The Rainbow Bridge

by Aubrey Flegg

  For a few precious minutes Gaston and Louise stood close together, looking out of the high windows. The trees were still green but it was the mature green of late August. The Count had left to assist the gentry and the charcoal burners with preparations for departure; outside, the besieging ‘army’ was looking a bit ragged.

  ‘How will you explain all of this to your soldiers?’

  ‘I’ll say that the meeting here was innocent. It was to discuss agriculture in order to ensure that sufficient wheat is planted on the old estates so that the people don’t go hungry. The charcoal burners have as much right to demand hospitality as any citizen, but I’ll instruct Marcel to escort them out of the region; the catcalls were just boys being boys.’

  ‘Is Pierre safe?’

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine. He’s among his own, and his wits are quick enough as long as he doesn’t have to kill anybody. He’ll talk his way out of any trouble. You’ll see, he’s no fool.’

  ‘Don’t go, Gaston.’

  ‘What! It was you who insisted you had to stay here. I have to go.’

  ‘No, I meant don’t go off on another mission. I know you carry new orders in your sabretache, but now that you have bought the land, why not stay and help your father and Colette in the vineyard?’

  ‘I wish I could, Louise, but I am bound by law and oath to serve my country. These orders will make it impossible to resign my commission. Remember that the vineyards are reduced in acreage through what the Count has given away; my mother’s portion is small, and my soldier’s pay will be needed at home. I will leave the army when I can, with honour. I don’t think Colette would enjoy the life of a hussar, as you did.’

  Louise looked out at the beaten grass. ‘I will miss Pierre. I think he saw me in the forest, you know, when he escaped.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s best that you stay, then. I’d be jealous of him!’

  ‘Keep him away from Marcel.’

  ‘This is Marcel’s last mission with me, I promise.’

  Louise turned to him, her eyes brimming with tears. ‘So this is goodbye, Gaston. But you take my love with you. Remember me – now go. Go quickly before I change my mind.’

  CHAPTER 16

  Le Jacquot

  The clatter of hooves, the jingle of harness and the shouted orders that had been Louise’s life since Gaston had rescued her from the canal, faded and were gone. Her tears spent themselves gradually and the silence of the chateau wrapped her around.

  As the power of Gaston’s presence began to fade, she felt her picture calling to her as home calls out to the tired traveller. She would soon merge back into the canvas. Now she stood beneath it and took what might be her last long look at the Master’s creation. She thought of him; those were his brush-strokes there, and she smiled as she remembered him in all his moods: prickly, teasing, arrogant, kind. Her eyes wandered about the ‘room’ he had conjured up for her, turning one corner of his attic studio into a sumptuous study for the purpose of the painting, full of things that reflected her interests: books, music and science. There was the Turkey carpet that Pieter had painted so beautifully. She closed her eyes and tried to recall every feature of the attic studio: the light that fell in coloured segments through the stained glass, the great cupboard and the rich smell of the paints. She recalled the different objects of wonder among the clutter at the end of the studio that the Master kept as props for his paintings: the stuffed birds, the suit of armour that the Master had once put on for her benefit. Then she remembered the little laboratory beyond the clutter, and suddenly there was Pieter, standing over his brazier, with his back to her. He was so real that she cried out, ‘Pieter!’, then threw herself forward, hurtling down the tunnel of time, back to the boy she loved.

  She could see him now, a tiny figure in the distance, just as she had seen old Claes through the wrong end of her father’s telescope. Oh, she wanted him with every fibre of her being, not just her mind but in her body as well. In a second they would be in each other’s arms. She was running; Pieter had turned, he had seen her. His face broke into his broad familiar smile, but then his expression changed to one of alarm. He held up a hand, palm outwards, as if to stop her. Louise looked down. The ground below her feet had dropped away. An abyss, too wide to cross, had opened at her feet, and she teetered on the edge, her arms back to keep her balance. A cry of desolation and anguish escaped her. In that moment she realised that she might never be able to retrace her steps to him. Surely she deserved a second chance; Pieter was so close, so close.

