Femme Fatale Page 4

  Moaning, the younger Hautot kissed his father and, obedient as always, opened the door. The priest appeared wearing a white surplice and carrying the holy oils. But the dying man had closed his eyes and refused to open them again. He refused to reply and refused to give any sign that he knew what was going on.

  He had talked enough and could not say another word. Besides, he felt relieved now. He could die in peace. What need was there for him to confess to this delegate of God since he had already confessed to his own son who really was family?

  The last rites were administered, and he was given communion in the midst of his kneeling friends and servants with never a movement of his face to indicate that he was still alive. He died at around midnight after four hours of spasms indicative of appalling pain.

  The season had opened on the Sunday and Hautot was buried the following Tuesday. Having returned from taking his father to the cemetery, César Hautot spent the rest of the day in tears. He hardly slept that night and was so miserable the next day that he wondered how he could carry on living. Nevertheless he spent the whole day thinking that, if his father’s last wish was to be carried out, he should go to Rouen the following day and see this Caroline Donet at the rue de l’Éperlan, number 18, third floor, second door. He had repeated this like a mantra so many times so as not to forget it, that now he could think of little else. Both his mind and his ear were hypnotized by the phrase. Accordingly, the next morning around eight o’clock, having ordered Graindorge harnessed to the tilbury, he set off at a brisk pace behind the heavy Norman horse on the main road from Ainville to Rouen. He was wearing his black frock-coat, a tall silk topper and his trousers with the straps under the soles. In the circumstances he decided not to wear over his handsome suit the loose blue smock which, flapping in the wind, protected his better clothes against any dust or spots and which he normally shed as soon as he jumped down on arriving at his destination.

  He got to Rouen just as ten o’clock was striking and went as usual to the Hôtel des Bons-Enfants, rue des Trois Mares. There he was embraced by the proprietor, the proprietor’s wife and their five sons, all of whom had heard the sad news. After that he had to tell them exactly how the accident had happened and this set him off crying again. He turned down their offers of comfort, all the more insistent now that he was a man of substance, and even refused their invitation to dinner, which really offended them.

  Having dusted off his hat, brushed down his frock-coat and given his boots a quick wipe, he set out to find the rue de l’Éperlan. He dared not ask for directions lest he be recognized and suspicions raised. Finally drawing a complete blank, he spotted a priest and counting on the professional discretion of a clergyman found out from him the way to the address. It was very close. In the next street on the right in fact.

  He began to feel a little hesitant. Until this moment he had been blindly following his dead father’s instructions. Now he felt a confusing mixture of sorrow and shame as he thought of himself, a son, soon to be face to face with the woman who had been his father’s mistress. All the old moral strictures lying buried in his unconscious under layer after layer of conventional, received wisdom handed down from generation to generation, everything he had learned from his catechism years and since about loose women and the instinctive mistrust men have of them even if they marry one – all these ignorant, peasant values clamoured inside him, held him back and brought a blush of shame to his cheeks.

  Nevertheless, he thought, I promised my father. Mustn’t let him down. The door marked 18 was ajar so he pushed it open and saw beyond it a dark stairway which he climbed as far as the third floor. There he saw first one door, then a second with a bell-pull which he now tugged. The tinkle which he heard echo into the room beyond made his heart sink. The door was opened and he found himself standing opposite a very well-dressed, fresh-faced brunette who was staring at him in astonishment.

  He had no idea what to say and she, unaware of anything untoward and expecting his father any minute, did not invite him in. They looked at each other for a full thirty seconds, at the end of which she said: ‘Can I help you, monsieur?’

  He murmured, ‘I’m Hautot, the son.’

  She started, turned pale and stammered as if she had known him all her life: ‘Oh! Monsieur César?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What … what’s … ?’

  ‘I have a message for you from my father.’

  She said, ‘Oh my God!’ and took a step backwards to let him in. He then saw a little boy playing with a cat on the floor in front of a stove where several dishes were cooking.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  He sat down.

  ‘Well?’ she asked.

