# The Eyes of Innocence/IX

IX
AFFIANCED
On the next afternoon, Adèle burst into the room where Gilberte was sitting after lunch:
"M'am, there's Mme. de la Vaudraye and her son turning into the square. Am I to let them in?"
"Yes, certainly, I am expecting them."
"Then it's true what Mme. Duval says, that you're going to marry M. Guillaume, ma'am?"
"Well, suppose I am?"
"Oh, as far as M. Guillaume's concerned, I've nothing to say! But Mme. de la Vaudraye as your mother-in-law! If you want to know, ma'am, I'd rather ..."
The front-bell rang; and she went to the door looking very cross.
​Gilberte shot a glance at the glass over the mantel-piece, pushed a curl into place and nervously made a change in the flowers in the vases, bunches of roses which she had gathered herself. Adèle showed in the mother and son.
Mme. de la Vaudraye was radiant. A moment before, in the main street, the mere sight of her silk dress, her ceremonious walk and her triumphant expression must have told the inhabitants of Domfront the exact nature of her errand.
She entered with the ease of one who is quite at home. Her way of sitting down showed that she was definitely and blissfully taking possession. There was none of the stiffness, none of the preliminary commonplaces that usually mark this sort of interview. Mme. de la Vaudraye was much too eager to come to the point:
"My dear Gilberte, I wish to ask your hand for my son Guillaume."
All their love, all the unspeakable ​happiness of their souls, all their gratitude, all their faith in the future was contained in the glance exchanged by Guillaume and Gilberte. Nothing remained of the irritation which his mother's air of victory caused him, nothing remained of the anxiety which the other felt at this solemn hour.
Mme. de la Vaudraye did not even wait to hear the answer.
"First of all, my dear child, let me speak to you as a friend and as a woman of experience, who knows only too well, by what she herself has been through, that happiness in married life is based upon material prosperity. You know, don't you, how Guillaume and I are placed as regards money? On the death of my poor husband ..."
Guillaume rose and walked to the open window, as though bored beforehand by what was coming. Gilberte felt very much inclined to join him and to leave Mme. de la Vaudraye to fight out with herself the question of the material prosperity on which ​married bliss is based. But the older woman's imperious eye nailed her to her chair; and, nodding her head at intervals, by way of assent, she had to listen to a long speech in which strange phrases like separate and common property, joint estate and settlements kept on recurring.
"That will do nicely," she said, with an air of deliberation, though she did not understand a single word of what was said.
"Are we agreed?"
"Quite, madame."
"Well, children, kiss each other and bless you!"
Guillaume stepped forward and his outstretched arms closed round Gilberte. He kissed her forehead, kissed her eyes. She released herself, blushing, and said:
"It is my first kiss, Guillaume."
He felt a momentary bitterness:
"Your first ... from me."
She smiled:
"A girl must not receive a kiss from any ​but the man she is engaged to ... and are you not the first, the only one?"
"What do you mean, Gilberte?"
"I mean, Guillaume," she said, in accents throbbing with her heart's gladness, "I mean that I am not a widow, that I have never been married, that I called myself a married woman in the hope of escaping attention and that no such person as Mme. Armand exists."
Guillaume was trembling with emotion. He understood, yet refused to admit the truth, so great would have been the anguish of a mistake:
"No, no, I dare not believe it ... you, a girl, unmarried!"
"What is there so extraordinary in that?"
"Oh, Gilberte!"
He had seized her hands and stood gazing at her in ecstasy.
She whispered:
"I was sure that you would be delighted."
"It is something more than delight. You ​seem to me even more beautiful and even more innocent and sacred. I do not love you any better, but I love you differently."
And he continued:
"Is it really possible? Is there no one in your past? Is there not even that shadow on my happiness?"
"My whole past is you, Guillaume."
Mme. de la Vaudraye came up to them. They had forgotten all about her; and her appearance gave them an impression that was all the more painful inasmuch as the sudden gravity of her features was in direct contrast with their own rapture. She said to Gilberte:
"If Mme. Armand does not exist, then whom is my son marrying?"
"Well, Gilberte ..."
"Gilberte whom?"
"Gilberte Me," replied the girl, trying to speak playfully, but half-uneasy at heart.
"Come, child, that's not enough. You must have a surname? ..."
​"I suppose so ..."
"What was your father's name? Your mother's?"
"I don't know."
Mme. de la Vaudraye drew herself up to the full length of her angular figure. It was as though she were learning some terrible event, a catastrophe. Gilbert caught sight of Guillaume's pallor and suddenly understood what she had never even half-realized, the danger of her irregular position where a woman like Mme. de la Vaudraye was concerned. She shook with terror.
