Girl at the Lion D'Or (16 page)

Although the atmosphere was not as formal as Anne had feared, the party had been carefully chosen, and Isabelle moved assiduously from group to group to make sure all was well. Anne noticed that no one asked about her job or how she knew Hartmann. She presumed that they had all discussed her before she came downstairs, or even earlier. Perhaps that was why they were all having such a ‘terrific’ time in the morning-room, according to Etienne, when she and Hartmannn had arrived: what a scream, the Countess would have said, to think of Charles bringing down his little mistress from the local bistro . . .

She glanced over to where Hartmann stood by the window talking to Etienne’s brother-in-law. His head was slightly on one side as he listened to what Marcel was saying, yet his body was relaxed and he had even raised one foot to the wooden window-seat as a man might do in his own house. She looked longingly across at him, seeing in a movement of his hand and rush of laughter the vestigial enthusiasm of his imagined boyhood which had so charmed her by the tennis court. How was it possible, she wondered, to be awed by someone and yet to feel protective towards him too?

Some of the guests were tired from long journeys – one couple had come from Paris – and this increased their sense of relaxation when they saw that Etienne had taken charge and there was nothing more for them to think about. The men drank freely, as if they were anxious to forget where they had come from; and, as they drank, their talk became exuberant and began to include more and more people at a time, until one of them would speak to the entire room.

As they rose to go into dinner, Anne told herself again the words that had been scored into the years of her childhood: be brave, little Anne, be brave . . . her guardian Louvet’s purplish face loomed up in front of her and his philosophical finger wagged: ‘Courage is the only weapon,
it is the only thing that counts
.’

At dinner she found herself between the man from Paris and Marcel. They drank different wines with every course, and Etienne loudly encouraged her to drink more freely, himself setting an impressive example. Hartmann and the man from Paris appeared to be teasing Etienne, who was answering back robustly. Anne wasn’t sure if they all knew each other already or whether they had simply lighted on a jovial bond that was common to all men. There was talk of Bouvard and Pécuchet, who, she knew, were characters in a book. Since she hadn’t read it, however, she couldn’t see why the application of the names to Etienne was making the men laugh.

After dinner Isabelle said she was fed up with the sound of male voices and invited Anne upstairs where she had something she wanted to show her. Anne obeyed dutifully and the Countess followed them. Although it was a traditional farmhouse, it had been lavishly decorated inside, and Isabelle’s bedroom, where she now led them, had beautiful striped drapes and little sofas and chairs of the most delicate and expensive-looking kind. Anne found herself invited to sit at Isabelle’s dressing-table. She took a comb from her bag and began to pull it through her hair, even though, as far as she could see from the mirror, it would make very little difference.

‘Allow me, my dear,’ said the Countess, stepping forward and taking the comb from Anne’s hand. ‘Such pretty hair,’ she said, as she combed it. ‘A beautiful colour.’

‘Thank you.’

‘But why do you tie it back like this? Why don’t you use a slide? You must have this one of mine. Here.’ She untied Anne’s hair then combed it back into position before slipping a thick jewelled comb in one side.

‘But won’t you want it yourself?’ said Anne, who felt uncomfortable at having this stranger organise her appearance for her.

‘No, no. Not this evening, my dear. Do have it. It gives you such an air of . . . distinction.’

Anne retired, confused, from the dressing-table, and pretended to be looking at the pictures on the wall. Isabelle evidently had nothing in particular to show her; she had just wanted a break from the men.

‘This is my son, Gérard,’ said Isabelle, taking Anne’s arm and showing her a photograph on a chest of drawers.

‘How old is he?’

‘Nearly fourteen.’

Doing rapid calculations in her head, Anne wondered whether Hartmann and Christine would soon have children.

Through the open door there came the sound of laughter from downstairs.

‘They do make themselves laugh, don’t they?’ smiled Isabelle.

‘I wonder who they’re pulling to pieces,’ said the Countess.

‘It sounded smutty to me.’

They returned to the morning-room for coffee. Anne had never seen Hartmann like this before. She could see that he was happy and she found that she had begun to enjoy the evening herself. In any reckless undertaking, such as she considered the whole weekend to be, there was likely to be a mixture of anxiety and adventure. The latter, she decided, seemed to have gained the upper hand.

