After lunch they returned to the river. Azaire went back to his stool and Grégoire to a small tree trunk he had found at the edge of the water. Stephen walked down the bank in the direction of Beaucourt. The big sky over the rolling farmland had now cleared and was filled with the sound of larks, which made him shudder in distaste. He sat down at the foot of a tree and idly began to bait the hook on the rod Azaire had lent him. He felt a hand lightly touch his shoulder and another cover his eyes. He started, but then relaxed at the gentleness of the touch. He placed his own hand over the fingers on his shoulder and stroked them. They were slender and feminine. He gripped the hand and turned round. It was Lisette. She gave a little cry of triumph.
“You didn’t think it would be me, did you?”
Knowing his eyes had already betrayed his surprise, Stephen merely said, “I didn’t hear you creep up behind me.”
“You expected it to be someone else, didn’t you?” Lisette had a coquettish but determined look.
“I wasn’t expecting anyone at all.”
Lisette walked around him, her hands behind her back. She was wearing a white dress and her hair was tied back with a pink ribbon.
“You see, Monsieur Stephen, I know everything about you and my stepmother.”
“What do you mean?”
Lisette laughed. Stephen remembered the wine she had drunk at lunchtime. She lowered her voice and said huskily, “ ‘My darling Isabelle,’ ” then sighed and panted as though with longing or desire, before beginning to laugh again.
Stephen shook his head and smiled in feigned incomprehension.
“That day after lunch I went out into the garden and I fell asleep on a bench. When I woke up I walked back to the house. I still felt a little dizzy when I got back, so I sat down on the terrace and I heard sounds from an open window upstairs. They were very quiet, but they were such funny sounds.” Lisette began to laugh again. “And that evening after dinner I heard someone creeping oh-so-quietly along the corridor to her room, then tiptoeing back downstairs.”
She looked at Stephen with her head on one side. “Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“What do you say?”
“I think you’re a girl with a strong imagination.”
“Yes, I’m certainly that. I’ve been imagining all the things you’ve been doing and I think I would like to try them.”
Stephen laughed in genuine amusement.
“It isn’t funny. You don’t want my father to know what I’ve been hearing.”
“You’re a child,” said Stephen, feeling himself begin to sweat.
“No I’m not. I’m almost seventeen. I’m nearer your age than she is.”
“Do you like Isabelle?”
Lisette looked taken aback. “No. I mean yes, I used to.”
“She’s been kind to you.”
Lisette nodded.
“Think about that,” said Stephen.
“I will. But you shouldn’t have led me on.”
“Shouldn’t have what?”
“When you gave me that carving, I thought … You know, you are the right age for me. Why shouldn’t I have wanted you for myself?”
Stephen began to see that she was not a child who was making trouble for its own sake, but someone whose feelings had been hurt. There was some truth in the things she said.
“I’m sorry about the carving,” he said. “You were sitting next to me. If it had been Grégoire I would have given it to him. I meant nothing by it. In fact I did make one for Grégoire later.”
“So it meant nothing at all?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Lisette put her hands on his arm. “Stephen, I’m not a child, even if they treat me as one. I’m a woman—at least almost a woman. My body is a woman’s body, not a child’s.”
He nodded. He thought by keeping calm he might placate her. “I understand. It’s difficult for you, especially without a mother.”
“What do you know about my mother?”
“Don’t be angry, Lisette. I have no mother, either, and no father. I do know, I do understand.”
“All right. Perhaps you do. But I meant what I said. I want you to do those things to me.”
“I can’t do that, Lisette. You must know that. Be fair to me. Be fair to yourself.”
“Is it that I’m not pretty enough? Am I not as pretty as her?”
He looked at her. Flushed with wine and confusion, she was attractive. She had deep-set brown eyes with thick lashes, coarse hair, and a slim waist.
“Yes, you’re pretty.”
“Touch me, then, touch me as you touch her.”
She held on to his arm with both hands. He realised how affected she was by the wine; her eyes did not quite focus as she looked up into his.
She took his hand and rubbed it between her breasts. Despite himself, Stephen felt the reflex of desire.
“Lisette,” he said, “this is very foolish. Your parents are just down at the bend in the river. I am not going to let you tease me or humiliate yourself. What I will do, if you like, is to kiss you, just very quickly, if you promise that you will go away and never say another word about this.”
She said, “No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean you have to touch me.”
She took his hand again and rubbed her breasts then guided it to her waist. Something in the perversity of the situation had started to arouse him and he did not at once withdraw his hand when she placed it beneath her lifted skirt, at the top of her thigh. Then she slid it inside her drawers, where he felt fine hair and wet parted flesh.
He pulled it away at once, because his inclination was to leave it there and he knew if he did so it would be the start of something more awful and more hopeless than he had already begun.
Lisette had frozen at his touch; it seemed to have sobered and frightened her. She started to move away but he took her by the wrist.
