The Girl at the Lion D'Or

by Sebastian Faulks

  3

  THE NEXT DAY Hartmann had a letter from Etienne Beauvais, a former colleague in Paris he had not seen for some years. Etienne had married and moved with his wife to a house near where her family had a large farm. He invited Hartmann to come for a weekend of shooting and ‘other country pursuits’. He concluded: ‘Bring yourself a companion. All is discretion here! Do come, Charles; it will be a jolly party and we haven’t seen you for a long time.’ Such a long time, in fact, that he clearly hadn’t heard that Hartmann was married. He would ask Christine if she wanted to go.

  He stuffed the letter inside his jacket pocket and went to look for her. As he crossed the hall he was accosted by Roussel, his hair white with dust.

  ‘Ah, M. Hartmann, I’m so glad to have caught you. A little matter I wanted to discuss.’

  ‘You look as though you’ve been working.’

  ‘Ah yes, indeed. I thought I’d lend a hand today. We’re making such good progress. I wanted to show you what we’ve done and then perhaps you might think it’s time for another instalment.’

  ‘All right. What do you want me to look at?’

  ‘This way, monsieur. The cellar.’

  Roussel led the way over the dust-sheets and into the kitchen, where they discovered the fat workman leaning against the range smoking a cigarette. The man grunted and held out his hand to be shaken. Hartmann took it with a nod before following Roussel down the steps.

  There followed half an hour’s pleading from Roussel in which he argued that he had almost finished the job and was thus due to be paid the third of the four instalments. However, it was clear to Hartmann that Roussel had barely completed the first part of the job. The builder was also insistent that there should be an extra payment for the floor.

  ‘But you haven’t put in a floor,’ said Hartmann.

  ‘Not as such, I admit,’ said Roussel. ‘But I think it must be considered a separate item from the decoration and the main structural work.’

  Hartmann looked at two huge struts that stuck up into the roof of the cellar.

  ‘Temporary supports, M. Hartmann. Just until the new joist settles.’

  Roussel was a tenacious arguer. When it was obvious that Hartmann was unconvinced by his progress with the schedule, he suggested that the requirements had been changed. Next he said that his youngest daughter was sick, and needed care. Hartmann, wearied with the arguments, agreed to pay him some more money. Perhaps, he thought, that’s how Mattlin wears down his girlfriends: he bores them into submission.

  His presence no longer required, Hartmann picked his way over the dust-sheets and out into the hall. He had felt no recurrence of the pity he had experienced on the first day that he and Roussel surveyed the house, though neither had he found an explanation for it.

  He went to his study to do some work, but found to his irritation that he couldn’t concentrate. He was thinking about Anne. She had reminded him of feelings he thought he had put behind him.

  He sighed and looked back at the desk. The negligence case needed work. He pulled out a bundle of papers giving details of the motor systems used in mechanical dredgers and bent his mind to them.

  He kept seeing her face and the movement of her body. She was always demurely dressed, but it couldn’t quite conceal a rather womanly heaviness about the bust which was charmingly at odds with the girlishly quality of her face.

  Good heavens, he told himself, three men died in this accident. Fiercely he studied the movement of the engine and tried to imagine the sound it made.

  But he heard only the sound of Anne’s voice and felt the tugging of her hand on his sleeve. That look of pleading when she had whispered, ‘Monsieur . . .’

  He looked back at the papers. He had once met one of the victims of the accident. He tried to remember what he was like.

  Only one presence took shape in his mind. My God, he thought, throwing down the pen. He held his head in his hands, then rubbed his eyes fiercely.

  He stood up and remembered that before Roussel had accosted him he had been going to find his wife. It was her birthday and she had invited some friends to come to the house for dinner.

  She was still in bed, reading.

  ‘What time are the people coming this evening?’

  ‘About seven o’clock. But Marie-Thérèse is always late.’

  ‘Would you like your birthday present now?’

  ‘Oh, Charles, how delightful. Yes, please.’

