“I’ll stay with him,” I said. “Let’s put him on the sofa and cover him up.”
We carried him gently between us.
“Do you think he could have been killed?” I asked her, sipping a brew of hot milk and brandy with sugar.
Madame Barbou shrugged, her large body quivering slightly. “After all, it was a heavy fall, who knows?”
And I thought yes, a fall is like a bullet; if correctly placed, both can kill. But no one had pushed Fabrice; that I knew for sure.
“There have been too many accidents in this house.” Madame shook her head mournfully. “It is terrible, Madame; they say the house has a curse.”
I hastily took a draught of my toddy. “Who says the house has a curse?”
“It is a legend, Madame, ever since I was a child. The de Frigecourts have not been a fortunate family.”
“You mean the family is cursed, or the house?” I asked impatiently, as though we were talking about something entirely normal.
Madame Barbou looked puzzled. “It is the family, Madame, though it goes with the house. It is called the Burgundian curse. The curse of Burgundy. Monsieur Laurent will tell you more about it.”
“The curse of Burgundy,” I repeated. “Of course. Burgundy and the de Frigecourts.”
Someone who hated Burgundians and de Frigecourts. And who else would that be but Joan of Arc? But I didn’t dare share my thoughts with this good simple lady who went on speaking:
“As children we were not allowed to play near the house or its grounds. In those days the chateau was neglected and surrounded by trees. This goes back to the Twenties, Madame, when I was a girl and the old Marquis had been killed in the war, fighting on the Somme. Oh, how we all suffered in that terrible war. We could hear the guns from Abbeville, and the refugees streamed here from the front at Albert and Arras.”
“So Monsieur Laurent’s father and grandfather were killed in the two world wars?”
Madame Barbou nodded.
“Tragic, but heroic, Madame. It is a family of heroes.” Fabrice stirred and whimpered in his sleep.
“Tell me more later,” I whispered, my finger to my lips. “I don’t want to wake him up.”
She crept out of the room, but I sat still for a long time looking out of the window until the bay was a vast expanse of sand again, thinking.
Fabrice didn’t wake until four, and I had dozed as well. Refreshed by our rest, we went up to the playroom and he marshalled his soldiers for the French versus the English, of whom I was in command. Of course, the English would lose. He had a very well ordered mind for such a young child, and a determined idea of what he wanted to do and how to do it. I felt my age as he rushed about the room giving orders and firing numerous cannons at my scattered remnant (which was about half his army anyway).
I was in full flight, with hardly a man standing, when the door opened and Philippe came in, followed by Noelle. Philippe immediately joined the fray on his brother’s side and began bombarding me with small objects while Fabrice shrieked encouragement.
“Aux armes, Philippe, the French are winning!”
“It’s hopeless,” I said, sitting on the floor and laughing, and when I looked up Jeanne was in the doorway looking at the disorder. I thought she was about to reprimand them, or me, or all of us, but instead she said quietly, “Please clear up, it is time for tea.”
“Five minutes,” Fabrice pleaded. “Clare is losing.”
Jeanne’s eyes swept the floor and took in the cavalcades of blue- and red-coated soldiers camped on artificial mountains, drawn up in ragged lines of battle.
“Where are the Burgundians?” she said quietly. “Madame, you should have the Burgundians to help your English soldiers; then maybe you would win.”
I looked at her rather stupidly, but she had turned and was directing the children in putting the soldiers back into their various drawers and boxes.
After tea I decided to have it out with Jeanne. Was I not newly resolved to be firm and more positive in my approach to things, so that there would be no more situations such as I had with Tom?
The children were watching television in a small room across the hall next to the library. Jeanne seemed inclined to linger over the tea things, and I accepted her offer of another cup.
“Are you quite recovered now, Clare?”
“Oh, completely. It was just a shock.”
“And I heard you were shot at the other day?”
I looked sharply up at her, but her head was bent over the tea.
“I’m unlucky, aren’t I?”