He looked fiercely into her eyes and said, “Now you understand. You must never begin these things. And you will never, never mention a word of what you were saying earlier, not to your father, not to anyone.”
Lisette nodded. “No. I promise. I want to go now. I want to go home.”
She had forgotten about the English teas at Thiepval.
For a further week Isabelle and Stephen lived their strange existence in the boulevard du Cange, going through the daily rituals of normal behaviour even though their minds existed elsewhere. Each noticed, with admiration and some misgiving, how easily the other was able to pretend.
Stephen found that their hurried and clandestine couplings were made more powerful to him by their element of fear. They made love where they could: in the red room, in temporarily deserted sitting rooms, on the grassy bank at the foot of the garden. The urgency of limited time removed all inhibitions.
He did not pause to think. His mind was disarrayed by passion. It had become capable of only one desire or thought: that things should continue. The calm nature of his public behaviour was given to him by this imperative.
Isabelle was bemused by the power of the physical life that had suddenly opened up in her and found equal excitement in their fast and dangerous exchanges. But she missed the intimacy of conversation that they had first had in the red room; this seemed to her as delicate an act of closeness as any physical touch they had yet discovered.
One day, following a whispered consultation in the hall, Stephen contrived to come back from the factory early when Isabelle had dispatched Marguérite and Lisette for the afternoon.
He found her already waiting for him in the red room. Afterward, as he sat back against the pillows, he stared at the picture of a medieval knight above the mantelpiece. In the grate there was a fire laid with neatly chopped kindling and coal. On the far wall was a large country wardrobe in which were stored unused curtains, rugs, winter coats, and various vases, clocks, and boxes with no place in the house. The wood of the window frame was stripped and unpainted
. Some white flowers of clematis moved in a light breeze against the glass.
It was the first chance Stephen had had since their excursion to the river to tell Isabelle about Lisette. In the reckless trust of his passion he told her everything, expecting her to value his honesty above any meaner feeling of unease.
Isabelle seemed curious. “I don’t understand where she could have learned about these things.”
“I suppose she’s older than we thought. Didn’t you feel such things at that age?”
Isabelle shook her head. “Jeanne had told me what would happen one day, but I had no feelings of desire, not in the way you describe in Lisette.”
“I think she feels the loss of her mother. She wants attention.”
“Was she excited? Was she … I don’t know how to ask.”
“You mean would she be ready to make love to a man?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, she would be ready as a woman, in her body, but she would almost certainly choose the wrong man.”
“You.”
“Or worse.”
Isabelle shook her head. “Poor Lisette.”
She looked over at him. She said, “Did you want to … with her?”
“No. For a moment there was a reflex, like an animal. But no. I only ever want to do it with you.”
“I don’t believe you.” Isabelle laughed.
Stephen smiled at her. “You’re teasing me, Isabelle.”
“Yes, of course I am.” She ran her hand down his abdomen. “You are wicked,” she whispered in his ear.
Sometimes Stephen felt his body was no more than a channel for exterior powers; it had no proper sense of fatigue or proportion. He thought of Lisette as he lay on top of Isabelle again. He believed Isabelle had found the story of Lisette’s indiscretion in some perverse way arousing.
Later he said, “I am worried that she’ll tell your husband.”
Isabelle, who had recovered her composure, said, “I’m more worried that I have a duty to stay and look after her.”
“To stay?”
“Yes. Instead of …”
“Instead of coming with me to England?”
Isabelle, confronted with the thought at last in words, nodded dumbly.
Stephen felt a quiet exultation; although he had supplied the words, the idea had been hers.
“But that’s what you will do,” he said. “You will leave the husband who beats you and go with the man who loves you. Lisette is not your child. You’ve already done well by her, you’ve been helpful to her. But you must live your own life eventually. You have one chance only.”
He heard the declamatory note in what he said but did not disown it. He wanted Isabelle to remember the words so that they would count with her when she was alone, making her decision.
“And what would we do in England?” she teased him, not yet willing to think about it properly.
Stephen breathed in slowly. “I’m not sure. We’d go and live somewhere remote, not in London. I would find work in a business of some kind. We would have children.”
This seemed to take the lightness out of Isabelle’s manner. “And Lisette and Grégoire … They would lose another mother.”
“And if you stay you will lose your life.”
“I don’t want to think about it.”
“But you must. I’m supposed to return to London next week. You could come with me. Or we could go away together somewhere in France.”
“Or you could stay and work here in the town. We could meet.”
“Not that, Isabelle. You know that wouldn’t work.”
“I must dress again. I must go downstairs to be ready for when Lisette comes back.”
“Before you go, I want to ask you something. Lucien Lebrun. There was a rumour that you and he …”
“Lucien!” Isabelle laughed. “I like him. I think he’s admirable, but really …”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s just that … I was worried.”
“Don’t worry. Don’t ever worry. There’s only you. Now really I must get dressed.”
“Let me dress you, then.”
