Spirit of Lost Angels

by Perrat, Liza

  ‘Your brother will be pleased to see you after such an absence,’ Claudine said, as she crossed to the stove to brew tea.

  I threw her a rueful smile. ‘And to learn his sister is no asylum madwoman.’

  ‘Of course I’ll miss you, but I understand why you must leave. Everything has taken its toll — the search for Rubie, Aurore’s death, this violent revolution. You are whey-faced and drawn, my child. Once you return to Lucie you’ll perhaps find the gladness inside you again.’

  ‘Yes, this fear of rogue bands sweeping the countryside may well have been born on rumour’s breath,’ I said, ‘and spread by all our fears, yet I must reassure myself.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too,’ I said, as Claudine sat opposite me.

  She shrugged me off with a wave of a pudgy arm. ‘Do not worry for me. The new people here — a successful banker and his wife — are pleasant and happy to keep me on, as well as my …’ Claudine bent to pat Roux, weaving between her ankles and rubbing his cheek against her leg. ‘My new beau.’

  ‘Your beau?’

  ‘Ah, you never thought an old thing like me would get myself a man, eh, my child? He was le majordome at another defunct noble home further along the rue du Bac. Now he is the butler here.’ She winked. ‘You would do well too, Victoire, to find someone to stop this sadness that keeps haunting you.’

  I smiled as she poured our tea. ‘I’m glad for you. You deserve the happiness of a good man.’

  I slid the daily newspaper from my bag. ‘I want to show you something before I leave.’ I smoothed the newspaper out on the table.

  ‘In October, a Second Memoir Justificatif de la Comtesse de Valois de la Motte,’ I read, ‘much more barbed and venomous than her first, was rushed to the printers. Another direct attack on the Queen by Jeanne de Valois, it has stirred the mobs to a new frenzy. Some say of the countess: “Madame de la Motte’s voice alone brought on the horrors of July 14th and the storming of Versailles in October, with the slaughter of troops by the Women’s Army”.’

  I sipped my tea. ‘And here is a quote from the countess: “From the moment of my arrival in London, my only thought was to publish my justification. I too would have preferred to spare the honour of the Queen, and I tried to warn her Majesty that I was in possession of certain letters incriminating her and exculpating me. All I asked in return was restitution of property rightfully mine, seized to enrich the King’s coffers. I never really considered the French court would capitulate, and besides, my main goal was public vindication. So, to this purpose, I eagerly took up my pen, denying my body nourishment and sleep until my memoirs should be ready for publication. Five thousand copies in French have now come off the press and three thousand more in English”.’

  I refolded the newspaper. ‘It seems the readers of England and France can’t get enough of the countess’s memoirs.’

  Claudine drank her tea, her eyes narrowing in the wise look I knew so well.

  ‘Ah, I begin to understand, my child. This countess was a prisoner at la Salpêtrière n’est-ce pas? One of the few who succeeded in fleeing the asylum prison, along with her personal maid?’

  ‘Didn’t I promise to tell you everything once it was safe?’ I said, kissing my friend goodbye.

  With promises to write, I left Claudine, sliding a healthy sum of cash beside her kettle.

  ***

  Beads of November rain, so fine they were barely visible, wet my face as I stepped up into the diligence.

  The horses clomped off and I took a last look at bleak, wet Paris. Despite our revolutionary jubilation, something had vanished from the streets.

  For one thing, there were fewer coaches, the thoroughfares bare of all but trading vehicles. Most of the bright cafés and small shops had boarded windows, with “To Sell” or “To Let” signs, and while many people still walked about, there were fewer loiterers, and most seemed intent on their business. The elaborate coaches and the magnificently dressed folk who’d ridden in them had clothed the capital in the kind of enchanted, fairy tale glitter I’d only dreamed of in books of fables. Now it looked just gloomy. With their martial air, the National Guard patrolling the streets did nothing to improve this drabness. At least they were protection against thieves.

  The rain fell steadily, coursing in muddy channels down the street as we passed the Palais-Royal. Perhaps it was the absence of the Duke of Orléans and his household, who were in London, or that trade was slow, but the palace wore a forlorn, abandoned appearance.

