“Another, Cousin?”
Marguerite hears the disapproval in her cousin’s voice. She supposes Madame Dufour has been counting how many glasses of wine Marguerite has had this evening, before, during and after dinner. By her count it’s only three, but she supposes it could be four.
“Maybe I will.” Marguerite sets her chin. She is not a child her cousin has to oversee and safeguard.
“Just recall, we only get old once.”
Marguerite sighs at her cousin’s pleasantry. It might be sarcasm, but it sounds like the truth.
“A taste of Armagnac?” asks Madame Dufour. Her face shows no sign of mockery or disapproval this time. “It will cheer you up. Look what it’s done for your husband over there. A room full of books and a strong drink. You’d never know he ever had a care in the world.”
—
Thomas looks up from book he’s begun to read: La surprise d’amour by Marivaux. He did not see the play in Paris, but he’s enjoying the read. He’s curious to see how Marivaux’s hero, Arlequin, fares. The comic character loves his women, does he not? Thomas closes the book. Arlequin will have to wait.
“An Armagnac for my dear wife. A good idea, Madame Dufour.”
Marguerite’s expression tells a tale. Thomas sees the surprise and relief she feels at his overture to the owner of the château where they both have to sleep for another two nights before returning to Paris.
Thomas gestures to the closest servant, the wide-eyed elderly one. “Good man. Madame Dufour wants my wife to have an Armagnac. If you would.” Thomas dusts his hands like he’s become the evening’s host. “I’ll have another touch as well.” Thomas hands the man his glass. The servant pads to the buffet where the cut-glass carafe of Armagnac awaits.
Madame Dufour closes her eyes and turns away. Thomas hears her muttering under her breath, but what she’s saying he cannot tell. If he can put his grievances to rest, why can she not try to do the same?
“All right,” says Marguerite quietly. “Maybe I should. A deep sleep will do me good.”
“And anything else?” Thomas asks Marguerite as he comes to sit down in the chair beside hers. He takes the two glasses of liqueur from the servant’s tray. He sips one and holds the other out for his wife to take.
But Marguerite ignores the glass. She squeezes a focus on her husband. “What did you say?”
Thomas’s brow wrinkles to see Marguerite’s face go so askew. She looks like someone has just jabbed her with a pin.
“I asked if you wanted anything more than the Armagnac. Maybe a bite to eat?”
“You said, ’And anything else?’”
“All right.” Thomas detects Madame Dufour leaning forward in her seat. She too hears something in Marguerite’s voice. Doubt or menace, Thomas can’t be sure. He leans forward and aims to speak as softly, as reassuringly as he can. “Something, anything, it doesn’t matter. Here, take a sip.”
Marguerite’s shoulders shudder. She puts a hand up as if to silence what is already a silent room. There is only the scuff of the servant walking away with his tray to the far side of the library floor. And the crackle and spit of the fire. It is to that fire that Marguerite turns. She keeps her hand aloft as though freezing time, keeping her husband and the proffered drink at bay. The blazing hardwood crackles in the otherwise silent salon.
Thomas can see her mouthing. “And anything else.” She repeats it three times. “Oh my God,” she says in a ringing voice.
Marguerite stands and turns to face him. The look on her face is as if he has just killed someone. She jabs her finger into his chest.
“It was you.” Marguerite bends over, moaning toward the floor as if to retch.
“What? What are you doing? Marguerite, are you all right?”
Thomas lays a hand lightly, carefully upon her back. Marguerite straightens up and bats his hand away.
“It was you. You were the thief.” She lifts her hands and makes to strike his chest.
Thomas grabs her hands, holding them tight. Over her shoulder he sees that the elderly servant is standing especially taut. His large eyes are blinking hard at the scene unfolding.
“Don’t you hurt her.” Madame Dufour’s voice is sharp.
“I— I’m not.” Thomas lets his wife’s hands go free. He steps back and shows the hostess just how innocent his hands are. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“No?” There’s mockery in Madame Dufour’s voice.
