I was glad that Michelle had the grace to blush, while Tom smiled and gave me a broad wink.
For the next two days I did nothing but work. I saw no one outside the chateau and little of anyone in it other than at mealtimes. Something in my system was badly in need of a rest. The regular life of the house suited us all. Meals at the same time each day, seen to by Madame Barbou with the assistance of her daughter Agnes, who also did the cleaning. School, the long hours supervised by Jeanne, and play taken care of by Lisa.
I trailed around the house wrapped in my research, and everyone left me pretty much alone.
But the more I studied the personality of Joan, the more I was reminded of our very own Jeanne. They could even have looked alike. Although a great deal was known of the Maid, there were no extant likenesses of her, and one had to rely on the many descriptions history had provided in order to assemble a composite picture. She seems to have been a plain, sturdy country girl with dark hair and brown eyes, and so totally devoid of any sexuality that the handsome Duc d’Alencon remarked he was able to watch her undress without feeling a twinge of desire; in fact, they slept side by side during their campaigns.
This really was our Jeanne; she was plain, dark, and asexual. She was pious, superstitious, devious, and ... witch-like?
As a seventeenth-century English divine wrote:
Here lies Joan of Arc, the which
Some count saint and some count witch;
Some count man, and something more;
Some count maid, and some a whore:
Her life’s in question, wrong, or right ...
and it concludes that at the judgment day:
Then shalt thou know, and not before.
Whether Saint, Witch, Man, Maid or Whore.
I was confident we could disregard the question of man or whore, as far as our Jeanne was concerned anyway, but saint or witch? Yet I couldn’t believe that Joan of Arc was wandering around under our roof teaching three children the rudiments of learning. But Jeanne didn’t claim to be Joan; she claimed only possession by the spirit, or oneness with the saint, and certain supernatural gifts, such as she had.
Philippe’s fall and miraculous survival had shaken me profoundly, and much as I wanted to dismiss it, I found myself thinking about it a lot. Yes, I thought it would be better if Laurent took his brood back to Paris, sent them to day schools, and kept the chateau for holidays – and, of course, got rid of Jeanne.
Laurent was due back by the weekend, and on Friday, having completed three good days’ work I packed my things and prepared for the move back to my house the following day. Tom would have to go to a hotel or some other digs. Why didn’t he go back to England anyway?
Fabrice had been out of sorts ever since Philippe’s accident – jealousy had made him fractious and naughty.
But Lisa managed the children well. I approved of Lisa; her monumental calm was good for them and made up a lot for the language barrier.
Every day we all had a big lunch together, and then the children had tea. To make it easier for Madame Barbou, they sat with the three of us while we had a light supper, and then they went up to bed. That Friday I told them it was my last night.
“Your papa comes back tomorrow.”
I was flattered at the sight of their sad faces.
“But Clare, we’ll miss your reading us stories at night.”
“Your papa will read to you.”
“He is always too busy.”
“I will tell him, and I’ll come to see you often.”
“Are you going back to your husband?” giggled Noelle.
“No, not yet; now eat up.”
Yes, I would miss them, I thought, as one by one they emerged from the bath and I rubbed them with warm towels and helped them into their pyjamas. With what big eyes they listened to the story of Red Riding Hood, so deathly quiet you could hear their excited breathing.
Noelle clung to me as she always did, and I kissed her and wished not for the first time she was mine.
“I wish you were my mummy,” she said again.
“So do I.”
“Can’t you marry my daddy?”
“I’m married already.”
“But you don’t love your husband, do you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t think he loves you.” Noelle stopped abruptly and I sensed something in her manner.
“Why do you say that, Noelle?” I asked casually, tucking her in.
“No reason.”
“Please tell me.”
“Promise not to tell?”
“Promise.”
“Madame Barbou saw him with Michelle; she told Agnes and Philippe heard.”
I laughed. “Oh, I know that. He took her home the other day.”
“No, they were eating at the Hotel du Port. Madame Barbou saw them in the restaurant when she went home the other night.”
“I don’t mind, Noelle. One nice thing about us is that we let each other do as we like.”
Nevertheless, despite these noble sentiments, I felt a peculiar constriction in my throat as I put out the light and returned to my own room.
I couldn’t blame him if Tom was attracted to Michelle. In many ways they were well suited, and she would make the admirable French bourgeois wife that Tom wanted so much. There would be no question that she’d put him first and have warm slippers and a good meal ready on the dot every evening, and she’d continue to practise medicine, run a clinic and have dozens of babies as well.
Good luck to them. I should probably go to America. That way I’d get a professorship well before Tom.
Despite my emotional unease, I read for a long time and then put out the light, gazing into the darkness until I grew accustomed to it and could make out the shapes of the furniture and the pile of books on my table.
Rose’s room; my room. I’d miss it. I hadn’t thought of Rose for days. Did it really matter how she died? She’d seemed an unpleasant girl in many ways; but she had come to me, and she’d warned me. In a way, she’d been right.
A breeze stirred my face and I sat up in bed.
“Rose?”
