Fleur did not sit down, nor did she offer her sister a seat; she simply stood with hands on hips and waited for Agathe to explain why she had come.
Uninvited, Agathe took a seat on a heavy sofa and then wished she hadn’t as Fleur continued to tower over her.
Agathe gave herself a mental shake and, drawing a deep breath, said, ‘I’ve come to ask if I can stay with you for a few days. Father Lenoir has died and Father Thomas no longer wishes me to be his housekeeper.’
Fleur remained silent, looking down at her, and so Agathe went on, ‘It would only be for a few days until I find myself another job.’
‘And where will you find one?’ asked Fleur, scorn in her voice. ‘Who’s going to employ an old woman like you?’
It echoed her own question, but Agathe replied firmly, ‘I don’t know yet, but I intend to find someone. I have no wish to be a burden to you.’
Fleur looked at her, her brain whirling. She was now sixty-three. She was lonely and tired of managing for herself. Here was a chance to deal with both these problems. She could agree to let Agathe have the tiny room, meant for a maid and currently used for storage, but only on the understanding that she would play the part of that maid while she was there. Fleur had no intention of paying her, but she would shelter her and feed her as a sister should, which, she considered, would be more than enough recompense.
‘I’ve a suggestion,’ she said at last, and, sitting down, made her offer.
‘Just until I find somewhere else,’ stipulated Agathe.
‘Of course,’ agreed her sister, knowing there was little likelihood of that.
The next day Agathe Sauze left the Clergy House for the last time, carrying her few possessions in a small suitcase and her meagre savings in a purse tied round her waist, and moved in with her sister.
Chapter 2
It was some weeks after Agathe left the house that Annette began to discover Father Thomas’s ‘ways’.
At first he’d hardly spoken to her, just expected his food to be on the table, his clothes to be laundered and the house to be cleaned. Agathe had taught Annette well and she had no trouble performing these tasks. She kept the house clean and tidy and took messages for the priest when he was out of the house. The first time she had written down a message, Father Thomas had looked at her askance.
‘Where did you learn to read and write?’ he demanded.
‘Please, Monsieur l’Abbé,’ she replied, addressing him as he had stipulated that she should, ‘Madame Sauze taught me.’
Father Thomas pursed his lips. That interfering old woman again, he thought, but he looked at Annette with new interest in his eyes. She was young, not more than eighteen, and had a certain awkward prettiness. She was, of course, a child of shame, dumped as a newborn bundle on the doorstep at St Luke’s. As such, obviously conceived in sin, she was hardly worthy of thought, and provided with bed and board, she was paid a few sous a month, hardly more than a slave.
Over the next few weeks things began to change. To his dismay Father Thomas found himself watching her. When she came into the dining room to serve his meals his eyes followed her, aware of the fluid movement of her maturing body unconfined beneath her shapeless, black uniform dress.
Child of the devil, he thought. Conceived in sin and now tempting him as Eve had tempted Adam. For several days he closed his mind to the way she ‘flaunted’ herself, provoking him to sin, but she was there, in the house, and he found it increasingly difficult to ignore her and his own response.
It was on a dark November evening, when she was in the kitchen clearing away the supper dishes before sitting down to her own evening meal, that she suddenly found him at the kitchen door.
‘I am going to a meeting now,’ he said. ‘There is no need to wait up for me.’
This surprised Annette. If Father Thomas had no evening meetings he normally remained in his study, having curtly dismissed her after supper. If he was going out on parish business he expected her to remain downstairs and wait for his return, despite the fact that he always insisted he should lock up himself.
