Christmas Holiday Read online

“My mother is delighted. She’s waiting now. I said that if you consented I would take you to her. She wants to embrace you. She’s happy at the thought that I’m settling down with someone she entirely approves of, and the idea is that after we’ve all had a good cry together we should crack a bottle of champagne.”

  “Last Sunday when you took me to see your mother, had you told her that you wished to marry me?”

  “But of course. She very naturally wanted to see what you were like. She’s not stupid, my mother; she made up her mind at once.”

  “I had an idea she didn’t like me.”

  “You were wrong.”

  They smiled into one another’s eyes, and she raised her face to his. For the first time he kissed her on the lips.

  “There’s no doubt,” he said, “that a right-hand drive is much more convenient for kissing a girl than a left-hand.”

  “You fool,” she laughed.

  “Then you do care for me a little?”

  “I’ve worshipped you ever since I first saw you.”

  “But with the reserve of a well-brought-up young woman who will not give free rein to her emotions until she’s quite sure it’s prudent?” he answered, tenderly chaffing her.

  But she answered seriously:

  “I’ve suffered so much in my short life, I didn’t want to expose myself to a suffering perhaps greater than I could bear.”

  “I adore you.”

  She had never known such happiness; indeed, she could hardly bring herself to believe it: at that moment her heart overflowed with gratitude to life. She would have liked to sit there, nestling in his arms, for ever; at that moment she would have liked to die. But she bestirred herself.

  “Let us go to your mother,” she said.

  She felt on a sudden warm with love for that woman who but just knew her, and yet, contrary to all expectation, because her son loved her, because with her sharp eyes she had seen that she deeply loved her son, had consented, even gladly, to their marriage. Lydia did not think there could be another woman in France who was capable of such a sacrifice.

  They drove off. Robert parked the car in a street parallel to the one in which he lived. When they reached the little house he opened the front door with his latchkey and excitedly preceded Lydia into the sitting-room.

  “O.K., mother.”

  Lydia immediately followed him in and Madame Berger, in the same black dress of flowered silk as she had worn on Sunday, came forward and took her in her arms.

  “My dear child,” she cried. “I’m so happy.”

  Lydia burst into tears. Madame Berger kissed her tenderly.

  “There, there, there! You mustn’t cry. I give you my son with all my heart. I know you’ll make him a good wife. Come, sit down. Robert will open a bottle of champagne.”

  Lydia composed herself and dried her eyes.

  “You are too good to me, Madame. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve so much kindness.”

  Madame Berger took her hand and gently patted it.

  “You have fallen in love with my son and he has fallen in love with you.”

  Robert had gone out of the room. Lydia felt that she must at once state the facts as they were.

  “But, Madame, I don’t feel sure that you realize the circumstances. The little money that my father was able to get out of Russia went years ago. I have nothing but what I earn. Nothing, absolutely nothing. And only two dresses besides the one I’m wearing.”

  “But, my dear child, what does that matter? Oh, I don’t deny it, I should have been pleased if you had been able to bring Robert a reasonable dot, but money isn’t everything. Love is more important. And nowadays what is money worth? I flatter myself that I am a good judge of character and it didn’t take me long to discover that you have a sweet and honest nature. I saw that you had been well brought up and I judged that you had good principles. After all that is what one wants in a wife, and you know, I know my Robert, he would never have been happy with a little French bourgeoise. He has a romantic disposition and it says something to him that you are Russian. And it isn’t as if you were nobody; it is after all something one need not be ashamed of to be the daughter of a professor.”

  Robert came in with glasses and a bottle of champagne. They sat talking late into the night. Madame Berger had her plan cut and dried and they could do nothing but accept it; Lydia and Robert should live in the house while she would make herself comfortable in the little pavilion at the back of the garden. They would have their meals in common, but otherwise she would keep to her own quarters. She was decided that the young couple must be left to themselves and not exposed to interference from her.

  “I don’t want you to look upon me as a mother-in-law,” she told Lydia. “I want to be the mother to you that you’ve lost, but I also want to be your friend.”

  She was anxious that the marriage should take place without delay. Lydia had a League of Nations passport and a Carte de Séjour; her papers were in order; so they had only to wait the time needed for notification to be made at the Mairie. Since Robert was Catholic and Lydia Orthodox, they decided, notwithstanding Madame Berger’s reluctance, to waive a religious ceremony that neither of them cared about. Lydia was too excited and too confused to sleep that night.

  The marriage took place very quietly. The only persons present were Madame Berger and an old friend of the family, Colonel Legrand, an army doctor who had been a brother officer of Robert’s father; Evgenia and Alexey and their children. It took place on a Friday and since Robert had to go to work on the Monday morning their honeymoon was brief. Robert drove Lydia to Dieppe in a car that he had been lent and drove her back on Sunday night.