  He was struck dumb, his eyes on the table in the middle of the room laid for three including a child. He looked at the chair with its back to the fire, the plate, the napkin, the glasses, one bottle of red wine, already drunk from, and one unopened bottle of white. That must be his father’s usual place with his back to the fire! He was still expected by her! That would have been his father’s bread with all the crust removed because of his poor teeth. Raising his eyes, he saw hanging on the wall a large photograph of his father taken at the Paris Exhibition, the duplicate of one which hung over the bed in the master bedroom at Ainville.

  The young woman went on: ‘So? Monsieur César?’

  He looked at her. She was pale with dread and her hands were trembling fearfully as she waited for him to speak. Eventually he gathered up enough courage to do so. ‘Well Mam’zelle, I’m afraid Papa died on Sunday on the opening day of the shooting season.’

  She was shocked literally rigid. After a few moments’ silence she said in a barely audible voice, ‘Oh no! He can’t have!’

  Then suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She raised her hands to cover her face and began to sob. The little boy, seeing his mother burst into tears and deducing that this stranger was the cause, hurled himself on César, grabbed him by the trouser-leg with one hand and started smacking him on the thigh as hard as he could with the other. César, frantic with grief himself, his own eyes still swollen with crying, was moved at the sight of this woman weeping for his father and the little boy defending the mother. He felt almost overwhelmed with emotion and, in order to keep from breaking down himself, started to speak: ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the tragedy occurred on Sunday morning at eight o’clock …’

  He went on, assuming she was hearing it all and forgetting no detail, omitting not the smallest incident in a painstaking, plodding peasant way. The little boy continued to smack him and had now begun to kick him on the ankles. When Hautot junior came to the part where Hautot senior had talked about her, the young woman, hearing her own name, uncovered her face and asked: ‘I’m sorry. Could you start again please? I wasn’t taking it in … I really want to know what happened …’

  He began again, using exactly the same words: ‘The tragedy occurred on Sunday morning at eight o’clock …’

  Again he told her everything, stopping every now and then to punctuate the story with little asides of his own. She listened attentively. With the sensitive perception of a woman, she seized every implication of each twist and turn of events, shuddering with horror and saying ‘Oh my God’ from time to time. The little boy, seeing his mother had calmed down, stopped hitting César and was now holding her hand, listening too as if he understood every word. When he came to the end Hautot junior said: ‘And now what we must do is make sure his wishes are carried out. I’m in a comfortable position. He’s left me property so … I wouldn’t want you to feel in any need …’

  She broke in abruptly: ‘Oh, please, please, Monsieur César! Not today! My heart’s breaking! Another time, another day, perhaps. But not today. And if I were to accept, I do want you to know it would not be for me, oh no, no, no, I swear I wouldn’t want anything for myself but for the little one. We’ll put any money in his name.’

  César was aghast. Then the penny dropped. He stammered, ‘You mean … he
’s his?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said.

  Hautot junior looked at his half-brother with a mixture of emotions, all deeply painful. After a long silence, for she had begun to weep again, César was at a complete loss as to what to do. He said: ‘Well then, Mam’zelle Donet, I’d better be going. When would you like us to meet and talk about arrangements?’

  She cried out: ‘Oh don’t go! Please! Please don’t leave me and Émile on our own. I’d die of grief. I’ve got nobody now except my little boy. Oh it’s awful, Monsieur César, it’s terrible! Please, please sit down! Talk to me some more. Tell me about what he used to do when he was away from here, when he was back home with you.’

  And so César, obedient as always, sat down again. She drew her chair up close to his in front of the stove where the food was still cooking. She put Émile on her lap and asked César hundreds of little intimate questions about his father from which he could see or rather feel instinctively that this poor young woman had loved Hautot with all her heart.

  The conversation naturally kept returning to the accident and he told her all over again what had happened, in the same detail. When he said, ‘The hole in his stomach was so big you could have put both hands in it’, she gave a sort of cry and began sobbing yet again. This time César too broke down with her and started to weep. Softened by his own tears he leaned down towards Émile whose forehead was within reach and kissed it. His mother struggled to get her breath back.

