by Rumer Godden
“Said?”
“It was in French but I understood. I wish I hadn’t,” said Joss. She looked round and saw the others. “Shut the door, Cecil.”
I slowly crossed the little room and shut the door. Whether because of the long bathing that afternoon or the shock in the cove, I seemed to be filled with pains, in my legs and back and head, pains that hurt, and I did not want to hear any more . . . ugliness, I thought—I could sense this was something ugly—and I wished I were with Hester and the Littles on the other side of the door.
I came back to the bed and Joss whispered, “She told him she could not have it in her hotel, an old man and a young girl. That I had . . .”
“Had?”
“Bothered Eliot,” said Joss in a whisper. Two tears fell on the pillow, only two; it was as if she were bleeding, not crying.
“What happened then?”
“Monsieur Joubert got up and bowed, not to her but to me.
“Bowed to you?”
“Yes,” said Joss impatiently. “He said, ‘When you are a little older and in another place, and your mother is with you, we shall meet again. I shall write to her,’ and he left . . .”
“For good?”
“Yes. I saw Paul carry out his luggage and painting things and a taxi came. I don’t think Mademoiselle Zizi meant Monsieur Joubert to do that—I heard Madame Corbet being cross—but when she sees me Mademoiselle Zizi can’t help what she does. She won’t let me have anything. Not anything.”
“Why does she hate Joss so terribly?” I asked Hester afterwards. “It seems more than because Eliot likes her.”
“It isn’t Eliot,” said Hester, “not only Eliot,” and she added, “You know how, when you have been awful to anyone, you can’t bear them.”
Now I felt miserably tired, too tired to cope with this hotbed of feelings; it seemed to me the house was filled with them, with hate and love, and the love seemed as bad as the hate. Something bad will happen, I thought, and again those prickles of fear ran over me.
“Joss . . .”
I meant to tell her about the man in the cove but she was not listening—at least she was listening to something else. She asked, “What is happening downstairs?”
I told her about the Brass Instruments Ball; the glory had gone out of it for me, but she got up from the bed. She looked so determined that I asked, “What are you going to do?”
“Go to the party,” said Joss.
“But we haven’t been asked.”
She did not answer that. She looked over my head and said, “I tried to be nice. I found my own thing and kept out of the way. Now I won’t.”
“Suppose they don’t ask you?”
“I shall make them. I can make people do what I like.” By ‘people’ I knew she meant men.
“But, Joss”—I produced this hesitantly—“if you make them won’t it seem that you might . . . might be what Mademoiselle Zizi says you are?”
Joss’s chin went even higher. “She thinks I am what she is,” she said with disdain. “All right. I shall be, only worse.” Perhaps she saw the doubt on my face, for she asked, “What else am I to do?”
That sounded like Joss, not Joss cased in this proud hardness, and I said, “Go on painting.”
“Without Monsieur Joubert?”
“That’s what he would have done.”
I thought I had won, but when I looked at her I saw it was no use saying anything more. She had on that look again, her mask look, her eyes almost like slits as if she were calculating, her nostrils pinched and her lips set. “I shall go to this party,” said Joss, “and I shall wear Sin.”
It was called Sin because she had had no right to buy it. A year before Uncle William had given Joss money to buy a new raincoat; her old one was up to her knees and showed inches of wrist, but she had gone into a dress shop and bought a dress. That was in the sales too, “and it had been marked down from ten guineas,” said Joss.
“Ten guineas for a dress!” That seemed fabulous to us—except Willmouse.
“A dress can cost a hundred pounds,” said Willmouse.
“But . . . when will you wear it?” Mother had asked, bewildered.
“Perhaps never,” said Joss, “but I had to have it.” It was ivory silk, stamped with roses. “Not many roses,” Hester had said critically, “and not much silk.” There did not seem much of anything to cost all that money; it left Joss’s neck and arms bare and the skirt was narrow. “It’s the cut,” Willmouse had explained and examined it carefully. “It is influenced by the Chinese,” he pronounced, “which is why it suits her.”
