You shouldn’t have let yourself be beaten, you should have thrown her ex-Armand in her teeth …’
The sudden scare in the little thing’s eyes made me turn round: I caught sight of Mademoiselle Sergent listening to us from the doorway.
Help!
What was she going to say?
‘My compliments, Mademoiselle Claudine. You are giving this child some pretty advice.’
‘And you a pretty example!’
Luce was terrified by my reply.
As for me, I didn’t care in the least.
The Headmistress’s fiery eyes were glittering with rage and emotion!
But this time, too subtle to lose her temper openly, she shook her head and merely observed:
‘It’s lucky the month of July is not far off, Mademoiselle Claudine.
You realize, don’t you, that it’s becoming more and more impossible for me to keep you here?’
‘Apparently.
But, you know, it’s due to our misunderstanding each other.
Our relationship got off on the wrong foot.’
‘Go off to recreation, Luce,’ she said, without answering me.
The little thing did not wait to be told twice. She left the room at a run, blowing her nose.
Mademoiselle Sergent went on:
‘It’s entirely your own fault, I assure you.
You showed yourself full of ill-will towards me when I first arrived and you have repelled all my advances. For I made you plenty of them, though it was not my place to do so.
All the same, you seemed to me intelligent – and pretty enough to interest me … who have neither sister nor child.’
Hanged if I’d ever thought of it … I couldn’t have been more clearly told that I would have been ‘her little Aimee’ if I’d been willing.
Well, well! No, that meant nothing to me, even in retrospect.
Nevertheless, it would have been me of whom Mademoiselle Lanthenay would have been jealous at this very moment … What a comedy!
‘That’s true, Mademoiselle.
But, as fate would have it, it would have turned out badly all the same, on account of Mademoiselle Aimee Lanthenay.
You put so much fervour into acquiring her … friendship – and into destroying any she might have for me!’
She averted her eyes.
‘I did not seek, as you pretend I did, to destroy … Mademoiselle Aimee could have gone on giving you her English lessons without my preventing her …’
‘For goodness’ sake don’t say that!
I’m not quite an idiot and there are only the two of us here!
For a long time I was furious about it, devastated even, for I’m very nearly as jealous as you are … Why did you take her?
I’ve been so unhappy, yes, there, you can be pleased, I’ve been so unhappy!
But I realize now that she didn’t care for me – who does she care for?
I’ve realized too that she’s not really worth much: that was enough for me.
I’ve thought that I’d do quite enough foolish things without committing the folly of wanting to take her away from you.
There!
Now the only thing I want is that she shouldn’t become too much the little queen of this school and that she shouldn’t over-torment that little sister of hers who’s fundamentally no better – and no worse – than she is, I assure you … I never tell tales at home – never – about anything I may see here. I shan’t come back again after the holidays and I shall sit for the Certificate because Papa’s got it into his head that he’s keen on it and because Anais would be only too delighted if I didn’t pass the exam … You might leave me in peace till then – I don’t torment you at all nowadays …’
I could have gone on talking for a long time, I think, but she was no longer listening to me.
I was not going to contend with her for her little darling, that was all that she had been interested to hear.
Her gaze had become introspective: she was pursuing an idea of her own. She roused herself, suddenly becoming the Headmistress again, after this conversation on an equal footing, and said to me:
‘Hurry out to the playground, Claudine. It’s after eight, you must get into line.’
‘What were you chattering so long about in there with Mademoiselle?’ demanded the lanky Anais. ‘Does that mean you’re matey with her, now?’
‘Two girls together, my dear!’
In the classroom, little Luce squeezed up to me, threw me affectionate looks and clasped my hands. But her caresses irritated me; I only like hitting her and teasing her and protecting her when the others upset her.
Mademoiselle Aimee came into the classroom like a whirlwind, exclaiming in a loud whisper: ‘The Inspector! The Inspector!’
There was an uproar.
Anything is an excuse for disorder here; under cover of arranging our books with impeccable neatness, we opened all our desks and chattered hurriedly behind the lids.
The lanky Anais sent all the completely distracted Marie Belhomme’s exercise-books flying and prudently thrust a Gil blas illustre, that she had concealed between two pages of her History of France, into her pocket.
I myself hid Rudyard Kipling’s marvellously-told stories of animals (there’s a man who really knows about them!) – though they were hardly very reprehensible reading.