Chapter 13

After dinner, Étienne had called me aside in my room, and said quietly, “I’m leaving tomorrow, for a day or two, just to make arrangements for our trip. Don’t tell anyone but Annette, but ask her to pack your trunk and have Françoise get the child’s things ready. You might tell Grandmother that you and I want to go away en famille for a little while, but tell no one else. Now: can I trust you, Laura, not to make a real mistake? Pretend to be ill, if you like, and stay in these rooms; if they force conversation on you, talk about the weather. I’m afraid Gaston is beginning to suspect something. It’s essential that I get you away before everything breaks wide open. I’m sorry to leave you alone with them, but I’d be more afraid to leave the child here without someone to look after him. If they do suspect that you are not Monique—and sooner or later you are bound to make a really bad mistake, just as it was a mistake for me to let you ride Monique’s horse—if they do suspect that you are not Monique, I do not give that”—he snapped his fingers—“for my chance of finding the child alive when I come back. Philippe showed me how easy it would be to make a death look like an accident, and children are always tumbling down stairs and through windows.”

I felt myself turn pale, and nodded. “You can trust me to look after him, Étienne.”

“I know,” he said, and suddenly patted my arm. “You are a good girl,” he said very softly, and went into his own room.

I went downstairs, but I did not feel like facing the assembly in the drawing-room, where I heard the dogs yapping and saw, through the beaded curtain, little Étienne sitting on the Dowager Countess’ lap, dropping cake crumbs on her dress. He was safe enough with her, and Françoise was there; I trusted that good honest country woman. It was the others I feared.

So I went quietly into the music-room, and sat down at the piano. After a time I began to play, softly, without music before me. It was good to have a piano in front of me again, and after a time I began to sing an old song I had known as a child. I remembered Monique’s mother, Aunt Laura, singing it when I was younger:

Plaisir d’ amour

Ne dure qu’un moment,

Chagrin d’ amour...

I lost myself in the old song, my voice floating out, clear and quiet in the spacious room. I came to myself a few moments later, hearing scampering footsteps.

“Oh, oh, Mama sing—” and small Étienne rushed into the room. With a lump in my throat, I picked up the child, seated him on my knee. He was wearing a white sailor suit with blue braid, evidently his Sunday best, and when he tried to bank on the piano keys with his sticky fingers, I took my handkerchief and wiped the cake-icing from them.

“Now, now, gently, little one, your hands must be clean to touch the piano.” I kissed his smeary cheek and he bounced on my lap, repeating, “Mama sing!”

“Sit quietly, then.” I tried to think of a song that would amuse the child, and finally began to play and sing:

Au clair de la lune, mon ami Pierrot, Prêtez-moi un plume, pour ecrir’ un mot.

Ma chandelle est morte, donnez-moi de feu—

I nearly fell off the chair, realizing that little Étienne was singing with me, in a tiny, piping voice, lisping the words, but perfectly clear; we finished in unison:

Ouvrez-moi la porte, pour l’ amour de Dieu,

But of course; some one in this house, even Françoise the nurse, would have known the old song and taught the child. Étienne clamored for a repetition, and I played and sang it again with him.

“May I come in?” Philippe came without waiting for permission, glancing with apology at his pipe and knocking it out in the empty fireplace. “I wondered where the little fellow had gone to, then I heard the piano.” He sank down in one of the, armchairs, and Étienne wriggled off my lap and trotted over to him. He clambered up on Philippe’s knee.

Philippe looked up at me with a smile. “Don’t stop singing. I’m really interested in hearing you. Do go on. Don’t you think this is like old times?” He smiled slightly; once again I had that strange sensation as if he were expecting me—or Monique—to share a secret with him.

I said, not knowing what else to say, “I suppose so, if you say so,” and turned again to the piano keyboard, beginning to play an Italian song. Étienne subsided on Philippe’s lap until the song was ended, then got down and began to toddle restlessly around the room. I rose from the piano and shut it; Philippe’s look was entirely too intimate, and I resented it.

