The Cleaner of Chartres

by Salley Vickers

  The Abbé Paul’s favourite image of the presiding spirit of the cathedral was the window of the Blue Virgin and many times over the years he had stood and contemplated her image. But he also had a soft spot for the story worked in the glass beneath her feet: the story of the wedding at Cana, where the supply of wine had threatened to run out and Mary’s son, at her request, had changed the plain water into a plenitude of wine.

  Over the years, the Abbé Paul had come to believe that this gift, of this most remarkable of men, was maybe the most telling of all the gifts in the peculiar story it had been the ruling aim of the Abbé’s life to follow and to serve. The other miracles, as he put it in the strict privacy of his own inner dialogues, were all well and good. But this one seemed to have been born out of a simple celebration of life and a desire to increase for others its quota of joy. It was an attitude which the Abbé could wish more of his fellow Christians shared.

  Because of the restorations the Blue Virgin window was out of sight. Nevertheless the Abbé Paul stood by the scaffolding, summoning, to his imagination, the grave contemplative gaze of the mother and child. As he stood there, a young man came through a door in the screen behind the altar, a good-looking man with a sardonic, tanned face. In his hyper-alert state, something told the Abbé Paul that this was the young man that the Abbé Bernard had seen with Agnès on the occasion which had somehow involved the egregious Madame Beck.

  The man walked towards him as if to leave by the South Door and instinctively the Abbé Paul put out a hand to touch the young man’s arm.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the Abbé Paul. ‘But you don’t happen to know where Agnès Morel might be?’

  The young man stopped and looked quizzically at the Abbé Paul. Then his expression relaxed. ‘I’ve been asked to talk to some social worker about her. Is she in trouble?’

  The Abbé Paul sighed. ‘I’m afraid she may be. There have been some ugly rumours in which Agnès’ name, I feel sure falsely, has been implicated.’

  ‘She didn’t come in here today or yesterday or, come to think of it, the day before. I thought she might be ill. I was going to go round to her house this evening to see.’

  ‘If she’s there she’s not answering.’

  The young man frowned. ‘Shit. Sorry, Father.’

  ‘Not at all. It’s a dirty business. When do you see the social worker?’

  ‘Right now, as it happens. She’s coming to the hôtellerie where I room.’

  ‘Might I walk there with you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Together the two men walked in silence down the hill. Approaching the hôtellerie, the young man said, ‘I’m Alain Fleury, by the way.’

  ‘And I’m Paul. I’m very fond of Agnès. She cleans for me.’

  ‘I’m very fond of her too.’

  ‘She needs friends. Might you feel able to come and tell me how things go with the social worker?’

  ‘I’d be glad to.’

  ‘Thank you. You know my house?’

  ‘One of the finest in Chartres. I’ll come after six, if that’s OK, when I finish at the cathedral.’

  • • •

  Just after six the Abbé Paul welcomed Alain and took his visitor into his study, where a fire was filling the room with a pleasing smell of chestnut wood. He showed Alain to a worn leather armchair and offered him wine.

  ‘Thank you. I’d love a glass.’

  ‘Bad day?’

  Alain blew out his cheeks in a mute whistle. ‘What the hell is going on? The social-worker woman, who, by the way, was a total idiot – I wouldn’t have her give an opinion on a dog – appeared to be implying that Agnès and I were in some sort of sadistic baby-abusing partnership. I mean for Christ’s sake – sorry, Paul – for one thing, I hardly know Agnès. I merely took her out for Sunday lunch. For another she plainly dotes on the boy. It’s sheer fucking madness. Sorry.’

  His host made a gesture as if to brush aside any suggestion of offence. His hands, Alain observed, were, for a man, unusually fine and slender. ‘I’m afraid it may be worse than that.’ He got up and went over to his desk.

