Girl At the Lion d'Or Page 6

  Near the front door in a pedestal was an iron vase filled with dried bulrushes and next to it a large terracotta pot, from which protruded fishing rods and nets and what looked to Anne like a hunting spear. The dominant feature of the hall, however, was an oak staircase that rose broadly from the marbled floor and zigzagged visibly back on itself before disappearing to a higher landing. Propped against the underside of the stairs was an old green bicycle.

  Anne looked at the clock: five past two. She found that without meaning to she had set one foot on the big staircase. The spring of the wood beneath her foot and the broad sweep of the stairs in front of her made her feel like the lady of the manor, and with a sudden imperious movement she began to climb. It was satisfying to reach the half-landing and look down on the grandfather clock in the hall; and then to climb up to the first floor, feeling the carved banister beneath her hand. The landing was like an image from a dream: it had no logic or cohesion, and seemed half-finished. Corridors led off in all directions, through narrow doors with rattling handles. The main window was blocked by old, unpainted wooden shutters, while a smaller window gave a view of the terrace and the woods beyond. The polished oak wardrobe that stood grandly at the head of the stairs might have been rescued from a regal bedroom, but the dried pine chest and battered pewter jug seemed to have come from a village sale. There were thread-bare mats over the polished floorboards, and everywhere Anne looked there was neglect, with uncleaned oil pictures set against half-distempered walls. And as in dreams it was not the detail that was important, but the lingering impression of something real but unspecifiable that has come momentarily within one’s grasp.

  Anne gazed around her, entranced at the thought of the people whose lives had been played out in these surroundings. It was only an ill-tended aggregation of wood and mineral, of uncertainly commanded space and broken furniture, but something in her heart was moved by it.

  Reluctantly she went downstairs to look again for Mme Hartmann. She found her at last cutting some flowers in the woods beyond the terrace. Mme Hartmann seemed surprised when Anne explained who she was.

  ‘My husband said nothing about anyone coming today.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I was sure he said today.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s quite hard work. I don’t just want the ornaments dusted, you know. I already have Mme Monnier to do that. This way.’

  The two women walked through the rooms that Anne had just gazed at alone, and Mme Hartmann explained what she wanted done. She watched Anne quizzically as she nodded her head in silent assent.

  ‘Of course this cellar is just a start. We’ll be doing up the rest of the house later.’

  ‘You won’t change it too much, will you?’ said Anne. ‘I mean, it’s so . . . unusual, so pretty as it is.’

  ‘It’s a mess. My father-in-law gave up caring towards the end of his life. Half the bedrooms are full of things that belonged to the previous owners, and their family was here for a hundred years.’

  Anne was taken aback at the frank way Hartmann’s wife addressed her, a mere servant. She had expected her to be more distant and also, if she was strictly honest, more beautiful. She was rather forbidding, too, with small eyes that hardly seemed to blink as they travelled up and down Anne’s body, from the headscarf to the stout shoes.

  ‘Has my husband asked you about references?’

  ‘No. He didn’t mention anything.’

  ‘Oh well, it’s probably all right if you work at the hotel. I’ll give you a trial period of four weeks to see how you get on, and then if we’re both happy you can stay.’

  ‘Thank you, madame. Thank you very much indeed.’

  Mme Hartmann led the way through the morning-room and out through the dusty kitchen. ‘Wretched workmen,’ she said, as she showed Anne where the cleaning things were kept. ‘They don’t do a stroke of work. And that silly little man Roussel, he’s always drawing up charts in coloured ink, but how he expects those oafs down there to understand I just don’t know. Anyway, mademoiselle, you can start now if you like. There’s no shortage of things to do.’

  Mme Hartmann took up a wicker basket and returned to her gardening, leaving Anne to make her own choice of where to start work. After she had swept the scullery and scrubbed the steps, she moved into a small room which turned out to be Hartmann’s study. The floor was piled with books, and next to a desk was an open trunk of half-sorted documents. She allowed her eyes to linger on some papers on the desk. Some of the writing was angular and strong, some seemed rounder and less formed, but she recognised at once that they were different ages of the same hand.

  She heard the back door slam and the sound of boots on the scullery floor. Instinctively, she made as if to be tidying a bookshelf. Hartmann had taken off his jacket, which he carried over his shoulder. For a moment he stood in the doorway, as if surprised by her presence.

  She set about dusting, but found herself chattering nervously. ‘Madame made me promise not to touch any of the papers. I’ve been very careful.’

  ‘That’s all right.’ He picked up a book and sat down. She was working only a few feet from where he sat and for some minutes there was silence which Anne didn’t feel it was her prerogative to break. However, when he put down his book, sighed, and stared out of the window she took the chance to ask him what all the papers signified. From there it was quite easy to move on to the subjects of his work. She thought he might tell her to be quiet and get on with her cleaning, but he sat back in the chair and told her about being a lawyer in Paris. It seemed he had had to advise various newspapers on what the laws permitted them to print. ‘I don’t have a very high opinion of our press at the moment,’ he said.

  He told her about the scandal involving a financier called Stavisky. Anne remembered reading about it, but couldn’t recall why so many important people had been worried when the man killed himself.

