Chương 15: Chapter XV
The music-room was filled with the sharp odour of shellac, originating from the freshly lacquered frame of the painting by the door. From the divan on which he was lying, Guillory had thrown his book upon the low oak armoire and regarded the newest addition to his ever-growing collection. It was an elegant piece of early work from an impressionist he had come to appreciate. The loose brush strokes suggested, rather than delineated, the subject of a slender beach, blending one colour into the next with almost no boundary between them.
The handlers had brought in the picture but ten minutes ago. The frame was standing against the wall and every moment the men could re-emerge from the hallway where they had left the tools in order to hang the Boudin. James found himself fascinated with the fleeting moments the painter captured, the interplay between mist, fog, sunlight, clouds, and water; these themes, painted in feathery splashes of bright colour gave the painting a shimmering effect.
Considering that he would soon go and ready himself for tonight's event, James decided to do so earlier, and thus avoid the noise the nailing of the painting would produce.
He passed the corridor towards the hallway, returning the polite nod the handlers gave him and stretched himself out. While James had no idea how he got home yesterday, he could still feel the wear of it. And James reasoned he ought to thank Mathi and Richard tonight for taking care of him. James was aware that, no matter how much he drank, his tolerance didn't improve. But he refused let it become a point of concern.
On the table in the hall, old Louis had put the letters that had come in that afternoon. James moved the office-papers closer to him, rapidly looked through three pieces, made a few notes with a pencil, and pushing away the papers, turned to the telegrams. Not finding anything noteworthy, he left to have a look at them on a later date. Knowing full well he would curse himself for his decision tomorrow.
The dresser on the first floor was a modest room consisting of two armoires including a central mirror flanked by two carved wooden doors. The mirror reflected some amount of silvering; but it was very faint and did not distract from use. A single divan and a four-panel screen stood folded away by the single slender window looking out over the garden. A Villanis bronze figurine depicting a sculptress carving the bust of a woman carried a sidelight and enlightened the room that fell in the shadow of the grand beech outside.
It had overall been a particularly busy day. As he was now working for Mr Moreau, James balanced both studies and work; and as of that morning at Mr Moreau's office, people had begun arriving with petitions, and then the reports, interviews, appointments, dismissals, apportionment of rewards, and then there came pensions, grants, notes, the workaday round, as Mr Moreau had called it, that always took up so much time.
Now standing in front of the mirror, buttoning a blue lawn shirt he had never worn, James contemplated whether he was really required to be there tonight. He would rather go to bed. And yet he knew it was required of him to make social appearances now and then. Oscar made himself known by jumping on the low dresser. James regarded the animal as he went and opened the drawer to acquire a proper pair of cufflinks.
"Get off, Oscar. Not yours."
Oscar waddled his way over and stared at James in that slightly reproachful, slightly disdainful way that he had.
"Did you miss me, today?" James asked. "Cared about me at all?"
Oscar continued to stare unenthusiastically at him. Then curled up and closed his eyes.
James had refrained from voicing a rebuke when Mr Moreau had told him to be there. 'A good moment to extend relations' he had called it. And so James did as he was told, more than happy to have clear instructions. He'd always been very good with instructions. There was something reassuring about them, about knowing exactly what people wanted from him, how best to please them. Mindlessly, cruelly, paired with grim determination, James sighed and directed his tired mind to thoughts that did not revolve around the bed two doors down. It was his own fault. Bad decisions; bad consequences. Nobody to blame but himself.
Oscar opened his eyes long enough to give James a look that was a curious mixture of disdainful and hopeless – James was sure that other people's cats did not look this weary on such a regular basis – and he sighed, mentally waving goodbye to an evening of any sort of peace.
A call resounded from behind the door:
"Sir? You have a visitor waiting on you in the parlour."
"I'm going out tonight," James complained.
"It's Miss Aldouin, Sir."
"Serve her some tea."
"Yes, Sir."
James called the valet back. "Did they leave yet?"
"Sir?"
"The handlers. Have the handlers hung the painting yet?"
"They did, Sir."
"Serve it in the music-room, then."
It was not rare for Mathi to seek him out before a soirée. They would talk and he would play her a piece of music. Or squabble over a game of cards. More often they would simply sit in content silence, as James would spend the majority of their joint afternoons puttering through the paper, while Mathilda read or wrote.
"You're here early," James said when he spotted Mathi lounging on her favourite sofa, dressed for the evening, and with a pot of tea hot and damping on the table that separated them. James passed into the room, fumbling with his collar before he was distracted by the Boudin and curled prying fingers round the frame to right it.
"Am I?" Mathi said. He turned.
"I didn't expect you at all to be honest. I thought I was to come and get you tonight."
Mathi exalted a wearisome breath and tilted her head, regarding the picture as she gestured for him to take a step to the side. "Papa is being impossible these days. So much that he won't be pleased to see even you."
James grunted in understanding.
