A Virgin Heart
Copyright© 2024 by Remy de Gourmont
Chapter 9
Luncheon passed agreeably for Rose. She was the centre of looks, desires and conversation. M. Lanfranc gallanted without bad taste. She would laugh and then, with sudden seriousness, accept the contact of some gesture of M. Hervart’s, who was sitting next to her. Leonor confined himself to a few curt phrases, which were meant to sum up the more ingenuous remarks of his fellow guests. He had thought he could treat this girl with contempt, but her eyes, he found, excited him. By dint of trying to seem a superior being, he succeeded in looking like a thoroughly disagreeable one. Rose was frightened of him.
“How cold he is,” she thought. “One could never talk or play with a man so sure of all his movements. He would always win.”
Several times, with innocent unconsciousness, she looked at M. Hervart.
“How well I have chosen! Here is a man who is younger than he, nearer my own age, and yet each of his words and gestures brings me closer to Xavier. I feel that it will be always like that. Who can compete with him? Xavier, I love you.”
She leaned forward to reach a jug and as she did so whispered full in M. Hervart’s face, “Xavier, I love you.”
M. Hervart pretended to choke. His redness of face was put down to a cherry stone; Lanfranc gave vent to some feeble joking on the subject.
As luncheon was nearing its end, she said with a perverse frankness:
“M. Hervart, will you come with me and see if everything’s all right down in the garden?”
“I am having coffee served out of doors,” Mme. Des Boys explained.
Lanfranc expatiated on the beauties of this country custom.
As soon as they were hidden from view behind the shrubbery, Rose, without a word, took M. Hervart by the shoulders and offered him her lips. It was a long kiss. Xavier clasped the girl in his arms and with a passion in which there was much amorous art, drank in her soul.
When he lifted his head, he felt confused:
“I have been giving the kiss of a happy lover, when what was asked for was a betrothal kiss. What will she think of me?”
Rose was already looking at the rustic table. When M. Hervart rejoined her, she greeted him with the sweetest of smiles.
“Was that what she wanted then?” M. Hervart wondered.
“Rose,” he said aloud, “I love you, I love you.”
“I hope you do,” she replied.
“Oh, how I should like to be alone with you now!”
“I wouldn’t. I should be afraid.”
This answer set M. Hervart thinking: “Does she know as much about it as all that? Is it an invitation?”
His thought lost itself in a tangle of vain desires. But for the very reason that the moment was not propitious, he let himself go among the most audacious fancies. His eyes wandered towards the dark wood, as though in search of some favourable retreat. He made movements which he never finished. Raising himself from his chair, he let himself fall back, fidgeted with an empty cup, searched vainly for a match to light his absent cigarette. The arrival of Leonor calmed him. His fate that day was to embark on futile discussions with this young man, and he accepted his destiny.
Every one was once more assembled. The conversation was resumed on the tone it had kept up at luncheon; but Rose was dreaming, and M. Hervart had a headache. It was all so spiritless, despite the enticements of M. Lanfranc, that M. Des Boys lost no time in proposing a walk.
“If you want us,” said Leonor, “to draw up a plan for the transformation of your property, you must show it to us in some detail. Is this wood to be a part of your projected park? And what’s beyond it? Another estate, or meadows, or ploughed fields? What are the rights of way? Do you want a single avenue towards Couville? One could equally well have one joining the St. Martin road...
“Do you intend to lay waste this wood?” asked Rose. “It’s so beautiful and wild.”
“My dear young lady,” said Leonor, “I intend to do nothing; that is to say, I only intend to please you...”
“Do what my daughter wants,” said M. Des Boys. “You’re here for her sake.”
“For her sake,” Mme. Des Boys repeated.
“Oh, well,” said Leonor, “we shall get on very well then.”
“So I hope,” said Rose.
“I am at your orders,” said Leonor.
“Come on then,” said Rose.
With these words she got up, throwing M. Hervart a look which was understood. But as M. Hervart rose to his feet, Mme. Des Boys approached him:
“I have something very interesting to tell you.”
M. Hervart had to let Rose and Leonor plunge alone into the wood in which he had, during these last few days, experienced such delightful emotions. Mme. Des Boys took him into the garden.
“I have a question to ask you,” she said. “First of all, is architecture a serious profession?”
“Very,” said M. Hervart.
“But do people make really a lot of money at it?”
“Lanfranc, who was a beggar when I first knew him, is probably richer than you are to-day. Leonor will go even further, I should think, for he seems an intelligent fellow and knows a lot about his business.”
“You’re not speaking out of mere friendship for him?”
“Not at all. Far from it; to tell you the truth I’m not very fond of either of them.”
“But they’re thorough gentlemen and very good company.”
“Certainly, Lanfranc especially.”
“Isn’t he amusing? His nephew is more severe, but I prefer it.”
“So do I.”
“I’m glad to see that you agree with me.”
She continued after a moment’s reflection. “He would be an excellent husband for Rose.”
Hervart did not reply. He had grown pale and his heart had begun beating violently. His thoughts were in confusion; his head whirled.
“What do you think of the idea?” Mme. Des Boys insisted.
He withheld his answer, for he knew that his voice would seem quite changed. He murmured; “Hum,” or something of the sort, something that simply meant that he had heard the question.
But bit by bit he recovered. The happy idea came to him that time. Des Boys was a nullity in the family and had little influence over her daughter.
“Nothing that she says has any importance. I’ll agree with her.”
“I entirely agree with you,” he pronounced,
“My daughter’s a curious creature,” went on Mme. Des Boys, “but your approbation will perhaps be enough to convince her. You have a great deal of influence over her.”
“I?”
“She’s very fond of you. It’s obvious.”
“I’m such an old friend,” said M. Hervart courageously.
His cowardice made him blush.
“Why shouldn’t I confess? Why not say, ‘Yes, she does like me, and I like her, why not?’ Isn’t my desire evident? Can I go away, leave her, do without her?...” But to all these intimate questions M. Hervart did not dare to give a definite answer.
“What I should like is that the present moment should go on for ever...”
“They have hardly spoken to one another, and yet,” Mme. Des Boys continued, “I seem to see between them the beginnings of ... what? ... how shall I put it?...”
“The beginnings of an understanding,” prompted M. Hervart with ironic charity. “Why not love? There’s such a thing as love at first sight.”
“Oh, Rose is much too well bred.”
The silliness of this woman, so reasonable and natural, none the less, in her rôle of mother, exasperated M. Hervart even more than the insinuations to which he had been obliged to listen. Ceasing, not to hesitate, but to reflect, he said abruptly:
“I shall be very sorry to see her married.”
Mme. Des Boys pressed his hand:
“Dear friend! yes, it will make a big difference in our home.”
She went on, after a moment’s hesitation:
“Not a word about all this, dear Hervart; you understand. And now I think that the tête-a-tête has perhaps gone on long enough; it would be very nice of you if you’d go and join them.”
M. Hervart, impatient though he was, made his way slowly through the meanders of the little copse. Like Panurge, he kept repeating to himself, “Marry her? or not marry her?”
His head was a clock in which a pendulum swung indefatigably. He sat down on the little bench where, for the first time, he had fell the girl’s head coming gently to rest on his shoulder. He wanted to think.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.