The Girl from Paris

by Joan Aiken

  “Thank you for your advice,” Ellen said stiffly.

  His somber face flashed into its sudden surprising smile. “Hoe your own turnips, Monsieur le Comte, is what you wish to say! But now I have a request to make on my own behalf. I am at present reading a novel by your Charles Dickens. Here and there my English is not adequate to understand his phrases; especially with the humorous characters; would you have the goodness, and the time, to spare me a little assistance?”

  “But of course, monsieur; I shall be happy.”

  “You should demand payment for your time,” he pointed out reprovingly.

  “Why? You already pay me,” said the literal Ellen.

  “And I am beginning to think that you are worth considerably more than I pay you! I must confess, mademoiselle, at first I was not overjoyed at the officiousness of Lady Morningquest in foisting upon my household a gouvernante of whom I knew nothing—”

  You thought she would be another ally for your wife, Ellen thought. But what, in fact, am I? she wondered. She began to feel decidedly sorry for the Comte. Elegant, self-assured, keen-witted—yet, visibly, young, perplexed, and vulnerable, he stood rubbing his boot toe with his carriage whip.

  “Your doubts were entirely natural,” Ellen assured him politely. “Indeed they did you credit.”

  “They are now wholly dispelled. And I think already my daughter shows signs of improvement.”

  Ellen could hardly agree. He had not been a witness of yesterday’s screaming fit. “At least her energies are canalized,” she said. “Menispe is a child of unusual—capacities, monsieur.”

  “Can you wonder that she is not as other children?” he exclaimed bitterly. “Her mother has hated her from birth. If only she had been a boy!”

  Ellen doubted whether this would have made the least difference to Louise’s feelings. Matters might have been even worse. But she kept her opinion to herself and admonished the Comte: “Now do not you be upbraiding the poor little creature for what is none of her fault. I myself know how hard that is! My father never had a word or a look for me, because I was not the boy he had hoped for, after two older sisters.”

  “You, Miss Paget?” He looked at her with surprise. “But you are so intelligent and—forgive me—charming in appearance—how could a parent not love you? Whereas my poor little one is like a half-fledged sparrow—she will never win hearts by her looks.”

  He turned toward Menispe, who had been lifted from her mount and now came unsteadily toward them. She was grubby, red-faced and shiny from exertion, her flaxen hair hung in untidy wisps over her eyes. But the light of triumph shone in them. “I rode, I rode, Papa. I rode twenty times round the courtyard!”

  “So you did, chérie! Soon we shall be out galloping together in the Bois de Boulogne!”

  The child leaned contentedly against his leg and he tousled the untidy hair still further, saying, “I think you had best go in to Véronique, ma mie, and have her make you clean.” Over her head he said to Ellen, “But indeed I do not blame the little one for what is not her fault. I—I have an affection for her. Unlike your father, Miss Paget—if he is really so unfeeling!”

  Seven

  Lady Blanche Pomfret had become decidedly tired of her uncongenial guest. She was a woman who derived her principal pleasure from management; when her only sister was killed, and the sister’s husband injured, it had been some consolation to be able to busy herself in selecting a housekeeper to look after Luke Paget’s orphaned family, procuring the best surgeons and nursing attendants to care for the injured man, and arranging for his convalescence to be passed under the roof of the Bishop’s Palace. But Blanche’s generosity and good nature had definite limits, once the first period of activity, negotiation, and arrangement was gone by; and it quite frequently occurred that these limits had been reached before the necessity for her help was finished—as in the present case.

  “It is a great trial that Luke must remain with us until the end of the month,” Lady Blanche told the Bishop. “I have had quite enough of his gloomy face and surly ways, I can tell you! No wonder poor dear Adelaide was becoming so moped latterly.”

  “Adelaide was a feather-pate,” said the Bishop. “I cannot imagine a more incompatible pair. It was characteristic of Adelaide’s self-willed foolishness to marry him—a man for whom she had had a partiality at the age of sixteen!”

