The Scapegoat

  'Downstairs?' she repeated. 'What for?'

  'Because I need you,' I said, 'and in future you'll come down every day.'

  For a long time she held on to me, never once relaxing her grip upon my hand. Then she released me and moved slowly to the door, majestic, dignified. She did not take my arm in the corridor but went forward, ahead of me, and opened the door of another room. At once the terriers rushed at her, barking, jumping, leaping to lick her hands.

  She turned to me, exultant. 'Just as I thought,' she said. 'These dogs are not taken out. Charlotte lies to me. Charlotte is supposed to take them in the park every afternoon. The trouble is there is no supervision in the chateau, no sort of order.'

  The dogs, released, ran to the stairs, and as we followed them she said to me, 'Did I hear you tell the cure that Blanche and Paul were to make the arrangements for the funeral?'

  'Yes,' I said.

  'They don't understand these things,' she said. 'There hasn't been a funeral in the chateau since your father died. It must be done properly. Francoise was a person of importance - she should have every respect paid to her. After all, she was your wife. She was the Comtesse de Gue.'

  She waited at the head of the stairs while I put the boxes in the dressing-room. As we entered the salon we heard voices. The others had returned. Paul was standing by the fireplace, the cure beside him. Renee was in her usual place on the sofa, Blanche on another chair. They stared at us, disconcerted, and even the cure, startled, took a moment to recover before he came forward, solicitous, anxious to assist. But she waved him aside and went straight to the chair beside the fire, the chair where Francoise always sat. Blanche rose at once and went to her.

  'You ought to be in bed,' she said. 'Charlotte told me you were very shaken, very exhausted.'

  'Charlotte's a liar,' was the answer, 'and you can mind your own business.' She fumbled on her dress for the pair of spectacles that were hanging from a chain round her neck beside the crucifix, and put them on and looked at each one of us in turn. 'This is a house of mourning,' she said, 'not a nursing-home. My daughter-in-law has died. I intend to see that everything is done to honour her that should be done. Paul, get me a pencil and some sheets of paper. Blanche, in the desk in my room, in the top drawer, you will find a dossier containing all the names of the people who came to your father's funeral. Most of them are dead, but they have relatives. Renee, fetch me the telephone directory from the cloakroom. Monsieur le cure, I should be obliged if you will come and sit beside me; I may have to refer to you for matters concerning the actual burial itself. Jean ...' she looked up at me, and paused, 'I don't expect any help from you for the moment. You had better take a walk, the air will do you good. You can exercise the dogs, as Charlotte failed to do so. But before you go,' she added, 'change into a dark suit. The Comte de Gue does not stroll about in a sports jacket when he has lost his wife.'

  22

  I left them in the salon, and went upstairs and changed. Then I called for Gaston and asked him to bring the car round to the drive.

  'I want you to take me to the verrerie,' I said. 'I'm going to fetch the child.'

  'Very good, Monsieur le Comte.'

  As we drove out of the village and up the hill towards the forest he said, 'My wife and I, Monsieur le Comte, and indeed everyone in the chateau, wish to express our deepest sympathy to you in this moment of stress.'

  'Thank you, Gaston,' I said.

  'If there is anything any of us can do, you have only to say so, Monsieur le Comte.'

  I thanked him again. There was nothing anybody could do to ease things, except myself; and I had started off by depriving an addict of morphine, which might lead to a tragedy worse than the first. I did not know. All I knew was that I had become a gambler, like Jean de Gue.

  Gaston stopped the car outside the foundry gates. It was still early, yet no one was about. The men must have stopped work for the day out of respect for Francoise.

  I got out of the car and went into the deserted grounds. Julie was not in her lodge. She must be in her son's cottage, and Marie-Noel with her. I told Gaston to wait, and walked towards the master's house, but the door was locked. I crossed the worn paving in front of the windows, and went and looked down into the well. I suppose it was about twenty feet in depth. The rickety ladder, with gaps here and there where the rungs were missing, was rotting away. The sides of the well were slimy, green with mould. Far below, at the base, I could see broken glass and sand, and mud. That a child of ten could climb down into it, at night, without fear, coming to no harm, was unbelievable. Yet it was true.

