The Scapegoat (25 page)

In an excess of emotional release she slipped off my knee and turned a somersault from the sofa on to the floor, dressing-gown and nightgown flying over her head, revealing her small round behind. Shouting with laughter, her head hidden in the bunch of clothes, her quarters bare, she walked backwards to the screen as Blanche and Renée and Paul came into the room.

Blanche stood still, her eyes fastening on to the naked, capering animal into which the child had turned.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she said swiftly. ‘Pull down your dressing-gown at once.’

Marie-Noel turned, shook herself free, the dressing-gown falling about her, and, perceiving her adult audience, stood and smiled.

‘It’s all right, aunt Blanche,’ she said. ‘Papa and Maman only do it for money, not because they want children. And that’s why everyone in the world tries for boys – it’s good for finance.’ She ran towards me and caught my hand, turning me round to face the relatives with a happy, proprietary air. ‘You know,
Papa,’ she said, ‘aunt Blanche told me that after you were born, when she was a little girl, everyone stopped loving her, nobody took any notice of her any more, and it was one of the lessons in humility that turned her to God. But when my little brother arrives everything will go on just the same. You will love me as much as ever, and perhaps the Sainte Vierge will teach me a different lesson in humility, not the one she taught aunt Blanche.’

It must have struck her that the frozen faces of her aunts and uncle did not reflect her own satisfaction. She glanced at me uncertainly, then back again to the sisters-in-law. Of the two women, Renée, if it were possible, looked the more outraged and shocked. The child sensed this, and smiled at her graciously.

‘After all,’ she said, ‘there are other virtues besides humility. I could learn to have patience, like aunt Renée. It’s not everyone who can grow a baby. She has been married for three years to uncle Paul, and nothing has happened to her yet.’

I
t seemed to me that I had reason to bless Françoise: her weakness gave me an excuse for absence upstairs. It was far simpler to sit with her in the bedroom than down below in the salon with Paul and Renée. I went upstairs and put the child to bed, and when she was settled and tucked in for the night I returned to Françoise and did the same for her. I fetched hot water from the bathroom, and a sponge and soap and towel; then toothbrush and powder, pins for her hair, the pot of cream, the night-cap that tied with the ribbon under the chin. I waited on her like an orderly in hospital, or someone called urgently to minister first aid. I was reminded of those wartime days when, emerging from the tomb where I decoded documents, I took my turn at driving ambulances or whatever came my way during those feverish nights. The sudden intimacy with strangers then, most of them women and children, many of them frightened and in pain, had given me the same feeling of humility and compassion that came to me now as I helped Françoise prepare herself for the night. Her gratitude was intense, as theirs had been. She kept saying, in wonder and surprise, that I was kind.

‘It’s nothing,’ I answered. ‘What else would you expect?’

‘I’m not used to it,’ she said. ‘You’re not thoughtful as a rule. I’ve often come up early to bed, feeling tired, and you’ve stayed down talking to Paul and Renée. But perhaps you’re avoiding them tonight in case they ask you what you were doing in Villars?’

She was as intuitive in her own way as the child was in hers, and I wondered, as I kissed her and turned out the light, whether
she realized instinctively that I had disclosed only part of what had happened during the day.

As I went back to the dressing-room, I remembered the letter from the lawyer Talbert which I had brought away from the bank. It was still in my pocket, and I took it out and read it. It was mercifully clear. The
verrerie
, he said, was running at a steady loss – that at least I already knew – and bankruptcy could only be avoided if it was subsidized from some other source, by the sale of land or securities, for instance, as Béla had suggested. The writer said that he would be glad to come to St Gilles and discuss the matter with me at any time that suited me, and, as the matter was urgent, suggested that I might take the earliest opportunity to arrange an appointment. Presumably it was this letter which had made it so vital that Jean should see the Carvalet people in person and persuade them, if he could, to agree to more favourable terms.