  When the Abbé Paul had finally opened the envelope that had been thrust into his unwilling hand by Madame Beck, he had experienced something of an anticlimax. The articles she had been sent by Mother Véronique were scarcely damning. They did not even name Agnès and, even if it were the case that she was the unidentifiable ‘minor’ in the newspaper report, all that could be deduced from that was that the poor benighted girl had spent some time in a psychiatric hospital.

  His first impulse had been to tear up the photocopies but on second thoughts he had deposited them in the locked inner drawer of his bureau. He unlocked it now.

  ‘I’m not sure I should show these to you but some instinct made me keep them.’ He handed the papers to Alain.

  Alain read them and snorted. ‘Is this supposed to be about Agnès?’

  ‘So I’ve been told.’

  ‘She’s not named.’

  ‘No. But the, er, person who gave them to me claims they came from a source which –’

  ‘That vile old nun?’ Alain interrupted.

  ‘Yes. She does seem to have caused a stir.’

  ‘I knew her for a bad lot. She had the room next to mine in the hôtellerie and she snored fit to wake the dead.’

  The Abbé Paul, who sometimes suspected that he himself might snore, felt bound to suggest that snoring was not, as far as he knew, a sin.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t follow the modern notion that you can’t judge a book by its cover. She looked a fright. And the old cat that hangs round the restaurant? She’s another fright. Bet she gave you this crap.’

  The Abbé Paul allowed himself the luxury of a laugh. ‘As you say, Madame Beck.’

  ‘So that’s why they’re questioning Agnès.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s a case of no smoke without fire, a particularly loathsome and fallacious proposition.’

  ‘I tell you what. If Agnès harmed that baby, I’ll smash every glass window in your cathedral.’

  ‘Not mine,’ said the Abbé Paul mildly. ‘And for many reasons, including the preservation of our beloved cathedral, I pray that it won’t come to that.’

  • • •

  Professor Jones, now truly concerned, was racking his brains for the name of Agnès’ friend who minded dogs. An English girl, short, a Northerner but with frighteningly good French which made him blush a little for his own. He’d met her a couple of times when Agnès had stayed late and she’d come to his apartment to pick her up. Rather a terrifying young woman, the professor had found her. But Agnès had referred to her as a friend.

  Remembering that Agnès had mentioned that she and this friend sometimes ate at the jazz café, the professor put on his winter coat, which Agnès had patched, and strolled over to the café.

  It wasn’t a jazz night, so the café was quiet and inside only a few customers were eating. The professor approached the young woman behind the bar. ‘Good evening. I’m looking for Agnès Morel. I believe she dines here sometimes.’

  ‘Agnès? Sure.’

  ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘No, Professor. Not since . . .’ Monique shook her head sadly.

  Surprised that this woman knew who he was, the professor took up her silence. ‘Since?’

  Realizing that he must be ignorant of the scandal, Monique simply said, ‘Oh, since last Wednesday.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said the professor. ‘I wonder if she’s ill.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You don’t happen to know the name of her friend?’

  ‘Terry?’

  ‘That’s it. Do you have her number?’

  ‘Sure.’

  The professor, who had no mobile, nor any intention of owning one, had to return home to ring Terry, who did not ans
wer her phone. He left a slightly querulous message and spent an uneasy evening translating the final chapters of The Secret Garden.

  With nothing to occupy him – the now healthy Colin having been reunited with his father, and the untended garden, along with Mary Lennox’s fate, having been fully restored – the professor found himself doing what he had had half a mind to do since finding the old children’s book from his past. He began a letter to his cousin Gwen at the last address he had for her, which he found, neatly filed by Agnès, among his family correspondence in one of the yellow boxes at the top of the wardrobe.

  48

  Chartres

  Three other people in Chartres were perturbed about Agnès that day. Robert Clément, who had gone to seek advice about the steps required for his proposed change of life, heard the news late, in fact from the restaurant by the Eure where he had seen Agnès with Alain. Like the Abbé Paul and Alain, he first rang Agnès and, getting no answer, went round to her house. Failing to raise her there, he used a resource unavailable to the two other men: he called Madame Badon.

