The Blue Rose

by Kate Forsyth

  The drive led through ancient woodland, trees as old and gnarled as Father Time.

  It was like travelling through a long tunnel. David could see nothing of the sky, or the lake, or the hills.

  This is not the way to approach a marquis’s home, David thought. The drive should be broad and firm, and show a new vista at every rise.

  Darkness fell. At last the potholed road led to a cluster of stone houses and barns on the shore of a lake, dimly lit by the moon. A narrow stone bridge supported by three arches spanned the water, leading to a tall medieval fortress built on an island. Sharp-pointed towers, battlements and a gatehouse armed with a heavy iron portcullis made the château seem like something out of an old tale.

  The only sound was the song of frogs.

  David alighted from the coach and stretched his stiff muscles.

  ‘Wait here,’ he told the two postilions, who dismounted wearily and went to the horses’ heads.

  David crossed the bridge and came to the closed gate. He rang the bell vigorously.

  A long tedious pause. He rang the bell again.

  At last the gate creaked open. An old man appeared, white-bearded and rumpled, dressed only in a long nightgown and nightcap, his bony feet thrust into sabots. He lifted high his candle, grunted a few unintelligible words, then shut the gate in David’s face. Impatiently David rang the bell again, and heard the old man cry, ‘Une minute!’

  Some time later, the gate was opened by a tall man with pockmarked skin and a neat brown wig, carrying a lantern in one hand.

  ‘Who is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘I … I am David Stronach.’ His throat was dry. ‘I am the gardener from the Jardin du Roi …’

  ‘Ah, yes. The English gardener. What are you doing here so late?’

  ‘It took so long … I did not expect …’ David was so tired, he found himself fumbling for the right French phrase.

  The man nodded. ‘The road is very bad. You would have done better to stay in Paimpont overnight and hazard it in the morning.’

  David stammered an apology, but the man said, ‘It is no matter. You are here now. I am Monsieur Corentin, the steward of Belisima-sur-le-lac.’

  David bowed in greeting.

  ‘You must be tired,’ Monsieur Corentin said. ‘Let my men look after the horses, and come and wash and refresh yourself.’ He rang the bell with great vigour, and men came clomping into the courtyard, jackets thrown on over their nightshirts. Yawning, they went to tend to the horses.

  David was so tired he felt an unpleasant swaying sensation.

  ‘Pierrick?’ Monsieur Corentin beckoned to a young man in a flowered waistcoat, and gave him some instructions in a low voice. Pierrick nodded and slipped away. He soon returned with a steaming ceramic mug. David took it with thanks and sipped. He had been expecting tea, so was rocked back on his heels by the potent brew within. It was some kind of mulled cider, fragrant with honey and cinnamon, which burned a fiery track down his gullet. David coughed and spluttered, laughing.

  ‘Hot apple cider with apple brandy and fermented honey,’ Pierrick said in strongly accented English. ‘Is good, yes?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ David agreed, putting the mug down. It brought new strength and vigour to his limbs, but made his head swim.

  ‘Have some more?’ the young man offered. When David declined, he grinned and swigged back the last mouthful himself. ‘A shame to waste it,’ he explained with a saucy wink.

  David frowned, not liking his impudence. He followed Monsieur Corentin across the bridge and into the inner courtyard of the château. It was a large dusty square, with an old cart in a corner and barrels in another. A wide set of stone steps, littered with leaves, swept up to an immense arched door.

  A formal parterre garden here, David thought. Hedges of box and cones of yew, with silver-leafed plants planted within to reflect the grey slate of the roof.

  The Marquis de Valaine wanted David to create a garden of love to celebrate his wedding, so David had already ordered a great many seedlings which he knew had a romantic association. White lilac, for love at first sight. English box for constancy, birch trees for new beginnings, and orange trees for fertility. Lavender for devotion, rosemary for remembrance, forget-me-nots for never-ending desire, and sweet-faced pansies for love’s thoughts. He would order more from Paris once he had designed the garden.

  In the kitchen, the postilions drank cider and ate soup while a thin woman crept about with a jug, topping up their ceramic mugs. Her dark hair was hidden by a cap, her dark gown by an apron. The old man in the nightgown and sabots was sitting in a rocking-chair by the fire, smoking a long clay pipe. He scowled ferociously at the sight of David.