  “But do you not think, Mr. Pomfret, that Luke might go home a few days earlier? I am sure he is well enough. And there is no doubt that he looks as if he wished himself a thousand miles from here.”

  “No, Blanche, he is not well enough to go home,” said the Bishop firmly. “I am certain there is something holding up his recovery—he appears so haunted and hag-ridden at times. But I fear he will not confide in me. In any case, Dodd the surgeon still visits him every day—the poor man could hardly ride fifteen miles to Petworth and back. But I will take Luke off your hands this afternoon; I intend driving out to visit old Canon Fordyce at Lavant; Luke can ride with me in the carriage.”

  This was self-denying of the Bishop, who enjoyed his rare solitary excursions into the countryside, and would otherwise have driven himself in his gig; now he was obliged to go in the landau and take the coachman, so as to accommodate Mr. Paget and make him comfortable on the cushions. Nor did Paget seem particularly grateful. He made brief, perfunctory replies to such remarks as were addressed to him, and sat gloomily gazing out of the window the rest of the time.

  The pastoral visit to Canon Fordyce did not take long; the aged canon was bedridden and fast becoming senile; but the visitors were then invited to partake of cake and currant wine and sit talking with the old gentleman’s almost equally aged sister before they could proceed on their way.

  In order to lengthen the outing, the Bishop next ordered his coachman to drive northward toward the Downs, so as to inspect a boundary of some glebe land which was under dispute; then he inquired if Luke would wish to call in on his daughter Eugenia and her husband, since Valdoe Court was only half a mile away.

  “Good God, no!” replied Luke, almost grinding his teeth in the vehemence of his refusal. “Why, they are forever coming to the Palace as it is! I cannot endure Eustace Valdoe—he is such a shambling, mewing pitiful fellow. And Eugenia goes along with his shilly-shallying ways, instead of making him pull himself together.”

  “Oh come, come, my dear Paget,” said the Bishop. “Valdoe isn’t such a bad sort, you know; I like him very well. And he has had a hard time of it, setting that place to rights; his father was a shocking wastrel, I believe he left debts to the tune of fifty thousand. Whereas I hear that by retrenching and improved methods of land use, Valdoe is getting the estate into better heart.”

  “God knows why I ever let Adelaide arrange the match. If I had been properly informed as to his father’s position I would never have sanctioned it,” muttered Luke, conveniently forgetting that he had been glad to get Eugenia off his hands.

  “And as our Member I believe Valdoe is beginning to make his mark,” said the Bishop, unaware that he was touching on a very sore spot.

  “Every time I see them, if I give her half a chance, Eugenia is on at me to let them have a little capital. Capital! As if money grew on trees!”

  “I imagine that Adelaide’s fortune was tied up for her own children?” inquired the Bishop delicately.

  “Well; yes; most of it.”

  Now they passed Valdoe Court, a big old-fashioned house, flint-built, half manor, half farm, which lay on the flat fertile land halfway between Chichester and the Downs. It was surrounded by quite a little township of barns, farm buildings, and estate cottages nestling under massive old elm and ilex trees; seen from the road it looked snug and prosperous enough.

  “Valdoe Court; I only wish I could afford to live in such style,” snorted Luke. “Both my elder daughters did well enough; very well, in my opinion.”

  “And h
ow does your third daughter go on—Ellen?” inquired the Bishop, measuring with his eye the sun’s distance from the horizon. Blanche would not thank him if he brought Paget home before dinnertime.

  “Ellen? Oh, she is residing with some count’s family in Paris; Paulina Morningquest saw fit to remove her from the school in Brussels; I daresay she will be too proud to speak to us soon.”

  “Should you have any objection if we passed the Cathedral on our way home?” inquired the Bishop, as they re-entered the quiet, pleasant streets of Chichester. “As you know, we intend to use the Dean’s bequest on enlarging the nave, as soon as sufficient funds have been acquired by public subscription to provide all that is needed. Recently I asked my architect, Mr. Slater, to remove a part of the prebendal stalls, as a preliminary step, to discover what condition the stonework behind may be in. I fear that a great deal of repair work may be necessary, and we must know how large an outlay may be required, before making our appeal to the parishioners.”

