The Roses of Picardie

by Simon Raven

‘Because in the whole history of the thing there is a tendency, a definite tendency, for the Curse to inflict a pretty savage blow on new owners of the necklace shortly after they acquire it. Probably not a fatal blow, for usually the possessors are given a reasonable length of time in which to enjoy the Blessings, and in order to allow this the first and most immediate, disaster inflicted by the Curse must be something less than lethal… though it was sometimes a killer (witness the case of the last Clovis) and it could have been so with Comminges. But my real point is this, sweetheart: in any case at all, by the time the Comminges reached Pau we would expect that one or both of them should have suffered something far more injurious than a mere bout of marsh fever.’

  ‘And so?’

  ‘And so, Marigold, it is at least possible that something very nasty happened to Comminges while they were actually in Pau. It was due to happen, don’t you see? Overdue, in fact.’

  ‘To be sure, to be sure. And how do we hope to find it out, without any kind of clue to follow, some three hundred and twenty years later?’

  ‘The Resort of Pau,’ said Jacquiz teachingly, ‘is chiefly famous for the curative qualities of its climate. But it is also celebrated, in a lesser way, for the properties of its waters. After lunch we shall go and drink them.’

  ‘And do we imbibe second sight along with them?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Jacquiz. ‘We conjure the Hamadryad, the nymph of the Spring, and ask what she has to tell us.’

  ‘How do we go about raising her?’

  ‘If my memory serves me,’ said Jacquiz, ‘it’s far more easy than you might think.’

  ‘So here we are again, Ive,’ said the Under-Collator of the Manuscripts to Ivor Winstanley. ‘Nice to see you back.’

  ‘I’m just on my way to luncheon,’ said Ivor, who could think of no other observation.

  ‘At quarter past twelve, man? Now take me – I can’t leave till one.’

  ‘We can’t always do as we’d like while we are still very young,’ said Ivor sententiously.

  ‘Pity. That’s when we enjoy it most.’

  ‘I take your point.’

  ‘So by extension, Ive, have you been thinking about what I said? About a Fellowship an’ all if I do what you want and bitch Jake.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Len.’ Ivor brought out the odious vocative as if he were gagging on a fish bone. ‘A Fellowship I can’t guarantee for you. Though I could help you with your thesis.’

  ‘Like hell you could. What do you know of creative therapies for the mentally deprived? That’s my subject – God help me.’

  ‘God help you? You chose the subject. I should have thought that you’d have found it…very affinitive.’

  ‘That’s what you would think, Ive. Here’s that grotty Len, you think, just a typical lower-class student, choosing one of those absurd new subjects which we have to let them do because they’re too stupid to do anything else and we’ve got to go with political fashion and find some excuse for letting them stay here. So this Len, we let him write a thesis about some rubbish called creative therapies, which keeps him happy and stops him making trouble. That’s what you think, isn’t it, Ive?’

  ‘Roughly…I must admit…yes.’

  ‘You don’t understand a thing, man. You don’t understand that what I really want…what a lot of us really want…is to be just the same as you. Only we can’t be, see? We weren’t brought up to it; we weren’t taught the right things. We weren’t taught the ancient languages, nor even the modern ones so’s you’d notice. We weren’t told about French Painting or Classical Music, or how many balls on a baron’s coronet, or what to wear or how to talk. We weren’t even taught proper history, only the Tolpuddle Martyrs and the crappy-arse labour movement; no kings or battles for us, no Borgias and no Caesars. In the old days we might have been taught these things – in some of the old Grammar Schools; but not now. Now, Ive, we were just crammed full of balls about self-expression and equality and the new society, and told to go forth and build the bloody thing. And since it was the only way out, since it was that or the shop floor, we obeyed: we went along with their terms, Ive, which for most of us meant strictly social studies. Science or medicine we were allowed if we had a bent for them, but your sort of Latin and Greek palaver – never.’

  The Under-Collator paused. He took a long breath and his body twitched cap-à-pé with frustration.

