by Aubrey Flegg
At that moment the butterfly closed its wings, like a book snapped shut in mid-sentence, and the eyes disappeared. Sudden fury welled up inside the boy; the eyes had no right to disappear. They had betrayed him, like his mother. But he could deal with this betrayal; this fluttery creature was smaller than him, weaker than him. The smack he dealt it with his chubby hand was a very good imitation of his mother’s slap of half an hour ago. He sat back on his haunches and looked at the fragments of his passion of a moment ago. He felt regret, but also satisfaction. It was the first time he had tasted power, and he liked it.
As he walked back towards the chateau, his feeling of power grew and grew. He was a giantkiller. What did he care about smacked hands and Judas kisses when he had found the ultimate solution for those weaker than him?
His mother looked up from her sewing as he passed. ‘And where did you get that smug little smile from, Auguste?’ she asked, not unkindly.
The Count sat staring into space, the pages of Jacquot’s story rucked up under his hands. So, it was: ‘a princess, with hair the colour of sunlight, and a dress of emerald green’ that had given the boy the sword to slay the monster. The Count ground his teeth; he could feel the pulse beginning to throb in his temples. Anger was replacing humiliation. There was still time to retrieve something of the night. He would deal with the boy tomorrow, but now his focus was that picture. He would show them all who had the real power around here.
Some part of his rational mind argued that a picture was just a picture: canvas, paint and a wooden stretcher. But he knew that it was more than that; this was witchcraft – as Gaston had known full well. And the cure for witchcraft was fire.
The Count’s anger was so intense that Louise felt its energy long before he came into the room. For the first time she felt that her existence was in real danger. This wasn’t like Colette’s petulant flick with the duster or Gaston’s threat to ride through her when she was forcing him to help the peasant and his cart. With a conscious effort of will, she moved from her picture to the opposite side of the room. At that moment the door was thrown open and the Count du Bois burst in.
He strode down the room to where Louise’s portrait hung, protecting the flickering flame of his candle with one hand. He swung to face the picture. ‘Witch!’ he screamed. ‘I should never have let you into the chateau. Bloody Gaston planted you here to spy on me. I could see it in your face the moment I laid eyes on you. And now the boy defies me. Damn it! My own–’ she heard him check himself. He held up Jacquot’s crumpled manuscript and waved it at the portrait. ‘Le Jacquot, my log boy,’ he said scornfully, ‘he fancies himself as the new Charles Perrault! This is my reward for giving him the education of a gentleman! He has the cheek to lecture me.
‘A princess in a green dress!’ he went on sarcastically, his voice rising: ‘Is it just chance that you have a green dress? Like hell it is! All I ask is his indulgence on this one night in the month, and he defies me, and gives me this to read. Do I look like a monster?’ Suddenly a catch came into the Count’s voice and his anger seemed to fade. ‘And what about you … Louise? You bewitched Gaston, didn’t you? And he had to get rid of you.’ He put the candle down on one side of the wide grate; then he reached up and began to lift Louise’s portrait from its hook. ‘I am truly sorry for what I am about to do, but you will have to go. If Jacquot had lit the fire tonight this would have been easy.’
At last Louise understood. He was about to destroy her portrait. Fool that she was, she’d thought only of physical danger to herself. Her portrait gone – it was unthinkable! The whole of the last summer of her short life flashed through her mind. Pieter had prepared that very canvas before they had even met. She thought of how, at the Master’s bidding, her face had emerged from the canvas, brush stroke after tiny brush stroke. She thought of Pieter’s pride at his work on the Turkey carpet, and of the Master’s promise that one day she might live again in the minds of others. And now it would all be destroyed: their legacy, her very existence. The Count was leaning forward into the cavernous fireplace, holding her picture in its heavy frame, like an inquisitor preparing a heretic for death at the stake. The pyre was ready, all he had to do was to reach out for the candle and the picture would be in flames. And Louise could stand it no more.
‘No! Not my picture!’ she screamed.