‘Thank you, Monsieur l’Abbé.’ She spoke with downcast eyes and waited until she heard the front door close behind him before she heaved a sigh of relief and went up to her attic bedroom, where she lit her candle and closed her door. It was cold in the room and she undressed quickly, putting on her nightgown and wrapping her blanket round her as she sat up in bed to read a news sheet she had picked up off the street on her way to the market. Sometime later she heard the front door bang and after a moment Father Thomas’s heavy tread as he made his way upstairs. To her dismay he did not stop on the first floor, where he had taken over Father Lenoir’s bedroom, but continued up the steep stairs that led to the attics. Hurriedly Annette blew out her candle and, turning her back to the door, curled up in her blanket as if already asleep. She waited with bated breath as she heard the footsteps stop outside her door. There was a long pause and then she heard the handle turn and the door creak open. With thumping heart she tried to keep her breathing even, as if she were sleeping and had no idea that he was standing in the doorway. For a long moment he stood, and then, turning on his heel, he closed the door and went back down the stairs.
Annette found she was shaking and drew deep breaths to calm herself, but believing she had been reprieved, she felt her heartrate slacken and she closed her eyes and prepared to fall asleep.
It was as she dozed off that she heard the footsteps on the stairs again and this time they did not pause in the doorway, but with a lamp in his hand Father Thomas marched across the room and stripped back the covers. For a moment he stared down at her, his eyes lascivious as he saw the fear in hers. Without a word he set the lamp on the floor and reached for her nightgown. Instinctively she curled up, clinging to the nightdress, trying to retrieve the blanket, but he slapped her hard across the cheek. As he did so, the gown he was wearing fell open and Annette could see that he wore nothing beneath it. Annette cried out and was rewarded with a further slap before he flopped down on top of her and began to squirm across her body, grunting as he did so. Annette tried to push him off, but he was too heavy.
‘Lie still, bitch,’ he growled. ‘You’ve had this coming for a long time!’ But Annette did not lie still, she fought him every inch of the way. Her resistance seemed to inflame him more and he held her down as he forced himself inside her. His attack seemed to go on for ever, but when at last he had finished, he rolled off her and, wiping himself on her sheet, sat up on the edge of the bed, looking down at her.
‘You are the product of sin,’ he said. ‘You should never have been born. God blesses no child that’s born through sin.’ When Annette simply stared up at him, hatred in her eyes, he went on, ‘You are a child of the devil, sent to tempt good Christian men like me. You are a snare, sent to lure men away from the paths of righteousness. You deserve the treatment you receive and I am the instrument of God’s punishment.’ He got slowly to his feet and, picking up the lamp again, raised it high so that he could see her face clearly.
‘Understand this, spawn of the devil: if you ever speak of what goes on between us, you will burn in the fires of hell for all eternity.’ With that he retrieved the robe he’d discarded and turned to the door. As he reached it he turned once more and whispered, ‘The fires of hell.’
And so it began. He did not come to her every night, but the fear was always there. In the daytime he continued to treat her as he always had, snapping out orders and expecting her to jump to his bidding. Most of the time she did so, but if she was too slow, or showed any sign of rebellion, he would grip her by the shoulder, his bony fingers biting into her flesh, and catching her by the hair, jerk it hard and painfully, his eyes promising further punishment… later. After that first night, he never slapped her round the face again. His attacks could be vicious, but nothing ever showed; there was never a visible mark on her. No caller at the house, or visitor come to discuss parish affairs with the priest, would ever suspect the cruel
ty that lived within it. And fearing the eternal fires of hell, Annette spoke to no one.
Once, when she was certain that Father Thomas would be safely saying Mass in the church, Agathe went back to the Clergy House to visit Annette. She was shocked at the sight of the girl she had lived with and come to love. She could see the pale face and drooping shoulders of a deeply unhappy child, for she still considered Annette a child despite her probable eighteen years.
‘Annette!’ she cried. ‘Are you ill?’
Annette shook her head. ‘No, madame,’ she replied, mustering a weak smile and leading the way into the familiar kitchen. ‘It’s hard work on my own, but apart from that, everything is fine.’ There was absolutely no question of Annette confiding her nightmare life to Madame Sauze. Father Thomas’s threats of the fires of hell kept her silent, but Madame Sauze looked at her askance, not believing her.