  Hartmann took out a package from the cupboard in the corner and handed it to Christine, who pulled eagerly at the strings and ribbon that held it together. The shop girl had done up the package with care, and it was some time before Christine’s impatient fingers were able to disinter a pair of binoculars.

  ‘For watching the birds,’ said Hartmann.

  ‘They’re beautiful. Such a lovely finish.’ She climbed out of bed and walked to the window with them. ‘They’re very powerful, aren’t they? There’s a moorhen out there, a long way out, and I can see it quite clearly with these. Do have a look, Charles.’

  Hartmann took the binoculars and aimed in the direction Christine pointed. He saw the little bird paddling along across the lake, its diminutive body dwarfed by the expanse of water and the stretch of trees beyond. He handed the glasses back to her.

  ‘If you walk up to the dyke,’ he said, ‘you should be able to see a lot of birds in those trees on the way up. The water birds nest in the weeds there.’

  Christine smiled and kissed him on the cheek. ‘It’s a lovely present.’

  It was not at dinner that night that Hartmann made what in retrospect he could see was a decisive move in his affairs. He merely sat, tilting his head politely to Marie-Thérèse’s chatter and pouring more wine for Christine’s guests. Nor was it in the long hours of the night when he lay marooned in the giant bed his father had acquired at auction in Alsace, with the sound of his wife asleep beside him. Then he merely reflected on his father and on his pride in his assumed identification with the region of Alsace (Hartmann, he pointed out, was an established name in the district). He also thought about Poincaré, the fiddling Prime Minister who had retired to the neighbouring Lorraine, and about more mundane matters such as his next game of tennis with Jean-Philippe Gilbert.

  At no point did he relent and decide that the only way he could find relief from the tormenting presence of Anne in his thoughts was by doing something. Even violent acts, he later told himself, cannot be seen clearly by the perpetrator until they are finished. And as for his own gently willed inertia, which might occasionally spill over into innocent gestures of kindness, it would take a philosopher of iron sternness to spot the moment at which an unformulated wish became, almost by inaction, a completed act.

  Nevertheless, perhaps the thought of his father recalled to him the old man’s former secretary and her sister, Mlle Calmette, who was still living in Janvilliers.

  It was her name, in any case, he mentioned to Christine the next morning when he told her he had to go into town on business.

  ‘There are some details of a trust fund for her sister which need clearing up,’ he said, as he laid down his newspaper in the morning-room.

  ‘Shall I expect you back for lunch?’

  ‘Certainly. It won’t take more than half an hour at the most. I feel rather guilty about her really. I ought to have done something before.’

  It was not until this final claim, which was partially true, that he felt any unease about his expedition.

  Christine was looking down at her needlework. Hartmann tried, but failed, to catch her eye in order to give her an insouciant smile. He cleared his throat and ran his hand quickly back through his hair. She looked up and smiled vaguely. He nodded, coughed again, and turned, the metal caps on the heels of his glossy boots ringing on the flagged hall.

  4

  AT ABOUT FIVE o’clock the same day a note was delivered for Anne by Jacqueline, the postman’s daughter. It was in an angular but firm hand that she at once recognised from
the papers in the study at the Manor. It said, ‘Call as soon as possible at the address below and ring the bell bearing the name Mlle Calmette. You will, I hope, learn something that pleases you.’ It was signed in an illegible scrawl. Anne read the note several times, tracing the hurried movement of the spluttering black ink.

  She found Pierre in the cellar and asked him where the street was. He told her it was on the north-west side of town, not far from the church; she estimated she just had time to go before her evening shift began. She hurried up the rue des Ecoles and into the Place de la Victoire from which she could see the spire of the church. In the Place de L’Eglise she asked the way from a widow with bandy legs and a headscarf who looked at her with toothless disapproval, as if she had asked for directions to a house of ill-repute. Anne barely knew what to expect, but was prepared to rush to any destination prescribed by that handwriting.

