The Rainbow Bridge

by Aubrey Flegg

  ‘I don’t know. I learned some Latin from my father, but not French. And you are right – I am Dutch – Louise Eeden from Delft. But please call me Louise. Maybe I can understand you because it is your mind that is recreating me from my portrait. It feels to me as if you are giving me the means to communicate with you. However, you don’t seem to have taken my free will.’ A mischievous smile flickered across her face. ‘You may live to regret that! But seriously, however you are doing it, I am truly grateful to you, both for the gift of life and the gift of language.’

  Sober, Gaston might have questioned her explanation, but another practicality had just occurred to him. Here she was, a vulnerable girl alone in the room of a soldier about whom she knew absolutely nothing.

  ‘But, Mademoiselle Louise, isn’t it a terrible risk for you? If I can recreate you, couldn’t any old scoundrel do the same, and then … how shall I say… impose himself on you?’ To his surprise, she laughed.

  ‘Monsieur Gaston, I assure you, after the silence of a century I would be happy to be recreated in a robber’s den. And I have a feeling that Master Haitink, who painted me, may have taken care of that situation …’

  Her voice trailed off. Gaston looked up; she was staring into the distance, as if looking back down the tunnel of time. When she spoke again her voice was softer, a little sad, but full of affection. ‘The old man who painted my portrait loved me, Monsieur Gaston, and I him, even though we were like Greek warriors prepared for a fight at the smallest slight. And he painted me as I was – not as I, nor even as he – would have liked me to be. I am beginning to believe that in order for anyone to give me life, they must want to do so. And who would want a plain, argumentative little Dutch girl?’ The girl smiled to herself, ‘Thanks to the Master, I suspect I am quite safe, really.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that my two boys are stricken with you.’

  ‘Pierre and Marcel? They’re sweet. Pierre reminds me of someone I knew – Pieter – not in looks, but in character.’ Almost to herself, she added: ‘I must be careful.’

  ‘Was Pieter a friend of yours?’

  ‘Oh yes. Pieter was the Master’s apprentice. We were…’ but Louise wasn’t able to finish, and the statement hung between them like an unresolved chord.

  ‘It was not to be … this friendship?’ Gaston asked. Louise shook her head and smiled sadly:

  ‘No, it was not to be,’ she sighed.

  If Gaston had been completely sober he probably would not have pursued the matter, but then neither would she have answered him so freely. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’ he asked sympathetically.

  ‘I was killed,’ Louise said.

  She hadn’t meant to shock, but she heard Gaston’s sharp intake of breath. ‘It was a gunpowder explosion … an accident, I believe.’

  ‘But that’s terrible!’ He seemed genuinely upset. ‘Did you suffer?’

  ‘No …’ Louise replied. ‘In a strange way I think I was too interested in what had happened to feel anything for myself.’ She beckoned Gaston closer and he drew his chair nearer the bed, listening in silence as she told him about the immediate aftermath of the explosion. She described how her soul had lingered, floating high over the shattered town of Delft.

  ‘You see, Gaston,’ she said, ‘It was all so sudden. One minute I was carrying a hot drink in to my sick mother, and the next I was looking down on the wreckage of the town as a bird might see it. I was amazed and fascinated. My first impulse was to show it to my father. He was a master potter, but he was also a man of science; he would have been so interested and would have pointed out all sorts of things.’ She sighed wistfully. ‘As I looked down I could see that the pall of smoke and dust over the town was thinning. Something terrible had happened down there, but yet I was detached from it; people were running, but in no particular direction. I recognised the market place where the Master had his studio. The houses there were still standing but slates kept falling from the roof of the nearby Church, the Nieuwe Kerk, in noisy cascades. It was strange, this seemed to be the only sound: the rattle and clatter of falling slates and tiles. Then I recognised another, softer sound,’ Louise shook her head in wonder as she remembered. ‘It was the sound of sweeping. It was the huisvrouwen of Delft: unable to comprehend the enormity of the disaster that surrounded them, they were finding escape in the familiar and in what they did best by sweeping up the glass and the twisted lead from their broken windows.’

