Duval at Waterloo

by Michele McGrath

  It was delightful to watch my sister and niece talking and playing with my children. Aimée was a little older than Laure and had all the glamour of Paris about her, as Laure told her mother afterwards. This was a thought that amused us all for, indeed, Aimée seemed very immature yet and more boyish than a young lady of fashion should be. The girls took to each other at sight and spent most of the evening chatting and telling their secrets. Eugénie and I felt pleased to see Aimée’s spirits reviving in her cousin’s company, after our awful journey.

  Jean and Françoise sat happily on Sophie’s knee and listened to her stories. She told quite a few about our childhood adventures. Since she’s a good storyteller, she made everyone laugh, especially when I started blushing over her more embarrassing tales. Time flew by until the children tired at last. Sophie and Eugénie took them upstairs and put them to bed. Laure would not be parted from Aimée and begged her mother to let them share a room, while we stayed in their house. Sophie agreed and the girls went off happily together. Later on, Emile brought out liqueurs and sweet biscuits. I tasted again the vintage Chartreuse, which I had been allowed to sip as a child. It was the taste of home and I relaxed knowing I was here to stay, or so I thought.

  Emile asked me, “How long is it since you ran away?”

  “It was the spring after Maman died,” I replied. “It must have been 1796. Heavens, that’s nearly twenty years ago!” I hesitated. “How did Papa take my leaving so suddenly?” I asked Sophie.

  “Very badly. At first he thought that you would soon crawl back, like a dog with its tail between its legs. He imagined you starving and threadbare, begging him to take you back, like the Prodigal Son. He swore he never would. Then, when you didn’t come, he became even more furious. He disinherited you and ordered everyone never to speak your name again. I tried to reason with him and got slapped for my pains.”

  “He hit you?” I asked incredulously. With all his faults, my father never lifted his hand to either my mother or my sister. My cousin and I had been thrashed often enough, but not the women.

  “Only once. He lashed out without thought. Don’t fret about it ̶̶ it wasn’t your fault. I knew I was goading him too far. I never made the same mistake again and we became reconciled long ago.”

  I nodded. “How is he?”

  “Sick, needing you, waiting for you to come.”

  “He’s never needed me in his life.”

  “He does now. He has a growth on his side that the doctor says is killing him. He hasn’t got many months to live and he’s in pain. He wants to make his peace with you before he dies.”

  I turned away, staring into the fire, my thoughts tumbling over in my mind. Hatred of my father had been such a constant emotion in my life. He was a tall burly man with a loud voice and a truculent manner. He expected instant obedience from me and enforced his will with a ruthlessness he showed to few others. He had never ailed for a day in his life when I knew him. I did not know how to cope with the thought of him sick and dying – should I be sorry or rejoicing? I’d wished all sorts of evils on him when I was a boy. When I was a man, I tried to forget I ever had a father.

  “Alain.” As usual it was Eugénie who rescued me from my inner turmoil. “The fact that he asked you to come home means that he must be ready to forgive you for running away. Otherwise he wouldn’t have let Sophie write to you. He’s no longer your master, only a sick old man who wants to see his son before he dies. If you don’t forgive him, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

  I nodded, realising the truth of her words. I had to do this, for my own sake. He’d made the first gesture, something I never believed he would do. I turned to Sophie.

  “What happened to Jacques?” Jacques was our cousin, a couple of years older than me. He was a better workman and far more skilled with his hands, so my father had always favoured him. I’d expected him to take over from my father one day and did not envy him the task.

  “His horse threw him, six or seven years ago now. He hit his head against a wall and never regained consciousness.”

  “I see.” I can’t say that I cared much. Jacques had a habit of crowing over me, as boys do. He also took a delight in making trouble for me with my father, which was an easy enough task. I wouldn’t have wished an early death on him, but neither would I be hypocritical enough to pretend to grieve.

  “What does Papa want me for?”

  “He hasn’t said so in so many words but I think he expects you to take over the business.”

  “I was never much of a locksmith and I did not even finished my apprenticeship.”

  “Papa has three men working for him and they’re all competent. He doesn’t do the work himself any more, unless the job is particularly complicated. He spent his time, before he became too ill, meeting people, doing paperwork and collecting debts. Even you can do those things.” She smiled at me.

  “Even I can.” I nodded. At that moment, Eugénie gave a huge yawn and immediately apologised, but Sophie jumped to her feet.

  “What are we doing keeping you out of your beds all night, talking? You must be exhausted after that terrible journey. Come away at once. We’ll have all the time in the world to talk about this later,” Sophie said, with no idea our time together would prove to be so short.

  Next day I decided to face the thing I was dreading most, before I did anything else. So I made my way into the centre of the town to Papa’s workshop. Sophie had told me that, since her marriage, Papa had given up Bellevue. This was our childhood home, some distance south of the old city walls. Father preferred to live in an apartment over the business. He liked to oversee what was going on and drink with his cronies without having to travel or bother with the upkeep of a large house.

  Eugénie wanted to come with me to see him but I refused. “Better not, wait until I find out what mood he’s in.”

