“I am not sure whether I should thank you for your compliments or apologize for luring you to indiscretion.”
“You mean that as you do everything or almost everything you say.
That is why I am going to ask you a question, Miss Lawson. Will you give me a frank answer? “
“I will try to.”
“Well, here it is: Do you think I murdered my wife?”
I was startled; his heavy lids half hid his eyes but I knew he was watching me intently, and for a few significant seconds I did not answer.
“Thank you,” he said.
“I have not answered yet.”
“But you have. You wanted time to find a tactful answer. I did not ask for tact. I wanted truth.”
“You must allow me to speak, having asked my opinion.”
“Well?”
“I do not believe for one moment that you gave your wife a dose of poison, but…”
“But…”
“Perhaps you … disappointed her … perhaps you did not make her happy. I mean perhaps she was unhappy being married to you and rather than continue so she took her life.”
He was looking at me with the twisted smile on his lips. I sensed in him then a deep unhappiness and there came to me an overwhelming desire to make him happy. It was absurd, but it was there, and I could not deny it. I believed that I had seen a little of the man beneath that exterior of arrogance and indifference to others.
It was almost as though he read my thoughts, for his expression hardened as he replied: “Now you see, Mademoiselle Lawson, why I have no desire to marry; you think I am obliquely guilty, and you being such a wise young woman are no doubt right.”
“You are thinking me foolish, tactless, gauche … everything that you most dislike.”
“I find you … refreshing, Mademoiselle Lawson. You know that. But I believe you have a saying in your country.
“Give a dog a bad name and hang him.” Is that so? ” I nodded.
“Well, here you see that dog with his bad name. A bad name is one of the easiest things to live up to.
There! In exchange for the lesson you gave me on restoring pictures I have given you one on family history. What I set out to tell you was that, as soon as Easter is over, my cousin and I will leave for Paris.
There is no reason why Philippe’s marriage should be delayed. He and I will attend the diner-contrat at the bride’s house and after that there will be ceremonies. The honeymoon will follow and when they return to the chateau we shall do a little more entertaining. “
How could he talk so calmly of this matter? When I considered his part in it, I felt angry with him for behaving so and with myself for so easily forgetting his faults and being ready to accept him on his own terms, one might say, every time he presented himself to me in a new light.
He went on: “We shall give a ball as soon as they return. The new Madame de la Talle will expect it. Then two nights later we shall have a ball for everyone connected with the chateau … the vine-workers, the servants, everyone. It is an old custom when the heir to the chateau marries. I hope you will attend both these ceremonies.”
“I shall be delighted to join in with the workers, but I am not sure that Madame de la Talle would wish me to be a guest at her ball.”
“I wish it and if I invite you she will welcome you. You are not sure of that? My dear Miss Lawson, I am the master of the house. Only my death can alter that.”
“I am sure of it,” I answered, ‘but I came here to work and am not prepared for grand functions. “
“But I am sure you will adjust yourself to the unexpected. I must not detain you further. I see you are waiting to return to your work.”
With that he left me bewildered, excited, and with the faint warning that I was sinking lower into a quicksand from which every day it was becoming more difficult to escape. Did he know this? Was his conversation meant to convey a warning?
The Comte and Philippe left for Paris the day after Good Friday; and on Monday I went to call on the Bastides, where I found Yves and Margot playing in the garden. They called out to me to come and see the Easter eggs which they had found on Sunday some in the house, some in the out-houses; there were as many as they found last year.
“Perhaps you don’t know, miss,” said Margot, ‘that the bells all go to Rome for the benediction and on the way they drop eggs for the children to End. “
I admitted that I had never heard that before.
“Then don’t you have Easter eggs in England?” asked Yves.
“Yes … but just as presents.”
“These are presents, too,” he told me.
“The bells don’t really drop them. But we find them, you see. Would you like one?”
I said I would like to take one for Genevieve, who would be pleased to hear that they had found it.
The egg was carefully wrapped up and solemnly presented to me, and I told them I had come to see their mother.
Glances were exchanged and Yves said: “She’s gone out…”
“With Gabrielle,” added Margot.
“Then I’ll see her some other day. Is anything wrong?”
They lifted their shoulders to indicate ignorance, so I said goodbye and continued my walk.
This took me to the river and there I saw their maidservant Jeanne with a brouette of clothes. She was beating them with a piece of wood as she washed them in the river.
“Good afternoon, Jeanne,” I said.
“Good afternoon, miss.”
“I’ve been to the house. But I’ve missed Madame Bastide.”
“She has gone into the town.”
“It’s so rarely that she is out at this time of day.”
Jeanne nodded and grimaced at her stick.
“I hope all is well, miss.”
“Have you reason to think it isn’t?”
“I have a daughter of my own.”
I was puzzled and wondered whether I had been mistaken in the patois.
“You mean Mademoiselle Gabrielle …”
“Madame is most distressed and I know that she has taken Mademoiselle Gabrielle to the doctor.” She spread her hands.
“I pray to the saints that there is nothing wrong, but when the blood is hot, mademoiselle, these things will happen.”
I could not believe what she was hinting, so I said: “I hope Mademoiselle Gabrielle has nothing contagious.”
I left her smiling to herself at what she thought was my innocence. I felt very anxious, though, on behalf of the Bastides, and on my way back I called at the house.
Madame Bastide was at home; she received me, her face stony with bewilderment and grief.
“Perhaps I’ve called at the wrong time,” I said.
“I’ll go, unless there is anything I can do.”
“No,” she said.
“Don’t go. This is not a matter which can be kept secret for long … and I know you are discreet. Sit down, Dallas.”
She herself sat heavily and leaning her arm on the table covered her face with one hand.
I waited in embarrassment, and after a few minutes when I believed she was contemplating how much to tell me she lowered her hand and said, “That this should have happened in our family!”
“Is it Gabrielle?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Where is she?”
She jerked her head to the ceiling.
“In her room. She’s stubborn. She won’t say a word.”
“She’s ill?”
‘ll. I’d rather she were. I’d rather anything . but this. “
“Can nothing be done?”
“She won’t tell us. She won’t say who it is. I never believed this could be. She was never a girl to go gadding about. She’s always been so quiet.”
“Perhaps it can all be worked out.”
“I hope so. I dread what Jean Pierre will say when he hears. He’s so proud. He’ll be so angry with her.”
“Poor Gabrielle!” I murmured.
“Poor Gabrielle! I wouldn’t have believed it. And not a word until I found out, and then … I saw how frightened she was, so I guessed I was right. I thought she’d been looking pea ky lately; worried … never joining in with the family; and then we were getting the washing ready this morning, and she fainted. I was pretty certain then, so down to the doctor we went and he confirmed what I feared.”