  ‘Poor little mite,’ she said, ‘he’s fatherless now.’

  ‘Me too,’ said César.

  At this, each stopped talking. Suddenly the young woman became the practical housewife who thinks of everything and everyone.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve eaten a thing all morning, have you, Monsieur César?’

  ‘No, Mam’zelle.’

  ‘Oh, you must be hungry! Will you have something to eat?’

  ‘No thank you,’ he said, ‘I’m not hungry. Too upset.’

  ‘Oh, but you’ve got to eat in spite of everything, you’ll grant me that. Do stay a bit longer. I don’t know what I’ll do when you leave.’

  After a few attempts at resistance, he sat down opposite her, and in the chair with its back to the fire he settled down to a dish of the tripe that had been sizzling in the oven, and to a glass of red wine. Several times he wiped the mouth of the little boy who had dribbled sauce all over his chin. As he rose to leave, he said: ‘When would you like me to come back and talk business, Mam’zelle Donet?’

  ‘If it’s all the same to you, Monsieur César, next Thursday. It’ll save me taking time off. I’ve always got Thursday off anyway.’

  ‘That’s fine with me. Next Thursday.’

  ‘You’ll have lunch, won’t you?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know … really.’

  ‘It’s much easier to talk over a meal. Saves time too.’

  ‘All right then. Let’s say twelve o’clock.’

  After giving little Émile another kiss and shaking Mademoiselle Donet’s hand he left.

  The week passed very slowly for César Hautot. He had never been on his own before and solitude seemed unbearable to him. Until then, he had shadowed his father all his life, following him into the fields, seeing that his orders were carried out, then, after a little while apart, he would see him again at dinner. In the evenings they would sit opposite each other smoking their pipes and talking about horses, cows and sheep. Their morning handshake was an expression of deep family attachment.

  And now César was alone. He wandered about in the ploughed fields of autumn, all the time expecting to see the tall silhouette of his father waving to him from some field or other. To kill time he would drop in on neighbours, describe the accident to anyone who had not heard what had happened, and retell the story to those who had. Sometimes when he had run out of things that needed thinking about or doing he would sit down at the side of a cart track and wonder how much longer he could carry on.

  He thought often of Mademoiselle Donet. He had liked her very much. He thought she was a very nice person indeed, a good, kind girl as his father had said. Yes, she was a lovely girl. A really lovely girl. He was determined to do her proud and to give her 2,000 francs in interest on capital to be settled on the child. He was rather pleased that he had to go and see her the following Thursday to sort things out with her. The thought of this brother, this new little fellow was a bit of a worry. It bothered him a little, yet at the same time it gave him a warm sort of feeling. There was a bit of kin for him there. The kid born on the other side of the blanket would never be called Hautot, but he was a bit of family with no pressure attached, a bit of his father after all.

  When he found himself once more on the way to Rouen on Thursday morning, with these and similar thoughts in his head and the sound of Graindorge’s rhythmical clip-clop, his heart was lighter and his mind calmer than at any time since the accident. As he entered Mademoiselle Donet’s apartment he saw that everything was laid exactly as it had been the previous Thursday with one single exception – the crust of the bread at his place had not been removed.

  He shook hands with the young woman, kissed Émile on both cheeks and sat down feeling both very much at home and extremely emotional. Mademoiselle Donet seemed slightly thinner and slightly paler. She must have cried her little heart out. This time she was a bit awkward in her manner towards him as if she had realized something she had been unable to absorb on that first occasion when she was still taking in the enormity of what had happened. She was extremely attentive to his needs and humble in her approach, as if trying to pay back in devotion and service towards him some of the generosity he was showing her. They took a long time over lunch and discussed the business which had brought him there. She did not want so much money. It was too much, far too much. She earned enough to keep herself; all she wanted was that Émile might have something to look forward to when he reached his majority. César, however, stuck to his guns and even added a present for herself as a token of mourning. As he finished his coffee, she asked, ‘Do you smoke?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got my pipe here …,’ he began.