The following day was Saturday, and I decided to go down to the foundry first thing in the morning, before Paul had dressed and had his coffee, to see if there was a letter from Carvalet. The directors could hardly have consulted before Friday, and a letter written afterwards would surely arrive today. I was up and round to the garage for the car before Gaston had come to brush my clothes and take away my tray. This time César let me pass without barking, and when I reached through his gate to pat him, and he wagged his tail, I felt that I had scored a triumph. Nobody was about. Sounds from the cowhouse beyond suggested that the old woman was with the cattle, and I could see the bent back of the man in overalls hoeing in a distant field. I turned left out of the village and up the hill to the straight forest road, and nothing of what I did seemed strange at all. It was all part of my life, more so than anything that had been in other days, this speeding along the smooth road between the oak trees and the chestnuts. And the feeling stayed with me when I drew the car to a standstill beside the gate of the foundry, and, getting out and slamming
the door, called good day to the men already at work.

As I crossed the rough ground to the house behind the big foundry shed I met the postman walking away from it, and I knew my instinct to come early had been right. I went swiftly to the office door, and there was Jacques sorting the letters beside the desk. He turned round, looking at me in surprise.

‘Bonjour
, Monsieur le Comte. I didn’t think you would be here this morning. Monsieur Paul said neither of you would be down.’

I wondered why Paul should have told him so. Was it some sort of holiday?

‘I thought Carvalet might have written,’ I said. ‘I’m expecting a personal letter from one of the directors.’

He went on staring at me. Perhaps my brisk manner was unusual.

‘I hope nothing is wrong?’ he said.

‘So do I,’ I replied. ‘Have you the mail there? Let’s see if there is anything from them.’

He looked down at the small pile of letters in his hand, and second from the top was a long envelope with the Carvalet stamped address.

‘There it is,’ I said. ‘Thank you, Jacques.’

I took it from him, and discreetly he moved away to the table in the middle of the room, while I read the letter with my back to the window. It was all right. It confirmed the telephone conversation and it enclosed the contract, extended for a further six months, drawn up on the new terms. The letter expressed satisfaction that the two firms had, after all, come to an agreement.

‘Jacques,’ I said, ‘have you got our contract there? The old one?’

‘You have it, Monsieur le Comte,’ he said, ‘in the file on your desk.’

‘Look for it, will you,’ I asked, ‘and I’ll glance through the rest of the mail?’

He did not question me, but the expression on his face showed bewilderment. I watched him search through a file in a prominent position on the desk, while I flipped through the remaining letters, which were bills and receipts. He handed me the contract without a word, and I sat down at the desk and compared the two. The wording was identical, except for the crucial matter of the terms of sale. Knowing nothing of the business, nothing of the output of the
verrerie
, I could at least seize the salient fact that in the future Carvalet would pay less for the products sent them.

I felt in my pocket for the lawyer’s letter and laid it before me, beside the contracts.

‘I want to run through the figures,’ I said to Jacques. ‘Wages, production costs, the whole outfit.’

He stared. ‘You saw them recently,’ he said. ‘You and Monsieur Paul and I checked everything before you went to Paris.’

‘I want to do it again,’ I said.

It took us about an hour and a half. It was tedious, incomprehensible and fascinating, and when we had done, and he went through to the kitchen to make some coffee, I was able to compare the final figures he had given me with what they would become under the new contract. The answer was that something in the nature of five million francs would have to be found from the personal account of Jean de Gué to balance costs. I saw his reason for closing down. There was nothing else he could do, if he did not want to sell land or securities. The glass-foundry had been losing money under the old contract: under the new one it ceased to exist as a business at all. It became a luxurious toy, as ephemeral and brittle as the glass it made. My blundering sentiment had cost the owners dear.

I took the new contract, put it with both the letters in my coat pocket, and went through to the kitchen to find Jacques.

‘There, Monsieur le Comte,’ he said, ‘a little refreshment after so much work.’ He handed me a cup of steaming coffee. ‘I am still marvelling at your success in Paris,’ he said. ‘You went really
with no hope at all, more as a formality than anything else. But it proves the value of personal contact.’