Mathilda's father was fond of people in his own peculiar, distant way. Although he welcomed any visitor his wife and daughters wished to entertain, as of late, he did not so much enjoy, as tolerate it. This was quite understandable, as both his factual and imaginary maladies were piling up and his horror for drawn-out dinner-parties was only increasing as he aged.
Conscious of the fact that his daughters, both at a marriageable age, wished to venture out into the world, Mr Aldouin was surprisingly understanding where it concerned rendezvous, and, deeming Mathilda and Elaine both mature enough to behave themselves properly, contented himself in meticulously judging the young men that came up to the house. Accordingly, he and Mrs Aldouin often entertained themselves by passive-aggressively tormenting the youngsters: husband and wife remained absolutely silent, awkwardly so, submitting those brave enough to stern, frowning looks and beleaguered the young men, whom, in turn, quietly subjected themselves. The two Caucasian sheepdogs that, even when seated, came up to a tall man's hip, where there merely to set the mood.
Something the hounds succeeded in magnificently.
In short, Mr and Mrs Aldouin very much enjoyed their little act of terror. Certainly in the knowledge that it conveyed the fact that their daughters ought to be treated with respect. If not — as far as all young gentlemen were convinced — Mr Aldouin, retired army personnel (now executive of a textile mill), would summon the entirety of the French military upon them.
The only young man between twenty and thirty not subjected to this frightening ordeal was James Guillory, whom was, as was earlier established, an habitual guest in the Aldouin household. Whenever he made his entrance, Guillory was greeted by a friendly, somewhat grave but overall well-meant nod, and a polite inquiry after the welfare of his studies and the good health of his parents. Unfailingly paired with an invitation to lunch or dinner.
Until now.
"Is he able to leave his bed?" James enquired.
"Oh— yes. He's up and about before sunrise. He doesn't get much sleep these days. Pain's keeping him awake. But sit down already," she impatiently waved a hand, "I find it so very trying when you fret about like that."
He indulged her request. And as he did James screened the table, his eye falling on the paper halfway hidden beneath the tea.
"Did you read the thing on the imprisonment of Charles Duclos?" He crossed his legs and leant back, "what did you think?"
"It's a complicated matter."
"Life is complicated."
"Nobody wants to believe that life if complicated anymore," Mathilda sighed as her fingers traced the detailing on her cup, "it's the infantilism of our society; people can't seem to bear complexity. The idea that things aren't easy to understand — the fact that there are gradations — baffles them. And renders them unable to think."
James smiled: "people do have a tendency to see the world in black and white."
"Well, I say: good people do bad things and vice versa."
"But when good people do bad things don't they become bad people?"
She frowned and rested her elbow on the armrest, leaning into it. "Should everything be an equation? Do the bad qualities and the good qualities cancel each other out? If you murder someone, do you get away with it when you've singlehandedly saved another? I believe my doctor would be able to kill half of his arrondissement without juridical consequences on his part if we followed that principle."
He let out an amused puff of air and let it play out into a laugh. Mathi had opened the doors leading to the terrace, so that a heavy scent carrying lavender and siring overcame the smell of shellac that had earlier occupied the room. James regarded the bush of lavender that waved in the light summer wind that stirred amidst the trees of the garden outside. He ought to tell the gardener to trim some of the lavender before it disrupted the way to the terrace.
"Poor man," Mathi mused, eying Duclos's headline. She tilted her head as if attempting to read the article sideways. "He's almost pitiful."
"Pitiful?" James arched a brow as he looked back at her. "One might envy him... saying what he likes."
She glanced up briefly from the paper before returning her attention and Mathilda's lips narrowed to that line that said she agreed but was not about to show it. "What's stopping you from doing so?"
"Well, I have great relish for honesty and even absurdity — but I deem politeness and decency to triumph it."
"That's where I think you very wrong. As much as I would wish the world peaceful and rosy, I don't believe politeness is the way to achieve it. It's a form of censure; I thought you all against censure."
"In reality, I'm torn. You're too much of an influence on me."
"Deem yourself lucky. My influence is what makes you so likeable."
A warm flow settled in his chest. "You know, you're not half as charming like that."
"If only."
As if she was connected to the clock on the oak table by her elbow, Mathi ventured to set down her cup at precisely one minute before eight, rose and threw him an enquiring look. James chided her for being so eager, sinking deeper into the sofa, saying: "Leave me in peace. I want to remain at home."
She side-eyed him. "Richard called me this morning and told me he had some friend to introduce. He'll be disappointed to see me there without you."
James groaned and tipped his head back. He had hoped Mathi would forget about the party. He would rather stay in with her all evening. Play some cards.
"Do you really want to go?" He asked. "I can't even remember the family's name." Of course he did remember their name. And Mathi knew that.
"Brodeur,' she said nonetheless. "I'd like to go. We don't have to stay long."
James then sighed, regarded his vest and said: "Fine. I shall be ready in fifteen minutes."
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