“Some people seem prone to mishap,” Jeanne went on. “Look at poor Rose.”
“Did things often happen to Rose?” I said curiously.
“Rose was never where she should be,” Jeanne said, looking at me. “She was always somewhere else. She had no sense of responsibility at all.”
“How unsuitable for a children’s nursemaid.”
“It was unfortunate, in these circumstances. Oh, she was very good with children, of that there is no doubt; but she had to be supervised, and of course it was not my job to do that. She needed a strong woman in the house, a mother. Rose resented me because I tried to exercise some control over her.”
“So you and Rose didn’t get on too well?”
Jeanne stirred her tea and looked at me thoughtfully. I could quite like Jeanne if only some of this mystery were cleared up, if only I weren’t so suspicious of her. She had an interesting face, rather wistful-looking, as though she had a story to tell that would be worth hearing.
“Rose and I had nothing in common. She wasn’t interested in anything to do with the intellect; she was restless here and wanted Paris, while I love the beauty and tranquillity of Port St Pierre. She only wanted to enjoy herself and to chase men.”
“Men, here?” I said with interest.
“Oh yes. Rose had a lover.”
She waited for the impact this would make on me, but I didn’t react too strongly. After all, this was the twentieth century and I’d had a few lovers myself before Tom. But the way Jeanne said, “Rose had a lover” made it sound like a sin.
“I don’t find that surprising. Rose was a pretty girl.”
We both knew at once what I’d said, and Jeanne looked at me, a slight smile playing on her lips. It wasn’t either a triumphant or a malicious smile. She seemed simply to be calling my bluff.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone Rose had been to see you?” Jeanne said quietly. “I thought it was strange you never mentioned it.”
I blushed hotly, trying to hide my embarrassment by turning my face to one side. She made me feel so foolish.
“I don’t know why I should have,” I said defensively.
“Because of her death?”
“Goodness no!”
I was horrified. Any minute I’d be accused of having done Rose in, but in fact, it did look incriminating.
“I wondered what you had to hide?” Jeanne went on, in the same gentle voice.
“I didn’t hide anything,” I protested. “I simply thought it was irrelevant.”
“Did you know Rose in England?”
“No.”
“You knew her only from ringing her here?”
“I rang you here to ask you to tea, and spoke to Rose.”
“And that was the very first time you’d spoken to her?”
“Yes.”
“And did you ask her round to tea by herself?”
“No ... no.” I had the feeling I must be careful of a trap.
“She came round to talk about me, didn’t she?”
I didn’t reply. I was desperately trying to think how I should play this, how I should fend off Jeanne’s insinuations.
“No,” I said at last, “she came to apologise for her abruptness on the phone.”
“And to say that it was my fault.”
“She implied that it was your fault, yes.”
“Rose was trying to have me sacked,” Jeanne said flatly, looking at me
. “She was trying to build up some horrible picture of me, and I never knew why. She was very anxious to see the Marquis so that she could fill his ears full of poison against me. I simply murmured that day that you were a complete stranger – you were after all – and that as the father was due back soon I should like to ask him. She hurled down the phone deliberately, so as to make you think it was my fault. Was my attitude not reasonable?”
I floundered, it was all so entirely plausible. “Yes, yes, I suppose it was.”
“Yet Rose hurried round to you to tell you how nasty I am, how difficult.” She held up her hand to stop my protests. “Don’t say she didn’t. Rose did it with everyone. With Cecile, Madame Barbou, the doctor and his daughter, with everyone we ever met. She would get to know them and then start whispering about me. I know, because sooner or later it all came back to me.
“You see, Clare, I know what she said, but ...” Something about her forced me to look into her eyes. “It was not I who am evil, it was Rose.”
CHAPTER 7
At that moment, the children came into the room saying that the television was boring. Jeanne said it was near bedtime anyway, and I offered to help give them their baths. I felt certain the charged atmosphere in the room must have been obvious to the children, but they seemed unaware of what had transpired between Jeanne and myself. After a romp in the hall with Goofy, who was never allowed on the upper floors, they streaked upstairs followed by the two of us, breathless and laughing.
