The Scapegoat (44 page)

Still she said nothing. I think if I had struck her across the face she could not have been more stunned. ‘The house is waiting there for you,’ I said. ‘It’s been waiting for fifteen years. Pictures, china, tables, chairs, even his books, all the things you would have used together. You’re wasted here – don’t you realize it? Ordering meals, directing Gaston and the rest, who know what to do anyway, giving lessons to the child, which could be done by any capable governess …You belong to the
verrerie
, to that house; you could design and engrave again, as you did once, and create something delicate and fragile like the château the child found in the well. And then, instead of sending scent bottles and medicine phials to a firm like Carvalet, who would do better to buy them mass-produced, you could choose your own market, the market Paul will find for you, demanding fine workmanship, artistry, skill, which was what St Gilles gave once, long ago, and can give again.’

I paused, exhausted, drained suddenly of energy, of thought. And just as holding the mother’s hand through the night had seemed to invest me with her own past phantoms of regret, so the eyes of Blanche upon me now, losing their bitterness, becoming reflective, considerate, even kind, gave light somehow to herself, healing her own sorrow, while the loneliness that had been hers was now my loneliness, my pain, engulfing me in a darkness that must be carried and endured.

I said to her, ‘I’m tired. I haven’t slept.’

‘Nor I,’ she said. ‘I found I couldn’t pray.’

‘We’re quits then,’ I answered. ‘We’ve both been to the depths. But the child went first and wasn’t afraid. When you go to the
verrerie
, Blanche, there’s something you might do. Get your workmen to clear the rubble and find the spring once more. There ought to be water in the well.’

I left her sitting there, and went out of her room and down the corridor to the dressing-room. I flung myself on the camp-bed, closed my eyes and slept dreamlessly until past ten, when I awoke to find Gaston shaking me by the shoulder, telling me that I had to be at Villars to see the
commissaire
at eleven o’clock.

I got up, shaved and bathed and dressed again, and went with him into the town. Gaston’s wife and Berthe had asked whether they might come with me, as they wanted to visit the chapel. They stayed in the car during my brief conversation with the
commissaire
, who wished me to read and verify the notes he had taken the previous day. When I came out one of the officials told me that someone was waiting by the car to speak to me. It was Vincent, who helped Béla at ‘L’Antiquaire du Pont’, and he had a small package in his hands.

‘Forgive me, Monsieur le Comte,’ he said. ‘Madame could not get in touch with you in any other way. This package came from Paris yesterday. She knows now it arrived too late. She is so sorry for this. But she wanted me to give it to you, for the little girl.’

I took the package from him. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Some porcelain was broken,’ he said. ‘The little girl, your daughter, asked Madame if it could be mended. It was impossible, as I believe Madame told you. Instead, she sent to Paris for duplicates. She asked me to beg you not to tell the little girl that they are substitutes. She believes the child would be happier not to know, but to keep them now in memory of her mother, believing they are the broken ones made whole.’

I thanked him, and then, hesitating, asked, ‘Did Madame send any other message to me?’

‘No, Monsieur le Comte. Just that, and her deep sympathy.’

I got into the car. The others, Gaston and his wife and Berthe, were still patiently waiting for me, and we went, the four of us, to the hospital chapel, from where Françoise would be brought home the following day. Even in the few hours since the evening before she seemed to have become more remote, unapproachable, a part of time. Gaston’s wife, who wept upon the instant, said to me, ‘Death is beautiful. Madame Jean might be an angel in the sky.’ I did not agree. Death was an executioner, lopping a flower before it bloomed. The sky had glories enough, but not the soil.

When we got back to St Gilles I saw Marie-Noel waiting for me on the terrace. She ran forward and flung herself upon me, then, pausing until the others had gone with the car round to the garage, she turned to me and said, ‘Gran’mie was down early, before eleven. She’s in the salon preparing it for Maman. Maman is going to lie there all tomorrow, so that visitors can come and pay their last respects.’ She looked excited, impressed. I noticed she was wearing the locket pinned on to her dark frock. ‘Madame Yves is helping Gran’mie,’ she went on. ‘Gran’mie sent for her. She said she was the only person who remembered how things were arranged when my grandfather died. They are arguing now about the position of the table.’

