Friday's Girl Page 30

  Marie walked ahead of Celandine, and as if they had changed roles Celandine found herself opening the front door for the ex-maid. As she passed through it Celandine felt herself filled with an awful panic. It was all her fault. If she had come to Paris earlier, if Edith had not delayed her, everything would be so different. She closed the door and went back to the salon, which had once been so cheerful, hung with paintings and filled with pretty furniture. It seemed that Agnes must have come back for that too, because the room was now emptier than ever. Not that Celandine cared, really. The fate of the baby seemed more important, even though it was not her baby, nor even a baby that she could be sure that Sherry would welcome. To announce to your husband that you wished to adopt his mother-in-law’s baby seemed somehow to be asking of him something that he should not have to do.

  She sat down miserably on a small side chair. The kind of chair that used to be drawn up for evenings at home, when on first arriving in Paris they would sit round the table, her mother sewing, and Celandine reading to her from one of her favourite books.

  Celandine did not know why, but perhaps because the room was so terribly empty she found herself once more filled with guilt. The truth was that she could see now that had she not fallen in love with Sherry, everything would have been so different. She could have waited to fall in love with him, couldn’t she?

  She sighed, thinking back to the heady, forbidden days of love in Brittany, and the way they still were so passionate about each other, and remembering how she had felt she realised that she could never have waited. Love, when all was said and done, was, after all, irresistible. It was the greatest force in the world, and for good reason. And yet how does true love differ from attraction, from what she had, however fleetingly, felt for Alfred Talisman on their walks, or from what, to her dismay, she could see that Edith too felt for him? She could hardly say. She only knew that love was as different from attraction as the ocean from a shallow puddle, and she hoped that it was truly able to look on storms and never be shaken, because if it were not then she would have made a great many people unhappy for no good reason.

  She stood up quickly, having come to some sort of conclusion, and realising as she did so that all she wanted now was to get back to Sherry, and Cornwall, and her painting as quickly as possible. She adjusted her large hat, picked up her small suitcase, and quietly closed the apartment door behind her.

  She was crossing the courtyard, disturbing the pigeons momentarily with her footfall, when Madame Montellier leaned out of her first-floor window and called to her to come up and have some coffee.

  Celandine hesitated. She was still feeling unwell from the journey over, and now, knowing that she had to face yet another journey, she did not want to risk feeling sick once again. However, there was something about Madame Montellier that made her stop. Something urgent and yet secretive in her face that induced Celandine to risk missing her train and turn back to the older woman’s apartment.

  ‘Marie has gone, no?’

  Celandine stepped inside. Hearing the new baby crying, she stood firmly by the front door, not wanting to stay too long, but also not wanting to see the baby, in case she reminded her all too tellingly of her own brother.

  ‘Yes, she has gone. To Burgundy, to be married, apparently.’

  ‘That is good, huh?’ The older woman looked equivocal and yet at the same time not unsympathetic. ‘She has not had a very good time. It is as well that she is to be married. Most particularly since she . . .’

  Celandine was still standing resolutely by the door.

  Madame Montellier looked back at her, and perhaps realising that Celandine still had a mind to leave, she quickly completed her sentence.

  ‘Most particularly because she has had a baby.’

  ‘Marie too has had a baby?’ Inevitably, Celandine now followed her hostess into her sparsely furnished sitting room, her voice rising.

  ‘Sit down, madame. Please, sit down.’ Madame Montellier nodded her head in answer to Celandine’s question, as authoritative as any knitter by the guillotine. Celandine sat down slowly and nervously, placing her small suitcase carefully beside the worn, lumpy chair offered to her. ‘Yes, madame, Marie has had a baby. Your baby, Dominique? The baby, he was not of your mother. He was of Marie, not of your mother at all. Your mother, she died of something which grow inside her, but not a baby,’ she finished discreetly.

  Celandine, already weakened by sickness and only a few hours’ sleep, slumped forward. Madame Montellier moved quickly to her side and held her head for her, before fetching a glass of water.