He looked at me almost reproachfully, then stood up and came over to me, taking my two hands with an air of authority.

“Monique,” he said quietly, “You do not seem yourself. Is there anything that I can do to help?”

“No, certainly not. But look, Étienne is fretting—” I turned to the child, admonishing, “No, no, don’t pull at the piano cover,” and removed the long fringe from his fingers. “I’d better take him to Françoise,” I said, picking him up and holding him in front of me, as almost a sort of barricade. But Philippe came, took the child out of my arms, and sat him down on the sofa, handing him a narrow cigarette case for a plaything. Then he faced me.

His eyes were tender and loving; I would hardly have believed that a man could show such gentleness. My mind whirling, I could not help comparing this gentleness with Étienne’s black fury. Étienne—Étienne didn’t care whether I lived or died. And Philippe—in a sort of dream, I knew that in a moment our lips would touch—

Then Philippe had sprung abruptly backward and I stood confused while Philippe snatched up the child from the couch. Then I understood, for a moment later the door creaked and Étienne came into the room.

“It’s too cold in here for the child,” he said brusquely, “and you, Monique, you will take a chill; you had better go upstairs.”

My face was burning. Philippe said something, laughing, to the effect that I was just a little too old to be hurried off to bed like a child Étienne’s age, and added something else I did not hear, which made Étienne the elder angrily turn on his heel and stride out, the child riding on his shoulder. My eyes cast down, I followed, and when Philippe held out his hand to detain me, I only shook my head and turned away. It would be best for me to do as Étienne wished in everything. If I had been fool enough to reveal myself to Philippe, just because I was starved for an affectionate glance....

The glance Étienne gave me from his still blackened eyes when he finally came in, was far from affectionate. “What the devil were you up to with that young pup Philippe? I’ve told you to keep away from him.”

“That’s as may be,” he replied, setting his lips tight, “but if you give me away—and remember, my dear girl; as Monique, you already have one scandal to live down!” He scowled and strode toward his own dressing room.

I said, “Étienne, I give you my word of honor: I went in there only to play the piano, and the child found me there. Philippe was looking for him, and came in to hear the music, no more.”

His face softened, but he only said, “I’ll be gone before daylight tomorrow; meanwhile, you’d do better to keep away from Philippe. And everyone else. Good night, and au revoir, my dear.”

It was not until I was lying in bed, my hair brushed and braided, feeling cool and smooth in Monique’s linen nightgown, that I suddenly realized, with a start, what I had done.

For Monique had broken two fingers in childhood—an accident with a sled on winter ice—and despite years of piano lessons, she could hardly play the simplest songs with her stiff fingers. And she had no singing voice at all; she was hoarse as a crow!

Before dawn I heard steps and voices through the halls, the low, muted voice of Étienne’s valet wishing Monsieur the Count a good journey and a safe return, and his deeper voice answering. Later I heard horses’ hooves in the courtyard, which finally died away in the distance. I got up, flung my window wide and leaned out, trying to follow his disappearing shape, but it was still dark with a thick sea-fog, and he was quickly lost in the mist.

I ran back to my warm bed and snuggled under the warm goose-down comforter, but I still felt cold. I was afraid to be alone here, without Étienne. Black and surly as he was, he still stood as a safe fence between me and the others.

I went back to bed, but I could not sleep; and when, barely half an hour later, Françoise knocked at my door, I already felt the premonitory touch of the cold hand of disaster.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps it is easy to say, afterward, that one has foreseen or not foreseen disaster. Searching my mind now, perhaps all I felt when Françoise knocked at my door was a heightening of my already tense anxiety. Étienne was gone; I was alone with this household of people who were both strangers and not strangers, and any new development would have seemed like a disaster. It was hardly ordinary for Françoise to knock at my door almost before it was light, and this very unexpectedness would make it strange and therefore to be feared.

