Thalia

by Frances Faviell

  ‘She has no mother,’ said Marie simply. ‘And neither have you. That’s why I was so upset about that young Tréfours. He’s tumbled many decent girls in the woods here!’

  I didn’t want to hear about Armand and I silenced her. I hadn’t seen or heard of any of the Tréfours family since our return, but Thalia was suffering from Thérèse. Cynthia had insisted on her returning to school. One morning when she came in at mid-day, Cynthia said, ‘Where have you been for the last three days?’

  Thalia started, flushed and began mumbling something about school.

  ‘Don’t bother to lie to me. You haven’t been to school for three days. They telephoned this morning to ask if you were ill. Where were you?’

  ‘I went out with Yves in the cart,’ she said sullenly. ‘It’s time I left school.’

  Next day I walked with her there. Through the railings of the garden I could see the girls playing in groups. On the path several of the older girls were talking with Thérèse. She stared insolently at me, then, deliberately averting her gaze, said something to the girls with her which caused a spurt of laughter. As Thalia and I walked up the path they drew aside ostentatiously.

  The headmistress told me she had ordered that the accident was not to be mentioned to Thalia. ‘But what can one do?’ she said, hopelessly. ‘Children are very cruel.’

  ‘They say that she pushed her little brother over the cliffs and then ran away,’ I said. ‘None of them will speak to her. She’s been sent to Coventry. That’s why she stayed away.’

  ‘What exactly did happen? Do you know?’

  ‘She doesn’t seem clear. She’s so mixed up that she imagines that the shove she gave him when she caught up with him was deliberate. She ran away from sheer panic.’

  ‘It’s the greatest pity,’ the headmistress said. ‘She was improving so much. And she’s very clever in some ways. It’s true that she’s backward if you judge her by the usual things learned at school by girls of her age. But her mind is original and very quick. She writes amazingly well—but only if it’s on a subject she likes.’

  I wondered how much she knew of my relationship with the Tréfours family—and of its effect on Thalia. No doubt all of it—the place was so small and she must have heard the gossip from the satellites of Thérèse. I resented Cynthia putting me into the position of watch-dog over Thalia, but at the same time I reflected with amusement that the roles had now been reversed; but whereas she had been the willing watch-dog over Armand and me, I was an unwilling one over her.

  With Claude recovering so rapidly, Cynthia began going out again. There was a spate of festivities for the Coronation. She resumed some of her bridge afternoons, and went to a number of the parties. I wondered what she was using as an explanation of Thalia’s flight and of our joint return for she had not discussed either subject with us. I asked Judy. Cynthia, she said, simply evaded the whole thing by saying that she didn’t feel she could discuss it, she had suffered too much; and her fragile look, her air of delicacy which had increased, gained her more sympathy and attention. Topics for gossip were sometimes scarce in the Colony, Judy told me, and Cynthia as the centre of two recent excitements was in great demand.

  Terence returned from London. He had written twice to me from there and in his last letter he had suggested our getting married. I didn’t take it seriously. I told him about Thalia’s arrival in Paris, and of the accident to Claude and of my impending return to Dinard, but I made no reference to his suggestion. He came to call soon after his return, with flowers for Cynthia and toys for Claude. I couldn’t help noticing the return of colour to Cynthia’s pale face and of brightness to her eyes. She immediately went to Madame Cérise and ordered some summer frocks. She and Terence were in the same parties frequently and Claude was left more and more to Marie and me.

  One evening Terence asked me to dine with him.

  ‘Go,’ said Cynthia. ‘You’ve been in so much with Claude you’re quite pale. Go and dance.’

  I hadn’t been alone with him since that lunch in the Bois in Paris. At dinner he asked me why I hadn’t answered his question about marrying him. I said that I supposed he had asked me out of pity. He said angrily that he had no such altruistic motives—but purely selfish ones.

  ‘But you’re in love with Cynthia,’ I said.

  ‘I was,’ he said shortly. ‘But that’s something I’m not willing to discuss now.’

  ‘She’s still in love with you.’

  ‘Rachel,’ he said irritatedly, ‘can’t you keep to the point? We’re not talking of Cynthia—we’re talking of you.’

