The Scapegoat (12 page)

I walked up one of these long rides and looked at the château from the furthest point, seeing it now as a picture within a frame. The blue-black roof, the turrets, the tall chimneys, and the sandstone walls had shrunk to fairy-tale proportions: it no longer held living, feeling people, but was a plate turned over in a book of illustrations, or something glimpsed on the walls of a gallery, noted momentarily for its beauty and then dismissed.

I retraced my steps past the seeking Artemis, down the ride to the dovecot, now filled with hay but still a nesting-place for cooing fantail pigeons, who preened and postured, strutting in and out of their narrow entrances, bowing and spreading their tails. Then the long windows of the salon opened, folding against the shutters, and the figures of Françoise and Renée appeared on the terrace, waving to me, and from between them the child came running, calling, ‘Papa … Papa …’ regardless of her mother, who scolded her to return. Crossing the footbridge spanning the moat, she sprang over the grass to join me, leaping high when almost on top of me so that I had to catch her in mid-air like a ballet-dancer.

‘Why didn’t you go to the
verrerie?’
she asked, hanging round my neck, rumpling my hair. ‘Uncle Paul had to go without you and it made him in a bad temper.’

‘I was late to bed through your fault,’ I said, putting her down. ‘You’d better go back indoors – I can hear your mother calling you.’

She laughed, pulling my hand, dragging me to the swing by the dovecot. ‘There is nothing the matter with me today. You
are home,’ she said. ‘Now mend the swing for me. The rope has broken.’

I fumbled with the contraption, clumsy-handed, while she watched me, chattering of nothing, asking questions that demanded no answer; and then when I fixed the seat for her she stood on it for a moment, working it with energy, her thin legs springy as a monkey’s beneath the short frock, the bright checks draining from her face any colour she might otherwise have had.

‘Come on,’ she said suddenly – I had gone to the back to push her, thinking she wanted to swing higher – and we walked off aimlessly together, hand in hand, she stooping to pick up chestnuts when we came to the path, filling a small pocket in her frock and then throwing the rest away.

‘Do people always like boys better than girls?’ she asked me inconsequently.

‘No, I don’t think so. Why should they?’ I replied.

‘My aunt Blanche says they do, but there are more women saints than men, for which there is great rejoicing in Paradise. Will you race me?’

‘I don’t want to race you.’

She ran on ahead, skipping and leaping, passing through the garden door to the front terrace, through which I had gone the night before. Glancing up at the small window in her turret room, I saw how formidable was the height from that sill to the ground below. I followed the child towards the stabling and outbuildings. She had sprung up on to the wall above the moat and was now picking her way along the top of it, amid tangled ivy. Then she jumped down again close to the archway, and the dog, which had been sleeping in the sun, stretched himself, wagging his tail, and she opened the gate of his run and let him out. He barked as he saw me approach, and when I called out, ‘Come here, then, what’s the matter, old fellow?’ he kept his distance and growled, standing beside Marie-Noel as though to guard her.

‘Stop it, César,’ said the child, jerking at his collar. ‘Have you gone blind suddenly that you don’t know your master?’

He wagged his tail again and licked her hand, but he did not come to me, and I stood where I was, with an intuition that if I advanced he would growl again, and my efforts to make friends would increase his suspicion rather than allay it.

‘Leave him alone. Don’t excite him,’ I said.

She let go his collar and he loped towards me, still muttering, sniffed, and then left me, without interest, and went off nosing at the ivy around the moat wall.

‘He didn’t give you any welcome,’ said Marie-Noel. ‘How extraordinary. Perhaps he isn’t feeling well. César, come here.’

‘Don’t bother him,’ I said. ‘He’s all right.’

I began to walk towards the house, but the dog did not follow me. He stood uncertainly, watching the child, who ran to him, and patted his great flanks and felt his nose.

I looked across the precincts of the château to the bridge and the village beyond, and I saw a woman turn down the hill from the church and come to the gateway between the entrance towers. She wore black, with a little old-fashioned toque on her head, and she was carrying a prayer-book. I recognized her for Blanche. Looking neither to right nor to left, seeming to be unconscious of the day, she walked stiff and straight up the gravel driveway to the terrace steps. Even when Marie-Noel ran to meet her, her frozen face never relaxed an instant, the hard, set expression remaining unchanged.

