“You see that window right at the top there that’s mine. It’s part of the nurseries.” She grimaced. She had spoken in English.
“I learned that off by heart,” she explained, ‘just to show you I could. Now let’s talk in French. “
She looked different now, calm, serene, a little mischievous perhaps,
but more as one would expect a well-brought up, fourteen-year-old girl to look, and I realized that I was seeing Genevieve without one of her moods.
“If you wish,” I replied in that language.
“Well, I should like to speak to you in English, but as you pointed out, mine is not very good, is it?”
“Your accent and intonation made it almost unintelligible. I suspect you have a fair vocabulary.”
“Are you a governess?”
“I am certainly not.”
“Then you ought to be. You’d make a good one.” She laughed aloud.
“Then you wouldn’t have to go round under false pretences, would you?”
I said coolly: “I am going for a walk. I will say good bye to you.”
“Oh, no, don’t. I came down to talk to you. First I have to say I’m sorry. I was rude, wasn’t I? And you were very cool… but then you have to be, don’t you? It’s what one expects of the English.”
“I am half-French,” I said.
“That accounts for the spirit in you. I saw you were really angry. It was only your voice that was cold. Inside you were angry, now weren’t you?”
“I was naturally surprised that a girl of your obvious education could be so impolite to a guest in your father’s house.”
“But you weren’t a guest, remember. You were there under…”
“There is no point in continuing this conversation. I accept your apology and now I will leave you.”
“But I came down specially to talk to you.”
“But I came down to walk.”
“Why shouldn’t we walk together?”
“I did not invite you to accompany me.”
“Well, my father didn’t invite you to Gaillard, did he, but you came.”
She added hastily: “And I’m glad you came … so perhaps you’ll be glad if I come with you.”
She was trying to make amends, and it was not for me to be churlish, so I smiled.
“You’re prettier when you smile,” she said.
“Well,” she put her head on one side, ‘not exactly pretty. But you look younger. “
“We all look more pleasant when we smile. It is something you might remember.”
Her laughter was high and quite spontaneous. I found myself joining in and laughing at myself. She was pleased and so was I to have her company; for I was almost as interested in people as I was in pictures. Father had tried to curb that interest. He called it idle curiosity but it was strong in me and perhaps I had been wrong to suppress it.
Now I was eager for Genevieve’s company. I had seen her once in a mood and now as a lively but extremely curious girl; but who was I to criticize curiosity, who had more than my fair share of it?
“So,” she said, ‘we’ll go for a walk together and I will show you what you want to see. “
“Thank you. That will be very pleasant.”
She laughed again.
“I hope you will enjoy being here, miss. Suppose I talk to you in English, will you speak slowly so that I can understand?”
“Certainly.”
“And not laugh if I say something silly?”
“Certainly I shall not laugh. I admire your desire to improve your English.”
She was smiling again and I knew that she was thinking how like a governess I was.
“I am not very good,” she said.
“They are all afraid of me.
“I don’t think they are afraid of you. They are perhaps distressed and disgusted by the unbecoming way in which you sometimes behave.”
This amused her but she was serious almost immediately.
“Were you afraid of your father?” she asked, lapsing into French. I sensed that because she was interested in the subject she must speak in the language easier to her.
“No,” I replied.
“I was in awe of him, perhaps.”
“What’s the difference?”
“One can respect people, admire them, look up to them, fear to offend them. It is not the same as being afraid of them.”
“Let’s go on talking in French. This conversation is too interesting for English.”
She is afraid of her father, I thought. What sort of a man is he to inspire fear in her? She was an odd child wayward, perhaps violent; and he was to blame, of course. But what of the mother what part had she played in this strange child’s upbringing?
“So you weren’t really afraid of your father?”
“No. Are you afraid of yours?”
She didn’t answer, but I noticed that a haunted expression had come into her eyes.
I said quickly: “And … your mother?”
She turned to me then.
“I will take you to my mother.”
“What?”
“I said I would take you to her.”
“She is in the chateau?”
“I know where she is. I’ll take you to her. Will you come?”
“Why, yes. Certainly. I shall be delighted to meet her.”
“Very well. Come on.”
She went ahead of me. Her dark hair was neatly tied back with a blue ribbon and perhaps it was the way of dressing it which so changed her appearance. Her head was set arrogantly on sloping shoulders; her neck was long and graceful. I thought: She will be a beautiful woman.
I wondered whether the Comtesse was like her; then I began rehearsing
what I would say to her. I must put my case clearly to her. Perhaps she as a woman would feel less prejudiced against my work.
Genevieve halted and came to walk beside me.
“I’m two different people, am I not?”
“What do you mean?”
“There are two sides to my character.”
“We all have many sides to our character.”
“But mine is different. Other people’s characters are all of a piece.
I am two distinct people. “
“Who told you this?”
“Nounou. She says I’m Gemini-that means I have two different faces.
My birthday is in June. “
“That is a fantasy. Everyone who is born in June is not like you.”
“It is not fantasy. You saw how horrid I was yesterday. That was the bad me. Today I’m different. I’m good. I said I was sorry, didn’t I?”
“I hope you were sorry.”
“I said I was, and I shouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t.”
“Then when you are being foolish remember that you’ll be sorry afterwards and don’t be foolish.”
“Yes,” she said, ‘you should be a governess. They always make everything sound so easy. I can’t help being horrid. I just am. “
“Everyone can help the way he or she behaves.”
“It’s in the stars. It’s fate. You can’t go against fate.”
Now I saw where the trouble lay. This temperamental girl was in the hands of a silly old woman and another who was half scared out of her wits; in addition there was the father who terrified her. But there was the mother, of course. It would be interesting to meet her.
Perhaps she too was in awe of the Comte. Most assuredly this was so since everyone else was. I pictured her a gentle creature, afraid to go against him. He was becoming more and more a monster with every fresh piece of information.
“You can be exactly as you wish to be,” I said.
“It is absurd to tell yourself you have two characters and then try to live up to the unpleasant one.”
“I don’t try. It just happens.”
Even as I spoke I despised myself. It was always so easy to solve other people’s troubles. She was young and at times seemed childish for her age. If we could become friends I might be able to help her.
“I am eager to meet your mother,” I said; she did not answer but ran on ahead of me.