I asked her forgiveness. Brokenly I begged her to be kind. And I apologized to her. Kneeling beside her I tried to explain my inability to believe in any creed, any dogma of the Church, I spoke of truth, I proclaimed as if before a high spiritual judge, my honest search for truth. Pitiful? Yes—but do you not believe that it is often so—mothers kneeling to their children, avowing their mistakes, their failures, begging for love?
I was desperate to destroy the thing that separated us—I was so lonely so alone—it seemed to me that this moment held my one chance, my one hope of drawing my child close to me. I looked up at her. Cool, lovely youth holding aloof, if only she would come, if only she would respond and take me in her slim fresh innocent arms. Ah, the relief it would be—the comfort!
“Jinny—Jinny—love me—I need your love, I am your mother. I am growing old. There is no one left for me to turn to—no one to advise me, no one to care for me, except you. Do you realize what I mean? My life is finished, it goes on only in you, only for you. Jinny, Jinny, don’t you understand, I need you.”
She stroked my hair lightly with delicate fingers, but looking up, I saw that her face was contracted in a nervous spasm—of distaste. A moment longer I waited staring up at her face with a longing that must have communicated itself to her, a longing so intense that I felt it going out of me in waves but she made no sign.
“I do love you, Mummy—you know I do,” she said in a dull little voice.
I stumbled to my feet and left the room.
Philibert had gone away, so when the doctor said a few days later that Jinny should go to Biarritz it was I who took her, though I knew she would rather have gone with some one else. I should have sent her with a companion. Had I left her alone then things might have been mended, but I was too jealous, and though I knew the truth in my heart I couldn’t bear to admit that my child didn’t like being with me. I kept on thinking of ways to win back her love, silly feeble ways. I was like a despairing and foolish lover who cannot bring himself to leave the object of his passion though he knows that everything he does exasperates her. I had no pride. I gave her presents. I did errands for her that the servants should have done. With a great lump of burning pain in my heart I went on smiling and busy, avoiding her eyes and fussing about her, and she was exquisitely patient and polite.
I do not know to this day whether Bianca followed us to Biarritz knowingly and with intent, or not. Clémentine told me afterwards that she had seen Bianca with Philibert at Fontainebleau at the Hôtel de France on the Sunday, the day he left Jinny and me, after our scene, but whether she learned from Philibert during the week they spent together of Jinny’s whereabouts and tracked her down, I cannot tell. Probably not. Yet it may be.... It is all so strange that one can believe anything. Philibert and Bianca together—after all those years—that in itself is extraordinary. What sort of relationship could have existed between them at the end? I don’t know. I do not attempt to understand. They were people beyond my comprehension, but some thing that they possessed in common, some bond, some feeling profound and complex, had evidently survived.
It is useless dwelling upon their problem. Revolting? Evil? I suppose so, and yet their infernal passion has somehow imposed upon me a dread respect. Philibert after Bianca’s death crumpled up as if by magic into a silly little old man. I saw it happen to him, there in that hotel where he came rushing on receipt of the news. He stood in my room shaking and disintegrating visibly before my eyes, profoundly unpleasant, pitiful. It was as if Bianca had held in her hand the vital stuff of his life, and as if with her death he was emptied of all energy and power.
All this happened you see at Biarritz where Bianca came and found us.