King of the Castle (33 page)

“I will go and bring her,” I said, glad to escape from the room of death.

As I walked along the corridor I was conscious of the gloom. Death was close. I sensed it. But it was more than

that. It was like a house from which it had been considered sinful to laugh and be happy. How could poor Francoise have been happy in such a house? How glad she must have been to escape to the castle!

I had reached a staircase and stood at the foot looking up.

“Genevieve,” I called softly.

There was no answer. On the landing was a window the light from which was almost shut out because the heavy curtains were half-drawn across it. I imagined this was how they always were kept. I went to them and looked out at the overgrown garden. I tried to open the window, but could not do so. It must have been years since anyone had opened it.

I was hoping to see Genevieve in the garden and sign to her; but she was not there.

I called her name again; there was still no reply, so I started up the stairs.

The stillness of the house closed in on me. I wondered whether Genevieve was hiding in one of those rooms, keeping away from the sick-room because she hated the thought of death. It was like her to run away from what she found intolerable. Perhaps that was at the root of the trouble. I must make her see that if she was afraid of something it was better to look it straight in the face.

“Genevieve!” I called.

“Where are you?”

I opened a door. It was a dark bedroom, the curtains half-drawn as they were on the landing. I shut the door and opened another. This part of the house could not have been used for years.

There was another flight of stairs, and this I guessed would lead to the nurseries, for these were usually at the top of the house.

In spite of what was happening in the room far below I was thinking also of the childhood of Francoise, of which I had read in those

notebooks which Nounou doled out one by one. It occurred to me then that Genevieve had probably listened to stories of her mother’s childhood in this house, and if she wanted to hide, where would she be more likely to come than to the nurseries?

I was certain that I should find her up here.

“Genevieve,” I called out more loudly than as yet.

“Are you up here?”

No answer. Only a faint return of my own voice like a ghostly echo to mock me. If she were there she was not going to let me know.

I opened the door. Before me was a room which though lofty was not large. There was a pallet on the floor, a table, a chair, a priedieu at one end and a crucifix on the wall. It was furnished as that room in which the old man now lay. But there was a difference about this room. Across the only window, which was high in the wall, were bars.

The room was like a prison cell. I knew instinctively that it was a prison cell.

I felt an impulse to shut the door and hurry away; but curiosity was too strong. I entered the room. What was this house? I asked myself.

Was it conducted like a monastery, a convent? I knew that Genevieve’s grandfather regretted he had not become a monk. The ‘treasure’ in the chest explained that-a monk’s robe was his dearest possession. I had learned that from the first of Francoise’s notebooks. And the whip? Had he scourged himself. or his wife and daughter?

And who had lived here? In this room someone had awakened every morning to that barred window; those bleak walls, to this austerity.

Had he . or she . desired it? Or. I noticed the scratching on the distempered walls. I looked closer.

“Honorine,” I read, ‘the prisoner. “

So I was right. It was a prison. Here she had been detained against her will. She was like those people who had lived in the dungeons at the chateau.

I heard the sound of slow padding steps on the stairs. I stood very still waiting. Those were not Genevieve’s steps.

Someone was on the other side of the door. I heard distinctly the sound of breathing, and went swiftly to the door and pulled it open.

The woman looked at me with wide incredulous eyes.

“Mademoiselle!” she cried.

“I was looking for Genevieve, Madame Labisse,” I told her.

“I heard someone up here. I wondered … You are wanted downstairs.

The end is very near. “

“And Genevieve?”

“I believe she is hiding in the garden.”

“It is understandable,” I said.

“The young do not wish to look on death. I thought I might find her in the nurseries, which I guessed would be up here.”

“The nurseries are on the lower floor.”

“And this …?” I began.

“This was Mademoiselle Genevieve’s grandmother’s room.”

I looked up at the barred window.

“I looked after her until she died,” said Madame Labisse.

“She was very ill?”

