that's left of him. I mean, all that's loveliest; most sacred. She cared for him so much. She's like something in a shrine, to us all."

"Yes. Yes. I see. I understand," said Alix; though, still, she could not see. "I spoke lightly. I do not forgive myself."

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