  I turned away from the well and looked through the dusty windows of the master's house. The blankets were still heaped on the floor where Marie-Noel had lain. I went round to the orchard at the back, and the window through which I had climbed that morning was now closed. But the hasp was not fastened - Julie must have shut the window hurriedly, after Blanche and I had left, and then taken Marie-Noel with her to her lodge, or to her son's cottage.

  I threw open the window once again and climbed inside. Then I went and stood beside the heap of blankets, as I had done that morning, and out of the emptiness I conjured the small, still face of the child as she lay sleeping, impervious, so it had seemed, to horror or to pain, but enduring behind the little mask the troubled burden of her ferocious dream. I bent and touched the blanket, and as I did so I was reminded of other moments, at Chinon, perhaps, or Orleans, when a line of tourist pilgrims, eyes agape, put grubby hands on a step where the Maid once knelt, so as to draw virtue from the stone. I had thought it foolish. It was foolish still. The blanket I touched had been flung round a child with too much imagination, after she had spent a night in a well. I felt in my pocket for the scrap of paper and read the last lines again. 'The Sainte Vierge tells me you are unhappy, and are suffering now for wrong done in the past, so I am going to pray that all your sins may be visited upon me, who being young and strong, can bear them better. Sleep well, and have faith in Marie-Noel, who loves you dearly.' I replaced the scrap of paper. I was the only pilgrim ...

  I went out through the window and back by the way I had come, looking for a moment at the gnarled old trees laden with apples, the fallen sunflowers, and the vine climbing the house, heavy with grapes that nobody picked. Then I passed through to the front once more, by the sheds. Gaston must have told them at the cottage that I was here, for Marie-Noel was coming across the ground towards me.

  Suddenly I did not know what to say to her. I had thought I should see Julie first. Julie would have told me how she had taken the news.

  'Don't laugh,' she called to me.

  Laugh? I had never felt less like laughing in my life. I stood still, baffled, not knowing what she meant.

  'I'm wearing Pierre's clothes,' she said. 'This is his jersey, and his black overall. Madame Yves made me change out of my blue frock because it was damp. Besides, it was suitable.'

  I realized then that she was indeed wearing things that didn't fit. They were too short, making her legs longer and thinner than ever, and she had borrowed a pair of sabots too, which were much too large, so that when she walked she had to shuffle her feet to keep them on.

  'Look,' she said, 'I'm taller than Pierre, and he's twelve.'

  She showed how the sleeves of the overall did not reach her wrists, and stretched herself to make it seem smaller still.

  'Yes,' I said, 'I see.'

  I stood awkwardly, looking down at her. Surely, I thought, there must be something that a father does or says at a time of tragedy like this? He would not just stand as I was doing, talking about clothes.

  'I couldn't fetch you before ...' I began, but she did not wait for me to finish. She took my hand and said, 'I'm glad you didn't. Come and see what we've been making, Pierre and I,' and she led me over to a mound of rubble beside a heap of waste glass. 'There is the chateau,' she said, pointing to the small glass model which had been in her pocket that morning, 'and these other pieces are the houses in St Gilles. That
big block is the church. Look, Pierre has scooped up gravel to make roads. This line of pebbles is the river, and the bent twig is the bridge. We've been playing this all afternoon.'

  Julie couldn't have told her, then. She didn't know. I looked over my shoulder for Julie or Gaston, but I couldn't see either of them.

  'Where's Madame Yves?' I asked.

  'In the cottage,' she said, 'talking to Gaston and Andre. Pierre has gone to the farm for milk. I drank all theirs this morning; they only had a little in a jug. Guess what we had for lunch - chicken! Madame Yves went and caught a poor old limping cock who used to fight the others. She said it was time he went to his rest, and he went bravely, in honour of my visit.'

  She looked up at me, to watch my astonishment. I did not say anything. I was trying to think out how to tell her what had happened.

  'Do you know,' she said, and she lowered her voice, 'it's very sad, but Pierre's mother doesn't live with them any more. She ran away to Le Mans some weeks ago, and that's why Madame Yves goes in and cooks for Andre and Pierre. It's such a shocking thing, for a boy to be without his mother and a husband without his wife.'

  I hadn't given Julie enough time. That had been it, Gaston had brought the message less than an hour ago. She had not yet found the right moment to break the news. But I was wrong.