“No, she....” Thomas shakes his head at the hostess. She is not a friend. He turns back to his wife. “I don’t know what’s wrong. Maybe you’ve had too much to drink?” He steps toward Marguerite, two caring hands outstretched.
“Don’t touch me, you.”
“Come now, come.” Madame Dufour’s voice is businesslike. She herds her servants one by one. “Our guests require some time alone. Come. Right now, I say.”
A skitter of hurried footfalls empties the room, except for Marguerite and Thomas.
Marguerite places both hands upon the back of the closest chair. Then she hauls herself around to the front of it, where she collapses onto the seat. “I remember, Thomas. I remember.”
Thomas goes to the adjacent chair. He chooses to stand behind it rather than in front. “You remember? You remember what?”
Marguerite shakes her head. “My missing jewels. It was you, not Simone.”
“Please,” Thomas protests. He makes a beseeching gesture with his hands. “You’re tired. You don’t know what—”
“No. I do. It was you who took my things and hid them in poor Simone’s room. It was.”
Thomas gasps for air. He shakes his head. He hopes his face does not reveal his racing heart.
“I had to dismiss Simone because she had stolen my jewels. But you stole my jewels. That was when Hélène came to us.
“You just said: ‘And anything else?’ Isn’t that funny? Here we are, months later, and you gave it away as innocently as that. When I first told you in our Paris apartment that I was missing jewellery, I named the pieces I could not find. And you said: ‘And anything else?’ I thought it odd. I couldn’t imagine why you’d think there might be more than what I’d said. But there was another piece. So it was you who’d taken them, not Simone. You were the thief.”
Thomas’s eyes flee from contact with Marguerite’s. They shoot to a sconce, its flickering candle dripping wax. To the fireplace. The logs are burning low now that the servants have been chased away. “You don’t understand, Marguerite,” is all Thomas can think to say.
A fresh realization sweeps across Marguerite’s face. “Oh, Seigneur! It was for her. You did it for that tramp. You had to get me to dismiss Simone. Hélène. You wanted that woman under my roof. I bet you even gave her that foolish story she told me about being an orphaned aristocrat.”
Thomas shakes his head. “No. I swear on my mother’s grave. I did not.”
Marguerite breathes in loudly through her nose, staring at her husband. “You would curse your mother’s memory for that whore?”
“I had nothing to do with Hélène’s story.”
“Oh, Thomas, I don’t know who you are. Leave me. Go.” Marguerite buries her head in her hands.
Thomas takes a breath. Though she’s not looking, he nonetheless bows. “Madame,” he says. The walk to the doorway is brisk.
It’s only when he’s out of the room that the spinning inside his head stops. He comes to a halt at the foot of the stone staircase. With a hand atop the newel post, his ability to reason starts to return. This is not good. It could lead who knows where. His wife has connections. Madame Dufour, to begin with, but many more after her. His position with the magistrate, his life in Paris, it could all be lost.
Thomas puts a foot on the bottom step and finds his resolve. Much as he prefers to avoid rushed decisions, this matter requires exactly t
hat. Hélène has already paid the price of Marguerite’s wrath. Thomas could be next. There’s only one thing to do.
II
Escape
Château Le Mesnil, Brittany
June 1727
It’s a rush, a hurry of hand and eye. Thomas silently thanks Madame Dufour’s staff for lighting the candles in the sconces of his room while he was downstairs. What he has to do would not be easily done in the darkness.
He flings open the double doors of the wardrobe and grabs his dark brown cloak from its hook. For an instant he recalls the kindly Russian tailor, Pierre, saying as he handed over the prized cloak, “This will keep you warm, mark my words, warm and safe.” It had better, Thomas thinks.
Thomas spreads the great cloak on the floor beside his trunk. Only a day or two has passed since the elderly servant and a much younger one carefully placed this trunk in Thomas’s room. It brings a trace of a smile to think how those servants would disapprove of Thomas's burrowing unceremoniously through the layers of carefully packed breeches, chemises, cravats and socks. He pulls out two of each and tosses them on to the outspread cloak. He spots a white silk mouchoir and takes that as well.