When one or two of the other couples had decided to go to bed, she went upstairs also. Her bed had been neatly turned back and there was a carafe of water on the table beside it. Her clothes had been put away and her nightdress was folded on the pillow, the recently mended tear above the hem rendered tactfully invisible. She undressed and sank beneath the covers, where she fell asleep at once, on her back, without moving.

In her dream that night she saw a man die. She screamed and ran home, where Hartmann angrily berated her for making such a fuss.

She awoke, still lying on her back, and found herself gasping for breath. There was a small window just near her head, which she pushed open. At once there was the sound of crickets and a torrent of heavy night air, filled with different scents, and cold on her face. In seconds her head was clear, and she rolled on to her side, away from the window, and fell asleep again, her dark hair splayed on the pillow.

Hartmann, whose room was above the kitchen, was disturbed early by the sound of activity. A dog howled; pans were thrown down gleefully on stone flags; cups and saucers were rhythmically beaten together by a skilled cymbalist. His head ached. The dog, or was it Etienne, barked instructions to the staff while overhead he heard the gasping of the water tank as it frantically refilled itself against the depletion caused by rushing taps and cranking cisterns whose every activity was relayed along the rafters by the strained and rattling pipes. How kind of Etienne, he reflected, to have given him this room, between wind and water.

In the middle of the morning they set off for Merlaut. It was not clear to Anne whether this was the name of a house or of a village, but it was a word spoken with great awe by Etienne. Everything at Merlaut would be perfect, unimaginable, beautiful – ah, but they must see for themselves.

Earlier that morning Anne had found that her hands were swollen with small blisters, and that one of her fingers was bleeding where she must have scratched it while asleep. The itching was intolerable, even after she had held her hands under scalding water in the bathroom. She scratched them until they were raw, scraping the palms against the waistband of her skirt.

It had stopped raining, though the air remained damp and cool for all the efforts of a thin sun. Hartmann attempted to let down the hood of the car, but succeeded only in emptying a gathered pool of water on to his trousers. Anne began to laugh. They were in a convoy of cars, set between a shiny Citroën driven by Marcel and an ugly black thing called a Rosengart that carried Armand the butler and two maids. Armand, who had been entrusted with the driving of it, had not mastered the movement of the gear lever, with the result that it emitted an even harsher grinding sound than was standard with the machine.

Merlaut turned out to be a shooting lodge, set in thick woods. It was intended that the party stay the night: four, plus the servants, could sleep in the main lodge, and the remaining eight in out-buildings and cottages on the estate.

The guests separated; some walked over the wooded hills, some went to see where they would be staying and others sat on the balcony outside the lodge, reading or listening to Etienne. Anne walked with Hartmann, who was still suffering from a headache. She teased him a little, the first time she had dared do such a thing, and he seemed not to mind.

‘They’ve been very kind, so far, these people,’ she said. ‘They’re not as frightening as I’d expected.’

‘I told you it would be all right. They’re not small-town people, you see. Most of them are Parisians who are pretending not to be. Like me. Paris makes you more tolerant, don’t you think?’

‘I suppose so. There’s one woman who gave me a terrible look last night. I’m sure she must be a countess or something. I think she’s called Mireille.’

‘A countess, yes . . .’ Hartmann looked up over the fields in front of them. ‘Mireille used to be a singer. She was in the chorus of a cabaret in Paris that was so bad it became something of a cult. It had a snake-charmer who couldn’t charm and a muscleman who claimed once to have been in a show with Josephine Baker. Mireille used to appear with several other women wearing feathers down their fronts. One night she had a note backstage from a man wanting to take her to dinner. She refused, being a nice girl, but he persisted. He turned out to be a manufacturer of pneumatic tyres from Clermont Ferrand. He was about sixty, but I suppose he was kind, because she married him. Unfortunately he died soon afterwards.’

Anne was amazed. ‘Poor woman.’

‘Yes. Though the blow was softened when it transpired that he’d left her several million francs. Now she’s married again – that man with the glasses, Pascal.’