Madame Labisse nodded coldly. I was too inquisitive, she seemed to be telling me. In the past she had not given secrets away for she was paid well to keep them; and she was not going to jeopardize her future by betraying them now.

She was right; Genevieve was hiding in the garden. It was only after her grandfather was dead that she returned to the house.

The family went over to Carrefour for the funeral, which was, I heard, carried out with the pomp usual on such occasions. I stayed behind.

Nounou did not go either; she had one of her headaches, she said, and when she had one

of them she was fit for nothing but her own bed. I guessed the occasion would have aroused too many painful memories for her.

Genevieve went over in the carriage with her father, Philippe and Claude; and when they had left I went along to see Nounou.

I found her, as I expected, not in bed; and I asked if I could stay and talk with her awhile.

She replied that she would be glad of my company, so I made coffee and we sat together.

The subject of Carrefour and the past was one which both fascinated and frightened her, and she was half-evasive, half eager.

“I don’t think Genevieve wanted to go to the funeral,” I said.

She shook her head.

“I wish she need not have gone.”

“But it was expected of her. She is growing up-scarcely a child any more. How do you think she is? Less inclined to tantrums? More calm?”

“She was always calm enough …” lied Nounou.

I looked at her sadly and she looked sadly back. I wanted to tell her that we should get nowhere by pretence.

“When I was last at the house I saw her grandmother’s room. It was very strange. It was like a prison. And she felt it too.”

“How can you know?” she demanded.

“Because she said so.”

Her eyes were round with horror.

“She … told you … How …”

I shook my head.

“She did not return from the dead, if that’s what you’re thinking. She wrote on the wall that she was a prisoner. I saw it, ” Honorine, the prisoner. ” Was she a prisoner? You would know. You were there.”

“She was ill. She had to stay in her room.”

“What a strange room for an invalid … right at the top

of the house. It must have made a lot of work for the servants . carrying to her up there. “

“You are very practical, miss. You think of such things.”

“I should think the servants thought of it, too. But why should she think of herself as a prisoner? Wasn’t she allowed to go out?”

“She was ill.”

“Invalids are not prisoners. Nounou, tell me about it. I feel it’s important… to Genevieve, perhaps.”

“How could it be? What are you driving at, miss?”

“To understand would enable me to help. I want to help Genevieve. I want to make her happy. She’s had an unusual upbringing. That place where her mother lived and then this castle … and everything that happened. You must see that all that could affect a child… an impressionable, highly-strung child. I want you to help me to help her.”

“I would do anything in the world to help her.”

“Please tell me all you know, Nounou.”

“But I know nothing … nothing …”

“But Francoise wrote in her notebooks, didn’t she? You haven’t shown them all to me.”

“She didn’t intend anyone to see them.”

“Nounou … there are others, aren’t there … more revealing .. ?”

She sighed, and taking the key from the chain at her waist she unlocked her cupboard.

She selected a notebook and gave it to me. I noticed from where she took it. There was another there the last in the line and I hoped that she would give me that too. But she didn’t.

“Take it away and read it,” she said.

“And bring it straight back to me. Promise you’ll show no one else and bring it straight back.”

I promised.

This was different. This was the woman in great fear. She

was afraid of her husband. As I read I could not rid myself of the feeling that I was spying into the mind and heart of a dead woman. But he was concerned in this. What would he think of me if he knew what I was doing?

Yet I must read on. With every day I spent in the chateau it was becoming more and more important for me to know the truth.

“I lay in bed last night praying that he would not come to me. Once I thought I heard his steps, but it was only Nounou. She knows how I feel. She hovers … praying with me, I know. I am afraid of him. He knows it. He cannot understand why. Other women as so fond of him.

Only I am afraid. “

“I saw Papa today. He looked at me as he often does, as though he would look deep into my mind, as though he is trying to discover every moment of my life … but mostly that.

“How is your husband?” he says to me. And I stammer and blush for I know what he is thinking. He said: “There are other women, I have heard.” And I did not answer. He seemed pleased that there were.

