by James Hanley
"And Eugene?"
"He has never loved us. That is an answer. Go and get ready the lunch."
"I'm breaking up," thought Madame Marius, "I can feel it, it's like being blind, losing one's footing, unsure of it."
She was standing near, and facing the wall, the big black bag in her hands, which she kept clasping and unclasping, putting in her hand and drawing it out again, opening it wide to the light and peering down into it. She stood hunched, holding this tight to her body, as though behind her, eyes were spying upon it.
"Lunch mother."
"I'm coming."
"If I'd the proof of it I'd give him up, and that would be just," she thought, as she made her way to the kitchen. She had put the black bag in the trunk, drawn down the big lid and locked it.
Madeleine had laid the table and was already seated as her mother came in. The old woman came slowly.
There was the chair in which he had sat, facing her, the stains and cigarette burns at his end of the table, a shiny patch where his elbow had used to rest. She could hear the noise of his drinking, see the fist that might at any moment crush the glass to shreds, hear the crunch of the high-smelling onion.
"A whiff of him," she thought, and only then appeared to see her daughter.
She then sat down.
"We will say the grace," she said, folding her hands.
"Fish," she exclaimed, "one is sick of fish," but she started to eat the mackerel that Madeleine had cooked for them.
"You're certain the man will call for the bags at three o'clock?"
"He promised faithfully," replied Madeleine.
"Then that is well enough."
"You've still not said where we're going, mother," and Madeleine looked directly into her mother's eyes.
Madame Marius paused in her eating, "At forty five she's still a child. It's I who am looking after her, not she tending me" the old woman thought.
"There is the place of the Evening, that calm time of the day," said Madame Marius, "for old souls, the door is never closed, and they say the nuns are kind."
"You should write to Father Nollet to thank him, mother."
"He requires no answer from me" said her mother.
"He was kind."
"Are you instructing me?" asked Madame Marius, and then went on with her meal.
"No mother, I only said he did his best."
"We all do our best, Madeleine, everyone of us. We are not completely stupid. Life isn't a fairy-tale, we know that already. We don't have to be told. Our eyes are open. There's goodness, but there's horror, too. But some people think that just by being merciful the difficult situations are resolved. Rubbish. The mercy of men sometimes adds flames to the horror. Noble gestures with shut eyes. Father Nollet supposes that if I follow my son and embrace him the matter is ended. It is not so simple as that, Madeleine, you poor, innocent child."
She pushed aside her plate, saying, "actually, I'm not hungry. Bring me some water, please."
Taking the water from her she drank.
"I was thirsty," she said.
"It was strange this morning," she said, "Kneeling by my bed, beginning my prayers, my beads suddenly turned themselves into railway lines and I was on a train again, rolling across deep and silent country, and then I was back where I belonged. I was sitting in a white chair, under a fig-tree, giving suck to you. It was so quiet a morning, I could hear the tiniest stir of the leaves, and the sky was so blue, so deep a blue, and so overwhelming, that I closed my eyes, and then I could feel you warm in my arms, strong against my breast. Father Gerard got off his bicycle and peeped in over the gate and saw me and we both smiled, but he said nothing and went off again. The morning grew, and it was still peaceful, still silent in the garden, and there you were, snug in my arms, and I thought of your father a thousand miles away, in an ocean, and somehow he seemed to speak to me across the distances.
"And in the afternoon I was sat by the stove in the kitchen, and it was still silent, still as peaceful. Annette had gone off for the day, and I found myself knitting in the chair she used to sit in, by the stove. A long day and it seemed to have no end. There, in the bowl were the flowers she had cut from the garden, and from the table the smell of the fruit was powerful. That was what came into my mind this morning, and as suddenly as the pictures came, so they also vanished, and there I was, on my knees, in this place, asking myself how I came here, and why did I kneel and go on kneeling, in this hateful house."
"Poor mother."
"Leave me alone," her mother said.