  ‘I had to know what had happened. There must be some explanation for the incredible devastation below. There is a river that runs around three sides of Delft: the Vliet or Schiekanaal. I could see the sweep of it, looking for all the world like an embracing arm supporting the poor, crippled town. Timbers and horrible things were bobbing on its surface. But where was the gunpowder magazine and the firing range that I used to look into from my bedroom? Where were the magnificent trees that had shaded them? There was an old thrush that used to sing to me in those trees … gone! Where, oh where, was my home?’ Louise dropped her voice. ‘You know, I couldn’t even tell where our house had stood. All I could see was a mighty pit where the gunpowder magazine had been. Gradually it came to me what had happened. The magazine had blown up.’

  Gaston was leaning forward, hands on the hilt of his sabre, willing her to go on.

  ‘I could hear a distant clock chiming. I counted – was that eleven? Then I waited for the carillon on the Nieuwe Kerk, but no chime came; the bells must have been knocked off their pivots. What was I doing up here? Should I be going somewhere? I looked up at the arched dome of the sky. Was heaven up there? Was that hell below? Then I realised that there were other presences up there with me – other victims of the blast. Some seemed to know where they were going, as if fulfilled by their own concepts of heaven. Others, like me, were drifting. Just then I felt a stronger presence rising towards me; here was a soul with purpose. My heart gave a lurch, there was only one person it could be, my old nurse, Annie. No one but she could keep her identity intact at a moment like this.

  ‘I wish you could have met her, Gaston. You see, Annie was a Calvinist, therefore she knew that there would be a place laid for her at the Lord’s table.’ Louise smiled at the memory. ‘She rose towards me, glowing with purpose, determined not to disappoint her Lord by delaying on the way. But yet, when she saw me she hesitated. Even then, she was prepared to be late for the Lord in order to lift me back onto the path of righteousness: “Go on Annie,” I called to her. “Dear Annie, God is waiting for you.” She gave me one last long look of love and then she was off, like a star diminishing into heaven.’

  ‘Then what happened?’ Gaston urged, breaking the ensuing silence.

  ‘I wondered if I should follow Annie? But what would I do in heaven? Annie’s belief in God and heaven was so different from mine. A terrible loneliness gripped me then, and I was like a small child again, longing for my mother. I looked about me wildly; of course, she must have died too!

  “Where are you, Mother?” I called. As if in answer, I found myself remembering one day in spring, when I was little, lying on a canal bank and breathing, for the very first time, the scent of early primroses. Mother was watching me, smiling, and I knew that this was her idea of heaven. Suspended there above the town, I breathed in, and yes, there it was, the scent of primroses. I spread my arms wide and her essence was all around me. This would be Mother’s way. To dispense her soul as a scent on the wind, expending her love in one profligate outpouring until her last atom was gone and she was at once everywhere and nowhere. “Goodbye Mother,” I whispered to the wind.

  ‘I could guess now where Father would be. He and God would be side by side down there where the soil still reeked, sleeves rolled up, working unseen with victim and helper alike. I remember wondering if Father would be able to stop himself from quizzing his celestial partner for information on some matter of science, or on the creation.

  ‘So they all had their chosen place – except me. There was only one place I wanted to be
and that was in the arms of Pieter, the Master’s apprentice, alive and able to be loved again. But then I knew that this, of all heavens, was the one to be denied me.’

  ‘It was then – only then – that I realised that I had died and that I could never be with Pieter again. After all we had been through, when it seemed certain that we could finally be together, it had all been taken away. How I longed to hold him in my arms and to join with him, as I never had in life, but I hadn’t much time left; I could feel my energy draining away. There was nothing to sustain me there above the ruin of my town; it was as if the pen that had been writing my story had paused, waiting for me to decide. Then, at last, I remembered my portrait and what the Master had said when he had finally achieved my likeness: “One day, three hundred years from now, more perhaps, people will see this canvas and you and I – Louise – we will live again.” So there was a place where I had an entity – a place where I had a right to be – and that was with my portrait. And now…’

