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 colour 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 on to the terrace, followed by the children and the English governess, and the maitre d'hotel, 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 of scandal came to her ears, even during those long heavy dinners, with Edouard at the far end of the table. Not only in the smart rifliraff society to which she never penetrated, but even amongst 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 eye-brow, 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 Elise, her friend of lycee 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 Elise 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 re-arranged and set to perhaps a different style. As to life at the chateau, 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 etait 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 on to 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 colour 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 leant upon the balcony the heat of the wooden rail burnt 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 aperitifs 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 savour 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 leant down, smiling at them; and then, as usual, the little clamour 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 dejeuner 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, unrullled, with the children and Miss Clay.
'Look, maman, I found a little star-fish 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, Celeste and Helene: 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 cherie, 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 chateau 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, roundA·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 dejeuner — Celeste 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