  ‘Yannic, our head gardener,’ Monsieur Corentin said. ‘He will show you about the gardens tomorrow.’

  David bowed his head in greeting, but the old man only stared at him with suspicious eyes. He’s not pleased to have an outsider coming in to oversee his precious gardens, David thought. A foreigner, to boot!

  He tried to smile reassuringly, but the old man was not mollified, puffing so angrily on his pipe that clouds of smoke filled the air.

  ‘Madame Cazotte, can you prepare Monsieur Stronach some supper?’ the steward asked, and the thin woman ducked her head in agreement.

  Pierrick showed David through to a small sitting room, where he laid the table with a starched white cloth and silver cutlery, then brought a jug of warm water, a bowl, and a bar of soap wrapped in a linen hand-towel. David was glad to wash the dust from his face and hands, and was even gladder when Pierrick came back with a bottle of wine and a fine crystal glass. His mother slipped in after him, carrying a plate covered with a silver cover. Silently she lifted it to show cold pigeon pie, served with a wild mushroom fricassee and a salad of greens dressed in oil and vinegar. Dense brown bread was accompanied by primrose-yellow butter studded with crystals of salt.

  As David sat down to eat in solitary splendour, he could hear the sounds of jocular conversation from the kitchen beyond. He was, he knew, in a strange no-man’s-land as far as social etiquette went. Too lowborn to be invited to sup with his employers, too well-bred to break bread with the peasants.

  Laughter came from the kitchen, then the sound of song.

  David ate in silence.

  Mist wrapped the château, muffling all sound.

  As David guided the raw-boned gelding he had borrowed towards the forest, he was surprised to see two high-heeled shoes set neatly side-by-side on the gatepost. The shoes were made of cerulean-blue brocade, with red heels and silken ribbons. He glanced back at them as he rode past, puzzled. They seemed so incongruous in this sylvan setting.

  As the sun rose, it struck through the mist in long rays that his grandfather had always called God’s fingers. He came to the edge of a meadow. A young woman and a three-legged puppy played together with a stick. She was dressed in a loose white dress and had a crown of wildflowers set crookedly on her long dark curls. Wild roses and ox-eye daisies and the airy umbrels of bishop’s lace. Her slender feet were bare. The dog was white with red ears and feet. David dimly remembered a tale his grandfather had once told him, about the red-eared fairy hounds of Annwn, who rode with the Wild Hunt on certain nights of the year. To hear their baying was a warning of death to come.

  At that moment, the puppy looked towards him, lifting the stump of her foreleg. David saw she had a great round spot on her side, like a target. The young woman glanced up. Her face was narrow-boned, her nose high-bridged, her eyes black as sloes. Seeing David on his horse, she bent and caught up a wide-brimmed straw hat, filled with wildflowers as if it was a basket. With the dog at her heels, she ran for the forest, her bare feet and ankles showing under the hem of her gown.

  ‘Wait!’ David called. ‘I’m sorry, I did not mean to startle you.’

  But she had gone into the mists.

  Slowly David rode back along the path. The girl had looked like a fairy queen from one of his grandmother’s stories, he t
hought. As if she rode upon a white hart and lived within the hollow hills. David grinned ruefully. It was just the medieval atmosphere of the château, he told himself. She would be a peasant girl from one of the cottages, playing truant instead of doing her spinning.

  As he rode back to the château, he saw the high-heeled shoes were gone from the wall.

  ‘I thought a formal parterre in the inner courtyard,’ David said.

  Yannic shuffled along, leaning on a stick and scowling. ‘Mamzelle won’t want all the old cobblestones dug up. Her ancestors laid them, and she’ll want them left just the way they are.’

  ‘But it would look so beautiful, looking down from the château,’ David argued.

  ‘Pffff!’ The old man blew out his breath in disgust.

  David saw, on the far shore, a grove of willow trees trailing their long tendrils in the water. ‘We could put a Chinese temple there. Lacquer-red, with a pagoda roof and golden dragons.’

  Yannic made the derisive noise again. ‘Mamzelle won’t hold with that. Heathenish.’

