Jezebel

  ‘Yes,’ said Beauchamp, ‘that is amusing.’

  Once more, they fell silent.

  ‘I’m happy to see you again,’ she said finally, with a sigh. ‘What about you? In the past, you seemed to want to avoid me. Why?’

  ‘You’re such a woman, Gladys.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re never happy with guessing. You need to know.’

  ‘It’s been twenty years,’ she said, smiling, ‘and I’ve never asked anything.’

  ‘You’ll be disappointed, Gladys,’ he said quietly. ‘You want me to tell you that I was mad about you. And that’s true. But are you asking if I’m still in love with you? No. That’s the past. What can I say? Nothing lasts for ever.’

  ‘Is that really true, Claude?’ she said, smiling, but a sharp pain shot through her heart.

  ‘You’re still beautiful, Gladys, but when I look at you, I don’t know who you are any more. To me, you’re merely the ghost of what you once were. I’m finally free, happy, set free at last. I don’t love you any more. I once loved a young girl in a ball gown who stood on a balcony in London one June evening … She mocked me cruelly that night.’

  ‘Just a little, but you’re getting your revenge now, Claude.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Just a little …’

  They looked at each other in silence. She cupped her face in her hand.

  ‘You’re holding a grudge against me, Claude. Would it please you to know that you’ve played a greater, more important role in my life than you could know? I was never in love with you, yet I’ll never forget you. I was an innocent child. You were the one who made me realise my power for the first time. You hold it against me, but without realising it, you’re the one who poisoned my life. I’ve never again experienced that feeling of intoxicating pride, never. I never again felt that exact sense of exhilaration. I’m the one who should be holding a terrible grudge against you.’

  ‘Are you mocking me?’ he said with a start.

  ‘Now, now,’ she said sweetly, trembling with cruel, manipulative emotion. ‘All that is in the past. Tell me, you wanted to kiss me back then, didn’t you? And you were too cowardly to do it? Well, do it now, and then everything can be forgiven and forgotten.’

  ‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘As wonderful as your kiss might be, it will never be as sweet as the kiss I desired for such a long time.’

  They stared at each other, like two enemies, then Gladys slowly looked away. She let out an angry, stifled, little painful laugh. ‘You wanted to see Marie-Thérèse?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She rang the bell and asked for her daughter. She sat still and silent until Marie-Thérèse came into the room. Her face looked calm but every now and then her mouth grew slightly tense.

  Marie-Thérèse and Beauchamp talked, and she answered when one of them spoke to her, but her voice, soft and low, echoed in her ears as if it belonged to a stranger.

  ‘I’m suffering,’ she thought, ‘but I don’t want to, I don’t know how to suffer …’

  7

  Beauchamp left. Gladys listened as the sound of the car faded in the distance, then she went out on to the little yellow patio where the lights had just been put out. The night was warm and smelled of the sea and wild mignonettes. Gladys sat down and gently leaned her forehead against the warm stone.

  Marie-Thérèse had followed her. They said nothing. Finally, Marie-Thérèse asked, ‘Can I put a light on?’

  Gladys tilted her head back. ‘No, no … Go to bed, darling. Go on. I’m tired.’

  ‘Oh, Mama. Do let me stay. I hardly ever see you.’

  ‘I know,’ said Gladys. ‘You have a really terrible mother, my poor darling; I’m frivolous and I neglect you. But just wait a little while longer. I’ll soon be old and hideous to everyone. But you, you’ll be beautiful,’ she whispered. Her voice had changed. ‘It will be your turn to dance and have fun, while I, I’ll sit by the fire and wait for you, and I’ll have no other pleasure apart from waiting for you, admiring you, asking, “Did you have a good time, my darling?” Or, since I will have become a gloomy old woman, I might even say, “How can you enjoy dancing so much? How can you be so in love with love? How can you love life?” ’

  A harsh, weary little laugh broke through her soft voice. ‘Oh! Marie-Thérèse, promise me that the day you see I’m old, really old, you’ll kill me in my sleep.’