  'Our situation is very similar,' she said. 'You have even burnt yourself as Andre did, but his burn will last for a lifetime, and yours only for a few days. Also, we shall have the consolation of knowing that Maman is well cared for. After all, as Madame Yves explained, it is better to be with Jesus Christ in Paradise than with a mechanic in Le Mans.' She stood up, brushing the sand from her knees. 'When Ernest came back with the lorry and said that Maman had been taken to hospital, I knew what would happen,' she went on. 'My dreams have a habit of coming true. But at least this was an accident. In my dream we were trying to kill her on purpose. How did Maman come to fall from the window?'

  'I don't know,' I said. 'Nobody knows.'

  'I shall find out,' she said. 'It will console Maman in Paradise if we know.'

  Then she picked up the glass chateau and put it in her pocket, and hand in hand we walked over to the lodge, Julie was coming in the gate with Gaston. She carried the child's clothes over her arm.

  'These things are dry now,' she called. 'You had better change. You can't go to the chateau dressed like that. Quickly, then.'

  She bustled Marie-Noel into the lodge with the clothes, and then she turned to me. 'She has been very courageous,' she said softly. 'You can be proud of her.'

  'It's happened too suddenly,' I said. 'She hasn't felt it yet.'

  Julie looked at me with pity, as she had done that morning when we stood together beside the sleeping child. 'Do you know so little about children, Monsieur Jean,' she asked, 'that you imagine, because they don't cry, therefore they feel nothing? If so, you're much mistaken.' She spoke quickly, as though she were trying to defend the child against some accusation. Then she recovered herself. 'You must excuse me for speaking frankly. The truth is that the child won all our hearts today. My condolences, Monsieur le Comte, in your great loss.'

  The proprieties were restored between us. The concierge of the glass-foundry was speaking to the seigneur of St Gilles. I bowed my head and thanked her. Then I turned to her again as a friend.

  'You have done a lot for us today, Julie,' I said. 'I believed it better for you to break the news than anyone else. And I was right.'

  'She needed no telling,' Julie answered. 'It was she who told us. The dream had warned her, she said. For my part, I have never believed in dreams, Monsieur Jean. Only that children, like animals, are close to God.' She looked over the waste ground towards the master's house and the well. 'I suppose,' she said, 'there will be a police inquiry? You will not be bringing Madame Jean back until it is over?'

  'An inquiry?' I repeated.

  'No doubt it is for the doctors to arrange,' she said, nodding. 'It is to be hoped it will be quickly over. These things are unpleasant.'

  I had been too dazed at the hospital, and too distressed, to consider such a thing as an inquiry. But Julie was right, of course. This must have been one of the things discussed by Paul and Blanche at the hospital after I went.

  'I'm not sure what the arrangements are, Julie,' I said. 'I left it all to Monsieur Paul and Mademoiselle Blanche.'

  Marie-Noel came out of the lodge, changed back into her frock and coat. She kissed Julie and we said good-bye, and Gaston drove us back to St Gilles. As we passed through the gateway I saw there were four other cars in the drive below the terrace.

  'There's Dr Lebrun's car,' said Marie-Noel, 'and Monsieur Talbert's too. I don't know about the others.'

  Talbert - he was the lawyer who had written the letter which I had found in the safe. No doubt he looked after the family affairs. Then, as we drew up behind the cars and got out, we saw a man in uniform seated behind the wheel of the front one.

  'That's the commissaire de police's car,' Gaston murmured. 'He must have come out from Villars with Maitre Talbert and the doctors.'

  'Why do they all have to come?' asked Marie-Noel. 'They aren't going to arrest anyone, surely?'

  'They always come,' I said, 'if there's been an accident. I shall have to see them. Will you go and find Germaine and ask her to read to you?'

  'Germaine reads badly,' she said. 'Don't worry about me. I promise you, now and forever more, I won't do anything to make trouble.'

  She went up the terrace and in through the door, and I turned to Gaston.

  'The commissaire will probably have to question your wife,' I said to him. 'She was here at the time of the accident.'

  'Yes, Monsieur le Comte.'

