That Scoundrel Émile Dubois

by Lucinda Elliot

  Miss Morwenna, her niece by marriage, took little notice of Sophie beyond a formal welcome. She was striking; tall, statuesque and dark, her eyes a flashing hazel.

  Lord Ynyr – Sophie supposed attempting to put his Poor Relative at ease – smiled on her. “Is not this a cosy room, Miss Sophie? We always eat here when by ourselves, and we trouble not about formality, talking across the table.”

  That was no easy matter, for the table would make two of the bedroom to which Harriet had moved Sophie back in Chester.

  Sophie was startled at how good looking he was, besides affable, as Harriet said. If this was a novel, he would fall in love with her at once, viewing her lack of money and position as nothing compared to her beauty and pretty modest ways. As it was, he was being kind. She shifted uncomfortably in her chair, for her bottom – though well padded – was stiff from the seemingly endless jolting journey from Chester, especially the last bit up the Famau Mountain.

  She thought how unlucky it was that she was ordinarily pretty, not exceptional. Her teeth were good enough for her to be happy to show them in her smile. “That is nice, Sir.”

  He was slim and upright, with chestnut hair, clear grey eyes, regular features, with nice teeth himself. Sophie wondered Agnes hadn’t made him, Count as he was, the romantic figure in the tale she had dreamed up rather than inventing an admirer from abroad. Perhaps even she realised Lord Ynyr was unlikely to fall for his mother’s companion when all the local young ladies of family must be fighting over him. Even now, Miss Morwenna was beaming on him.

  The Dowager Countess, silver haired and elegant, smiled in agreement about this informality. Bolt upright as she was, she looked no more likely to talk across the table than to push peas into her mouth with her knife.

  Of course, though now in Britain so long she had only a faint French accent, she was a Dubois; Sophie had heard how the older Dubois were terribly proud, and before the revolution, visitors to Versailles.

  Now, the Dowager Countess’ brother and his wife were facing execution as enemies of the state*, Mademoiselle Charlotte was in a decline in Brighthelmstone* and Monsieur Émile was said to be in hiding somewhere in Paris, trying to get his parents out of their prison. Sophie prayed for him every night.

  She was trying not to stare at the grandeur of her surroundings – the intricate decoration of the magnificent fireplace, the cathedral like ceiling, the tapestry, the furniture antique and priceless. Harriet would be overwhelmed by the army of footman. She might have been surprised by the ancient butler, though Sophie guessed if he worked still, it was through choice.

  Sophie made a good dinner from the roasts, the side dishes, the selection of puddings and the choice wines. For days past, she had dreaded her future at Plas Uchaf too much to have an appetite.

  She followed the Dowager Countess and Miss Morwenna from the table, leaving Lord Ynyr sitting alone to enjoy his port (did he tell himself coarse jokes?).

  In the drawing room, the Dowager Countess asked. “Miss Sophie, are you skilled with your needle?”

  This is where I shall be told how I can make myself useful. “I hope so, Your Ladyship.”

  “The baby’s gown I am working on for the Poor Box has somehow got itself into a Sad Tangle. I hope you may be able to right it for me?”

  “I am sure we may speedily mend matters, Ma’am.”

  Meanwhile, Miss Morwenna took up a book. The Dowager Countess clicked her tongue. “Morwenna, are you still reading that nonsense about ‘The Vampyre’s Curse’?”

  Morwenna smiled. “Yes, Ma’am, I have nearly finished it. By the by, I note there is a book of old vampire lore on the shelves here.”

  “Someone – was it young Kenrick? – presented it to the Dear Late Count, knowing of his interest in myths. Still, I consider this modern fascination with the so-called ‘Gothic’ unhealthy.”

  “For sure, Ma’am, but there is a dreadful appeal to such tales.” Morwenna began to read.

  The Dowager Countess hadn’t exaggerated about tangles. Sophie had only finished righting matters when Lord Ynyr bounced in to beam on them. “I trust you are happy with your rooms, Miss Sophie?”

  “They are delightful, Your Lordship. I was quite overwhelmed to be given such luxurious apartments.”

  He waved this aside. “You play and sing, Miss Sophie?”