After our extraordinary conversation I felt an intimacy with Jeanne that was wholly unexpected. She had convinced me that somehow Rose had wronged her; that she was a gentle misunderstood person, a victim of Rose’s mischievousness. I hadn’t then asked myself all the questions that so badly needed to be answered, but as we splashed with the children, rubbing them down, getting them into warm pyjamas, and taking turns reading them stories, I felt a rapport with Jeanne that would have seemed incredible a few short hours before.
I was looking forward to continuing our talk and went downstairs to wait for her after kissing the children and leaving her to tuck them in. I didn’t want to encroach upon her territory.
I waited in vain, however. When Madame Barbou announced dinner, she said I should be on my own, as she had taken a tray up to Mademoiselle Jeanne in her room.
“She sends her apologies,” she told me, showing me to my solitary seat at the head of the long dining room table.“She has a migraine, she suspects brought on by the events of the day. Poor Mademoiselle is not a healthy person, you know. Now I can see you are a sturdy robust woman, but Mademoiselle is –” Madame Barbou fluttered her hands, “nerveuse, if you understand what I mean.”
She hovered over me, and I knew that she wanted to gossip. I took up my spoon and began my soup.
“Madame, if I am to eat alone please do not lay this table especially for me, a small table in the salon ...”
“Ah, bien sur, Madame, but tonight I did expect Mademoiselle Jeanne. Is Madame going to stay long?”
“Oh, no, just a short stay until you get more help.”
“And Madame didn’t know the family before?”
“No”
“Nor poor Rose, I suppose.” Madame Barbou didn’t seem to expect an answer. “She was a funny girl. She and Jeanne didn’t get on at all, of course.”
“It must have been difficult in the house,” I murmured over my soup.
“No, it was not difficult. They were discreet and kept it from the children; they each did their own tasks well, I must say. But Mademoiselle Jeanne was always having to take over from Rose; Rose had a habit of disappearing.”
“A boyfriend?”
“Ah.” Madame was gratified I’d guessed so quickly. “Not exactly a boyfriend, Madame, an older man, much older.”
“Really? Did he ever come here?”
“Oh, no, indeed. Rose was most secretive about it, but my daughter Agnes goes to the market in Port Guillaume and she saw Rose with this older man at least twice.”
“Rose went to Port Guillaume to meet him?”
“Evidently.”
“But it’s a long way without a car.”
“There is a bus.”
“Or I suppose she could have crossed the bay if the tide was right.”
It was a fascinating thought. Rose trysting with a lover by boat.
“Did she ever talk about her friend?”
“Never. That was the strange part. She was very secretive.”
“Do you think she went to see him the day she had her accident?”
“Accident, Madame?” Madame Barbou’s voice was scornful.
I put down my spoon and stared at her. “You don’t think she had an accident?”
“No one would walk across the bay when the tide was due, Madame.”
“But then, why didn’t anyone say anything to the police?”
Madame Barbou looked taken aback. “What can anyone say, Madame? What can anyone prove? Besides, what is the point of stirring up trouble? The de Frigecourt family has had enough trouble already. She was a funny girl, a stranger really. Why should we care how she died and upset our own family again after the wars and the killings and the accident to Madame la Marquise ...”
Now I was beginning to understand. Justice was justice, but the love of this small community for its landowning family seemed to transcend all that.
This thought left me in a sombre frame of mind as I went up to my room, Rose’s room. It was not unusual for communities to close up against a stranger. What Madame Barbou had admitted shed new light on the circumstances surrounding Rose’s death. I had always thought the investigation into the nanny’s death a cursory affair and this had surprised me. But now the reason was quite obvious – to protect the de Frigecourt family at all costs, they’d had such an awful time.
