“I’ve brought cocoa.” He produced a flask from behind the seat after passing her a cigarette. To Simonne it seemed symbolic of the change; she’d have preferred a stiff drink.
There was a lot about Robert she did like, and his kisses were right up there on that list. He could be funny, and he was handsome and honest (though it could run to cruelty behind people’s backs). He had a secure job and his father’s car and he was almost twenty-one... a real man from Paris, something special amidst a farm.
It was just that Robert, now that she knew him better, wasn’t really the “doing” type. All talk and no trouser. Little things and large. His résumé was a casserole of baked ambition that never seemed to play quite out. Simonne recalled that when they first met, Robert had been full of zeal about enlisting in the army. “A black eye to my interfering father.” The sentiment resonated with Simonne. She had begged him not to go – selfish reasons of her own – but Simonne was not immune to the patriots’ drum and she knew how young men were perceived. But Robert? Obstacles seemed to materialize to obstruct his fiery pronouncements. Robert only did things that were easy, and Simonne wondered if that meant marrying her.
Shouldn’t there be something more? A passion? A spark? Or was marriage like Grand-mère had said to her – the best match you could get? Simonne just needed to talk to him more, to see how things would work out.
She took the offered cigarette and the chocolate cocoa both. The vacuum flask steamed when he opened the lid, and she balanced the cup upon her leg.
“Robert. My mother and Grand-mère have been talking about us. They’re a pair of old busybodies, it’s really none of their business.”
She had hoped by this path to lure him into the conversation, but was surprised by his response.
“Your family is against me now.” It wasn’t a question. “I was fine for you when Michel was alive, but now they want something more. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“No, no, it isn’t,” she objected automatically, not seeing where this could come from. “No, it isn’t. They like you a lot.”
“You’re a token for them, Simonne, a prize to barter with.” He wasn’t mad or annoyed, he was the pleasant and cheerful and attentive Robert – Simonne was unbalanced by that. “You’re an heiress now, the papers have it. Did you see what they said about you? Madame’s just looking out for you. I’m sure she thinks you could do better than me, and probably she’s right.”
“No. No, really. That’s not it at all.” She found it hard to speak. The appeal in his words brought on shame, but he’d got it the wrong way around. How now could she put it into words, the truth of what she was feeling? No, Robert, listen. Grand-mère thinks you’re the best I can get. It’s me that’s having second thoughts! “My grandmother likes you a lot.”
“It’s all right, I understand.” He seemed hurt. “I just want you to know that when I asked you to marry me, it was because I loved you, Simonne. And I still do. And I know I always will.”
Tears ran freely down her cheeks. She felt so cruel inside.
“I understand, though, and I know that you have to do what you feel is right.” He put a caring hand on her shoulder. “What’s right for you and your family.” He took a heavy breath. “I release you from your promise, Simonne. I want you to follow your heart.”
She sobbed; great racking sobs of jumbled “sorrys” spilled unchecked from her mouth. Her hands shook so, it was difficult to put her chocolate down. She threw her arms around Robert and hugged him and cried into his shoulder. Embarrassed and ashamed by what she felt, she clung to him like the first time.
“Oh, Robert!” she managed at last. “Whatever was I thinking? I’m so sorry, my darling. I will marry you, Robert, I want to. Just set a date. We’ll run away if we have to. We can steal your father’s car!”
“I rather hope not! He’s terribly fond of the thing!” He tried to embrace her but was fearful of the cocoa. He laughed again and squeezed her hand and affixed a happy face. “You’re such a funny thing! Don’t worry, my darling, everything will be wonderful.” And then he did kiss her again; he kissed her tears away.
With a tremor still in her gut, Simonne opened up a little. “I’ve just been feeling a little troubled of late. You know, things going around in my head. Thinking about us, and what’s to come, and then of course Michel’s death.”
“I’d been meaning to ask you.”
“It’s okay now. It’s still sad and all, but everyone has lost someone.”
“Is it true darling? What they say, I mean.”
“What do they say?”
“They say you talked.” She felt his hesitancy, even a sense of fear. “They say you talked to a spirit or something and that you knew how it would end.”
He couldn’t look at her. Simonne felt alone once more.
“Would it matter to you Robert, if I did?” She tried to be funny with him, reaching out for his trust.
“Of course it’s all nonsense, I know it is, darling. Witches and things. But it gives people ideas.”
The rain came on heavier all of the moment, and thunder rolled low overhead. She leaned in tight against his shoulder and hoped to feel his arms embrace her. She longed to share, to be herself, but how could he understand?
“No, I didn’t talk to a spirit at all, if that’s what they’re saying.”
“Good girl.” He seemed relieved, and he put his arm around her then. “Just making things up to scare the servants?”
“That’s right. That’s what it was. Keeps them on their toes.”
“Good girl!” Another compliment. “You’ve got a curious sense of humor.”
“I think I should go now, Robert.” She didn’t want to spoil things. She knew she had to leave.
“No! Why? Look at the rain out there!”