  ‘I shall only marry for love,’ I said firmly. ‘And I’ll never be in love again. I want to paint.’

  ‘We could live in Paris and you could go on studying at the Académie. You’d be much happier with an older man. No young one will be willing to put up with your art.’

  I was tempted. There was truth in what he said. Armand had regarded my talent as something to be turned into a pleasant hobby. If I married Terence there would be no more doing what my aunt wanted. No more wearing the clothes she chose for me. But I’d have to do what he wanted. And I could have found men in Paris who would have done a lot for me without marriage.

  ‘No,’ I said at last. ‘I’m very, very flattered, Terence, but I can’t.’

  ‘I suppose you’re still hankering after that blond Don Juan?’ he said contemptuously. ‘Well, you can put him out of your mind. He’s getting married—to the girl his mother always intended him to marry.’

  The news was a blow. I realized that in my heart I had still been hoping that one day I would meet Armand and somehow it would all come right. I think Terence saw this, for he put his hand across the table and taking one of mine he kissed it rather sadly. Then he began talking about Thalia.

  ‘The girl’s a problem. I tell Cynthia she ought to see a psychiatrist. Cynthia simply doesn’t know what to do with her.’

  ‘She can save her money. A psychiatrist would tell her that she could try loving her daughter!’

  ‘Could you?’ he asked, cocking one eyebrow quizzically at me.

  ‘I’m very fond of her—but now Cynthia’s putting her against me by making me her gaoler.’

  ‘Cynthia’s had a great deal to put up with. The girl’s unpredictable!’

  ‘So’s Cynthia!’ I said meaningly.

  ‘Brume, disparais de la mé

  Ou tu seras coupée par la moitié

  Avec un grand couteau d’acier.’

  sang Claude in a melancholy chant, again and again. There was an early morning mist blotting out the sea. From his window there was whiteness and silence.

  ‘Sing it again,’ I said.

  ‘Brume, disparais de la mé.’

  ‘Mer,’ I corrected him. ‘Not mé.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong! It’s mé! Marie said it’s the old form of mer. D’you know the story of that song?’

  I did, but I wanted to hear him tell it me.

  ‘Well, Saint Lunaire came from Great Britain—Marie says so, probably from Wales. He had to leave his monastery because of barbarians who wouldn’t let him be a Christian. So he packed up with sixty-two monks and left his monastery and came in a boat to Brittany—only it was Armorica then and he wasn’t a saint. He wanted to land at St. Malo—and that wasn’t St. Malo then, it was Cite d’Aleth. When he was ready to drop anchor a great thick fog like this one came up and hid everything. But of course Marie says it was the Devil who sent the fog so that they couldn’t land. But Saint Lunaire got into a saintly anger! And whipping out his great sword, he cut swish through the air and vlan! he cut that curtain of fog into ribbons and it all went away into nothing! And that’s why the sailors all sing “Brume, disparais de la mé” when there’s a fog!’

  Marie had told it him in French but he told it me in English. She was tireless in amusing him.

  ‘There’s a lot more about Saint Lunaire,’ I said. ‘You know the place where Mimi lives is called St. Lunaire because he
landed there? Well, all the birds helped him. The tit brought him an ear of corn to show him there was food, the doves found a golden statue so that he could sell it and have money for his work. And two seagulls brought him the great stone he’d had to throw overboard in a storm. He’d been using that stone as an altar.’

  ‘I’ve seen the little goats killed on altars. They cut their throats. What did they kill on Saint Lunaire’s altar?’

  ‘Silly,’ said Thalia. ‘That was Kali’s altar. This was a Christian one.’

  ‘Look, the mist’s lifting! I can see a ship and a lighthouse,’ cried Claude. ‘Rachel, d’you think it’s because I sang that song?’ His eyes were brilliant with excitement.

  ‘No, stupid,’ said Thalia. ‘The mist’s going because the sun’s coming out.’

  ‘Of course it’s because you sang that song,’ said Marie, coming in. ‘It won’t always happen—but to-day you’ve been so good that Saint Lunaire heard the song!’

