A Life (16 page)

Little by little, however, her yearning for far-off lands began to fade. Habit placed a coating of resigned acceptance over her existence rather like the scale deposit left behind by certain types of water. She began once more to take some slight interest in the hundred-and-one little things which make up everyday life, to have a care for its simple, nondescript, routine activities. And she developed a kind of reflective melancholy, an unspecific disenchantment with living. For what did she want? What did she desire? She did not know. She felt no worldly need, no longing for pleasure, no desire even for the delights that were to hand. What delights, indeed? Like the old armchairs in the drawing-room that were dulled with age, everything was gradually losing its colour in her eyes, everything was fading, and taking on a drab and pallid hue.

Her relationship with Julien had changed completely. He seemed quite different since their return from honeymoon, like  an actor who has finished playing a role and reverted to his normal self. He scarcely paid her any attention, or even spoke to her; all trace of love had abruptly disappeared; and few were the nights when he came to her bedroom.

He had taken charge of the household and its estates, renegotiating leases, hounding the tenants, cutting back on expenditure; and having now assumed the air of a gentleman-farmer himself, he had lost all the polish and elegance of the suitor.

Though it was streaked with stains, he never changed out of an old velvet hunting-jacket, with brass buttons, a leftover from his younger days which he had found lying in his wardrobe; and having fallen into the neglectful ways of one who no longer needs to make himself presentable, he had stopped shaving, and his long, ill-kempt beard detracted startlingly from his good looks. His hands were no longer manicured; and at the end of every meal he would drink four or five little glasses of cognac.

When Jeanne had tried gently to reproach, him, he had replied with such a curt 'leave me be' that she no longer dared offer him advice.

She had reconciled herself to these changes in a way which surprised even herself. He had become a stranger to her, a stranger whose heart and soul were a closed book. She thought about the matter a great deal, and wondered how it was that having met, fallen in love, and married in such a sudden rush of intimate affection, they should now suddenly find themselves as distant from each other as if they had never shared a bed.

And how was it that she did not find this abandonment more hurtful? Was this what life was like? Had they made a mistake? Did the future hold nothing more for her?

If Julien had remained handsome, well-groomed, elegant, attractive, would she perhaps have minded more?

It had been agreed that in the New Year the newlyweds should be left on their own, and that Father and Mama would return for a few months to their house at Rouen. The young pair were not to leave Les Peuples this particular winter, but rather complete the process of settling in by getting to know and find pleasure in the  place where they were to spend the rest of their lives. They had a number of neighbours, moreover, to whom Julien would present his wife. These were the Brisevilles, the Couteliers, and the Fourvilles.

But the young couple could not begin their visits yet because it had so far proved impossible to get the painter to come and change the family coat-of-arms on the carriage.

For indeed the Baron had ceded the old family carriage to his son-in-law; and Julien would on no account have consented to present himself at the chateaux in the vicinity until the shield of the de Lamare family had been quartered with that of the Le Perthuis des Vauds.

Now there was only one man thereabouts who still had an expert knowledge of heraldic ornament, and this was a painter from Bolbec, called Bataille, who was summoned in turn to all the manor-houses in Normandy to affix these precious decorations to their carriage-doors.

Finally, one December day just as they were finishing lunch, a man appeared at the gate, opened it, and began to walk up the main avenue. He was carrying a box on his back. It was Bataille.

He was ushered into the dining-room and waited on like a gentleman; for his specialist trade, his constant dealings with the entire aristocracy of the region, and his knowledge of heraldry, its emblems and time-honoured terminology, had turned him into a kind of living blazon whose hand all gentlemen were prepared to shake.

Pen and paper were sent for at once and, while he ate, the Baron and Julien sketched out the quartering of their escutcheons. The Baroness, always in a froth when such issues were at stake, offered advice; and Jeanne herself took part in the discussion as though some mysterious interest had suddenly stirred within her.

