Rose, Rose Where Are You?

by Nicola Thorne

  Before I examined the pages, I picked up the letter and saw that the envelope was new and bore the most recently issued English stamp. The envelope was addressed to Rose in round, immature handwriting.

  Should I read it? Had I a right to? I didn’t have many scruples, but reading other people’s letters was one of them. So I looked at the book. The pages had been handsewn in sections of sixteen pages, and eight were missing out of one of the middle sections. They had been torn rather badly and had left jagged edges.

  The question was, who had removed the pages?

  Jeanne? Rose? Or had they been missing when Jeanne had bought the book? Knowing Jeanne, I was sure she would neither have purchased an imperfect book, nor torn the pages out in such a careless manner. If she had done such a thing, she would have done it neatly, with a knife, and then she would not have lent the mutilated book to anyone.

  Pleased with my deductive powers, I decided it was Rose who had despoiled the book and then hidden it; she was going to tell Jeanne she had lost it and then, when a suitable opportunity arose, throw it away.

  Now to the letter. It was obviously relevant to my case I said to myself, as I attempted to justify reading it. It was very short and said:

  Dear Rose,

  Your letter which arrived yesterday really worried me. You shouldn’t stay on in that place if you are unhappy, and what do you mean about not being able to leave because something has come up? This is very disturbing to me.

  My mum is quite scared at what you have to say about the governess. She doesn’t believe in witches and wonders if your nerves are alright. I said you meant “bitch” but my Mum said she didn’t think so.

  You know, darling Rose, how much I miss you, and I wish you would decide to settle and marry me. We could have our own children and that would be much nicer than looking after other peoples.

  If you like, I can try and get leave and come over and fetch you. If you haven’t enough money let me know, but please write soon because I was worried about not hearing from you for such a long time.

  I love you, Rose

  Cliff.

  I sat over the letter for a long time, letting it lie in my lap. It spoke volumes. It told me that Rose was unhappy, which I knew, and that she thought Jeanne was evil, witch-like, which I also knew. Although she had mentioned a boyfriend, I hadn’t known the relationship was close enough for marriage to be a consideration. Or had it not been mutual? Had Rose been having an affair here with someone else, someone whom she crept out at odd times to meet? Someone who might have killed her, or caused her to kill herself? I thought it odd that the loving Cliff had accepted her death so calmly. No one had heard of him in these parts, and that made me wish I could learn more about Rose.

  For the first time, I wished that Tom were here.

  He would be very helpful if I put him in the picture; a talk with him would clarify my thoughts. Tom’s logical, incisive brain would be able to isolate a few relevant facts from this morass. He also might be able to talk to or see Cliff, whose address in Croydon was on the letter.

  The very next day I sat down and wrote a long letter to Tom. I told him the whole story from beginning to end, factually, objectively, leaving out nothing. I read it over very carefully when I had finished and thought how easily open to interpretation the facts were. One could say there was nothing really to point to any mystery, or one could say, yes, there was something odd here. Tom would know. Tom would also enjoy being consulted. I was here fulfilling the role of the little woman, and Tom would like that.

  I sent the letter by express post and, that out of the way, got back to work. I remained working all week, seeing nobody except Madame Gilbert. Jeanne didn’t call, and Michelle was in Amiens. It was good for me to immerse myself in hard academic work again, and the puzzling de Frigecourt situation seemed to recede to the back of my mind as I wrestled with the problems of interpreting Joan and her mission. My ankle got better; I slept well, ate well, and walked for at least an hour every day. I avoided the bay and the chateau, though, and discovered more about the hinterland beyond Port St Pierre.

  The town was on a peninsula and one could walk quite easily from one side to the other, following the main street from the Place Jeanne d’Arc, which overlooked the fishing boats tied up at the jetty, to the wide beach with its bathing huts on the other side. The beach walk led to the dunes, which I wasn’t keen to explore again, so I concentrated on the port side of the town, which formed the rim of the bay.