  “Yes, Sir, but I fear I am sadly untutored.” When Sophie’s family were better off, before the death of her father, she’d had music tutors. Then, as her family’s funds had gradually dried up, so too had the music lessons. Everyone used to say she showed promise, and she loved to play and sing.

  “Perhaps you could play something for us now, Miss Sophie? The instrument is lately tuned, and Miss Morwenna has a sore throat today.”

  Sophie was shy as she went over to play. She chose, ‘All Through the Night’ as appropriate to Wales. At the end, Lord Ynyr broke into applause. Miss Morwenna clapped twice. This was too energetic for the Dowager Countess, but she smiled. “Why, ma chére, you have a delightful voice. But I think with tuition it could be still improved. Your playing, too. We must organise tutors for her, Ynyr.”

  Miss Morwenna looked disapproving, but the Count was enthusiastic. “I will do so tomorrow, Madam, if Miss Sophie is agreeable.”

  Sophie stammered, “I should like it above all things, Your Ladyship, Your Lordship. Thank you!” She was scarcely able to credit her luck. To be given a lady’s maid to herself, such rooms and now music lessons was astonishing.

  Sophie expected more forward behaviour from the maid as she readied her mistress for bed. So it proved.

  As Agnes unlaced Sophie, she made a noise of approval. “Miss has a neat waist, for all she is so well built. The gentlemen do like that.”

  Sophie put Harriet’s voice. “Agnes, that is impertinent.”

  She girl’s eyes danced. “Beg pardon, Miss.”

  She was going out with a candle as Sophie knelt down for her nightly devotions. Sophie recalled her. “Agnes, I hope you say your prayers nightly?”

  “Oh, yes, Miss, when I remember!” the girl went out cheerfully.

  Left alone, Sophie’s own prayers included the one she never forgot: “Please spare Mademoiselle Charlotte and Monsieur and Madame Dubois in the prison, and please protect Monsieur Émile wherever he is in Paris.”

  Perhaps he was dead already, but remembering the lanky boy she had met the one time with the freckled nose and the twinkling green eyes, she couldn’t endure to think of that.

  “It is good in you to take this calling upon the afflicted in the village upon yourself, Sophie, when sadly I am not able for it. Alors, so many babies are being born at the moment that one wonders how it comes about.”

  Sophie hid her unmaidenly smile. Surely the Dowager Countess, who had given birth to five children herself (of whom only Lord Ynyr survived) couldn’t mean that?

  Sophie liked visiting in the village. She had time enough, her duties being so light; she was in charge of the flowers; she did work for the poor box and she played for the company in the evening. Of course, at some point during every day the Dowager Countess would discover: “Alors, how comes my embroidery/sewing/tapestry work/crocheting to be in so sad a tangle?”

  The contrast between how Sophie was treated at Plas Uchaf and what she dreaded as she had left Chester, blubbering, was astounding. She had thought to have to do endless domestic chores and be grateful, as at Chester. She had expected to have to drone endlessly, ‘Yes, Your Ladyship’ and ‘Thank you, Your Ladyship, You are Very Kind’.

  Instead, the Count of Ruthin and the Dowager Countess treated her more as a valued guest than as a dependant.

  The Dowager Countess insisted on buying her new clothes, for, ‘If we expect you to come about with us, Sophie, then we must have you suitably equipped’. She had ordered made up for Sophie new dresses, matching bonnets, gloves, shoes, and other things, including a fur lined cloak in readiness for winter on the Famau Mountain.

  Then there were the del
ightful singing and music lessons.

  Whereas, as soon as Harriet became mistress of the house in Chester, she made it clear to Sophie what a financial burden she was. Sophie had tried to be useful, particularly in helping to look after the babies as they started to arrive, but it never reconciled Harriet to her presence.

  Finally, there was that incident some weeks back when Sophie had fallen down on her bed, remaining comatose for several hours. She awakened to Harriet’s voice. ‘Yet she went out earlier, for the room was empty! Whatever ails her? Does she walk in her sleep? If she is going to turn into an invalid as well, it is too bad.’

  Sophie’s long period of unconsciousness was inexplicable when she hadn’t felt ill. It was then John had written to Her Ladyship asking if she would consider taking Sophie on as a companion who was handy with her needle, musical and who knew how to make herself useful about a house.

