With the three of us together I think we could have found some semblance of happiness and I wished that I could go back with him.
The next best thing was that he should stay at Tourville and this he did, seeming in those first weeks to be unaware of the passing of time.
He talked to me a great deal of his past life. There had been many women between that first encounter with my mother and the reunion. ‘Yet never once did I stray in deed or even thought when she was with me. Perhaps that does not seem very remarkable to you, but for the man I was it was little short of a miracle.’ He went on: ‘I am pleased to see your friendship with Lisette.’
I am very fond of her,’ I replied. ‘It is not always easy for her. She was educated with Sophie and me and she was with us so much, and then there were occasions when it was brought home to her that she was only the niece of the housekeeper. I think she felt that a little.’
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have done what I did.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘It seemed best at the time.’
‘It was good of you to allow Tante Berthe to have her niece with her.’
There was a faraway look in his eyes and he said at length: ‘I think perhaps I should tell you how it came about. It started years ago when Lisette’s mother came to the hôtel to bring some gowns for my first wife. She was a seamstress employed by one of the fashionable dressmakers, and if any alterations were required, Lisette’s mother used to come to the house to do them. She was very pretty … a dainty, slender girl. I came upon her struggling in with a bundle of materials … far too heavy for her. I carried them for her up the stairs to my wife’s room. That was the beginning of our acquaintance. I was interested in her. Her name was Colette. The inevitable happened. I visited her. She lived in one of those little streets close to Notre Dame … narrow, winding, not very salubrious, where the dyers had their tubs. I was often splashed by the red, blue and green streams which flowed down the gutters. She had two rooms in a house which was run by an old crone. On those days I found it quite an adventure to visit such an area. It meant dressing as an artisan. I was quite young then, so don’t judge me too harshly. I learned that Colette had come down in the world. Like many girls, she had come to Paris for a life of greater excitement than she could enjoy on her father’s farm. She was one of a strictly religious family and longed to escape from it, but she soon found that life in Paris was not what she expected. She could sew well but that was not enough to give her a living. She found a protector … some tradesman who was a little better off than she was. He left her after a while and then she found another. She was not a prostitute. She just took the occasional lover to keep her going.
‘She was a brave woman, Colette, but not very strong and it would have been better for her to have stayed in the country. I did not want to get very involved, being at that time concerned with another lady, but there was something about Colette’s refined looks and air of vulnerability which I found appealing, and I was not, in those days, one to think of restraining myself. What I wanted I took thoughtlessly.
‘So I visited Colette in the house near that nauseating Rue des Marmousets. I would stay for an hour or so and give her enough money to keep her for a month. She was delighted with the arrangement. I forgot her for a while and when she came to the house again my interest was revived, so I went to see her once more.
‘While I was there I was aware of something strange. A noise … a sort of presence. I became rather uneasy. I was in a low-class area. Colette knew who I was. I began to fear that she might have someone hidden there who would take an opportunity to rob me … or even worse. It was a most unpleasant sensation. I dressed hurriedly, gave her the money and escaped.
‘But I was quite fascinated by Colette. She had an air of innocence and I could not believe that she would be a party to anything dishonest, let alone any act of violence. I had gone there simply dressed, taking with me just the money I would give to Colette, but she would have that in any case, so that ruled out robbery. Blackmail? That was laughable. No one would have been very shocked if it were learned that I visited a girl who had invited me to do so. My wife? She knew that I had many mistresses and had raised no objection. No, the thought of someone’s being secreted in those two little rooms for the purpose of harming me was ridiculous. I laughed at myself and when I next met Colette she aroused the same desires in me and very soon I paid her another visit.
‘I heard the strange noises again. I felt the same uneasiness, and I knew for certain that we were not alone. Suddenly I could bear it no more. I had to know. I went to the door between the two rooms. To my astonishment there was a key in it and the door was locked from the side on which I stood. I unlocked it and opened it and there looking up at me was one of the prettiest little girls I had ever seen. She was clearly terrified. She ran past me to Colette and started to cry, “Maman, I didn’t move, I didn’t.” I looked from the child to Colette, who said, “Yes, she is mine. It is a hard job to keep her. When my friends come she must stay hidden.”
‘I can’t tell you how moved I was. For one thing Colette was so frail, the child so pretty; and the fact that I had entertained suspicions made me ashamed of myself and filled me with pity for the brave young woman.
‘After that, my relationship with Colette grew. I wanted to help the child. I bought clothes for her. She was only four years old, I learned. Colette told me that she tried to arrange to do a lot of work at home which was often possible for a seamstress. Then she knew that the child was all right. When she had to leave her she was in a state of dreadful anxiety. I was horrified. I gave her money so that there was always enough for them to eat and so that someone could look after the child when Colette was away. That went on for about a year. Colette was embarrassingly grateful.
‘She told me her story. It was not an unusual one: the coming to Paris, believing she would make her fortune there, perhaps marry a man who was wealthy by the standards she had been accustomed to. She said her family would not help her if they knew because they would be horrified to learn that she had an illegitimate child, but on consideration she thought her elder sister might. Berthe had always been the forceful member of the family and had looked after them all; she had been very upset when Colette had left home. Colette could not bear to tell them of her circumstances.
‘She had not been in Paris long when she found her tradesman. She had believed he would marry her. He had been devoted, but when the child was born he did not care for such responsibilities and his family arranged for him to marry another tradesman’s daughter. He came to see Colette for a while but the visits became less frequent, and then suddenly she learned that he had left Paris and she heard no more of him.
‘So there was poor Colette with a child to support when she found it was all she could do to support herself. She tried bravely. She was a good girl, Colette, admirable in many ways. I did not realize how ill she was. She was suffering from consumption as so many of those girls do, working in stuffy rooms, not having sufficient food … and warm clothing.
‘I did not see her for some time as I had been in the country and when eventually I went to her room I found her confined to her bed. She had at last sent for her sister and that was the first time I saw Berthe. I realized that Colette was dying, for in no other circumstances would she have sent for her sister. Berthe was clearly an admirable woman—stern, not very demonstrative but one who would do her duty as she saw it.
‘I talked to her and she said it would be difficult to take the child to the country. The family was strictly religious and would not take kindly to a bastard. Colette would have known that and it was only because she was desperate that she had begged Berthe to come to her and perhaps suggest some plan.