She took my hand and led me to the salon. I could hear the sound of voices raised in dispute. I entered the room with
the child, and saw that although the shutters were still closed the lights were switched on and the sofa and chairs had been turned to face the centre of the room. A long table, covered with a lace cloth, stood between the windows and the door. The comtesse was sitting on a chair beside the table, and Julie, with another white drapery over her arm, confronted her.

‘But I assure you, Madame la Comtesse, the table was more in the centre and we did not use the lace cloth but the damask, this one that I have here, which I found myself just now at the back of the linen-room, pushed anyhow, not touched, by the looks of it, since we had it for Monsieur le Comte himself.’

‘Nonsense,’ answered the comtesse. ‘We used the lace. The lace belonged to my mother. It was in my mother’s family for a hundred years.’

‘Very possibly, Madame la Comtesse,’ said Julie. ‘I don’t dispute it. I remember the lace cloth perfectly; you produced it when the children were christened and it made a fine background for the cake. But for mourning, that’s another matter. The white damask is more suitable to pay tribute to Madame Jean, just as it did in 1938 for Monsieur le Comte.’

‘The lace hangs better,’ said the comtesse. ‘No one would know it wasn’t an altar cloth. It would deceive Monsieur le curé himself.’

‘Monsieur le curé perhaps,’ said Julie. ‘He is short-sighted. It won’t deceive the bishop. He has eyes like a hawk.’

‘I don’t care,’ said the comtesse. ‘I prefer the lace. It may be more ostentatious than the damask, but what of it? I intend my daughter-in-law to have the best.’

‘In that case,’ said Julie, ‘there’s no more to be said. The lace it will have to be. And I suppose the damask must go back to the linen-room to be forgotten for another twenty years. Who looks after things nowadays at the château, I ask myself? It wasn’t like this in the old days.’

She sighed, folding the damask cloth on the end of the table.

‘What else do you expect,’ said the comtesse, ‘with servants
as they are today? They none of them have any pride in their work.’

‘Then it’s the fault of the mistress,’ said Julie. ‘A good mistress makes a good servant. I remember when you used to come down into the kitchen we none of us spoke afterwards for half an hour, we were so frightened. Often we couldn’t eat. That is how it should be. But today …’ she shook her head, ‘it’s another matter. When I came this morning little Germaine was listening to the
T.S.F.
True, it was an Office relayed from a cathedral, nevertheless …’ She gestured, her sentence unfinished.

‘I’ve been ill,’ said the comtesse. ‘Things have got out of hand. It will be different in future.’

‘I hope so,’ said Julie. ‘It was time.’

‘You say that because you’re jealous,’ said the comtesse. ‘You always liked coming up here poking your nose into what didn’t concern you.’

‘It does concern me,’ said Julie. ‘Anything that happens here to you, Madame la Comtesse, or to any of the family, concerns me. I was born in St Gilles. The château, the
verrerie
, the village, that’s my life.’

‘You’re a tyrant,’ said the comtesse. ‘I hear your daughter-in-law ran off with a mechanic because you made life impossible for her. Now you have André and your grandson to yourself, I suppose you’re satisfied?’

‘I a tyrant?’ said Julie. ‘I’m the most tolerant woman in the world, Madame la Comtesse. It was my daughter-in-law who nagged from morning till night. It’s a good thing for my André she has gone. Now we shall have peace at last.’

‘You haven’t enough to do,’ said the comtesse, ‘that’s your trouble. Poking about in the
verrerie
grounds with a few chickens. In future you can come up to the château twice a week and help me set things in order once again. I was right, though, about the lace cloth.’

‘You are free to form your own opinion, Madame la Comtesse,’ said Julie. ‘I won’t argue with you, But if it’s the last
word I ever utter, I shall insist that it was the damask cloth we used at the funeral of Monsieur le Comte.’

They stared across the table at one another in perfect understanding. Then the comtesse, aware of my presence for the first time, wished me good day. ‘Everything went well?’ she asked.

‘Yes, Maman.’

‘The
commissaire
had nothing fresh to say?’

‘No.’

‘Then we can proceed with the arrangements as planned. You had better help Renée with the addressing of the envelopes. Blanche has disappeared. I haven’t set eyes on her all the morning. I suppose, as usual, she’s in church. Now go along, both of you, Julie and I have work to do.’