Madeleine got up and left her, and left the room, and the house, and walked far away from it. She walked quickly and with resolute step. She took a tram and was borne inwards. She alighted and walked half the length of the Place, then turned, and dived out of sight. And at the third building in this alley she paused to look up. Behind the long high windows she saw cars and bicycles, rubber tyres, nuts and bolts, and looking higher, she saw painted upon the window of the second floor, "The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. Branch office." And she went in and climbed the stairs. The sign on the door said, "Please enter", and she opened the door and went inside.
There hung upon the facing wall a large framed picture of the good man, and below it some flowers in a vase, which Madeleine saw at once were faded, and she was of a mind to go behind the counter and clear the dead flowers away, and to refill them with fresh cuttings from the shop below. Instead she lifted the pen, chained to the desk, clipped it in the dust-covered ink, and upon a sheet of paper drawn from the box, she wrote,
"Dear Sir,
My brother Captain Eugene Marius is ill. Please see that he comes to no harm, for the love of God. Madeleine Marius, Rue des Fleurs 47."
There seemed no life in this office, the air was still, nothing moved, even that door had opened noiselessly. Madeleine folded up the note and placed it on the counter. There was a bell at her left hand, and she rang it. It gave a weak tinkle, and she waited. There was no response. The office was empty. Perhaps the secretary was out to lunch. Perhaps that man upon the wall was watching over it in his absence.
Madeleine wrote "Urgent" upon the envelope, and then, "To the Secretary of the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul."
She left the building and caught a tram on the corner, and was borne outwards. Then she walked back to the house.
Madame Marius had not stirred in her place, and was sitting a little back from the table, hands flat in her lap, head a little forward, she seemed to be contemplating these hands. She heard an outer and an inner door close. "You were out?"
"Yes mother?"
"Were you looking for him?"
"No mother."
"Do you think I'm cruel, Madeleine?" She stretched the little finger of each hand towards the thumb and pressed, suddenly loosened them, she twirled all her fingers, she turned her hands over and lay them flat on her knee, stared at the wedding ring upon her third finger. With the tip of another finger she burnished the stone in it. "Did you find him?"
"No."
"You have well considered this step you take?"
"Yes mother."
"You are sure of that? There is then nothing in the world that would draw you out?"
"Nothing."
"You realize that I shall stay where I go."
"I do, mother, I do."
"You realize also that you are free to do as you wish. I am not forcing you."
Without waiting for the answer she went on, "do you think that if we went back from where we came, we could carry on as though nothing had happened. Or that if I followed that Father Nollet's advice and we all three were together again, that we would go on as from that time...
"You understand that I am asking you some questions and I would like to hear what you say."
She glanced up. Madeleine was seated at the table.
"Can't you speak?"
"It was the sailing-ship that frightened me," Madeleine said, "the ship he never put foot on."
From the sleeve of h
er blouse Madame Marius withdrew a handkerchief and handed it to her daughter.
"Wipe your eyes, child," she said.
She put a finger under her daughter's chin and raised her face, and looked at her and said, "it is bitter for me also. I'm going upstairs to dress and be ready, then I shall lie down and wait for the man to come. You're sure he will be here at three?"
Without waiting for a reply she went out and shut the door behind her.
"One clumsy lie behind another, now he's pretending that he's mad, no end to the devilry."
She entered her bedroom and flung the door to with a sudden rage.
Into a red and blue basket she packed the few objects that she wanted. She sat down in front of the mirror and started to arrange her hair, she tried on a hat, and with this on sat looking at her reflection in the mirror, and then Madeleine came in.
"I look terrible in this hat," Madame Marius said.
She took it off and put it down on the table. She gathered her coat, and her gloves and laid them across the chair. Then, fully dressed she lay down on the bed.
"There'll come a time," she said, "when he will be glad to tell me, his own mother. Lie down, Madeleine and rest yourself, we shall hear the knock."