The cry pierced the Count like an arrow. He started, lost his grip on the picture and let it fall. A single slender splinter rose from the setting of logs and burst through the canvas at the very point where Louise’s ankle emerged from her dress. He saw the tear and winced as if feeling her pain himself. Where had that scream come from? He lurched to his feet and turned, and there she was, arms outstretched, appealing to him.
It was the Count imagining the agony in her ankle that transferred the pain to Louise. She gave a gasp, stumbled on the hem of her skirt, and fell to the ground, the silk of her dress spreading about her like a butterfly’s wings. She heard the Count’s coarse shout, and knew that she had woken the monster in him, but she was still trapped in the folds of her dress. He was coming at her now, around the end of the long dining room table, tearing at his cravat. She had no doubts about his intentions. She freed herself and was in the very act of rising when suddenly he stopped, his hands palms-out to her.
‘Don’t move,’ he whispered hoarsely. Later Louise would realise that, by some chance of light or posture, she had captured the precise pose that the Master had caught when he painted her portrait. The moonlight spilled across her face in the same way as the light had fallen on her in the studio. She froze, maintaining the position, as she had done for so many hours for the Master in Delft. Gradually the Count sank to his knees, then his head dropped, and he began to weep behind the protection of his hands. Long, silent convulsions shook his frame. Louise dared not move. Finally he looked up, and he began to wipe his face with his loosened cravat.
‘I’m sorry!’ he said, and this time it sounded genuine.
Louise attempted to straighten up, but found her muscles stiff and sore. Without thinking, she stretched her hand out and the Count took it and raised her to her feet. Suddenly he dropped her hand, as though it were a red-hot coal.
‘But you are flesh and blood,’ he said in wonder, looking at his own hand. ‘I … I could have done anything to you!’
‘And had every intention of doing so, I believe.’ Louise moved away, putting the width of the table between them.
While the full moon sank behind the trees and the first grey of dawn lit the veil of mist that hung over the meadow outside, Louise questioned the Count about his past. She dragged him back, from his present abuse of Jacquot, to the deflowering of Jacquot’s mother, a mere child at the time. When Celine became pregnant, there was the betrayal of his promises of marriage and protection. Gradually the Count began to pour out the whole story. Whenever he tried to cover himself with excuses or with a false cloak of decency, Louise shredded them with ruthless efficiency. And when he tried to find refuge in his childhood injustice she pointed out that he had had forty years to put this right. While she spoke she felt that Annie, her old Calvinistic nurse, was at her side, not letting her waver even an inch. There was no redemption for evil done; this man was damned, and she let him know it.
‘And now what will happen? Will you wait till the next full moon and start again?’ she demanded.
‘No, I cannot,’ he said.
Louise looked at him in surprise. It wasn’t the answer she’d expected. She’d been anticipating more false promises. ‘You always have in the past,’ she pointed out.
‘Until this evening, Mademoiselle Louise, I would have said that whatever attack you could make on my moral behaviour, at least my courage was intact. You see, I firmly believed that it took courage for me to walk about the chateau and the forest paths at night. I thought it took courage to spread terror and to force my will upon the helpless.’ The Count paused, then shrugged. ‘You could call that my last illusion. Tonight Jacquot confronted me wit
h an axe. It is the first time that one of my victims has put me in physical danger and I knew fear for the first time in my life. My legs turned to jelly. I am a coward, Mademoiselle Eeden; when you damn me, you can add that to your condemnation.’
‘Oh no! It is not me that damns you, nor God either. But the years, hours, minutes of suffering you have caused – nothing more, nothing less. You had forty years to bring happiness to the world; those years are irredeemably lost: that is damnation.’
She had said what had to be said. Suddenly Louise was overcome by a physical tiredness that she had hardly known since she had been a living person in Delft. She put her head on her arms and went to sleep leaning on the dining room table.
Jacquot gripped the handle of his axe and pressed his back against Marie’s door. It was still dark, but a bell had rung somewhere down the corridor. There were sounds of movement below: a door banged, someone shouted. He wanted to rush down. What was going on? Could Mademoiselle Louise be in danger? But he couldn’t abandon Marie. A light was approaching along the corridor, accompanied by rapid steps. It was Marie’s mother; she was fully dressed. She stopped in her tracks when she saw him.