  ‘But Chinese temples are à la mode,’ David protested. ‘Monsieur le Marquis said he wanted all that was fashionable.’

  ‘Mamzelle don’t hold with fashions,’ Yannic said.

  David took a deep breath. ‘Is it possible for me to speak to this Mamzelle?’

  ‘She’ll be in the stillroom. That way.’ Yannic pointed a gnarled finger.

  David went through the archway to the kitchen courtyard. To his surprise, it was crowded with people. A woman cuddled a fretful baby. A man waited, a bloodstained handkerchief tied about his hand. Two boys sat in the dust, playing with sheep knuckles. One had a black eye, the other a split lip.

  When David asked the way, the boys pointed to a low-roofed stone building jutting out into the garden from the base of the tower. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’ one of the boys asked sympathetically. ‘Don’t worry. Mamzelle will fix you.’

  David tapped on the blue-painted door. A low sweet voice called, ‘Come in.’

  Within was a long, cool room with a flagstoned floor and windows that looked out to the courtyard on one side and the kitchen garden on the other. Most of the room was taken up with an old wooden table, with shelves against the stone walls and a sink with a water-pump.

  An old man sat on a chair, one arm outstretched on the table. Before him stooped a slight figure, a big apron tied over her white muslin dress. Her sleeves were rolled up to the elbow, and she had a kerchief tied over her dark curls.

  She glanced up, and smiled. ‘You need my help, monsieur?’

  It was the young woman from the meadow. Blood rushed through his body.

  ‘Pardon me, mademoiselle … I was looking for the daughter of Monsieur le Marquis,’ he said in careful French.

  ‘I am she,’ she answered, in his own language. ‘You must be the English gardener.’

  ‘I’m not English, I’m Welsh,’ he answered, then cursed himself for sounding like a fool.

  ‘Indeed? Is Wales not part of England?’ She spoke English well, with a charming French accent. Her eyes were the blackest he had ever seen.

  ‘Not according to the Welsh.’

  She smiled. ‘Ah, oui. Like our Bretons here. They think themselves Breton first, French second. But you must not let my father know. English gardeners are le dernier cri … how do you say? The latest fashion? He will be most displeased if he knew he had a Welsh gardener instead of an English gardener.’

  David found himself smiling. ‘I will be sure not to tell him.’

  ‘If you will excuse me, please?’ she said. ‘Monsieur Bernard here has burned himself most badly. I have made a … what is the word? A balm?’

  ‘A salve?’ David suggested.

  ‘Bon. A salve. I have made for him a salve that will help.’

  As she anointed the old man’s angry burn with the sweet-smelling ointment, David looked about the room. On the table was a large stone mortar and pestle, a set of scales, and various pots and jars, filled with wild roses, ox-eye daisies, chamomile, feverfew, selfheal and bishop’s lace. David remembered how he had seen her dancing in the dawn, wildflowers in her hair. She had been collecting medicinal herbs, he realised.

  The deep stone windowsills had been turned into a kind of cabinet of curiosities. David saw oak galls, feathers of all sizes and colours, seeds, pine cones, butterfly wings, tiny skulls, old birds’ nests, fossils. It reminded him of his own windowsill when he had been a boy, spending most of his days out on the hills.

  The marquis’s daughter was gently bandaging the old man’s arm. Monsieur Bernard gave her a toothless grin and patted her cheek. She helped him up and passed him his walking stick.

  He said something to her in thick Breton patois, and she answered him in the same language as he shuffled out the door.

  ‘Tell those little rascals to come in next,’ she called after him in French, then turned to David, switching without a moment’s hesitation into her charmingly-inflected English. ‘I am so sorry, I hope you will pardon me, but I must not stop. Many people need my help today. I presume you wish to speak to me about the garden, yes? I will not be free until this afternoon, and then only if my great-aunt takes a …’ She paused and waved a hand in the air. ‘I cannot think how to say it. Une petite sieste.’

  ‘A nap?’

  ‘Oui, but something about a cat … a nap of the cat.’

  ‘A catnap.’