  Louise looked up, she wanted to thank Gaston for listening … but the day had finally taken its toll. His head had sunk forward, his forehead was resting on his hands; he was fast asleep.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Call of Home

  It was dark when Colette woke on the morning following Gaston’s drunken departure. At fourteen, she was sensitive to that slight tension, that feeling of anticipation that comes before the first cock begins to crow. She had gone to bed feeling miserable and defeated, Gaston’s broken promise seeming to highlight just how irrelevant she was to this family. Now she felt only anger. New energy began to flow through her. She was tired of this house, tired of being preserved by Madame as a living ghost of her mother. She found herself sitting up in bed. Charity – that was what Madame was offering – and she, Colette, would not accept charity! Whatever about dropping the aristocratic ‘de’ from her name, she would not be a subject of charity! She swung her feet onto the floor. She would go away from here and find work as a servant, or even work in the fields.

  But where could she go? She sat on the edge of her bed. Obviously, the village was out of the question. Her family had had friends, but they had mostly fled or were dead. What about relations? None alive that she knew of. Then, almost reluctantly, she remembered her old home. She had locked it away in a hidden corner of her mind, but now she could see it: the tumbling roofs and garrets of the old chateau. She had hated it once, seeing it as one vast prison, but now its seedy grandeur called to her. She knew every room, every outhouse and every turret. The property had been confiscated by the Revolution but she would find a way in, and there were people there who had known her – men on the farm, her old nurse – they would see that she got food until she found some means of supporting herself.

  A cock crowed somewhere in the distance. She knew the winery well enough by now to be able to slip out without being seen or heard. She must be dressed and far away before the family stirred. Her teeth chattered with the cold, or perhaps with nervousness, as she pulled on her clothes. She added several extra layers to save her having to carry a bundle, which would only attract attention. She slipped the small amount of money she possessed into her pocket, but left the few jewels her mother had bequeathed her in their box on the dressing table. Madame would look after them. Colette felt bitter about those jewels; Maman could have saved herself by selling them for food, instead of preserving them as a dowry for Colette. When she was established in her new life she would come back and thank Madame; she had no wish to appear ungrateful.

  It was Lucien, on his way back from one of his longer night-time forays, who saw Colette walking purposefully along the road, about a mile south of the village. He didn’t recognise her at first, her slender figure bulked out by the extra clothes. But her pale face attracted his attention; this was no country lass. Over time Lucien had evolved an invariable policy with girls that he might meet; and that was to smile at them all. If they were pretty, he argued, it pleased him, and if they were not, surely it would please them. Colette kept her head down demurely as the young man approached, but there was something about his walk that was familiar, it certainly didn’t seem threatening. She looked up, and found herself bathed in one of Lucien’s most radiant smiles. Disarmed, she smiled back, and then in a pace or two they were past each other. It was only then that Colette realised who the young man was. She ducked her head into her shoulders and hurried on. He must have recognised her, why else had he smiled? He’d tell everyone; she must hurry. She heard him turn, but if he was about to call after her, he thought better of it. What she didn’t know was that Lucien would have no wish to advertise his night-time wanderings by telling where he’d seen her.

  Colette’s departure from the winery was not noticed as early as it might have been. The alarms and excitements of the previous day had knocked them all out of routine. Madame had seen that Colette was upset about something the night before, but didn’t associate this with her son. She assumed it had been caused by the confrontation with the mob. Poor child, God knew what associations that might have brought to mind. It was mid-morning, therefore, before, out of kindness, she sent Margot up to Colette’s room with a cup of coffee, and was nonplussed when she heard that Colette was not there. Perhaps Monsieur Morteau would know, but he had gone down to talk to Brouchard at the mill. Not having been witness to Margot’s confrontation with Lucien the day before, she couldn’t understand why Margot made such a fuss about taking a message to the mill. Eventually Margot went off, carrying some eggs for Madame Brouchard, by way of a reason for going.

