“Try and conciliate her by giving way a little, suggest that you should all go abroad for a time before anything is settled: I’ll see that she obeys you on this point: and while you are away, I’ll do what I can.” What would she do? The La Traves gathered that she would strike up an acquaintance with young Azévédo: “A direct attack is hopeless, mother.” So far as Madame de la Trave knew, nothing had come out as yet, thank Heaven. The postmistress, Mademoiselle Monod, was the only person in the secret: she had intercepted several of Anne’s letters: “but that girl’s like a grave.... Anyhow, she daren’t give anything away.”
“Let us try to give her as little pain as possible....” Hector de la Trave used to say: but he who used to give way to Anne’s absurdest caprices, could only agree with his wife, saying: “You can’t make omelettes without breaking eggs ...”: and again: “She’ll be grateful to us one day.” Yes, but before that day came, wouldn’t she collapse? And the pair sat in silence with troubled eyes: they pictured their child wasting away in the blazing sunshine, and turning with loathing from all food: trampling on the flowers that she could not see and pacing back and forwards along the railings like a fawn looking for a way of escape.... Madame de la Trave shook her head: “I can’t drink her meat-juice instead of her, can I? She stuffs herself with fruit in the garden so as to be able to leave her plate empty at meals.”
And Hector de la Trave: “She would blame us later on for having given our consent ... even if only for the sake of the unhappy children that she might bring into the world....”
His wife was annoyed with him for seeming to try and find excuses for the girl: “Fortunately the Deguilhems are not back yet. We may think ourselves lucky that they’re most anxious for the marriage....”
They waited until Thérèse had left the room to ask each other: “But what can they have put into her head at the Convent? She has had nothing but good examples here; we have supervised her reading.... Thérèse says that there is nothing worse for turning young girls’ heads than the love stories in the Sunday Reading Series ... but then she’s so paradoxical.... Besides, I’m thankful to say Anne never did care about reading: she is quite domesticated on that point. I believe if we could only manage to get her a change of air. Do you remember how much good Salies did her when she had bronchitis after the measles? We will go wherever she likes, I can’t say more than that. Really, I’m truly sorry for the child.” Monsieur de la Trave sighed dubiously: “Well, but a holiday with us.... Nothing, nothing,” he added hurriedly in answer to his wife who, being a little deaf, had asked him what he had said. From the refuge of his wife’s fortune, in which he had come so comfortably to rest, what memories of passionate pilgrimages did the old gentleman suddenly call to mind, what hallowed hours of his amorous youth?
Thérèse had then gone out into the garden to Anne, whose last year’s dresses had already grown too loose for her. “Well?” cried the girl, as soon as her friend came up. The ashes on the garden paths, the dry harsh grass of the lawns, the smell of the parched geraniums, and Anne herself more wasted than any plant on that August afternoon,—Thérèse could recall every detail of the scene. Sometimes stormy showers forced them to take refuge in the hot-house, while the hailstones rattled on the glass roof.
“Why do you mind going away, since you don’t see him?”
“I don’t see him, but I know he is living and breathing four miles away. When the wind is in the east, I know he hears the church bell at the same time as I do. Would you not care whether Bernard was at Argelouse or Paris? I don’t see Jean, but I know he’s not far off. On Sunday, at Mass, I do not even try to turn my head, because we can only see the altar from where we sit, and we are shut off from the congregation by a pillar. But as we go out....”
“Wasn’t he there on Sunday?”
Thérèse knew it; she knew that as Anne was being led away by her mother she had searched in vain among the crowd for a face that was not there.