  A curious feature was a pair of great sluice gates containing a huge basin of water, the purpose of which I was never able to discover. They filled each day with the tide, and were then closed; when the tide was out, they were opened again and released, with a considerable amount of force, this huge containment of water into the bay. One could walk along the rampart up to the sluice and then beyond, joining a path that led to the Noyelles road. I explored the marshes and the countryside beyond, and generally came back to the town at dusk, the best part of the day, when the lights were starting up and, if there had been any sun, the horizon beyond was streaked with the pinks, greys, and golds of sunset.

  One such day, about a week after the children had gone and I’d almost forgotten about the chateau and the de Frigecourt family, I returned home to find Laurent sitting in his car waiting for my return. I greeted him warmly and asked him in.

  “You look very well, Clare. I think the change from us has done you good.”

  “I think it has, Laurent, but don’t forget I had a bad ankle, too, and that was hardly your fault.”

  I was walking about the house switching on lights, feeling ill at ease. Laurent was standing by the stove watching me, which didn’t help. There had been a warmth, an intimacy in his greeting that made me feel like an immature schoolgirl. I didn’t quite know how to cope with it.

  Yes, I was attracted to Laurent de Frigecourt, but I had just reopened negotiations, as it were, with my husband. I silently poured out two whiskies, added soda water, and passed a glass to him. He looked puzzled.

  “Clare!”

  “Sorry, is it too early?”

  “No, but there’s something in your manner. You’re strange. I was really looking forward to seeing you; you’re a family friend, Clare. Part of us.”

  “No, I’m not!” I said, with a vehemence that surprised me. “I mean I am a family friend; I love the children, rely on that. But I’m not part of your family, Laurent, I’m not.”

  “As you like,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, though, I mean that you reacted like that. I think we must have upset you.”

  “Oh, you didn’t upset me at all, Laurent, don’t be absurd.”

  “Then something happened. Was it Jeanne?”

  “Jeanne didn’t upset me – nothing upset me. I ... Laurent.” I sat on the couch and looked up to where he was still standing by the stove, glass in hand. “I have come here to work, to write a book; to some extent my career depends upon its success. I’m considered bright. I’m a full lecturer. This book could make me a senior lecturer and a Reader within five years. At forty I could be a professor. I just might make it, because I know I’m considered that good.

  “My marriage has suffered because of my ambition. I know Tom may be rather old-fashioned, but I definitely didn’t put everything into it that I might have. My work came first and my marriage came second, and I think in many ways Tom was a good husband. He was a soul mate.”

  “You still love him, don’t you?” Laurent said. “You’re really trying to tell me that if I’ve got overtures in mind, I should forget them.”

  “Laurent! I was trying to tell you I can’t move back to the chateau.”

  “I’ve shocked you. My wife was buried only last week. How can I be thinking of someone else?” Laurent sat down beside me and took my hand, or rather he placed his hand on mine.

  “Clare, Elizabeth was ill for nearly eighteen months. I loved her terribly; she was my wife; but when someone can’t see or talk, can only lie there in a v
ery deep sleep from which she will probably never emerge, she does die a little; she is beyond you in some indefinable way. She is someone you love, but she is no longer that vibrant human being you made love to, with whom you shared so many adventures, joys, and sorrows, who bore your children. And I feel like that about Elizabeth now. I love her, and part of her is always with me, but she is gone and I am here, alive, and I am a normal man and I want a woman. I want to marry again, eventually, maybe have more children, make someone else happy, be happy again myself. I have been sad for such a very long time, Clare.”

  “I know you have, Laurent.” I could think of nothing else to say, yet a deep despair seemed to possess me. Did I know what I wanted, the way Laurent did?

  “I liked you immediately, you knew that,” he went on. “That night in your caftan with the vibrant blacks and greens you seemed like an astonishing new force that had come into my life – something that one might attain, if the circumstances were right. I knew Elizabeth was dying, and I would have done anything to save her for me, for the children.”