We met Gaston in the hall. He was carrying the packet I had left in the car. ‘Your parcel, Monsieur le Comte,’ he said.

I took it and went upstairs to the bedroom, the child following me.

‘What is it?’ she said. ‘Have you bought something?’

I did not answer. I undid the string and opened the paper. The Copenhagen cat and dog, perfect replicas of the ones that had been broken, lay revealed, I put them on the table where they belonged and then glanced at Marie-Noel. She stood with her hands clasped, smiling.

‘You would never know,’ she said. ‘You could never tell that anything had happened. They are perfect. Just as if they hadn’t been broken. Now I feel myself forgiven.’

‘How do you mean, forgiven?’ I asked.

‘I was showing off,’ she said. ‘I was careless, and so they got broken, and because they were broken Maman became ill. I wish we could stand them in the salon tomorrow, beside the candles, as a symbol.’

‘I don’t think we can,’ I said. ‘It might look odd. I think if we leave them here, with all her things, it will mean the same.’

We went down to the library, and the lists were waiting for
us on the desk. But nobody was there addressing the envelopes, neither Paul nor Renée nor Blanche.

‘Where are they?’ I said to the child. ‘Where’s everyone gone?’

She had already seized an envelope and was addressing it to the first name on the list in a careful sloping hand.

‘I’m not supposed to say,’ she said, ‘because Gran’mie doesn’t know. Aunt Renée is in her bedroom, looking through all her winter clothes. She told me, as a great secret, that after the funeral she and uncle Paul are going away. They’re going to travel, and later on, she said, they might even have a small apartment in Paris. She said she would ask me to stay if you and Gran’mie agreed.’

‘Is uncle Paul also upstairs looking through his clothes?’ I asked.

‘Oh no,’ she answered, ‘he’s gone down to the
verrerie
. Aunt Blanche isn’t in church at all; she went with him, and that’s a secret too. They were afraid that if Gran’mie knew she would interfere. Aunt Blanche wants to look through the furniture that’s stored at the master’s house. She told me that yesterday was the first time she had been inside the house for fifteen years. She said it was a waste nobody lived there, and it ought to be made habitable once again.’

‘Aunt Blanche said that?’ I asked.

‘Yes, she told me so this morning. She’s going to do something about it. That’s why she went down there with uncle Paul.’ For a few moments she addressed the envelopes in silence. Then she raised her head, and biting the end of her pen said, ‘Rather a dreadful thought came to me just now. I don’t know whether to tell it to you or not.’

‘Go ahead,’ I said.

‘It’s just that suddenly,’ she said, ‘since Maman died, everyone is getting what they want. Gran’mie, who loves everyone to notice her, has come downstairs. Uncle Paul and aunt Renée are going to travel, which has made them pleased. Aunt Blanche
has gone to look at the master’s house, where, long ago, before I was born, she meant to live, so she told me once in private. Even Madame Yves is bustling with the linen, which makes her feel important. You have got the money you wanted, and can go spending now as much as you please. As for me …’ She hesitated, her eyes troubled, a little sad, ‘as for me, I haven’t been saddled with a baby brother after all, but have you to myself for the rest of my days.’

I looked at her, a phrase forgotten or repressed forcing itself to my consciousness. Something about hunger, something about greed. Through the half-open double doors leading to the dining-room I could hear the telephone. The sudden ring was an irritation, interrupting thought, for what she was saying to me seemed suddenly important, needing the right answer.

‘The thing is,’ she said, ‘would any of these things have happened if Maman hadn’t died?’

Her question, devastating, terrible, seemed to shake the foundation of all belief. ‘Yes,’ I said swiftly, ‘they had to happen, they were bound to happen. It’s nothing to do with Maman dying. If she had lived they would have come about just the same.’

Still she looked doubtful, not entirely satisfied. ‘When the
bon Dieu
arranges things, everything is for the best,’ she said, ‘but sometimes the devil tempts us in disguise. You remember what it says in St Matthew – “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me”?’

The telephone ceased ringing, Gaston was answering it in the lobby. In a moment or two his footsteps sounded in the dining-room, coming towards us.

‘The point is to discover which is which,’ said Marie-Noel, ‘who gives us the things we want, God or the devil. It must be one or the other, but how do you tell?’