The Roses of Picardie

by Simon Raven

  After quite a short while Marigold came out and said: ‘Only a pair of feet. No paper. I had to use four pages of the Green Michelin. Unsuitable texture.’

  ‘I hope we shan’t need them.’

  ‘Don’t worry. It wasn’t the Normandy Michelin. For some reason I had the Pyrénées one in my bag as well, so I used that.’

  ‘They don’t come cheap, you know. But on the whole it was a very good thing you got taken short like that.’

  ‘What do you mean, a good thing? It was torture.’

  ‘I think we’ve found what we came for. Look behind the bar.’

  Marigold looked. The man there was pouring himself a glass of red wine.

  ‘Dead spit of M’sieur Vibrot,’ breathed Marigold, ‘like a horrible creeping Jesus.’

  She sipped her cognac.

  ‘He has to be a brother or a cousin. Direct approach is best, I think.’

  Jacquiz rose and went to the bar.

  ‘M’sieur Vibrot,’ he said.

  The man nodded, without any sign of surprise, and gulped some wine.

  ‘I think you can help me.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  The man drained his wine glass, refilled it from a huge and villainous bottle, and said to Jacquiz: ‘That will be one franc, M’sieur.’

  Jacquiz gave him ten.

  ‘I am looking for some old letters which I believe to be in your family. I am told they have been destroyed. But I am also told that you may be able to help me.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘The son of the Vibrots who live in Montreuil.’

  The man tapped his temple but looked expectantly at Jacquiz who now produced and examined a hundred-franc note.

  ‘Can you tell me anything about those letters or what was in them?’

  ‘I know nothing about what was in them.’ A long pause. ‘I only know that they are very old and three of them are in my possession.’

  Jacquiz rustled the note.

  ‘They will cost you two hundred francs each or five hundred for the three of them.’

  ‘How much just to look at them?’

  ‘Sale or nothing.’

  ‘How did you come by them?’ said Jacquiz cautiously.

  ‘I was visiting my brother. I wished to go to the cabinet. The cabinet was full of my cow of a sister-in-law, who is always in the cabinet when someone else requires it. So I go to the toilette for the Youth Hostel, and there, in one of the cubicles, are these three letters in a rack where there is normally newspaper. I notice the difference, I remember about the story of the letters which my brother has inherited, and I take them away. I do not tell my brother and my sister-in-law, because they would have demanded them back, even though they did not care enough about them before to keep them safe. Such stupid sluts as they are, with that booby son Auguste. Just as I am going from the toilette, that son, that booby, comes in to do the cleaning and makes a great fuss about the letters, not because they are valuable but because there is now no paper in the rack for the pigs of students in the Hostel. So I give him the Rouen Matin which I am also carrying and the idiot is content.’

  ‘Dear, conscientous Auguste,’ said Marigold from across the room. ‘That must be what fixed the subject of the letters in his mind. When we asked for them, he remembered his uncle had taken some away. His parents couldn’t tell us that even if they had wished to help us, because they didn’t know. So he showed us that picture, meaning we were to go to his uncle in Jumièges. Dear clever Auguste.’

  ‘Where are the letters?’ said Jacquiz.

  ‘Where are the five hundred francs?’

  ‘Here. You shall have them when I see the letters are genuine.’

  ‘What a lot of loos in this story,’ said Marigold brightly, hoping to relax the tension between the two men. ‘The Vibrots’ cabinet which this gentleman couldn’t get into, and the Youth Hostel rears where Auguste had put all the letters –’

  ‘Show me the five hundred francs –’

  ‘– Show me the letters –’

  ‘– And the pair of feet in this café which I had to do a job on – and a very good job I did have to do a job, because if I hadn’t we would never –’

  ‘– Here,’ said Vibrot, slamming some thick sheets of what looked like parchment on to the bar.

  ‘Here,’ said Jacquiz, slamming down a 500-franc note but keeping his hand over half of it while he peered at the top sheet.

  ‘By Jove,’ he said, ‘I think it’s all right, old girl. The writing could be right, and the paper’s certainly right.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Years and years in the Chamber of Manuscripts at Lancaster. You get a nose for this sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ll buy that,’ said Marigold. ‘Give him his cash and let’s have a dekko.’