For a year it had hung in Joss’s cupboard. Now, after she had washed her face and brushed her hair, she took it out of the wardrobe. I had opened the door into my room to let the others come and we watched while she put it on.
Beside Sin our seersuckers looked very ordinary and homemade, and, in spite of the Black Virgin, the old envy came back. “It’s too tight,” I said spitefully. “You show.”
Joss looked at herself in the looking-glass and smiled. “All the better.” she said and laughed at my scandalised face. I had noticed while she washed that the dark tufts of hair under her arms were gone. “I have a little razor,” said Joss. She had a lipstick and powder too. When she had bought these things I did not know, but watched, divided between marvelling and fright while she made up her face. “Don’t put on too much,” said Willmouse.
“I’m not Mademoiselle Zizi,” said Joss witheringly.
When she was ready her glance fell again on me. “What’s the matter with you, Cecil?” she asked.
“I have pains.”
“Where?”
“In my arms and legs—everywhere.”
“Growing pains,” said Joss.
I suppose now it was only an ordinary bourgeois party such as would be held anywhere in the provinces of France, but to us it seemed resplendent and exciting, though we had to admit the guests were not as elegant as the flowers and food. “I think I shall go for my evening walk,” said Willmouse after we had seen the first few people arrive. I could tell he was disappointed. We had not taken it into account that they were working people not quite at home in their Sunday best. The men were in dark suits, too heavy for the hot evening, and they wore thick-soled shoes; they all seemed to show a great deal of gold watch-chain and cufflinks. Their wives had meticulously clean blouses, coats and skirts, and wore high-heeled shoes instead of their usual slippers.
We watched from the stairs, not daring to risk going down until there were so many people that Mademoiselle Zizi or Madame Corbet would not notice us.
“Is that Monsieur le Maire?” asked Hester. Everyone bowed politely as they greeted him, but though his beard was imposing he was wearing a plain black suit and had only a little ribbon in his buttonhole to show he was important, no scarlet cloak, cocked hat or chain. The Sous-Préfet, more important than he, had not even a ribbon, but Monsieur Perrichaut was impressive; we knew it must be Monsieur Perrichaut because he was receiving with his wife. He was taller than anyone else—“Except Eliot,” said Hester—white-haired, with an important-looking paunch. “Let me look at him,” said Joss and gazed as if she were spying out the land. Monsieur Perrichaut seemed fitted to be the owner of the Brass Instruments Factory; his voice was like a saxophone, and when he blew his nose the noise was like a trumpet. He had a young man at his elbow who made introductions in a reedy voice. “Like a piccolo,” I whispered, but Joss did not laugh. She was very grave. “Tell me when the doctor comes,” she said.
“Monsieur le Directeur?”
“Yes.”
“He is here,” said Vicky presently.
“Go down,” Joss told us. “Go one by one, slip in among them and start shaking hands with everyone. Then they can’t send you away. And don’t tag on to me,” she said severely.
Hester and Vicky disappeared, but I hung back. Joss hummed a little tune—which told me she was nervous—twitched the skirt of her dress straight, frowned at it,
shook her hair more loosely on her shoulders, and went down. I watched her as she went straight to the doctor, holding out her hand; then I followed, keeping behind the crowd.
The doctor kept Joss’s hand. “Mais . . . c’est la petite Anglaise!” he said. I edged round to see her better.
She was making a comical face—a moue, I thought wisely. “Not so little,” she said, and appealed to Monsieur Perrichaut. “I am not very little, pas si petite, am I, monsieur?” Hester had crept up beside me. “She sounds silly . . . like a lady,” said Hester disapprovingly.
Silly or no, Monsieur Perrichaut seemed to like it. Soon he was asking her, “Vous dînez avec nous, Mademoiselle?” “He is asking her to dinner,” I told Hester.
“I—I have not been invited,” said Joss. She sounded as if she were pretending to be shy and Hester and I both frowned.
“Je vous invite,” and the piccolo was sent to tell Madame Corbet to set another place. “A côté de moi,” said the doctor gallantly.