  ‘Madame, my sincere apologies. But seeing you out there, I felt I had to tell you the truth, lest you feel guilty for leaving in France what you thought was your brother, when he was nothing of the kind!’

  Celandine straightened up. She always forgot just how sick fainting made you, and how black the world became as you started to pass out.

  ‘No, no, you did quite right,’ she said eventually. ‘Truly, madame, you did quite right. Is the family suitable who have adopted him?’

  ‘Oh yes, they are suitable, madame. I know. I found them. And they are very eminent. He is a very lucky little boy. I often do this for my babies, if they are not in the way of having two parents.’ She coughed, again at pains to be discreet.

  ‘So why did Marie not tell me the truth?’

  ‘Marie, she did not want to admit that it was her baby. Your mother, she was getting so . . .’ she demonstrated with her hand an enlarging stomach, ‘that when she died the same week as Marie had the baby, Madame Bonneville—’

  ‘Not Agnes—’

  The older woman nodded. ‘Madame Bonneville suggested to Marie that she made out that the baby was of your mother. She thought that you would take it to England with you, and that would be that, mmm?’

  ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘No, madame, you did not.’

  ‘Why could you not have told me the truth, you yourself?’

  ‘I could not, madame.’ An opaque look came into her eyes. ‘I have not licence for the babies, and the Préfecture . . .’ She shrugged. ‘They will make me stop if they know I take money, and maybe I could go to prison. Besides, your sister—’

  ‘My half-sister—’

  ‘It is her idea, and I know she wanted you to take the baby thinking it was your mother’s. She is like that, no? She doesn’t like you, yes?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t like me.’ Celandine stood up. She was feeling better in every way, if weak and bewildered. She turned to Madame Montellier with a look of profound gratitude. ‘Thank you so much for telling me the truth. I am so grateful, really I am.’

  ‘I can imagine, madame.’

  ‘As it is, if what you say is true, he will be brought up in a beautiful house, with everything he could want. I have to admit it is a relief.’

  ‘Of course, madame. But you will not want to talk again with your half-sister, I think?’

  ‘No, of course not. I will never want to communicate with her again. Not that I would have done, but now, with this – I could not, ever, have anything to do with her, ever again.’

  Celandine knew that she was being over-emphatic, but she did not care.

  ‘That is good.’ Madame Montellier smiled. She touched Celandine lightly on the shoulder. ‘God is good, n’est-ce pas?’

  ‘God is good,’ Celandine agreed, suddenly seeing the reality of what could have happened. She could have taken the baby home and Sherry could have made her have it adopted in England. It could have all been so difficult.

  ‘God is good,’ Madame repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ Celandine agreed. ‘Now I must hurry. My train, you know. It is probably on the point of leaving even as we speak.’

  ‘I have already told the concierge to hold the hackney waiting for you, madame.’

  ‘That is good of you. Why – you think of everything!’ Celandine leaned forward and impulsively kissed Madame Montellier on the cheek. ‘I am so grateful you called to me. I
could have gone on thinking bad things about my mother, or bad things about myself, for not adopting little Dominique. It could have been all so truly bad, could it not?’

  ‘But now it is not, huh?’

  ‘No, it is not,’ Celandine agreed. ‘Now I can go home with a peaceful conscience.’

  ‘Which is all that is necessary for a good night’s sleep, huh?’

  They parted at the outer door, and Madame Montellier watched Celandine being guided to her hackney carriage by the old concierge.

  The older woman paused for a moment, watching the pigeons ducking, clucking, making up to each other, moving away again. They were really very like human beings, wanting to love and be faithful, but all too often finding life more difficult than they expected, with partners dying, eggs shattering, cats and rats preying on the little squabs. It was a struggle for them too.

  She closed the outer door and walked up the stairs to her own cheaply furnished apartment. She earned her money how she could. She had her own babies, she took in other people’s babies, and sometimes she helped out in other ways. She pushed open the front door and walked down the narrow, dark corridor.