  ‘The government was very weak,’ said Hartmann. ‘It was frightened of what he might have revealed. That’s why some people say the police were involved in his death.’

  Although Anne had been living in Paris at the time, the events had seemed remote to a waitress in a small café. ‘My boss, at the place where I used to work in Paris, he said we should have Marshal Pétain back.’

  ‘Did he? Isn’t Pétain a bit old?’

  ‘But he’s a hero, isn’t he? The people like him. Wouldn’t he be better than all these men we have now?’

  Anne, who cared very little about politics was relieved when Hartmann didn’t laugh at her, but merely said, ‘You may be right.’

  Although he was gentle when he talked to her, Anne was tense all the time with the fear that she would say something ignorant or foolish that would make him laugh. Against this fear she had to weigh the desire to know more about him.

  ‘Do you miss Paris?’ she said at last.

  ‘A little.’ Hartmann sighed again and stretched out his arms. ‘My father was a traveller who lived all his life in cities. As soon as I was old enough I went abroad, and then to Paris.’

  ‘Is that where your father came from?’

  ‘Yes, but his parents were from Vienna. His father was a banker. I went to stay with them once as a child and the thing I remember most vividly is the amount they ate. Every day they used to have at mid-morning what they called “second breakfast”, which my grandmother insisted everyone attend. There were plates of different meats – venison and cold pheasant, and eggs and dishes of sweetbreads with port and madeira. And they were expecting lunch two hours later. But the funny thing was that none of them seemed fat.’

  ‘But your father, he didn’t stay there?’

  ‘No, he was a great disappointment to my grandfather because he wasn’t religious. My grandfather was Jewish, you see, but my father was an atheist and rather proud of it.’

  ‘What about your mother?’

  ‘She was a good Catholic. She came from the Jura. They met at someone’s house in Reims. They lived in Paris for a while, but my moth
er had a hankering for the country and wanted to be near some water. It was she who found this house. She was a nervous woman and she liked to look out over the lake. She found it reassuring.’

  ‘Did she bring you up a Catholic?’

  ‘Oh yes, though I wasn’t very good at it.’

  ‘They say the Jewish people are persecuted in Germany, just because of their religion.’

  ‘I know,’ said Hartmann. ‘I’ve read that we’re already taking refugees. But it’s happening everywhere, throughout Europe, even in this country. The young men and the war veterans in their leagues, they seem insane to me.’

  Anne thought she had taxed Hartmann’s patience enough with her questions. She picked up a brush and began to sweep the grate.

  It was he who eventually broke the silence. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with all these books. I’m going to have to get rid of half of them unless I want the house to look like a library.’

  ‘There’s room in the hall.’

  ‘I suppose so. Do you like reading, Anne?’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s a wonderful way of escaping, isn’t it?’

  ‘Escaping? Yes . . . I’ve always thought of it as more of a means of coming to grips with things.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ said Anne uncertainly. ‘You do learn things from books, I’m sure. I just like . . . stories, I think.’

  Hartmann picked up some papers and put them down in a different place which Anne assumed had some significance in his private sorting system. Then he sat down again.

  He looked her straight in the eye and said, ‘You’re a very self-confident girl, Anne, aren’t you?’

  His voice held such gentleness that Anne found herself calm. ‘Not really, monsieur. I’m frightened most of the time, just like anyone else. There’s so much in one’s life over which one has no control – whether people will be kind to you, and so on.’ She paused. ‘I never know what’s going to happen to me.’

  Hartmann looked sceptical, which pleased her. ‘Robust,’ he said. ‘Perhaps that’s the word.’

  ‘Do you mean because I can do this heavy work?’ She glanced down at her body, whose lightness was concealed by her white apron, and laughed. Hartmann’s eyes followed hers. She looked up and met his gaze, feeling now a slight confusion.

  ‘Not physically,’ he said. ‘I meant you seemed to be a person who is naturally happy and who wouldn’t be easily upset.’

  ‘Oh, I hope so.’ She smiled. ‘I’d like very much to be like that.’

  Hartmann frowned and looked away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s really none of my business. Sometimes I forget I’m no longer in Paris.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. A different place, old habits . . . Here in the country people are more formal, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Anne, then added boldly, ‘Don’t you hate it?’

  Hartmann laughed. ‘Yes! I can’t bear it!’

  ‘So why did you come?’

  ‘Lots of reasons. But first I want to hear about your life.’

  ‘Oh, monsieur, there’s nothing to hear. It’s not interesting like yours. No government scandals or meeting famous people.’

  ‘But everyone’s life is interesting. Did your parents come from Paris? Were you born there?’

  ‘I – no, we came from the south. But then we moved.’

  His questions, about her family and her home, were simple and polite enough, but Anne’s answers were oblique.

  As she heard herself going through the quick formulations that had saved her so many times before from having to talk too frankly about herself, she felt the intimacy she had created with Hartmann begin to evaporate. Where he had been so honest with her about his life, she was giving him nothing but evasions. No bond, she miserably told herself, can grow between two people when only one is telling the truth.