  She laughed. ‘It is an expression of the most ridiculous, yes? But exactly right for my great-aunt who is like a very fat, very lazy cat.’ The next moment, her face filled with dismay. ‘Je suis désolée, monsieur! I should not have spoken so. Always I am told I must turn my tongue seven times in my mouth before I speak, and always I forget!’

  David had seen Madame de Ravoisier being carried to chapel in her velvet-hung sedan-chair. She had barely managed to squeeze inside. ‘Truth will out,’ he replied solemnly.

  Her eyes flew to his in startled laughter. ‘That is Shakespeare, is it not? I do not believe my father would accept such a sentiment as an excuse for my disrespect. He is of the opinion that a maid should be seen but not heard.’

  She began to tidy away the salve and soft cloths.

  David did not want their conversation to stop. ‘How did you learn to speak English so well?’

  Her face sobered. ‘When I was a little girl, I had a governess who was most strict, most unkind. She cared only that I sat up straight and sewed a neat seam. She did not like me to read books, or visit the farm animals, or play with Pierrick, who is my milk-brother, you know. So I was always running away and hiding from her, and she was always tying me to my chair to keep me still.’

  David gazed at her, appalled. He could not imagine tying a little girl to a chair.

  ‘Then, when I was of the age fourteen, Pierrick and I made an explosion most spectacular, concocting fireworks for the dauphin’s birth.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘My father, Monsieur le Marquis, he was displeased. He told Madame Malfort she must go. So then I had a new governess. Her name was Miss Hayward. She looked exceedingly stern and forbidding, for she had such a nose! Like an eagle’s beak. And she wore only black, for she was mourning her one true love who had died most romantically saving his commander in battle. She was kind, though, and had a great many English books that she used to read to me at night. And her French was not good, even worse than yours. And so I learned English to please her.’ She sighed. ‘When my father sent her away, I was desolate.’

  ‘Why did he send her away?’ David asked.

  ‘Monsieur le Marquis said she was too soft and had filled my head with foolish notions unbefitting one of la noblesse.’

  He would have liked to have known what so-called foolish notions her English governess had taught her. The idea that all people were born equal in the eyes of God, and should share the same rights and privileges and protections? He hoped so.

  ‘After Miss Hayward went back to England, I had a new governess, from Austria,’ the marquis�
�s daughter went on. ‘Frau Schwarz was not soft, not at all, she liked cold baths and stout boots and a good hard tramp in the forest, but my father did not like her teaching me biology or how to gallop and so he … how did your Shakespeare say? He sent her packing. After Frau Schwarz, there were no more governesses. I was sent to Versailles instead.’

  All the humour had vanished from her face. Her hands clenched.

  David wanted to know more, but just then the door opened and the two boys tumbled in. A breathless woman accompanied them. ‘I’m sorry, mamzelle, I could not find them! They were in the orchard, pelting each other with apples.’

  ‘Wicked boys!’ the marquis’s daughter said. ‘For punishment, you shall gather up every bruised apple and give it to Briaca to make gâteau. And you must help her roll out the pastry and sprinkle the sugar.’

  The boys looked at each other in delight.

  She made a swift gesture of dismissal to David. ‘You must go now,’ she said in English once more. ‘If my aunt has the catnap, I will meet you in the garden when the abbey bells have rung.’

  ‘Wait!’ he cried. ‘I do not know your name.’

  ‘I am Héloïse-Rozenn-Viviane de la Faitaud de Ravoisier,’ she answered with immense verve.

  ‘No wonder everyone calls you mamzelle,’ he said.

  She laughed. ‘The Abbé calls me Viviane. It is easier, non?’

  ‘I’m David Owen Stronach,’ he said. ‘Not nearly so impressive.’

  ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Monsieur Stronach,’ she said quaintly, holding out her hand to him. He bowed over it and went away in a daze.

  The hours until he could see her again dragged past at a snail’s gallop. David ate the lonely repast the cook prepared for him, his thoughts full of the marquis’s daughter. She was not what he had expected at all. There had been no cold hauteur, no disdainful pride. She had been as natural and frank as a boy. Perhaps it was because she had spent her childhood in the Breton country, so far from the rigid etiquette of the royal court. Perhaps it was just her nature. He remembered how she had laughed and played with her dog in the dawn. She had been filled with what his grandmother called joie de vivre.