by Perrat, Liza
A gentle voice tugged me from the nightmare of glacial water, the current trapping me, my life eddying away. I sat up on the straw mattress, gazing about the same room I’d once shared with Armand Bruyère.
‘Ah, you’re awake.’
‘Léon? What … how did I get here? When?’
‘You don’t remember?’ As he sat beside me on the bed, I expected to inhale his familiar scent of earth, hay and horses but Léon smelled more like damp and mouldy linen — the musty smell of an unaired house.
‘Only yesterday,’ he said. ‘I saw two women walking along the path beside L’Auberge. I recognised Noëmie but the other one … I noticed the way she walked — that so familiar walk. She seemed different, so much more … more sophisticated, but still I was certain.’
He took my hand, rubbed my knuckles with a calloused thumb. ‘I followed you; saw you at the memorial, then when you walked into the river … I couldn’t let you do it.’
I slumped back on the pillow. ‘I couldn’t live with myself; with what happened to them. Noëmie told me it was an accident, but still …’
I swung my legs over the side of the bed. ‘Madeleine … and Grégoire … they will be so worried. I must go to them!’
A panicky sensation set my heart racing, and it all rushed back — Léon and his treachery, but now he’d brought me here, I burned to know why he’d sent me to such a gruesome asylum. I wanted to stare into his dark eyes; to tell him he was wrong, and make him shake with remorse and shame. The anger bloomed, and I started to tremble with every terrible memory I thought I’d banished.
‘So, you see,’ I said, shrugging his hand off. ‘I was not the mad murderess you banished from Lucie five years ago — mad enough to have me locked up in God’s worst Hell!’
Léon’s face darkened, as if in shadow. ‘I did not know what to do. You were so … so bereft. For the melancholy to strike you as it did, everyone said evil had possessed you. They said there was nothing to be done when a person gets in such a way, and I had to send you away to drive the wicked madness from you.’
‘Only fools equate madness with devilry, Léon! I would have died in there, if I hadn’t escaped. La Salpêtrière does not make people better. It is simply a place to forget them.’
I jerked away from his hand hovering over my arm. ‘When I realised it was you who sent me there, I never wanted to return to Lucie, and I definitely never wanted to see you again.’
‘They all said you drowned Blandine and Gustave in a moment of insanity,’ Léon went on. ‘A madness demon that terrified us all. Nobody believed the rantings of the beggar-woman, Noëmie. We did not know what to do.’ He sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. ‘It was not only me who decided, but I beg your forgiveness.’
‘Absolution is not that easy,’ I said. ‘It takes time, that is, if it ever comes. But all that — the madhouse — is over now. So much has changed. I’ve changed. Our country has changed.’
Léon waved a thin arm. ‘Yes, nothing will be the same, after the looters.’
‘Looters? You mean they came to L’Auberge, those brigands everyone has so feared?’
‘No, not brigands. Those stories were not much more than the mindless panic of the people. Just common thieves, but as you will see, when you’re well enough to get up, the result is the same. They took everything — the crops, the animals, the furniture, even the food from our kitchen. Late hailstorms destroyed the harvest and we are destitute. We shall all be dead before next spring.’
‘We?’
‘There is only Adélaïde and Pauline left, besides me. The others are dead from hunger, or sickness, or I don’t know what.’
Léon’s face seemed to twist in pain as he gazed out the window, across the Monts du Lyonnais. ‘The farm is mine but I am unable to provide for or protect my sisters, as I promised my father. They are frail and too afraid to leave the house.’
‘I am well enough to get up now, Léon, and I want to see what they have done to Armand’s farm; to our inn.’
***
A blanket curled about my shoulders, I stood with Léon in the u-shaped courtyard, staring about at the decaying buildings of L’Auberge des Anges.
The shutters were either closed or hanging from their hinges, the paint worn and peeling. The fields and orchard lay fallow and untended. The short, expectant barking of hounds was eerily absent; no quacking ducks or clacking hens.
I looked upon the ruins, my breaths shallow leaps catching in my throat. I shrank into the blanket but the chill crept inside the folds and beneath the layers of my clothes.