  The street was narrow and quiet; some of the houses had dried wooden gables, and some had huge double doors that would lead into paved courtyards beyond. It was one of these doors, painted a dark green, that bore the number in the note. She found Mlle Calmette’s bell and rang it. There was a remote, disconnected jangling. A thin bark rose from behind the wall and was abruptly silenced.

  At last she heard slow footsteps from behind the door and then a lock being turned. A small woman of about seventy with a crinkled face opened the door and peered nervously round it. Anne introduced herself.

  ‘Ah yes, mademoiselle.’ Anne noticed that the old woman’s hair seemed unnaturally brown for the age of her face. ‘Please come this way.’

  A cat was sleeping against one of the side walls of the courtyard where a flowerbed held half a dozen wintry shrubs and under-watered plants. The woman paused at a narrow, black-painted door and fumbled in her cardigan. She pulled out a single key on a piece of string, then turned to Anne and smiled. ‘You are just as he said.’

  Anne felt a moment of panic, as though she were a counter in a game being played by two other people.

  The door opened on to a small square hallway and a flight of scrubbed stairs. Anne followed the old woman, tense with a mixture of fear and excitement. On the landing was a rug. and a pair of glass-panelled doors.

  ‘This is your sitting-room.’

  ‘My . . . ?’

  She looked around a small neat room on whose polished wooden floor and circular table the sun shone gently. She felt a thin hand grip her forearm.

  ‘This is your bedroom.’

  A door opened on a broad wooden bed with lacework and broderie anglaise covers and a mahogany dressing-table with a vase of freesias. The wrinkled hand waved again. ‘Bathroom. And behind the curtain on the landing is a little space for cooking, if you can get the gas to work. Don’t forget to open the window.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘There’s a note for you on the dressing-table. From M. Hartmann. My apartment is next door if you should want anything. My sister used to live here, but since she died I’ve let it go on short lets. Here’s your key, and here’s one to the street door. I hope you like it.’

  Anne was too confused to take in what the old woman was saying, but then it was too late and she had gone down the stairs, her heavy black shoes ringing on the bare wood.

  Anne went back into the bedroom and tore open the letter on the dressing-table. ‘Dear Anne,’ she read, ‘I have rented these rooms for you because I thought you might like them better than your attic at the Lion d’Or, and I am sure you will have no problems with voyeurs. You don’t have to take them if you don’t want to. I won’t be hurt if you prefer to stay at the hotel, nor does taking them confer any obligation on you. Mlle Calmette is an old friend of our family (her sister worked once as my father’s secretary) and our financial arrangement is easy-going – by which I mean you shouldn’t feel uneasy about any expense you might think I’m incurring. It’s not much and, in any case, it is money I would like her to have.

  ‘I hope you’ll like it here. I suppose it will mean getting up ten minutes earlier each morning to get to work on time but perhaps it’s worth it. I have to go to dinner in town tonight and I will look in around eleven to see that you’re settled. If this is inconvenient, you must telephone me at the Manor early this evening. I will make sure I answer the telephone. My wife doesn’t know of this arrangement and if she did she might draw the wrong conclusions. I’m sure you understand.’

  Hartmann arrived shortly before midnight, full of apologies. ‘It was impossible to get away earlier, it would have been rude. I left just as soon as I could. And now you’ll be tired in the morning, while I can lie in bed till eight o’clock. I wouldn’t have come at all, but then I thought you might wait up and that would be even worse.’

  He was wearing a dark suit and a formal white collar. His eyes seemed sunk a little deeper than usual into his face – an illusion produced by a shadow of fatigue beneath them. In the shaded light that hung from the centre of the small sittingroom his face seemed all contours and hollows, defined by the sharp expression of apology that had replaced his more customary one of just-suppressed humour.

  ‘My dear Monsieur, that you should apologise when, when . . .’ Anne threw her arm wide to indicate the room.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Like it. Oh, my God, it’s wonderful, wonderful.’