  She took Marie-Thérèse’s hand and leaned her forehead against it, swaying gently. ‘That’s what I need,’ she thought, ‘someone to rock me, someone to reassure me. If only I could be like Lily and be satisfied with loving someone. I know very well that I’m still young enough to be in love, but that’s not what I want: I want to be loved, to feel delicate, fragile, held tightly in someone’s arms …’

  ‘Do you love me, Marie-Thérèse?’ she asked without thinking.

  ‘Yes, Mama. You shouldn’t be afraid of getting old. You’re too young, as far as I’m concerned. I feel like I might be able to talk to you better if you had white hair and wrinkles …’

  ‘Please, just stop talking,’ said Gladys, closing her eyes. ‘I don’t want to listen. I want to forget, to sleep. Oh, I wish I were a young girl like you with no worries, no problems.’

  Marie-Thérèse smiled and gently stroked Gladys’s hair. ‘You’re the one who’s the young girl, Mama,’ she said, ‘and I’m the woman. I’ve often told you that, but you don’t believe me. I know you better than you know me. Are you sure you’re my mother? When I was little, I didn’t believe it. Perhaps it’s better that way? We could almost be sisters, friends … we could talk about love.’

  ‘Love?’ Gladys said slowly.

  ‘Yes. You must have been loved so much, Mama …’

  Gladys suddenly stood up. ‘It’s cold. Let’s go inside.’

  ‘Cold? There’s not a breath of wind …’

  ‘I’m cold,’ said Gladys, holding her bare arms close to her body and shivering. ‘And don’t you stay out here either; go to bed. You’re in a cotton dress. You’ll catch cold.’

  ‘No I won’t.’

  ‘Go to bed. It’s late.’

  ‘I’m not tired,’ said Marie-Thérèse.

  They both went into Gladys’s bedroom. Gladys switched on the lights on either side of the heart-shaped mirror. The light was soft and pink. She studied her face closely. Her daughter stood behind her and looked at her mother’s reflection in the mirror; she alone, no doubt, saw the first signs of weariness and bitter ageing on her mother’s soft face whose features still had the elegance of youth.

  ‘Why is she looking at me like that?’ Gladys thought, annoyed. ‘Why is she following me around like this?’

  ‘Mama,’ Marie-Thérèse said suddenly, ‘I need to talk to you.’

  ‘Oh? Well, go ahead, darling.’

  ‘I’m engaged, Mama,’ said Marie-Thérèse, looking at her mother.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Gladys said quietly.

  She was taking off her make-up. Her long fingers moved slowly and gracefully across her forehead and temples; they started shaking, then stopped at the corner of her large eyes. She leaned forward and looked into the mirror in despair, as if it suddenly reflected the face of a stranger.

  ‘The beautiful Gladys Eysenach,’ she mused, ‘the beautiful Gladys Eysenach’s daughter is getting married …’

  A sharp, almost physical pain shot through her chest. She continued looking in the mirror and said not a word, her lips clamped shut. She was still beautiful. It wouldn’t stop her being beautiful and desirable. She quickly shook her head. No. It might be all right for other women, but no … The kind of beauty that was pathetically vulnerable, threatened by age might be all right for Nathalie Esslenko, for Mimi, for Laure, but not for her. She needed youth, absolute success, not a shadow of doubt. ‘I can’t resign myself to it,’ she thought. ‘It’s not my fault. I don’t know how.’ But a sarcastic voice from deep within her heart seemed to be saying, ‘You’l
l learn how to step aside, to let your daughter come first; she’ll shine at every social gathering and blot out her mother. Men will look lovingly at her, at her young face … Soon, some young man will talk about Gladys Eysenach and say, “My mother-in-law …” One day, very soon, you will be saying, “My grandchildren.” Oh! No, no, it isn’t possible. God would not be so cruel!’

  ‘Now that isn’t true, Marie-Thérèse, is it?’ she said, her voice low and trembling. ‘That just isn’t possible, now is it?’

  ‘Why not, Mama? On the contrary, it’s completely natural. Have you forgotten how old I am? I’m eighteen. I’m a woman.’

  Gladys shivered; a look of rage and almost madness shot across her face. ‘Be quiet!’ she shouted. ‘It isn’t true! Don’t say that! You’re still a child!’