Down at the bottom of the trunk Thomas grasps a well-worn pair of shoes. Thrusting two fingers into the toe spaces, he pulls from each a small leather sack of coins. He brought the stash along on the journey into the hinterland just in case. Just in case. Thomas was thinking of highwaymen, but look. The unexpected happens much more often than people allow. Not in his wildest imaginings could he conceive of what has happened over the past day and a half. One cannot take precautions enough against the many risks and dangers in life. Thomas tosses the shoes in the trunk and thrusts the sacks of coins into the pockets of his veston.
He removes his silver-grey wig and places it atop the pile of clothes, and then, going back to the wardrobe, he pulls down his two best hats. Stacking one inside the other as best he can, he stuffs the wig into the cavity, grabs opposite sides of his cloak and closes them over to make a great sack.
With the giant dark brown shape pressed to his chest with his left arm, Thomas goes to the closest sconce and pulls out a lit candle with his right hand. He’s going to need some light. Using his foot to prop open the door, Thomas peeks out into the hall. He cannot go in the direction of the grand stone staircase, where he might encounter his wife, Marguerite, or their hostess, Madame Dufour, so he sets off the other way. He’d noticed servants coming and going through a slim door in the middle of the hall that must contain a set of stairs connecting all levels of the château.
Facing that door Thomas puts the candle between his teeth. Its melting wax spills onto his veston and the outside of the bundled cloak. The droppings matter not. What matters is that he keep the candle from going out. He tilts his head upward as best he can, to keep the flame from guttering out, a trickle of burning wax scorching his lower lip. He clenches his eyes and mutters a moan, but manages to open the door with his free hand and kick it wide with his foot. He grabs the candle out of his teeth. He spits, trying to rid his mouth of the taste of wax.
Yes, there are narrow stairs as he guessed. Both up and down. He lets drop his lump of clothes on the narrow landing and shuts the door behind him. He kicks off his shoes and leaves them beside the lump. Candle in hand Thomas pads down the wooden steps, his socked feet barely making a sound. He’s sure no one knows where he is or what he is up to, but timing is everything and he has no idea how much time he is going to need.
At the bottom of the stairs the narrow door opens into a dimly lit corridor. The only light beyond the candle he is holding is a flickering glow at the far end of the hall. Thomas advances toward that other light. He finds a cul-de-sac. There, slouched on a wooden chair sipping a bottle of wine, is the wide-eyed servant from the salon. He no longer has on his livery coat. He has a blanket pulled up to his chin and appears to be half asleep.
“There you are.” Thomas strikes a masterly tone of voice.
“Great God,” the servant cries. “Why are you here?” He looks down at Thomas’s socked feet. His eyes go even wider than they usually are.
“Up and about, come now. Let’s go. Chore for you.”
The servant looks Thomas up and down. He puckers his lips then shakes his head. He defiantly takes a nip from the bottle. “Don’t think so. My day’s done. Madame Dufour said as much not a quarter hour ago.” The man allows his chair to come down slowly upon all four legs. The blanket falls off his chest, down to his lap. He has a firm grip on the bottle of wine.
“And does Madame Dufour know that you’re hiding down here drinking her good wine? Which you have stolen from her cellar holdings?”
The domestic’s eyes narrow. He takes a hurried sip.
“I thought not. Up you get. I’m in the law in Paris. I know a sly fellow when I see him.”
The servant appraises Thomas from head to foot. The absence of shoes makes him tilt his head.
“Hear me out, my friend.” Thomas lowers his voice. “You do something for me and I’ll do something for you. How about it?”
The servant is impassive. That tells Thomas he is at least open to hearing what the proposition is.
“I’ll give you a coin, a full écu.”
The man puts down the bottle and stands his height. Out comes the hand, palm side up. “Let’s see the coin. I don’t trust your type.”