  “I understand; don’t torment yourself. I know you weren’t being unfaithful to her. I was attracted to you, too; but I also had a catch, still have. My husband, Tom.”

  “But you left Tom.”

  “I left to sort myself out. Tom keeps on writing to me.”

  “And you’ve also written to him?”

  “I wrote the other day. I think he might come over.”

  “Did you ask him to come over?”

  “No, but he knows I’m worried.”

  “Worried about what?”

  “About Rose, how she died.”

  Laurent looked at me as though he’d seen a ghost.

  “About Rose? You’re worried about Rose?”

  “You’ve almost forgotten about it, haven’t you?”

  “No, but ...”

  “Yes, you have; yet it was only a month ago or a little more.”

  “A lot of things have happened since then.”

  “I know. I didn’t tell you before because I thought it would worry you even more, but Rose came to see me the day she had her accident, and she said she was unhappy at the chateau.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “She thought Jeanne had a bad influence on the children.”

  Laurent got up with an explosive gesture and began pacing the room. “And you think that had something to do with her death?”

  “I don’t know, Laurent. I simply don’t know.”

  “But you’ve seen Jeanne, you’ve lived in the house. Do you think she has a bad influence on the children?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Well?”

  He was losing patience. It was hopeless to go on. He was frustrated and cross and humiliated; what could I tell him that he would believe?

  “We’ve lost the point,” I said. “We’ve mixed our relationship up with other things.” I got up and faced him. “I won’t know how I feel about you, Laurent, until I’ve seen Tom again.”

  “Then you can choose,” he said bitterly.

  “No, I don’t flatter myself that I have that kind of choice. What I’ve just said would be enough to put any man off.”

  “It’s honest,” he said gruffly. “Not a quality a lot of women are noted for. But I always thought you hadn’t detached yourself from Tom, just by a few of the things you’ve said. You mention his name in almost every conversation.”

  “Do I? I didn’t realise that.”

  “He’s so much a part of you.”

  “I did leave him rather abruptly.”

  “Then there might still be a chance for us?” He put his hands lightly on my shoulders. I knew he wanted to kiss me, and I wanted to kiss him, but I knew we wouldn’t. It would be one of those tantalising things. “I’m not saying this year, even next. I wouldn’t dream of remarrying until it was decent to do so. I mean for my own sake as well as propriety, but I wanted to tell you that I’d missed you and thought about you – to be honest with you as you’ve been honest with me.”

  “Shall we leave it like that?” I said, smiling and releasing his hands. “I’d love to see the children again. How are they?”

  “They took it very well. Kids don’t really understand, you know. Only Noelle and Philippe came to the funeral. They were very grave, but they don’t talk about Elizabeth much.”

  “They will,” I said, “and you must keep her in their minds, as their mother, whatever happens.”

  “Oh, and we have a new nanny.”

  “My goodness, now you tell me.”

  “That is actually what I did come to tell you; that and to ask you to dinner and see if you want to pick up your things. The other thing was forced on me, by seeing you. I didn’t mean to come out with it just yet.”

  “It did rather shake me,” I said, “but these things happen, especially when one pushes them under the surface. But I will come up to the chateau with you and get my things. I won’t stay to dinner. I want you all to settle down. Are you staying for a while?”

  “As long as I can. I have to go back to Paris and then to Germany on wine business, but I want to see the new nanny in.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “I think she’s good. She’s very well qualified, a nurse as well as a trained children’s nanny. She’s a lot older, which is a good thing after Rose, who was a bit flighty.”

  “How old?”

  “Thirty-five. The snag is that she doesn’t speak good French or much English. She’s Swedish, but she was all I could get, qualified, and at such short notice.”

  “How did you get her?”

  “Some agency put her on to me.She just turned up at the door. I’ve given her a month’s trial.”