I shuffled across the cobbles to the stables. No grain, no hay and no corn. Sacks, wooden barrels and containers lay sideways, ploughs, forks, and other implements strewn about, twisted and broken. I felt as if something had struck me down — a corpse whose blood had marbled.
It was silent too, as if when the looters left, the people — Léon and his sisters — had also been swept away with the life and glory of L’Auberge des Anges.
The shock and sadness stilled me, and in the frigid silence descending from the hills, tears leaked down my cheeks.
The dun daylight faded to dusk, and the bell of Saint Antoine’s clanged low and strong across the valley. I nodded towards Grégoire’s cottage. ‘How is Madeleine? I am anxious to see them all.’
‘Your daughter thrives with her uncle and aunt,’ Léon said. ‘You will see she is a happy child and doesn’t seem to have suffered your absence. They have another new baby too, just a few weeks old. An especially joyous occasion after the last child was born dead.’ He shook his head. ‘Not having children is my great regret, Victoire … amongst others.’
‘Grégoire will be waiting for me,’ I said and, without a backward glance, I walked away from Léon, who seemed as forlorn and wasted as L’Auberge des Anges itself.
***
After several days of Françoise’s tasty cooking, I felt recovered from my icy dip in the river.
I sat at the cottage window, Madeleine perched on my lap. Shy at first, with only snaps of memories of her mother, she now sat easily with me. I couldn’t stop stroking her dark curls, and smiling at my daughter who’d inherited her father’s pleasant, easy manner.
Madeleine laughed with her cousins, Emile and Mathilde, as Grégoire narrated one of our father’s tales.
‘Look, Papa,’ Emile said. ‘A pretty bird.’ He pointed outside, to a robin redbreast, preening itself on a branch.
‘Why is his chest red?’ Madeleine said.
‘Well,’ Grégoire said, ‘at the Crucifixion, a robin was removing the bloody thorns from the head of Christ and a drop of his blood fell on the bird’s breast. Quick, before he goes, let’s make a wish for the first robin redbreast of the season.’ They joined hands and shut their eyes, and a second later, the pious bird spread his wings as if gathering their wishes into his scarlet breast, and vanished into the autumn gloom.
My brother nodded beyond the window, to L’Auberge des Anges. ‘Such a wretched sight.’ He took the new baby from her crib, and cradled his daughter. ‘After all Armand Bruyère’s kindness towards our family, to you, Victoire.’
Grégoire handed the baby to Françoise, who nestled him against her breast. ‘If it wasn’t for that man’s generosity,’ he went on. ‘I wouldn’t have this cottage. I would never have become the master carpenter I am today.’
I smiled at the baby’s lusty suckling noises and recalled those happy times with Armand. I fingered the diamonds, which still lay snug in the hem of my dress.
‘Well, Grégoire, perhaps it is time to repay his generosity.’
I closed my eyes, picturing the inn as it had been in its prime: a welcome beacon beyond thick woods, the glowing candles and burning hearth beckoned the worn traveller. As their horses approached, sweat-sleek and panting with thirst, the scent of rosemary and lamb reached the tired man’s nostrils. He sniffed and caught a whiff too, of firm, baked vegetables and the sweetly bitter vapours of coffee. Once inside, he
was welcomed with a smile, a beaker of wine and a warm, clean bed.
I breathed easily, above the receding tide of melancholy that had almost drowned me. I understood it was not only Grégoire and Madeleine who’d brought me back to Lucie, but the Inn of Angels, which thread through my veins as richly as my own blood.
45
‘You’ll have food in the kitchen again,’ I said to Pauline and Adélaïde. ‘And linen and blankets. Even new beds.’
‘Ducks and hens too?’ Pauline, said, clapping her hands in excitement.
I nodded. ‘And you’ll have your horses, pigs, cows and sheep,’ I said to Léon, who couldn’t stop grinning. ‘We’ll rebuild the stables, the granary …’
‘But, Victoire, however can you — ?’
I held up a hand. ‘I said not to ask me about that. The funds are my business. You just get to work, we’ll need a long list of things to order.’