  The windows were shuttered, the paving full of puddles, the grand gates closed, with only the side gates open to admit people to the gardens and arcades. A circus after the circus is over.

  As the diligence rumbled away from the barrière tollhouse, I left Paris with the odd feeling I would never return.

  I ignored my fellow passengers, staring at the naked trees lining the streets, their limbs hanging at strange angles, and dotting the fields like scarecrows, as we rode away from the city. I felt as desolate and bare as those autumn trees.

  Across a field, some sort of raptor was perched atop a dead tree, still and patient. I watched the mighty bird glide down onto an unseen carcass — a magical show against the silken backdrop of rain.

  I turned from the window and caught the leer of a fat man in a dark suit, seated beside me. He leaned closer to speak, his rank smell catching in my nostrils.

  ‘Going all the way to Lyon, madame?’ he said.

  I straightened my back and gave him a small nod, regretting this price I had to pay for travelling without a male escort. I glanced across at the woman opposite me, and envied her, journeying with her husband.

  ‘I hope none of those brigands are hanging about to steal our valuables,’ the dark-suited man said, a little further on, as the diligence stopped at the bottom of a hill. ‘All sorts of whisperings of bandits robbing and raping everything along the road,’ he went on, as we all descended and began walking up the slope, to save the horses’ energy.

  ‘Perhaps madame would care to walk alongside me,’ he said, his buckteeth giving him the comic air of a piglet. ‘For protection against such thugs?’

  I was tempted, as I thought of the diamonds sewn into the hem of my dress.

  ‘Thank you, but no,’ I said, and at each night stopover, I avoided lingering in the common room of the inn, ordering dinner to be brought to my room. I also knew the spies, thugs and thieves of Paris travelled in many guises.

  Lucie-sur-Vionne

  November 1789–July 1794

  43

  As the coach neared Lucie-sur-Vionne I grew more restless, though as I glimpsed the view of Lyon, and Mont Blanc with its familiar crown of snow, I did feel the muscles in my neck and shoulders loosen.

  As I stepped from the carriage, the Monts du Lyonnais, more purple than green in the autumn light, stretched along the valley like maternal arms, and la place de l’Eglise hummed with the usual noises — the anvils of the blacksmith and the clog-maker, the bark of dogs, the quack of ducks, the bustle of people around the fountain and the warm, floury scent of the bakery. Save for the absent equestrian statue of King Louis XV, it seemed unchanged. No sign, here at least, of any pillaging or burning.

  In my city clothes, and swinging a parasol, I couldn’t help but notice the villagers’ garments of coarse cloth dyed from oak tree bark, their sandals, clogs, or plain rope wound around their feet. This obvious display of poverty was something I had forgotten in Paris, where the poor did not appear so destitute in their leftover garments from the rich.

  I looked around at all that was familiar but seemed oddly alien, my gaze resting on the great granite facade of Saint Antoine’s Church. What had become of Père Joffroy when the clergy lost everything — our poor curé, who’d always been so kind to me?

  I glanced across the fields, the woods and hills, inhaling the scent of rotting leaves, of damp earth, and the silvery chill that heralds snow — all that grounded me to this land. I realised how accustomed I’d become to the crowded
city conditions, and how I’d missed this wide expanse of clean, fresh countryside.

  I also understood I was no longer the naïve peasant girl, and wondered how I would see these simple folk now, and what they might think of me. Would they look upon me as a mad asylum woman, with suspicion, and fear?

  I didn’t relish their curious gazes immediately, so I hurried from the square, almost running up the hill towards Grégoire’s cottage, and to Madeleine.

  As I neared the crest, I saw a woman shuffling along, ahead of me. She carried a basket in one hand, and cradled an infant in the other. I recognised her as Noëmie, the poor woman from the woods to whom I’d lent tools.

  I recalled how she’d reminded me of the witch-woman I was so afraid of, and how I learned the painful way those accused of sorcery are rarely witches.

  ‘Noëmie,’ I called, skipping a few steps to catch up to her.