  If this had been intended as a gentle hint to Mr. Paget, who was understood to be very comfortably off, it fell on deaf ears; Luke, though a punctilious churchgoer, had never been liberal in his donations, and was not about to begin now. However, he raised no objection to going round by West Street, and sat in silence as the carriage rolled over the cobbles.

  A cart, with some mason’s tools, was stationed on the green outside the Cathedral, and when they halted they were greeted by Mr. Slater, the architect, a thin enthusiastic young man, who led them in, along the nave, and through a litter of dismantled woodwork to where a couple of workmen were waiting.

  “I am so delighted Your Grace came just now!” said Mr. Slater. “You could not have arrived at a better moment. Come and see what we have discovered: it is a Resurrection Stone! At some time it must have been removed from the west front, and built into the pier—see, there it is—doubtless in some attempt to reinforce the crumbling stonework.”

  “Dear me! A Resurrection Stone! What a singular misuse of such a fine piece of carving.”

  “No doubt they would have had to go a long way to find a slab of equal size. There is no rock in this part of the country. And, of course, at that time, the stone would have been visible here, not concealed by the choir stalls.”

  “Just the same, it is singular, very singular,” said the Bishop, studying the bas-relief with interest. “You say it would originally have been sited outside the west door?”

  “Without doubt.”

  “When do you suppose it was moved to its present position?”

  “In the twelfth century, I would guess—see this early English string course—”

  “Perhaps those early builders, in their simplicity, believed there to be some special virtue in the stone which would protect the tower from further subsidence,” suggested the Bishop.

  “Very possibly. But I fear their hopes were vain. Look here—and here! I do think, though, do not you, my lord, that this interesting and remarkable piece of carving should be shifted from its present position, where no one can see it, and restored to the original site?”

  “Oh, by all means. Yes indeed.”

  “What is a Resurrection Stone?” inquired Luke, who had been listening to this exchange with some irritation and very little interest; his hip was paining him and he wished that he had sat down on one of the benches at the far end of the nave.

  “Why—this is one! Come and look at it, Mr. Paget, it is really most skillfully carved”—and the enthusiastic Mr. Slater lit a couple of rush dips to illumine more clearly the corner behind the woodwork that had been exposed.

  Luke Paget saw a stone slab set into the tower wall. It was perhaps five feet high by four feet wide, and was covered with elaborate carving in deep relief. The scene represented was evidently the Day of Judgment—blessed spirits, at the top of the slab, were drawing up the souls of the righteous, who were abandoning their scattered bodies like so many suits of clothes on the ground, and rising joyfully with outstretched arms to meet the angelic hosts above. Many of the faces were depicted with great liveliness and fidelity.

  “In a number of ancient churches,” explained the knowledgeable Mr. Slater, “there would be two slabs like this, set on either side of the west entrance, facing into the churchyard. That on the right would show the resurrection of the virtuous, and that on the left the damned being dragged down to the infernal regions. So the right-hand one was called the Resurrection Stone, and that on the left, the Doom Stone. In the days before the generality of the populace could read, the carvings would have served as salutary reminders of man’s latter end, and the fate of sinners.”

  “This, then, is the Resurrection Stone.” Despite himself, Luke was beginning to be interested. “But where is the Doom Stone?”

  “It is odds but we’ll find it somewhere behind there,” said Mr. Slater, waving a confident hand at the prebendal stalls. “Where one is, very likely the other is not far off… Very well, then, Your Grace, I will give orders for this slab to be removed; and then, in the course of time, we will restore it to its original position by the west porch.”

  “Axing your pardon, sir, and Your Lordship,” said an elderly workman who had listened to this exchange with a disapproving expression. “Axing your pardon, but you didn’t ought to do that.”

  “Oh, and why not, Hoadley?”

  “You ought to leave that-urr stone where ’er bides. To my way of thinking, ’twill bring larmentable bad luck if you goo shifting ’er. ’Tis an unked thing to shift a Heaven Stone; and do ’ee remember the owd saying now: ‘If Chichester Church steeple do fall, In England thurr’ll be no king at all!’”