‘Annette,’ she said, ‘if there’s something wrong, you can tell me.’
‘No, madame,’ Annette replied vehemently, before saying more quietly, ‘no, madame, there is nothing wrong.’ She started as she heard the grandfather clock in the hall begin to chime. ‘Please, madame, please go, I need to start on the midday meal.’
‘Of course,’ Agathe said. She didn’t want to be there when Father Thomas got home either. ‘I just wanted to know that you were getting on all right with Father Thomas. He’s lucky to have you. Perhaps I’ll see you in the market one day. We could drink a cup of coffee together?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Annette as she hurried to open the front door. ‘Yes, I’ll look out for you.’
As the door closed behind her and Agathe walked away, she saw Father Thomas emerging from the church. She watched as he let himself into the Clergy House, and sighed. As she had thought those months ago, Father Thomas must be an exacting man to work for. Clearly there was something the matter, but unless Annette trusted her enough to confide in her, there was nothing she could do.
Chapter 3
It was some weeks later that Annette made the fatal discovery. She had only started having an irregular monthly bleed nine months earlier and at first she had not missed it. Unaware of the symptoms, which certainly had never been discussed at the orphanage and had been unnecessary for mention at the Clergy House, Annette had no idea that she was expecting a baby until it began to show in her waistline. Father Thomas had continued to take his pleasure with her whenever he chose. She had long since ceased to fight him; indeed, she had realised that made him more brutal in his use of her. She now lay back and waited for him to stop grunting and for it all to be over. It was, she supposed, inevitable that she should have fallen pregnant at some time in her future, but in her innocence she had assumed that priests were not as other men and could not father a child.
Father Thomas had no such innocence and as Annette’s breasts grew fuller and her stomach more rounded, he realised with disgust that she must be with child; another child of shame. His immediate thought was that he must hide the fact from the parish. He certainly would disclaim paternity; indeed he did disclaim it. The woman herself had been conceived out of wedlock and so it must be in her blood to be promiscuous. Clearly, she must have been having an illicit liaison with some man, perhaps when he, Father Thomas, was out on parish business, or when she pretended to go to the market – some man of similar parentage, similar lack of morals, similarly promiscuous. Thus assuaging his own conscience, the priest absolved himself of all guilt and became convinced in this belief; the father was someone else. Whoever it was, Father Thomas realised that Annette had to go. No shadow of suspicion must fall upon him, and certainly, as the parish priest, he could not employ a woman carrying a bastard child as his housekeeper.
Having made this decision he acted upon it at once. That evening, when she was clearing away the supper, he cornered Annette in the kitchen, barring her way to the door. ‘You are with child,’ he stated coldly. ‘You are carrying a bastard… spawn of the devil!’
By now Annette had realised that she was indeed pregnant but naively had not been prepared for the inevitable reaction of the priest, and she stared at him with frightened eyes.
‘And who is the father of this abomination?’ he demanded, leaning towards her, his face so close that she could feel his breath on her skin. ‘Which man have you been creeping out to meet?’
‘None. No one,’ stammered Annette, shrinking away from him, her back against the dresser.
‘Liar!’ Father Thomas’s face grew red with anger. ‘Liar!’ He was determined that she should admit she had been with some man, but although her fear was stark in her eyes, she remained silent and his anger boiled over. How dare she defy him – him, a man of the cloth? ‘Well, it’s out of the house with you! I’ll keep no fallen women here.’
Annette stared at him and suddenly she realised that, though she was afraid of him, at this moment she wasn’t afraid of the hellfire he threatened. ‘It’s your child,’ she said, ‘and you know it. If you throw me out everyone will know it.’
In that moment he saw the depths of her hatred in her eyes, a hatred so intense that he took an involuntary step backwards. It was gone as quickly as it had come, but he had seen it and felt a sudden jolt of fear.