  Jacquiz passed the note to Vibrot. Vibrot passed the sheets to Jacquiz. Vibrot drank and shrugged. Jacquiz crossed the room to Marigold. He placed the sheets on the table, lifted the top one very carefully and began to read and translate aloud.

  ‘“To the Esteemed Dame Vibrot”,’ he read slowly and with difficulty to Marigold, ‘“Within the Castle Walls of Montreuil at Her Lodging. Honoured Madame: Since sending to you from the City of Sens… I have been carried on South…to the City of Orange, where I am penning this letter…in the Hostelry of the Arena. Madame…I am the victim of my own most formidable error. Dear Madame, you must know that…when we quitted Sens, my husband…hired a coach whereby we…”’

  Jacquiz’s voice faltered and ceased.

  ‘Go on,’ commanded Marigold.

  ‘No good. She’s crossed the page too clumsily.’

  ‘You mean…you’ve paid out five hundred francs for two and a half sentences?’

  ‘No. I’ll be able to read it all right. But not straight off like this. It’ll take time and a magnifying glass. So what we do now,’ said Jacquiz rising and tenderly lifting the sheets, ‘is make camp for the night and then apply ourselves to our homework.’

  ‘M’sieur,’ called Vibrot as they left, ‘it is fifteen francs for the coffee and cognac.’

  Jacquiz returned to the bar and fished out the money.

  ‘And another fifty centimes,’ said Vibrot, ‘for use of the toilette.’

  ‘Perhaps you could just give me a rough idea of Doctor Helmut’s routine when he’s here,’ said Ivor Winstanley to the Under-Collator of the Manuscripts of Lancaster College.

  ‘He hasn’t got a routine, man,’ said the Under-Collator, a graduate research student of submissive yet venomous aspect.

  Winstanley sighed and looked round the walls of the Chamber of Manuscripts. Not a book or a manuscript in sight, he thought wearily, just rows of metal filing cabinets and a portrait of the last Provost but three which (and who) had been considered too bad to hang in Hall or even the Junior Common Room. But I’m not here to complain on aesthetic grounds, he thought: I’m here, on the Provost’s instructions, to take over Jacquiz Helmut’s duties and to fly to impugn his past performance of them – on pain of being myself impugned. To work, to work.

  ‘Well then, how does business get done?’ he inquired meekly.

  ‘Like someone wants a document; like I find it; like Doctor Helmut looks at it and says it’s too valuable (or not too valuable) to go out of the room, so the guy who wants it must suss it up in here (or not, as the case may be).’

  ‘Not a very exciting task for either of you.’

  ‘We have to make sure that all the lousy manuscripts stay in good condition,’ said the Under-Collator defensively.

  ‘And are they?’

  ‘Help yourself, man,’ said the Under-Collator. ‘Look where you will.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s no need,’ said Winstanley feebly. ‘What else do you do?’

  ‘We have to keep the Catalogue in order, like filling in cards for new acquisitions.’

  ‘When was there last a new acquisition?’

  ‘Shepherd bequest came through last June. Letters he
had like from Rupert Brooke and Maynard Keynes saying come to tea next Wednesday but keep your hot hands to yourself.’

  ‘And these letters have been filed and recorded in the Catalogue?’

  ‘Just so, man. Matter of routine.’

  ‘You’ve just been saying Doctor Helmut hadn’t got a routine.’

  ‘I meant, there isn’t enough of it to call it a routine. So let’s say it was a matter of course. Once a fortnight or so there’s something to do as a matter of course and we do it. The rest of the time I sit here between ten and one and two and four in case there are visitors, and if they want something too tricky for me to handle, I call Doctor Helmut on the telephone and ask him what to do.’

  ‘Suppose he isn’t there and it’s urgent?’ said Winstanley desperately.

  ‘The last time I had to call him about anything really urgent was ten months ago, man. He was there.’