  “That sounds fair enough, though the language is a problem.”

  “Yes, the language is a problem; but she is very willing, and the children seem to have taken to her. Her name is Lisa.”

  “What does Jeanne say?”

  “Jeanne hasn’t said anything. I don’t ask Jeanne’s opinion when I engage other staff. I’ve asked her not to tread on Jeanne’s toes, and to be discreet. Anyway, Lisa’s job is as a nursemaid, to look after the children’s bodily needs, their clothes, hair, feeding. She can take them for walks and play with them; she doesn’t have to speak good French for that.”

  Indeed, when I met her an hour or so later, Lisa was, at least to my eyes, everything that a sensible children’s nanny should be. She was a large, heavy girl with hair plaited above her head. She wore a blue smock with a badge on it, very efficient-looking, and she seemed the sort of dependable, trustworthy person who would keep a calm head in an emergency.

  In an otherwise nondescript face, however, she had a surprising feature – the most piercing blue eyes that I have ever seen. They were not warm eyes; they were appraising, and they seemed to be keeping their own judgment about everything they saw.

  But then it wasn’t up to me to approve of Lisa, and after I’d made polite conversation, greeted Jeanne, kissed and talked to the children, I made my way up to my old room to pack the rest of my things.

  Rose’s room. Yes, there was an atmosphere here. I could feel it as I closed the door and looked at the neatly made bed, the sparse, heavy furniture with my few things scattered about. There was that gentle unexplained breeze, and I suddenly felt a restlessness of the spirit, an agitation as though I had unfinished business here. Something seemed to pass by me; an invisible presence disturbed the air, and I felt I had only to reach out in order to touch someone, something. The urge was so strong that I stretched out my arm, and then withdrew it, feeling foolish, like a blind person groping in the dark.

  I don’t know how long the feeling lasted, not long, but I saw myself transfixed in a moment of time, and the eerie sense of apartness sent a chill through me – as though the life of the house pulsed on, leaving me apart. It was then that the possibility occurred to me, for the first time in my life, that I was in the presence of a psychic force, something not sub
ject to rational explanation.

  Was someone, was Rose trying to get through to me? And if so, what was she trying to say?

  CHAPTER 11

  My experience in Rose’s room and the long talk with Laurent left me feeling terribly disturbed. Clearly the chateau was an unhealthy place for me, because I didn’t believe in psychic phenomena as intangible as the force that had affected me, and I felt the need to attribute it to mood or emotion. I had packed my things and left the chateau quickly, with only a cursory farewell, which Laurent seemed to attribute to my desire to put space between himself and me.

  For the next few days I kept well away from the chateau, even in my walks. Laurent and Lisa and all the others had to sort themselves out. I was staging a tactical withdrawal. I thought it odd that I hadn’t heard from Tom, and in a strange way I was disappointed. I’d misjudged his mood, that was clear, but if Tom’s silence helped me to decide how I really felt about him, perhaps it would turn out to be a good thing.

  One day I woke and lay looking out of my window; the cat was teasing the dog and his barking had woken me. It was a glorious day, one of those days when the sky has a delicate blush of pink to its azure blue, the air is warm, and the earth seems alive with subterranean stirrings.

  I needed to get away. Take a long drive, maybe stay the night somewhere. Joan needed a good rest. I’d been working at fever pitch the last few days to keep my mind off the other side of my life in Port St Pierre, and the assortment of facts and interpretations I’d unearthed needed a good airing, a long thoughtful drive to help me assimilate them.

  I packed the car, took an overnight case, and without telling anyone, drove up the N.1, taking the right turn at Montreuil and following the N.39 along the winding valley of the Canche. At Contes I turned left and followed the tiny river Planquette, only a stream at times. The lush green wooded valley was like a little Switzerland with everything in miniature –the neat houses with their masses of potted plants and the villages which seemed so completely self-contained, so far away from the business of the Channel ports.