‘Don’t you dare to threaten me,’ he blustered. ‘If you try to spread malicious rumours about me, who do you think they’ll believe? Me, the man of God, or you… the whore?’ His lip curled as he asked the question, but expecting no answer, he went on, ‘The only place for you is back in St Luke’s, where women like you belong. That’s where your bastard will be born.’ Annette still made no reply and he said, ‘Get up to your room! I shall go and see Reverend Mother in the morning.’
‘I will never leave my child at St Luke’s,’ Annette said, far more bravely than she felt. ‘I would rather kill it.’
‘What? And add murder to your list of sins?’ mocked the priest, quashing his fear and reasserting his authority. ‘The sisters will take you in until the child is born and then you will return to the streets and it will be theirs. It will learn its place in the world… just as you should have done. Now get out of my sight. You disgust me.’
I may disgust you, thought Annette miserably as she heard him coming up the stairs yet again later that night, but it doesn’t keep you away from me.
She was right. Despite his feigned disgust he couldn’t resist the pleasure he would get from invading her body, from possessing her just once more. The feeling of power surged through him as he thrust and thrust again, his excitement building until he exploded in waves of ecstasy. But as the ecstasy ebbed away and the disgust flooded back through him, he never considered whether it was for her or for himself. Spent, he rolled away, pushing her from him, and looking down in revulsion at her swollen body, he thought, Tomorrow she will be gone and my temptation will be over.
When he left her, Annette lay on the bed amid the soiled sheets considering and discarding ideas of escape. Nothing in the world would make her return to St Luke’s orphanage, where she had spent her first thirteen miserable years. She had been deposited on the doorstep as a baby, left to the mercy of the nuns. Nothing would induce her to let that happen to any child of hers. She had no idea of what to do or where to go, but she was determined it would not be back through those forbidding doors. Clearly Father Thomas was taking no responsibility for his child. He had too much to lose if his behaviour became known – his reputation, his authority as a priest, even his livelihood.
She still feared his threats of hellfire, but set against that fear was her instinct to protect her unborn child. She had never in her life had anyone to love, but now, growing inside her was a baby who would rely on her for everything. Hers and hers alone.
She lay awake throughout the night, but all she had decided as a pink-and-pearl dawn began to lighten the eastern sky was that when Father Thomas crossed the square to the church for early morning Mass, she would leave the house and take her chances in the world outside. The service would not be a long one and when Father Th
omas returned from the church he would expect his breakfast to be waiting for him on the table.
Well, thought Annette. Let him wait!
Quietly she got up and gathered her few possessions together before emptying the sack that served as her pillow and packing them into it. From under a loose floorboard, she retrieved the few coins she had gleaned over the years, nearly six francs, and knotting them into her kerchief, thrust them into her bosom.
She crept out onto the landing and listened for the priest’s departure. She could hear him moving about downstairs, going into his study and for some reason into the kitchen and then, finally, the sound of the front door shutting behind him.
For a long moment Annette waited, the silence of the house closing round her. Suppose he’d forgotten something and came back? She shuddered at the thought, but when the silence remained unbroken, she picked up her bag and tiptoed downstairs. She paused in the hall, wondering for one moment if she were being incredibly stupid, thrusting herself out into an unforgiving world. However, the thought of Father Thomas forcing her to go back to St Luke’s was enough to stiffen her resolve, and she reached for the door handle. Turning it, she tried to pull the door open, but it wouldn’t move. It wasn’t bolted, but she realised with a jolt that it was locked. The key was not hanging on its daytime hook beside the door; Father Thomas had locked it from the outside and taken the key.
He’s locked me in! she thought as she rattled the door handle in futile panic. He’s locked me in! She put down her bundle and ran to the kitchen door, which opened out into the narrow lane that ran alongside the house. Again, the bolts were not drawn, but the door was locked and the key was missing. She was a prisoner in the house. Tears of frustration filled her eyes as she pulled at the handle in vain.
‘Stop!’ Annette was startled by the sound of her own voice. ‘I will not cry! Calm down, stupid girl, and think!’
The French Wife Page 2