I threw on a flannel wrapper and opened the door into her pale and drawn face. “What is it, Françoise?” I asked, then, with abrupt fear and foreknowledge, cried, “Something’s wrong with the child!”

“Please don’t be alarmed,” Françoise said, but her own voice trembled. “Perhaps it is nothing; but he is ill, the little one; he cries and he has been sick, and he is asking for Mama.”

I flew down the corridor, bursting into the room where Étienne lay limply in his cot. The little face was very pale, and he whimpered, a faint and frightening echo of his usual hearty howl of anger or pain, when I bent to pick him up. I felt his forehead for fever, but instead his face felt clammy, and his hands and his small feet were cold as chunks of ice. He begged for some milk and Françoise gave him some from a mug on the table, but as soon as he had swallowed it, he began retching again, and brought it up at once.

I tried to remember the suitable things for children’s ailments, but Françoise was already doing them. She made weak tea with a spoonful of brandy and moistened his cold lips with it; she wrapped him in heated blankets and put hot bricks at his feet, and I felt superfluous—except that small Étienne clung weakly to me, whimpering, and even breaking into a feeble wail when I tried to lay him down. So I held him on my lap, rocking him and singing to him softly, and even when at last he dropped into a fitful twitching sleep, broken with sleepy protesting cries, I went on holding him, tears running down my face.

Monique’s child, and I loved him as if he were my own. He might as well be my own, curled on my lap, his small icy hand clinging to my finger. Oh, God, why could he not have been mine and Étienne’s—what was I saying, what was I thinking? If he had been mine—but I was nothing to Étienne; I would be cast off like a dismissed governess or housemaid once he had played his game. I would never see him again; I would never see this delicate little blossom of a child who bore in his tender features the very look of the Monique I had cherished. And yet I felt, suddenly, a surging resentment against Monique; she had abandoned her child—and Étienne! How could she have had the heart to leave them? Oh, if only they were mine; if they were truly mine as everyone believed, I would never leave Étienne. This man and this child would be loved more than any man and child ever were.

I must not think like this. How could I think thoughts filled with jealousy and covetousness, when this child lay sick, perhaps dying, on my knees? What would I say to his father? Why did I care what his father thought? I was not to blame and that was all that should have mattered.

Yet it did matter. Oh, why had I not asked one of the grooms to saddle at once and ride after Étienne, bidding him return, that his son was ill?

The doctor finally arrived, and when he saw my white face, he abruptly sent me out of the room, bidding Françoise to help him undress and look at the child. I lived through a thousand years in the next ten minutes, but when he finally came out, his face was lightened, and Françoise was smiling, her eyes wet with relief.

“Nothing but a little upset,” the doctor said, “although, heaven knows, if he hadn’t thrown it up at once—what on earth did the child eat?”

“Ah, doctor,” Françoise said, shaking her head, “who can tell? With the Dowager Countess stuffing him with cake and icing, and his own Papa giving him sweets even after he’s in bed for the night, it’s a miracle the child’s as well as he is.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said the doctor, but his brow furrowed. “You did well, to treat him as you did; keep him in bed and make him stay there—if you can,” he added, his eyes twinkling, and I remembered having been told that he had children of his own. “Keep him warm, and if he begins to get limp again, send for me, even if it’s in the middle of the night.” But when Françoise had disappeared into the nursery, his face grew graver again.

“Madame, I do not wish to alarm you, but someone must keep a better watch on your son. Tell me, Madame, do you know if anyone in this house uses Paris Green?”

“It is used as spray for roses, Madame, and also for killing rats. Does the child ever go into the barns where he could have gotten at a rat trap?”

“Not that I know,” I said, my heart dropping. “Of course he goes into the kitchen, but—would they keep a poison there?”

“Not if your servants are worth their salt, Madame; but it could have been brought there by a mistake. Ground sugar chipped from a loaf, and white arsenic, look much alike. Perhaps I had better talk with your gardeners—and to your cooks!”