‘César growled at Papa,’ called the child, ‘and didn’t seem pleased to see him. It has never happened before. Do you think he is ill?’

Blanche glanced across at the dog, who now advanced towards her, wagging his tail. ‘If no one is taking him for a walk he had better be put back in his run,’ she said, and came up the steps, apparently unconcerned at the dog’s behaviour. ‘As you are now well enough to be out of doors, you are well enough to come for your lessons with me after lunch.’

‘I don’t have to do lessons today, do I, Papa?’ the child protested.

‘I don’t see why not,’ I said, believing I might ingratiate myself with Blanche. ‘You had better ask your mother what she thinks.’

Blanche made no comment. She walked straight past me into the house: I might not have been there. Marie-Noel took my hand and shook it crossly.

‘Why are you in such a bad humour with me today?’ she said.

‘I’m not in a bad humour.’

‘You are. You don’t want to play with me, and it isn’t anything to do with Maman if I have lessons this afternoon or not. You know that very well.’

‘Am I supposed to give the orders?’

She stared at me, her eyes round. ‘You always do,’ she said.

‘Very well then,’ I said firmly. ‘It won’t hurt you to have lessons, if your aunt can spare the time. Now come upstairs – I have something for you.’

It occurred to me suddenly that the giving of the presents would be much simpler if it were done at the table, while we were all assembled there having lunch, than if I gave them to each one individually. But the child might have hers now, as a sop, because I had taken an unpopular attitude over the lessons.

She followed me up to the dressing-room, and I went to the table and gave her the book in its wrappings. She tore them off, and when she saw what the book was she exclaimed in delight and hugged it to her.

‘It is just what I wanted,’ she said. ‘Oh, my darling sweet Papa, why do you always guess the right things?’

In her enthusiasm she flung herself upon me, and once again I was forced to undergo the arms round the neck, the cheek thrust against mine, the random kisses falling anywhere. This time I was expecting it, and as I swung her round in
my arms it was like playing with a lion cub, or a long-limbed puppy, or any young animal that attracts one because of its youth and grace. Instead of being awkward with her I found myself responding. I pulled her hair and tickled the back of her neck, both of us laughing, her very naturalness with me making me unafraid, confident of myself and of her. It was stimulating to realize that if this attractive clinging object knew I was a stranger she would be repelled and scared, withdrawing herself immediately, and we should have no point of contact, that she would be totally indifferent to me, just as the dog had been.

‘Must I do lessons?’ she said, sensing intuitively my sudden response, trying to turn it to advantage.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘We can decide that later.’

Putting her down, I stood beside the table again, looking at the other packages.

‘I’ll tell you something,’ I said. ‘I’ve brought presents from Paris for everyone. I gave your mother hers last night, and one to your grandmother too. We’ll put these in the dining-room, and they can open them at lunch.’

‘For uncle Paul and my aunt Renée?’ she said. ‘Why, it’s not either of their birthdays.’

‘No, but it’s a good thing to give presents. It shows appreciation. I have one for your aunt Blanche too.’

‘For my aunt Blanche?’ She stared at me, amazed.

‘Yes, why not?’

‘But you never give her anything, not even for Christmas or the New Year!’

‘Well, I’m giving her something now. It might make her better tempered.’

The child went on staring at me, and began biting her fingers. ‘I don’t think it’s a good idea, putting the presents on the table,’ she said, her voice worried. ‘It’s too much like a fête or a celebration. Nothing is going to happen, is it, that you haven’t told me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My little brother isn’t going to be born today?’

‘No, of course not. That’s got nothing to do with it.’

‘The Wise Men from the east brought gifts … I know what you gave Maman, because she was wearing it. She told my aunt Renée that it cost a lot of money, and it was very naughty of you, but it showed how fond of her you were.’

‘What did I tell you? It’s a good thing to give presents now and again.’

‘Yes, but not in front of everyone, when it’s special. I am glad you did not put my
Little Flower
in the dining-room. What have you brought for the others?’

‘We’ll see later.’