  Lydia did not know that the car, like the cars in which he had on other occasions driven her, was not lent, but stolen; that was why he had always parked them a street or two from that in which he lived; she did not know that Robert had a few months before been sentenced to two years’ imprisonment with sursis, that is, with a suspended sentence because it was his first conviction; she did not know that he had since been tried on a charge of smuggling drugs and had escaped conviction by the skin of his teeth; she did not know that Madame Berger had welcomed the marriage because she thought it would settle Robert and that it was indeed the only chance he had of leading an honest life.

  v

  CHARLEY HAD NO IDEA how long he had been sitting at the window, absent-mindedly gazing out into the dark court, when he was called back from the perplexed welter of his thoughts by the sound of Lydia’s voice.

  “I believe I’ve been asleep,” she said.

  “You certainly have.”

  He turned on the light, which he had not done before for fear of waking her. The fire was almost out and he put on another log.

  “I feel so refreshed. I slept without dreaming.”

  “D’you have bad dreams?”

  “Fearful.”

  “If you’ll dress we might go out to dinner.”

  There was an ironic, but not unkindly, quality in the smile she gave him.

  “I don’t suppose this is the way you usually spend Christmas Day.”

  “I’m bound to say it isn’t,” he answered, with a cheerful grin.

  She went into the bathroom and he heard her having a bath. She came back still wearing his dressing-gown.

  “Now if you’ll go in and wash, I’ll dress.”

  Charley left her. He accepted it as quite natural that though she had slept all night in the next bed to his she should not care to dress in his presence.

  Lydia took him to a restaurant she knew in the Avenue du Maine where she said the food was good. Though a trifle self-consciously old-world, with its panelled walls, chintz curtains and pewter plates, it was a friendly little place, and there was no one there but two middle-aged women in collars and ties and three young Indians who ate in moody silence. You had a feeling that, lonely and friendless, they dined there that evening because they had no place to go.

  Lydia and Charley sat i
n a corner where their conversation could not be overheard. Lydia ate with hearty appetite. When he offered her a second helping of one of the dishes they had ordered she pushed forward her plate.

  “My mother-in-law used to complain of my appetite. She used to say that I ate as though I had never had enough in my life. Which was true, of course.”

  It gave Charley a turn. It was a queer sensation to sit down to dinner with someone who year in and year out had never had quite enough to eat. And another thing: it disturbed his preconceived ideas to discover that one could undergo all the misery she had undergone and yet eat voraciously. It made her tragedy a little grotesque; she was not a romantic figure, but just a quite ordinary young woman, and that somehow made all that had happened to her more horrible.

  “Did you get on well with your mother-in-law?” he asked.

  “Yes. Reasonably. She wasn’t a bad woman. She was hard, scheming, practical and avaricious. She was a good housekeeper and she liked everything in the house to be just so. I used to infuriate her with my Russian sloppiness, but she had a great control over her temper and never allowed an irritable word to escape her. After Robert, her great passion was for respectability. She was proud of her father having been a staff officer and her husband a colonel in the Medical Service. They were both officers in the Legion of Honour. Her husband had lost a leg in the war. She was very proud of their distinguished record, and she had a keen sense of the social importance their position gave her. I suppose you’d say she was a snob, but in such a pretty way that it didn’t offend you, it only made you laugh. She had notions of morality that foreigners often think are unusual in France. For instance, she had no patience with women who were unfaithful to their husbands, but she looked upon it as natural enough that men should deceive their wives. She would never have dreamt of accepting an invitation unless she had the power to return it. Once she’d made a bargain she’d stick to it even though it turned out to be a bad one. Though she counted every penny she spent she was scrupulously honest, honest by principle and honest from loyalty to her family. She had a deep sense of justice. She knew she’d acted dishonourably in letting me marry Robert in the dark, and should at least have given me the chance of deciding whether, knowing all, I would marry him or not—and of course I would never have hesitated; but she didn’t know that, and she thought that I should have good cause to blame her when I found out and all she could answer was that where Robert was concerned she was prepared to sacrifice anyone else; and because of that she forced herself to be tolerant of a great deal in me that she didn’t like. She put all her determination, all her self-control, all her tact, into the effort of making the marriage a success. She felt it was the only chance that Robert had of reforming and her love was so great that she was prepared to lose him to me. She was even prepared to lose her influence over him, and that I think is what a woman values, whether it’s a son or a husband or a lover or anything, even more than his love for her. She said that she wouldn’t interfere with us and she never did. Except in the kitchen, later on when we gave up the maid, and at meal times, we hardly saw her. When she wasn’t out she spent the whole time in her little pavilion at the end of the garden and when, thinking she was lonely, we asked her to come and sit with us, she refused on the excuse that she had work to do, letters to write, or a book she wanted to finish. She was a woman whom it was difficult to love, but impossible not to respect.”

  “What has happened to her now?” asked Charley.

  “The cost of the trial ruined her. Most of her small fortune had already gone to keep Robert out of prison and the rest went on lawyers. She had to sell the house which was the mainstay of her pride in her position as an officer’s widow and she had to mortgage her pension. She was always a good cook, she’s gone as general servant in the apartment of an American who has a studio at Auteuil.”

  “D’you ever see her?”

  “No. Why should I? We have nothing in common. Her interest in me ceased when I could be no further use in keeping Robert straight.”