They lay side by side on the bed.
"The nights we have lain together," her mother said, "ever since we came to this place, night after night, just you and I," she felt for Madeleine's hand, "I'm afraid," she said, "being alone, Madeleine, I couldn't be alone, ever, I'm too old."
X
LABICHE folded up his surplice, and as he picked up his coat the note fell from the pocket. He opened it and read:
"Dear Labiche,
I have a Requiem mass in the morning at eight o'clock, and I wonder if you can come and serve me. Sauret is taken ill. You know Sauret. He is a man I like very much, and indeed, if it were permissible I would have none other behind me at the altar—your good self excepted—but I have never been in favour of too young boys serving at the Mass. I hope you can manage to come. Also I have some news for you. Yours sincerely, Dominic Nollet."
Labiche put the note in his pocket. Then he closed the heavy drawer of the great oaken chest, the shining top of which threw up a blurred reflection of himself. Father Nollet passed him by, on his way to disrobe, and he patted his altar-boy on the shoulder and said, "don't be long, Labiche, breakfast is ready."
"No Father, I'm coming directly."
This was Labiche's world, and he was happy on its threshold. Kneeling behind the priest and giving out the responses he felt he was singing out his own peace and contentment, his whole being rose to receive the single acknowledgement. He passed through the vestry and at the door of the dining-room knocked, and went in. Housekeeper Morell was already serving breakfast.
"Sit down, Labiche," said Father Nollet, and indicated his chair.
His voice seemed somewhat grave, as though he were not quite beyond the threshold of his own high hour. But when the housekeeper went out, closing the door softly behind her, Father Nollet smiled across at the man and said kindly, "Eat well, Labiche."
Labiche remained silent for a moment or two, his head bowed. The priest was looking at the small, soft, almost hairless hands, the fingers holding lightly and nervously to the immaculate linen cloth. He looked up and smiled at Father Nollet.
"It was good of you to come," Father Nollet said.
"I was pleased to do so, Father," replied Labiche. "My wife would have liked to have come also, but at the last minute, Blanchette, who sometimes looks after our children, could not come."
"What a shame. I hope your family are well, Labiche."
"They are quite well, thank you, Father."
The priest leaned forward in his chair, looked steadily at the dwarf-like man.
"Labiche," he said, "do you know you are a very good man?"
"No Father," Labiche replied, and he looked straight into the other's eyes.
"Then I am glad of that," said the priest.
"And now I have some news for you," he went on. "It has now been decided, and at long last, that you should be permanent secretary of your branch of the Society. For this reason it will no longer be necessary for you to serve with the Heros people, but the decision is yours entirely."
Labiche paused in his eating. Father Nollet refilled his cup with coffee.
"Why, of course, Father, I am only too glad to accept it, but—"
"There will be a salary, Labiche, you will be a paid, full time secretary, there is no reason to worry about your family. And I feel sure that this is your real place. You are that kind of man. May I congratulate you, Labiche."
They held hands over the table.
"I have known you since you were a boy, Labiche," began Father Nollet, and then, "eat your breakfast, man, have some more coffee."
For a moment or two Labiche seemed unable to speak, then he said, "thank-you, Father," and resumed his breakfast.
"I remember your father," Father Nollet said.
Labiche looked up. "It's a long time since I was a boy, Father."
"Your father was very ill, and I had come to anoint him. You had just left school. I remember your showing me your prize for the composition. You showed me your little essay."
"I can't recall it, Father, it's a long time ago."
Labiche seemed nervous, embarrassed.
"You called it The Glory of France," Father Nollet said.
Labiche dropped his bread, spilt his coffee.
"For a fourteen year old boy," said the priest, "it was a very good essay."
"I have quite forgotten it," Labiche replied.
"The box on the Marne has burst, Labiche, and the spirit of the man is flowing all over our country, like a sea."
"Yes Father," Labiche said, and he was still shy, bewildered.