He went to fetch her clothes from the chair where she had left them. “Put your foot here and the other one here. Now stand up. And does this come next? How does this fasten? Let me just straighten this. You’re breathing so hard, my love. Was it here that I touched you, was it here?”
Isabelle was half-dressed, half-revealed. She stood holding Stephen’s head as he sank to his knees in front of her.
As she began to sigh again, he stood up in front of her and said, “You will come with me, won’t you?”
Her answer was hissed between closed teeth.
———
The front door banged as Azaire made his way down the hall with a copy of the evening paper in his hand.
“Isabelle!” he called. “The strike is finished. The dyers return tomorrow.”
She appeared at the top of the stairs. “That’s good news.”
“And tomorrow Meyraux will recommend my new terms to the men.”
“I’m very pleased.”
At least it meant Azaire would be in a good mood, she thought; he would not persecute her with words or come to her room later to air his frustration.
“And when will you be leaving us, Monsieur?” said Azaire at dinner, pouring a small measure of wine into Stephen’s glass.
“At the end of the week, as we planned.”
“Good. It has been interesting for us at the factory, as I was saying to you this morning. I hope you’ve enjoyed your time with us.”
“It has been a pleasure to stay with your charming family.”
Azaire looked contented. His eyes for once lost their wounded look. The prospect of a return to normal routine in all aspects of his life evidently pleased him.
Isabelle saw his relief at Stephen’s imminent departure and the end of the strike, but she could not understand how he could so happily contemplate a resumption of his life as it had been. The way he treated her might, at some stretch of his imagination, be viewed as a painful and provisional transition toward a better feeling, but not as a desirable way of behaviour that he was anxious to begin again. She was not frightened of him, but his attitude depressed her. Winters of loneliness stretched out in front of her; if he was content not to change, then she would find deeper isolation in his presence than in her own.
Meanwhile there was Stephen, an alternative she could not consider with any kind of calmness. There was too much danger in her feeling and in the practical details of what they could do. She felt she might avoid the fallibility of her own judgement by depending on his; though he was younger, he seemed sure of what was right.
Lisette had been subdued since the excursion to the river; she no longer enlivened dinner with sulks or suggestive remarks. She would not catch Stephen’s eye, though he tried to meet hers with some reassurance. She sat in silence over her food as the sound of the clock on the small marble-topped serving table became louder in the room.
“I heard the strangest story,” said Azaire abruptly.
“What was that?” said Isabelle.
“They told me that at the height of the strike someone was visiting little Lucien and was taking him parcels of food to give to the dyers’ families.”
“Yes, I heard that,” said Stephen. “A number of sympathetic people in the town helped the strikers. There was one man in particular who wanted to be anonymous. So I was told at the factory.”
“Oh dear me no,” said Azaire. “This wasn’t a man, this was a woman, who used to go along disguised to wherever Lebrun lives.”
“The strikers had help from many sources, I expect.”
“But the strangest thing about this woman was that she was married to the owner of a factory.” Azaire paused and looked round the table. Neither of the children were listening. Isabelle was motionless.
“Now isn’t that a strange thing?” said Azaire raising his glass to his lips. “I couldn’t be
lieve it when I heard it.”
“I don’t think it’s strange,” said Isabelle. “It was me.”
Stephen looked at her uncomprehendingly. Azaire replaced his wine glass heavily on the table.
“But my dear—”
“I took them food because they were hungry. I had no idea of whether they should be on strike or not, but I had seen their children asking for bread, running along behind the carts bringing in vegetables to the market. I had seen them going through the dustbins in Saint Leu and I felt sorry for them.”
Isabelle’s voice was surprisingly calm. She said, “I would do the same again, whether the people made cloth or shoes or anything else.”
Azaire was white; his lips were a shade of pale purple as though even this soft membrane had repelled his blood.
“Leave the room,” he said to Lisette. “And you.”
Grégoire pushed his chair noisily back on the wooden floor, pausing to take a piece of chicken from his plate.
Azaire stood up. “I discounted these rumours. I did not believe them, even though it was your name that was attached to them and I suppose I should have learned about you by now. However wilful and selfish you are I could not believe that you would ever, ever behave toward me in such a way. And you, Monsieur, you had better leave the room.”
“No. Let him stay.”
“Why? He—”
“Let him stay.”
A look of panic passed over Azaire’s face. He tried to speak, but failed. He drank again from his glass. His imagination seemed to be supplying more appalling possibilities than his previously controlled and teasing anger could admit.
He struggled towards the worst question. He began it, “You …?” He looked at Stephen, then down at the table. His courage visibly failed him. He fought with himself, then regained control by resuming his previous manner.
“I did not believe my wife could let me down in such a way. The further reason I would not believe the rumours was that there was another piece of tittle-tattle that went with them, which said that the lady in question was also …” He waved his hand, as though swatting the thought away. “… enjoying some liaison with Lebrun.”