  “Why, you silly old man, I am quite shocked to hear you voice such superstitious nonsense—here in the Cathedral, too!” said the Bishop cheerfully. “And you might as well keep your breath to swing your crowbar, for I am resolved the stone shall come out. Besides, who says the steeple will fall? That is just what we intend to prevent, by initiating these repairs.”

  “The stonework certainly is in a shocking state,” put in Mr. Slater. “You may see here how it has settled—look at this great crack. Subsidence has plainly been going on for at least five hundred years.”

  “Well, as yet no harm has come of it; we must hope and pray that the problem can be solved.”

  “‘If Chichester Church steeple do fall, In England thurr’ll be no king at all,’” reiterated Hoadley doggedly.

  “Well, we haven’t got a king now, my dear fellow—we have our excellent Prince Albert, and the dear little Queen!”

  “Ill ’ull come of it—mark my words,” said Hoadley.

  The clock overhead chimed the third quarter.

  “Good gracious me!” exclaimed the Bishop. “Lady Blanche must be wondering where we have got to. We shall be late for dinner. Good-bye for the present, my dear Slater. It is a capital thing that you have discovered that stone, and I shall look forward with interest to your unearthing its companion.”

  * * *

  That night Luke had another of his unearthly dreams.

  He was still subject to intermittent pain from his healing hip, and found it hard to lie comfortably in any position for very long. His slumbers were therefore light and broken. Moreover, the food at Lady Blanche’s table, which he privately considered most unsuitably rich and indigestible, was another factor contributing to broken repose. Dreams came to him many times during a night.

  On this occasion he dreamed that he saw his own heart.

  He seemed to be outside himself, detached from his body, a tiny helpless witness; he saw his heart, massive as some piece of industrial machinery, towering above him, with all its workings exposed to view like a surgeon’s diagram: its auricles and ventricles, its valves, sinews, ducts, and blood vessels. The valves were opening and closing, the heart pumped, the blood coursed up one side and down the other, from heart to lungs, and from lungs back to he
art. Luke watched, awestruck at discovering the working of this immense complex structure laid bare to his gaze.

  But then he began to observe that there was something wrong: or perhaps the heart began to change; he saw that it was made of stone, and that the stone was crumbling, was full of holes, like a great fossilized sponge. And the holes, when he looked closely, were the mouths of faces; the heart consisted of two enormous semicircular slabs that were fitted together and carved all over with images of people; on the right the people were soaring heavenward, on the left they were perpetually falling, falling, with expressions of despair and terror; he could not hear their voices but he knew they were crying out in agony. Their shrieks and wails were drowned by the thud of the great engine itself.

  “But it is foretold that it must be so!” he gasped, as if somebody had uttered a protest. “The righteous shall be saved, and the doomed shall perish. The virtuous must be rewarded, and the sinners sent to prison. The offenders must be punished; they must be sent away from the presence of the righteous. But supposing the machine breaks down! It is so old! What can be done?”

  He woke himself by shouting these words aloud, and lay gasping for breath, in a strange passion of grief and terror; its cause he hardly knew. His face was wet with tears; his pulse raced; and he could not expunge from his vision the final terrible moment of his dream when the stone heart, all eroded away by time and weather, cracked clean in half, and the two parts, cascading blood or dust, had fallen away from each other.

  He lay hugging his arms across his chest, as if in a desperate effort to hold himself together against dissolution.

  “I am not well!” he groaned aloud. “I am not well. That confounded woman’s food is bad for me. I must go home; I must go home tomorrow. I should be in my own household. This is no place for me.”

  He thought of his son Gerard, his life’s last hope, his only bright spot. Gerard must be taken in hand without delay, he needed the utmost discipline and surveillance, for he was liable to terrible waywardness and self-indulgence, outrageous whims and starts: piano playing, natural history, reading all manner of unsuitable trash, instead of bending all his energy toward the career his father had chosen for him.