  Noëmie twisted around and I saw she was still lean, but pink-cheeked, and quite different from the desperate, bedraggled woman from before.

  ‘Madame Victoire? You are … you have come back to Lucie?’ Her gaze travelled from my powdered face, across my fine clothes, and down to my embroidered slippers. ‘I am pleased to see you looking so … so fine.’ Her eyes flickered across my flame-coloured hair.

  ‘You look in good health too,’ I said. ‘It seems la chance has shone upon you?’

  ‘My sons and my husband — no longer a journeyman I am pleased to say — found work this past season. We have built our own cottage on the riverbank, not far from your brother’s new home.’

  ‘And that is just where I’m going,’ I said, linking my arm through Noëmie’s. ‘Let’s walk together. I am so keen to see my brother and his family, and my little Madeleine. How grown up she must be now.’

  We took the track that skirted L’Auberge des Anges and led through the woods, towards the river. Noëmie and I swished through the carpet of autumn leaves, under the boughs of grand oaks with their ivy-strangled trunks. I lifted my hood and drew my cloak around me, against the chilly fog; against anybody from L’Auberge who might see me.

  We reached the top of the slope and even as I averted my eyes from the Vionne River, I saw it all again — the whorls of current, small heads bobbing up, down, up, down, in the hollows. Then there was nothing, except the lusty cries of Noëmie’s child.

  ‘Ah, he is a hungry boy, this one,’ Noëmie said. ‘I must stop and feed him.’

  We sat together on a boulder and Noëmie latched the baby onto her breast, who soon made contented, gulping noises.

  ‘I am happy to see you back in Lucie,’ Noëmie said. ‘I tried to tell them you didn’t drown your little children; that you are a good, kind person, but they wouldn’t listen to me. They thought because I was a poor beggar, I must be mad too.’

  ‘You told them?’ The confusion swamped me again. ‘But how do you know? And why did they all believe some diabolical thing had stolen my senses, and I killed them?’

  ‘Because I saw what happened,’ Noëmie said, swapping the baby to the other breast. ‘I tried to tell them all, but nobody — ’

  ‘What did you see, Noëmie?’

  ‘You must have dozed off,’ she said. ‘I came upon you just as your little girl stumbled, and fell into the river. I was too far away to help, and I saw her brother run in after her. So young, but he must have sensed she was in danger. You tried to save them both, but the current stole them away before you could reach them. A terrible tragedy, Madame Victoire, but it was an accident.’

  Her words shocked me into silence, and I could not reply for a minute.

  ‘Why can’t I remember a thing then?’

  Noëmie shook her head, her nutbrown eyes wide with pity. ‘Perhaps it is too awful for your mind to hang onto such a thing?’

  I suddenly felt weary, my legs so heavy I could barely move them.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, smoothing clammy hands down my cloak-front. ‘Thank you for telling me the truth.’

  ‘I kept saying it was a mistake,’ she said, ‘that you weren’t evil or mad, but nobody would take notice of a crazed witch-woman from the woods. After you … when you left, they put up a carved cross for your little ones — your brother and Léon Bruyère — on the slope above the river.’

  I had to get away; to move. Sitting still like this, it was harder and harder to breathe. I must see this cross.

  ‘I should hurry to Grégoire’s,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘They will be waiting for me.’

  ‘Take care, Madame Victoire. You must come and drink some tea with me soon. I will show you our new cottage.’

  ‘Y-yes, I-I’d like that,’ I said, reeling away from Noëmie and her child.

  Staggering like a drunk, I followed the cord tugging me to the Vionne — a thread from the same skein that had entangled my mind when the river stole Blandine and Gustave.

  My pulse quickened as I caught sight of a stone cross a little further along.

  My trembling legs folded to the damp earth beside the small memorial. With a fingertip, I traced their names, in the heart shape carved into the stone.

  Blandine

  Gustave

  1785

  Yes, an accident but they were my children, my responsibility, and I felt the stinging barbs of guilt as surely as if my own hand had held Blandine and Gustave under the water.

  How could I let them drown? How could I do such an evil thing? A bolt of heat struck me, and a shudder of cold. The darkness flooded in and clutched me so tightly I couldn’t get my breath. I lay on the ground, my fingers clutching the cool stone.

