The Scapegoat (37 page)

Paul said to me, ‘You had better get home to St Gilles. I’ve telephoned to Gaston to bring the Citroën. Blanche and I will stay here to make arrangements, and Gaston can drive you and Renée in the Renault.’

I could tell, by their faces, that they had been discussing what must be done. There was a certain quiet formality of tone and gesture that went with the aftermath of death. Nothing was referred to me direct. Mistakenly, the bereaved are left alone to indulge grief. It would have been better to give me something to discuss, to sign, to arrange. Instead I watched them, silent, ineffectual.

When Gaston came I sensed relief. They wanted me out of the way. Renée silently pushed me into the front seat, herself got into the back, and we drove away.

Gaston’s face was shocked and drawn. He had not said anything to me when I had climbed into the car, but silently, gently, he had put a rug over my knees, a strange, touching gesture of sympathy for sorrow. I wondered, as he took the familiar road again, whether he thought, as I did, of the morning’s drive and that of the preceding night, hours so remote that they seemed never to have been.

The closed shutters of the château were the first sign of mourning, and I supposed that Gaston, after Paul had telephoned from the hospital, had given orders for this to be done. Yet life would not be denied. Long rays of daylight stole through
the chinks and patterned the floor in the salon, and the tribute of mourning to Françoise, lying still and peaceful in the small hospital room, seemed somehow useless and false. The sun and the warmth of day had never harmed her; it was we who had lacked forethought and care and had thrust perception out of doors.

Gaston had also given orders for a meal to be laid in the dining-room, for none of us had touched any food. More to satisfy him, I think, than ourselves, we sat down and ate mechanically. Renée, subdued and gentle, revealing another facet of herself, told me how she and Paul had driven to every farm during the morning within a radius of ten kilometres, inquiring for the child, and had only returned to St Gilles at half past twelve. It was strange, I thought, how sudden death, like war, brings instant sympathy. The challenging, sensual Renée of the past week was now natural, kindly, anxious to help us all, suggesting that she should make up a bed for Marie-Noel in Blanche’s room so that the child would not be alone, or that Paul should move from their room and the child go to her, offering to fetch her from the
verrerie
– ready to do anything to make the sudden loss less frightening, less appalling for Marie-Noel.

‘I don’t think she will be frightened,’ I said. ‘I think – I can’t explain why – she was prepared.’

Renée, who a few hours before would have said immediately that everything Marie-Noel had done was outrageous, exhibitionist, and she should be severely punished, answered nothing, except that children who walked in their sleep should never sleep alone.

Presently she went upstairs and I continued sitting in the dining-room, thinking. After a while I called Gaston and asked him to go to the
verrerie
with a message for Julie. Would he, I said, tell her that Françoise was dead, and that I wanted Julie to break the news to Marie-Noel?

‘Monsieur le curé is upstairs with Madame la Comtesse,’ he
said to me, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Does Monsieur le Comte wish to see him now, or presently?’

‘How long has he been here?’ I asked.

‘Madame la Comtesse sent for him as soon as Charlotte told her of the accident.’

‘When was that?’

‘I don’t know, Monsieur le Comte. Monsieur Paul and I could get no sense out of any of the women here when we returned and heard what had happened. They were too upset to explain anything clearly.’

‘I’ll see Monsieur le curé directly,’ I said. ‘Meanwhile ask Germaine to come to me.’

‘Very good, Monsieur le Comte.’

Germaine was already in tears as she entered the room, and at sight of me her face crumpled afresh. It was a moment or two before she could control herself.

‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘You only make it harder for all of us if you give way. There is something I want to ask you. Did you know Madame Jean had got up and dressed this morning before the accident?’

‘No, Monsieur le Comte. I took her breakfast at nine, and she was still in bed. She said nothing to me about getting up. Mademoiselle Blanche sent me to make inquiries in the village about the child, and when I came back I went straight to the kitchen. I never saw Madame Jean again.’

The tears were welling into her eyes once more, and I had nothing else to ask her. I told her to send Charlotte to me.