  ‘So all we could do,’ he went grinding on, ‘is the kind of shit I’m doing. The only way we could talk or behave is the kind of way I’m talking and behaving, and that was it, man, we were stuck with it. Yet it was you we dreamt about, you we wanted to be like: fruity guys like you, living in tall rooms looking over a lawn and a river, eating and drinking like Lucullus himself. And those of us who got places at Cambridge, rather than Essex or Sussex or Warwick, thought we might have a chance, because Cambridge was where you hung out. But we found you had no time for us, quite rightly, from your point of view, because we were dirty and boring and ignorant of all the things you cared about, and it was too late, it would take too much trouble, to turn us into anything different. So like I say we’re stuck with ourselves, and don’t think it makes us any nicer.’

  ‘Where is all this leading?, asked Ivor.

  ‘The Under-Collator’s eyes glistened with treachery and aspiration.

  ‘Well, one answer might have been a Fellowship. If I got a Fellowship and lived long enough near your level, some of you might rub off on me and it might not be too late after all. But I’m not likely to win one, and you can’t arrange one for me. So I’ve been thinking of another little scheme, man; something which might just raise me up where I want to be, and teach me what I want to be taught…might give me the good life, man… and it’s something which you could help me with, in exchange for my helping you to down Jake.’

  ‘I’ve no money, if that’s what you mean. None to speak of.’

  ‘I’ve got a cleverer idea than using your money, Ive. We’re going to use your credit.’

  ‘I don’t quite follow you. If you mean that you want to guarantee accounts for you with the tradesmen –’

  ‘– Don’t be so fucking dim, man. Here I am, cracking you up as my kind of culture hero, and all you can do is squawk like a grocer. I mean credit like “credit in heaven”.’

  ‘I still don’t follow.’

  ‘Well, come one o’clock, Ive, you can take me out somewhere and buy me a nice spot of food and drink for what you call luncheon, like you’ve been taught how and what and I haven’t, and I will then make it all very plain…’

  The Pump Room at Pau, as Jacquiz had correctly remembered, was a kind of vestry to the Casino’s Cathedral; and in it were several copies, of the official booklet about the hygienic history of the resort and the efficacy of its winds and waters. As they drank the revolting stuff out of huge jars, Jacquiz translated for Marigold’s benefit. The Romans had discovered the Springs and noticed that their waters, applied whether internally or externally, induced a sense of peaceful, well-being, hence the name Pau, a corruption of Pax Fontana. During the Dark Ages the reputation of the Springs had been kept before the public by the rumour that they had cured the impotence of the Vandal Prince Sphintrax, while the relaxing powers of the waters, on the other hand, had been much praised by Sphintrax’s contemporary, the Abbot Digitalis (596 to 672 AD) of Oloron.

  ‘The Prince apparently drank the waters, while the Abbot bathed in them. It’s the old advertising technique of having it both ways, telling the client that whatever he wants your product will effect it. A prince made ripe for the pleasure of love, an Abbot saved from its temptations. Yer pays yer money and yer takes yer choice.’

  But it was neither as an aphrodisiac nor as an anaphrodisiac that the waters of Pau had achieved the wide celebrity which was to be theirs in the Middle Ages. This had been accorded by the comparatively late discovery that the waters (like the climate) were especially beneficial in cases of malaria or marsh ague, such as were frequent in th
e Camargue to the East and the swampy pine forests of Bordeaux to the West. Rich people convalescing from malaria or threatened with fresh bouts of it, noblemen, merchants and prelates, came in ever-increasing numbers to drink and bathe in the Fountains of Notre Dame de la Paix, as they were now known, a plausible and expedient theological association (a shepherd boy’s purported vision of Our Lady riding side-saddle on a goat and leading him to a new source) having been hurriedly devised for them just before the visit, in 1477, of the Cardinal Archbishop Arnando di Chiusi. This Prince of the Church was suffering from rheumatism consequent upon ague consequent upon keeping a foolish tryst in a tower in the Maremma. The waters and the climate together did wonders for His Eminence, who lingered in Pau for three years and assured the fortune of the city for the next hundred.

  ‘Until well into the second half of the seventeenth century,’ Jacquiz said to Marigold. ‘You see what this means for us?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Think, my dear, just think. Even though Pau was going out of fashion a bit by the time Louis Comminges was born, he would certainly have known, if he was born anywhere in the region, that the waters of Pau had recently enjoyed high esteem as a cure for marsh fever. And now, here he was, barely recovered from just such a fever himself and possibly feeling fresh twinges. So perhaps he did not come here on business after all. Perhaps he simply came to take a cure.’