  Sophie’s new life at Plas Uchaf would be too good to be true, if it wasn’t for Miss Morwenna. She treated Sophie more as might be expected.

  The girl was now looking out of the window at the view over the foothills of the Famau Mountain to the green and gold patchwork quilt of the Clwyd Valley below. The red roofs of Plas Cyfeillgar*, the nearest great house, caught her eye. “Do you know, Ma’am, they say Mr Kenrick is to return with the second Mistress Kenrick?”

  The Dowager Countess clicked her tongue. “I am glad Goronwy Kenrick has remarried, for by all accounts he was devastated at his first wife’s tragic accident. Of course, his new wife has known bereavement herself, her own husband dying so recently, hmm…Kenrick is a clever young man, but from what the Late Count used to say, his ideas are become misguided. As for those mischievous investigations into the myths of Transylvania! Sure it is an irony it was His Late Lordship – whose ideas were exemplary – interested Kenrick in such matters. At one time, he instructed Ynyr, Émile – Ah, zut, I do so hope he anyway is safe, the rumours from France are terrible – and Kenrick at one time. It seems only yesterday.”

  Statuesque Miss Morwenna swished to the glass to primp her glossy dark hair. “Don’t trouble yourself, Ma’am. Émile will outwit the Jacobins, you will see…I do remember Kenrick from those days, and he is much changed. I met him and Mistress Kenrick when I was down in Town for the last season. She is quite a beauty, but he – Ow!” She fell over Sophie’s feet, seemingly having forgotten her presence on the sofa.

  Sophie forced herself to say, “Beg pardon, Miss Morwenna. I trust you did not hurt yourself?” One of Sophie’s own feet, which were much smaller than Miss Morwenna’s, hurt from the trampling.

  Morwenna wandered away, waving away the apology.

  Some people might say the Dowager Countess and the Count spoil me so that I am in danger of forgetting My Place and I should thank Miss Morwenna for reminding me of it.

  “I suppose that we must visit.” the Dowager Countess sighed as at a great effort. “Unfortunately, my own health will not permit me to call, though I shall send Ynyr.” She made it sound as if he was ten. Perhaps that was how she still thought of him.

  Lord Ynyr at that moment opened the door. He looked pale, his eyes wide. “Madam –” he stammered. He held a letter, and they guessed the news at once.

  Chapter Two

  Paris

  When the group of shopmen seized an intellectual to hang him from a lanterne, yelling he was a Royalist, he cried out how he’d had a sheet printed at his own expense: ‘The Dawn of Liberty and Fraternity’.

  This didn’t stop them from stringing him up. There he struggled, jerking his legs like a frog, his face puce.

  A long, lanky fair man ran up yelling. He kicked one of the group, punched another and gaining the lanterne, pulled out his knife to slash at the rope, half severing it. The tortured man swung violently, but didn’t come down.

  Someone warned, “It’s Gilles Long Legs!”

  The group members drew back. Their leader, a burly, red faced man whose brother owned the charcuterie, was so outraged that despite Gilles Long Legs’ knife, he aimed a kick at his stomach.

  Gilles Long Legs jumped sideways, grabbed the man’s leg and tipped him over. Meanwhile the victim’s face became ever more bloated and discoloured and his kicks slowed.

  Then another man, wild-eyed and piratical, was amongst them, cutting through the half-severed rope with one slash.

  The intellectual thudded to the ground. The crowd began to melt away. The red-faced man scrambled to his feet and Gilles helped him on his way by kicking him in turn. Then as he knelt down by the victim to cut the remains of the rope loose, the dark man shouted after the fleeing group. “Murderous bastards!”

  A voice came back in feeble defiance, “Murderer yourself, Marcel Sly Boots!”

  Marcel made a threatening movement as if to give chase, but it was only a feint.

  A woman ran from the café over the road with some wine. “Here, Gilles, Marcel!”

  They poured the wine into the man’s gaping mouth between his tortured gasps. They knelt looking at his slate coloured face and the deep mark about his neck. “We’ll leave him in your place if you don’t mind.” Gilles spoke with a southern accent.

  “He’s a sight to lose me customers.” She shrugged. “Oh, put him in the back, then.”

  Giles Long Legs took the man’s shoulders, Marcel Sly Boots his feet. They lugged him into the café, laying him on a table in the back.