Suddenly he shouted excitedly, "well yes, Father. Of course. I still have the photograph over my bed. I remember the morning it came, from Paris. I nailed it on the wall. He was my hero."
"Peguy is moving strongly," Father Nollet said.
He got up and pushed in his chair, and Labiche immediately stood up, but the priest waved him back again, saying, "the other matter I wished to see you about, Labiche, those two women in the Rue des Fleurs. Did you call there? The—"
Labiche sat down.
He said quietly, "those people, Father. They're gone."
"Gone."
Father Nollet was standing looking out of the window, his back to the other.
"You mean away?"
"Yes Father. I called there last evening. I had, after much trouble, got Monsieur Gallois to take an interest in Captain Marius. You know the name, Father. Monsieur Gallois is a great help to our Missions in Africa. But now he is going into shipping, and he will see this man, papers or no papers. He is a man like that. No words. Deeds only. It is Marius's one chance. Other shipping firms are sick of the sight of him, and they have not forgotten the reputation he had years ago. Still I do not myself think that the worst ships attract the worst of men, Father. But now he has not been seen for two days...
"When did the Marius women go, Labiche? Why it is only a few days since I called there, and only a few hours ago I wrote the mother a letter advising her on a matter of some importance to her."
"It was the lady next door who told me," continued Labiche. "It was the third time I had called trying to see the man, but always for some reason he was running away from me. That Madame Lustigne for instance, she told me that Marius thought I was an odd lot from the Sûreté. I was at her place twice, but he has not been seen, and Madame Lustigne seemed almost glad to hear that he had at last got lost, as she termed it. He had become known in certain Bistro also, but they have not seen him. There was one chance, the quays. But I was also unlucky there."
Father Nollet walked back to the table and sat down.
"What made you interested in this man, Labiche? There are so many others, I mean—"
Labiche interrupted quickly, "If the Heros had been civil
, Father, if that Philippe had said Yes instead of No, but the once, perhaps I would not have noticed so much ..."
There was a sudden silence, and through it Labiche had passed. For a few moments he was back at his desk in the office. He was absorbed in his work. He was hearing the opening and shutting of the Heros door, hands on the bell demanding attention, Philippe coming out of his cubby-hole.
There were always people calling at the Heros, all conditions of men; commercial travellers, agents, brokers, the busy bees of shipping, but mostly sailors looking for work, and sometimes in their absence, their wives. Out of this assembly, that grew with the days Labiche had lifted clear the impression of a single man. A tall lean man, wearing an old uniform, a dissolute-looking person, haggard, with a curious mistrustful eye, who, day after day called and asked for Follet. Like Philippe he had come to regard a certain stroke of the clock with the act of looking up, of seeing him there, grown yet another day older. He remembered when Philippe had barely looked up, though he heard the door open, the steps across to the counter, Philippe waiting for the parrot mouth to open.
"My name is ... I would like to see Monsieur Follet."
He, Labiche would look up, at Philippe and at the man, then bend to his work again. But now, day after day he anticipated the arrival of the tall man, the same question.
The Vincentian finger was pointing, "this one."
Labiche looked straight at the priest.
"It was just like that, Father," he said, "I knew he needed help. Something made me interested in him"... he paused. "He looked desperate," he said.
"One does what one can," thought Labiche.
Vincentian fingers were pointing everywhere, the arm was ever out-stretched, opening a door, stifling a cry, revealing a hole, unveiling a man, drawing aside a curtain, opening a window; this all-embracing arm, was to Labiche, as real as his own.
"They are all of them lost," Father Nollet said, "they are complete strangers here."
"I have since found out," said Labiche, "that our Monsieur Follet did indeed have some acquaintance with the Marius family, some twenty years ago, and perhaps Marius had come all the way there to get help from him. I am only guessing, but I have never seen such stubborn-ness, such persistence, day after day, asking for the same man..."