  Sophie agreed with me. “Alain’s right. My father’s an awkward man socially and he might say something that he would later regret. The two of them have to speak about things that hurt and angered them both in the past and get rid of the bitterness, if they can. Let them do so in private.”

  I walked through the streets of Grenoble alone. I revelled in the autumn sunshine and the freedom from travelling, but I had an apprehension so great it almost choked me. As I turned the last corner into the narrow road where the business was situated, my heart began to pound like a drum and my hands shook. The street hadn’t changed and the workshop remained much as I remembered it, dark and untidy. Two men worked at one of the long benches, by the light of candles. One of them rose and came to greet me, as I pushed open the door and entered.

  “Can I help you, Monsieur?” he asked.

  “I would like to see Monsieur Duval,” I replied.

  “Monsieur Duval is indisposed and not seeing customers today. I am Georges, his foreman. I’m sure I will be able to deal with your needs.”

  I saw little point in being rude to the man, who was only doing as he had been told. So I smiled and said,

  “Monsieur Duval will certainly see me. Please tell him that his son, Alain, has called and is waiting downstairs.”

  A sudden exclamation made both of us look at the man on the other side of the workshop, who was rising slowly from his seat. An older man, with a long white moustache and pince-nez perched on the bridge of his nose.

  “Alain!” he said, smiling and holding out his arms to me.

  I recognised him then with a shock. I had last seen him with brown hair and without glasses. “Benôit! Still here then?” I returned his hug.

  “Where else should I be?”

  “And still fighting with my father?”

  He laughed. “It keeps us alive. What would he do without me?”

  After the greetings, introductions and remarks on how the years had changed us both, Benôit sent Georges off to announce me to my father. When he was gone, Benôit said,

  “Be careful how you speak to the Patron. He’s ready to forgive and forget b
ut he’s still got a temper. Don’t provoke him.”

  “I’ve never needed to provoke him. Simply existing and being in the same room with him was always more than enough.”

  “You’re a man now, not a boy, and he’s dying. He’s been terrified he would go before you got here. So do what I tell you for once and speak softly to him.”

  “Yes, Papa,” I said with a grin, for indeed the old man had been more of a father to me than my own. He’d protected me when he could and he’d taught me what little I still remembered of the trade. Benôit gave me a clout in the way he used to do, just as Georges came down the stairs and beckoned.

  “He’s in the salon, first door on the left.”

  I climbed up, with the sick feeling I’d forgotten in the workshop coming back unbidden and double in strength. I scratched on his door and heard the word, “Come!” That was my first real warning of the change in my father. The voice seemed thin, reedy and unlike his usual bellow.

  I could hardly see him at first. The room was dark, with the curtains half drawn against the weak sunlight. When my eyes adjusted, I realised that he was sitting in a low armchair beside a sluggish fire. A small shrivelled figure, with hands that shook so much they spilled liquid from the glass he held.

  “Papa?” I stood before him like an uneasy schoolboy expecting a scolding, while I inwardly reeled in horror from the change I saw in him.

  “You took your time coming when I sent for you!” That sounded more like the man I used to know.

  I started to tell him about the state of the roads, then I realised I no longer needed to excuse myself to him. “I’m here now.” I strode across the room, pulled another armchair over to the fire and sat down on it.

  “Mind your manners, boy. You’re mighty free with my possessions for a scamp I disinherited long ago.”

  “You sent for me and I’m here. I didn’t return to be insulted but because I thought you needed me. If you don’t, I’ll go away again.” In that moment I’d forgotten everything that Benôit had said to me and even his fragile health. His carping temper had its usual effect on mine. I started to rise but he stopped me.

  “Sit down, boy, and listen to me.” It was not his words that made me pause, but a pleading note in his voice which I’d heard only once before. That was the night he knelt beside my dying mother and begged her not to leave him. Since he was the one who had caused her untimely death, his repentant words sickened me at the time and increased my hatred.

  I dropped back into my seat, feeling shocked, and rubbed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Papa. Tell me what you want me to do.”

  He took a sip from his drink, as if to give himself strength, and then he said, “I’m dying, Alain. The doctors say I won’t see Christmas. I need you to take over the business for me.”

  “What about Benôit and Georges?”

  “Benôit’s too old. Michel, the apprentice, is too young. Georges is a good workman, but he has no understanding of how to deal with customers, especially those who require persuasion. We wouldn’t last a year with him in charge.”

  “If Jacques had lived...” I started to say.

  “I would still have sent for you,” he interrupted me. That was too much.

  “Never, Papa. You always said he would take over the business, not me.”

  “I was stupid; a younger man’s folly. Jacques cheated me for several years and defied me to expose him when I found out. He told me he’d say it was on my orders he topped up the price so much the customers complained. He put the excess into his own pocket. What an idiot! If he’d been moderate, I should never have caught him.”

  “How did you catch him, Papa?”

