The Thinking Reed (36 page)

When she arrived at her house, she was inordinately amused at its ugly handsomeness. She ran into it and found Marc having breakfast in the little sitting room at the back of the house, and since the door was wide open, she was able to pass round it and look at him unobserved. He was lying on his back in a deep armchair, his stout rubbery legs crossed on a level with his head; and he was munching a brioche and reading a newspaper, which he held crumpled under his eyes, as if he were short-sighted or illiterate, though he was neither. She had forgotten how grotesque he was, with his compact and springy build, his mobile muzzle, his bright black hair, and his look of being sluiced down with vitality. It was noticeable that during her absence he had gone back to the vivid shirts and ties and socks she had discouraged, and he was again wearing those brown shoes which were almost yellow. As he read, he kept up a soft animal murmur and shook his head from side to side. Presently he grumbled, “The dirty pigs!” It was the political article he was reading. Looking very shocked and keeping his eye on the paper, he stretched out his hand and soaked his brioche in the cup of coffee which was standing on the table at his elbow. As he slowly brought it back to his mouth, drops fell from it on to his trousers. She moved forward, laughing. “You disgusting child!” she cried.

Marc looked up and saw her. “Isabelle! Isabelle!” He threw the brioche into his cup of coffee and took her in his arms, which always seemed to contain her so completely, though they were so short. “Oh, my darling, you should have let me meet you!”

She said, “No, I wanted to walk in just like this, as though I needn’t have come if I hadn’t chosen!”

“Ah, there aren’t half a dozen women in France I’d rather have seen coming through the door,” said Marc, and kissed her firmly and noisily on the mouth.

“What great vulgar kisses, you grocer,” she said. His hands were warm and dry, she lifted them and laid them against her throat. “He is enchanting,” she thought, and smiled at her reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece, the chin tiptilted over the collar of his spread fingers. Even though she was sunburned, she looked anaemic and frangible beside him. “I wonder where his stock came from originally,” her mind continued. “I am sure that a thousand years ago they were Berbers or Arabs. He is the kind of barbarian that Rome could absorb; that was what made all the greatness of Rome.”

“But now we must get you some breakfast,” he said.

“No, let us think of ourselves for a little,” she begged.

“I don’t mind doing that,” he said, and kissed her again.

“I have never known anything as coarse as your kisses,” she said, “except that dish of pork, goose, and beans they gave us at that inn near Le Puy.”

“And how you liked it!” he said. “My God, how you liked it! I have never seen a woman eat so much at one time.” But he stopped to exclaim, “No, really, you must have some breakfast, you frighten me because you are still so fragile. You are so small in my arms. You have come home like a little plucked dog from the vet’s.”

“Well, if you will go on about it,” she said, “I should adore some coffee, though I had some on the train.”

“Perhaps,” said Marc, “you ought to have an egg. Or some of those extraordinary things they have in America for breakfast. Yes, I think that would be a very good idea.” He spoke very seriously, as if it might be possible that all their troubles might have been avoided had Isabelle only eaten buckwheat cakes every morning, a practice which had previously struck him as disgusting, but which, it occurred to him now, might have a medicinal or even magical value.

She took his wrist and began twisting it about, as if he were weak and she were brutally strong. “An egg,” she said, mocking his gravity and pouting her lips so that her voice came out gruff like his, and as loaded with a wistful hope that the solution of a troubling problem had been found. She mocked him with it again when they had brought her the coffee and she was lying on the chaise-longue. They talked for a while about such things as their house in the valley of the Chevreuse and when they should go down to it again, and the way that Yolande’s Madeleine was suddenly showing signs of becoming a beauty, and Madame Sallafranque’s success at the races this season; and then a happy silence fell, and she put down her cup and folded her arms behind her head, and looked at him, and laughed. “An egg,” she mimicked.

“Very well, then, an egg,” he grumbled. “But you see, I want to do something for you and it is so difficult. It is summer, so I cannot fetch you a rug, and you are as flexible as a cat, you fit exactly into whatever basket you find yourself, there is no use bringing you any more cushions. But seriously, darling, you must eat simple things that do you good.”