Thomas shakes his head. “When you’re done. Then it’s yours.”
“Done what?”
Thomas pulls the man close. Though they are the only ones in the dimly lit space, he will make sure no one else could possibly hear what he has to say.
“I’m not sure,” says the servant, recoiling the instant Thomas’s whispering is done. “It’s not— I’m not supposed—”
“I’ll double it. Two écus.”
“It’ll take me a few minutes.”
“Be off then. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Have it ready, do you understand?”
The man nods.
“Tell no one. Understood?”
The servant takes his time but nods again. He turns and hurries away.
—
Thomas retraces his steps back along the corridor. His candle is well melted down. The flame is only a couple of inches above his hand, but the wax is no longer burning him when it drops. What now spills builds up on the base of wax already laid down.
So far, so good. Things are in motion, yet there remains much to be done. Thomas climbs the servants’ stairwell two steps at a time.
On the landing he has to take the candle between his teeth again, the flame now close to his nose. Yet what else can he do? He needs the cloak-wrapped bundle of clothes and requires both hands to get them up to his chest. It takes two tries but then he has everything in his arms and is off, climbing the next flight of stairs.
Ten steps up and he can see no landing or door looming above. Where the stairs come to an end is nothing but wide open, dark space. Oh, but now he can make out a dim flickering glow. Some of the beams that hold up the roof of the château are faintly visible way up overhead.
Thomas cannot risk giving away his advance. He has no idea who or how many might be up here in what he assumes is the servants’ sleeping quarters. He places his bundle into the recess between two separate stairs and pushes hard. The bulky shape holds fast. He takes the candle out of his mouth. It takes two puffs to blow it out. He’ll relight it or get a larger one from the quarters above. Thomas stretches out like a salamander might. Slowly, he peeks above the level of what he assumes is the attic floor.
A girl with upraised brows stares back. Thomas vaguely recalls her face. He saw her somewhere in the château, maybe this evening or yesterday. He sees the needle and thread in her hands. She’s making repairs to a chemise, the lamp on the candle stand beside her wooden chair her source of light.
“Not supposed to be up h
ere. This attic is just for us women and girls.”
“Maybe so.” Thomas clambers up to stand on the attic floor. He now towers over the seated girl. She shrugs. Thomas isn’t sure if the shrug is meant for him or for the rules of the château.
He hears a tumbling on the dark stairwell from which he has just come. He cannot see but knows that his cloak and enclosed bundle of clothes must have taken off down the steps. He’ll collect his things on his way down. Thomas turns back to the girl seated in the chair, who has gone back to repairing the chemise.
“Hélène.” Thomas makes a questioning gesture with his hands.
The girl seems to think it over, then tilts her head sharply toward the darkness. Thomas squints to where she indicates; the other end of the servants’ quarters is all black. He cannot see a thing down there.
“You’re sure?”
“She is there.”
“Thank you.” He turns to head that way, then stops. “Take your lamp?”
“You have to bring it back.”
“I shall.”
Into the gloom of the far end Thomas goes, the lamp lighting the way. With each step the wobbling glow allows him to make out empty beds left and right. Yes, this is where the female staff of the château bed down for the night, after their chores are done. The surrounds of the first few beds are tied back. There is no one in any of those beds. He continues on.
“Hélène?”
Thomas peers toward the bed on the left. His outstretched lamp reveals no one there. But he hears a low moan and the sound of fabric stirring from the other side.
“Hélène?” Thomas says softly as he goes to the bed on the right.
He sees a shape, a pale form. Lowering the lamp to waist high, he stretches out his hand. There is a woman lying on top, not beneath, the cover. She’s dressed in a dark blue skirt and just a chemise. Her knees are pulled up, curled like a little girl. Thomas holds the candle closer to her face. She blinks at the light. He recognizes those eyes, but, uncharacteristically, there are tracks of tears on her cheeks.
“Come on, get up, we have to go.” He sets down the lamp on the floor. He takes both her hands in a single clasp.
The Maze Page 3