  Lydia went on to tell him about her married life. It was a pleasure for her to have a house of her own and heaven not to have to go to work every morning. She soon discovered that there was no money to waste, but compared with what she had been used to, the circumstances in which she now lived were affluent. And at least she had security. Robert was sweet to her, he was easy to live with, inclined to let her wait on him, but she loved him so much that this was a delight to her, gay with an impudent, happy-go-lucky cynicism that made her laugh, and brim-full of vitality. He was generous to a fault considering how poor they were. He gave her a gold wrist-watch and a vanity case that must have cost at least a couple of thousand francs and a bag in crocodile skin. She was surprised to find a tram ticket in one of the pockets, and when she asked Robert how it got there, he laughed. He said he had bought the bag off a girl who had had a bad day at the races. Her lover had only just given it her and it was such a bargain that he had not been able to resist buying it. Now and then he took her to the theatre and then they went to Montmartre to dance. When she wanted to know how he had the money for such extravagance he answered gaily that with the world full of fools it would be absurd if a clever man couldn’t get on to a good thing now and again. But these excursions they kept secret from Madame Berger. Lydia would have thought it impossible to love Robert more than when she married him, but every day increased her passion. He was not only a charming lover, but also a delightful companion.

  About four months after their marriage Robert lost his job. This created a disturbance in the household that she failed to understand, for his salary had been negligible; but he and his mother shut themselves up in the pavilion for a long time, and when Lydia saw her mother-in-law next it was obvious that she had been crying. Her face was haggard and she gave Lydia a look of sullen exasperation as though she blamed her. Lydia could not make it out. Then the old doctor, the friend of the family, Colonel Legrand, came and the three of them were again closeted in Madame Berger’s room. For two or three days Robert was silent and for the first time since she had known him somewhat irritable; when she asked him what was the matter he told her sharply not to bother. Then, thinking perhaps that he must offer some explanation, he said the whole trouble was that his mother was so avaricious. Lydia knew that though she was sparing, she was never so where her son was concerned, for him nothing was too good; but seeing that Robert was in a highly nervous state, she felt it better to say nothing. For two or three days Madame Berger looked dreadfully worried, but then, whatever the difficulty was, it was settled; she dismissed, however, the maid to keep whom had been almost a matter of principle, for so long as she had a servant Madame Berger could look upon herself as a lady. But now she told Lydia that it was a useless waste; the two of them could easily run the little house between them, and doing the marketing herself she could be sure of not being robbed; and besides, with nothing to do really, she would enjoy cooking. Lydia was only too willing to do the housework.

  Life went on pretty much as it had before. Robert quickly regained his good humour and was as gay, loving and delightful as he had ever been. He got up late in the morning and went out to hunt for a job, and often he did not come back till late in the night. Madame Berger always had a good meal for Robert, but when the two women were alone they ate sparingly; a bowl of thin soup, a salad and a bit of cheese. It was plain that Madame Berger was harassed. More than once Lydia came into the kitchen and found her standing there, doing nothing, with her face distraught, as though an intolerable anxiety possessed her, but on Lydia’s approach she chased the expression away and busied herself with the work upon which she was engaged. She still kept up appearances, and on the ‘days’ of old friends dressed herself in her best, faintly rouged her cheeks, and sallied forth, very upright and a pattern of middle-class respectability, to pay her visit. After a short while, though he was still without a job, Robert seemed to have no less spending-money than he had before. He told Lydia that he had managed to
sell one or two secondhand cars on commission; and then that he had got in with some racing men at a bar he went to and got tips from them. Lydia did not know why a suspicion insinuated itself into her unwilling mind that something was going on that was not above board. On one occasion an incident occurred which troubled her. One Sunday Robert told his mother that a man who, he hoped, was going to give him a job had asked him to bring Lydia to lunch at his house near Chartres and he was going to drive her down; but when they had started, picking up the car two streets off the one in which they lived, he told Lydia that this was an invention. He had had a bit of luck at the races on the previous Thursday and was taking her to lunch at Jouy. He had told his mother this story because she would look upon it as an unjustified extravagance to go and spend money at a restaurant. It was a warm and beautiful day. Luncheon was served in the garden and the place was crowded. They found two seats at a table that was already occupied by a party of four. This party were finishing their meal and left while they were but half through theirs.

  “Oh, look,” said Robert, “one of those ladies has left her bag behind.”

  He took it and, to Lydia’s surprise, opened it. She saw there was money inside. He looked quickly right and left and then gave her a sharp, cunning, malicious glance. Her heart stood still. She had a conviction that he was just about to take the money out and put it in his pocket. She gasped with horror. But at that moment one of the men who had been at the table came back and saw Robert with the bag in his hands.

  “What are you doing with that bag?” he asked.

  Robert gave him his frank and charming smile.

  “It was left behind. I was looking to see if I could find out to whom it belonged.”

  The man looked at him with stern, suspicious eyes.

  “You had only to give it to the proprietor.”

  “And do you think you would ever have got it back?” Robert answered blandly, returning him the bag.

  Without a word the man took it and went away.