Bataille, while continuing with his lunch, would give his opinion, occasionally grabbing a pencil to illustrate a possible design; he cited examples and described all the seigneurial carriages in the area. In his thinking and even in his voice he seemed to carry an aura of nobility.

He was a short man, with grey, close-cropped hair, and his hands, which reeked of turpentine, were stained with various colours of paint. It was said that he had once been involved in some unsavoury scandal; but the general consideration in which he was held by all the titled families had long since erased this blot on his name.

When he had finished his coffee he was conducted to the coach-house, where the wax-cloth was taken off the carriage. Having examined the vehicle, Bataille solemnly pronounced his verdict as to the dimensions which he thought necessary for his chosen design; and then, after some further discussion, he began his task.

Despite the cold, the Baroness had a chair brought so that she could observe the work in progress. Then she asked for a foot-warmer, as her feet were frozen: and she began to chat quietly with the painter, asking him about certain marriages of which she had not previously had news, and about a number of recent births and deaths, using this information to complete the family trees which she carried around in her head.

Julien had remained beside his mother-in-law, sitting astride a chair. He smoked his pipe, spat on the ground, listened, and continued to watch as his nobility was translated into colour.

Presently Père Simon, who was on his way to the kitchen-garden with his spade over his shoulder, stopped to consider the work; and once the news of Bataille's arrival had reached the two farms, it was not long before both farmer's wives appeared on the scene. Standing on either side of the Baroness, they went into ecstasies, and kept saying:

'Finicky work, mind, getting things just right on them machines.'

It did not prove possible to complete the escutcheons on the two doors until the next day, when they were ready towards eleven. Everyone was there in a trice; and the carriage was hauled out so that they could all have a better look.

It was perfect. They complimented Bataille on his work, and off he went with his box on his back. And the Baron, his wife, Jeanne, and Julien were all agreed that the painter was a fellow of  considerable talent who, if circumstances had allowed, could most certainly have become an artist.

However, further changes were required on account of various reforms which Julien had instituted as economy measures.

The old coachman had been made a gardener: the Vicomte himself had assumed responsibility for driving the carriage, and he had sold off the coach-horses in order to save on their feed.

Next, he had appointed a young cowherd called Marius as groom, since there had to be someone to hold the animals once the masters and mistresses had stepped down from the carriage.

And finally, in order to have horses for the carriage, he had added a special clause to the Couillards' and Martins' leases which required each farmer to supply one horse on one day per month and on a date of the Vicomte's own choosing, in return for which they were dispensed from providing fowl for the Baron's table.

So it was that, the Couillards having brought along a huge great nag with a yellow coat and the Martins a small beast that was shaggy and white, the two animals were put to harness side by side; and Marius, completely swamped inside one of Père Simon's old livery uniforms, led up this equipage to the foot of the front steps.

Julien, groomed and erect, had recovered some of his former elegance; but despite his efforts his long beard still lent him a common air.

He inspected the harness, the carriage, and the little groom and deemed them satisfactory, the only really important thing in his eyes being the newly painted armorial bearings.

The Baroness, who had been helped down from her room by her husband, struggled into the carriage and sat down, propping herself against some cushions. Jeanne appeared in her turn. At first she laughed at the pairing of the two horses, and commented that the white one was actually the grandson of the yellow. Then she caught sight of Marius: his face was almost entirely invisible beneath his top-hat and rosette, which only his nose prevented from falling further; his hands had vanished up his sleeves; and his legs were swathed in the skirts of his uniform, from under  which his feet protruded strangely at the bottom, shod in enormous pumps; and when she saw him tilt his head back to see, and lift his knee at every step as if he were about to bestride a river, and grope about like a blind man as he tried to do as he was bidden, completely engulfed and lost to view inside these ample clothes, she was seized with uncontrollable mirth, and simply could not stop laughing.

The Baron turned round, observed the little fellow in disbelief, and then, yielding to the infectious merriment, burst out laughing, calling on his wife to look, himself barely able to speak:

'L-l-look at Ma-Ma-Marius! Wh-what a sight! My goodness me, what a ri-ridiculous sight!'