‘No one,’ I said, ‘will be out of work. That’s the important thing.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Were you so concerned about the men?’ he asked. ‘I hadn’t realized that. Actually, after the first shock they would soon have found employment. They’ve been prepared for a close-down for a long time.’

I drank my coffee, disillusioned. Perhaps I had meddled to no purpose after all. Someone knocked on the outer door and, excusing himself, he went back to the office. I looked about me, and saw that I was standing in a fair-sized kitchen that must once have done duty for a family, the door beyond leading through to the rest of the house. Curious, I opened it, and saw a broad stone passage, with other rooms leading off it and a staircase rising to the floor above. I crossed the passage and looked into the rooms. They were empty, unfurnished, the walls discoloured, paint cracking, dust thick upon the floors. In the furthest one of all, a fine, square room with panelled walls, there were large pieces of furniture stacked against a wall, cases of crockery, chairs piled high one upon the other, the whole giving an appearance of neglect, as though the owner had put all his possessions to one side and forgotten about them. An old almanac was pinned to the wall, the date 1941, and beside it was a box of books. I bent down and opened one of the books. Inside was written ‘Maurice Duval’.

A fluttering sound by the window made me turn my head. It was a butterfly, the last of the long summer, woken by sunshine, seeking escape from the cobwebs that imprisoned it. I tried to lift the window, but it was jammed. It could not have been opened for years. I released the butterfly from its prison, and it hovered a moment on the sill, then settled once more amongst the cobwebs.

I heard footsteps coming through from the direction of the kitchen. Jacques stood in the doorway, watching me. He
hesitated, then advanced and waited uncertainly in the middle of the room.

‘Were you looking for something, Monsieur le Comte?’ he asked.

His manner was diffident, embarrassed. I wondered if he was in charge of these things, and whether I had broken some sort of family etiquette by exploring the house.

‘Why do we go on keeping all this?’ I said, pointing to the furniture.

He stared at me, then shifted his eyes. ‘It’s for you to say, Monsieur le Comte,’ he replied.

I looked away from him, back to the stored furniture. There was something depressing about it, unused, forgotten, stacked there against the wall, and the room must have been lived in once, a salon or dining-room.

‘It seems such a waste,’ I said.

‘Indeed, yes,’ he answered.

I considered whether I dared venture a question, a question that Jean de Gué would never have put because he would know the answer.

‘Do you think we ought to make use of these rooms?’ I said. ‘Get someone to live in the house, instead of letting it stand empty?’

At first he did not answer. He went on standing there, ill at ease, looking about him at the room and the furniture but not at me. Then he said, ‘Who would you suggest should come here now?’

It was not an answer, merely another question, giving me no clue how to proceed. I strolled to the window and looked out. The sheds were away to the left, and to the right were farm-buildings. Both were separated from the house and its immediate piece of garden by fences. There had been a paved path once, leading to the house from the road, and beside it stood a well, broken, no longer used.

‘Why don’t you live here yourself?’ I asked.

His discomfort became even plainer, and I could tell from his expression that he thought I was attacking him in some way.

‘My wife and I are very content where we are in Lauray,’ he said. ‘It is, after all, only a short distance away, no further than you are at St Gilles. My wife likes to be where there is company. It would be too isolated for her here, besides which …’ he broke off, distressed.

‘Besides what?’ I asked.

‘Everybody would think it a little strange,’ he said. ‘No one has lived here for so long, and then … you must excuse me, Monsieur le Comte, but there are not very happy memories connected with the house when it was last inhabited. Few people would wish to live here now.’ Once more he hesitated, and then, seeming to gather courage, went quickly on, his words spilling out as if he were driven by something stronger than respect. ‘Monsieur le Comte,’ he said, ‘had there been fighting in the grounds of the
verrerie
, a battle between soldiers, that is something one accepts. But when the last man to live here, the master of the
verrerie
, Monsieur Duval, is woken from his bed in the middle of the night, and taken downstairs and shot by his own countrymen, and his body thrown into the well cut to pieces with his own glass, even if it happened a long time ago and is something we all prefer to forget, yet it does not make anybody very anxious to come and live here, where it happened, bringing a wife and family.’