  This was ridiculous, Ivor Winstanley thought. The Provost’s briefing, though it had intrigued him at the time, had clearly been quite absurd. Everyone knew that the Collation of the College Manuscripts was a light and simple task which carried a large honorarium. The custom had always been to give the post of Collator to someone who had spent several years discharging one of the more disagreeable College offices as a reward for conscientious completion of his labours. This was exactly what had happened in the case of Jacquiz Helmut. Years ago Jacquiz, as a junior Fellow, had been allotted the hideous task of supervising the renewal and modernization of the drainage throughout the entire College. Not only had he overseen this very efficiently, he had also managed the arrangements so deftly that, despite the crookedness of dilatory contractors and the villainous recalcitrance of their so-called workmen, a bare minimum of inconvenience had been suffered whether by Fellows, undergraduates or menials. Jacquiz had then been given the Collatorship, in recognition of his services, and had settled down, with everyone’s blessing, to enjoy the prize. Whatever one might think of Jacquiz’s scholarship or his lack of it, however much one might resent his personality or deplore his moral evasions during recent years, the plain fact remained that he had done a superb job over the drainage, had amply earned the sinecure he had been awarded, and had conducted himself, in regard to it, just as every Collator had always done – which was to say he left what little drudgery there was to the impoverished research student who was, by charitable tradition, appointed to the Under-Collatorship. And now, thought Winstanley, here was the Provost trying to get up some notion that Jacquiz had been in some way careless or inadequate. That the Provost should wish to discredit or put down Jacquiz was fully understandable; but that he should set about doing so by questioning Jacquiz’s performance of his duties as Collator was the most pure and perverse of nonsense. The duties were so simple, the responsibilities so plain, that it would be impossible to make a hash of them save out of absolute malignance, and his worst enemy in the world would not accuse Jacquiz of that. Even this very nasty young man, who would obviously say anything he could to disoblige or injure anybody, did not and could not accuse Jacquiz of incompetence or negligence in his function.

  But stay, thought Ivor Winstanley: my own survival is at stake here and no stone must be left unturned. He briefly rehearsed to himself what he could recall of his interview with Lord Constable. What was it the Provost had particularly suggested that he should look for? Irregularities, that was it, ‘dubieties’ in the Catalogue. Well, the assistant had already deposed that the Catalogue was promptly and properly kept in respect of new acquisitions; but it was just conceivable that something might have gone wrong, if only though sheer bad luck, in the case of some of the more obscure or ancient items. Something he must try to turn up in order to give adverse substance to the report awaited by the Provost, and in this area, if anywhere, something might be found. The long undisturbed, the boring, the unwanted, the uncalled for – these were the Manuscripts that might, just might, be misleadingly recorded in Jacquiz’s Catalogue.

  ‘Let’s see,’ he said to the Under-Collator. ‘Suppose I were to look at the accounts of the stewardship of the College’s manor of Pigs’ Runton in Lincolnshire…for the year of 1754.’

  The Under-Collator went to the Catalogue Cabinet, opened a drawer marked ‘R/S’, looked at a slip of cardboard and then looked at Winstanley.

  ‘Bursar’s office,’ he said. ‘Most of the old accounts are kept there.’

  ‘Very well. Let’s try…the original autograph of Provost Lauderdale’s dissertation De Pueris Apte Puniendis – on the Fitting ‘Chastisement of Students.’

  The Under-Collator opened a drawer marked ‘L’.

  ‘Cabinet Fourteen,’ he said quite soon, ‘Section B, Drawer Beta – the top right-hand drawer of that Cabinet under the portrait.’

  Winstanley applied as directed; the MS in question came directly to hand, clearly labelled, neatly enveloped in cellulose.

  ‘We can play this game all day,’ the Under-Collator remarked. ‘It’s all in order, man. The whole works.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ said the Under-Collator. ‘You want to do Jake Helmut down. I can smell it.’

  ‘Is that what you call him? Jake?’

  ‘Yep. And he calls me Len. What do I call you?’

  ‘My Christian name is Ivor,’ said Winstanley reluctantly.

  ‘Well, listen here, Ive. You’ll find nothing wrong with this place, because Jake is too smart, see? This is a good thing for him and he wants to keep it. It’s a good thing for me too, and I want to keep it. But if you want to do Jake down, and if you’d promise to see me all right – and I mean all right, Ive, like with a Fellowship guaranteed when I send in my thesis – then we might work something out, you and me, about how to fuck all this up and make it look like Jake was the cunt to blame. What the hell, I don’t mind old Jake so much, but he’s a snooty sod at times, and I’ve got my future to look after. So you just make the price right, Ive, and then we’ll see, shall we?’