“The devil will take care of him for God will not,” he said. Yet he seems pleased that there are other women and I know why. Anything is preferable to my being sullied. “

“Nounou prowls about. She is very frightened. I am so frightened of the nights. I find it so hard to get to sleep. Then I awake startled and fancy someone has come into the room. It’s an unnatural marriage.

I wish I were a little girl again playing in the nursery. The best time was before Papa showed me the treasure in the trunk . before Maman died. I wish I didn’t have to grow up. But then of course I should never have had Genevieve. “

“Genevieve flew into a passion today. It was because Nounou said she must stay indoors. She has a slight cold and Nounou was worried. She locked Nounou in her room and the poor creature waited patiently there until I went to find her. She didn’t want to betray Genevieve. We were

both frightened afterwards when we scolded Genevieve. She was so . wild and naughty. I said she reminded me of her grandmother and Nounou was so upset by her naughtiness. “

“Nounou said, ” Never say that again, Francoise dear. Never, never. ” I realized she meant what I had said of Genevieve’s being like her grandmother.”

“Last night I awoke in a fright. I thought Lothair had come into the room. I saw Papa during the day. He made me more frightened than usual perhaps. It was a dream. It was not Lothair. Why should he come? He knows I hate him coming. He no longer tries to make me see life from his way. I know that is because he does not care for me. He is glad to escape. I am sure of it. But I dreamed he was there and it was a horrible nightmare for I believed he would be cruel to me. But it was only a dream. Nounou came in. She had been lying awake listening, she said. I said, ” I can’t sleep, Nounou. I’m frightened,” so she gave me some laudanum. She uses it for her headaches. She says it takes the pain away and makes her sleep. So I took it and I slept, and in the morning it all seemed like a nightmare … nothing more. He would never force himself on me now. He doesn’t care enough. There are others.”

“I told Nounou I had a raging toothache, and she gave me laudanum. It is such a comfort to know that when I can’t sleep there it is in the bottle waiting for me.”

“A sudden thought came to me today. It can’t be true. But it could be.

I wonder if it is. I am frightened that it might be . and yet in a way I’m not. I shan’t tell anyone yet. certainly not Papa; he would be horrified. He loathes anything to do with it, although he is my father, which is strange, so it could not always have been so. I shan’t tell Lothair. not until it is necessary. I shan’t even tell Nounou. Not yet in any case. But she’ll find out sooner or later.

Well, I’ll wait and see. I may be imagining it. “

“Genevieve came in this morning a little late. She had overslept. I was quite frightened that something might have happened to her. When she came she just ran to me;

she sobbed when we hugged each other and I couldn’t calm her down.

Dear Genevieve. I should love to tell her but not yet. oh, no, not yet. “

That was the end and I had not discovered what I wanted to know; but there was one thing I had discovered-that the important notebook was the last one, the one I had seen in Nounou’s cupboard. Why had she not given me that one?

I went back to her room. She was lying on the couch, her eyes closed.

“Nounou,” I said, ‘what was it. the secret? What did it mean? What was she afraid of? “

She said: “I’m in such pain. You’ve no idea how these headaches affect me.”

“I’m sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Nothing… There is nothing to be done but to keep quiet.”

“There is the last book,” I said.

“The one she wrote in before she died. Perhaps the answer is in that book …”

“There is nothing,” she said.

“Will you draw the curtains. The light hurts me.”

I laid the notebook on the table near her couch, drew the curtains and went out.

But I had to see that last book. I was sure it would give me some clue as to what had really happened in the days before Francoise’s death.

During the next day I made such a discovery that I almost forgot my desire to see the notebook. I had been working patiently on the suspected wall-painting, very cautiously flaking pieces of lime-wash with a fine ivory paperknife, when I uncovered . paint! My heart began to hammer with excitement, my fingers to tremble. I had to restrain