  ‘No, Mama, I’m not a child. Do you think that just because you tell your friends I’m fifteen you can stop time? I’m not fifteen. And you’re not thirty. I’m not a child. You always said it and I let you, mainly because I didn’t care and, more importantly,’ she said, lowering her voice, ‘because I was embarrassed for you, Mama, I was embarrassed and felt sorry for you.’

  She was standing close, her legs pressed against her mother’s knees, and she could feel them shaking beneath her dress. Gladys was hunched over; Marie-Thérèse put her hand on her mother’s soft shoulder.

  ‘Poor Mama. Did you really think that all you had to do was make me wear my hair down and no one would ever notice I was a woman?’

  ‘Who is he?’ whispered Gladys.

  ‘Olivier Beauchamp, Mama. You really didn’t know?’

  ‘No,’ said Gladys. ‘No, it isn’t possible. You’re still a child. You can’t get married yet. You’re teasing me, aren’t you? Look at me. Look at your thin arms, your long hair, your little face. You’re too young; it isn’t possible. You’ve known Olivier since you were a child; you think you love him but you don’t. How could you know what love is when you haven’t even known life? Just wait a little …’

  ‘I do love him, Mama,’ said Marie-Thérèse harshly. ‘You must be able to understand that, at least. You must know what love is, don’t you? Or do you only see it on the faces of your friends, those old women? I’m the one who’s the right age for love, Mama, me, not them!’

  ‘Be quiet!’ shouted Gladys, sounding frightened and in pain. ‘I will not have it, do you understand, I will not have it! I said you must wait: it is too soon. You will obey me. You will wait. Not now, not now,’ she said over and over again, turning pale. She kissed Marie-Thérèse’s hands. ‘All right? You’ll wait until you’re more experienced, wiser. You know nothing, you’ve seen nothing of life yet. Just wait. In two or three years, if you still love Olivier, well, then, you’ll marry him. But not now, good God, not now,’ she murmured, and she held her daughter close to her, looked at her, beseeching her. She was so accustomed to having her own way that she couldn’t even imagine being refused anything. ‘You love me, don’t you, darling? You don’t want to hurt me, do you? And it does hurt me to hear you talk about love, to see you as a woman, already. It’s so natural, if you only knew … Oh, why are you a woman? If I’d had a son, he would have loved me more. You only think about yourself.’

  ‘But you only think about yourself as well! Look at the kind of life I have. Do you think that books and music and a pretty garden are enough for someone my age? I’ve had nothing else. You go out and enjoy yourself, go dancing, come home at dawn, but I should be enjoying all those things, Mama, me, even more than you!’

  ‘I never noticed you were growing up.’

  ‘Well, the damage is done now. I’m eighteen.’

  Gladys slowly wrung her hands. ‘Yes, yes, I know, but …’

  She could almost hear the other women, her rivals, sniggering: ‘Gladys Eysenach? She still looks pretty good. But she’s not young any more, you know. Her daughter just got married. Her lover left her. What can you do? She’s still beautiful, but … She’s still fairly young, but …’

  And perhaps one day soon they would say, ‘Do you really think she’s beautiful? But she’s old, you know. She’s a grandmother.’

  ‘Me?’ she thought, slowly stroking her face. ‘No, no, I must be dreaming. I was still a child myself only yesterday. I haven’t changed. Only yesterday I was a happy young girl, a domineering young woman. But Marie-Thérèse said, “You must have been loved so much …” And soon everyone will be saying, “How beautiful she must have been once …” No, no, it’s too soon. Two or three years more. That’s all I’m asking. That’s all I want. For her, it’s so little, but for me … In three years I’ll be old. My age will be written all over my face. I will resign myself to it then, like the others. I’ll think back to this night wistfully …’

  ‘Mama,’ whispered Marie-Thérèse, ‘answer me. What about me? You’re not listening to me.’

  ‘What do you want me to say? I’ve already said what I want. You must wait. What harm would it do you to wait? You’re so young … To you, the years are light and sweet; to you … In three years you’ll be twenty-one. You can do what you please then.’

  ‘I won’t obey you,’ said Marie-Thérèse, raising her pale, tense face.

  ‘You have to obey me. And you know it. You’re a child. You’re a minor. You have to obey me.’