I put out my hand to touch her. I felt a breath on my cheek as though she were bending over me; it was warm and alive. I looked, and there she was dressed in white; she took my hand. I couldn’t utter a sound; I felt as though I were going to choke.
“It’s only me, Noelle.”
I sank back on the bed, my heart fluttering like some old duck with the vapours.
“Noelle, you gave me the most ghastly fright.”
“I didn’t know if you were asleep or not. Why did you call me Rose?”
“I was thinking of her; now get back to bed.”
“I can’t sleep. I’m frightened.”
“There’s nothing to be frightened of.”
“There’s someone in the library.”
“That’s nothing to be frightened of. It’s probably Jeanne looking for something to read.”
“Jeanne and Lisa went up to bed; they looked in on me to say goodnight.”
I looked at my watch. It was after midnight. I’d read for much longer than I’d thought.
“How do you know it’s the library?”
“I went halfway down the stairs. I was too frightened to go further. My room is over the library. I heard a kind of tapping.”
“Wait here and I’ll go and see.”
I remembered the valuable library of the dukes of Burgundy, displayed in a glass case. Maybe someone did know about them. I felt far from brave as I crept down the stairs, but when I saw a light coming from the library something reassured me. Surely a burglar wouldn’t have left the light on!
I breathed more easily and walked across the hall to the door. At first I could see nothing and then a sound came from the far alcove.
“Jeanne?” I whispered.
Nothing. I felt a prickle of fear, but now I’d come too far to go back. I put on more lights and called out more loudly.
&
nbsp; “Jeanne!”
But it wasn’t Jeanne. It was Lisa. I gaped at her in astonishment.
“Lisa? What are you doing?”
She looked at a loss for words. “I ... I fetch something to read.”
“Oh. That’s all right. Couldn’t you sleep?”
She shook her head. I gazed with interest at the shelves she had been exploring. Either she was extremely stupid, or I had underrated her intelligence. The shelves were full of books on the geography of Western Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
However, who was I to question Lisa’s taste in reading matter, or the fact that she could read French at all?
Maybe she wanted to look at the pictures. I turned to go.
“Don’t leave the lights on, will you, Lisa?”
“No. I go now to bed too.”
I put out the lights and we went quietly upstairs. Lisa obviously didn’t want to take any of the books to bed with her. I thought that a bit odd, but I said a cheerful goodnight and went to my room. I’d forgotten about Noelle, who was sitting up in bed, her eyes bright.
“Was it a burglar?”
“No, it was Lisa. She wanted something to read.”
“But she can’t read French!”
“Well, maybe she wanted to look at a book. I don’t know. Are you going back to bed?”
“I shall imagine things.”
I sighed.
“All right. Move over, and not a sound all night.”
I smiled as her little body wriggled up to me.
“Were you cross about Michelle and your husband?”
“Of course not. Go to sleep.”
Silence. I felt myself dozing.
“Clare, are you awake?”
“What is it now?”
“It’s about Lisa.”
“What about Lisa?”
“She has a whole set of keys in one of her drawers.”
“What?” I turned over and faced her in the dark. “What on earth were you doing looking in Lisa’s drawers?”
Silence.
“You were snooping, weren’t you, Noelle?”
Silence.
“That’s a horrible thing to do. How do I know you don’t do it to me?”
“I love you; I don’t like Lisa.”
“Still, that’s no reason to look in her drawers. What sort of keys?”
“I think they’re all the keys to the house. Why would she want those?”
“I don’t know. Go to sleep.”
Eventually I heard regular breathing. Noelle was asleep, but I was wide awake.
Lisa had seemed so much part of the house that I had never given her much thought, certainly nothing like the attention I’d paid to Jeanne. Yet what did we know about Lisa? She had come into the family under peculiar circumstances; she spoke no English and very little French. How odd to look for a job as a nanny in a country where you could hardly speak the language, an au pair, perhaps, because that would be the object, to learn the language. But a full-time, proper nanny?
To me, Lisa was so amorphous and unappealing a character that I’d never really taken her into consideration, certainly not in the role of villainess. That I had assigned firmly and in full prejudice to Jeanne. Yet Lisa had been in the boat and had got out. Had her conscience been appeased by trying to save the youngest child? More than anyone, Lisa had had a chance to loosen the screws. And now we knew that Lisa had a full bunch of keys. I kept on thinking of the open door to the turret - the turret that hadn’t been opened for years.
CHAPTER 16
The idea of Lisa as a creature of mystery was hard to believe. One always saw her as a competent and unimaginative person. Withdrawn, yes, but cunning, no. The following day I learned something even more extraordinary about Lisa. She regularly saw Michelle’s brother Nicolas, who spent his time taking her out in his boat.
“He’s absolutely crazy about her,” Michelle reported, obviously distressed. She had called round in the morning to see how we were. If there was a reserve in my greeting, she didn’t notice it. She wanted to tell me about her brother’s latest affair and I, deciding for once in my life to be discreet, thought it unwise to tell her what I felt about Lisa or what I already knew - all intangibles, like everything else in this house. She was in the boat before it sank; she had a full set of keys for the house; and she was snooping round in the library at a very odd time and among a curious set of books.