“I do, I do,” said Isabelle. “Besides, my dear, I am perfectly well.”

“That may be, my dear,” he said, “but you wouldn’t go down with the army, you know, the way you are now.”

“Enough of that,” said Isabelle, “enough of that.” She closed her eyes and began to smooth her eyebrows, thinking, “If he takes hold of me roughly as he used to do when I did this, it will all be as it was. I am so fond of him.”

But he took hold of her very gently and, after he had kissed her hair, he said, “Now you must rest this morning.”

“I suppose so,” she answered, asking herself, “Why is he not like a bear as he used to be?”

“I have arranged not to go to the works at all today,” Marc went on.

“That is lovely,” she said mechanically, and she told herself, “but of course I understand why he is not being rough and hurting me. All that was play, it was done on the understanding that it could never happen in earnest. Now he has really hurt me, we will never be able to make a game of it again.”

“I thought you’d rest all the morning, and I would sit by you and lick your hand and wag my tail,” Marc went on, “and then I had certain plans for the afternoon, but I really don’t think we ought to carry them out, because you’ve begun to look tired again.”

“Nonsense,” said Isabelle. “Do tell me what they were. You don’t understand, I’ve been buried in the country so long that I’m yearning to be amused again.”

“Well,” he said, “I thought we might go down into the town and choose a present for you, just to mark your homecoming. Something from Carrier’s, I thought.”

“Oh, my darling, how lovely!” cried Isabelle. “You know how greedy I am, and it is so pleasant to come back to all those town-things after all that milk and white enamel in the clinics.” She said to herself, “It is not going to be quite so easy to forget, after all.” Then she cried out, alarmed in case she had betrayed her thought, “But why are you looking so miserable, Marc? What has suddenly come into your head?”

“Only that I have done my best, and it is not good enough,” he said.

“What do you mean? It is a charming idea, and I am delighted.”

“No, that is not the point,” he said. “The point is that what I am offering you costs only money, and I have plenty of that. Whatever you choose, I will hardly feel it. I wish I could give you something that meant I must scrape and save and go without sleep to pay for it. That would be a real present. But that’s the one thing I can’t afford to give you.”

“Ah, Marc,” said Isabelle, “sometimes when I was ill I forgot what you were like. I cannot tell you what a loss that was.”

XI

ALAN FIELDING and Isabelle leant out of her boudoir window as far as they could.

“It’s all very well,” he said, “but no cat would make that noise unless it had fallen down a grating, or got treed by a dog.”

“Yes, possibly something has happened to that cat at last,” she said.

“It is funny we can’t see it anywhere,” he said, “because that miawling is terrific. It must be somewhere quite near. Well, I’ll be damned! There it is.”

“Where?” she asked.

“Standing on the other side of that tree. It poked out its head on the one side for a minute, and then I saw the tip of its tail waving on the other. It doesn’t seem to be in any trouble, it’s just standing there. What an extraordinary thing. I wonder why on earth it’s raising that din.”

“To torment our humanitarian feelings,” said Isabelle. “It probably recognized that you were an Englishman—that cat has all the experience of hell behind it—and knows that the English are inordinately sentimental about animals. I tell you that cat is a fiend.”

“How did you get it?” asked Alan. “Have you had it long?”

“The day I came home. Marc took me down to Cartier’s to buy me this bracelet, and we walked part of the way home, and we passed an animal shop with three Siamese cats. I stopped and admired them—I think they’re the loveliest of beasts, don’t you?—and Marc said, ‘Let’s take home a living present as well as a dead one,’ and he went in and bought this child of sin.”

“I expect he loves buying you presents,” said Alan. “It must be fun.”

“Marc is the most generous soul in the world,” said Isabelle. “Since that day we have never had a civil word from the beast. It is not a bit softened by the knowledge that we paid an enormous price for it, or that we have provided it with every possible luxury. On the contrary, that has helped it to decide that we are rich vulgar people. The only sign of recognizing our existence is that it sometimes spits at us, and it continually tears the upholstery of our chairs and sofas to ribbons. But that I do not believe it does from spite. I think it merely finds the action of drawing the claws slowly down through silk aesthetically pleasurable. But still I think it might refrain, considering all we have done for it.”