  ‘You see?’ said Claude triumphantly. He believed everything Marie told him, perhaps because she was so positive of its truth herself.

  It was June and the hotels and pensions were hives of activity. Bedding and curtains were hung out in the sun, chairs and tables out on the terraces. Young girls, both dark and blonde, with aprons pinching in their pretty waists, sang as they bustled about calling gaily to the passers-by. Through the winter they had slept and rested their tired feet after the summer season, and now, fresh and full of vigour and anticipation, they were getting ready for the new season’s visitors.

  Flags flew, flowers were planted in the tubs and beds, the cabines and the terrace tables got a new coat of paint. New striped umbrellas appeared everywhere and fresh gay awnings were hung over the shops. The great sweep of hotels on the Promenade was no longer eyeless. Shutters were flung back, windows cleaned and curtains hung. The market was a buzz of hotel-and pension-keepers getting ready for their incoming guests.

  The plaster had been removed from Claude’s leg and he began to walk again. He limped. The compound fracture had been skilfully set by a French surgeon but it was feared that the leg might prove a little shorter than the uninjured one. Dr. Cartier asked me not to say anything about this to Cynthia. Further operation could possibly correct this. But she wasn’t deceived. I saw her looking at Claude when he spoke of becoming a soldier and her glance rested on Thalia in a puzzled, hopeless way.

  ‘But why did she do it? Why?’ she had demanded of me when I had told her of Thalia’s flight to Marseilles.

  ‘It was an accident. She was so infuriated with him for taunting her that afternoon, she imagines that she’s to blame. She even thinks that she pushed him—that the impetus of grabbing at him sent him over.’

  ‘I wonder,’ said Cynthia. ‘Claude remembers nothing at all of that afternoon. He remembers going for a walk round the Pointe—that’s all.’

  ‘He overbalanced trying to elude her—and fell.’

  ‘Then why did she run away without even seeing whether he were dead? Without even trying to get help. Why, unless it was deliberate?’

  ‘It was panic. Sheer panic.’

  ‘She’s been brought up to have control. To behave in the right way. Surely I’ve set her an example of duty.’ Her voice was bitter.

  ‘Cynthia,’ I said, ‘she’s a very unusual girl. She’s very clever. Everyone in Paris thought so. Perhaps she needs some other way. Yours seems to have failed.’

  ‘She’s clever in an unpleasant way. She still likes these impossible practical jokes. She’s critical and sceptical of everything. That I’ve failed somewhere I admit. . . . But there’s more to it than you can understand.’

  ‘Have you discussed the accident with her?’

  ‘No. And I don’t intend to. And I don’t want either you or she to mention it to Tom when you write.’

  ‘You haven’t told him?’ I was astonished.

  ‘No,’ she said deliberately. ‘He’s having a very rough time up on the Frontier. He always tries to stick up for those wretched tribes who’re giving so much trouble. It infuriates me. They’re just murderers. They don’t come out into the open and fight decently. They shoot from behind and often after offering the white flag of surrender. What with all this news—skirmishes every few days and casualties too—and this worry over Thalia and Claude. . . .’ She sighed heavily and put her head in her hands.

  ‘Try and forget the accident. Do.’

  ‘How can I? Every time I see him walk . . . dragging that pathetic little leg, I can think of nothing else. I ought never to have trusted him to her,’ and she burst into tears. It was the first time I had seen Cynthia cry.

  I was alarmed for her health, and felt that it was I who was to blame. If I’d been there Thalia wouldn’t have been alone with Claude. Hadn’t Tom Pemberton asked me to look after his wife? She was terribly thin, eating almost nothing and smoking incessantly. She was taking more and more sleeping tablets.

  ‘What shall you do next cold weather?’ I asked her. ‘Are you thinking of staying on here?’

  ‘No,’ she said violently. ‘No. I’ve had all I want of this place already.’

  ‘Did you come here because of Terence?’ I asked her, but she would not answer me.

  I told her Terence had asked me to marry him. She went very white, caught her breath and said calmly, ‘And?’

  ‘I said no. I don’t love him—and he doesn’t love me.’