“You told me he liked older women,” I smiled, “though I must say she’s a lulu. Maybe she’s sexy. To change the subject, Laurent is due back today. He’s talking about taking the children back to Paris. I think it’s a good idea.”
“Before Christmas?”
“My goodness. How the time has flown. It’s nearly Christmas. I’ve no idea, Michelle. Tell me, how was your dinner with Tom?”
Poor Michelle; I wasn’t being fair. She couldn’t even begin to cover her confusion, so I got up and walked to the window. The bay looked blustery and cold, and the trees were almost bare. It was early December –a bleak, cold month. Imagine anyone yachting in the bay now.
“That was mean of me,” I said, my back still to her. “I just heard about it – village gossip.”
“It was nothing at all – he talked all the time about you. I think he wanted someone to talk to. Tom is a very lonely man, Clare.”
“Oh, he gave you that line, did he? It’s really quite effective. Michelle, Tom has hundreds of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, to say nothing of students. He is the least lonely man I know.”
“Oh, I know that, Clare. But he feels it in his relationship with you, this loneliness; he has missed you terribly. That’s why he came over, not because of Rose. He just can’t seem to say it to you, so he had to say it to me. I’m a doctor, after all. I’d like to help you if I can.”
I felt chastened.
“You honestly think I don’t give Tom enough warmth and understanding, don’t you?”
“I’m not saying that. I think you don’t understand each other enough; you’re both strong personalities, both too defensive. This makes you seem more aggressive toward each other than you really are. Tom says inwardly you think that he wants to lock you in the house with a large kitchen and half a dozen babies.”
“And write books as well,” I said caustically. “Tom wants me to be all things. Clever and cuddly ...”
“Well? Can’t you be clever and cuddly? Can’t you see Tom is as insecure as you are? There is a deep well of affection there, Clare. The way you bicker at each other, the way you look at each other, shows all that. But you simply haven’t come to terms with giving to each other as well.”
I was beginning to weaken. I was touched that Tom cared enough about me to unburden himself to Michelle. Maybe he’d asked her to talk to me; I wouldn’t inquire. Anyway, most of it was true. I did care very deeply about Tom, yet half the time he made me want to scream.
“There’s a lot of truth in what you say,” I said casually. “Maybe we should try and sort something out. I still think we should give it the full year, and Tom should go back to England.”
“Then, if you want my opinion, I don’t think you’ll ever come together again, if you leave it that long.”
We were both, I noticed, very careful to make no mention of Laurent de Frigecourt.
As it was a Saturday, the children had school only in the morning. In the afternoon Jeanne would be off and Lisa in charge.
I’d started the day badly, waking from a heavy, disturbed sleep with Noelle turning and muttering beside me. As the day progressed, I felt restless and depressed, unable to find any real cause. I knew that as long as so many questions remained unresolved, I would have no peace. So just before lunch I went up to my room to tidy myself and looked at the packed suitcase, the stripped bed.
This was why I was depressed. I didn’t want to leave. I knew then that I had to stay at the chateau either until the family went to Paris or something else happened. But what did I expect to happen? I wen
t to the window and gazed at the bay. The tide was in and the water was brown; the bay could be very muddy at times. Low clouds and a December mist obscured the skyline and Le Hourdel was invisible.
Then I noticed a small rowboat coming towards the chateau, the kind that fishermen used for getting ashore when they left their boats anchored in mid-Channel. In the bow a sturdy man, his back to me, was pulling steadily for shore. We had a small anchorage just at the walls of the chateau – a large ring which could be attached to the painter – and some steps like a stile to get over the wall.
As it came nearer, I saw that the woman in the stern was Lisa, and the man in the bow Nicolas. What a day for a morning row, I thought, amused, as Nicolas stood up, steadied the boat, helped Lisa onto the tiny stone jetty, and kissed her. She stood poised on the wall waving to him, then climbed over and down the steps on our side. Nicolas cast off and pulled round toward the port.
I watched, fascinated. Lisa had a full shopping bag and she looked happy as she came trotting up to the house, almost under me, then round to the back. She would be just in time for lunch.
At one the children came thundering down the stairs, Goofy leaping to greet them from his waiting place in the hall. Philippe, with Jeanne holding his arm, came down more slowly. He now had a stick, of which he was very proud.
I looked closely at Lisa during lunch; her face was pink and her eyes sparkled. I decided to tell her I’d seen her in the boat. At first she pretended not to understand, and then she went even more pink.
“It is to shop in Port Guillaume.”
“You go shopping in Port Guillaume?”
“It is Nicolas – he take me there.”
Jeanne glanced at her with raised brows, and the children chaffed her about Nicolas. Most of it went over her head, however.
“This afternoon Nicolas take us hunting – me and the children.”
Oh no, not hunting!
“Philippe can’t go hunting,” I said quickly, “and Fabrice is too small.”
Fabrice let out a terrific wail and all three spoke at once.
“They will come to no harm,” Lisa assured us. “Nicolas, he very careful. Philippe can sit in the car, and I will hold Fabrice carefully by the hand.”
Rose, Rose Where Are You? Page 17