  I struggled upright and onto the path I knew so well. My breaths coming fast and shallow, I followed the curve of willow trees until I reached my special place on the riverbank. I slumped down on an icy rock.

  ‘Just a few minutes … a quick rest to gather my senses.’

  The wind gusted from the Monts du Lyonnais, sighing chill and weary on my face. The valley, clothed in moss greens and browns, rose vast and harsh around me, the rotting smells of autumn scenting the air moving back and forth in quick tides.

  A blackbird carved mad spirals through the air, bands of grey light silvered the puckered surface of the water, and the longer I sat there, the more the murmur of the water bubbling across stones was like a beckoning voice.

  ***

  Blandine is thrashing about, a netted butterfly, her eyes wide with a child’s instinctive fear. She reaches out, tries to catch my skirt, and my outstretched hand. I am so close that her fingertips brush mine, then a burst of current carries her beyond my reach and her little hands flail, grasping at cold water.

  Blandine’s face turns the dark hue of a winter sky, her eyes balls of glass, her white shift dancing a lazy liquid waltz. Gustave’s wails are so loud they might be heard all through the woods and up to the village. Or perhaps the screams are mine.

  I wheel around to him, paddling against the drift towards me.

  His face twisted in terror, my son reaches out, desperate to grab hold of me. His head sinks below the water, and I fight its tug, my heart beating in a frantic panic.

  The water pulls stronger than me, and Gustave too, remains just beyond my reach. My son’s face disappears for the last time, and I am powerless, watching the river carry off my silent angels.

  ***

  Without thought or sensible reflection, because I was far beyond that, I stood and walked into the water without a trace of fear.

  I couldn’t feel its coldness; could not feel anything, as my feet slid across its slimy bed. I waded in deeper until the water swirled my cloak about me like clothes drying in the wind, and the circle of current held me there.

  A hoarse, croaking noise startled me. I looked up and saw the Night Washerwoman amongst the willow branches — ghost of the mother who had killed her children. Dark and hulking, she was bent over a rock, scrubbing their little shrouds.

  ‘Come and help me, Victoire.’ The voice came from the depths of the black
hood shadowing a face puckered with grooves. ‘You must, or you too, will be covered in the blood of your children.’ She cackled, revealing a toothless mouth, and I knew the Night Washerwoman had trapped me, and I could not escape her.

  I had won some battles in my life, but I was powerless to fight this conflict rampaging within me. Death was the only reprieve for such a sin; relief from the bondage of my mind. If left to live it would ravage me to the core and consume me like a malignant disease. I could not let such a demon survive in my unwilling body.

  My heartbeat steady, I propelled myself through the water, watching the bank recede, until I reached the deep centre where my feet no longer touched the bottom.

  ‘Please let me go.’ I sank below the surface and once in that dark, secretive underworld, as the coldness seeped into me, I groped about my neck for the bone angel. Where was it? I thought of all the women who’d worn it before me, and I fancied the water lapping over me to be their cries of pain; their tears of grief. Their spirits were calling me to join them. The current closed over me, holding me tight and carrying me towards them.

  With a last glance upwards, in a shaft of wan light, I glimpsed a scarlet smudge on the riverbank. Was it a girl in a red dress, her hair streaming like the tail of a fox on the run?

  My head broke the surface. Chest heaving, I gasped for air. She smiled and raised an arm in a wave.

  ‘Rubie!’ In sharp, panicky bursts, my arms cut through the water towards the bank.

  As I got closer, the red blur became more and more hazy, vanishing, and when I neared the edge, there was only her outstretched arm.

  I gripped the muddy bank, and reached out to the hand, to the clicking, urgent fingers.

  ‘Take it,’ a voice said, though I could not see from where the sound came. ‘Hold onto me, I’ve got you, Victoire.’

  Strong hands held me under my arms, hauling me from the icy water.

  I pushed the tangle of hair from my face, and the last thing I saw before the ashen light darkened to black, was the gaunt gaze of Léon Bruyère.

  44