  Lucien saw Margot coming from a distance and stepped back into the cavernous dark of the grain-hoist above the door to watch her approach. She had a basket, so she must have some errand to do with the family below. As he had hoped, she didn’t raise her eyes. He felt an unaccustomed pang of conscience. He thought of Bernadette – she of the two handprints – but that wasn’t his fault. All he had done was smile at her, and if he hadn’t held her she might have fallen over backwards. He sighed; his recent night-time expedition had been a disappointment, perhaps he should settle down. He watched Margot leave, her backside swinging defiantly, with something more than regret. She didn’t look back. He had to find out why she had called, so he took a fistful of the flour flowing from under the spinning millstone and backed down the ladder to talk about it with his employer. When he opened the door of the office he saw that M. Morteau from the winery was there.

  ‘I must go at once,’ the vigneron was saying. ‘Why on earth would the girl leave us? Do you think it was anything to do with the trouble yesterday? Perhaps she is still on the farm; she sometimes goes out to pick mulberries, I will look there.’

  Lucien stepped aside to let M. Morteau leave. He guessed who they were talking about, but if he told M. Morteau what he had seen, news of his wandering would be up at the winery before he could say ‘knife’. And that would be the last he’d see of Margot.

  ‘I don’t understand you, Lucien. Why didn’t you tell me before, when M. Morteau was here? And what the devil were you doing on that road at six in the morning?’ M. Brouchard looked angrily at his employee and saw that he was actually blushing under his dusting of flour. The older man groaned, ‘No, no, please don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.’ He ran his hands through his hair, raising a cloud of white about his head. ‘Where could she be going?’

  ‘Where is her old home?’ Lucien asked. Monsieur Brouchard looked up, impressed. The lad was showing more intelligence than he expected. He wondered if he dare tell Lucien who young Colette was?

  ‘Now, understand Lucien, what I am about to tell you is a secret, one that could endanger that child’s life if it ever got out. She is one of the de Valenods … the last of them, I suspect. You’ve probably seen their chateau; it’s about fifteen miles from here, in the direction in which you saw her walking. I think you may well be right – she is heading home.’

  ‘But hasn’t the chateau been–’

  ‘Yes, but the question is, does
the girl know?’ M. Brouchard leaned back in his high chair and looked at the ceiling, the draped and dusty cobwebs hung above him as if they had been caught in an early frost. He knew very little about this girl; the Morteaus had, understandably, kept quiet about her presence. He wondered what would it be like for her up there? Madame Morteau had no daughter of her own; she would like having a girl in the house, but what status would she have: aristocrat or Cinderella? Then there was young Gaston; he had seen how the child looked at him after he had sung his song yesterday. He shook himself. There was no point in speculating.

  ‘Lucien, go and harness the horse, she can clip on at a good pace, and I daresay the girl is not that used to walking; I will catch up with her soon enough.’

  ‘I’ll go!’ Lucien said eagerly, suddenly seeing himself in the role of the saviour of a maiden in distress.

  ‘No, Lucien! I would as soon send a wolf to rescue a lamb. But I will take the almost equal risk of leaving you in charge of the mill till I get back.’

  Colette shaded her eyes and looked ahead to where the road climbed steeply. The midday sun beat down on the top of her head and set the road a-shimmer. Oh, if only she had brought a hat. She singled out a clump of brilliant red poppies as her next rest stop and tried to measure the distance to that spot. Surely this would be the last rest she’d need before she topped the rise and looked down on her old home. Already the view was laid out in her mind: the road dipping down into the green valley, the glint of the river as it curved around the home pasture, and then the lawns rising to the warm glow of the sandstone walls and turrets of the chateau. As she walked she had been reviving all the nice associations she could conjure up from a lonely childhood there. But she mustn’t take her eyes from the poppies, if she did the road would pitch and sway again. The sun seemed to be boring through the top of her skull. The extra clothes she had put on in the morning had been removed one by one and were now an awkward bundle under her arm. Finally she reached the poppies and their blowsy heads filled her whole vision as she sank down in front of them. She felt the sharp prickles from the roadside verge under her hands, angled stones were pressing on her thigh. She would rest for a little while … just a little while.