“I suppose you like your other present better,” said Alan.

“Don’t you?” she asked.

“I don’t know anything about this jewel business,” he said. “It’s just something I haven’t got any feeling for. It’s a bit heavy, isn’t it?”

“It is a little,” she said. “The trouble is, Marc had been down to the shop the day before and fallen in love with this, and I couldn’t find it in my heart not to choose it. But you’re right, it is too heavy.” She looked up at him and caught him smiling down at the funnel of diamonds and emeralds. “I do not mean in design,” she said coldly. “Marc has exquisite taste, and the French like their jewellery massive.”

“I know, I know,” he hastily agreed.

“I meant heavy in weight,” she went on to explain. “It tires my wrist.”

“That I can well believe,” he said. “You have the loveliest wrists in the world, Isabelle. I have never seen anything so delicate and yet so strong. There isn’t a hint of weakness about them, yet they’re as finely made as part of a flower.”

She burst out laughing. “What bad manners men have!” she said.

“Why, what have I said?” he asked. “I was only telling the truth.”

“That is what is such bad manners,” she said. “Oh, it isn’t you specially that I am complaining against, it’s your whole sex, with their habit of paying compliments. It is quite rude, you know. It puts me in such an embarrassing position. You see, I don’t know what to say. Would you, if I suddenly said to you, ‘Alan, you’ve got the longest eyelashes I have ever seen on a man’?”

“Well, I wouldn’t,” he smiled. “But that is different.”

“No, it is not,” she told him. “It would be easy enough, of course, if you went on to make love to me. Then we would both have a very good idea of how the conversation should develop. But nothing is more impossible than that you should ever think of making love to me, since you know that I am devoted to Marc, and I am sure you have your own rose garden somewhere.”

“No,” he said.

“You make your gentlemanly denial, of course, but I shan’t believe you. Anyway, you know my state of mind, so we cannot go on to a love scene. So here I am, hung up, with nothing to say, and it’s all your fault.”

“That never happens between us, really,” said Alan. “We always have something to say to each other. It’s extraordinary how the time passes when we’re together. It must be quite late, it’s time I left you to rest.”

“No—don’t go for a minute,” said Isabelle. “Stay and say how do you do to my husband. He has just come in.”

“How do you know?”

“I hear the doors slamming.”

“I suppose the thing is that he amuses you,” said Alan thoughtfully.

“He does much more than that!” said Isabelle. “Look here, my good friend, just give me your attention for a moment. Stop staring at the floor and look at me.”

“I am delighted to do that,” said Alan. “Really, you must come to my suburban studio some day, and let me paint you.”

“If you should be falling into the error of the Siamese cat about this family, I shall be very sorry,” she said.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“If you are conceiving the idea that either Marc or I is rich and vulgar, I shall be very sorry,” she said, “because I shall have to turn you out. You see you have none of the advantages that make me keep the Siamese cat in spite of its errors. You aren’t a smudged soot-and-dove colour; you have not those marvellous blue eyes which show what can be done with blue eyes, provided they aren’t in Nordic heads. You have merely very long eyelashes.”

They exchanged a smile, and he stood up. “Well, I’d better go back to Louveciennes before worse happens to me,” he said.

“No, stay a moment and meet Marc,” said Isabelle. “He was saying only the other day how much he wanted to meet you again. See, Marc, here is Mr. Fielding.”

“How do you do?” said Marc, who, on seeing the visitor, had not closed the door behind him. “My dear, ought you not to be resting if we are going to the theatre?”

When Alan had gone, Isabelle said, “That wasn’t very nice of you, Marc. Also it made me look a fool. I had just told him that you had said you wanted to see him again.”

“Well, it is not my fault you said that,” Marc told her.

“But you did say it,” Isabelle reminded him; “you said it only last night.”

“Yes, but only to please you, and in front of the butler,” said Marc.

“Well, how was I to know that, and what has the butler to do with it?” exclaimed Isabelle.

“Oh, my God, my God, have it your own way,” said Marc, “I suppose I was rude to that young man. But let me tell you that it was disconcerting to come in and find you tiring yourself out.”