Jezebel (9 page)

‘I’m even more beautiful now,’ she continued thinking. ‘I don’t want him to see the child I used to be: I want him to fall in love with the woman I am now.’

‘I miss my youth,’ she murmured.

She shivered, then saw her chambermaid standing in front of her.

‘Which dress would Madame like to wear?’ she asked.

She looked at her without answering, then sighed and said, ‘My pink dress and my pearls.’

She had the jewellery brought to her: she wanted to look different from the young girl Claude had desired, as womanly as possible, at the peak of her beauty, dazzling. She followed her chambermaid into her dressing room, the room that Marie-Thérèse called ‘Madame Bluebeard’s closet’. She took hold of the light bulb that hung from a long cord and walked round the wardrobe. Her fur coats gave off a slight smell of camphor. She felt terribly sad.

‘No,’ she said suddenly, ‘any dress, as long as it’s white.’

Finally, Beauchamp arrived. He had hardly changed. Only his hair had gone white. They dined alone on the terrace. Sans-Souci was as artificial as a stage set, but at night it became graceful, elegant, almost rustic. The yew trees that lined the long path, trimmed into the shape of musical instruments, had been obscured by the darkness for a while now. They could hear frogs croaking and a slight smell of hay wafted through the air, mixing with the scent of roses.

‘Is it true that you are going back to live in Vevey?’ she asked.

‘Yes, and I hope never to have to leave there again.’

‘Never?’ Gladys asked.

‘Does that surprise you, Gladys?’

‘Yes. Now that poor Tess is dead and Olivier lives in Paris …’

‘I like it there very much.’

She smiled. ‘You’re a strange man, Claude. You are my cousin and my closest relative and yet I don’t know you any better than a stranger I might pass in the street. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life in that little isolated village, alone, all alone?

‘Alone,’ she said again, with muffled horror. ‘How terrible.’

‘Are you afraid of being alone, Gladys? You haven’t changed,’ he said, looking at her strangely.

‘Why should I have changed? Women don’t change.’

He said nothing. She was sitting opposite him; she lowered her head; she played slowly, gracefully, with the pearl necklace she wore round her white, delicate neck. She was still beautiful, vulnerable, anxious, touching, but
a pale shadow, the ghost of the woman he had once loved. He had seen her several times in the past few years. As for her, she had never once even glanced at him. Every time they saw each other he found her preoccupied with new clothes and new lovers, sparing never a moment’s thought for him. Today, however, she was definitely different, eager to please, but as for him … Love that is kept secret for so long, locked away in the heart for so long, becomes bitter with age; it corrodes and turns to acrimonious resentment.

‘I’m free,’ he thought. ‘I’m finally free. I don’t love her any more.’

‘I’d love to see Marie-Thérèse,’ he said.

‘She’ll come and say goodnight to us.’

‘How old is she now?’

‘Oh! Don’t ask me her age, Claude. All I can say is that I try to forget how old she is,’ she murmured.

Her hands were shaking. She noticed and pressed them together hard, cruelly, for a long time.

‘Are you and she close?’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Gladys, making an effort to smile. ‘She is delightful to me, poor darling. She faces the madness of youth with all the seriousness, all the wisdom of logic and experience! You can’t imagine how she treats me. Before every ball I have to go and show her how I look, and if you only knew how harshly she criticises me over my choice of dress or jewellery …’

‘She’s a mother to you,’ Beauchamp said coldly.

Gladys slowly shrugged her beautiful shoulders: ‘You’re making fun of me. But it’s true that there’s something maternal in the way she idolises me. Because she does love
me to distraction. She says the most wonderful things. One day, I can’t remember why any more, she said something that brought tears to my eyes: “My poor, dear Mama, you don’t understand life …” ’

‘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 …’

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’ll 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.’