  The ground was wet as if from a recent shower. A low sun broke through the clouds: instinctively she looked east, away from the blaze of light. How many times had she seen just such a passing shower sweep over the flat fields of her native Holland. There it was, the expected rainbow forming a bridge that arched over the chasm. With a shout of joy she ran towards it. Annie had always told her that angels could pass up and down to heaven on a rainbow; surely she could cross over it to Pieter? But then she heard her father’s voice – the voice of the scientist: ‘Louise, my love, you can never find the foot of a rainbow,’ and she faltered. If she made that crossing she would have to abandon the reality she had chosen when she had lingered over the shattered town of Delft. She would never find out what happened to Gaston and Colette, never ensure that the Count kept his promise. All that she had done in this time would be set aside. The Master and Pieter had created her for the future, that future was here and now. If the rainbow had a special meaning for her it was not that she should follow the footsteps of angels.

  For an age Pieter and she reached out vainly towards each other in one long silent cry. When their arms grew tired they dropped them and simply gazed. Then at last they turned away and Pieter watched as Louise began the long climb back to the present in the Chateau du Bois, carrying nothing but a memory, like an unresolved chord in a minor key, and a longing that only imagination could fill.

  For over a hundred years the picture of Louise had hung forgotten or disregarded in the back rooms of Delft. The silence that she had experienced then had been the silence of oblivion, a dreamless awareness of self, but nothing more. But here, in the chateau, she seemed to be aware of every sound. As the temperature in the room changed, the wood of the oak panels would yield elderly sighs, quite unlike the snaps of the young wood she remembered from their new house in Delft. There were insect sounds too, and the patter of mice. A wasp buzzing out its life in a spider’s web at the window filled the great room with sound. Then in the distance, she would hear voices: doors would close, and feet approach, only to recede into the distance again. Sudden rain hammered at the windows, and then as the cloud rolled on, light would flood the room again. She had expected to fade back into her picture as she had done before, but some energy was keeping her here. Occasionally she would slip into dreams from which she would emerge with the feeling that she had been somewhere else, that Gaston had said something amusing, or that Colette had just left the room. Next time, she decided, she would ‘stay on’ in the dream, in the hope that her friends were closer than she thought.

  It was Colette who showed Louise what these dreams really were. Louise watched as a series of vaguely familiar shapes gradually came together, then detail began to emerge just as detail is added to a painting. She realised that she was looking out of M. Morteau’s window at the vineyards spreading up the hill. Was this a memory? No, there were piles of baskets at intervals up the slopes; she’d never seen the grape harvest herself so this must be real, this must be now. Then, quite clearly, she heard Colette’s voice.

  ‘I’m thinking of you, Louise, just as I promised I would. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, oh yes. I can hear you!’ Louise said out loud, but her voice seemed to be no more than a whisper dissipating in the space around her. She shouted, ‘Colette!’ but heard nothing in reply. Desperately she reached out with her mind with all the love and intensity that she could muster, and in return heard Colette respond.

  ‘Louise, I feel that
you are close. Tomorrow the grape harvest begins; you always said you wanted to see it. I promise that I will think about you whenever I can. Gaston will be home too; we will think of you together.’

  For the next weeks Louise was treated to a kaleidoscope of impressions as both Colette and Gaston, true to their promise, remembered, and reminded each other: “Louise would love to see this …” And so she saw the treading of the grapes and heard wild gypsy music in the evening. Louise was always hungry for more, but there were many times when they were both too busy to give her a thought. Also there were times when Gaston and Colette were private together, and their thoughts were turned in on each other. What she experienced then was neither pain nor joy, but a mixture of the two, and she would draw herself in, like a snail into its shell.