It was a moment or two before Charlotte appeared, and when she did I saw at once that the hysteria of the morning was now over. She was watchful, self-possessed, and the small, beady eyes looked up at me almost with defiance. I did not waste any time. I said to her immediately, ‘When we all went out this morning to look for the child, did you go back again to talk to Madame Jean?’

There was a momentary hesitation in her eye, and then she
said, ‘Yes, Monsieur le Comte. I just slipped in to say a word or two of comfort while she was having breakfast.’

‘What did you say to her?’

‘There was nothing much I could say, Monsieur le Comte. I begged her not to worry. The child would soon be found.’

‘Did she seem very anxious?’

‘She was more concerned about the little one’s state of mind, Monsieur le Comte, than about her actual disappearance. She was worried that the child might have turned against her. She is too fond of her Papa, she said, and of Mademoiselle Blanche; she does not come to her mother as she should. Those were her exact words.’

‘How did you answer that?’

‘I told her the truth, Monsieur le Comte. I said that when a father idolizes his daughter as Monsieur le Comte idolizes Marie-Noel, it is always difficult for the mother. I had an aunt who experienced the same trouble. It was even worse when the daughter grew older; she and the father were inseparable, and my aunt had a nervous breakdown in consequence.’

‘Did you tell her that by way of comfort?’

‘I told her because I was sympathetic, Monsieur le Comte. I knew that Madame Jean was often lonely here.’

I wondered just how much damage Charlotte had done, now and in the past, in the château of St Gilles. ‘Did you know Madame Jean meant to get up?’ I asked.

Again the flicker of hesitation. ‘She said nothing definite,’ Charlotte answered. ‘She told me she did not like staying there all alone not knowing what was happening. She asked me if Madame la Comtesse was awake upstairs. I said not yet, that she was sleeping late. She said she might have some ideas about the child. Then I took her tray and went downstairs to do my washing and ironing. That was the last time I saw Madame Jean.’

She shook her head slowly as she said this, and sighed, and clasped her hands, but there was nothing genuine about the gesture, like the flowing tears of Germaine.

‘At what time did Madame la Comtesse wake?’ I said.

Charlotte thought for a moment. ‘I’m not sure, Monsieur le Comte. I think it was a little before ten. She rang for me, but she did not want anything to eat. I told her about the child. She shrugged her shoulders; she wasn’t interested. She sat in her chair, and I made her bed, and presently, seeing she did not need me, I went below again. I was still below in the sewing-room, ironing, when the accident happened. Both Gaston’s wife and I heard Berthe the cow-woman scream, and we ran out … but you already know that, Monsieur le Comte.’

She lowered her eyes and her voice and bent her head. I told her curtly she could go, and as she was leaving the room I said to her, ‘When you broke the news of the accident to Madame la Comtesse, what did she say?’

Charlotte paused, her hand on the door, then turned and looked at me. ‘She was horrified, Monsieur le Comte, stunned. Because of that I sent at once for Monsieur le curé. I could not give her anything; it would not have been wise. You understand me?’

‘I understand you.’

When she had gone, I went upstairs to the dressing-room and through the bathroom to the bedroom. Someone had closed the shutters here as elsewhere, and the window too. The bed had not been made, only the sheet and blankets pulled back. I went to the window and opened it, and the shutters too. The base of the window came to my hip. It was possible to sit on the sill, lean out, and lean too far. Possible, but not probable. Yet it had happened … I closed the window and the shutters once again. I looked around the bedroom that gave no clue to what had passed, no hint of tragedy, and then went out and shut the door behind me. I walked along the corridor, up the stairs, through the door to the other corridor, and so to the room in the tower at the far end.

I
did not knock. I opened the door and went straight in. The room was shuttered like the others, the window closed, but here even the curtains were drawn too. No daylight penetrated; it might have been winter. A lamp was turned on by the bedside, and another on the table by the stove, and the fact that the sun shone brightly at four o’clock on the late, lingering, autumn afternoon made no difference to the changeless room in the tower, which was always dark, always barricaded against the day.