‘And make plans for the new inn!’ Adélaïde said her eyes bright for the first time since I’d arrived back in Lucie.
‘We will also need firewood, candles and cooking fat for the winter,’ I went on. ‘Work shall start as soon as spring arrives.’
‘You’ll stay here on the farm now, Victoire with me … with us?’ Léon said, his cheeks turning crimson. ‘After all, this is your home. This is where you belong.’
‘Our brother never took another wife,’ Pauline blurted out.
Léon glared at his sister but Pauline carried on. ‘He always said you were the only one.’
‘I am not doing this for Léon,’ I said. ‘But for the memory of his good father, and what we once had together, but I suppose it is easier if I am here … purely to oversee the work, of course.’
***
My dear Madam Wollstonecraft,
Please excuse my lapse in correspondence, since my first letter when I arrived back in Lucie.
The farm and inn renovations have occupied me, banishing much of the heaviness that sat like a stone in my breast after the death of my dear friend at Versailles — a similar melancholy to the one you describe as your own enemy.
The women marchers are proud of what we did, and I am pleased to report that in the first issue of Les Etrennes Nationales des Dames, Marie De Vuigneras — the brave woman who wrote a grievances booklet — hailed the women of Paris for proving they are as courageous and enterprising as men.
“We suffer more than men who, with their declarations of rights, leave us in the state of inferiority and, let us be truthful, of the slavery in which they have kept us so long,” she said. “If there are husbands aristocratic enough in their households to oppose the sharing of patriotic honours, we shall use the arms we have just employed with such success against them.”
Our rebuilding work here began three months ago and is almost complete. We hired many workers and spent a pleasant spring surrounded by hammering, jovial shouts, and people whistling the infectious song, which has become the rage of the whole country:
Ah! Ca ira! Ca ira! Ca ira!
Les aristocrates à la lanterne,
Ah! Ca ira! Ca ira! Ca ira!
Les aristocrates on les pendra!
The inn looks splendid, with its whitewashed walls and exposed beams, and we have many guests for whom I cook and make jam, spirits, cheese and bread. I burst with gladness and pride as I see L’Auberge des Anges restored to its former grandeur.
Thankfully, The Great Fear that swept France after the Bastille fell last year quickly petered out into oblivion, the panic disappearing as swiftly as it came. And, despite this bloody revolution in which our country is gripped, we do feel relatively safe in our beds here in Lucie.
Because the Assembly needs money to bolster finances, it has issued bonds called assignats, representing Church lands, to patriots who wish to acquire them in return for ready cash. Later, when the actual land and property is distributed, we can exchange the assignats for the land. So, under this scheme, I shall purchase the quaint estate of a bishop with the view of setting up a theatre company this coming summer. My enthusiasm has propelled me into penning another script, which speaks of the health of the woman’s mind — a subject that you can understand is close to my heart.
I do hope you will grace us with a visit when you finally decide to cross the Channel.
As you see, I am glad to have the liberty to take back my true name.
With the honour to be your friend,
Victoire Charpentier
Quiet footsteps approached from behind. I knew who it was. After six months of nourishment, work and easy sleep, Léon was once more the sun-bronzed, muscular man. His earthy smells set my nostrils quivering, as I felt his hands on my shoulders.
‘How well you write, Victoire. How much you seem to know about everything.’
‘I have read books,’ I said, my back still turned. ‘Many books. Also, the people are so very different in Paris. They hanker to know about everything; to talk of things besides cattle, crops and the latest rumour. They want to know about life beyond our world.’
‘Yes, you are worldly now; so different from the people of Lucie,’ Léon said with a wry smile. ‘They could hardly believe their eyes, to see such a transformation, especially as they imagined you still in the asylum.’
‘Oh I know that! They didn’t even try to hide their suspicion, their wariness, in the beginning, did they?’
‘Forgive them,’ Léon said. ‘They have accepted you, welcomed you into their arms again.’
‘But it took them six months,’ I said. ‘Six months of proving I was rid of the madness, and sane enough to restore an entire farm.’