  Madame Badon said she had not seen Agnès since the last weekend she had spent in Chartres but she was in fact proposing to visit Chartres again that coming weekend. In her way, she too was fond of Agnès, who had served her elderly mother faithfully and been of great assistance in the management of Madame Badon’s affair.

  And now the unreliable lover had developed Parkinson’s and Madame Badon was considering moving them both back to Chartres. She did not confide this to Robert but it crossed her mind that it may be no bad plan to revive their old tenderness. She suggested she could come from Paris a day earlier in case by chance Agnès was ill in bed and in need of care.

  The following day Robert met Cécile Badon at the station. She was looking rather well, he thought: slimmer than formerly and more chic in her dress. Her hair, now a fashionable silver bob, suited her better than when it was long and she had used to colour it.

  The old lovers walked the few metres from the station to Madame Badon’s apartment, where she suggested, in the light of his concern over Agnès, that he come inside.

  The apartment was, as always, orderly. Everything was in its proper place and there was no sign of missing human life other than the slight wilt on a vaseful of golden lilies. Agnès’ bed appeared quite unslept in, but then, as Cécile Badon remarked, on the few occasions that she’d been in the room it always looked that way.

  A red nightdress was folded under the pillow. A pair of crimson, gold-worked slippers sat neatly on the rag rug by the bed. The wardrobe was full of Agnès’ colourful clothes but if anything had been removed there was no way of telling. Her toothbrush was still in the bathroom but it was impossible to say if she had taken a spongebag – none was visible but, then, what did that amount to?

  Passing her own bedroom door, Madame Badon touched her old lover’s arm. ‘Shall we?’

  (In years to come, Robert Clément was to recall this moment as his farewell to an old life.)

  • • •

  Philippe Nevers was also worrying. The force of his sister’s reaction, one of hysterical anger and violent accusation, had initially steamrollered him into supposing Agnès was implicated in the injury to Max. Brigitte had shouted and raved on the discovery of the fracture, so much so that the hospital had had to offer her a sedative. She was now, thank God, in a bed beside Max, who was still under observation for a possible head injury.

  Withdrawn from his sister’s destabilizing orbit, however, Philippe began to ponder the logic of the event. That Agnès would attack a baby, never mind one for whom she had shown such loving care, seemed to him less and less likely. Bit by bit, he became convinced that there was something amiss and the feeling was strengthened by a conversation with the doctor in charge of Max’s case.

  Philippe had gone to the hospital to see how Max was doing and to take Brigitte some of the things she was fretting about: her cosmetic bag, for example, about which she seemed absurdly possessed. She was asleep when he came by and on leaving the room he encountered Dr Moreau.

  Dr Moreau stopped to talk to Philippe and, with a casualness which he later questioned, asked him about the events of the evening before Max’s injuries were discovered.

  It transpired that Agnès and Brigitte had given slightly different accounts. Agnès had spoken of a problem with the train that had led to Brigitte getting back later than expected, at nine, while Brigitte had claimed she was home that evening by seven. Perhaps, Dr Moreau carefully suggested, his sister had, in her anxiety, misremembered the time? Might he perhaps be able to clarify?

  Philippe explained that he had not, unfortunately, been present that evening but, although he kept this to himself, Agnès’ version of the evening, as reported by the doctor, sounded to him the more plausible one. In his experience, Brigitte was careless, even wantonly irresponsible, where Max was concerned. And she had, after all, been engaged in the business of ‘reconnecting’ with a potential new boyfriend. Nor could he see any sound reason for Agnès to lie about the time of his sister’s return: it could hardly further her innocence to have been longer with the baby than Brigitte’s account suggested. He had not forgotten the look of concern on Agnès’ face when he told her that Max had been admitted to the hospital. There was, when he considered it, no trace of guilt, or guile.

  Like the Abbé Paul, the professor, Alain and Robert Clément, Philippe rang Agnès’ number, and like them he got no reply.