“It’s OK.” She slid out from under his touch. “I rather like it.” Simonne opened the door herself. “Thank you Robert, for understanding. I’m glad we’re getting married.” Then she stepped out of the car and closed the door shut and retraced her steps up the roadway.
* * *
It was true enough, Simonne thought – she really did love the weather, and the rain obliged by piling on hard while lightning broke the heavens. And it was also true enough, Simonne thought, all that she’d said to Robert. She had not talked to the witch, very true; that wasn’t at all how it happened. She’d felt the girl near – a presence, was all. She remembered her deep disturbance. And the witch girl visited only now and again. She wasn’t like most of the others. The girl came only when one of the family was soon to be injured… or die.
The Curse. She’d grown up with the talk and all the yabber and the secrets and whispered wisdoms. But fear and sadness, that’s all the spirit really was, loss and a terrible sorrow. She’d felt it in the witch – it’s what gave her form – but there was also something darker: a sense of satisfaction and a leering toxic pleasure that Simonne was troubled by.
The leafless branches creaked and swayed, and a limb tore off quite near her.
“Just calm down,” she scolded the trees. “There’s nothing to get excited about.”
Then she turned down the path back to the Manor, and the house lit up with the sky.
“I’m going to be married very soon, and I’m going to be very happy.” But the rain and the wind and the sky and trees didn’t take her announcement so well.
Once safe back inside her room, she curled up into bed. Tucked under a blanket of romance, she now dreamed of chiming bells. But she slept less soundly that she might have, fearful that Robert should learn her secret.
Robert was late home that evening. After leaving his fiancée, he had driven through half the night, keeping company with his thoughts, which the headlamps could not pierce. He closed the door quietly after rolling into the garage, but on entering the house he noticed the low burning light in the study. His father had waited up for him, as all good parents would.
“Well?” old Crevel asked, the hour and intrus
ion not seeming to incommode him.
“You should thank me,” replied young Crevel, “You’d have been proud of what I did.”
“Good lad,” said Crevel, genuinely pleased, triumph stamped large on his smooth scheming face. “Off to bed then, son, sleep well. You’ve earned your rest this night.”
Robert took the stairs slowly, his conscience weighing him down. He felt slightly embarrassed and partially soiled but mostly ashamed of himself. Simonne was very pretty, and she could be very nice. If only she wasn’t so strange sometimes and full of so many ideas. It might work out, they might be happy; it could work out just fine. But now he had to plan for a wedding after all, and the work that was going to entail. The thought of the effort in running an estate made him miserable to think.
How did it happen? So much to worry about. Things were much easier when I was back in college.
Sleep did not soon find Robert, dispelled by his troubled mind. He wallowed in a soup of reheated self-pity and tossed and turned till dawn.
* * *
Downstairs in the Mayor’s house, Crevel Senior stayed up till dawn. That brain was a whirl, a Swiss clock of reasoning, an assemblage of permutation. Possibilities and probabilities meshed and ground and whirled, and however Crevel looked at things, the outcomes were all good. To Crevel, alone in his drawing room, the future seemed bright indeed; he allowed himself an indulgent cigar, and smiled a conqueror’s grin.
10
The Train to Darmannes
Frost-framed fields passed by the train’s windows. Paris was long behind. The conductor had checked on him only once, but Dermot was wise to his coming – the rhythmic opening and banging of doors heralded his arrival. Dermot waited till the fellow moved on before conversing again with Arthur.
“And what happened after that?”
* * *
For the next few days, Arthur behaved like a dog following an old master around. He trailed along when they buried his body, and slouched behind when they returned. The cemetery was vast. White crosses grew like a tropical crop in an antipodean plantation, his but one monotonous stalk in an overly fertile field. With the first shovel of earth on the lid, Arthur decided to break away. His flesh didn’t need him now, and no one else had claimed him.
“I had to get back to the regiment. I couldn’t go to your funeral.”
“I don’t blame you, Dermot. What could you do? I only tell you how it was.”
On the third day following his death, Arthur made a decision: The theological implications he would set aside while he focused on practical challenges. A history of sensation was how he came to describe it. It was the way he kept his reason.
Arthur found that he got hot and he found that he got cold. The change took a while, like it was sinking in, his nerves dulled but not forgotten. Since he was stuck in his hospital gown (he could not pick anything up to wear, though not for want of trying), he was often uncomfortably chilly. Unsuitably dressed for the seasonal weather and unfashionable around town.
Arthur lingered in the common rooms, the canteen and kitchen, but he didn’t think of it as haunting. He hadn’t found a label for it – he was happier in the company of the living. In the public rooms he would usually find a fire lit. This was important until the weather changed for the better, and besides, the public rooms did not make him feel intrusive; he was still uncomfortable in another’s private space. “I would make my bed on the couch most nights, but sleep came slowly to me.”
Arthur found himself hungry at meal times, but he did not need to eat. He conjectured that these were phantom feelings, a hangover of his corporeal life. The sensation passed an hour or so later, and he wondered if it would dull over time – if, unlike him, it would learn to fade away forever.