‘What on earth are you doing here, Jacquot?’
‘I’m guarding Marie, Madame. There were st … strange happenings. I was afraid for her.’
‘Oh, you are silly! It’s only the Count getting ready to travel.’
‘He’s going away?’ Jacquot asked incredulously, ‘In the middle of the night?’
‘Yes. Apparently he’s had his bags packed for weeks; there must be some special reason. Anyway, Marie’s perfectly safe; you should go back to bed.’ She hurried on.
As the housekeeper bustled away she thought of Jacquot. He was such a nice lad, and Marie liked him. What a pity he had no prospects.
Downstairs she found organised chaos. The Count was trying to hammer simple instructions into heads still fogged with sleep. The coachman was snatching a hasty breakfast at the kitchen table; God knew when he would get his next meal. When she asked him where they were bound he shrugged his shoulders without stopping chewing. Gradually the turmoil died down, the bags were stowed; everyone waited while the Count busied himself with some last minute business in the dining hall. A first glimmer of sun was breaking through the branches of the trees.
Louise was woken by two loud thumps on the window. She looked up and was surprised to see sunlight.
‘What was that?’ she asked.
The Count, who was sorting through papers at the other end of the table, said: ‘I suspect some small bird being chased by a hawk mistook the window for the sky. It happens sometimes. The hawk usually comes off the worst.’
‘That’s sad,’ Louise said.
The Count turned to look at her. ‘So you really are there. I thought perhaps I had only dreamed about you.’
‘And thrown my picture into the fireplace in your sleep?’ Louise said bitterly. She noticed the pile of papers. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Settling my affairs. I’m going away… to England. Half the aristocracy of France has already gone.’
‘Will you come back?’
‘Probably not.’
‘And your estate … the chateau?’ she asked. He looked up at her, his face older, lines of defeat and resignation etched around his mouth. And there was something else – a sort of peace as though he was in some way relieved at having told it all.
‘Should I leave it to the boy?’ he asked.
‘Jacquot? Does he know you are his father?’
‘No,’ the Count said.
‘Then don’t tell him. You have forfeited a father’s rights. Leaving him the chateau will just involve unwanted explanations. Let the boy leave his monsters behind him. All he needs is security and a future worthy of his talents. If you have a small property, leave him that, and enough income to marry young Marie … or the girl of his choice. He will be able to accept that as some kind of apology for what you have done to him.’
‘There is a dower house, I will leave him that; it’s a pretty place. I’ll do that for you.’
‘Not for me, do it for Jacquot’s mother! Dear God, I hope you treated her better than you did your son! I have another request. You still hold some acres in Les Clos du Bois – leave these to Gaston; he saved your head.’
‘I’m not sure now that he did me a favour. All right, Gaston will have it all.’
‘Have you heard anything of him recently?’
‘His father told me that he was headed for Italy, adjutant to a General Bonaparte, I think.’
The Count drew up the necessary papers with care. He went out to get Marie’s mother to witness his signature. When he came back Louise was fading, partly out of weariness, but partly because she no longer held the Count’s interest. She made one last effort to impose her will on him.
‘Monsieur le Comte, whatever your reasons for being the man you are, never forget the damage you have caused to those you profess to love. Go from here now. Leave Jacquot to try to recover from the wounds you have inflicted, and never again pollute love with perversion.’
The people of the chateau moved in a daze, going about their chores, but wondering why they were still doing them. The Count had gone that morning, yet they kept to their orbits, still circling about the point where he had been.
Jacquot came to light the fire in the banqueting hall. It was dark in the recess of the fireplace so he put down his bucket of coals and turned to begin rekindling the fire. He gasped when he saw Louise’s picture lying askew on top of the logs, a ragged splinter emerging through the torn canvas. He gave a small cry of sympathy, and then he leant forward and carefully eased the canvas off the spike. He stood back, holding the painting, at a loss to know what to do. The blank space on the wall was the obvious place for the picture, but he couldn’t just put it back, not with that tear. It would be like leaving her to bleed to death. He found the baize cloth they used when visitors came to play cards, wrapped the picture in it, and hurried down the corridor towards the back entrance.