“But if it was in the cake or candy, or in the sugarbowl, wouldn’t someone else have been taken ill?” I argued.

“Very likely, Madame, and that is why I believe that the child must have found a rat trap, or been playing in the gardener’s shed, and eaten what he thought was sugar. You must have him carefully watched, Madame; he is a big boy now, you know!” His face was pink with indignation. “You women who leave your children to maids and governesses, and then fret because your children are not as safe as the children of cottagers!”

I shook my head silently, unable to reply. Françoise would never deliberately have neglected the child. And yet—he was always on one lap or another; anyone could have given him sweets sugared with the poisonous stuff! Even—I felt the blood drain from my face—even his father!

“Madame!” The doctor cried out, but the sound was a million miles away, and his pink face blurred and began to go in circles. The next thing I knew, ammonia was stinging my nostrils, and Françoise was scolding the doctor.

“How can you talk this way to Madame the Countess? She is a good mother, a better mother than most women of her position, and as for me, Françoise DuLaine, I will myself watch the child from morning till night, and watch every morsel that goes into his little mouth!”

“See that you do,” said the doctor curtly. “We have almost had a tragedy here; see that it doesn’t happen again.”

When he had gone, I took stock. I trusted Françoise. I had to trust her. I could not myself stand guard over the child day and night.

Nor could I accuse anyone of poisoning when, it was true, the child might—just might—have found a rat trap, baited with poisoned bread or cake. So I only said that someone might have been careless with poison, and until we were sure, we must be very careful what he ate. She must feed him on eggs she had herself brought from the hen-houses, peel his fruit herself before he ate it, fetch the milk herself from the dairy—and if possible, watch it taken from the cow or goat with her own eyes—and be sure that the bread he ate was taken fresh from the oven. And, using his illness as an excuse, she must be certain that not even his great-great-grandmother or his father, let alone any of his aunts and uncles, gave him cake or sweets or biscuits. And, of course, I added, she must watch to be sure he did not eat anything he found by the way!

All during the rest of the morning, and well on into the afternoon, I sat beside my sick child, rocking him, singing to him, and when at noon Françoise brought him some chicken broth—”I saw the chicken killed, Madame, and I made sure they cooked it without salt or any herbs, only what I have here—” I spooned it into his mouth myself after tasting and making sure it tasted of nothing but chicken. He smiled pallidly at me, accepted a few mouthfuls, and showed no sign of bringing them up again. I suppose I must have thanked God as heartily as if he had been my own child.

At last he dropped off to sleep, and as I watched him drowsing and saw the faint pink beginning to return to his lips and cheeks, Françoise said, “But, Madame has had neither breakfast nor luncheon. You must go and dress, Madame—” for I had not stopped even to change my nightgown and wrapper for a frock—“and have Annette bring you some of this good nourishing soup, and some chicken, and a good custard.”

“Nevertheless, Madame must try,” the nurse insisted respectfully, “or else you will be faint again if the little one should need you. I promise you, Madame, if he should stir a finger, or cry out, I will call you within the moment! But I believe that when he wakes, he will be well.”

Suddenly I realized that I was very tired. I went to my room, and after putting on clothes and eating some luncheon which Annette brought me, I felt better physically, but the fear that had gripped me that morning had increased rather than lessened.

If, under our very eyes, the child could be poisoned—whom could I trust? I realized that if I could have trusted even Étienne, my mind would have been at ease.

Annette came in, and I said listlessly, “I’ve finished with the tray; you may take it away.”

“Yes, Madame.” But she did not immediately take it. She said, “Mere Gouart’s eldest, that Lucie, she is hanging about at the back door, whining that you promised her a pair of shoes or some such. I told her to take herself off or all she’d get would be a good box about her silly ears, but there’s no reasoning with the creature. Did you promise her anything, Madame?”