Then the Baroness, having leaned out of the carriage door to take a look, was overcome by such a fit of mirth that the whole carriage danced on its springs, as though it were jolting along a road.

But Julien enquired, ashen-faced:

'What on earth are you all laughing at? Have you gone mad?'

Jeanne, convulsed with helpless laughter and quite unable to recover herself, sat down on a step. The Baron did likewise; and in the carriage similarly convulsive sneezing, together with a kind of rhythmic clucking, suggested that the Baroness for her part was choking. And suddenly Marius's frock-coat began to heave. He must have seen the joke, because deep under his hat he too was in a fit of laughter.

Thereupon Julien leapt forward in exasperation. With one blow he parted the boy from his gigantic hat, and away it flew onto the lawn. Then, rounding on his father-in-law, he blurted out in a voice trembling with anger:

'You have no right to laugh like this. We wouldn't be in this situation if you hadn't wasted your fortune and frittered away your estates. Whose fault is it if you're ruined?'

All the laughter ceased at once, frozen. And nobody said a word. Jeanne, now on the verge of tears, climbed in beside her mother. The Baron, nonplussed and silent, sat down opposite the two women; and Julien took his place on the box, having pulled the boy up beside him. The latter was crying, and his cheek was swelling up.

It was an unhappy drive and seemed to last for ever. In the carriage no one said anything. Being all three of them downcast and embarrassed, they did not want to admit what burdened their hearts. They realized that they could not have talked about anything else, so preoccupied were they by this one painful thought, and so they preferred to remain in gloomy silence rather than broach such an unpleasant subject.

Proceeding at the unequal trot of the two horses, the carriage skirted the edge of the farmyards along the way, scattering black hens who made off in long, panic-stricken strides and dived into the hedges, where they disappeared from view. From time to time they were chased by an angry Alsatian, who would then return home, the hairs still up on his back, and turn round to bark at the carriage one last time. A gangling lad in muddy clogs, ambling along with his hands in his pockets, his blue shirt billowing behind him in the wind, would stand aside to let the horses and carriage past, awkwardly doffing his cap and revealing his hair that was plastered to his skull.

And between each farm it was open country again, where other farms could be seen dotted here and there in the distance.

At length they entered a great avenue of firs leading off the main road. The deep, muddy ruts made the carriage lurch from side to side, and caused Mama to cry out. At the end of the avenue there was a white gate which was shut; Marius ran to open it, and they drove round an enormous lawn until the curve in the drive brought them to the front of a huge, tall, gloomy building with closed shutters.

The door in the middle opened suddenly; and a doddery old servant, dressed in a red-and-black striped waistcoat partly covered by an apron, came slowly down towards them with short, sideways steps. He asked for the name of the visitors and ushered them into a spacious drawing-room where, with some difficulty, he opened the shutters. The furniture was shrouded in dust-sheets, and the clock and candelabras were wrapped in white linen; a musty air, the cold, damp atmosphere of yesteryear, seemed to pierce their flesh and lungs and hearts with sadness.

They all sat down and waited. A few steps heard in the corridor above suggested unaccustomed haste. The residents of the house, having been taken by surprise, were changing as quickly as they could. This took a long while. A bell rang several times. Other steps could be heard coming down a staircase, then going up again.

The Baroness felt the penetrating cold keenly and kept sneezing. Julien paced up and down. Jeanne sat glumly beside her mother. And the Baron leant against the marble mantlepiece, and stared at the floor.

Finally one of the tall doors swung open to reveal the Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Briseville. They were both short, skinny, sprightly figures, of no readily identifiable age, at once formal and ill at ease. The wife, wearing a floral silk dress and a small widow's cap with ribbons, spoke rapidly in a high-pitched voice. The husband, dressed in a rather grand, close-fitting frock-coat, greeted them with a bend of the knees. His nose, his eyes, his long, exposed teeth, his hair which seemed coated with wax, and his fine, full-dress attire all gleamed with the gleam of objects of which much care is taken.