“Monsieur le Directeur s’y connaît,” said Monsieur Perrichaut. The most important people were standing round him and now Joss was in the centre of them. Everyone was whispering about her. Mademoiselle Zizi had seen her, but she could not very well send her out.
“Permettez-moi de vous faire mes compliments, Mademoiselle.” That was the Sous-Préfet.
“Ah! La jeunesse! La jeunesse!” said Monsieur Perrichaut and they gazed at Joss.
“Absolument ravissante,” said Monsieur le Maire. He was standing just in front of me and began to discuss Joss’s looks with the man beside him; I could not catch it all but I heard, “Ce teint lumineux!”
“What are they saying?” hissed Hester.
“Compliments,” I hissed back.
Eliot was by the bar talking to the young Town Clerk whom Mauricette pointed out to me because she admired him. The Town Clerk was dark and good-looking, but Eliot could look over his head and the heads of most of the others. Joss must have seen him at once, but she appeared not to see him nor did he look at her. I did not like this any more than I liked her pretending to be shy. Things had gone . . . out of truthfulness, I thought. Before we had been unhappy but it was truthful, now we seemed to be playing a game, and I walked away from them all out on to the terrace, where it was cool and quiet. Presently it would be moonlight, a scented, moonlit, summer night, but that seemed to me to make this playing worse, expose it more. I put my elbows on the warm iron rail and leaned my head on my hands, hiding my eyes as if I did not want to see, to look or think, but I was not left in peace for long. Fairy lights had been strung between the trees, and now they came on, red and blue and yellow. “Ah! C’est joli!” cried a woman, and people came out on to the terrace to see. Eliot was with them, and it was then that the next odd thing happened.
I heard my name called; Willmouse was running across the garden. He did not usually run, but now gravel spurted up behind him, his socks were falling down—Willmouse’s socks. I ran down the steps to meet him. “Cecil, a most e’straordinary thing.”
As soon as he reached me he began to tell it though he was half out of breath. “I was having my walk along the river when I saw a man . . .”
I stiffened. “A . . . dark man?”
“Like Madame Corbet,” said Willmouse and I knew he meant swarthily dark . . . as ours had been, I thought. “He came out of the bushes,” said Willmouse, “and he had a motor-bike; it was a big new red one—at least it looked new. He wheeled it along the bank and then on to the plank bridge to the barge. . . .”
His voice, shrill with wonder and speaking English, must have carried to the terrace. I saw Eliot come to the rail and look down.
“On to the Marie France?” I asked Willmouse.
“Yes. The man looked up and down the river as if he wanted to see if anyone was there. He couldn’t see me . . .”
“Why not?”
“Because the bulrushes are so tall. Then do you know what he did?” Willmouse paused. He was always dramatic. “He-wheeled-the-bike-across-the-deck-and-dropped-it-over-the-other-side,” said Willmouse.
“Into the river?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“He did. Cecil, it was a new . . .”
“And what are you doing out so late?”
Eliot’s voice cut across me, and it was the voice he had used that first morning when he came out of Mademoiselle Zizi’s room; I had heard it again in the courtyard at Dormans. He had left the terrace and come down the steps. “Where have you been?” he said to Willmouse.
“F-for my walk.” Willmouse was so startled that the words would hardly come.
“Willmouse always goes for a walk,” I said defensively.
“You be quiet,” said Eliot, and to Willmouse, “You know quite well you are not allowed out so late.” Willmouse opened his lips again, but, “Not a word,” said Eliot. “I will not have disobedience. You can go to bed at once,” and he wheeled Willmouse round, a hand on his shoulder.
“But Eliot! You never . . .” I think I wailed it. It was terrible to see Eliot taking Willmouse up the steps and marching him away like a prisoner. As for Willmouse, he looked grey with shock.
“Mais, Monsieur Eliot”—that was one of a group of men—“vous êtes trop dur.”
“In England we discipline boys,” said Eliot crisply; to Willmouse he said loudly, “How often have I told you . . .” and at once I knew that Eliot was acting.