  He looked anxious. I was anxious too. The nightmare of the day was not yet over. I entered the chateau and heard voices coming from the salon. They ceased as I opened the door, and everyone turned and looked at me. I recognized Dr Lebrun, and Dr Moutier from the hospital. The third was small, thickset, with greying hair. This was presumably the lawyer, Talbert. The fourth, who had a more official air, must be the commissaire de police.

  My first thought was for the comtesse. I looked across the room at her, and saw that she was still sitting in the chair beside the fireplace, commanding, indomitable. She showed no sign of fatigue, and her presence filled the room, dwarfing the others.

  'Here is my son, Monsieur,' she said to the commissaire. And then, turning to me, 'Monsieur Lemotte has been so good as to come himself from Villars to ask the necessary questions.'

  The three men approached me, anxious to show their sympathy. 'It is with regret that I intrude upon you in this moment, Monsieur,' from the commissaire de police, and 'So immeasurably shocked, Monsieur, permit me to share this time of trial,' from the lawyer and, 'I find myself so overwhelmed, de Gue, that I cannot find the words to express my sorrow,' from Dr Lebrun. The murmuring of thanks, the shaking of hands, lent ease and dignity to the proceedings, helping to bridge the awkward gap before the questioning must begin. Then, the courtesies over, the commissaire turned to me.

  'Both Dr Lebrun and Dr Moutier have informed me, Monsieur, that your wife was expecting a child within a few weeks, and I understand there was some increase in nervousness lately,' he said. 'Would you agree?'

  'Yes,' I replied. 'That's quite correct.'

  'She was, perhaps, unduly apprehensive about the birth?'

  'I think she was.'

  'Excuse me, Monsieur,' interrupted Talbert, the lawyer, 'Monsieur le Comte will forgive the explanation, but the birth was eagerly awaited both by him and by Madame la Comtesse Jean. They hoped for a son.'

  'Naturally,' said the commissaire, 'all parents are the same.'

  'But especially in this case,' said the lawyer, 'because under the terms of her Marriage Settlement the birth of a son meant an immediate increase of income, above all to Monsieur le Comte. I know, from what she said to me, that Madame la Comtesse Jean dreaded disappointing her husband, and indeed the whole fami
ly. This would, I think, account for more nervousness than usual in her case.'

  'Dread is surely a strong word, Maitre Talbert.' They turned to the speaker in her armchair by the fireplace. 'My daughter-in-law had no need to dread any one of us. We are not so dependent on the terms of a Marriage Settlement that we cannot exist without its help. My late husband's family has been in possession here for three hundred years.'

  The lawyer flushed. 'I was not suggesting, Madame, that Madame la Comtesse Jean was in any way intimidated by her situation. It was just that the position was delicate, and a responsibility to her. The birth of a son would have eased the financial difficulties considerably. She was aware of that.'

  The commissaire looked at Dr Lebrun, who hesitated, glancing at the countess and then at me. 'Madame Jean was certainly anxious for a son,' he said. 'In fact, she stressed the point when I attended her last week. No doubt this anxiety added to her nervous state.'

  'In short,' said the commissaire, 'Madame la Comtesse de Gue was inclined to hysteria. Forgive me, Monsieur, I only wish to establish that your wife was particularly agitated at the time of the accident, and therefore, in her condition, more liable to attacks of giddiness. You would agree, Docteur?'

  'Of course, of course.'

  'And you, Monsieur?'

  'I suppose so,' I replied. 'She was also anxious about her little girl. You have been told what happened?'

  'Monsieur Paul de Gue and Mademoiselle Blanche have given me their account of it. Also a femme de chambre. I am glad the little one was found eventually. So the last time you saw your wife was this morning, before you went to look for the child?'

  'That is so, yes.'

  'Was she very disturbed?'

  'Not more so, I think, than the rest of us.'

  'She did not suggest getting up and joining the search party?'

  'No.'

  'You left her in bed, presumably to await your return with news of the child's safety?'

  'Yes.'

  'Everybody, then, seems to have left the house, with the exception of the two femmes de chambre - Germaine, who took up Madame la Comtesse Jean's breakfast and was then sent to the village by Mademoiselle Blanche, and Charlotte; the cook, who was below; and of course Madame la Comtesse, who was in her room upstairs. I have examined the spot where your wife fell,' he added to me. 'I propose going to the bedroom directly, with your approval.'