  ‘Like you say, Len,’ quavered Winstanley, thinking of the days racing by and bringing him ever nearer, to the date when his Fellowship would come up for renewal; thinking of his edition of Cicero’s Poems, not one third complete; thinking of an old age spent in exile from beloved Lancaster. ‘Like you say.’

  ‘I think that’s about it,’ said Jacquiz. ‘There are several passages in which I can’t make out the words very well because the pages are crossed so messily, but I’m sure I’ve got the drift.’

  After they had left the Vibrots’ café the previous afternoon, they had purchased a magnifying glass from a junk shop and moved into a nearby hotel. There Jacquiz had set to work immediately, and by midnight, cross-eyed, exhausted and one third drunk, he had ‘cracked’ (as Marigold put it) the first of the three letters and had come to fair terms with the second. After a restless night, he had risen at seven a.m. and tackled the third, which, it appeared, he had now deciphered.

  ‘Let’s have the message,’ said Marigold.

  She stood behind him and began to stroke his hair.

  ‘Poor baby,’ she said, ‘you look worn out. Poor baby. Nice Jacquiz.’

  ‘Marigold?’ he said, turning in his chair and reaching for her.

  ‘At nine-thirty in the morning? I’m ashamed of you.’

  ‘But some time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Some time soon?’

  ‘Not long. Sweet Seine, run softly, till I end my song,’ she murmured thoughtfully, as if the inconsequent words had special private meaning.

  ‘What’s that about the Seine?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She scratched his scalp lightly, then moved away to sit on her bed. ‘Let’s have the message.’

  ‘Well, as I told you yesterday afternoon, the first of the letters is written from a pub in Orange. Constance tells la veuve Vibrot that her husband hired a coach to carry them on from Sens to Orange – which was pretty extravagant behaviour, since they could perfectly well have taken the public dili
gence, or ridden on horseback, as they had until Sens, with one of the numerous companies of travellers who were taking the main road south. No mention is made of the exact sum which Louis Comminges paid for the coach, or where he got the money from, but the implication is that since he was now in possession of the Rubies he wasn’t too worried about blowing his other funds.’

  ‘Does she say he’d actually taken the Rubies away from her?’

  ‘No. She says nothing precise about that. She doesn’t even mention the Rubies as such at all. But what comes over is the anxiety of an heiress who sees her new husband spending money recklessly and is afraid for her fortune. She refers to his liking for vins et viandes les plus chères –’

  ‘– Rather your sort of style –’

  ‘– And his hauteur. I hope you would not accuse me of that.’

  ‘You can look quite formidable when you try,’ said Marigold, ‘but never mind that. So Constance is a worried girl?’

  ‘Yes. And of course it makes no difference which of them is actually carrying the Rubies. She was his wife and under his protection, and for all practical purposes they were his.’

  ‘No women’s lib in those days. Poor Constance.’

  ‘Poor Constance indeed. Because quite apart from the way he’s exploiting her and her treasure, she has another reason to be afraid: he refuses to tell her where he’s taking her. They’ve already been two days in Orange, and she hasn’t a notion about what’s to happen next. When she asks him, he simply doesn’t reply, and for that matter he hardly talks to her at all about anything. He’s out all day, apparently en pour suite de ses affaires, and when he comes in he indulges in the vins et viandes aforesaid, makes love to her impersonally as if she were a common whore – she is, incidentally, less than enthusiastic about his physical attributes – and falls asleep. And that,’ said Jacquiz, ‘is the news from Orange.’

  ‘And the second letter, you said last night, is even more depressing?’

  ‘More depressing but also more dynamic. They are just about to leave Orange and a lot of things are happening. To start with, Comminges has now grudgingly revealed their general direction – which is to be West from Orange towards the Pyrénées – though he still refuses to specify their exact goal. He has also been at least passably candid about something else. Perhaps les vins account for that. Their journey West is going to be a little awkward, he has told her, because all members of his family are wanted men in all the big cities on the main route West, and to the North of it as well. Avignon, Alès, Millau, Nîmes, Montpellier and Lunel – all are out of bounds.’