I remembered the shoes soaked by water, now dried and shrunken, which I had had to wear home anyhow. I told Annette, and she got them out of the garde-robe. “They could perhaps be oiled and cleaned, Madame.”

I laughed, seeing how the red leather had runand stained. “Never mind; I have plenty of others. I did promise them to her. And—let me see—” I paused, considering, then said, “The red flannel petticoat—I’ve worn it only twice; the poor thing has only a rag for a petticoat and she must be bitter cold; it’s too short for me anyhow.”

“And too good for the likes of her,” Annette grumbled, but she got it out. I hesitated. “Shouldn’t it be washed?”

“Humph! It’s cleaner than anything else she owns, Madame, and I’m not paid my salary to wash things for that imbecile!”

“You’re paid to do as you’re told,” I said, but without anger, for what Annette said was true. “Well, don’t trouble; Lucie can wash it herself if she likes.”

Annette took the shoes and the petticoat, but remained standing by the door. I said, irritably, “What else?”

“Madame, le Pere Desmoulins is in the music room belowstairs, and sends a message that he must see Madame the Countess at once.”

“I can’t see him,” I said automatically. “Are you sure that it is not the Dowager Countess whom he wishes to see?”

“I am sure, Madame; he most particularly said Madame the Countess, Madame Étienne de Montigny. And—forgive me, Madame—but the Father said that if Madame could not receive him downstairs, he would exercise the privilege of a priest, and call upon Madame in her sick-room.”

Dear God, what next? I was already at my wits’ end, and here was the priest to question me about the state of my soul—or Monique’s. Suppose I were to say to him, “Father, you can stop worrying about Monique’s soul, she’s probably dead and in heaven; all you have to worry about is whether someone murdered her and tried to poison her child—and about the impostor who is trying to take her place!”

Annette was watching me, anxiously. “What answer shall I give the Father, Madame?”

“Oh, tell him to come up,” I said. If we were going to have an interview—and judging from my memory of Father Desmoulins’ stubborn jaw, we were—I might as well take advantage of my supposed illness, and perhaps I could talk him into letting me have a little more time. And a little more time was all I needed—I hoped. If Étienne was telling me the truth, we would not be here more than another day or so. “And give those things to Lucie, and tell them in the kitchen to give her some hot soup and bread.”

Annette said, turning red, “If Madame will forgive me, they told me in the kitchen how you always had the girl fed—and so I took the liberty of telling them in Madame’s name to give her all she could eat, and I think that Ernestine is giving her some broken meats for her mother and the little ones.”

So, I thought, Annette was not really so hard-hearted as she had sounded. “Go and tell Father Desmoulins I will see him,” I said, and went to the mirror, lifting my hairbrush. My own face stared back at me, white and careworn, the face of a stranger. I wished that my makeup box from the Théâtre Étoile were here—I would put some red on my cheeks. Then I blushed; certainly Monique would never wear an actress’ powder or paint!

I brushed my hair and tied it together loosely at the back of my neck; then Annette knocked and Father Desmoulins, his face red with the wind, his sturdy cassock slightly stained with mud, came into the room.

I rose. “Will you take this armchair—Father,” I said, and hoped he had not noted the brief pause before the unaccustomed word.

He stood before the fire briefly, rubbing his hands. “Ah, you have a fire in your bedroom—that is wise in this bitter weather. And is your little one well now, Madame? No? Ah, that is so trying for a mother, when the child is ill.” He turned to Annette. “You may go, my girl, I will talk to Madame alone.”

For a moment, my Protestant conventionality raised its head. Priest or no, I had never received a man alone in my bedroom except for my husband! But I bit back the words, knowing Monique would not have said them. I looked at the priest. He was leaning back in his chair, unabashedly enjoying the soft cushion and the fire, but there was a spark of determination in his eyes, and something about the set of his jaw, that told me I must be on my mettle. He would not be put off with excuses.