  More than anything she would have liked to trust him and tell him the secrets and fears of her life, but it was impossible. It was a double burden for her; not only did she live with a history forcibly closed to other people, but the keeping of the secret made it far harder to make the sort of contact that would enable her to reveal it.

  Now Hartmann was laughing. ‘Really, Anne, you make the simplest question sound impertinent. I was only asking where you went to school!’

  Anne went quiet and bent down over the grate.

  Hartmann stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun of you. It’s none of my business. Listen, come over to the window. Isn’t that a lovely view, over the lake? Now that, since you were asking, is one of the reasons I came to live here; the countryside, the lake, the wild birds and of course the house itself.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Anne brightly. ‘I love this house, it’s like a house you dream about, where nothing quite makes sense.’

  ‘I know what you mean. Have you been up to the attic yet? That’s mysterious too.’

  ‘Could I go and see it?’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Not if it’s inconvenient. Some other time. I . . .’

  ‘Come on.’

  He led the way across the hall and up the big staircase. On the landing he turned one of the rattling door-handles and led Anne down a dark corridor in which the floorboards creaked. They passed several doors, through some of which she glimpsed marble-topped tables or wooden bedsteads, piles of dusty linen and opened suitcases. She wanted to grab Hartmann’s arm and pull him back so he would show her round these cavernous rooms with their old closed shutters, garish crucifixes and spectacular jumble of family history. But equally she was thrilled by the momentum of the expedition, which brought them finally to the foot of a tiny staircase which rose more or less vertically into the roof.

  Hartmann went up first and held out his hand to Anne, who felt the grasp of his fingers enclose her wrist and pull her up. Here there were more boxes and papers, as well as an old rocking horse. The attic stretched away down the whole length of the house.

  ‘It was dark as hell in here,’ said Hartmann. ‘My father’s eyesight was going and I don’t think it occurred to him that he could unblock the window. It only needed a hammer to take the nails out of the boards – though I admit I did have the help of one of the builders.’

  ‘The fat one?’

  ‘Yes, with the blue overalls. He seemed quite relieved to get out of the cellar for a change. It’s not very nice down there. I hate to think what it’s doing to that young man’s chest. He hasn’t stopped coughing since he’s been here.’

  ‘And is this all your father’s wine?’ said Anne, pointing to a long row of dusty bottles.

  ‘It’s all that’s here, yes. But there’s more in Vienna. He had a small house there, too. And I’ve still got some in Paris. It’s quite a hoard altogether. That’s why I need a proper cellar.’

  Anne wandered round the attic, not really noticing what she looked at. Hartmann knelt down to examine a box full of papers beneath the recently unblocked window. The light fell across his body, illuminating the dark, springy hair and the grave, flat expanse of his cheek. The longing Anne felt was so powerful that she had to turn away from him for fear that she might throw herself into his arms and beg for his protection. It was difficult now to say whether this was happiness or not; she was intoxicated by frustration. She walked to the other end of the attic so she should no longer be too close to him.

  Hartmann raised his head from the papers and began to speak again, though in some ways Anne wished he wouldn’t. She could not believe he did not now feel the same thing that she had felt by the tennis court. She was sure that he too must sense that their polite conversations weren’t really necessary because they could more easily communicate on a different level. What she couldn’t say for sure was whether he had deliberately chosen to exclude these feelings because he was afraid of what they might lead to, or whether all men were incapable of recognising what they felt until it was pointed out to them.

  He walked down the attic and stood beside he
r, so they were both looking out of the window, to the south over the woods. He was so close to her that she could smell his clothes – a mixture of tweed and new cotton. His leather boots creaked as he leaned forwards.

  He said, ‘Would you be happier if you lived in a room in town rather than in the hotel?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. I couldn’t afford to.’

  ‘But if you could?’

  ‘I suppose if I could afford to then I would, yes. But it’s not possible on what I’m paid.’

  Hartmann nodded. He seemed to be almost touching her. She could hear him breathing. For the first time she felt in herself the sudden intake of desire, which had previously been inseparable from other vague and more powerful feelings. Shocked a little by the simplicity of it, she turned away and looked down to the dusty floor.

  ‘Books!’ he said, walking past her and throwing half a dozen violently into a different trunk. ‘Books and more wretched books.’

  Anne picked one of them up and said, ‘Is this one good?’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Essays by . . .’ She turned the book on its side to read the name on the spine. ‘Montaigne.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He seemed to want to say no more. To fill the silence Anne picked up another. ‘And this one? The Story of Troilus and Cressida. What’s it about?’

  ‘About the lives of two people.’

  ‘A love story?’

  ‘Yes, a love story.’

  ‘Will you tell it to me?’

  ‘Not now. It’s too long. One day, perhaps.’

  ‘Do you promise?’

  He looked up, surprised by her vehemence. She blushed. ‘I just –’

  ‘I promise.’

  Anne felt no more desire, no more happiness, but only the gradual loosening of control on her emotions which she dreaded because it meant she was going to cry.

  Robust, she thought: that’s what he thinks I am. Perhaps, then, I had better be.