He hesitated at the door of the kitchen; he would have to pass through, and Marie was there. He glanced in. The girl was totally absorbed, trying to feed chopped-up worms to a wounded bird she had rescued from outside the banqueting hall. Jacquot slipped through silently and went out to his cottage. He slid the picture under his bed, and with a murmur of apology, hurried back to his hot coals. When the fire was lit he returned to the kitchen and lingered there for a while. Marie was cross, and looking a little green. She didn’t like handling worms and the ungrateful bird wouldn’t eat. When Jacquot pointed out that goldfinches didn’t eat worms, she wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or relieved. She cheered up at once though when Jacquot said that it might sing for her, so she sent him out to find some spilled grain from the stables.
Jacquot immersed himself in the task of repairing Louise’s canvas. He went about it with extraordinary thoroughness. His first job, which proved the most difficult, was to pull the two sides of the tear together. After several failures he found that if he wetted threads of new linen, which he teased from dressmaking remnants that he had begged from Marie, he could stick these to the back of the canvas. As the linen shrank it pulled the sides of the tear together. Sticking the threads down was a problem until he learned from a local carpenter how to make glue by boiling animal hooves. He did this in the kitchen until Marie’s mother complained about the smell. He told no one about the picture, working on it at night, pulling in the latch cord and working by the light of two candles to avoid shadows. Little by little the tear closed, until it was hardly visible on the surface.
Jacquot talked while he worked, rather as a groom will talk to a horse in a soothing patter. He avoided turning the portrait over, other than to review the progress of his repair. Something strange and wonderful, but also a bit frightening, had happened between him and the girl in the picture, and he was trying to shut his mind to that time. But he still felt the need to talk to her, so he reported
that Marie’s mother was now the official caretaker, and explained that the Commune was running the farm, but that not much work was being done. The chateau people presumed that the Count had taken the picture of the girl in the green dress with him when he left. Jacquot would, of course, return it when it was mended, but it was not ready yet. He made a crude box for the picture, which he could slide under his bed. This not only concealed it but also protected it from any possible further damage.
Knowing that her portrait was safe gave Louise the same feeling of security that she had felt when it was enclosed in the travelling box the boys had made for her in Holland. Ever since the picture had been damaged, she had become very conscious of how vulnerable it was. Though she liked M. Morteau’s idea of her being an ambassador, she was also a guardian, with a duty to preserve Pieter and the Master’s place in history. She would not willingly put the portrait at risk again.
The peace and quiet of Jacquot’s hut was welcome after the turmoil of the Count’s departure. And Louise did not feel alone; she hadn’t been forgotten. Colette, Gaston and Pierre consciously and unconsciously thought of her, though Louise often had to use her imagination to interpret what she was seeing through their eyes.
Colette had been waiting for this moment. She and Jean Brouchard were like two pranksters as they looked out of the high windows of M. Morteau’s office, waiting to see if their victim, M. Morteau, would take their bait. Up to now he had been steadfast in his refusal to have anything to do with the ‘charlatans’, as he called them, who had been given portions of the vineyard by the Count in order to win favour with the revolutionaries. It had not surprised him that they had been unable to make anything better than vin ordinaire, or even, in one case, vinegar, from those grapes. The man who was now approaching him was one of these ‘charlatans’, and he carried an offer, carefully worked out by Colette and M. Brouchard so as to be to the advantage of all. The proposal was that he would hand over the management of his acres to M. Morteau. In return, he would get an agreed number of bottles of superior vintage made from grapes from the whole vineyard. It had been Colette’s suggestion that these bottles should have special labels, carrying not just the prestigious name ‘Côtes du Bois’, but the name of the new proprietor as well. The question now was whether Papa Morteau would accept the deal.