  ‘Marie!’ she called. ‘Marie! You can come out now, my dear. Mademoiselle Celandine, she is gone.’

  Marie, still dressed in her travelling clothes, emerged from the darkness of the corridor, and she too, like Celandine, was carrying a suitcase.

  ‘How was she?’

  They peered at each other in the low light of the Parisian lamp.

  ‘She was relieved, my dear Marie, as who would not be? She has gone home thinking the baby is yours, and not that of her mother, which is much better than the truth, I think, huh?’

  The two women moved back to the front door and for a moment they stood staring at each other in the better light. There was a slight pause as, with a dawning sense of relief, they realised that the plan they had conceived together looked as if it was going to prove to be successful.

  ‘How fortunate that you thought of this story—’

  ‘And how much more than fortunate, Marie, that you found a good family for him.’

  They both smiled before Madame moved away from the front door, touching Marie briefly on the arm and guiding her back into the apartment once more, and towards the salon.

  ‘Let us have un petit coup to celebrate, eh?’ Madame Montellier moved to the small tray where she kept a bottle of brandy and other fortifications.

  ‘Madame Benyon, she was a nice woman, but she had a fatal weakness for the young men. And the young men, they love her because she always make them feel good. She listened to them, and she loved them very generously,’ Marie said, having taken a good slug of her drink. Despite the early hour she found herself, to her own surprise, relishing it. ‘When she die, what to do? We were in a terrible state, were we not, my friend?’

  Madame Montellier nodded as she topped up their little brandy glasses. ‘We were, Marie, we were. We might have been blamed for her death. Happily the doctor is a cousin.’

  ‘We try to hide the truth from Mademoiselle Agnes, but she is too clever.’

  ‘She want Mademoiselle Celandine to have the baby, while she take the paintings—’

  ‘And the furniture – disgusting one!’

  They both nodded in agreement.

  ‘But now, it is better that Mademoiselle Celandine think that the baby is not that of her mother. She will think, “Well, poor Marie, she has had her baby adopted, and that is good.” She will not think for the rest of her life, “I am a bad woman. I should have taken my mother’s baby.”’

  ‘We are so good at our acting.’ Perhaps because of the effects of the brandy, Madame Montellier started to laugh. ‘We should be at the Comédie Française, yes?’

  The glasses yet again refilled, they fell to discussing, at some length, the wonder of the baby’s new home, the château, the servants, the delight of his new parents. He would be christened with a name as long as that of a French king. He would become the heir of a great house. And no one but them would know his true story, and the two women would never let on.

  Brandy at that time of the morning was powerful stuff, but not as powerful as the knowledge of their own wisdom and foresight, their brilliance and sagacity.

  ‘Now I must leave to catch my train.’ Marie kissed Madame Montellier, and took up her suitcase.

  The older woman watched her from her window. Marie, like her mistress, as her friend well knew, had used to have a weakness for young men, but now she was going home to Burgundy, and a suitable marriage. She would put her former life behind her. She would be châtelaine of a small vineyard. She would have children; and since the vineyard was so near to the château where Dominique would be brought up, she would be able to keep an eye on the young man. All in all, it had to be said, it was, or should be, a happy outcome to the whole sorry affair.

  Mrs George was looking implacable.

  ‘I don’t like the sound of her cough, and what is more I’m not standing for it,’ she told Napier.

  Napier looked apprehensive, as well he might. He knew that Mrs George was in that particular state of mind which could bring about that dread of all dreads, a reliable housekeeper’s handing in her notice.

  ‘I know, I know, Miss Snape’s cough does not sound good,’ he admitted.

  ‘Does not sound good? It sounds fearful, Mr Todd, and if I was you I would certainly give her the marching orders that are so necessary. The snow has melted, and she has no business staying on in the studio room. The way she has been going on, she should not stay anyway, Mr Todd. Anyone but myself would have left your service by now, housing a woman of that nature in a respectable establishment!’