  ‘You’ve grown up quite a lot since you went away,’ was her comment. But it wasn’t the going away which had made me older. ‘Poor child. You had a bad shock,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I’ve got over it,’ I said. ‘And it was nothing to the shock you must have had when Claude was found on those rocks.’

  She looked at me with those forget-me-not blue eyes and I felt for the first time that I might one day like her very much.

  Except for a telegram acknowledging the one in which I’d informed him of my return to Dinard, my father hadn’t written to me. All he had said in that was: ‘NOTE YOUR RETURN STOP BETTER LATE THAN NEVER STOP FATHER’.

  Since my aunt had sent the telegram to Paris ordering me to return, there had been silence from her. I felt horribly lonely. I hated going to the market. Julie Caron’s old mother was often there gossiping with the stall-holders. She would greet me with deliberate cordiality, then I would see her whispering to whoever she was with. I was no longer greeted with chaff and smiles there, and if Thalia was with me we came in for a lot of interested whispering, heads were put together and we knew that we were being pointed out as unfeeling monsters.

  We were glad of the influx of visitors. None of them knew anything about either of us—or indeed of any of the residents’ affairs. Our isolation drew us together again. Everywhere I heard that Armand was engaged to a rich industrialist’s daughter. Marie confirmed this.

  ‘The one I told you about, Marie-Laure. She isn’t pretty like you, Mademoiselle Rachel, but she’s rich, very rich!’

  She was small, plump, and had, according to Thalia who had seen her, a little moustache and not enough neck. I closed my mind to all this. Armand seemed as far away as did the Slade. I was indifferent, depressed and somehow deflated after the strenuous life in Paris. Monsieur Prinet had been very upset when I’d left so abruptly. ‘But you’ll come back. If you like I will write to your father. He shall know that you have talent and must allow you to return.’ There had been no time for thinking of painting since I came back, but now with Claude so much better and Cynthia out frequently again, I began to think of work once more.

  I went up to the attic to see the portrait of Thalia as Nefertiti. I wanted to see it in the light of what I had learned in Paris. I hadn’t finished the portrait of Catherine, and the heads I’d done in Paris were studies only. This was the only completed, planned picture which I had done.

  I found the canvas in a corner. It had been slashed all over, just as I had slashed the one of the Reverend Cookson-Cander after those angry criticisms.

&
nbsp; I couldn’t believe it and stood there with it in my hands. Who had done this? Claude? No, he wouldn’t have access to a knife. Thalia? I remembered what she had said: ‘It was all lies . . . a trick . . . a trick of light and shadow if you like—but still a trick. I’m ugly!’

  She had destroyed it. And even with those cuts across it, I knew that it was by far the best thing that I’d done.

  I was still standing there with the slashed canvas when she came in. When she saw the picture in my hands a closed, furtive look came into her face.

  ‘Why did you do it? Why?’ I asked her. ‘Is it because I made you come back?’

  ‘Can’t you see?’ she cried passionately. ‘You’re changing. It was the same over Claude. You want to cover it up nicely—people don’t push other people over cliffs. Not in families like ours! You want to make it all pretty and charming—like this picture!’

  And then, seeing my chagrin, she caught my arm and said wretchedly, ‘I’m sorry I did it. I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?’

  But how could she understand what she had done? It wasn’t the destruction of the painting which so shattered me but something which she had revealed by that destruction. I was bewildered, my world was upside down.

  ‘I’ll sit again. The dress is here—and the crown. I’ll sit as much as you like. . . .’ She was ingratiating herself with me as Kiki did when he’d been disobedient.

  ‘I shall never paint you again,’ I said bitterly.

  XVIII

  AND now Thalia’s darts were focused on me. I could do nothing right—nothing of which she didn’t make fun. I bore it in silence because I was so terribly sorry for her—and I knew that she was, underneath it all, horribly unhappy. But now it seemed that there was no bridge over which I could reach her. If I asked her how she was getting on at school, she would say briefly, ‘All right.’ When I said I was going to write to Catherine and ask when they were coming back, she said roughly, ‘She won’t come back until the wedding’s over. She’s been got out of the way for that. It isn’t the thing to have a mistress about when one’s son’s getting married to a rich man’s daughter.’