She opened her book, crouching on her knees to do so, with the book laid out on the floor of the dressing-room, and I remembered dimly how as a child one never adopted an adult position, but invariably read lying flat, drew standing up, and for preference ate walking about instead of sitting down. It struck me that I ought to go upstairs and inquire after my mother, and I said to Marie-Noel, ‘Come and see if your grandmother is better,’ but she went on reading, not taking her eyes from the book, and said without lifting her head, ‘She is not to be disturbed. Charlotte said so.’ Nevertheless I went upstairs, oddly confident now about everything I did.

I found my way without difficulty to the second floor, and the third corridor, and the room at the end. I tapped on the door, but there was no answer, not even the barking of the terriers. I opened the door cautiously and found the room in darkness, the shutters closed, the curtains drawn. I could distinguish the form under the covers on the bed, and I went close and looked down on her. The face had a dirty, greyish pallor to it, and she was breathing heavily, lying on her back, the sheet drawn to her chin. There was a close, stale smell about the room. I wondered how ill she was, and thought it remiss of
Charlotte to leave her there without attention. I could not tell whether she really slept, or simply lay there with her eyes closed, and I whispered, ‘Do you want anything?’, but she did not answer. The heavy breathing sounded harsh and painful. I went out of the room, softly closing the door, and at the end of the corridor came face to face with Charlotte.

‘How is she?’ I said. ‘I’ve just been in to her, but she didn’t hear me.’

I caught a flicker of surprise in the woman’s small black eyes.

‘She won’t wake now before the afternoon, Monsieur le Comte,’ she whispered.

‘Has the doctor been?’ I asked.

‘The doctor?’ she repeated. ‘No, naturally not.’

‘But if she is ill,’ I said, ‘wouldn’t it be wise to send for him?’

The woman stared. ‘Who told you she was ill? There is nothing wrong.’

‘I understood from Gaston …’

‘I only gave the usual message in the kitchen that Madame la Comtesse was not to be disturbed.’

She sounded on the defensive, as though I were unfairly attacking her for something she had not done, and I realized I must have made some sort of error in coming upstairs to inquire after her patient, who now appeared not to be a patient, but merely sleeping.

‘I must have misheard him,’ I said shortly. ‘I thought he said she was ill,’ and I went downstairs and back to the dressing-room to fetch the presents I was about to bestow upon my unsuspecting relatives. The child was still there, reading intently, and it was not until I stirred her with my foot that she became aware of my existence.

‘You know, Papa,’ she said, ‘she was just an ordinary child like me. No one thought anything special about her when she was little. She could be troublesome sometimes, and cause grief to her parents. And then God chose her as a divine instrument to bring consolation to hundreds and thousands of people.’

I picked up the packages from the table. ‘That sort of thing doesn’t happen often,’ I said. ‘Saints are very rare.’

‘She was born at Alençon, Papa, and it’s hardly any distance from here. I wonder if there is something in the air that is likely to turn a person into a saint, or whether there is something one must do?’

‘You had better ask your aunt.’

‘I have. She told me prayer and fasting alone aren’t any good, but that God’s grace can descend suddenly, without warning, if one is really humble enough, and pure in heart. Am I pure in heart?’

‘I doubt it.’

I heard the sound of a car driving up to the château, and Marie-Noel ran to the window and craned out.

‘It’s my uncle Paul,’ she said. ‘His present is the smallest of the lot. I shouldn’t like to be him. But being a man I suppose he can hide his feelings.’

We went down like conspirators and into the dining-room, which I had not seen – a long, narrow room facing the terrace, immediately to the left of the entrance – and cunningly I told the child to lay the presents in their proper places, which she did with evident enjoyment, her earlier doubts allayed. I noticed, to my surprise, that Blanche sat at one end of the table, not Françoise, as I should have thought. The head of the table was presumably my own place since she laid no present there; and she put Renée’s package next to it, and Paul’s next to Blanche, and her own book of
The Little Flower
on my other side. Françoise, then, sat between Paul and the child. I puzzled on the jig-saw arrangement, until Gaston came into the room, changed from his valet’s rig to a dark coat, followed by the rosy-cheeked Germaine and another whom I had not seen before but who, judging from her plumpness and frizzled hair, was daughter to the woman I had seen washing sheets in the pool beneath the moat wall.