Or was that the only reason? I stopped abruptly on the stairs when I thought of the pretty Rose and the attractive Marquis. Perhaps they were having an affair. Maybe darker deeds had been done in this house more recently than I had contemplated.
It was dark on the staircase, a light shining obliquely from the corridor. The house was perfectly still, and again I felt that same quiet joy from just being in it as I had had looking at it that very first time from the beach. To me, it was a friendly house. How many people had been born, lived, and died here from the days when it was merely a shooting box for the noble de Frigecourts trapped at Versailles? The milestones of life imprinted an atmosphere on a house as much as they formed the character and expressions of people. The Chateau des Moulins was grand enough to absorb all that had happened within its walls, bad things as well as good.
I went into the children’s rooms to be sure they were all right. Philippe was already asleep, one leg dangling out of bed, so I tucked him in, kissed his dark face, and covered him with his blanket. I lingered over Fabrice to make sure he was all right, but he was breathing gently, his arms clasped around his pillows – fast asleep. Noelle was still awake; she raised herself to greet me and I could sense she wanted to chat, but I tucked her firmly in, and as I bent to kiss her she put her arms up and wrapped them tightly round my neck.
Surprised, I knelt on the floor, enfolded her in my arms, and hugged her. Her body was trembling, and I saw that she was weeping.
“Noelle, darling ...” Her thin shoulders shook with the violence of her sobbing and I sat with her until she quieted down, stroking her cheeks and making soothing noises.
“I ... i ... it’s F ... F ... Fabrice.” She shuddered. “He could have been killed.”
“Darling, don’t think about it. All little boys fall off trees at one time or another. I don’t think he could have been killed,” I lied.
“Yes, he could have. Oh, I can’t bear it after Mama.”
“There, there ...” I tried as best I could to comfort the little girl who’d been without her mother so long.
After a while Noelle sat up and rubbed her eyes. Even then, she looked almost beautiful, and as I smoothed
her hair back from her damp brow I thought she would tease a lot of men when she grew older. She gazed at me solemnly.
“We are an unlucky family. Madame Barbou says we are cursed.”
Curse Madame Barbou! It was typical of these emotional French, I thought, forgetting my own half-French ancestry, which Tom said was the cause of the many upheavals we’d had.
“Madame Barbou is talking nonsense. There is really no such thing as a curse. You are a happy, lovely family, and when Mama is well you will all be together again and live happily ever after. There now, smile?”
Knowing what I knew, was I doing the right thing? But wasn’t it better to comfort the child than to let her go on weeping?
“I love you,” Noelle said and I blushed in the darkness.
“I’m glad. I love you too. Now go to sleep. I’m only two doors away if you want anything.”
But I was anxious and full of foreboding as I made my way along the dimly lit corridor to my room. I was drawn to the children, I did love them, but to have them dependent upon me was a terrible responsibility. I hadn’t come to Port St Pierre to become a foster mother for real parents who were unable to discharge their duties.
Rose’s room. A soft breeze greeted me as I went in, even though I’d closed the windows before I went down to dinner. I put on the bedside light and thought again how pretty it was; one felt immediately at ease here. I went to the window and looked across the bay – my bay, Laurent’s bay. Everyone who looked at the bay seemed to love it. The tide was out now and there was no moon. But far out to the mouth of the bay I could see the ribbon of light that the Channel made on the horizon; over there was England. And Tom.
Opposite me, on the other side, the lights of Port Guillaume highlighted the enchanting old town. I thought of Joan on her last journey to Rouen crossing the bay, with what misgivings? I thought of Rose and her mysterious lover, and then of all the soldiers in both wars who had been killed in this valley of the Somme. How many ghosts were here? For some reason, I recalled those rows of red and blue French and English soldiers and Jeanne’s strange remark, “Where are the Burgundians?” And then that odd, almost terrifying expression on Jeanne’s face, and Fabrice falling into my arms like a stone.
Rose, Rose Where Are You? Page 7