  He patted his pockets. Damnation. He had left it at home! He was just about to bemoan the fact when she produced one belonging to his father which she had kept tucked away in a cupboard. He took it from her and recognized it. Sniffing it and with emotion in his voice, declaring it to be one of the best, he filled and lit it. Then he put Émile on his knee and played ride-a-cock-horse with him while she cleared the table, stacking the dirty dishes in the sideboard to wash later after he had gone.

  At about three, when he rose regretfully, he hated the idea of leaving.

  ‘Well, Mamz’elle Donet,’ he said, ‘I’ll wish you a very good afternoon. I’m delighted to have made your acquaintance like this.’

  She remained standing in front of him, blushing and near to tears. As she looked at him she thought of his father.

  ‘Are we not to see each other again then?’ she asked.

  He replied simply: ‘We can, Mam’zelle, if that’s what you’d like.’

  ‘It most certainly is, Monsieur César. Shall we say next Thursday, if that’s convenient for you?’

  ‘Indeed it is, Mam’zelle Donet.’

  ‘You’ll come for lunch, of course?’

  ‘Well, if you’re offering I wouldn’t say no.’

  ‘Very well, Monsieur César. Thursday next it is, at twelve o’clock, like today.’

  ‘Twelve o’clock on Thursday then, Mam’zelle Donet!’

  Laid to Rest

  Five friends had been dining together. They were all rich, middle-aged men of the world, two of them bachelors, three married men. These monthly meetings of theirs were some of the happiest evenings of their lives. They had all known each other since their youth, remained close friends, enjoyed one another’s company and often stayed talking till two o’clock in the morning. The conversation was about anything and everything that might interest or amuse a Parisian and, as
in most drawing rooms, it was a kind of verbal version of the news in the morning papers.

  One of the most footloose and fancy-free among them was Joseph de Bardon, a bachelor who exploited to the full all the attractions Paris has to offer. Though not exactly decadent or debauched in his habits, he managed to satisfy all the natural curiosity of a fun-loving man in his late thirties. A man of the world in the best and widest sense of the word, he was witty rather than profound, knowledgeable rather than wise and possessed a quick rather than a deep understanding of human nature. His experiences and encounters provided him with a fund of anecdotes, some edifying, some frankly hilarious. He had a reputation in society as a bright fellow with a good sense of humour – everyone’s favourite after-dinner speaker whose tales were always the ones most looked forward to. He never needed any urging to begin, as he did on this occasion.

  Certain creatures at certain times and places look absolutely in their element, let’s say a goldfish in its bowl, a nun in church, or what have you. Sitting there smoking a cigar, with his elbows on the table, a half-filled glass of liqueur brandy to hand and relaxing in a warm haze of coffee and tobacco, he looked like a man in his ideal milieu. Between a couple of puffs he spoke.

  ‘The funniest thing happened to me not so long ago …’

  A near-instantaneous chorus replied, ‘Go on, do!’

  And he was off.

  ‘Thank you, I shall. You know I get around Paris a fair amount. As other people window-shop, I watch what’s going on. I watch the world and his brother pass by, I watch what’s going on around me. Well, some time towards the middle of last September, I left the house one afternoon with no clear idea of where I was going. You know how you always have a vague yen to go and see some pretty woman or other … you riffle through your little black book, you do a few mental comparisons, you weigh up the possible delights and you decide more or less on the spur of the moment. But when the sun’s shining and it’s warm outside you don’t always want to be cooped up indoors. On this particular day, it was warm and sunny and I lit a cigar before starting to stroll along the outer boulevard. As I was sauntering along I decided to make for the cemetery in Montmartre and have a little wander about there. I like cemeteries, you know. They sadden and they soothe me and I find I need that from time to time. And of course some of one’s chums are there, people nobody goes to see any more. I drop by every so often still. And as it happens, an old flame of mine is buried in Montmatre Cemetery, a lovely little lady I was very keen on at one point in my life, very attached to. So although it’s painful, I find it does me good. I mean all kinds of memories come flooding back while I’m there, letting my thoughts drift beside her grave. It’s all over for her of course …