  ‘Which made him sexy like the Prince,’ said Marigold, ‘or doused him down like the Abbot?’

  ‘What happened sweetheart, what I very much hope happened, was that the cure, as a cure for fever, failed, and that Louis Comminges died here in Pau.’

  ‘Why should he have done that?’

  ‘Because the fever at Aigues Mortes had been a bad one, let us say, and because in those days such fevers, cure or no cure, were very often fatal.’

  ‘If,’ said Marigold, ‘he was coming to Pau for a cure, why didn’t he tell Constance? They were now on better terms, you say, and yet he gave her no reason why they were to come here. If the reason was his health he would surely have taken her into his confidence.’

  ‘Perhaps he left her in the dark just because he was now fonder of her. Perhaps he didn’t want to worry her by letting her know that he still felt ill. Perhaps he thought that things were difficult enough already and that such knowledge would damage her morale.’

  Marigold thought carefully.

  ‘You said not long ago,’ she remarked, ‘that the Curse of the Rubies was not usually fatal straight away. It often did something nasty to new owners, you said, but it seldom killed them until later on, after they’d had reasonable time to enjoy the benefits of Blessings. So why should it have killed Louis so quickly?’

  ‘I also said that there were exceptions to the general rule. Louis could have been one.’

  ‘What about Constance?’

  ‘Perhaps something happened to her too. But by this time, remember, Louis was the real owner of the necklace because he was the owner of Constance. So it would more likely have been Louis that the genii or whatever was after – and I very much hope it killed him.’

  ‘Why are you so keen for the poor bastard to have died here?’

  ‘Because where there is death there is often information, and the obvious place to find it. Let’s go and see if it’s there.’

  Out of the Pump Room and along the Boulevard; round a proud Château (pepperpot towers and grey, square keep, machicolated ‘Fourteenth-century Donjon,’ said Jacquiz, meaning business; ‘the rest was done up for comfort by Gaston de Béarn later on’); across a bridge and into neat public gardens, out of the gardens, across a main road lined on the far side with solid provincial houses, between two of these and up a steep, narrow street, every other shop in which was a seedy alimentation, over a crossroad and into a graveyard:

  Acre upon acre of mausoleums, buttressed or battlemented like forts, fantastically moulded into flamboyant chantries or squat miniature basilicas; canopies of crumbling tin over rusty, jagged crosses; shiny black slabs engraven with gold arabesque and resting on piles of chunky white chippings, Roman columns artificially broken at the midriff, plastic flowers in Perrier bottles or filthy jam jars.

  ‘Only the English have proper churchyards,’ Marigold said.

  ‘We’re looking for the old part. That will be better.’

  ‘How do you know there is an old part?’

  ‘There was an old church here once. Look.’

  Marigold looked, and saw low sections of two broken walls of flint, which traced a skeletal nave. Jacquiz led the way down the nave, through another maze of mausoleums, down an avenue flanked on either side with cypress, through a slit in a hedge and into a little glade of stunted pines. Big, sunken box tombs (‘Are they inside,’ whispered Marigold, ‘or underneath?’) lurked like submarines, awash with weed.

  ‘A bit better than the modern part,’ said Jacquiz, ‘though the gardener needs a good flogging.’

  ‘Bend him over one of the tombs,’ suggested Marigold. ‘Rather fun. He’s a dish.’

  ‘Whatever do you mean?’

  ‘Over there. That fair, smooth boy in the funny overalls, with a hoe.’

  ‘I can’t see him.’

  ‘He was just over there.’ Marigold walked away and stood under one of the less stunted pines. ‘Here. He seems to have gone somewhere.’

  Jacquiz joined her. Marigold sat down on a square stone of convenient height. Jacquiz watched her carefully.

  ‘Open your legs,’ said Jacquiz.

  ‘My dear. Now if only you were that little gardener –’

  ‘– I’m serious. Open up.’

  Marigold parted her trousered thighs and calves.

  ‘“Louis Comminges”,’ Jacquiz read, and stooped to look closer. ‘“Louis Comminges, de la famille Comminges de la Seigneurie de Saint Bertrand-de-Comminges. 1600–1654.”