  Napier was hardly listening to her. He knew that Mrs George must know that he had quarrelled quite terribly with Edith and that as a result she had left Helmscote and gone to stay with the Montague Robertsons in Cornwall.

  ‘We were not housing her, exactly, Mrs George, and anyway she has now left the studio room, and is only coming here for a few hours each day, so that I can finish my painting for Mr Algernon Hollingsworth.’

  ‘You are housing a woman who is taking riding lessons at Captain Plume’s establishment, Mr Todd. Many sorts of people, some of whom are far from healthy, I can tell you, Mr Todd, many what you could call diseased people, frequent Captain Plume’s establishment. If you care to risk your health, I do not care to risk mine, nor that of Mrs Todd. It is one of the reasons why I encouraged Mrs Todd to go to Cornwall. Not just because she has become pale and tired sitting for that Mr Talisman’ – she practically spat out Alfred’s name – ‘but because it was not good, not for a young lady in her condition, to risk her health. Not if it were ever so, it was not.’

  Napier, who was intent on putting a last few finishing touches to his painting, was still not really listening, so it was not until Mrs George had left his studio, leaving her hidden threat behind her, and closing the door rather more loudly than he would have wished, that the penny finally dropped. He flung down his brush and burst out of the door after her.

  ‘Mrs Todd’s condition? She is not feverish again, is she?’

  ‘No, Mr Todd, she has a cold. But perhaps you had not noticed? That is why I thought it wise for her to go to stay in Cornwall, where the weather is warmer, and she will have the benefit of the sea air.’

  Mrs George stared at Napier. If she had not known him so long she might have despised him, but as it was she found herself always excusing his ignorance and selfishness as being the direct result of his involvement with his work, and trying to ignore his shortsighted egomania. But now, with his entertaining this Miss Snape all the livelong day in his studio, and quarrelling with his poor young wife, she felt that she had just about had enough.

  ‘Something I have come to realise about you, Mr Todd, over the years, is that you artistic people never do seem to notice much, do you? Yes, I am afraid that outside of your painting, and that, you really don’t notice much. I find myself wondering if th
at painting you’re on about at the moment was taken away from you, whether you might not notice a bit more, perhaps?’ She turned away. ‘But knowing you, Mr Todd, it wouldn’t make any difference, I don’t suppose.’

  Napier ran round her, standing in her way so that she could not move ahead on the path that led back to the house.

  ‘Are you really telling me . . . are you really telling me that my wife – that she might be . . . that she could be in an interesting condition?’

  ‘Yes, I am, Mr Todd, even though it is not my place to do so. Why, even Mr Talisman noticed. But you, no, you didn’t notice. Too busy painting that Miss Snape and she smitten with that Mr Talisman all the time anyway, and not with you at all.’

  Napier stared after his housekeeper as she walked past him towards the house. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said slowly.

  Mrs George turned and shook her head. ‘No, well, you wouldn’t. That’s what I just said, Mr Todd. That is you all over, and always has been. You are too busy staring at your painting to notice real life, which is what you’re meant to be painting anyway, as I understand it. Too busy looking at the noses on other people’s faces to see the nose on your own face.’

  The side door of the house closed behind her.

  Napier stared at it. He knew that Alfred was a ladies’ man; everyone knew that. Why had it not occurred to Napier that he would work his charm on Becky Snape?

  But of course it made sense, now he could bring himself to think about it. Alfred had always been in the wings, if not at Helmscote, then elsewhere. Napier suddenly remembered that he had made Sheridan furious with his attentions to Celandine when they were at the summer school. It was all too obvious – if Mrs George was right – that Alfred would have taken advantage of Becky Snape, particularly if she had a crush on him. After all, Alfred had immediately recognised Becky Snape when she arrived to visit Edith so unexpectedly.

  Napier frowned. It suddenly seemed all too coincidental that Becky had turned up so suddenly at Helmscote.