Acting on Willmouse! I pushed my way after them to the foot of the stairs. “You have never told him,” I cried passionately.
“Cecil, stay where you are,” said Eliot. His face made me quail, but I only stayed there until he came down, then, challenging him with a look that I hoped was hate, I walked straight up, but the door of our room was locked. I went into Joss’s room and tried the door there; it was locked as well. I rattled the handle. “Willmouse, it’s Cecil. It’s Cecil.” There was no answer. I was not surprised. Willmouse was always still and silent if he were offended.
I went back to the landing, where I had another pain, and with it such a sense of desolation that I could hardly bear it. If this were growing—Joss had said that was what the pains were—I did not like it. Down below the party must have been going in to dinner; I heard chairs scraped back, more bursts of laughter, voices. I wondered if Joss were sitting next to the doctor, if Hester and Vicky were there.
There is nothing more melancholy than listening to a party from which one is shut out. I could hear the noise of knives and forks now with the talk and laughter, while on the landing it was growing dark; the stairs were lit only by the light coming up from the hall; smells of food drifted up with the scent of flowers and I thought of Willmouse’s banquet and gave a little sob. He was locked in by this inexplicable Eliot and only I cared, mounting guard beside him, but a guard with a bad pain and half in tears. “Willmouse. Willmouse.” Still no answer. I could imagine him rigid with shock. “I hate Eliot,” I said. Then I jumped. In his cat-quiet way he had come up the stairs and was laughing at me.
When he saw the tears he stopped laughing. He said, “I’m sorry. I had to do that.”
“Willmouse is little. He wanted to see a banquet.”
He said, “I know,” and then, “I am not as bad as you think.” He was carrying a tray; on it was the chicken chasseur from the menu keeping warm under a small glass cloche, gaufrette potatoes, some of what we called ‘party toast’, toast melba, butter, a meringue and a glass of grenadine; it was a bit of the banquet, but I was not going to relent.
“He won’t eat it,” I said distantly.
“We shall see,” said Eliot. He unlocked the door but kept me out. “Leave him to me,” he said.
I went into the Hole because something had happened to my pain; there, in that smelly little cupboard, I found out.
Even there wonder overcame me. Wonder and fear. I shivered. “. . . with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet,” Mr Stillbotham had said; no matter how reluctant, one
was pushed into the full tide. Dazed, I came out of the Hole and went into Joss’s room and found what I needed in her drawer. It was no use trying to reach her, she was at dinner . . . and so is Mademoiselle Zizi, I thought. Madame Corbet, Mauricette were busy. I had to manage for myself with those strange first necessities of being a woman, and it was unexpressibly lonely. When I was comfortable I began to cry with excitement and self-pity. I was still crying when I went back on the landing.
I could hear Eliot’s voice inside our room; then I thought I heard Willmouse give a tiny laugh like a crow. Eliot was even more of a magician than I thought. Always if Willmouse were punished he did not speak for at least two days. I listened and, yes, I heard him laugh again. Then Eliot came out. “Still here?”
“Yes,” I said, muffled.
“I think he will eat it all,” said Eliot. “He liked the drink.”
“You needn’t lock the door!” That came out like a cry.
“I said I would and I must,” said Eliot. “I will come up later.” Then he looked at me. “You are in a state, Cecil. What is the matter?”
He should not have asked that; the tears came flooding.
“Is it Willmouse still?”
I shook my head.
“What is it then?” He put his arm round me, bending down. “Tell?”
Who could resist Eliot when he was Eliot? Eliot, not that other cold stranger. “Never talk to anyone about these times,” Mother had said when she told us, “especially not to a man. Women should be private.” In Southstone I think I should have shrunk suitably from telling Eliot, but Les Oeillets was different and it came out with a rush. “I . . . have turned into a woman.”
I did not know how else to put it—Mother had not taught us any of the words—but Eliot did not laugh. He asked, “Just now?”
“Just now,” and the tears flowed.
“That isn’t anything to cry about,” said Eliot gently.
“It . . . hurts.”
“Not when you consider how exciting it is.”