  Then, one day, when the grape harvest had been over for a week or more, Louise found herself looking at Gaston from behind. He was in uniform, on horseback, and riding up a steep cobbled street. Surely this was the street up to the castle in Auxerre? But who was giving her this view? She could see a horse’s head rising and falling in front of them. This couldn’t be Colette; the harness was cavalry harness. Gaston, looking very gallant, had just pulled up his horse and was smiling down at a group of prettily dressed girls who were crowding around him. They were joking, asking him for something, but yet nervous, poised like a flock of small birds, ready for flight.

  ‘Mesdemoiselles,’ she heard him laugh. ‘I would have kisses for all of you, but you see, my cadet is watching, and he knows that I am recently engaged to be married.’

  ‘Ohhh,’ they chorused in mock disappointment. Then, they wheeled about like swallows changing flight, and turned their attention to the rider behind. At last it dawned on Louise that the rider must be Pierre. Dear Pierre, was he really thinking about her? At that moment he lost his nerve with the young ladies and clattered up the hill behind Gaston. So, Gaston and Colette were engaged? They could have told her, but … she gave a sigh. This was how it would have been if they had stayed together. It was natural that they should be thinking of each other and not of her.

  With the reassurance that she was still remembered, Louise learned to let go at night and drift into an energy-conserving sleep so that she could be alert and aware during the day when her friends might think of her. Only one thing happened to disturb her routine, and it always happened at night. She would feel some powerful source of energy drawing her up from the depths. Then, rising like a swimmer emerging from a deep dive, she would see a light widening above her. As she broke the surface, the light would disappear, and she would be left, charged with energy, to wonder who or what had called her. The only thing that connected these incidents was the state of the moon; on each occasion it was full, and she was grateful to be able to see that the room was empty and she was on her own. The only clue to a previous presence was the heavy scent of pomade that lingered in the air.

  A golden tinge had crept into the light. Autumn was passing, and le Jacquot, the log boy, small for his fifteen years, came into the great hall to light the fire. The routine had started a week earlier when the partly drawn curtains had been pulled back, and the room flooded with welcome light. A matronly woman armed with a feather duster had stood back from the windows and was viewing the spider webs with distaste.

  ‘Marie!’ she called. A girl of about thirteen appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Maman?’

  ‘Call le Jacquot, Marie. This room feels musty. From now on we will have a fire in here once a week to keep out the damp. Tell Jacquot to get one started. Then you can come and do some dusting.’

  ‘I’m not going to dust while le Jacquot’s here!’

  ‘And why not?’

  ‘He’s just the log boy.’

  ‘If I hear any more of your fine talk, young miss, I’ll smack your bottom. Off now and call him.’ The girl flounced out of the room, but almost immediately she could be heard happily calling “Où est le Jacquot … le Jacquot?” till the baize door to the servants’ quarters closed behind her.

  The room felt warmer now and the air was sweet with the scent of wood-smoke and fresh logs. Jacquot was standing back from the cavernous fireplace to see that his logs had caught from the blaze of kindling below them. He had brought hot coals in a bucket from the kitchen to get the fire started, now he heaped on a few dry logs from the pile stashed inside the wide chimney breast. Late evening sun was streaming through the tall windows and straight onto Louise’s portrait. The boy looked up and their eyes met. Louise, who had been only vaguely aware of his presence up till now, felt the electric tingle of his gaze. The Master had been right; there was no telling who would have the eyes to bring his picture to life. The boy involuntarily pulled off his cap and murmured, ‘Mademoiselle’. At that moment a voice called from the door.

  ‘What are you doing, Jacquot?’ Young Marie was standing there. The boy scratched his head as an excuse for having taken off his cap while the girl skipped towards them. He blushed at her presence. He stood a good head higher than she, but he was clearly in awe of her. Louise thought how pretty she looked in the warm glow of the evening light, her face tilted up to him.

  ‘Do you like me, Jacquot?’

  ‘Oui, Mademoiselle Marie.’

  ‘Will you kiss me?’

  ‘Non, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘Pourquoi pas?’ She was indignant. Why not?

  ‘Because it is not my place, Mademoiselle.’