The kitchens prepared roasted capon one week after his death. Arthur’s stomach growled audibly when the gravy boat appeared. He went out from the dining room and hid away from the scent.
If hunger was a torment, it remained a blessing in comparison to his toilet needs. Arthur had no idea why, he couldn’t fathom the possible reason, but three times a day he was compelled to search for privacy. The next twenty minutes were sheer toil as he tried, futilely, to clear himself of whatever demonic infestation seemed determined to come... almost, almost, but never did. He hadn’t been dead one month before the inevitable happened. Ambushed by an ulcerated patient, a sweaty man who barreled in on him, Arthur was evicted.
“I only got out by climbing the wall, the fellow had barely seconds to spare. What would have happened if he’d sat down on me? The thought just fills me with dread.”
After that, Arthur threw modesty to the wind. He picked a good spot in the garden’s rose beds where there was little risk of disturbance. On public display, he could only hope this torment would someday end.
Arthur had been thirty-three when he’d enlisted. He’d had sweethearts, of course, but none suitable for marrying, and he had never gotten engaged. In the long lonely hours when the patients had retired, he now mused on these circumstances, how those things might have changed. There was no young girl back home in Darmannes, no one to whom he would write. No long letters now interrupted, no lover who’d be crying all night. His children didn’t know of their father; their mother was long in the grave.
During the years of his army service he’d had two city leaves, and both had found him up in Paris in his uniform and stripes. He remembered the dancing halls of Montmartre fondly, the girls who liked soldiers there. He thought of them a lot now, and more so with every day.
At the hospital at Épernay there were a number of nurses, and every one a pretty sight. After two years of service in the trenches, there’s no such thing as a plain-looking nurse. Arthur found their presence almost torturous. When he was good he hid himself away from them, and when he was bad he hovered. Arthur lasted almost one whole month before he succumbed to the growing torment. By now his situation had given him the habit of talking to himself. No one seemed to object.
“And why not?” he asked his conscience.
“It’s not polite,” he pointed out to himself.
“Who says it’s not polite? Who makes up these rules? Maybe this sort of thing is perfectly fine when you’re dead like we are.”
“And that’s why you’re asking yourself? Hmmm? You think this is what a gentleman would do?”
“Prude.”
“Beast. Get a grip on yourself, man. And what exactly are you hoping to get out of this, tell me? How is this going to help?”
He thought himself blush, and his conscience pressed its unfair advantage of knowing exactly what he meant.
“What? You think you’re just going for a look, do you? Don’t kid yourself. You’re a dirty pervert and well out of order – you should learn to control yourself.”
“I’m just looking. They’ll never know…”
“It’s useless anyway,” he interrupted himself, “it doesn’t even work. So why bother with it? You’re just making it worse. Go stand out in the rain.”
Arthur paused for a minute, and his conscience thought he’d won.
“The urge lives on, my friend, that’s why. What’s a man to do?”
That evening, as the night shift arrived, he followed the nurses in. He felt ridiculous in his dressing gown, but what was there to be done? He crossed the door into the ladies’ changing room under a pall of shame, and there he watched, jaw to the floor, as they laughed and talked and changed. Not all of them showered, but the soap was used by some. Arthur stood spellbound and groaned with despair as they unpinned their long hair. He wrung his hands in torment as they hung their towels on pegs. Arthur watched the water steam as they lathered up a storm.
The brassiere of one with a ponderous bust lay upturned on a pile of loose clothes. Arthur caved in and lowered his face, feeling its nuzzling warmth. Then he turned his back on that angelic host and fled without a word.
“I never went back.”
“I feel dirtied, Arthur. You’re a disgraceful letch.
” Dermot made a face.
“Please don’t start. It’s terrible. You can’t possibly understand.”
“Did she really have big ones?”
“Dermot. Please. Be kind.”
Arthur had shamed himself. He felt sorry for himself. And after that night, he fell into a despair worse than any he had as yet known. It wasn’t just the flesh he craved (though he did crave the flesh), it was the company and the contact that was gone. No one there to chase him out with a laugh or a harsh word. No one to share a meal with him and harangue him for what he’d done. What was the point of it all? he wondered. Nothing matters anymore.
“I could not conceive why I was still here, or what ‘here’ really was, or what to do with myself. All meaning had simply gone. I was haunted – haunted by the life I could no longer have. It is not the dead that plague the living, Dermot, but the living that torment the dead.”
* * *
The next three months were difficult for Arthur. He’d fallen into a sort of sulk, the malaise of the disowned. He’d exhausted all thoughts of what he should do, culled by the crushing knowledge that he could only observe. Never to interact; never anymore. For a man that was used to action, this was very hard to take. An eternity of it stretched out before him, and he impotent to change.
He thought of his family back home and how they were taking it. How were they getting on? But what was the use in such thoughts as those? The War right now was everything; there was only that. The ambulances came with their regular haul, and broken men kept dying. Arthur attended the funerals always, and quietly hoped for a friend. He always walked back alone.
Murder at Malenfer Page 10