“Well, my daughter,” he said, when Annette had closed the door, “are you ready to talk to me this time?”

“Father, I cannot,” I said. “I am too worried. As they may have told you, little Étienne has been ill since daybreak, and his father is away on business. I am too troubled to talk to anyone. Can I beg you again to excuse me?”

“You cannot,” he retorted, with a look of some surprise. “Where else would you turn in trouble, my daughter, except to your priest? Indeed, when I heard of it, I was appalled, that you could grow so hard as not to send for me at once; why, suppose the poor little one had been taken to God, and I had not been here at your side, could I ever have forgiven myself? Ah, Monique, my child, what has come over you? Where have I failed, that you have turned away from your Church, and will not even talk to your parish priest?”

I realized that I had committed a genuine blunder again. If little Étienne had been in any danger—and I gathered from the doctor that there had, indeed, been some danger—then no Catholic mother would have let it pass without the priest in the house.

“Father,” I said, and this was the absolute truth, “I was so frightened at the child’s illness that I had no room for any thought.”

He sighed. “I fear that is true, my child, of everyone in this house. You have no time for thoughts of God.”

My overstrained nerves snapped. I almost shouted at him, “In the name of God, can you come here and preach to me at a time like this?”

He rose to his feet, and his face grew stern, the mouth pressed tight. “More now than at any other time,” he said angrily. “You were fortunate; I hear the child is safe. But, Madame, every day children younger than yours are taken by death. Your little one, he is a christened child, and he is not of any age to sin, so that if it were God’s will that he should die, he would be taken to Heaven in the arms of His Blessed Mother. But as for you, Madame, as for all of you in this house—does this not make you remember that in the midst of life every man and every woman walks with death? Ah, Madame, if this night you were to stand before the judgment of God, what could you say?”

Impotently, I pressed my lips together. What could I do? I could not confess to Monique’s sins. I looked at him helplessly, hardly knowing which way to turn. He went on, “Once this was a pious household! And now—and now what do I see? Of you all, Madame, of all of you who have been given power and rank here on Earth, and should be a pious example to your neighbors, only the good old Countess and Madame Sidonie are faithful at the sacraments. For Monsieur Louis there is perhaps some excuse for not attending at Mass more regularly, as he is often ill and infirm, yet he is the only one of the men who attends Mass! Madame, you are the heiress to a great estate, and the stewardess of great riches. Yet remember what you were taught as a child learning your catechism: what does the Lord require of you?”

I sat silent, my head hot and my face burning, before this tirade. I could say nothing. Perhaps if I continued to say nothing, he would tire of scolding me, and go away. But he did not. He only remained silent, his eyes resting on me without a moment’s intermission.

It must have been five minutes that he sat there, studying me from head to foot, while I fingered my handkerchief with nervous hands. Finally he did speak, in a very quiet voice.

“My daughter,” he said, “I am the confessor of Monique de Montigny, and I had thought myself her friend as well. Is there anything you want to say to me?”

At the unexpectedly kind tone, something snapped in me. My own father had been a country minister, and often he had ridden half the night to visit the sick or the sinful. It seemed, for a moment, that I heard his very accents in the voice of the little black-robed French priest. I sobbed aloud; and once I began, I could not stop. I wept, helplessly, while the priest sat and watched me, his face kinder now. At last, when I quieted, he said in a gentle tone: “Can you talk to me now, my daughter?”

“No,” I blurted out, “I can’t confess to you. I can’t say what you want me to say! I’m not the person you think I am—I’m not Monique—I’m not even a Catholic! Do you hear me? I’m not Monique de Montigny!”

Father Desmoulins did not move a muscle, surveying me with a quiet, steady intention.

And then I broke. I wept, “Oh, Father, I’m at my wits’ end! I can’t confess to you—but won’t you let me talk to you? I can’t trust anyone, but if I could trust anyone, it would be a priest! Please, oh, please, can’t you help me?”