  ‘Not very precise. No relations specified.’

  ‘Precise enough. Saint Bertrand-de-Comminges? It’s famous for something.’

  ‘M R James wrote a ghost story about it,’ said Marigold. ‘About a greedy canon who stole treasure from the Chapter House. A thing like a demented monkey came and carried him off. Something like that.’

  ‘I remember. There’s a little cathedral with superb wood carvings in the choir. I read about it and meant to go there… one year just after the war…only I ran out of currency and had to go home instead. Near Luchon, I think?’

  Marigold fished in her bag and brought out the Green Michelin for the Pyrénées.

  ‘Bugger,’ she said.

  ‘Why bugger?’

  ‘It must be on one of the pages I tore out in that café at Jumièges – in the loo.’

  ‘Silly cow,’ said Jacquiz venomously.

  ‘I wasn’t to know we’d need this particular page.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have torn out any pages at all.’

  ‘What was a girl to do?’

  ‘And what are you doing with the Pyrénées Michelin in Normandy?’

  ‘I told you. It just happened to be in my bag. I’m sorry, Jacquiz, but I’m sure we can buy another.’

  ‘You should have done some travelling just after the war like I did. You didn’t buy another Michelin just like that in those days. You were so short of money that you rationed yourself to one meal a day, you never had a room with a bath, you never had a bath at all if you had to pay for it, even a small vermouth was a luxury –’

  ‘– For Christ’s sake belt up –’

  ‘– You just don’t know how spoiled you are –’

  ‘– And do you mean to tell me there was no way of fiddling a bit extra?’

  ‘Plenty of ways – and a stiff prison sentence if you were caught.’

  ‘I see. So you were windy.’

  ‘You don’t know how spiteful the socialists were. If they could catch anyone having more of anything than anyone else –’

  ‘– They’re just as bad now. Much worse. You were windy.’
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  ‘It’s a different sort of spite now,’ said Jacquiz, at once raging and rational, both furious with Marigold and longing to expound an interesting point to her. ‘In those days the socialists tried to stop all expensive forms of pleasure by making them illegal. But this turned too many even of their own people against them, so they shifted their ground. They allowed us to do things again, and then made vicious propaganda out of those that overdid them instead of forbidding and punishing the pleasures of the rich, they now merely denounce them publicly and whip up a lot of envy and malice in the process.’

  ‘Clever don,’ said Marigold. ‘I’m not sure whether I buy it or not. Poor little Jacquiz, not having enough money to go to Saint Bertrand-de-Comminges. But we can go now, can’t we? I’ve found it on another page – on a map.’

  ‘We shall still have to buy another Michelin,’ said Jacquiz, resentment not yet extinguished, ‘to find out what’s there.’

  ‘I thought you’d read it all up – so you said.’

  ‘Quarter of a century ago. We’ll need to know details.’

  ‘Come to that, what are we looking for?’

  ‘I’m sick of being asked that question.’

  ‘I thought I saw that gardener again. Face like a seraph.’

  ‘Never mind him. Clearly, if Louis died here in Pau and left Constance all alone in the world, she had to go on to St Bertrand and claim her place among his family.’

  ‘You reckon she knew about them by now? He was pretty cagey about them earlier on.’

  ‘Yes, but he’d told her, you remember, that they were personae non gratae because they were or had been Albigensians. He probably told her where they lived at the same time. He must have told her at some stage (possibly when he was dying) or she wouldn’t have known enough about them to have all this carved here. “De la famille Comminges de la Seigneurie de Saint Bertrand-de-Comminges”.’ He rapped the words under her pelvis. ‘Now then. Here she was in Pau, having buried Louis. She couldn’t go back to Montreuil after the way she’d broken with her own family, so she simply had to go on – since life as a lone female for one of her age and class was in those days almost unthinkable – to her husband’s family in Saint Bertrand-de-Comminges. And since they seem to have been a pretty substantial family’ – he rapped the epitaph again – ‘there could well be records of them in Saint Bertrand, and perhaps of Constance too. And now what’s all this?’ Jacquiz said, brushing aside the wide bottoms of Marigold’s trousers.