  Hartmann saw her eyes brim with tears and the look of worry left his face. He turned away for a moment. ‘It was a dreadful dinner,’ he said. ‘From the moment we sat down my heart sank. It became a test of endurance. The old woman who brought the food in took an age between each course and then, when we’d finished, our hostess insisted that we listen while one of the other guests played the piano.’

  ‘But wasn’t that nice?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I’m no musician, but even my ears were offended.’

  Anne smiled. ‘I’ve bought some brandy. I thought perhaps you might like some. I’m afraid it’s not very good, but it was all I – all they had in the local shop.’

  She handed him a glass from the cupboard and filled it. ‘It’s fine,’ said Hartmann as the liquid seared his throat. ‘But won’t you have any?’

  ‘I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about it. I don’t normally drink brandy.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, I can’t see why not.’ She poured herself some and sipped at it suspiciously. It made her eyes water.

  ‘Here’s to your new home,’ said Hartmann, raising his glass.

  Anne smiled and raised hers. ‘To you, monsieur.’

  ‘You’d better not tell anyone at the hotel about this arrangement. If they want to know how you can manage to live in your own rooms you’d better tell them that an aunt left you some money in her will or something like that. It’s not that there’s anything wrong in the arrangement, it’s just that in a small town people talk. If they knew I paid for you to be here they’d jump to only one conclusion. So you must tell no one.’

  Anne turned her head. ‘Very well, monsieur.’ She felt uneasy, as though she really were his mistress. In the excitement of the afternoon she hadn’t thought properly about these things; now she felt the sense of panic returning.

  ‘What’s the matter, Anne?’

  She looked up and smiled, though without much spirit. ‘Nothing, monsieur, nothing. It’s wonderful, these rooms, this little courtyard . . . But I don’t like the feeling of secrecy. I don’t like to be furtive. I’ve kept too many secrets in my life. I would like things to be more open.’

  ‘I know. It’s not a perfect arrangement for you. But that’s not your fault and it’s not mine. It’s the fault of small-town society where people have nothing better to do than gossip and lie about each other.’

  Anne looked down.

  ‘There’s nothing you or I can do to change that. You simply have to try to make the choices that will make you happiest in the circumstances. If you’d feel better back at the Lion d’Or, then I quite understand. Please believe me, I won’t be offended. It’s you
r choice.’

  ‘Oh no! I adore these rooms. It’s the prettiest, most perfect little apartment, I’ve ever seen. I know I’ll be happy here. I just . . . it’s silly, but I just wish things were more straightforward sometimes.’

  Hartmann’s voice rumbled on soothingly. He had a way of making things seem quite clear and reasonable, Anne thought; so much so that he could talk away the most unsettling doubts – talk away, perhaps even the horrors that visited her in the night.

  She raised her face to him and he noticed that her eyes were fierce with pleading and determination. ‘Monsieur, you must not betray me.’

  Hartmann was aware from the hard edge of her voice that she was asking him for something fundamental to her happiness. He also knew, without admitting it to himself, that the more reasonably he put the case for Anne’s staying in the rooms he had rented for her, the more he stressed the possible drawbacks, the more he said it was her own free choice, the more likely she was to do what he wanted.

  ‘You can trust me, Anne,’ he said. ‘I give you my word.’

  It was a meaningless promise because it was so vague, but Anne believed in it. Hartmann hardly knew himself what he was saying, apart from assuring Anne that his regard for her was sincere. He looked over to where she stood by the table in the middle of the room, her face half in shadow from the hanging light above. He felt the same onrushing of desire that had made him throw the books towards the rafters of the attic; and mixed with this he felt for the first time a sense of identification with her and with her vulnerability.

  Anne at the moment found that her doubts were soothed, as she looked at him sitting at ease in her armchair, in her apartment. With his fastidious gentleness, his niceness of feeling and yet, too, that self-control and confidence in all his dealings – with these qualities she could not be doing wrong, whatever she did. She smiled at him again.

  Hartmann stood up, ‘I mustn’t keep you, now that you’ve got to get up even earlier in the mornings.’