Guillaume interposed gently:
"Don't upset yourself, Gilberte. I need not say how little importance I attach to all this; but mother does not look at things from my point of view. Let us hear the facts."
Gilberte, without entering into details, told of the death of her mother, the loss of the family-papers and the whole chapter of accidents which had prevented her from penetrating the mystery that surrounded ​her. As she went on, her voice lost its assurance. All this story, which, until then, she had simply regarded as a source of petty worries, now, under Mme. de la Vaudraye's stern eye, appeared to her the abominable story of a worthless creature. To be without a name! She felt as much ashamed of herself as though they had made the unexpected discovery that she had an ear missing, or a piece of one cheek. And yet, in the silence that followed on her recital she sought in vain for the crime which she had committed, for the crime of which she was held guilty.
"Well, mother," said Guillaume, "there's nothing serious in that."
"Nothing serious!" sneered Mme. de la Vaudraye.
All her little middle-class, provincial feelings were outraged by this unforeseen revelation. The pride of the La Vaudrayes cried aloud within her. What would people say at Domfront if a La Vaudraye married a ​girl without a name, a foundling, an adventuress, in fact! She pictured the tittletattle, the sidelong allusions, the condolences with which she would be overwhelmed.
"My poor friend, how very unpleasant for you! ... Of course, I knew there was something suspicious about her, for, after all ..."
And they would say, among themselves: "No name? Nonsense! When people haven't a name, it's because it's to their interest not to have one, because they are hiding their real name."
She did not take the trouble to put it politely. Bluntly, she declared:
"The marriage is out of the question. It will not take place."
Guillaume protested indignantly:
"Out of the question! And why, pray?"
"Can't you see that for yourself? I'm surprised at your asking!"
"I insist on knowing, as Gilberte's affianced husband."
​"Gilberte's husband! People don't marry ..."
"Silence, mother!"
He was standing before her, with his features convulsed. Another word and he would have closed her lips by mean force. She was afraid of him. He went on, dropping his voice:
"You are right, we had better not continue this explanation in her presence. Any words other than words of veneration I look upon as an insult to the girl I love."
He pushed her towards the door sternly. But Gilberte barred their road:
"No, Guillaume, not like that. ... If we must part, let it not be with angry words. ... I love both of you too well, yes, both of you, madame," she declared, in the voice that no one could resist.
Her gentleness was stronger than Guillaume's violence. He made no further movement. Mme. de la Vaudraye allowed herself to be led back into the room. ​Gilberte made her sit down and knelt beside her:
"Act as your conscience tells you, but, please, without any bitterness against me. ... Whatever you decide to do, do not let me lose your affection."
There may have been a sort of revenge on Gilberte in Mme. de la Vaudraye's unbending attitude. She rejoiced to see this child, who had always dominated her by her goodness and candour, on her knees before her, while she, the judge, looked down from her moral pedestal and put her to confusion from the heights of her respectability.
She did not reply. Gilberte continued:
"You remember our walk, a little while ago, when you showed me the former boundaries of your property. ... Well, I bought it all up ... in order to give it back to you. I hoped to bring you back here, to this house which belongs to you. Everything is yours, you would have managed and disposed of everything, you would have ​been the absolute mistress, answerable to no one, you would have resumed your proper place at Domfront, the Logis would have become what it used to be ..."
A gleam flashed through Mme. de la Vaudraye's eyes, but she restrained herself. The same inflexible will contracted her face into a hard and stiff mask. Coldly, she said:
"I am exceedingly sorry that all these fine plans cannot be realized, but it is not my fault. ... Make enquiries. ... Who knows? ... Perhaps you will succeed in finding out the indispensable truth."
Gilberte, in her despair, was nearly flinging her arms round her neck and saying:
"Stay here, please. ... Be to me the mother whom I have lost. ... I will love you like a daughter ..."
But Guillaume prevented her:
"Why humiliate yourself, Gilbert? ... If my mother will not consent ..."
"Well?"
​"Well, are we not free?"
"No, Guillaume," she answered, firmly, "I will not marry you except with your mother's entire approval."
He turned pale and murmured:
"But ... we shall see each other ..."
"We shall not see each other. We can only see each other by stealth; and that is unworthy of us."
"Suppose I meet you ..."
"I shall not leave the Logis."
"But ..."
"We will wait, Guillaume. Am I not your promised bride?"
He bowed. His mother went out. He followed her.
And Gilberte felt as though she had never been so lonely in her life.