‘Not a countess, then.’

‘No, not a countess.’

There was excitement back at the lodge where the others were taking pre-lunch drinks on the balcony. Even Marcel, the saturnine brother-in-law, was showing signs of animation. The cause of it was a shaggy German shepherd dog called Oscar who had recently arrived with his handler, a short woman in a waterproof coat.

‘He came second in the competition this year. Second out of all the dogs in France,’ said Marcel.

‘Second at what?’ said Anne.

‘At truffle-hunting, of course. What else? What other reason could there be for us to gather here at the end of a long summer in this remote little spot?’

‘And what draws a dog like Oscar to the truffles in the first place?’ Hartmann intervened, to deflect attention from Anne.

‘Oh, there are many theories, you know. One scientist maintains that with pigs there is something in the truffle that resembles the smell of a male pig. This is why sows are drawn to search for them.’

‘Do they do much better than male pigs?’

‘No, about the same.’

‘So what does this tell us of the love-life of the pig, Marcel?’

‘No, no, I am serious,’ said Marcel, crossly, as everyone seemed to be laughing. ‘And Oscar, he is formidable. When he goes into the field he is like a virtuoso. His body stiffens and tunes to the one pressing thing that animates him . . . the little black diamonds. Out of all the dogs in France, he’s the second best. And he’s only four years old. Next year, he will be the winner. Am I not right, madame?’

‘But of course, monsieur,’ the dog’s handler nodded.

‘When can we see the maestro?’ said someone.

‘Why, this afternoon. After lunch.’

‘Lunch,’ boomed Etienne. ‘A good idea.’

They sat on benches at a long table inside the lodge and an old woman materialised from the scullery with some bread and a tureen of soup. Etienne deferred here to Marcel, who sat at the top of the table. Jugs of wine were passed round and the talk was of the afternoon’s expedition. The old woman cleared the plates and brought some salad, and later some slabs of thick greasy terrine. Anne was sitting next to Marcel, who continued to lecture her on the history of the truffle. On the other side was Oscar’s handler or, more accurately, Oscar, who rested his furry head on the table between them. When she thought no one was looking Anne slipped him her portion of terrine, which he swallowed at a gulp.

‘In 1900 there were four hundred thousand people living in this region. And now?’ asked Marcel, since no one else had. ‘Less than half that number.’

‘Where have they gone?’ said Anne dutifully.

‘The Germans killed a good number of them. The rest have gone to the cities. Bordeaux, Paris, Clermont. The villages are empty now.’

The old woman brought omelettes with what looked like mushrooms stuck in them. Marcel carved open the dark yellow mass and served his end of the table. Anne already felt quite full from what she had eaten. She managed to slide part of her portion on to the wooden floor, where the dog pounced on it, before returning his head to the table and gazing fixedly up at her.

‘But it’s getting harder and harder to find these little beauties,’ said Marcel, forking a piece of truffle from his omelette.

Anne, who hadn’t realised she had been feeding the dog with anything more than a strange mushroom omelette, was frightened that someone might have seen her throwing this delicacy on the floor. To quell a panicky desire to laugh, she asked Marcel about the training of the dogs.

A dish of boiled chicken was placed on the table and the jugs of wine were refilled.

‘When they begin,’ said Marcel, ‘the trainer will wrap the truffle in meat and bury it. The amount of meat gets less and less until the dog will go for the smell of the truffle alone. Then sometimes they give him a little reward.’

‘Have you seen your lodgings tonight?’ Etienne interrupted, turning to Anne. ‘You’re in what used to be a granary. It’s very small, I’m afraid, just a couple of rooms, but it’s got a pleasant view. You can’t get the car all the way down, I’m afraid. The path’s too narrow.’

Anne was by now not sure if the meal was finishing or beginning, and the arrival of plates of carrots, celery and potatoes made the situation no clearer. The old woman went stoically about her work, giving no indication of enjoyment or distaste. The din of laughter grew and Anne found herself caught up in it. Only one thing still worried her: the way Hartmann had behaved towards her in her dream. But she would tax him with it later.