  “I became suspicious when he bought things he should not have been able to afford on what I paid him. So Benôit and I spoke to his clients. After that I confronted him. I couldn’t dismiss him. It would have set all the tongues clacking in the town, so I tolerated him and made sure his work was checked and he never collected any more debts. He wasn’t so keen a workman after that. What a blessing he was thrown from his horse. At least it spared your aunt the knowledge that her son was a rogue.”

  “I’m sorry, Papa.” I remembered how close the pair had been or I’d thought they’d been. It must have been a bitter shock to the old man to discover his favourite had feet of clay. “I never knew.”

  “It’s not the sort of thing I’d noise abroad, is it? Bad for business. Even Sophie doesn’t know the full story. She’s sharp enough to realise he was under a cloud, but not the reason why. She’s a good girl, but her tongue wags as much as any woman. That’s for your ear only. Anyway, everything happened a long time ago and is best forgotten. He’s gone and you’re here. When can you start?”

  The words startled me. I hadn’t really believed Sophie when she told me what he wanted me for. Trust the old man to cut to the heart of things with one curt question.

  “As soon as I have settled my wife and family,” I said the words with my tongue feeling like lead. Here I was promising to do something I’d rejected long ago. Yet I knew I could do no different. How can you refuse a dying man? I couldn’t, at least. “I must find somewhere for them to live. They can’t stay with Sophie indefinitely.”

  “You can take them to Bellevue if you want to. I only rented the place, in case you ever returned. The tenant knows he has to leave when you come back; I had Emile write it into the lease.” Papa gave a laugh which turned into a strangled cough. When the spasm passed, I saw that there was blood on the cloth he held to his lips.

  “I’ll fetch a doctor,” I said, horrified, starting to rise.

  “Nothing a sawbones can do for me now. I’ve seen enough of them and all they do is give me vile-tasting medicine and a large bill for their services. Let me be. If you want to do something for me, you can pour me some more of this brandy.”

  “Brandy at this time of the morning, Papa?”

  “It’s keeping me alive and what do my habits have to do with you, pray?” That sounded better. I shrugged and poured him the drink. It would hardly hurt him now. He took a swig, coughed and then waved me away.

  “Be off. Settle that wife of yours and come back to me then.”

  “I will.” I set down the decanter and turned on my heel but he called out after me,

  “Hurry, boy. Don’t linger!”

  Chapter 3

  I found the tenant of Bellvue more than eager to depart. When he told me how much my father was charging him, I wasn’t surprised. He must have been a fool to agree to such a high rent in the first place. Emile sorted out the legalities and soon I was able to walk with my wife through my boyhood home.

  Everything looked very different than it did in my mother’s day. It was gloomy and, although clean, had the smell of a house that had not been loved for a long time.

  “Are you sure you want to live here?” I asked Eugénie. “We could find somewhere else easily enough.”

  “Leave it to me,” she said. “You won’t recognise the place when Sophie and I finish with it. She’s been itching to get her hands on it for years. You both adored Bellevue when your mother was alive, you will again. The mountains are so beautiful…” She gazed into the distance at the view I always missed and described to her, when we lived in Paris.

  “The roof leaks,” I said pragmatically, “and half the floorboards are rotten.”

  “Leaks can be fixed and floorboards replaced. You’ll see. Give us time.”

  So I left them to work, while the children ran riot in the garden and the fields. We hired Rose, a local girl, to be a maid-of-all-work and supervise them. The weather favoured us, staying mainly cold but dry. The roof was made waterproof, well before the snow descended. Floorboards were replaced. Old dank hangings were torn down and new ones hung. Old furniture and rubbish that could not be used or mended became fuel for the fires we kept burning to get rid of the chill. The work was carried on with a will and several rooms became habitable again quite quickly. The house began to feel like home. I did little more tha
n organise the workmen and stay out of the way. Eugénie told me that I had more than enough to do and she could manage.

  So I spent my time at the workshop with Benôit and Georges or with Emile, trying to understand the requirements of Papa’s business.

  “Trade has been slipping away for several years now,” Emile warned me, “mainly because your father has been growing old and unable to attend to business properly. He’s not as shrewd as he was or perhaps he does not care as much. There are bad debts and mistakes which have cost him money.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Papa.”

  “I agree. I offered to help him, but I don’t think he trusts me. Even though I’m Sophie’s husband, I’m not really part of his family. He still thinks of me as the brash lad he disliked.”

  I smiled. “I wish I’d known you then.”

  He laughed. “Just as well you didn’t. We had enough trouble with him without any help. I’ve always been surprised Sophie plucked up enough courage to defy him and marry me.”

  “She must have loved you very much.”

  “She did, or so she told me at the time, and still does. I think of it, when a young hussy tries to flirt with me.”

  “No encumbrances then?”

  “None. You?”

  “Eugénie is enough for any man.”

  “We are both fortunate then.”

  I nodded. Then Emile said, changing the subject before we both became too sentimental.

  “After Jacques died, your father kept saying that you would come back and take over the business.”

  “He never wrote to me. The first information came in Sophie’s last letter.”

  “He wouldn’t let us tell you before. I think he still hoped you would return of your own free will and beg him to take you back.”

  “Small chance of that!”