  ‘But why? Why wait?’

  ‘Because you’re too young,’ Gladys said again, quietly, automatically, ‘and because these hasty marriages turn out badly. I don’t want you to be unhappy. Yes, I know; you’re thinking right now that I’m the cause of your unhappiness. But it isn’t true. All I’m asking is a few months of a secret, delightful engagement that will light up your life and give you happy memories. You’re still a child, Marie-Thérèse, you don’t understand. There is only one thing that makes life worth living and that is the beginning of love, love that is timid at first, that then becomes desire, impatience, anticipation … I’m offering you all that and you’re holding it against me. I don’t want to make you unhappy,’ she said again, looking at her daughter in despair. ‘Oh, heaven forbid! If you and that young boy love each other, well, then, get married, be happy. I’ll be delighted to see you happy. I love you, Marie-Thérèse. But wait a little. Three years will go by quickly and you know very well that I have to consent. But while you wait, take pity on me. Don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to, I don’t want to,’ she whispered, hiding her face in her hands. ‘It hurts so much. I want a little peace, a little happiness. Try to understand me. Be my friend …’

  ‘I don’t want to be your friend! You’re my mother! If you won’t give me your support, your help, your affection, then I don’t need you,’ Marie-Thérèse said quietly.

  ‘Oh! Marie-Thérèse, how cruel you are!’

  ‘Then give your consent, Mama. You know very well I’ll be happy! You’re stealing three years of happiness from me, that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Gladys said weakly.

  She was crying; slow, heavy tears flowed down her cheeks. ‘Let me be!’ she begged. ‘Have pity on me! Don’t say anything else. Don’t you realise it’s pointless?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marie-Thérèse, in spite of herself.

  Gladys was holding her hands. Marie-Thérèse pulled away in disgust, pushed away the beautiful, soft white arms that tried to hold her back and ran out.

  8

  The very next day Olivier asked to see Gladys, but it was the same scenario at Sans-Souci as it had been at the Esslenkos’ house: he could only see Gladys with her friends present. That same evening he went to the Middletons’ home, where Gladys was invited to dinner.

  When he got there the meal was over; a few couples were dancing to the music of a small orchestra. He saw Gladys waltz past in the arms of Georges Canning, Lily Ferrer’s lover. She was smiling and looked happy. When she saw him she looked startled and turned pale. He waited until the dance ended, then went up to her and asked to speak to her in private. She was fiddling w
ith a long white glove she held in her hand, gently tapping it against her skirt.

  ‘A word in private? My dear Olivier, can’t you come and see me at my house whenever you want? Why so formal?’

  ‘Because it is actually with regard to a rather formal matter,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘This is hardly the appropriate time or place …’

  ‘In that case, I am begging you to tell me when I can see you.’

  She hesitated, then sighed. ‘All right, come with me.’

  He followed her into a small adjoining sitting room. They were alone. She looked at his face; he looked so like Claude that she felt almost as if no time had passed at all. Like Claude, he had a long, delicate face, fair hair and a slim mouth that looked harsh and severe when closed, but very sweet when slightly open. She smiled shyly at him; he kept his eyes fixed on her, yet didn’t seem actually to see her.

  ‘I know that Marie-Thérèse spoke to you yesterday,’ he said, ‘and you told her you would agree to our marriage under certain conditions. We must wait … We must wait three years?’

  ‘That’s right,’ she murmured.

  ‘But why, Madame? You have known me for such a long time. My mother was your first cousin. You know everything about me. Everything a mother needs to know. You know my family, how wealthy I am, my state of health. Why impose such a delay, such humiliation?’

  ‘I don’t see anything humiliating about it,’ she said, lowering her head. ‘A long engagement is considered natural and very wise in many countries.’

  ‘If the engagement is official …’

  She shuddered. ‘No, not now, no, not right away. Official – that’s ridiculous. All the congratulations, the visits, all the hideous bourgeois trappings, no, no, how horrible. Once it has been decided, you will get married straight away and then it will all be public …’

  ‘I love Marie-Thérèse.’

  ‘Marie-Thérèse is still a child and so are you. This is a childish whim …’