Читать книгу The Well of Loneliness - Marguerite Radclyffe Hall - Страница 34

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When Stephen kissed Mademoiselle Duphot good-bye, she cried, for she felt that something was going that would never come back—irresponsible childhood. It was going, like Mademoiselle Duphot. Kind Mademoiselle Duphot, so foolishly loving, so easily coerced, so glad to be persuaded; so eager to believe that you were doing your best, in the face of the most obvious slacking. Kind Mademoiselle Duphot who smiled when she shouldn’t, who laughed when she shouldn’t, and now she was weeping—but weeping as only a Latin can weep, shedding rivers of tears and sobbing quite loudly.

‘Chérie—mon bébé, petit chou!’ she was sobbing, as she clung to the angular Stephen.

The tears ran down on to Mademoiselle’s tippet, and they wet the poor fur which already looked jaded, and the fur clogged together, turning black with those tears, so that Mademoiselle tried to wipe it. But the more she wiped it the wetter it grew, since her handkerchief only augmented the trouble; nor was Stephen’s large handkerchief very dry either, as she found when she started to help.

The old station fly that had come out from Malvern, drove up, and the footman seized Mademoiselle’s luggage. It was such meagre luggage that he waved back assistance from the driver, and lifted the trunk single-handed. Then Mademoiselle Duphot broke out into English—heaven only knew why, perhaps from emotion.

‘It’s not farewell, it shall not be for ever—’ she sobbed. ‘You come, but I feel it, to Paris. We meet once more, Stévenne, my poor little baby, when you grow up bigger, we two meet once more—’ And Stephen, already taller than she was, longed to grow small again, just to please Mademoiselle. Then, because the French are a practical people even in moments of real emotion, Mademoiselle found her handbag, and groping in its depths she produced a half sheet of paper.

‘The address of my sister in Paris,’ she said, snuffling; ‘the address of my sister who makes little bags—if you should hear of anyone, Stévenne—any lady who would care to buy one little bag—’

‘Yes, yes, I’ll remember,’ muttered Stephen.

At last she was gone; the fly rumbled away down the drive and finally turned the corner. To the end a wet face had been thrust from the window, a wet handkerchief waved despondently at Stephen. The rain must have mingled with Mademoiselle’s tears, for the weather had broken and now it was raining. It was surely a desolate day for departure, with the mist closing over the Severn Valley and beginning to creep up the hillsides....

Stephen made her way to the empty schoolroom, empty of all save a general confusion; the confusion that stalks in some people’s trail—it had always stalked Mademoiselle Duphot. On the chairs, which stood crooked, lay odds and ends meaning nothing—crumpled paper, a broken shoehorn, a well-worn brown glove that had lost its fellow and likewise two of its buttons. On the table lay a much abused pink blotting pad, from which Stephen had torn off the corners, unchidden—it was crossed and re-crossed with elegant French script until its scarred face had turned purple. And there stood the bottle of purple ink, half-empty, and green round its neck with dribbles; and a pen with a nib as sharp as a pin point, a thin, peevish nib that jabbed at the paper. Chock-a-block with the bottle of purple ink lay a little piety card of St. Joseph that had evidently slipped out of Mademoiselle’s missal—St. Joseph looked very respectable and kind, like the fishmonger in Great Malvern. Stephen picked up the card and stared at St. Joseph; something was written across his corner; looking closer she read the minute handwriting: ‘Priez pour ma petite Stévenne.’

She put the card away in her desk; the ink and the blotter she hid in the cupboard together with the peevish steel nib that jabbed paper, and that richly deserved cremation. Then she straightened the chairs and threw away the litter, after which she went in search of a duster; one by one she dusted the few remaining volumes in the bookcase, including the Bibliothèque Rose. She arranged her dictation notebooks in a pile with others that were far less accurately written—books of sums, mostly careless and marked with a cross; books of English history, in one of which Stephen had begun to write the history of the horse! Books of geography with Mademoiselle’s comments in strong purple ink: ‘Grand manque d’attention.’ And lastly she collected the torn lesson books that had lain on their backs, on their sides, on their bellies—anyhow, anywhere in drawers or in cupboards, but not very often in the bookcase. For the bookcase was harbouring quite other things, a motley and most unstudious collection; dumb-bells, wooden and iron, of varying sizes—some Indian clubs, one split off at the handle—cotton laces, for gym shoes, the belt of a tunic. And then stable keepsakes, including a headband that Raftery had worn on some special occasion; a miniature horseshoe kicked sky-high by Collins; a half-eaten carrot, now withered and mouldy, and two hunting crops that had both lost their lashes and were waiting to visit the saddler.

Stephen considered, rubbing her chin—a habit which by now had become automatic—she finally decided on the ample box-sofa as a seemly receptacle. Remained only the carrot, and she stood for a long time with it clasped in her hand, disturbed and unhappy—this clearing of decks for stern mental action was certainly very depressing. But at last she threw the thing into the fire, where it shifted distressfully, sizzling and humming. Then she sat down and stared rather grimly at the flames that were burning up Raftery’s first carrot.