  • • •

  The third person to be in a state of worry about Agnès that evening was her friend Terry.

  Terry had not owned up to Madame Picot that it was Agnès who had found Piaf. The omission was not entirely intentional, or maybe even conscious. If asked, Terry would have said that she was planning to give her friend the credit once Madame Picot’s ire had died down. But the moment for that admission had not arrived and hearing Madame Picot’s excited account of her friend’s supposed crime produced in Terry a severe pang of remorse.

  Hastening to repair her lapse of loyalty, she said, ‘Oh, but Madame, I should have told you, it was Agnès who found Piaf. She adores babies and animals. I know her very well. She just couldn’t have done such a terrible thing.’

  While a part of Madame Picot did not like to hear this, for it threatened to take the edge off a gripping drama – one in which, through her friend Madame Beck, she had if not a part at least a ringside seat – another part of her was obscurely relieved. Her sojourn with her daughter had reminded her of merrier forms of relationship. She had her own guilt over Agnès. And she had begun to find her friend’s febrile jubilation over her former cleaner’s past disquieting.

  ‘You said you found Piaf in the cathedral crypt.’

  ‘I know, Madame. But it was actually Agnès who found her. She was taking care of that poor old nutter, you know, the one who topped himself.’

  Madame Picot clicked her tongue. ‘I wish you had told me, Thérèse. I should have liked to thank her. And maybe give her a little reward.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Madame, but you were so angry and I . . .’

  It has been said that the leopard cannot change its spots, but human beings, just occasionally, can make a shift, if not in their habitual actions then in their perceptions. The loss and recovery of Piaf, following the episode with the broken china doll, had stirred something in Madame Picot’s gluey soul.

  She waved Terry’s apology aside in an almost regal manner. ‘It’s all right, my dear. I can fly off the handle. Julie ticks me off about it. I’m sorry your friend is in trouble.’

  Fear is not always bad, though no one welcomes it. From it, a frail frond of fellow feeling for Agnès had sprung up in Madame Picot. In addition, she felt a need to punish her old friend.

  49

  Chartres

  It was very dark in the crypt but that was what Agnès wanted. Not the dazzling darkness of the upper cathedral
but the older, deeper darkness of its ancient antecedent. It was cold too. But she had on her father’s heavy coat, and carried in the basket, her one-time crib, a bottle of water. Also a torch, which she would switch on only if she had to. For now, she wanted total darkness, utter obliteration.

  Agnès had no clear idea why she had fled to the crypt, but for her, unlike Father Bernard, it was the very opposite of the haunt of the diabolical. On the contrary, it had always seemed to her a hallowed place. Old and still and unjudging. Unjudging was what she most craved. She opened the door on the north side of the cathedral and walked, like the old pilgrims, for about seventy metres until she came to the replica of the statue of Our Lady Under the Earth.

  Her first thought had been that she would go there to die. It was where the pilgrims had assembled in the past looking for help, hoping to be healed. In the pocket of her father’s coat she had old Madame Badon’s sleeping pills, prescribed at a time when barbiturates were still readily available (the more so to troublesome old people who fretted if they couldn’t sleep), which she had taken from the bathroom cabinet which had never been cleared. There were enough tablets there, with the help of some codeine, to ‘heal’ her, to put her to sleep for all time.

  But, reaching the seated replica of the Virgin, something dented her resolve.

  During the few months before she came to Chartres, Agnès had spent some weeks in a doss house on the shabby outskirts of Evreux. There she had met an old woman – maybe not so old, she calculated now, but the woman had had the face of an eighty-year-old and trembled like an aspen leaf when Agnès helped her to the bathroom. Her doss-house companion, whose name was Iris, had told Agnès a little of her life. She had once had money through a wealthy husband, but had left the husband for a sax player who had regularly attacked her until she had finally found the strength to leave. Iris told Agnès this story one night when Agnès had confided that she felt there was nothing left for her to do but die.