Léon held my chin in his hand, lifting my face to his. ‘For that, I am eternally grateful, but please, forgive me too. Now come on, it’s late and time to sleep.’
The brown eyes brightened, inviting, but my pulse didn’t gallop with yearning, my loins remained cold and no shivers of lust twitched my shoulders.
I shook my head, just enough for Léon to understand.
He dropped my chin and rubbed a palm across his brow. ‘I hoped now, perhaps ….’
He stared out into the soft darkness folding across the countryside. ‘I thought, now it’s coming warmer, we might go to the river together? We could go to our special place. You remember it, don’t you?’
‘Of course I remember.’
‘We’ll swim again; catch trout with our bare hands. At least we’ll not be breaking any laws now.’
‘That never stopped us, eh?’ I said. ‘But you know how I feel about the Vionne River.’
‘I will be with you. You see, you’ll be all right with me.’
‘Perhaps one day, but it still fills me with such dread. I cannot think of going near it after …’
Léon sighed. ‘It’s not the river, is it? It is me you don’t want to be with. I am sure I will go to my grave without your pardon.’
‘It is not a simple matter of forgiveness,’ I said, taking his hands in mine.
‘It is something much more … things I cannot explain, and I don’t even understand myself. Well, anyway … since my return, you know I have been working on the play for this summer, but I also decided I would write about my life. I do not know if it’s interesting enough for anyone to want to read, and it is not a story I can talk about, but one I can readily lend to paper. I am certain it will help if I can … if I can write it all out of me — the twins, the asylum, what I tried to do at river.’
‘And I would learn to read if only to know that story,’ Léon said. ‘I know the first part, naturally, but you say so little about when you left, and your life in Paris. It’s as if I hardly know you.’
‘Well if I had stayed in Lucie,’ I said, releasing his hands, ‘and never gone to the asylum, I wouldn’t have been inspired to write. I would not have spoken the English, or even the French, language, or learned the ways of the middle or noble classes. I’d never have acquired such an education at the Palais-Royal, on the streets and in the salons. And I certainly would neve
r have stormed the Bastille.’
I reached up and touched Léon’s cheek, my fingertips lingering on his weathered skin.
‘So, by some quirk of destiny, rather than forgive, it seems I have a lot to thank you for.’
46
I lay on my bed and watched the autumn dawn come clear, the orange glow spreading across the horizon above Mont Blanc’s snowy helmet. It was still a strange feeling, two years after my return to Lucie, lying in the bed I’d shared with Armand, thinking of all that had happened since that time I had so yearned for Léon. How ironic that our love might now have flourished if the soil hadn’t dried up; if the roots hadn’t rotted beneath us.
I thought of Jeanne too, still poisoning the Queen with her words, as the sky came alight and the farm rose to life. I heard Madeleine’s joyful squeals, in the kitchen with Pauline and Adélaïde, the cows lowing to be milked, a pig grunting and the dogs’ occasional barks — the start of a typical day.
I splashed water on my face, ran a brush through my hair and caught it up under a cap. I brewed coffee, ate some bread and cheese, and sat at my desk.
The birds carolling beyond my window, butterflies quivering, I dipped my quill into the ink. I began writing the latest chapter of my memoirs, trying to recall each event, every different person who had moulded me, like soft clay, into the person I’d become.
When I finished, I blew on the ink and placed the pages on top of the pile.
‘Letter for you,’ Léon said, as I stashed my papers in the carved wooden chest Grégoire had made for my writing things.
I smiled as I recognised Claudine’s writing — a smirk that died on my lips as I read her terrible words.
My dear Victoire,
It is some months since I have written and I hope this letter finds you well, my child.
Everyone in Paris is talking of a piece of news in The Chronicle and I felt you would want to know immediately.
It was reported that on August 23 of this year, 1791, Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, Countess de la Motte, died after falling from the balcony of her London hotel room. She was buried in St Mary’s Churchyard, Lambeth, on August 26.
Some say she met her death by accident, others believe she was killed by royalists, and still others are convinced she was trying to escape debt collectors.