  “Alors, ma chère, take this for your trouble.” Gilles dug in his pocket, but Marcel Sly Boots forestalled him in giving the woman some coins.

  They quickly covered the short walk to where they were staying. Marcel’s strutting walk moved him almost as much from side to side as forwards, while Gilles’ endless limbs gave his gait a bouncing vivacity.

  “Disgusting swine.” Gilles’ slanted light green eyes flashed and he rubbed the bridge of his freckled nose. “He’s no Royalist. It was some of his outpourings about Equality and Fraternity our Professor Felix was reading to us the other day.”

  “He did?” It seemed to have made no impression on Marcel Sly Boots. He had an easy solution to the mean spirited attack. “Poor sod, eh? Alors, that charcuterie is not so far from our workroom. We’ll call there tomorrow.”

  They paused by another lanterne to discuss some further business. The girl Francoise came out of the house with her pail, heading for the nearby pump.

  Seeing them speaking, she stopped. She stood watching them, keeping too far away to hear what they were saying. She was discreet, though Les Messieurs – as her Grànd-mère called the ruffianly lodgers – trusted her with their safety. She knew Marcel Sly Boots’ workshop was a useful blind for the authorities. Les Messieurs had been clever, too, in evading the Levée en masse* so far (no doubt they used a bit of judicious bribery) but she wondered if – with all these informers about – their luck could last much longer.

  Grànd-mère could have got into trouble herself for using a formal term like ‘Les Messieurs’ but she wasn’t even scared of the Committee for Public Safety*.

  After a minute Monsieur Marcel swaggered off somewhere. Gilles went over to the pump where, pulling off his waistcoat and shirt, he began to wash.

  Francoise stood watching his muscular frame as he stood at the pump. Quite the gentleman, he never went to his dinner with blood on his hands. He turned and smiled at her as she came over with her pail. “Ça va, Francoise?”

  She spoke suddenly. “Gilles, it does not do to think too much about people who have gone out of your life, I know myself. That Sophie girl was downright mean to go away without a word and you should trouble yourself no more about her.”

  He looked startled and resentful. “Why think you I trouble myself about her, ma petite?”

  Francoise had to laugh. “We women can tell these things.”

  The Sophie Episode had taken place a couple of weeks since at one of Les Messieurs parties. They were young and high spirited; in good weather, they liked to hold dances out in the street where everyone could forget t
he daily struggles of existence. Marcel Sly Boots would play his violin; if his cough wasn’t bad, Professor Felix would bring out a funny little whistle he said an Irishman gave him.

  Gilles had brought a blonde Anglaise to this party. His besotted attitude towards her drew people’s attention even more than her nationality. He’d had various good looking girls, his status as one of the leading scoundrels in the area guaranteeing that, and he’d treated them gallantly, but never acted as he did towards this one. This girl – whom Francoise thought nothing like as good looking as, for instance, Lola – he devoured with his eyes.

  Then, the girl disappeared. Gilles Long Legs – who faced sudden death every day with equanimity – seemed as near distraught as anyone had ever seen him. He’d spent most of the night looking for her, sending some of his cohorts to search too. They’d all failed; she had vanished without trace.

  After that, Francoise noted how Gilles went off his soup. Also, while Les Messieurs would drink all day every day, they never allowed themselves to get downright drunk; not, naturally, through any objection to excess, but because they had always to be ready to defend themselves. One night, though, Gilles Long Legs came back falling-down drunk.

  Francoise was going up to bed when he staggered in to collapse on the floor. It was lucky Grànd-mère was already abed, or she would have kicked him until he woke.

  Now, Gilles looked at Francoise thoughtfully as he pulled his shirt back on, still damp as he was. He came over to pinch her cheek. “If only I knew she was safe, I would trouble myself no more about her.”

  Francoise cast her eyes down. “Are you ready for the soup?”

  He carried the heavy pail for her back into the building. He tended to do such things without thinking. Their accommodation had been a café and was palatial compared to how most people lived.

  Grànd-mère’s sharp eyes lingered on them as they came in together. Then, hearing her enemy neighbour come back, she bustled out, leaving the door open. When Francoise had given Gilles his bread and soup with some wine to wash it down, he said, “Sit down, Francoise; I want to talk to you.”