  ‘Oui, Mademoiselle… non, Mademoiselle… I am Marie… Jacquot.’ He was looking at the floor. The girl looked up past him and noticed Louise’s portrait. ‘Who is that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ma’m … M… Marie.’

  ‘I see her name! It’s painted on that vase thing. She’s Louise.’ Then the girl asked, ‘Can you read and write, Jacquot?’

  ‘Oui, Marie,’ the boy said uncomfortably. ‘Pardon … I must go.’ Marie watched him pick up his bucket of ashes and his empty log-basket. When he’d gone she turned to Louise’s portrait and smiled, then she put out her tongue at her, and skipped after Jacquot out of the room.

  Louise came to look forward to Jacquot’s visits and to watching young Marie’s innocent attempts at seduction. She was an engaging creature and Jacquot clearly liked her, but something was wrong. They would appear to be happy together, then Marie would say something, or perhaps move a little too close to him, and he would back away. It was as if a shutter had dropped between them. One day Marie lost her temper with him, calling after him:

  ‘Le Jacquot, you are a clod, a country bumpkin! And you smell of trees!’ Louise remembered how Madame would bring Margot to heel by referring to her loudly as ‘la Margot’, the servant. She could see now that ‘le Jacquot’ could be just as effectively used. When the boy had retreated, head down under her blast, the child turned to Louise’s portrait and said in a meditative voice:

  ‘Jacquot … you know, I don’t think he’s a log boy after all; he is really a handsome prince in disguise, condemned to live alone in a hut in the forest to the end of his days. Perhaps a kiss from me is all he needs to be released from his spell, like in the fairytale? Oh, why won’t he let me near him, what is he afraid of?’ And she wandered from the room, for once disconsolate.

  Louise felt genuinely sorry for her, but also vaguely disturbed. Then, deep inside her a memory stirred, and she was alert. It was the child’s reference to a fairy story that had reminded her. She recalled M. Morteau’s concern about a young girl who might be in danger at the chateau. He had wanted Louise to ‘keep an eye out for the child …’ It seemed absurd, what danger could she possibly be in? Jacquot looked harmless, and she hadn’t been aware of another male about the place. If only the Count could have been an ally – but no – there had been something predatory about him; he made her shiver. The idea of being an ‘ambassador’ had been attractive when M. Morteau had mentioned it first. But what on earth could she do? When Colette and Gaston were on hand, acting on her own initiative had seemed entirely possible. T
hey were her hands and eyes; now she just felt helpless.

  Marie did not appear on the evenings when Jacquot came to bank up the fire and make sure that all was safe for the night. When he had done that, he would stand in front of Louise’s portrait for minutes on end, holding a candle in one hand, exploring every inch of the room that the Master had created for her. Finally his gaze would come back to her and linger on her face. He had not spoken to her since his startled ‘Mademoiselle’ that first day when their eyes had met, but Louise felt that he was wondering about her rather as someone will wonder if the ice on a canal will hold their weight. She waited.

  Her first surprise came when Jacquot arrived to bed down the fire, concealing a book under his jacket. When he had finished making the fire safe he placed his candle on the mantelpiece, checked that the door was closed, and took up the book. As if solely for Louise’s benefit, he began to read aloud, slowly at first, his finger following the line.

  ‘Cendrillon – as told by Charles Perrault,’ he started. Louise was enchanted by a story of a fairy godmother who had enabled poor Cendrillon to go to the King’s ball, and how the prince – who had fallen in love with her – identified her by the glass slipper she had dropped when midnight struck. Each week Jacquot read her another story from his book. She was horrified when the wicked wolf threw himself on Little Red Riding Hood and ‘gobbled her up’. She laughed at Puss in Boots, and was satisfactorily horrified by Blue Beard, who systematically murdered his wives. Some of the stories she had heard from Annie, but Annie’s endings were always very moral. Louise gave up wondering how it was that a mere log boy like Jacquot could read, or even why he should choose to read to her. In the end she just enjoyed the stories.