The dogs had been banished elsewhere, and the only sound was the low murmur of the curé, praying, and the echoing response from the opposite chair. Both had their rosaries in their hands; the curé was kneeling, head bowed, the mother sat huddled in her chair, shoulders hunched, chin touching her chest. Neither stirred when I entered, but I saw the mother’s hand holding the rosary tighten an instant, then relax, and the Amen that followed the Pater and the Ave became louder, more fervent, as though the voice was conscious of a more earthly audience.

I did not kneel – I listened and waited. The murmur of the curé ran on, monotonous, soothing, stifling thought, and it seemed to me that this must surely be his purpose, whether he was praying for the living or the dead. The spirit of Françoise, lying in the hospital room, did not wish to be reminded of what had happened to her in the world she had deserted, and the mind of the mother here, who echoed the prayers, must not waken suddenly with a question. The cadence, smooth and toneless, the humming of a bee inside the petals of a flower, dulled
interrogation, and my senses and my nerves, which had been strained, ready to snap, became gradually numbed, tuning themselves to the atmosphere and tempo of this room without life.

When the last Gloria was said, and the last Amen, there was a pause before the world took charge once more, the speaker became corporeal, the voice became the curé with his gentle old baby face and his nodding head. Rising to his feet, he came to me at once and took my hand.

‘My son,’ he said, ‘we have been praying so hard for you, your mother and I, and we have asked that you may be given courage and support in this terrible moment of affliction.’

I thanked him, and he continued standing, holding my hand and patting it, his face troubled for my sake, yet serene. I envied him his singleness of purpose, his belief that we were all of us erring children or lost lambs whom the Good Shepherd would gather in His arms or into the fold, whatever our omissions and our sins.

‘The child,’ he said, ‘would you like me to tell her?’ – going straight to what he felt must matter most to me. I replied no, I had asked Julie to tell her, but that presently both Paul and Blanche would be home, and perhaps he would arrange with them the many things that must be done.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘that now, tomorrow, and always I am at your disposal, ready to do all in my power for you, and Madame la Comtesse, and the child, and everyone at the château.’

He blessed us both, took his books and left the room. We were alone. I said nothing. Nor did she. I did not look at her. Then suddenly, on impulse, I crossed to the window and pulled back the heavy curtains. I opened the windows wide and the shutters too, flinging them back against the wall, and air came into the room, and light. I went and turned out the lamps, and it was day. Then I stood beside her chair, and the sun of late afternoon shone down on her so that nothing was hidden; neither the grey pallor of her face, nor the hooded eyes, nor the raddled cheeks, nor the massive jowl, and as she raised her
hand to shield her eyes from the sun the sleeve of her black wool coat fell back, showing the puncture marks between wrist and forearm.

‘What are you doing? Are you trying to blind me?’ she said, and she moved forward in her chair, trying to escape the light. Her rosary fell to the floor, and her missal too, and I picked them up and gave them back to her, and then stood between her and the sun.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Happened?’ She repeated the question after me, raising her head and staring, but she could not see my eyes because I was in shadow. ‘How do I know what happened, imprisoned here as I am, useless, nobody even answering a bell? I thought you had come to tell me what happened, not I you.’ She paused a moment, then she added, ‘Close the shutters and draw the curtains. You know I hate the light.’

‘No,’ I said.

She grimaced, and shrugged her shoulders. ‘As you wish. It’s a strange moment to open them, that’s all. I gave orders for Gaston to close the château. I presume he has done what he was told.’

She settled herself back in her chair, and taking up her rosary put it between the pages of her missal, as though to mark the place, and then laid both on the table by her side. She eased the cushions at her back and moved the footstool under her feet.

‘Now the curé has gone,’ she said, ‘I could tell Charlotte to bring back the dogs. They always make a nuisance of themselves when he is here. Why do you keep standing? Why don’t you draw up the chair and sit down?’

I did not sit down. I knelt on one knee beside her chair, my hand on the arm of it. She watched me, her face a mask.

‘What did you say to her?’ I asked.

‘What did I say to whom? To Charlotte?’

‘To Françoise,’ I said.

Nothing happened, except that she sat more still. Her left hand ceased to play with the fringe of her shawl.